Dance and Music Reviews : Gillian Weir Opens L.A. Bach Festival

Gillian Weir opened the 55th annual Los Angeles Bach Festival at First Congregational Church on Friday evening with a well-chosen, superbly played survey of Bach’s organ works.

The British organist made it sound almost easy. Her technique is so sovereign it does not call attention to itself, or to the complexity and rigor of the music. She keeps attention entirely on the musical product rather than the performance process, an impression her conservative registration of the large Schlicker instrument in the rear gallery increased.

Major pillars of the repertory framed Weir’s generous program: the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, and the Prelude and Fugue in D, BWV 532, before intermission; the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542, and the Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582, afterwards. She took quick but entirely apt tempos, with only a flustered pedal passage at the end of the D-major Fugue to indicate the technical risk involved. Otherwise, all was clear and clean, from the densest counterpoint to the most dazzling figuration.

In between those big pieces came more intimate fare. The repressed, unbalanced registration beginning the Pastorale, BWV 590, was Weir’s only sonic miscalculation, although she failed to make much of a case for the quirky, seldom-played and doubtfully attributed “Kleines harmonisches Labyrinth.” The chorale prelude “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland,” BWV 659, the Trio Sonata in E minor, BWV 528, and the Fantasia in G, BWV 572, were all sharply characterized in sound and touch.

The large crowd rose almost as one at the end, a reception Weir acknowledged in a regal procession down the center aisle.