Marshall takes Disney Hall organ out for a solo spin

Last week at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Wayne Marshall was perched at the organ console in the world premiere of James McMillan’s “A Scotch Bestiary,” in the thick of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s sound and fury. The newly unveiled organ is sonically and visually dazzling -- explosively sensual on both counts -- and the instrument and the still-young hall itself were collaborative players in the program.

On Monday, the mobile organ console sat dramatically naked and center stage, its light wood structure neatly integrating with Frank Gehry’s interior plan. Here, the British keyboardist took the instrument for a solo spin, to see how it would handle and just what power lurked under the hood. In his words, Marshall “put it through its paces,” and the occasion was generally winning.

Marshall tailored the program to suit the party-time air surrounding this momentous addition to the organ world -- and boon to the public appreciation of a great and often unsung musical niche. Thus, his selections avoided depth of expression, introspection or the elements of religiosity contained in the work of Bach, for instance.

Like Bach, Marshall is a natural improviser and transcriber from other musical settings. On Monday, he performed arrangements of Verdi opera snippets, a splash of Johann Strauss, an intriguing and meandering improvisation on themes from “West Side Story,” and his own music. Tilting toward jazz, his “Berceuse pour une femme” conveyed an almost Ellingtonian sweetness and big band-like sonorities.

Ironically, the recital’s main event had orchestral maneuvers written all over it. Charles-Marie Widor, the noted 19th century French organist-composer, created a series of solo organ “symphonies.” Marshall’s performance of Widor’s Organ Symphony No. 6 in G minor, Opus 42, No. 2, exulted in the work’s flashy, disarming displays of a clearly orchestral color palette.

Other pieces were less majestic. Marshall’s arrangement of Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus” overture, while virtuosic in the playing and valiant in the sounding in this hall, was also frothy to a fault, wanting dignity. An encore of the overture to Bernstein’s “Wonderful Town” projected a vulgar brashness suggesting a musical kinship to showy theater organs and hyper-calliopes. A little religiosity in the program wouldn’t have hurt.