Spectacular organ playing and dynamic choreography had audience members nearly dancing in the aisles.

St George’s Cathedral, Perth
March 10, 2015

It was said that JS Bach’s feet moved more swiftly over the organ pedals than many players’ fingers over the keyboards. Indeed, his music is predicated as much on the vitality of dance as it is on the complex development of a particular theme or motif, and there are few better ways to celebrate Bach’s titanic terpsichorean technique than to choreograph it.

Well, almost. This splendid opening concert in St. George’s Cathedral’s 2015 concert series saw the West Australian Ballet return to this sacred space in triumph after nearly six years (can it really have been that long since 2009’s Mozart-inspired Lacrimosa?) for four dances, the outer two for soloists and corp, the inner two, pas de deux.

But it was the sacrilegiously demonic playing of cathedral organist and master of choristers Joseph Nolan which almost stole the show from the start. Seated before the cathedral’s mammoth west organ, he opened the concert with a D minor Toccata and Fugue of such ferocious beauty that one wondered whether, as Blake said of Milton, he “was one of the devil’s party...