Virtuoso playing:
The Bocholt Organ Festival kicks off with Tim Rishton

(Concert review in Bocholter-Borkener Volksblatt)

Summer outdoor temperatures, a cool room and an organist who tossed sheets of music around: the start of the Bocholt Organ Festival in St.Paul's Church was original. Tim Rishton ... shone with virtuoso artistry and received long applause. "Trio Sonata No. 5 in C major" ... of Johann Sebastian Bach ... Rishton played the first movement, a lively Allegro, in a pleasantly-liquid manner ... succeeded ravishingly in the technically-demanding third movement. He had a stunning diversity of voices and woowed with his solemn impetus. ... Andreas Willscher's work "Aquarium", in which he excellently portrays and sets to music marine life and its surroundings, is full of pictures as well as witty. Rishton was spot on in his portrayal of the characters with their different ways of moving and the changing moods: with powerful chords he depicted an "organ coral" before a Ray glided leisurely past in floating harmonies. A burbot danced in jazzy syncopation, swinging seahorses called out a greeting, while the gurnard just had "the blues" and the sea dragons arrived to suggestions of the ubiquitous Bach Toccata . Rishton's playing was so inspiring that visitors clapped for minutes on end. ... Felix Mendelssohn's "Sonata IV in B-flat major" was presented by the organist at times splendidly and majestically and at times graceful and floating, ending up with ravishing sound paintings. In Vivaldi's "Concerto" he did not throw any sheet music aside, and with this piece a great organ evening came to an end.

Michael Stukowski
Bocholter-Borkener Volksblatt
9 June 2015

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