Some of the most stimulating organ recitals in Dublin in recent years have been provided by David Adams. This first ever winner of the Dublin International Organ Playing Competition - there were no first prizes awarded before his success in 1986 - has spent a long time toiling on foreign soil. But he's now living in Dublin again and his recital on Sunday showed him at the top of his very fine form.
There's a broad range of pleasures to be encountered in his performances. He's a strong communicator of individual musical styles, which ranged on this occasion from Bach to Marcel Dupre, taking in along the away Mendelssohn, the little-known Hein rich Kaminski (1886-1946) and Jehan Alain.
His playing breathes with an easy flexibility which ensures that small-scale patterning never becomes mechanical or rigid. One could readily see some of the reasons why he would feel a special affinity for the Drei Choralvorspiele of the Nazi-suppressed Kaminski - pieces full of flourishes and tempo modifications gauged to work against the tyranny of beat and printed barline.
Adams is a broad-visioned player who takes in the whole as readily as the parts. This helps make his Bach - which on this occasion included the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV537, and the sombrely passionate chorale prelude Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV659 - particularly rewarding.
In Mendelssohn's Sonata in D, Op. 65 No. 5, he shaved a layer of sentimentality off Victorian England's favourite composer, putting a jaunty spring into his step. And at the end of an already cherishable evening he handled the notespinning flamboyance of Du pre's Prelude and Fugue in G minor, Op. 7 No. 3, with irrepressible joie de vivre.
