Category: Composition

I’m a little behind in getting this up as I usually write about the recording and video as I upload it. Let’s get to it then! In recent times, I have been asking on social media what hymn tunes folks would like settings of and one that was requested was ADORO TE DEVOTE. (The tune is also known as ADORO DEVOTE, at least in the Hymnal 1982.) The text that is commonly associated to this tune/text a communion text – something that Thomas Aquinas wrote. I should say here that I did not consider the text in composing the piece in any particular way; to be more clear, it was the tune that guided the composition more than any other consideration.

That all being said, I leaned on the meditative qualities of the tune. I devised a pretty simple rhythmic and melodic figure/motif that is used throughout the piece. What’s funny about devising something like that, I wonder if it will be interesting enough to last all three to four minutes of the piece. I also wonder if there’s enough in that figure to lend itself to mutations and adaptations. Ultimately, I think that this time, it worked!

If you listen to the piece or have the score in front of you, I would like to observe the repeat sign at the beginning. I mentioned that potential problem of an idea being too repetitive and a repeat sign is an easy way to accomplish that. This sounds silly but my solution was a simple one: add a dynamic change to the repeat. I think that gives the arc of the whole piece a nice trajectory and indicates that there will be all sorts of dynamic swells in the piece (pun intended). Funny enough, I used the same trick on Es Ist Ein Ros, only in reverse with the repeat being quieter. Lastly, I’ll just say that I leaned into a slight Messiaen like sound at the end which was a lot of fun. Go download the score here and happy playing out there!

The piece I am presenting today comes from another set of Chorale Preludes and Postludes that I finished recently – this set being for the Christmas season. I didn’t record any of the Chorale Preludes and Postludes VI, which I may get to at a later date. But for this more recent set, I had a rare compositional experience that I felt deserved a recording and a story. Or perhaps an explanation of a rarefied moment.

Depending on the piece that I am writing and the needs of the particular work, I most often work from both ends of the candle. I write the beginning, I composer the end, I make plans and things meet in the middle. This includes, but is not limited to, many of my improvisations, both weird Evening Improvisations such as THIS RECENT IMPROV, or even my more predictable works such as the Prelude, Adagio, and Fugue, which was taking queues from Bach’s version of the same set of titles. I often plan things out as a good composer/improviser should – the beginning informs the end and everything in between.

BUT, that does not mean one should not be open to the possibility of something unfolding in a chronological order – a friend of mine calls this discover writing. That’s a very apt title/name for that kind of composition and that is the case with this Chorale Arrangement. I personally think of this as a Prelude – a piece that happens before the actual singing of the hymn. I do not think that this arrangement is earth shattering by any means, but it is something I think that is worth consideration; meaning I think it holds up well against other arrangements of the hymn tune (I’m thinking of Brahms in particular).

It’s hard to talk about a piece of music that simple FLOWS out of one’s consciousness. Perhaps I’ll record the other Christmas Chorale pieces as both went through massive edits, but this one did not. Once it was finished, it needed no edits. That is a rare thing for me! I am usually pretty critical of my composing, and this REALLY applies to keyboard works, but this is a rare moment where the piece “wrote itself.” By that logic, I mean to state that the composition was written from beginning to end and it somehow worked out. This was not an improvisation which has that “unfolding” aspect – it was a composition that “unfolded” in a similar manner over several days of looking at the score.

Maybe someday, I’ll improvise on this German Chorale; but for now, let’s let this very nice prelude be a thing.

Two uploads in about two weeks! In fact, I have been sort of sitting on these chorale preludes and postludes for some time. Hence why I have been able to upload two volumes, six pieces in total, in a very short time. I actually have another volume started for some Christmas hymns/chorales, but I may hold off on editing and finishing it until the fall. There is not much need for a toccata on Antioch right now lol.

This particular set is the first “general” hymn volume containing works on general hymns of praise – Lauda Anima, King’s Weston, and St. Denio. I really like all three of these! Small thought from the composer here: I am sometimes ambivalent about the things I compose. In fact, most folks who create art sometimes run into this. Off the top of my head, Tchaikovsky famously didn’t write The Seasons for anything other than money. If you look at my compositional works for organ, I actually have very few compositions based on chorales but recently I have been kind of inspired. Maybe it’s the end of a semester and the desire to FINISH something. Maybe I have been wanting to write down some improvisational ideas. Maybe I have a whole bunch of compositional energy needing to be released!

I think it is all of the above. That being said, I do not want to do the Paul Manz thing where I record myself improvising and then write it down and edit it. Mostly, it’s an avenue to express my thoughts and ideas about a particular tune that I have in the moment I compose the work on it. And here, with King’s Weston, we have something a little different. The outer two pieces, Lauda Anima, a Bach-like piece, and St. Denio, a toccata, are great and would record well but I am always attracted to the introspective pieces.

With the this work on King’s Weston, there is a weird sense of tonality based on the phrases and I attempted to manipulate that as much as possible in this setting. The repeat came generally late in the compositional process but it felt necessary. The way I interpreted that repeat was to change the solo voice by simply add tremolo. I think there is a lot of opportunity for interpretation in that repeat. Read that here: the composer wants you to mess with the repeat in regards to registration! Enjoy my rendition of this work and go download the Chorale Preludes and Postludes V!

In my life and career as a composer, particularly an organist composer, I really haven’t written a whole lot of works on chorales. A big part of that is I’m not wholly interested in using predetermined compositional material as a part of the composition process. I certainly have before, both in choral and organ works, but generally, my primary interest is in creating something new. But one thing I think is important is creating works that are easier and accessible to more people and sometimes that means crossing into spaces that I don’t usually.

