Jennifer Chou | Organ Recital
Oct 20, 2024, St Andrew’s Anglican Church, Brighton, VIC
While local residents rallied in protest on the well heeled streets of Brighton, a small but appreciative and enthusiastic crowd gathered at St Andrew’s Anglican Church for a recital by Jennifer Chou, one of Melbourne’s premier organists.
The programme, which ranged from the baroque to the very modern and mostly French, showcased both the performer and the instrument, the War Memorial Grand Organ which is a very handsome, very large organ with nearly 3,000 pipes. It was built over three years by the Melbourne organ building firm of Davis & Laurie in the early 1960’s and has been undergoing a restoration, which is almost complete.
Specialising in the French Classic repertoire, Jennifer Chou has studied and performed extensively in France, including Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Starting with former Sydney City Organist Robert Ampt’s Elijah on the Mountain (1997) a dramatic and evocative work, which grabs your attention at every turn, we slipped into the French High Baroque with the Ave maria stella of Nicolas de Grigny.
De Grigny and his family were organists and composers of the Notre-Dame of Reims. He died young at 31 years old, and thanks to the efforts of his widow, his collection of organ music was published and even copied by JS Bach.
Jennifer got the best of the baroque sound out of the War Memorial Grand Organ, particularly in the voices of the Fugue a 4 and Dialogue sur le grand jeux, with all the beguiling ornamentation of the period.
Jehan Alain also died young as a soldier in the Second World War, and like the previous composer we can be thankful to a woman in his life, his little sister the organ virtuosi Marie-Claire Alain, for preserving and playing his compositions.
Jennifer’s performance of Alain’s Trois danses was outstanding. These are without doubt musically, technically and intellectually demanding works.
Danses but not dances, Alain explores the meaning of movement and life and narrates the music for us in three parts: Joies (Joys), Deuils (Bereavements, subtitled by the composer ‘Funeral Dance, to honour a heroic memory’), Luttes (Struggles). Each constructed around themes which are eerie and almost abstract, but that come together in a wonderful expression of the mystery of life.
The program ended with the Cantabile and Piece heroique of César Franck. Somewhat safer and more tonal than the danses prior, and in a demonstration of skill as a master performer and musician, Jennifer brought us back, safe and sound, to the familiar warmth of the French classical romantic organ tradition and to a grand and ‘heroic’ end to the programme.
St Andrew’s Brighton and Music Director Calvin Bowman should be thanked and congratulated for the continued care of the War Memorial Grand Organ and bringing such a world class performance to us in Melbourne.
