Notre Dame’s organist Olivier Latry, long pre-eminent among French musicians, has become more widely known since the 2019 fire miraculously missed destroying the cathedral organ. His recital at Bath Abbey on the recently refurbished Klais organ constituted a starry opening to this year’s BachFest.
Artistic director Amelia Freedman’s programming has always put music JS Bach himself would have known alongside that of the great man and, here, Latry played three works from earlier baroque composers who were pillars of the French classical organ tradition. Louis Marchand’s Grand Dialogue alternated grandeur with contemplative sections, with the lyrical flow of François Couperin’s Tierce en taille then offering a complete contrast.
Bach so admired the music of Nicolas de Grigny that he transcribed his 1699 Premier livre d’orgue for his own use. Latry endowed the opening of De Grigny’s Hymn Ave Maris Stella with an arresting richness of colour, revelling in its glorious final chords by way of reminder that this music is central to his own heritage.
Combining three of Bach’s many versions of the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr – equivalent to Gloria in Excelsis Deo – indicated a more cerebral approach: the elegant lines of BWV 663 were followed by the complex passagework of BWV 711, with the dramatic flourishes of the last, BWV 715, ending an unusual and inspired sequence. At the heart of the programme was Bach’s monumental Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, the cumulative effect of the variations – the light arpeggiated figuration sounding almost playful – powerfully realised.
Console cameras and screens for the audience have transformed organ recitals and it was in the double fugue that seeing Latry’s feet dancing on the pedals, just as Bach’s did, added another dimension to the experience.
As celebrated for his improvisatory genius as his virtuosity, Latry closed by extemporising on the name of BACH – transliterated as B flat, A, C, B natural – in homage. Indulging his imagination and exploiting the voicing of the Abbey instrument now created a vastly different soundworld, contemporary while yet occasionally recalling later French masters. His encore, an arrangement of Bach’s Prelude from the solo violin Partita in E major, BWV 1006, set the seal on a memorable evening.
• Bath BachFest continues until 22 February.
