MUSIC REVIEW : Swann Offers Uneven Recital at Cathedral : The organ rattled impressively throughout, but only the ‘Sonata on the 94th Psalm’ by Julius Reubke proved satisfying.

“I have never found audiences really attentive to organ music for more than 20 minutes,” wrote Virgil Thomson, himself an organist.

A cynic might suggest that that statement goes a long way in explaining the size of the Hazel Wright Organ in Garden Grove’s Crystal Cathedral. With its 16,281 pipes and 268 ranks--making it one of the world’s largest--it can simply overpower an audience, never allowing it to get bored.

Certainly Frederick Swann, music director and organist of the cathedral, did little to counteract such suggestions in his recital Friday night as part of a Master Organist series. Musically, it was an uneven and often frustrating event. But given the sonic spectacle that this instrument produces, such considerations didn’t seem to matter much to those in attendance.

Swann began the concert with two virtual throwaways, Robert Hebble’s “Heraldings” and Max Drischner’s “Variations on a Noel,” both demonstrating the organ’s huge array of sounds with little musical substance. Drischner’s piece was almost comical in its timbral diversity, each phrase of the simple tune played with a different stop, and sent around the hall in stereophonic grandeur.

With more substantial music, Swann ran into troubles with execution. In Mozart’s (it’s 1991, remember) Fantasia, K. 608, originally written for musical clock, Swann showed a disconcerting unsteadiness of rhythm.

After Bach’s Toccata in F, BWV 540, the organist disarmed critics by announcing that “hopefully, you won’t ever hear that piece played that fast again.” But it was apparent that the organ itself was responsible for much of the jumble: most contrapuntal passages Friday, and not just in the Bach, emerged tangled in texture, too thick to penetrate.

Leo Sowerby’s “Requiescat in pace” proved harmonically rich and gentle but hampered by an electronic hum (the lights?), also heard elsewhere during the evening.

Not until after intermission did Swann hit his stride in Julius Reubke’s brooding “Sonata on the 94th Psalm.” This music, with its massive chordal outbursts, Lisztian chromatics and limited use of counterpoint, seemed better suited for this organ. Swann gave an involved and involving reading and built its 25 minutes to a room-rattling climax.