Glasgow Cathedral Festival's ever-popular organ recital series continues on Sunday lunchtime with a performance from Richard Gowers, Director of Music at St George’s, Hanover Square—Handel’s church in London. Known around the world from his televised performances as Organ Scholar of King’s College, Cambridge, Gowers comes to Glasgow hot on the heels of appearances at the Royal Albert Hall and Westminster Abbey. His programme for GCF celebrates the emancipation of the organ from predominantly religious contexts to that of a fully fledged, heroic concert instrument.
Fusing passion and politics, Liszt’s 'Ad nos' is a monumental work that juxtaposes Romantic grandeur with dazzling virtuosity. Its expansive, orchestral textures and pianistic gestures draw out the full gamut of colours in the cathedral’s magnificent 1879 ‘Father’ Willis / Harrison & Harrison organ, at the hands (and feet) of Gowers’s vibrant interpretation. Complementing this masterpiece are a late Mozart gem composed originally for mechanical clock, and the dappled, impressionistic harmonies of Roger-Ducasse’s only organ work—the beguiling and rarely performed 'Pastorale'.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fantasia in F minor, K.608
Jean Roger-Ducasse 'Pastorale'
Franz Liszt Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale 'Ad nos, ad salutarem undam', S.259