Wind and water inspire to play a program that fits the festive Harlingen fishing days. Folk songs about fishermen and other sailors serve as a starting point for improvisations. You are carried away by the storm; later you may come to calmer waters. Frenchman Guilmant uses the English Rule Brittannia in his organ fantasy. The English were our great competitors on the world’s oceans, which is why Piet Hein and Michiel de Ruyter offer the necessary counterbalance to the English in the final improvisation. The great Bach is not missing: in his choral arrangement you can hear the river Jordaan flowing. In his piece Pneoo, Dutch composer Daan Manneke shows how the wind makes the bamboo organ on the Vlissingen boulevard sound, sometimes violently, sometimes calmly. A swinging organ concerto by Handel and a stormy toccata by Frenchman Grison complete the program.

Programme:

Jos van der Kooy (1951 ) Improvisation on songs of the sea

Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) Fantaisie sur deux mélodies Anglaises opus 43 (Home, Sweet Home en Rule Brittania)

Georg Friedrich Händel (1685-1759) Organ concerto in F major opus 4: 4Allegro – Andante – Adagio ad libitum – Allegro (arrangement: Samuel de Lange and JvdK)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam BWV 684

Daan Manneke 1939  Pneoo – music about wind and water

Charles Hubert Hastings Parry (1848-1918) Choral Prelude on Eventide (Abide with me and Stay with me, Lord)

Jules Grison (1842-1896) Toccata in f minor 

Jos van der Kooy (1951) Improvisation on Piet Hein and Michiel de Ruyter