For some years now, one of the great pleasures of our lives in London has been attending the lunchtime organ recitals given in the churches of the City. If one finds oneself wondering what to do during a lunch hour in London — apart from merely finding somewhere to eat — there can be few better answers than stepping into one of these beautiful churches and listening to an organ recital.
Over the years we have regularly attended concerts at the Temple Church, at St Michael Cornhill, and at St Margaret Lothbury, each with its own atmosphere and musical character. Last Thursday we once again went to St Margaret Lothbury, where we heard a magnificent recital given by a brilliant Swiss organist.Marc Fitze.

The programme included works by Dieterich Buxtehude and Handel including Passacaglias and Chaconnes. These were beautifully performed on the church’s wonderful George England organ, which the recitalist handled with extraordinary imagination. At moments, particularly in Handel, the instrument sounded almost like a small chamber organ; elsewhere it expanded into something symphonic and monumental.
Of all the organs in the City of London, this remains one of my favourites. There is a remarkable clarity to its tone, and it fits perfectly within the lovely intimate interior of the church, with its decorative woodwork and excellent acoustics.

During the interval, Richard Townend — the church’s titular organist and a distinguished educationalist — gave one of his characteristically informative and amusing talks. He explained the difference between a chaconne and a passacaglia, something I had never fully understood before. I had always assumed that a passacaglia was simply another name for a chaconne, but apparently the distinction lies partly in structure: the chaconne is based around a four-bar sequence, whereas the passacaglia generally develops over an eight-bar sequence. Both are usually in triple time, something that suddenly made complete musical sense once explained.
The second part of the recital introduced me more fully to the music of Jehan Alain, and I realised what an extraordinary genius he was — and what a tragedy it was that he died at only twenty-nine during the German invasion of France in 1940. Alain had joined the French army as a motorcycle dispatch rider. In a remarkable and heroic episode, he encountered advancing German troops and, rather than surrender, fought alone with a carbine from a garden near a railway bridge before finally being killed himself. He was later awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery. In this sense, Alain joins that long line of artists and composers whose lives were cut short by war. In Britain we have our own equivalent in George Butterworth, another extraordinary composer lost young in conflict.
Two of Alain’s works were performed: Litanies and Le Jardin suspendu. There is something utterly distinctive about Alain’s music. Even for those who are not organ aficionados, it has an immediate emotional and spiritual force. His music feels haunting — almost like a voice interrupted in mid-sentence by the catastrophe of war.
Alain drew influence from Gregorian chant, Eastern philosophy and music, the French Impressionists, dance rhythms, and darker, almost primal musical forms. The result is music that can sound hypnotic, ecstatic, savage, mystical, and deeply modern all at once.
Litanies in particular was overwhelming. The work builds with obsessive intensity until it becomes almost volcanic in its power.

After the concert we were, as customary, invited into the vestry for tea and biscuits in a convivial setting.
We are profoundly grateful for these lunchtime concerts in the City of London. They enrich our lives immeasurably, and one learns something new at every recital — not only about music, but about history, architecture, spirituality, and human imagination itself. They are among the great glories and quiet joys of living in London.