Ton Koopman in recital
HK Cultural Centre Concert Hall
Reviewed: Feb 28
With a programme lasting just under two hours, Ton Koopman gave us a generous exposition of baroque organ music featuring works by Dietrich Buxtehude, Francois Couperin and J.S. Bach.
The Cultural Centre's organ, built by Rieger, was well up to producing the sounds required, with its 93 stops and 8,000 pipes, as was exemplified in two movements from Couperin's second Organ Mass, in which Koopman reproduced both the colours of the stop combinations and the subtle rhythmic swing intended by the composer.
The procession of preludes, fugues and chaconnes carried a risk of tedium, but that threat dissipated with Buxtehude's tinsel-toned Fugue in C, BuxWV 174 and Bach's scowling Fugue in G minor, BWV 578, which sounded as though they came from different planets. The selection of chorale preludes didn't fare so well, being too uniform in character. The exception was Buxtehude's Wie schoen leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223, with its appealing sense of direction and variety in timbre and articulation.