Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 26, No. 9. 1963.
Students Give Recital
Students Give Recital
Student organist Alan Simpson, assisted by the University Choir and Orchestra, gave a lunch hour recital in the Wellington Town Hall on June 26. The main work was Purcell's brief cantata. "I will give thanks unto the Lord," an unusual piece with a tenor and two basses as soloists.
The soloists, perhaps badly placed, did not always make themselves clearly heard. However the work was given a creditable rendering, despite a passage of pure melodrama towards the end when a loud climax was followed by a dramatic moment of silence then the hushed words "holy, holy . . ."
Alan Simpson showed he is a talented organist. His playing of Bach's Fantasia in C minor was powerful, and in the more subdued pieces of Frescobaldi and Loeillet he showed fine sensitivity and clarity.
Several other pieces did not come off so well, namely Balbastre's "A la venue de Noel" and the Prelude and Fugue in A by Bach. But from the recital as a whole it is clear he is an organist with a future.—G.Q.