Organ and percussion concert at Keble
Keble College news, Saturday 17 May 2008
On 15th May, Keble College Music Society hosted a concert of rarely performed organ and percussion repertoire in the Chapel. Percussionist Keith Fairbairn and organist Malcolm Pearce introduced their audience to the work of the composers Myron Roberts (whose Five for Marimba and Organ opened the concert), Douglas Mews and Petr Eben. The final piece was Ebens Landscapes of Patmos, introduced by Pearce as the masterpiece of the organ and percussion repertoire. Landscapes of Patmos consists of five landscape tone poems, and the piece is difficult, arresting and invigorating, in the manner of Stravinsky. Patmos is a Greek island, and the place of St John the Divine reputedly wrote the Book of Revelation, and this, together with Eben's own experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz, Pearce told us, had been the twin inspirations for the piece. Fairbairn and Pearce staged a striking visual and musical spectacle - Fairbairn's custom-built marimba, the only one of its type in Europe, took the place of the organ pipes as the concert's arresting visual centrepiece, and his energetic playing was a pleasure to watch. This was their first public performance of this repertoire, and Keble can be proud to have played host to the event.