Brighton Fringe: Organ Music at St. Bart’s – Alan Ireland

These lunchtime recitals are brilliant! Today we were treated to an hour of composers born in the 19th century. Saint-Saëns, Mendelssohn and Reger are mainstream but Smart, Bonnet and Lemmens are perhaps less familiar. However, the programme was deftly constructed. While some pieces were formal and others whimsical, they all were well described in the notes for those of us unfamiliar with the repertoire. There was plenty of variety: reverie and fugue, sentiment and excitement, and the finale, Reger’s ‘Introduction and Passacaglia in D min.’, gives a boost to any afternoon!