Organ & Piano
Chorale Prelude and Toccata on Thaxted
These two organ pieces are both based on the noble melody from the Jupiter movement of Gustav Holst's The Planets. The thaxted tune also appears as a hymn in many hymnals. These two movements are not necessarily meant to be performed together. The shorter prelude is suitable for an offertory, and the toccata is suitable for a postlude,
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Gesangvoll: Variations on a Theme by Beethoven
for organ and oboe
This piece appears on the Heavy Pedal II compilation by Navona Records. It is a set of variations is based on the third movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30--a movement that is itself a set of variations. The title comes from Beethoven's marking: "Gesangvoll, mit innigster Empfindung" [filled with song, with deepest expression.] Beethoven’s theme is a slow, reverent, hymn-like tune that undergoes a series of variations that become ever more rapturous as the piece progresses. In Gesangvoll, rather than presenting the entire melody in each variation, certain salient moments are developed on their own, such as the plangent repeated notes that appear in the second half of the theme, or the prolonged, languorous trills of the penultimate variation. The tensions that are exploited in Beethoven’s music are further amplified and stretched out in time. Along the way, the oboe’s distinctive timbre is occasionally juxtaposed with the oboe stop of the organ. Overall, Gesangvoll is a personal response to the enormous, over-arching emotional trajectory and the concentrated lyricism of Beethoven’s sonata, where the composer seems intent on saturating every note with meaning.
Prelude on Lauda Anima
This Chorale prelude is based on the hymn tune Lauda anima, which appears in a variety of hymnals with celebratory texts such as "Praise My Soul the God of Heaven." One version uses solo saxophone, and in the other version, the melody line can be covered by the organist using a solo stop.