Sachin Gunga, Portsmouth Cathedral, Sept 13
There is really only one way to begin a series of concerts that are predominanty organ recitals, and that's with a choice bit of Bach. Sachin Gunga stepped in to cover the unavailable, advertised visitor and provided a thoughtful, mixed programme. A good move on his part, that others might consider following, was to take the microphone with him up to the organ loft to introduce the pieces from upstairs.
The Prelude and Fugue BWV 547, he explained, is known as the 'hickory, dickory dock' and it soon became obvious why although the nursery rhyme echo was no distraction. Lucid and made of Bach's customary intelligence, the fugue flows and weaves, implying the eternity that its finite nature won't quite fill.
No. 3 of Rheinberger's Meditations, Op. 167 is a gentle, lilting composition with childlike innocence that encourages one to look for the others in the opus. Likely to be similar, we might be treated to the others another time.
Sachin then played a sequence of three pieces, linked by the theme of light. The 'general crescendo' of Fiat lux by Dubois represented the coming of light. It is unfortunate when one's mind wanders and a serious piece in undermined by extraneous thoughts and the final bars here brought Reginald Dixon to mind for me, which is my fault but can happen with exuberant organ pieces. Bairstow's Evening Song was naturally more elegiac but flirted with inconsequence in its middle passages so Elgar retrieved the situation with Chanson de Matin, which I thought was Salut d'Amour but seems not to be but it's close.
'Born 1955' is a phrase that rings alarm bells in a composer of organ music and Bob Chilcott's Sun Dance was full of ideas for a short piece but less full of coherence. C20th organ music is a personal blind spot but one must persevere. Because the three hymn preludes by the centenarian Francis Jackson made more sense. Veni Sancte Spiritus suggested Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring and East Acklam was a peaceable joy. The Fantasy on Sine Nomine overelaborates Let All the World in Every Corner Sing in its accessible but Modernist way which was an interesting place to end if gathering a quota for a proper congregation and giving it a traditional full blast would have roused the sleepy September sunshine.
So, we were indebted to Sachin for his imaginative stand-in set and it is to be hoped we hear more from him. On the one hand, he has some esoteric repertoire, on the other, does he know any Buxtehude.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.
