Lunchtime Live ! Gary Desmond, organ, Portsmouth Cathedral, Sept 21st.
The reason for taking time off in September is to avoid the height of summer and the possibility of a heatwave. But last year September ambushed me with an alarrming late hot spell so this year I delayed it to late September, when I really should be back at school, in the hope of side=stepping any repeat of that and to align with the choicest lunchtime concerts.
The sea was agitated as I took my late morning constitutional towards Old Portsmouth and rather more autumnal than the anticipated calm of summer in retreat before the onset of winter but it makes for lively company. And what better to welcome you to the cathedral than Gary Desmond, from Bath Abbey's, programme that begins with Buxtehude.
Three hundred and ten years since the maestro departed this life in favour of that Luheran heaven, he's still on the bill. The Praeludium in C (Bux WV 137) announces itself in grand gestures and tootles along in a jolly way in between. Thomas Arne's Gavotte was a more becoming jaunt, modest, sensible and attractive, and then Denis Bédard's Variations on the Old One Hundreth began big before the imperious congregational was wrapped up in a variety of disguises.
Frank Bridge's Adagio in E gradually crept up on one, achieving impressive grandeur before drifting off, apparently sated. Percy Grainger's Handel on the Strand, arranged by Peter King, used a subdued dampening effect in what I assume was the left hand in a lollipop that was followed by the highlight, the beguiling, consolatory And the peace may be exchanged by Dan Locklair which my rudimentary research tells me was played at the funeral of Ronald Reagan. I bet nobody thought they'd miss him as much as we do now.
Alexandre Guilmant's Choral et Fugue from Sonata no. 5 was suitably hymnal and opened out into an entirely expected rousing and elaborate finish to send the Lunchtime Live faithful back out fortified into what had become gorgeous, doleful, street-emptying drizzle so that I could undertake some shopping in Southsea in peace.
Such days make retirement seem very inviting indeed but one must be cautious of the fact that not every day will be like that.