British Organist Parker-Smith Pulls Out Stops

The remarkable British organist Jane Parker-Smith gave the combined Great Organs of the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles a strenuous workout Sunday afternoon. It was a surround-sound spectacular, for Parker-Smith was not at all shy about pushing the envelope on what is claimed to be the world’s largest church organ.

Her often esoteric program centered on a generation or two of composers spanning the turn of the 20th century, using all of the cases of pipes around the church and skillfully selecting washes of color from the endless menu of stops. Indeed, she led off each half of the program with a rarity: Bedrich Wiedermann’s rapid, riotous “Impetuoso” and Wilhelm Middelschulte’s Passacaglia in D minor, with its overwhelming final chorale.

A devotee of 20th century French post-Romantics, Parker-Smith closed the two halves with a pair of flamboyant examples, the Toccata from Maurice Durufle’s Opus 5 Suite and a transcription of Pierre Cochereau’s improvised Scherzo Symphonique, reveling in the furious chromatic madness. Yet she was also at home with the more delicate, moody soundscapes of Louis Vierne, displaying a sure sense of architecture and control over dynamics and nuance in “Naiades” and “Clair de Lune” (from “Pieces de Fantaisie”).

Elsewhere, Liszt’s piano piece “Funerailles” was transformed into something symphonic in texture. There was also a feverishly paced transcription of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 4, in the tradition of Elgar’s own brisk conducting.