Wow. August was crazy. But that is for another time. As it has been a little while and with the ongoing problems with the organ at the Monastery, I decided to dig around in my recordings of pieces when I rediscovered this little gem. Back in the early fall of 2014, the wonderful composer and performer Carson Cooman reached out to me for a commission. I have linked to his Youtube channel before as he has recorded a number of my works from my collection, Organbook.
The commission he requested was a work that could be performed on a small one stop instrument with no pedals, not quite in equal temperament, all the way to a four manual, 400 rank organ. This presented an interesting challenge that I decided to tackle through a historical form: the free fantasy. I also chose a mode that would work in any temperament, the dorian mode, hence the title. Here is a little of what I wrote for the program notes that addresses some of the specifics of the themes:
“The first theme is a descending chromatic motive, commonly found in a number of early keyboard works. The second theme is an original theme, sol-do-te-la-sol, with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck in mind. Lastly, the work takes the form of an early rhetorical work with differing ideas contrasting each of the six sections of the work.”
Lastly, the recording was made on a really cool organ. Duquesne hosts the composer Paul Manz’ practice organ. Paul Manz was a well known composer of liturgical music and has a large number of liturgical works. I am not exactly sure how Duquesne ended up with it, but since it is a tracker with a limited stop list, I felt it could represent the Fantasia well. It is not a perfect recording (you can hear me pulling stops very well), but it shows how the piece can work on a small instrument. Perhaps I will record this on a larger instrument some day… Enjoy the piece!