The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost                     August 23,  2015    

The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost                     August 23, 2015    

This Sunday, the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, we have a morning service of beautiful music drawn from a variety of sources. The prelude features Voluntary VIII from Vesper Voluntaries by Edward Elgar (1857-1934), and the offertory features a vocal trio version ofLord, enthroned in heavenly splendor by William Owen (1813-1983). Elgar, the famed composer of "the graduation march," was one of England's greatest Romantic period musicians. He wrote many orchestral and chamber works in addition to the famous military marches of which Pomp and Circumstance is one. In his Vesper Voluntaries for organ, we see a different side of Elgar, however. The lyrical nature of these pieces is perfectly suited to their original purpose - organ preludes for the Roman Catholic Vespers liturgy. The organ for which Elgar wrote them was actually quite small, and their intimate nature shines through in a quiet, intimate context. Of course, they function equally well on a large organ. I never knew Elgar wrote these pieces until browsing through the now-closed Patelson's Music Store behind Carnegie Hall in NYC. Alas, those days of browsing through physical music books are gone in our current day of online shopping! The offertory, by Owen, is a famous Welsh melody, Bryn Calfaria, which was famously set by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) in a set of organ pieces. So, our English theme is present this week as we hear two great works from, in the words of William Blake (1757-1827), "England's green and pleasant land."

 

Earlier, I mentioned the bygone era of browsing through sheet music stores. This Sunday afternoon, we will celebrate a bygone era in organ, civic, and church music. Come to the Cathedral at 4:00 P. M. to hear A Night at the Symphony, an organ concert by yours truly! In the first half of this program, you will hear works inspired by orchestral sounds and some transcriptions of music written for other instruments played on the organ. Before the local symphony orchestra became standard throughout the U. S., "civic organists" played orchestral, chamber, and piano works on town hall organs across the country to appreciative audiences. Even in church services, a bubbly, sentimental style of composition and playing prevailed. Very seldom heard today, due to the influence of the Organ Reform Movement and composers here and abroad, these pieces have a unique beauty and hearken back to a specific time and an idiosyncratic kind of late nineteenth/early twentieth century music making in American life. While these works may not all qualify as "serious music," they have a place in our history and are quite fun to listen to. The second half of the program is entirely devoted to an "organ symphony" by Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937). Widor wrote these pieces to demonstrate and embrace a new kind of pipe organ that was being constructed in France during his lifetime: the French Romantic-Symphonic organ. The difference between these works and the ones on the first half of the program is simple. Widor's symphonies are "serious music" in the best sense of the word. They carry the weight and profundity of the great German traditions of organ playing coupled with a playful and dramatic 19th century French sensibility. They are real organ music in a fully Romantic context. Come hear Widor's Symphonie No. 4, a piece that literally has it all from lyrical adagios to a playful scherzo, from a learned fugue to a joyous, march-like final movement. Perhaps these bygone eras can become a part of our lives today!

 

 

Christopher Powell

Organist and Choir Master

 

 

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