Organist Charles Rus

GOING BAROQUE!

Virtuoso organist Charles Rus returned to the Bay Area and Sonoma County November 30th to perform a dazzling recital of Baroque organ music. Mr. Rus channeled the souls of the great 17th century giants of organ composition into the beautiful newly installed pipe organ in Sonoma State’s Schroeder Hall. The house was sold out and deservedly so.

From the jump-start Praeludium in g moll (BuxWV 149) by Buxtehude, through Bach’s glorious concluding Praeludium and Fuga in e moll (BWV 548) the organist demonstrated an impeccably consistent articulated touch in both the manual and pedal passages for which this performer is already well known, and which is necessary for authentic performance of this program.

There was absolute security in the forward pace of the music and total clarity of all voice lines. Although the pedal board of the Schroeder instrument is not visible to the audience, the sounds of the marching articulated pedal passages in the Bach Prelude and Fugue left no doubt that the artist was fully in charge of the music.

The afternoon program had several interesting features. The Bach and Buxtehude works in the program were balanced by the more delicate architecture of Couperin’s Messe pour les Paroisses and by Bach's transcription of the Concerto a 2 Manuali e Pedale of Vivaldi. An additional refreshment in the program was the insertion of three modern minimalist compositions by two contemporary composers between the baroque selections. These compositions were a haunting setting of Psalm 65: "The Silence Sings to Thee, O Lord" by Bert Matter, and Philip Glass’ Metamorphosis One and Metamorphosis Two.

Just for fun, the artist played Six Variations Upon the Tune “Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend” by Georg Böhm, with the audience singing stanzas of the hymn “Creation Spirit” between each of the variations.

Overall, the audience delighted in an entertaining and instructive afternoon of music by a conjurer of organ performance.

The reviewer can be reached at jharrod@sbcglobal.net