Greg Morris gave the City of London Festival recital to a large festival audience to reveal the sonic glories of the magnificent restored and reassembled 4-manual Harrison & Harrison organ of the Temple Church.

For those of us who listen to organ music more often at home from CDs of important instruments, it can be disconcerting how loud it can be in reality, a dimension only otherwise encoutered in major orchestral performances, and exceeding most of those. This was certainly so in the welcome revival of Alain's Litanie, a favourite of mine from the championship of his music by his sister Marie-Clare, who can be enjoyed playing it at Lucerne on a gorgeous YouTube video.

Morris followed with a major Messiaen classic, the first part Death massive, the second Life long and quiet !

Best for me was the Duruflé which sparkled lightly for several minutes before he (or Morris ?) felt bound to finish with a forte flourish. Hear it uploaded by Clement Zanetta.

We departed grateful to COLF for a complete recital of modern(ish) music from the organ repertoire.

Because sadly, all that had been done behind the screen was invisible to the public. It is described below for organ aficionados.

Peter Grahame Woolf