Wayne Marshall Organ Concert
Royal Festival Hall Southbank Centre, London
★★★★★

IN many respects, organs in concert halls and house of worship venues were always and continue to be at the cutting edge of synthesiser design. These pipe-based instrument structures, built around architecture and acoustics, have a desire to push sonic boundaries to the limit and capture the zeitgeist of the age. At London’s Royal Festival Hall their Harrison & Harrison organ, installed in 1954, includes some 7,866 pipes, the largest being around 32 feet long.

Put in the hands of Wayne Marshall, one of the UK’s leading organists and composers, an audience is in for a dramatic experience. A student of Chetham’s School of Music then at the Royal College of Music, among many prestigious posts he has served as an organist and associate artist at Bridgewater Hall. His Passion Symphony album (Base2 Music, 2019) is a notable work, and was recorded on Portugal’s Fatima Santuario de Fatima Sanctuary organ. Included on the album is a composition by Marshall. Like many organists one of his key skills is the ability to improvise and, for his Royal Festival Hall appearance, that was at the heart of his approach as he took on sections from Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Opening the concert Marshall performed a work by the contemporary Canadian composer Andrew Ager Toccata & Fugue in C written in 2009. Full of swirling endeavor, sliding melodies and dramatic tempo changes, that grew in complexity. Next up was 20th century French Composer Jean Roger-Ducasse’s work Pastorale from 1909. The inspired and simple, flute-like pastoral opening gives way to calmly melodic folk-inspired tunes, full of romantic overtones, ending with a richly textured held bass chord. Very much in the vein of Claude Debussy, an associate and friend of the composer.  

He followed this with another 20th-century composer, Austro Hungarian Franz Schmidt’s 1916 work Variations & Fugue on an original theme, the King’s Fanfares from Fredigundis. Opening with short dark bass pulse chords, it develops an arching melodic intent before, in a slow and dignified tempo, clustering high-note chamber-like refrains, and ending with a chordal drama, and flourishes of dancing, mixed frequencies.

The highlight of the evening, however, was Marshall’s spellbinding Symphonic improvisation in four movements on themes from Leonard Bernstein’s 1957 musical West Side Story. Jet Song, Maria, and I Feel Pretty were all given bold new harmonic and rhythmic interpretations. The final movement was a wildly dystopian reimagining of America. Spine-tingling stuff!

Marshall is at the top of his game, methodically realigning the classics as he achieves new spiritual heights, and using state of the art instrument design in some of the world’s finest acoustic settings.

Wayne Marshall will play Southwark Cathedral Summer Organ Festival, August 4. Tickets: eventbrite.co.uk