Having a free morning before my own Proms performance, I got wind of the Sunday organ recital by the Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna and took the opportunity to go along. I would not normally be around in London on a Sunday morning, and I heard someone pointing out at the box office that it was at the worst possible time for active organists, many of whom would be playing for a church service at the time.
I have heard so much live organ music, usually as closing voluntaries, and I recognise many pieces without knowing what they are called, or even who wrote them. In other cases, going to a recital allows me to discover how they continue after the opening section during which the choir processes out; Franck’s Pièce héroïque and Bach’s Fantasia BWV72, played in this recital, fall into this category. Other familiar pieces included Widor’s Toccata from his Fifth Symphony, and Apkalna’s own arrangement of Fauré’s Pavane. Unknown to me were Thierry Escaich’s Deux Évocations and George Thalben-Ball’s Variations on the standard theme by Paganini. The latter were mostly for pedals with a bit of what I think of as Victorian chapel soupiness thrown into the middle for some light relief. I was taken with the encore, Aivars Kälejs’ Toccata on the Chorale ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’.
I don’t feel very competent to pronounce on the performances but they were expressive and at times virtuosic, my only reservation being that I felt there was some rhythmic slackness in the Bach. But perhaps that cannot be avoided on an instrument that size. Also that there were some minor issues with the tuning – inevitable in a hot summer? As I left I overheard a veteran of these recitals remarking that it was the first one he’d heard where it didn’t sound like a Willis.
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