The Program
This project was inspired by my work at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas, TX. After two years of working for a Catholic Church, I was motivated to program a concert inspired by the centuries of organ music inspired by the Catholic faith.
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This program is meant to showcase the vastness of Catholic organ music from the 17th century to the present. The program was received with great enthusiasm by the parish community, and would be a perfect addition to any concert season.
Concert Program
This program is a humble attempt to showcase the vastness of Catholic organ music from the 17th century to the present.
Kenga e Krushqve
Sir James MacMillan has gained a reputation as one of the greatest composers of our time. His works span genres from congregational masses to works for double orchestra, massive symphony chorus, organ, and every instrument in between. Born in Scottland in 1959, MacMillan has been commissioned by every major orchestra, performed by the great musicians of our time, and recorded by the preeminent record labels. One could easily argue that he is one of the most important composers of the 21st Century. At the center of his artistic output is his devout Catholic faith and devotion to expanding the tradition of Catholic music while embracing and drawing inspiration from its’ centuries long history.
MacMillan wrote Kenga e Krushqve (Song and Dance of the in-laws) for his son’s wedding in 2018. In honor of the Albanian bride's family, the jubilant dance-piece is based on a well-known Albanian folksong, with a distinctive modal contour and an insistent and irresistible rhythm.
Suite du Premier Ton, C.46
Louis-Nicolas Clérambault’s family was no stranger to music, his father and two of his sons were musicians. Studying voice and composition with Jean-Baptiste Moreau (Composer of the famous Rondeau used as the theme for Masterpiece Theater), Clérambault also mastered the violin, harpsichord, and organ. He became the organist at the church of the Grands-Augustins and After the death of Louis XIV and Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers, he succeeded the latter at the organ of the church of Saint-Sulpice and the royal house of Saint-Cyr, an institution for young girls from the poor nobility. It was here that he developed the genre of the "French cantata". Clérambault began writing a book of organ pieces encompassing every key. The first two pieces in this book are both suites, Suite du Premier Ton and Suite du Deuxième Ton. While both of these pieces give a strong start to the book, unfortunately, these are the only pieces of the Livre d’Orgue that were finished.
Variationen und Finale über ein altflämisches Lied
Variationen und Finale über ein altflämisches Lied (Variations and Finale on an old Flemish song, 1929) was the first of Peeters’ big concert works. He loved his country’s heritage of carol and folk music, and this tune, Laet ons mit herten reyne, was one of his favorites. The work is in some respects a tribute to Marcel Dupré, to whom it is dedicated, and Dupré’s own Variations sur un vieux Noël, Op 20, provided an exact model for the first two variations, with a solo trumpet accompanied by a chromatic counter-melody, and a canon for two flutes accompanied by a murmuring voix céleste. But Peeters could never be a mere imitator, and this music is very much his own. His six vividly contrasted variations are more fully fleshed out than Dupré’s, and this is far more than a piece of fanciful virtuoso display. The bouncing parallel fifths and dancing pedals of the third variation are followed by melancholy and mystery in the fourth variation, and then by a scintillating stream of chromatic fourths in the fifth variation. The heart of the work comes in the eloquent sixth variation, where the tune is decorated in the soprano voice in the style of a Bach chorale prelude. The Finale begins, like Dupré’s, with a fast fugue full of crafty contrapuntal devices, and then erupts into a thunderous concluding toccata. -from notes by David Gammie © 2011
Book of Visions (2015)
IX. Aria: Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock
X. The Seven Trumpets
IV. He Shall Wipe Away Every Tear
Book of Visions is a family of twelve standalone pieces for solo organ that are nonetheless grouped together because of their interrelatedness and their overall unifying theme (imagery from the book of Revelation).
IX. Aria: Behold, I Stand at the Door and Knock is an intimate appeal. It is called “aria” because it carries a prominent cantabile melody that is “sung” to the listener. The designation as “aria” also captures the sense in which arias often feature a stopping of time or plot in order to focus on a particular thought or realization. Although this piece very clearly begins in a C major center, it is left open-ended at its close, awaiting a response…
X. The Seven Trumpets features several martial and fanfare-like moments juxtaposing foreboding chromatic passages. It contains a short quotation from Knagg’s brass symphony, Ver Novum (movement II: the tears of this century....)
IV. He Shall Wipe Away Every Tear places the chant melody of Absterget Deus in dialogue with my choral motet Blessed Are Those Who Mourn. The parts quoted from Knagg’s motet correspond to the text “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be consoled.”
Chant used: Absterget Deus Omnen Lacrimam
Translated text: “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away…”
Sonata Eroïca Op. 94
In November 1930, Jongen premiered his Sonata Eroïca in Brussels. Six years later, it was published as his Op. 94 in Paris, dedicated to Joseph Bonnet, who was the organist of the city’s St. Eustache Church. The grand opening use of pedal points and parallel chromatic chords suggests a combination of fanfares and cadenzas, before a distinct 11-bar melody in C-sharp minor appears, almost as if it were the theme in a set of variations. As such, the theme is repeated two more times, each at a slightly faster tempo. After a thorough development section in which the theme is heard in fragments weaving throughout many keys and textures, the theme occurs in large chords with the full organ, eventually moving into an impeccably written fugue, he soon abandons the textbook in favor of the rhapsodic style of writ-ing with which this work reaches its truly heroic conclusion.