Category: Organ

It has been a fruitful day today! I made some time to sit at Duquesne’s Chapel organ and make a recording of a new work. And not just any work, but a series I look to continue for the rest of my compositional life: Miniatures. I believe it is important for organists to have access to newer music that is meant for both performance and liturgy. Granted, I don’t think that individual movements of the first set of Miniatures is going to light up organist’s recital lists, but having access to pieces that are not hymn tune based are really important.

The first Volume (something I just decided to name them) has some of my favorite little works I have written. There’s a post-minimalist piece, a jokey Italian title, and a tribute to one of the great organist composers. I’ve used this moniker as an avenue to produce technically accessible pieces that are also not specifically liturgical. Of all the works I produce, I feel like these works reflect my improvisational style and my sense of humor.

And the beginning of the next volume of Miniatures starts with a piece titled Andante Religioso. The “religious” side of it was the idea of antiphony – each line has a sort of response. It’s a simple idea, but short pieces like these work well with simple ideas. Download the score on IMSLP here!

I’m catching up to our current week of Lent! As these Lenten Improvisations were being composed, I remember thinking that the compositions as a whole needed to have an arc. For these first three, I wanted them to slowly get closer to something resembling tonality; meaning I wanted the pieces to be less and less abstract as they came, ultimately leading to the final movement for Palm Sunday.

My relationship with this movement has always been interesting. Every time I come back to it after not playing it for sometime I always question the piece. Composers often write works that they are not totally satisfied with and yet still release them. The compositional device used is pretty obvious: canon. It is a device I find consistently useful and always interesting.

I think what happens is that the piece begins and I groan at the obvious compositional technique used until the pedals come in and remember how good the two canons/imitations sound against each other. And by the end of the work, with all the imitations/counterpoints moving, it’s a really cool effect. Like the last two movements, this one also ends with the sound/silence effect, but I feel it is less important to the overall purpose and goal of the piece. Still useful, but this is again pointing to where the Lenten Improvisations are going as a whole.

A little over a week ago, I wrote about the first Lenten Improvisation. I talked a little about the curiosities about naming a composition “improvisation.” Or at least having a thoroughly composed piece sound as though the performer is improvising it. This set was specifically designed to sound in manner of how I like to improvise and this second movement is again not an exception.

I often like to build “towers” of sound in my improvising (here’s an example from a few years ago); this second work is a written out expression of my use of that technique. It moves a lot more than the linked example of me improvising, but that is one of the advantages of composing. I was able to get a stronger, more cohesive arc in the overall presentation of the material. Similar to the first movement, it ends with silence as the final “note” from the modestly dissonant final chord.

I have some excellent news! A number of posts in the recent year has had me lamenting the condition of the organ at the Monastery. I have even neglected making many posts because its condition. As of a few weeks ago, the Monastery is looking to acquire a new organ! Or rather, a new old organ. Fingers crossed: the current instrument on the radar is an 1885 Hook and Hastings. There is nothing like it in the city and it will sound fantastic in the Monastery’s excellent acoustic.

In the mean time, I am trying to take advantage of the one instrument I have some access to: the Duquesne Univserity Chapel organ. It is a recent Jaeckel instrument inspired by Charles Tournemire’s writings, which is quite apparent in the stop list. It is a good instrument and I am all for using trackers. They keep us organists honest in our technique.

These Lenten Improvisations were born out of trying to compose in a manner of how I sometimes improvise. The difference between improvisation and composition, at least for me, is a strange one. Composition often starts in a similar manner as an improvisation, but obviously goes in a more directed manner as more time is given to flesh out ideas. But trying to compose and make it sound improvisatory was an interesting task. This first improvisation ends with something I was starting to do more at the time, which was include long, somewhat dissonant moments resolving into silence. That idea definitely returns in the subsequent movements.

Lastly, you can get the score for free here on IMSLP!

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!

I found another video with no blog post! In fact, this video has an early piece that I am really proud of. A quick story: I was nearing the end my (first) master’s degree at Duquesne and I had been working on the biggest piece I had ever composed at the time: the Seven Last Words (part 1, part 2). About two weeks before my recital, the organist I had originally asked dropped out. A friend of mine, Jaehee Kim stepped in and learned the organ part quickly and I believe the recital went very well.

In thanks to her, I wrote a piece for her with her name in it. The Seven Last Words is a very ponderous piece fitting Lent, Palm Sunday, and Good Friday very well. I wanted to write something in contrast, something as an expression of pure joy. This piece is that work and I love it. The two pieces together represent a high point of my early life as a composer. When I get around to revising the Seven Last Words (soon!), I’ll write more about my hindsight on these pieces.

The performance you hear in the recording is Jaehee’s Master’s recital premier at St. Paul Cathedral on the fabulous Beckerath organ there. Due to it’s German neo-Baroque design, I wrote a Prelude in the stylus fantasticus and a Fugue after J.S. Bach. The fugue contains Jaehee Kim’s name as the opening of the subject and ends with a quote similar to BWV 543. I  am so happy to have Jaehee as a friend and am proud of this premier.

PS: The photo in the video is of the Monastery I work at, not St. Paul Cathedral.

Greetings post-Kansas City AGO National Convention!  It’s Sunday and I am both rejuvenated and quite tired. There was so much: great music, workshops, and some very powerful worship ceremonies. I was particularly fond of the dance pieces I saw as they were very moving (pun intended – but seriously, I had to hold back tears). It was so nice to see old friends, make new ones, and there is never enough time to really take it all in. But of course, for me, the premier of the Sonata No. 1, was a high point.

I was commissioned by the National Convention to write a work that the average organist can play and that would be useful for both church services and concerts. In my mind, a sonata seems the perfect form for that expectation. Sonatas are fluid things: the individual movements can work independently while becoming a larger, cohesive whole when done together. Jennifer Pascual played the premier excellently. The Sonata No. 1 is available through Selah publishing. I am so proud and humbled to be presenting this to you all!

And now some shameless self-promotion. I have created a $5 coupon good for anything in the store. Just use “agokc2018” during checkout to receive the discount and enjoy the music you purchase. The coupon is good until the end of August and thank you for supporting my compositions. Happy playing out there! (PS: To be clear, the coupon works on my site, not Selah’s.)

 

This composition is the last of the set of three lenten chorale preludes for the hymn St. Flavian.  Here is where I admit that this particular movement went through a whole bunch of drafts before it got to the version that it’s currently in.  One thing I have tried to do with these preludes is leave them open to interpretation.  I decided to register this movement for manuals only, strings in the right hand, flutes in the left.  That was after I had a different registration where I had the upper two voices for the hands and the chorale in the pedals; namely a trio registration.  I also first played it fairly slow but decided to record it at a faster tempo.

That’s all a round about way to say that I have tried to make these preludes open ended.  I love the idea that a composition can take a different shape depending on who is performing it.  There are compositions that I want to have specific outcomes, but not here.  Don’t forget to download the score here!