It was an organ concert to show off the vast array of
available sounds of the newly restored Skinner Organ at St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church — all 55 stops, 68 ranks, and 4,596 pipes — and organist Ken Cowan
brought his unique approach to the job. Throughout Sunday’s concert, a camera
displayed Cowan on a projection screen so that the audience could watch his two
hands and two feet work across four keyboards, four expression shoes, and the
full pedalboard, as he set about pulling and pushing
stops and flipping couplers. It was a sight for the eyes, as well as sound for
the ears.

The program for this installment of the American Guild of
Organists’ Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series featured works from a
global array of post-1810 composers on this American organ built in 1927. For
each work, Cowan made innumerable decisions on how to present the work, using
the full array of options of this particular organ. The seven works of the
program plus one encore sounded unique to Cowan’s interpretations of the music
and mechanics of the instrument.

Perhaps most demonstrative of the organ in the particular
acoustics of this church was the “Étude Héroïque” by Canadian composer Rachel
Laurin (b. 1961). The composition also allowed Cowan to showcase his own
dexterity, brisk execution, and virtuosic tendencies.

A section of a work that was particularly striking was the
fugue section from the “Fantasy on the Chorale ‘How Brightly Shines the Morning
Star’,” Op. 40, No. 1 by German composer Max Reger (1873-1933). The fugue
departed from the overall tone of the concert, which was otherwise filled with
dissonances, minor keys, eerie intervals, and edgy colorings, and wound its way
into a grand and major ending.

Cowan received his Bachelor of Music from the Curtis
Institute of Music (Philadelphia) and his master’s degree and artist diploma
from Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is a native of Thorold, Ontario,
Canada. Cowan is the recently appointed head of the organ program and a
keyboard faculty member at the Shepherd School of Music at RiceUniversity
(Houston, Texas).

Cowan offered various remarks throughout the program, and
there was an outstanding program booklet that provided an extensive history of
the organ.

Taking all of this information and the full performance into
consideration, I might comment that allowing the works to breathe through
slight down-tics in tempo and phrasing would have allowed Cowan to better
achieve his stated performance goals.

For example, the “Danse Macabre”
by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was an arrangement by Cowan.
In his remarks, Cowan explained the entire story that was to be conveyed by the
piece. Taking just the ending, Cowan’s performance brought the ghoulish voices to
their climax. But, instead of giving a beat or two (or three) of silence to let
the noise echo away and the suspense to build, the very next beat brought the
reedy crowing of the cock to signal daybreak. Then, the very next beat signaled
three ghouls rushing off, one after the other. There was an opportunity for the
first to express a unique, languid character, to pause, and the next two,
smaller creatures, to scuttle and scurry. Where the organ itself has so many
voices from which to choose, one might rather allow them to organically shape a
performance, particularly a performer’s own arrangement.

The Rochester Celebrity Organ Recital Series continues on
Friday, February 8, at 8 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Cathedral with organist
Stephen Tharp. More information is available on the AGO website at
www.AGORochester.org.

This article appears in Nov 7-13, 2012.