Society ‘Table event’ at the Southbank Centre 26th February 2018.

The Society booked a table at this event at the Festival Hall to increase the understanding and awareness of the SSLSO. This event attracts organisations that have an interest in the organ world to display their interests.

It was organised around an organ recital, this year given by Daniel Cook ,  recently appointed Master of the Choristers and Organist at Durham Cathedral, and included an interview of him by the Southbank Centre’s organ curator, William McVicker. The questions were wide ranging starting with his early life (his teacher would only let him play the pedal – NO keyboards – for the first few weeks). The discussion centred on the roles of the various places he has worked, particularly  at Westminster Abbey and Durham Cathedral, and how they had broadenhim and prepared him for his current role, which he said had always been a dream of his. They discussed the  pieces he had chosen to play and especially the challenge of preparing Vierne’s Sixth Organ Symphony.

The programme was:

JS Bach: Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV.542
Stanford: Sonata No.2 in G minor, Op.151 (Eroica)
Duruflé: Prelude et Fugue sur le nom d’Alain, Op.7
Interval
Vierne: Symphonie No.6 in B minor, Op.59

The programme notes:

The programme opened with Bach’s mighty Fantasia and Fugue in G minor and included Stanford’s Sonata No.2 (Eroica), dedicated to Charles-Marie Widor, and written in honour of those who gave their lives for France in the Great War. Duruflé’s fluttering Prelude and momentous Fugue was written in memory of Jehan Alain, a promising composer killed during the Second World War. Vierne’s Sixth Organ Symphony is a veritable triathlon for an organist, with dizzyingly virtuosic, cascading pedal scales at the climax of the last movement.

The recital ended with a short piece by Vierne from one of the two books of Pieces en style libre.

The table event

The actual event had fewer people and stands than last year (it was held on a day when London appeared to be endangered by being covered in snow), but we had a good level of interest and handed out a marketing momento – ‘beer mat’ – with our details on it, together with a sheet describing what the Society did, sold copies of The Grand Chorus and generally chatted with people.

Andrew Chadney, Peter Ramell, Martin Callingham and Norman Harper staffed the table.

Martin Callingham Web Editor