Which comes to the Chorale Preludes and Postludes that I’ve put up on IMSLP! It has been a little while since I have posted a new set and it is time that I did. I’ve actually had the fourth set in the queue for a little while and with this current Easter season, it seemed timely to get it out. Granted, the release of it hasn’t been as timely for the Easter season as I would have liked, but it is out when it is out. Keep an eye out as I will have another set or two soon!

While I say that I do not like using pre-existing material for compositions, there are hymn tunes and chants that I adore. One of those is the tune GELOBT SEI GOTT – the Alleluia at the end of each verse is really awesome! To the earlier point about accessible works, this particular setting is for potentially manuals only. I personally love using multiple manuals and this piece touches on that ever so slightly. But, it is also possible to do this all on a single manual. You’ll hear in my recording where the two manuals overlap – there is even room for the solo to end up in the pedals.

Last thought here: as a composer it is a challenge to write music that has solid flow while being presented in a simple manner. I really like this setting (not that I dislike the other two in the set) as it utilizes the organ instrument in a fun and unique way while also being generally accessible. Click here for the score (go to Chorale Prelude and Postludes IV) and here is my recording of the second of those pieces:

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today I deliver an improvisation I recorded yesterday and today I present it as a case of what to do when things go wrong. Before I begin, I want recall an amazing concert I attended at the University of Kansas where the AGO held a pedagogy conference. There were MANY, MANY great concerts and one of them was a two and a half hour improvisation concert given by Philippe Lefebvre. Holy cow it was a concert of endurance, both for the performer and the listener; it was absolutely amazing and everyone there was on board. There was one moment though, one of many, that stood out to me: Lefebvre hit a wrong piston and then had to quickly adjust what was happening on the fly. It was quite astounding how a “mistake” turned into something as a part of the whole rather than an accident.

Well, that happened to me in this improvisation! I accidentally bumped a piston in the middle of this improvisation and it turned out to be way more interesting than I had planned. Here was the original plan: I had transcribed the sound of a bell for a talk I gave at a local AGO meeting and given a short demonstration of what a bell might sound like in the most literal reading of that particular harmonic spectrum (the loudest pitches are C#, E/E#, B, and a higher B). I planned a sort of typical ABA arch form and well, the unintended piston certainly helped that out! I wanted to build the harmonics up and really mess with them and the piston abruptly interrupted that arc: but when given lemons, make lemon bars (I like lemon bars more than lemonade, lol).

All that being said, I like the bell sound! I used a small amount of stops to create the general hierarchy between the manuals and pedals and used the boxes to a sort of maximal affect: a constantly revolving harmonic spectrum. This is even punctuated by the accidental piston which I tried to use in a devolving manner to get back to where I started: thus creating an ABA like form. I recently spoke about this on a podcast and it was kind of fun to have it happen in an actual recording.

Look at me get several posts up in a single month! Actually, it has a lot to do with my weekly routine and I have started to include some recording time. Since I have begun my position at St. Andrew’s, I spend most of the afternoon there and take advantage of it. I have been trying to complete Sonata No. 1 at Duquesne University’s Chapel, which I also have occasionally been able to be in, just not lately. In the mean time – I get to start presenting Sonata No. 2!

The Sonata No. 2 begins with a Scherzo – something that may be a general misnomer. Scherzo’s are usually in 3 and are often the second or third movement of a Symphony or Sonata. The word scherzo means “joke” and this piece is not particularly a joke. Scherzos are also often in a Rondo form: ABACA; that is also not the case. This all said, I need to explain how this Sonata came into being. Shortly after finishing the Sonata No. 1, the Organ Artist Series here in Pittsburgh was holding a competition and let me just say that one of the judges commented that Sonata No. 1 would have been a winner. That little nudge included a suggestion to write another one.

I struggled with coming up with new material when I first started trying to compose this Sonata. I had just finished one! How could I come up with more and new material! Well, something I have done for quite some time is hang on to all my old material and I decided to explore some of it and I found something I had written from when I was an undergrad – something from around the time of my first official “BCB” number, The Bishop’s March. The opening 16ths in the right hand and the four note theme: A-E-F-Bb was something I wrote in the very early 2000s. In hindsight, I fell like I intuited that I wasn’t ready to deal with what I felt was a good idea.

Fast forward to late 2017 and I need to figure out what to do and this old material was the catalyst for the entire Sonata! I have told the handful of composition students that I have had to hang on to EVERY idea as you can never predict when something might become useful. I was in part imitating Enrico Bossi’s Scherzo, which in my memory, I didn’t hear until I was in Vancouver where Denis Bédard played it, but I distinctly remember composing my idea in Missoula, MT before moving to Vancouver, BC. Memory is a funny thing! To this Sonata, it doesn’t matter – I found my inspiration!

What is clear: the simple gesture in the Right Hand is really fun to play fast and the Theme mentioned above is harmonically dubious setting up a nice tour through a series of harmonically and chromatically related key areas. In my more wizened years as a composer, improviser, and performer, this movement really wrote itself. I remember struggling with the harmonic language about twenty years ago and when it came to writing it in 2017, it was so much easier to deal with the dissonance. I don’t have too much more to add here (I could talk about this movement FOREVER), just know that this movement is the fruition of about TWENTY years.

The Sonata No. 2 is available here in my shop: https://baetzeditions.com/product/sonata-no-2/