Organist David Higgs Lets His Fingers Do the Talking

There was plenty of heat and agitation in David Higgs’ organ recital Tuesday evening at Royce Hall, but the abiding impression was of security and elegantly informed taste. His program, nicely chosen for the resident Royce instrument, emphasized 20th century works emerging from the late Romantic orchestral style.

The agenda also offered an intriguing seminar in variation procedures. Liszt’s “Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H,” Marcel Dupre’s “Variations on a Noel,” the last of William Bolcom’s 12 Gospel Preludes, and Part’s “Annum per Annum” all rang changes on themes great and small, and in widely varied styles.

The basis of Higgs’ registration was compelling contrast between the mellow, woody solo stops and the blazing full organ. The prelude and postlude of Part’s suite demonstrated how he could use registration alone to move music forward, and Dupre’s carol setting provided a guide to this organ’s woodwind arsenal through Higgs’ colorful manipulations.

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The New York organist also has clear thoughts about moving shapes--how to articulate them and how to integrate them into long-spanned structures. He has a lively sense of rhythm as well, although perhaps a shade too much sobriety for Bolcom’s free fantasia on two hymn tunes.

David Conte’s gracefully austere “Soliloquy” and Maurice Durufle’s imposing Suite completed the schedule, with the addition of a prelude by Johann Christian Kittel in encore. Higgs gave Durufle his characterful best in a brooding Prelude, a buoyantly singing Sicilienne, and a pointedly flashy, superbly controlled Toccata.