Music in the University 2015-16 in association with Sound
KEVIN BOWYER: Organ
KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Kevin Bowyer, Organist to the University of Glasgow performed two magnificent contemporary works for organ in this, the first Tuesday organ recital of a new University concert series – on this occasion in collaboration with sound 2015. The first piece, Capstone, by Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was commissioned by St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in 2013. The second piece Fernwerk by the French organist and saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet is a joint commission from sound and its close French equivalent Musiques Démesurées of Clermont Ferrand, described as a Festival de Musique contemporaine et expérimentale.
Capstone employs quite dark sounding chord sequences, each with a sense of weightiness and yet always rising on upwards. Starting in the depths with a strong pedal note, the piece radiates strength and hopefulness, surprising in that it always manages to give that sense of reaching upwards without ever running out of notes. It does this by moving down again at the start of each sequence but that is less obvious and it is the upward motion that inspires the listener. Capstone had an amazing melt away ending leaving us with the pure clean sound of a solo flute stop.
Fernwerk was from a different sound world entirely. It opened with a series of little high blips each having a fairly long silence in between. Hearing the very first of these, I was not certain that the piece had actually begun because this was the sort of sound that in the past has come from the organ as the performer is just getting ready to start and setting his stops has accidentally hit a note. We soon got the point though and then a deep bass rumble led us into an amazing sound world strongly reminiscent of an adventurous electro-acoustic composition. Here was a succession of totally amazing sounds such as I have never before heard coming from the Aubertin Organ or indeed any other live instrument. Kevin Bower astonishing virtuoso performance was aided by two busy stop changers, Frauke Jürgensen, who also took away the large sheets of music as the work progressed and Thomas Michie. In the post concert talk with the composer and the performer, chaired by Professor David Smith, our attention was drawn to the fact that this amazing performance was the result of a collaboration between the composer, the organist, his assistants, the Aubertin Organ (and its builder) and the acoustic properties of King’s College Chapel itself. Moments of silence are important in any piece of music although often they are simply a means of punctuation, in Fernwerk however, the silences mattered as they were one of the essential sound timbres in the piece.
The use of half or three quarter stops provided some of the most mysterious and otherworldly sounds that have ever emerged from the Aubertin. I was not aware that some of them were even possible. This was an essential part of both the structure and the fascination of this piece. Whatever were we going to hear next? Surprise followed on surprise – what an absolutely astonishing composition! Towards the end of the work, the music began to coalesce into something more like conventional organ music allowing us to come back down to earth after soaring aloft with Jean-Luc Guionnet, our pilot on a totally unique mind-expanding flight of fancy.
