St Michael’s Church, Dún Laoghaire
Bach – Concerto in C BWV594. Liszt – Fantasy and Fugue on Ad nos, ad salutarem undam. Ansgar Wallenhorst – Improvisation on submitted themes.
It’s in rock and jazz that Western culture’s tradition of musical improvisation is at its healthiest and most prolific. In classical music, on the other hand, it has been whittled down and nearly confined to a single instrument: the organ. Even then it’s not exactly widespread in performance, occurring less often in recitals than at competitions where even then it has a kind of special or even side-show status, like a penalty contest during the World Cup.
But when it’s done well it can hit you in ways like no other branch of classical music. Illustrating this point was German organist Ansgar Wallenhorst who gave last Sunday’s weekly concert in the summer-long annual series at St Michael’s in Dún Laoghaire.
Improvisation is a speciality of Wallenhorst’s, something you could sense bursting to be let loose in the earlier part of his programme as he played Bach with an exceptionally liberal flexibility of pulse, sometimes to the point of compromising intelligibility.
His particular creative energy found a better match in Liszt, whose Fantasy and Fugue on Ad nos, ad salutarem undamfeatures the composer's showmanship at the piano spilling over onto the organ. Wallenhorst latched onto this and used it to put the St Michael's Rieger organ through its paces and conjure all manner of colours and textures.
The three short, unprepared themes he was then given comprised two by organists of the 20th century Parisian tradition, Jehan Alain and Maurice Duruflé, plus the Irish hymn tune, St Columba.
What followed was a great, 20-minute display, Wallenhorst aiding the listeners (whose own musicianship is tested in a distinctive way) with readily discernible structural clarity – along the lines of allegro, adagio, scherzo, allegro – while at the same time using his hands and feet to keep all three musical plates spinning in the air. It was both brilliant and great fun.
