Nicholas Kenyon 

500 Years of Organ Music for Royal Occasions – review

A new organ for Westminster Abbey gets a lively airing in this celebratory recording, writes Nicholas Kenyon
  
  


The 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation has prompted many tributes, but this one is gloriously quixotic: the building of a new chamber organ by Mander which will this year take its place in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey. Its looks are deceptive, for though built like an 18th-century chamber organ, it has a much wider range of sonorities, as this sparkling recital by the organist of St Lawrence Jewry demonstrates. Catherine Ennis travels all the way from Byrd and Gibbons via Mozart arrangements to Walton – all of it played with lively articulation, and ending with a rumbustious Handel Fireworks Suite.

Buy this CD here. All proceeds go to the City Music Foundation, a new charity set up to support young musicians as they launch their professional careers

 

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