In a rare concert experience, organist Paul Jacobs nearly filled the nave and altar areas of St. John’s Cathedral with eager listeners on Friday.
Among the evening’s many memorable moments was Jacobs’ tender take on César Franck’s hauntingly alluring Prelude, Fugue, et Variations. Portraying a sense of profound tranquility, Jacobs delivered the thinly textured, introductory oboe cantilena with great sensitivity, giving way to a suitably relaxed interpretation of the subsequent free-flowing fugue.
While the work builds in intensity in its layering of luscious harmonies, Jacobs never compromised its overarching simplicity and sheer sweetness.
Praising the cathedral’s Platt Rogers pipe organ, Jacobs opened the program with Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata in F minor. In the virtuoso’s able hands, the four-movement masterpiece flowed seamlessly through a progression of moods and emotions, from dark austerity to jubilant, skyward-reaching melodies.
The cavalcade of Romantic-era works in the first half culminated in Max Reger’s exacting Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H, a thematic play on the letters of the Baroque master’s name. Here, Jacobs’ extraordinary technical aptitude and musical artistry – not to mention dignified showmanship – came to full light. The vigorous work is demanding in every way, but Jacobs performed its frantically fast passages and immense washes of sound with precision and thrilling abandon.
Switching gears to the 20th century after intermission, the tour de force of the program was Maurice Durufle’s Suite, Op. 5. Jacobs’ delivery of the dark, brooding opening reverberated through the sanctuary for an experience that was as much a physical as an emotional response to the music. The harmonic textures of the piece crescendoed to soaring heights, only to calm again in the shimmering, poignant “Sicilenne” movement.
The work ends in a sonic cyclone. Jacobs’ presentation of the furious Toccata was astoundingly articulate, yet also wonderfully improvisatory. Upon a couple of standing ovations, he obliged with a vigorous reading of a Bach fugue as encore.
Just 30 years old, Jacobs – chair of the organ department at the Juilliard School in New York – is not only a master musician but also an erudite ambassador of the organ, offering an eloquent introduction to each piece.
The free concert was underwritten by Stephen Dilts in memory of his late wife, Joann.
