LFBM 2026: Passacaglia

For this lunchtime recital, organist Matthew Martin explores how musical ideas change as they pass through the lens of different composers and centuries.

At the programme’s centre stand two monumental passacaglias: Bach’s famous Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor and the powerful Passacaille by Swiss composer Frank Martin (no relation to our soloist!) Written nearly two centuries later, Martin’s work refracts Bach’s great work through a twentieth-century harmonic language.

The programme also highlights links within the French organ tradition. While Nicolas de Grigny’s colourful setting of the hymn Verbum supernum influenced his German contemporary J.S.Bach, Gaston Litaize’s lively Reges Tharsis, also based on plainchant but written in 1984, was clearly inspired by de Grigny.

Two lighter English works, Peter Hurford’s Two Dialogues and a Bach-inspired chorale prelude by the recitalist, offer moments of contrast before the programme concludes with Bach’s extraordinary Contrapunctus XI from The Art of Fugue.