British virtuoso Thomas Trotter is the Birmingham City Organist and organist at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster Abbey and visiting Professor of Organ at the Royal College of Music, London.
This piece was written by Howard Thomas for the Croydon Advertiser. An abridged version first appeared in that newspaper on the 8th October 1999
Thomas Trotter’s organ recital was a particularly exciting one to attend being the culmination of many years of planning and fund-raising for the rebuilding of the St. John’s organ.
Around 400 people (many of them organists from near and far, all speaking that secret language involving Gedackts, wind pressures and probably hernia problems caused by a still uncomfortably-positioned swell pedal) assembled, already intoxicated by the sounds of the new instrument as heard during the afternoon’s symposium. Trotter contrived a programme perfectly-suited to this instrument. He is always just the right person for pleasing the ear of the unknowledgeable parish supporter as simultaneously with the better-informed, his faultless technique making each strand perfectly clear in every piece.
This Victorian programme was designed around what was historically best for this particular instrument, demonstrating too that the rebuild was consistently in the same style. Much of the programme was unfamiliar to our ears, but all were acquainted with the idiom.
Firstly heard was Stanford’s Fantasia and Toccata in D Minor. There was a magnificent building-up of sound in this magnificent building as Trotter showed us a foretaste of how such a good Victorian organ was capable of sounding. Samuel Sebastian Wesley’s Holsworthy Church bells has had recent times of popularity but apparently many present had the pleasure of hearing it for the first time. This gentler piece demonstrated some of the more beautiful sounds, especially the opening 8’ and 4’ flutes.
Demand for solely total authenticity has waned and we may again hear J.S. Bach played other than on broken glass. Principals and mixtures were heard to fine effect in his Prelude in D BWV 532. Trotter described the ensuing fugue as “humorous” and proved this point well, playing not at all with old-fashioned wig-and-frown (if an “authentic” Victorian performance might have suggested otherwise, but in one of his amiable chats before each item, Trotter suggested that this particular piece was not in the Victorians’ repertoire).
The arch-arranger W.T. Best, greatest of the Victorian concert organists, was represented by his original Air with Variations. It offered fine solo work on cello, clarinet, oboe and even tuba, if its rather twee character also gave rise to more than a smile of two around the audience.
But if you are a listener rather than a player, and if your blood be stirred by the rumbling of powerful organ echoes by night in dimly lit cathedrals (and St. John’s must be Norwood’s Secret Cathedral), Alexander Guilmant’s fine March Funebre et Chant Seraphique was the piece for you. This quaint yet stately music was rich in an imagery, even to harps for angels’ ascent. In a curious way and in Trotter’s hands, it was the most irresistible piece of the evening, a piece showing Victorian music at its finest, on a superbly reconstructed Victorian organ in a beautiful Victorian building.
Edwin Lemare’s Rondo Capriccio was one of those curiosities which fill programmes pleasantly and could have given Mrs Dale a warm glow as she sipped her morning tea with Jim. On the other hand, Lemare’s transcription of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 hit the nail right on the head.
Samuel Warren’s stunning arrangement of Weber’s Oberon Overture was a wild kaleidoscope of orchestral sound shifted to the organ, the sort of piece which makes one crave for the re-popularisation of those transcriptions.
Nobody wise to the real value of hearing the finest music in Church services could harbour any doubt of the worth of this new organ.