I opened my recital in the 1999 International Organ Festival in Sens Cathedral with this Offertoire by Raison – and I am afraid the recording missed my opening ‘flourish’ or gesture to the first chord... This music as resplendent as the great Sun King, Louis XIV, must have been... The work was written to hail the King’s arrival entrance to the Hôtel de Ville on January 30, 1687... Imagine the scene – all that gold and all those jewels and ‘awesomeness’ (a rather ugly, if apt, word for such a vision...). Imagine the cries of ‘Vive le Roy!’ as Louis stepped forward... I first heard French Classical music in my early teens through the remarkable and captiviating records of Gillian Weir. Whilst at first it sound strange, even bizarre to my ears more familiar with Romantic music, I fell so quickly under its spell – and it has remained one of my great musical joys, although because of the instrumental needs for it to really come alive I have always been very particular where I played it.... The organ is Sens is an ideal vehicle for this music – restored (completed 1991) by Cattiaux in the style of great French classical instruments. I think I could quite happily live with just Bach and the French Classical repertoire if I had to – so complete are their whole aesthetic and emotional balance and rewards... And I've been fascinated and engrossed in the history of the Versailles court for years: I’d love to have lived there (maybe I did in a previous incarnation...?) – but I’d certainly not be creeping about slopping out chamber pots or dishing up ‘chocolat chaud’ – I’d be there in ermine (well, maybe...), fabulous coloured silk damasks, jewels, high red heels and generally enjoying the beauty, style, elegance, refinements and manner... One of the great joys of music is that you can ‘travel’, inhabit - and even escape to - different worlds and periods – the realities of which may not have been quite so gilded as such places appear to us because of the glorious music which we can inhabit them through... (PS. the photo of me wasn't taken in Sens - my PC 'dumped' a load of photos - but was taken on the historic instrument in Chaource at another concert.)

• published: 04 Aug 2021
• views: 23