Toccata!

Life conspires with itself to bring a mixture of rough and smooth. Last night I had a ticket for an organ recital at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, which is my favourite concert venue in the UK. The Albert Hall is something special and different, but it has its drawbacks too. Symphony Hall manages to combine elegant appearance, compact size, excellence of location, perfect accoustics and a marvellous organ. I love to go to Symphony Hall. The only issue is the M6. Well, I know Birmingham pretty well, having worked there for several years, and consequentially I also know the the M6. It can be nasty, but the journey door to door ought to take less than an hour and a half. So I allowed two hours to be on the safe side. It was not enough - there was an accident (on the other carriageway) in road works and that added 50 minutes to the journey. Then on arriving at the NIA to park there was an event there. Finding parking was hard enough, and the task was complicated by hoards of teenagers milling about. So I was grouchy and late, the one being a direct consequence of the other. We missed the first two items on the programme. But we were finally ushered into wonderful gallery seats, my favourite seats in Symphony Hall, comfortable, roomy, with a great view of the performer.

The performer: I probably have not heard all the excellent organists in the UK, but I have heard a high proportion of them. Birmingham is blessed by having Thomas Trotter as the City Organist giving weekly recitals. Liverpool rejoices in Ian Tracey. Manchester enjoys Wayne Marshall. But for me the organist par excellence is John Scott, formerly organist at St Paul's Cathedral he is now at St Thomas' Fifth Avenue, New York City. He is not a showman like Carlo Curly, but listen to him play!

I had settled comfortably into my seat when John Scott began to play the last piece before the interval, the Toccata and Fugue in F Major by the incomparable J S Bach. It was simply magnificent. Bach himself would certainly have approved. Indeed, great organist though he was, Bach never had access to such an organ, with electro-pneumatic action and programmable stop combinations, and could hardly have created such sounds himself. I've long enjoyed this work, and here it was played as well as I can imagine it being played.

After the interval came a new work to me. Robert Schumann's Romantic style is a long way from Bach's Baroque. Bach's music had fallen out of favour soon after his death, and it was restored to its rightful place in the repertoire by the efforts of Schumann and others around the 1840s. Schumann wrote a series of 6 fugues taking the letters of Bach's name as his starting point (B flat, A, C B natural in our notation corresponds to B, A, C, H in the German equivalent). This interesting fugue combined the essence of Bach with the flavour of Schumann, and I look forward to hearing it again.

Then came the climax of the concert. Everyone knows the brilliant organ piece played at the end of Charles and Diana's wedding. It must be the most popular ending to church weddings, and is thus either rendered or slaughtered by church organists depending on their ability many times over every year. It is in fact the 5th movement of Charles-Marie Widor's 5th Organ Symphony. Sadly while the final Toccata is commonly heard the remainder of the Symphony is infrequently played, and I had gone to this recital specially to hear it.

It is a spellbinding work created by a master musician and outstanding organist. The first movement is an exciting Allegro, then comes a lyrical second movement. The third movement begins gently, then ups tempo with most of the melody in the pedals. The fourth movement is a wonderful, almost heartbreaking Adagio and then comes the brilliant virtuoso finish in the final Toccata which had me on the edge of my seat. It was nothing short of superb. Having heard John Scott play it in Birmingham there is only one thing left to do: go to Paris and hear it again on the organ of the church of Saint-Sulpice where Widor himself was organist for over 60 years.

The applause was deafening, and John Scott came to the microphone to thank the audience, and to say that, having heard the second most famous Toccata, should anyone feel short-changed by not having also heard the first most famous, he'd play that now. So we were treated to more Bach, the wonderful Toccata ‌and Fugue in D Minor, for which John Scott brought the utmost out of the fabulous Symphony Hall organ. Bach would have loved it. The sound of that great organ filled every cell of my body as the fugue reached its climax, and every shred of frustration on the way up the M6 had been compensated for many times over by the exhilaration generated by this combination of fine instrument, superb organist and glorious composition.

But next time I'll be in Birmingham in time for afternoon tea.