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Organ recital: Brent te Velde
StStephensRVA |
05/22/2022 |
Brent te Velde, director of music at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia, performs organ works by Cesar Franck in the final concert honoring the 200th anniversary of Franck's birth. The concert took place Friday, May 20, 2022.
Prelude and Fugue in A major, BWV 536 by J.S. Bach, played by Brent te Velde
StStephensRVA |
02/02/2021 |
Prelude and Fugue in A major, BWV 536 by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
This prelude and fugue is typically counted among Bach's youthful preludes and fugues, likely dating from his early twenties. The prelude's playful arpeggiated figures show Bach's assimilation of the style of Buxtehude, and both the prelude and the fugue radiate a singing and charming spirit. The fugue shows Bach's early mastery of the form, and includes many contrapuntal tricks including stretto, in which two entries of the fugue subject are layered upon one another. Another Bach trademark occurs when the fugue is in three parts, without pedal, and all three voices gradually draw together until they are, for only half a beat, separated only by a step. This beautiful moment of dissonance occurs three times. Bach's most youthful fugues tend to end with improvisatory flourishes, and while this fugue is more disciplined, he can't resist ending with dramatic gestures of thirds moving in contrary motion in both hands, and the briefest of solo pedal cadenzas. Most importantly, the fugue subject and other contrapuntal material transcend learned counterpoint, becoming nothing less than an invitation to a dance. Each successive fugue subject entry passes the role of the dance leader, while the other voices perform different, but complementary steps, forming all together a harmonious whole.
Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring by J.S. Bach, played by Greg Vick
StStephensRVA |
12/02/2020 |
Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, Cantata BWV 147: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring J.S. Bach (1685-1750), arr. David N. Johnson
Known to many by its English title, “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” the work comes from Bach’s Cantata 147, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and mouth and deed and life). Both the text and the chorale melody (Werde munter, number 336 in The Hymnal 1982) are borrowed. Originally composed in 1716, an expanded and revised version of the cantata was presented in 1723 which included this dancelike movement with its joyful motive in triple meter derived from the first line of the chorale melody. David N. Johnson has provided us a clean and accessible arrangement for organ.
Organ Suite: II. Sarabande on 'Land of Rest' by Gerald Near
StStephensRVA |
07/11/2020 |
American composer Gerald Near (b. 1942), a student of Leo Sowerby and celebrated composer of church music, wrote this lovely piece in 1966 as part of a larger work, his Suite for Organ. You will recognize the familiar tune “Land of Rest” as hymn 304 “I come with joy to meet my Lord” or hymn 620 “Jerusalem, my happy home.” The tune is set in the style of a sarabande, a slow Baroque dance movement in triple meter. Greg Vick plays as part of a series designed to provide an opportunity to hear our talented musicians play the Aeolian-Skinner organ while we are unable to worship together.