{TABLE} Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV538 ............. Bach Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr BWV664 ........... Bach O Mensch, bewein dein Sunde gross BWV622 ........ Bach Komm, Heiliger Geist BWV651 ..................... Bach Voluntary in E minor Op 7 No 7 .................. Stanley Sonata in D minor Op 65 No 6 .................... Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue in B Op 7 No 1 ................ Dupre {/TABLE} GERAINT Bowen was assistant organist, at St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin from 1986 to 1989. From there this London born player moved to Hereford Cathedral, and since 1995 he has been organist and master of the choristers at St David's, Cathedral in Pembrokeshire. He was back in Ireland on Sunday for a recital, at St Michael's, Dun Laoghaire.

More than halt of his programme was devoted to Bach, after which he worked up chronologically, through Stanley and Mendelssohn, to one of the French masters of the 20th century, Marcel Dupre. It was a well chosen programme, but the manner of playing, what you might call the middleness of approach, tended to minimise contrasts over the programme as a whole.

There was, for instance, little feeling of linear clarity in Bach's trio on Allein Gott in der Hoh sei Ehr, BWV664, yet the elaborate upper line of O Mensch bewein dein Sunde gross, BWV622, was over prominent, and much of its elaborate ornamentation was unconvincing (in particular, the handling of the accelerating trills was unpersuasive). Neither the opening Toccaata and Fugue (in D minor, BWV538) nor the fantasia on Komm, Heiliger Geist, BWV651, fully avoided an impression of stolidity.

The little Voluntary by John Stanley went much better and there was an agreeable warmth to the Mendelssohn D minor Sonata. The closing Dupre, however, called for flamboyance rather than an approach which so obviously played for safety.