The unappreciated adventures of an organist

With only days to go before his world premiere performance of Ian Wilson's History is Vanity as part of his Millennium Organ Recital at the National Concert Hall on Thursday night, organist Peter Sweeney is ready, if admitting to nerves which will only relax once he is seated at the majestic Kenneth Jones organ. "I love performing. That's what it is all about; getting out there and performing this marvellous music. What I love as an organist is the opportunity to work with symphony orchestras."

Motivation is not something he has to search for and he could easily have us all playing organ music. Both his children are professional musicians, his daughter Nicky is a violinist with the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the European Chamber Orchestra. Richard is completing his studies but is already a performer, playing lute and theorbo (a bass lute).

Lively and impulsive, Peter Sweeney has a showman's exuberance, is a vivid storyteller - each story coming complete with sub plots - and is a natural teacher, known for encouraging his students by talking with them, not at them. His involvement with the The Irish Times educational programme, Music in the Classroom, for which he is a regular soloist, has proved valuable in the demystification of music and he also directs Children's Music Workshops at the National Concert Hall. It's great fun for everyone. Children respond to the organ and he gets many requests to "Play the Dracula music, Peter", also known as Bach's eerily atmospheric Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Now 50, he has played everything from Bach to Franck to Copland, yet still gives the impression he is in the middle of a great adventure. Sweeney's daily three hours practice is a ritual but it is also a part of his life he could not do without. His practice is done on a modest, two-stop practice organ, albeit a Kenneth Jones, in his Rathmines home, a dramatic, glass cube of space and light with many Japanese design flourishes.

Opening the score of the Wilson piece, which was commissioned by the Concert Hall as its major millennium work, Sweeney gives a brief preview. It has a very fast tempo, is both complex and accessible, and surprisingly jazzy in style: it is also reactive with several mood changes which highlight the organ's range. Sweeney hums loudly and gestures, remarking: "It is very exciting. Of course, playing at this volume can't prepare you for the full visceral effect of playing on the National Concert Hall organ." As joint curator of organs at the National Concert Hall, he could almost be called the working partner of the vast Kenneth Jones instrument. This is not Sweeney's first Wilson world premiere. In 1996 he performed Rich Harbour, Wilson's concerto for organ and orchestra which Sweeney describes as a dialogue. This new piece is very different in tone: "It's more of a diatribe against man's inhumanity to man, though there are also quiet moments," he says. It was written in Sarajevo in wartime and evokes turmoil.

Sweeney's dedication to the organ repertoire is complemented by wide-ranging interests, including modern design. "Come, let me show you the house," he says, admitting he is in love with the place and pointing to the unusual windows, some of which look out on small, sectioned gardens planned as extensions of the rooms. Even a Japanese milk-and-sugar tea-set mounted on a slim, wooden plinth is an object of severe beauty.

Former organist and director of music at Christ Church Cathedral, where he served for 11 years, Sweeney teaches organ at the DIT Conservatory of Music and, while he admits he has suffered for his music, he certainly enjoys it. He has played all over the world since taking second prize at the famous Manchester International Organ Competition in 1978. Among the most beautiful organs he has played is the magnificent, gold-plated instrument at St Bavo's Groote Kerk in Haarlem, outside Amsterdam. "It's an amazing instrument" he says, and darts into a cupboard to fetch a large, framed poster of it in all its golden splendour. Built by Christian Muller between 1735 and 1738, it is one of the finest in the world: "Mozart played it. I saw his name in the church records."

Organists are the most unappreciated of musicians, and it is not necessary to be one to believe this. But the local organist is often acknowledged by professional musicians as their earliest source of inspiration.

Sweeney agrees that the organ, the largest of the wind instruments and almost an entire orchestra in itself, has been denied the respect its grandeur and versatility deserves, but makes his point with humour rather than defiance. "You remember Beecham's remark when he was standing at Purcell's grave?" and re-creates the scene in which the famous English conductor is looking at an inscription honouring the 36-year-old composer: "Here lies the body of Henry Purcell, organist and fine musician" it reads. "Beecham said: `how very unusual to get both into the one grave'," he laughs.

Peter Sweeney was born in Dublin in 1950, and is three years younger than his composer brother, Eric. Music was already in the family: their paternal grandfather was a traditional fiddler. Both boys inherited an interest in music from their maternal uncle, who Sweeney describes as "a colourful character". Edgar "Billy" Boucher, was assistant organist at Christ Church Cathedral, head of music at the BBC Northern Ireland and international examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. "Uncle Billy has always been an inspiration and a hugely important influence in my life."

From Sandford National School in Ranelagh Sweeney moved on, aged eight, to St Patrick's Cathedral Choir School. His memories of his childhood do not exactly conjure up images of a prodigy. "No, not at all. I wasn't obsessed. I liked lots of things, still do, such as football, tennis and hockey . . . I played Leinster six-a-side hockey and I was good, and was a passionate tennis player." He had begun playing piano "at about nine". Although he seems too bouncy to be the typical competition animal he did well, particularly when playing the Mozart, Schubert and Stravinsky repertoire for four hands with Eric. The Sweeney partnership playing Rachmaninov won the Trimble Cup for Two Pianos at the 1970 Feis Ceoil. That same year Sweeney the younger also won the Fitzgerald-Woodworth Trophy for Advanced Organ playing.

His organ career started more as a reprimand than a request. "I used to sneak into the cathedral and play without permission. I was 14 and got a buzz out of showing off in front of the tourists." Sydney Grieg, the then organist at the cathedral, eventually caught him. "My parents were sent for, it looked serious and I was told I had to learn to play the organ properly and take formal lessons, which I did." On leaving St Patrick's, he went to Trinity College in 1970 to study music. Although he enjoyed college and complains less than most musicians about the course, he says it was too academic. "I spent most of my time playing the piano - the music department had a full-size Steinway."

Increasingly, however, he found himself drawn to the organ, and not only by the beauty of the music. "I have small hands and I felt I just couldn't play massive Rachmaninov piano pieces."

After Trinity, he had an offer of a scholarship to Lubeck. He didn't go. What? He declined the chance to go to a place that Bach himself had walked 250 miles to, on a pilgrimage in honour of the great Danish master Buxtehude? "No, I wanted to go to Geneva - anyhow, Buxtehude was dead." Switzerland drew Sweeney because he wanted to study under the Swiss organ virtuoso Lionel Rogg.

Sweeney has never forgotten a musician is an artist, "but you are also an entertainer". He chose organ transcriptions from the popular opera repertoire including Verdi and Wagner for his Anna Livia lunch time recitals earlier this week. "After all, it was an opera festival." Next month he will premiere Eric's new organ work, Le Cercle du Lumiere, at St Michael's Church as part of the Dun Laoghaire Organ Recital Series. Has he ever been drawn to composition? "No, never, I'm a performer."

Throughout his career he has premiered many works including John Tavener's Mandelion, Boydell's Confrontations a Cathedral and John Buckley's Concerto for Organ and Orchestra which was recently released on the Naxos Marco Polo label.

Thursday's programme includes Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV542: he delights in the "dance-like emotion of one of Bach's great fugues. I love it. Every organist wants to play it." He has played the entire Bach organ repertoire.

How does he feel about recording, particularly now recording is so central to a musician's career? "I'm in no hurry. I don't feel I'm yet ready to record the entire organ work of Bach and have that as my version. I'm prepared to wait until I know I can do my best. I'm a great believer in `to thine own voice be true'."

Peter Sweeney's NCH Millennium Organ Recital is at the National Concert Hall on Thursday. Tel: 01-4751507.