Thomas Trotter – Celebrating 40 Years as Birmingham City Organist, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 06 October 2023.

5***** David Gray & Paul Gray.

Johann Sebastian Bach – Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542

Robert Schumann – Study in A flat

Cheryl Frances-Hoad – Celebration Fantasia: Rhapsody on the name of Thomas Trotter

Richard Wagner – Overture to Rienzi (arr. E H Lemare)

Franz Liszt – Fantasia & Fugue on the chorale ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’

This was always going to be an emotionally charged event - the significance and impact of which would go beyond the music being played. A chance to celebrate 40 years of music making by a seminal Birmingham figure. But also, a reminder of the talent that has enabled Thomas Trotter to maintain a position at the heart of the city’s musical life for four decades and become, in himself, a cherished Birmingham institution.

The evening was also a whistle stop tour through an astonishing range of styles and forms, summarising the huge variety of music with which Maestro Trotter has delighted audiences during his tenure as City Organist.

The pivotal work of the first half was Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s Celebration Fantasia: Rhapsody on the name of Thomas Trotter. Growing organically from a spikey theme constructed through a series of rather esoteric conceits around the letters of the organist’s name, this work celebrated architectural developments in the city and key events from Thomas’s career.

The architectural inspiration lent itself well to the piece’s structural character. Clearly influenced by the music of major figures in the organ repertoire: Messien, Langlais, Widor and Bach – it seemed as though not a stop or pipe went unused in a work clearly designed not just to show off the performer’s astonishing technique, but also the remarkable potential of this mighty instrument. This was a monumental work given a towering performance.

Other works in the evening were given equally impressive treatment. One rarely sees all the doors to the Hall’s acoustic chambers thrown wide open – a sign that we are going to be served music on a massive scale.

Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G minor shook the Hall. E H Lemare’s arrangement of Wagner’s Overture to Rienzi was carried off with suitable swagger and grew to a rousing conclusion. On a quieter note, Schumann’s Study in A flat shimmered with delicate colouration.

The recital’s second half was taken up with Liszt’s Fantasia & Fugue on the chorale ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’. Liszt treats the theme, lifted from a Meyerbeer opera, to a diverse and imaginative collection of variations that flow organically together.

Again, here was an opportunity for organist and organ to show their range both in terms of expressivity, dynamics and colouration. An opportunity that Mr. Trotter siezed with both hands and both feet. In the final Fugue he presented a breathtaking display of technical virtuosity, his feet and hands literally flying up and down the keys.

His final offering as an encore, what else, Widor’s mighty Toccata, sent an already well satisfied audience home with a spring in its step. A fittingly uplifting end to a sterling recital. C’est Magnifique!

Thomas Trotter - Organ