Month: October 2015

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Improvisation: Concert

Earlier this year, Pittsburgh was host to the American Guild of Organists Regional Convention.  As a part of the promotional efforts, I was featured as on the Pittsburgh AGO’s Youtube channel, along with some other excellent local organists.  Along with an interview, posted below, we also recorded the organ and I used Hyfrydol as my theme.  It’s a pretty fun improvisation and shows off a little of what the organ can do.  Warning: it was the summer and the organ was not in the best tuning at the time.  The final chord is a little rough, but go big or go home.

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Composition: Organ

Without further ado, here are the third and fourth Miniatures.  Miniature III (Scherzoso) is actually a second version, not the original that I had composed.  Every once in a while, I will finish a piece and play it later and have a strong feeling that the piece doesn’t work.  That happened in this piece.  Usually, this will happen in the compositional process and figure out a new path or start over.  I stuck with the Scherzoso subtitle and this much better piece was produced.

The second piece, Miniature IV (Andante Cromatica: Hommage á Louis Vierne), was built from ideas in Miniature II; namely the chromatic movement in the intermittent chordal sections.  I think the Vierne reference is subtle in Miniature II, but Miniature IV waves that reference proudly.  The 24 Pieces in Free Style (24 Pièces en style libre) have been an obvious influence for me – I even have my own Organbook with pieces in the 24 keys.  There are a few hommages there as well, but not one to Vierne.  It was time to do so!