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The Royal Festival Hall Organ Speaks Again
After two years of silence, London's great instrument returns with a recital that rebuilt the room's acoustics around it.
David Achebe · 2025-09-11
The hall's organ has been voiceless since a fire in the building's control rooms, and its return was treated as the civic event it is. The restoration retained the 1951 console's idiosyncrasies rather than smoothing them away.
The opening recital paired Bach with living composers, the great instrument proving equally at home with a toccata and a note cluster that shook the balconies.
It sounds, in the words of one listener, like the building finally remembering how to sing.