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With thousands of pipes and endless sonorities at their disposal, one might think organists would be plagued by delusions of grandeur. But for the better musicians, the temptation to open the intrument to full throttle is thwarted by a sense of restraint and close attention to form. Clive Driskill-Smith falls in that category. For the first concert at this year's November Organ Recital Series at Independent Presbyterian Church on Sunday, the 25-year-old organist at Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, England, demonstrated musical intelligence far beyond his years and technical abilities to match.
In a movement from Charles-Marie Widor's Symphony No. 5, he sidestepped the flamboyance that Widor's music can generate. The opening strains were played with disarming quietude, laying the groundwork for the meticulously layered dynamics and phrases that followed. In Hindemith's Sonata No. 2, a potentially droll score was turned into a lucid setting. Care was taken to hear every voice. Each melodic entry in the fugue was carefully weighed and balanced.
The recital contained a few oddities. Sigfrid Karg-Elert's bouncy "Valse mignonne" was better suited for the mighty Wurlitzer at the Alabama Theatre. Its slides, tremolos and pseudo-oriental riffs provided some comic relief to a mostly serios program, but were mostly lackluster on IPC's Aeolian-Skinner organ. Lional Steuart Fothringham's "Scherzo" meandered between boisterous tone clusters and a sci-fi freakishness. George Thalben-Ball's lyrical, angelic "Elegy" was a perfect complement to Driskill-Smith's sensitive musical vision.
Closing on a more conventional note, Driskill-Smith proved he can overwhelm a church sanctuary with the best of them. Marcel Dupre's Prelude and Fugue in B major was brilliantly executed. From a bed of impressionist atmospherics, the organist neatly and confidently laid out the composer's fugue theme in a variety of musical shades, arriving at a glorious flourish at the work's end.
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