MUSIC REVIEW : Rhodes Organ Recital in Pasadena

Finding worthy and serious music of our own century has long been the repertory dilemma for organists. Hearing a whole recital of such music, as the Far West Regional Convention of the American Guild of Organists got to do Tuesday night in Pasadena, had to be cause for rejoicing.

Cherry Rhodes, a virtuoso with brains, put together this recital, and played it gloriously.

Though Rhodes’ total performance moved cumulatively--she played the large and resourceful Casavant Freres instrument (1989) at Lake Avenue Congregational Church--the observer could have chosen any part of her agenda as the focal point.

For new thrills, there was the world premiere of James F. Hopkins’ intriguing “Metopes,” a three-part, quarter-hour mural of exotic sounds and hidden scenarios, written in a free atonal style. Hopkins’ rich imagination has here created fascinating juxtapositions and compelling rhetoric. Rhodes seemed to realize both the outer display and the inner life of the new piece by the USC professor.

For solid, middle-of-the-road virtues, there was Rayner Brown’s 4-year-old Sonata No. 20, a breezy, accessible and deceptively uncomplicated work of great charm.

For Germanic authority, Rhodes closed her program with that mother of musical fortresses, Max Reger’s monumental Opus 127, the Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (1913). If she did not make it sound easy--an impossibility, given its density--the organist did clarify its disjunctions.

For discovery, there were three, mostly unknown works by Clarence Mader. The California organist and pedagogue, who died 20 years ago next month, wrote music of irrepressible energy and imaginativeness, music that still seems fresh today.