On his first major organ tour of Britain, Jan Liebermann performed at St Edmund’s on Sunday 30 July. The young organist from Frankfurt is seen as the likely next ‘big name’ in the organ world, and he didn’t disappoint. In a programme of works by Bach, Pachelbel, Mendelssohn, Widor and Duruflé, the audience sat enthralled, amazed at his skill and versatility. Not many were aware that he had only been playing the organ for the past 4½ years, and only Chris our organist knew that the organ had developed a fault just before the recital started. Yet Jan performed the pieces brilliantly, working around the fault, so that no one twigged that one B note was missing throughout the recital. As the final piece – Duruflé’s Prélude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain – finished, the audience erupted into applause; we had experienced something very special.

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