by Daniel Hathaway
Westminster Abbey organist James O’Donnell drew a large audience to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Akron on Sunday afternoon, February 16, for a full-length recital that ran the historical gamut of organ literature by composers who were active from the 1700s to the 1970s.
O’Donnell chose the sort of roughly chronological program that was the norm for mid-twentieth century recitals, beginning with Louis Marchand and proceeding through J.S. Bach, Enrico Bossi, Edward Elgar, Maurice Duruflé, Marcel Dupré, Frank Bridge and William Walton, with a slight preference for British composers. Which, after all, is exactly why you come to hear the incumbent of a famous English post play a recital in the US, especially a musician as accomplished as this one.
O’Donnell led off with Marchand’s Grand Dialogue in C, a work designed to show off the Grands Jeux of the French classical organ, with its fiery reeds and snarly cornets and tierces. [Read more…]