Chris Parsons demonstrated his very considerable prowess on the trumpet in a lunchtime recital that was meant to last 50 minutes but overshot its allotted time; nobody seemed to mind. Accompanied by Andrew Passmore on the organ they were on a concert tour of Scotland.
Rather to the surprise of the polite Edinburgh audience in St Cuthbert’s Church the Lancashire accented Chris Parsons announced that they were slightly knackered. The music-making did not suffer, however.
To add to our delight was the soprano voice of Jess Conway, a fellow music student of Chris Parsons at York University, singing Handel’s Eternal Source of Light Divine, and later in the programme, Purcell’s Sweeter than Roses.
Andrew Parsons playing the largest of all Edinburgh’s organs is undertaking doctoral studies, teaching and performing also at York University. His solos were a Buxtehude Praeludium and Guilmant’s March on a Theme of Handel. Having mislaid the music for a harpsichord piece he propped his iPad on the instrument’s music stand and played away. A first for me.
We heard two arrangements for trumpet and organ by Parsons and Passmore - Bach’s BWV 972 Allegro and Elegy by George Thalben-Ball. They also performed Oscar Lindberg’s Andante written in 1948, Jeremiah Clarke’s Suite in D, Trumpet Voluntary and Purcell’s Sonata for Trumpet written in 1695.
Event: Wednesday 3 August 2011, 1.10pm