Andante lirico No 9 - (2021)   

for organ

for Linda West Brown

 

A theme -- a cipher on a name -- is suggested for an organ composition being run by the Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund in 2021. The organization's president, Dr. Brown, wrote me on a related subject, and I thought in part to answer with a little work based on that theme. It is stated in retrograde and then the original as an opening gesture. Thereafter, I used my own cipher t generate an antecedent theme as the second part of the overall melody, which is embedded in a multiple voice texture. Different schemes to related notes to letters have been used for centuries, of course.
 

Of the organization one reads in an article from The Diapason by Orpha Ochse:  "The Ruth and Clarence Mader Memorial Scholarship Fund was founded in 1971 to honor the memory of two outstanding Southern California musicians whose high ideals and vision were an inspiration to their many friends, students, and colleagues. ...In addition to organ-playing competitions, the Mader Fund has sponsored new organ compositions and research projects related to the organ."   Their web site URL is www.maderscholarshipfund.org.

 

My family had been involved with many church and synagogue musicians throughout southern California, and among the many was Clarence Maer. On the current board are many from succeeding generations, as the art of the organ is furthered by the efforts of many.
 

An organ work composed in 2018 based on a text by Clarence Mader is The air is fair and kind today . On that web page more of Mader's work may be learned, as well as another score may be downloaded and another demo heard as well.

 

 

3 pages, circa 4' 00" an MP3 demo is here: 

 

The score is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this organ score.

 

Andante lirico No 9 - 8 1/2 x 11