Briggs Provides an Impressive Opening for L.A. Bach Festival

Even before he opened the 64th annual Los Angeles Bach Festival Friday night at the First Congregational Church, David Briggs let the audience know he would take full advantage of the 15,000 pipes at his command, rather than limit himself to delicate Baroque sonorities.

In nine works by Johann Sebastian, the 34-year-old director of music at England’s Gloucester Cathedral offered intelligent registration--contemporary-minded, but true to structural divisions and contrapuntal clarity--whether carving out the variations of the Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582, or delineating associations with the trinity in the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552.

He also paid heed to the nature of the works. In the virtuosic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, he indulged in large-scale, fanciful coloration with much antiphonal play between the great chancel organ and the more 18th century timbres of the gallery organ. Yet in all but one of four short Choral Preludes, Briggs confined himself to simple, quiet combinations--particularly stirring in “O Mensch bewein deine Sunde gross” (O Man, thy grievous sin bemoan), BWV 622.

Though his stylistic inclinations might be questioned, his mastery of the instrument and of the most minute details of the score could not be reproached. Command of phrasing, articulation, ornamentation and musical statement never wavered, and complexity did not affect composure.

Briggs departed from his Baroque roster for an extended improvisation on the hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” in which he showed what can happen when a quick mind, with technique to match, is seduced by endless choice. As encore, he offered his own fleet-fingered version of the “Badinerie” from Bach’s Suite No. 2 for Orchestra.