Massimo Nosetti (organ)

Now Thank We All Our God....Bach/Fox

Fantaisie Op 64....Bossi

A Fancy....Harris

Concert Polonaise Op 80....Lemare

Clair de lune....Debussy/Cellier

Finale (Concerto Gregoriano)....Yon

The Pro-Cathedral's series of lunchtime organ recitals continued last Wednesday with an unusual programme. Massimo Nosetti, from Turin Basilica, gave us a glimpse of a world of organ composition which has now passed away, yet which for over 100 years was central to this instrument and to concert life generally.

All the music came from the concert-organ tradition of transcriptions and of original compositions in the style of orchestral or chamber music. Marco Enrico Bossi's Fantaisie Op. 64 is in the loose-limbed style of late-Romantic piano fantasies by Busoni and Reger, though its ideas do not have the depth of those composers' works. Edwin H. Lemare was the Liszt of the concert-organ world, and his Concert Polonaise Op. 80 shows how composers and performers could manipulate associations with other music.

Transcriptions were represented by Alfred Cellier's atmospheric arrangement of Debussy's Claire de lune, plus a characteristically brash version of Bach from the flamboyant American organist, Virgil Fox. Character-piece composition was exemplified by the deft elegance of William Harris's A Fancy, and by the massive textures of the Finale from Concerto Gregoriano, by the Italian-American, Pietro Yon.

Massimo Nosetti played with that balance of control and panache which such music needs. And even though his playing was not startling in its virtuosity, each piece was done in an utterly distinct way, thanks to a musicianly approach to shaping and some vivid registration.