The Belgian organist Pascale van Coppenolle, trained in Liege, is active as a teacher in Belgium and Luxembourg and is organist of the Trinity Church in Vianden, Luxembourg, where the organ dates from the late 17th century.
Her thoughtfully constructed recital at St Michael's on Sunday opened in the 19th century with Brahms and ventured as far back as the little-known 16th-century Spaniard, Juan Bermudo (paired with the similarly obscure 17th-century Portuguese, Pedro de Araujo), before working forward again to Bach.
Everything along the way was handled with forthright assurance. The registration was more often than not sweet and full, though the in-your-face reediness of the Iberian pieces was captured with real relish and the presentation of Bach's Fuga Sopra Il Magnificat was forward in the extreme.
It was perhaps a bit strange for the young Brahms's Prelude and Fugue in A minor to be made so strongly redolent of the sort of rubato associated with period performance of baroque music; and it was a less than happy idea for so many works in the middle of the evening to be let run without applause (and, indeed, for the closing items, Buxtehude's Magnificat Noni Toni and the Bach, to be run together without a pause).
The highlight for me came much earlier on, in Bruhns's Praeludium in E minor, the longer of the two E minor pieces that have come down to us. There are only five surviving organ works by this 17thcentury north German com poser, but they are held in such esteem by organists that they've featured in recital in Ireland in nine of the last 10 years. Pascale van Coppenolle memorably brought to Bruhns an incisive attack, a thrusting sense of direction, a fine sense of balance in his often recitative-like rhetoric and a vivid appreciation of his moments of quirky adventure.
