Aperitif Recitals

On Thursday 17th October at 7pm Richard Gowers, late organ scholar of King's College Cambridge, winner of the 2013 Northern Ireland Organ Competition and recently appointed organist to St Saviour's Pimlico in London will be giving a performance of Bach's Prelude and Fugue in D (BWV 532) and Julius Reubke's Sonata on the 94th Psalm.

This will be the eighteenth recital of this popular and well attended series of Aperitif Recitals.

Julius Reubke, a musical genius who died from tuberculosis at only twenty four years of age, composed this sonata in 1857 while he was studying piano and composition in Weimar with Franz Liszt — the 'father' of programme music — that is music which reflects a narrative.

The narrative, in this particular case, is selected verses from Psalm 94 and the music illustrates, to some extent, the situation the psalmist is writing about. A bit like a film score!

As a precursor on the evening of the recital and as a separate and additional event, Richard will give an half hour talk on 'How to prepare a performance of Reubke's Sonata'. This will begin at 6.00pm. The recital will commence at 7.00pm

The talk, with musical illustrations, will be given from the organ console

This talk is aimed to capture the interest of everyone — equally informative to those with limited musical knowledge as to organ nerds. Richard will be mic'd up with a lapel microphone and will be video-screened. Wine and soft drinks will be available before the talk begins and afterwards the usual canapés will also be offered. The church doors will be closed during the talk from 6pm until 6:30pm.

Admission to Aperitif Recitals is free but donations are gratefully received when leaving. If you wish to attend the talk, or the talk and the recital, please let us know in advance by emailing aperitifrecitals@haddenhamstmarys.org