David Lee (organ)

St Michael’s Church, Dún Laoghaire

David Lee, organist of Dún Laoghaire Presbyterian Church and retired professor of organ at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, is a player who gives the impression of creating programmes out of personal enthusiasms.

You might, of course, think that that’s what all performers aim to do. But other considerations – promoters’ needs and audience taste, as well as the conventions of the day – often result in blander outcomes.

The organ recitals at St Michael’s, Dún Laoghaire, don’t feature printed programme notes, although quite a few of the performers choose to give spoken introductions to the music.

Lee’s programme last weekend, however, came with a printed note, offering an argument for an unusual choice of registration that the performer was proposing to use in Bach. And then, just before the programme started, the director of the series, David Connolly, found himself in the position of having to announce a retraction on Lee’s behalf.

It may all sound a bit introverted. But it actually conveys quite accurately the sense of immediacy and engagement that are among the hallmarks of a David Lee recital.

He plays like a man who lives in the moment, with a full awareness of exposure and risk, and a willingness to proceed whatever the obstacles – these typically include momentary fallibilities of finger as well as occasional larger glitches.

The concert's opening work, a Praeambulum in D minor by Heinrich Scheidemann, set the tone for the evening. It was played with such purposeful articulation and real joie de vivrethat the moments of technical fallibility seemed not to matter a whit. And, with Buxtehude and Böhm providing the big pieces rather than Bach, Lee kept rewardingly to his trajectory for the full recital.