Music for the 1851 Grand Exhibition Organ in the "Cathedral of the East End"

The programme will contrast Bach organ music published in England around the time of the organ with dramatic and descriptive music composed in France at around the same time. Bach’s Orgelbüchlein was published in London in 1844. Several of his major Preludes and Fugues were published in England in 1852 under the title of “Grand Studies”. I will play two that are particularly relevant to St Anne’s: the so-called “Cathedral” Prelude and Fugue and the famous “St Anne” Fugue. The recital will start with choral preludes from Bach's Orgelbüchlein to demonstrate the wealth of quieter stops on the organ, before the astonishingly powerful reed stops are unleashed.

The French contributions come with music by the early Romantic organist composers, Alexandre Pierre-François Boëly and Louis-James Alfred Lefébure-Wély. Boëly’s Offertoire pour le Jour de Paques reflects the fact that the Limehouse organ would not be here were it not for a fire on Easter Day 1850 that destroyed the original 1741 Richard Bridge organ. His Fantasia pour le verset Judex Crederis au Te Deum is a dramatic depiction of the day of judgement and the end of the world. Lefébure-Wély’s Scène pastorale avec orage pour une inauguration d’orgue depicts a bucolic scene, complete with folk dances, a thunderstorm, a prayer for a respite from the storm and a return of the dances with added birdsong.

There will be a retiring collection to support the maintenance of this important historic musical instrument.

More information at https://andrewbensonwilson.org/2026/08/08/organ-recital-st-annes-limehouse/