Music and Texts of GARY BACHLUND
Vocal Music | Piano | Organ | Chamber Music | Orchestral | Articles and Commentary | Poems and Stories | Miscellany | FAQs
Suite for Organ in F- (2024)
for organ
for Carson Cooman
August 19th of this year, Carson wrote me about "...a little project with some composer friends that I hope will coalesce over the next year or so into an intriguing recital program. It was spawned by two suites that were entitled respectively "E" and "C" (titled with the single letter in quotation marks.) The concept is that each suite is 4-6 movements, each movement titled with a word (in any language/languages) with that letter, and then also the suite as a whole being basically centered on the note/key in question (within the realm of contemporary harmony/modality of course). (So the movements of "E" for example included "Entrada", "Elevazione", "Echo", etc.) It gave me the idea of a recital program of seven new such suites by seven different composers (A-B-C-D-E-F-G). Given how the first two suites emerged, I'm saying that the pieces should be suitable for a small, two-manual organ without significant independent pedal voices. Pedal is present/useful, but primarily coupled to the manuals (with a 16 and maybe also an 8). There are a number of organs in churches in New England with this sort of specification (especially from the 19th century), and since the first two suites ended up (unintentionally) this way, it seemed to make sense to keep it going, which gives some nice performance possibilities. So since you always seem up for an unusual project idea, would you like to write one?
The answer for this fine musician -- organist and composer -- was yes. And so....
A first movement, after a gesture which then functions something like a thematic curtain between episodes, takes the subdominant and dominant of F, and by the use of two manuals for moments and through arches melds them over the tonic.
From fantasia to a a fauxbourdon, and from major to minor, the work progresses, changing mood. The parallelism echoes from the early periods through to the impressionists and beyond.
A fugato, not a fully formed fugue, then again changes the mood and mode, minor back to major. The domains also reflect the tonic, subdominant and dominant.
The fandango dance rhythm then shifts the mood again, in a very loose song form.
Borrowing from the language of vocal technique, this fil di voce or "thread of the voice" returns to the minor and another manner of "bleeding" F's subdominant and dominant minor triads together for a light lingering dissonance between them..
A suite in F needs a finale, and therefore the return to the major and this allegretto.
15 pages, circa 13' 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.
