I posted this video and score about a week ago but didn’t want to write about it because I had just posted the second movement of Paschal. The corona virus and my current position at St. Andrew’s Episcopal has afforded me one small thing: the opportunity to write a series of generally manuals only works that could work on a big instrument and a small portative, like the one at the church! Quite some time ago, I was commissioned by Carson Cooman to write a work with this in mind and it produced the Fantasia primi toni. One of the reasons I recorded it on the Paul Manz practice organ at Duquesne was to demonstrate the piece’s ability to adapt itself to various instruments.
When the pandemic caused churches to close and many moved services to streaming, my original thought was to use the portative for St. Andrew’s. Consequently, it had me looking at my manuals only liturgical music and as a composer, what that might mean for new compositions. This has manifested itself in a number of compositions before, in particular the Miniatures volume I and volume II. After releasing some compositional energy with this free work, I wanted to continue this general trend and compose more works in this Bachian vein, but with my own small twists.
And here is the next one: it shares the fact that it has three movements, but the first two in this one are somewhat related. If I were to use this liturgically, I would probably do the fantasy and variation as prelude and the toccatina as postlude. I have not fact checked this, but the melody may or may not come from Vierne – which is just fine as I love music that is strongly related to composers who influence me. There are certainly some Messian-like moments as well. Listen to the work and get the score here on IMSLP!