THIS was a short but impressive concert on the Wesley Church organ by 15-year-old Jonathan Lee.

It was effectively a dress rehearsal for his LMusA examination, which is taking place in coming days. The LMusA diploma is the highest level of examined music performance in the country and (according to Wikipedia) only around one in 10 people who attempt it get a passing grade. I suspect not too many people who enter for this examination are only 15 years old.

The examination requires a program of works totalling between 40 and 50 minutes and Lee chose four quite different pieces of music. The first was J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D major BWV 532 followed by a Fantasia in F minor KV 594 by Mozart.

The Bach is a big, complex piece of music and Lee launched himself into it. Some parts of the fast final section were a little blurry, lacking perhaps some of the mathematical precision of Bach’s writing, but a minor distraction from very assured playing. It was interesting to see a performer intently looking at his feet in some of the complicated pedal passages.

The Mozart was more precise with a delight shift from minor to major and back again. The second half of the concert was much more modern. Maurice Duruflé’s “Prélude et Fugue sur le nom d’ALAIN” was an unexpected delight.

The end of the prelude used some rapid changes of the stops of the organ for only a couple of bars each most effectively before the middle section of the work, which was almost minimalist in its writing with slowly shifting melodies and evolving themes. The final section was more conventional but built to a solid finish.

The final work by French-Lebanese composer Naji Hakim is a showpiece. It must literally be very close to a case of “pulling out all the stops”.

It required the page turner (who happens to be Lee’s teacher) not only to turn the pages at a fair rate, but to make brief adjustments of the volume and change presets on the organ stops, sometimes with all three activities happening close together. A very exciting and, I suspect, technically challenging piece of music.

Lee rose to the occasion as he did for all four works presenting. A well-conceived and executed concert from a young artist of whom we will certainly hear much more in the future.