As the organ and religious music go hand in pedal you'd think there'd be piles of great Christmas-themed music, though I wasn't able to find as much (in the formal classical sphere) as I'd like. One piece I'd love to show you guys but couldn't find a recording of on YouTube is Gardner Read's Chorale-Fantasia, op. 50, based on "Good King Wenceslas" and morphing that old chestnut with wicked modern harmonies and dense organ sonorities. I found a good replacement piece in the Variations sur un Noël, op. 20 by Marcel Dupré, one of the most famous members of the great French organ tradition.
Dupré was a disciple of Cesar Franck through and through, stretching tonality as far as it will go through intertwining, highly chromatic counterpoint and gnarly contrasts. The theme might have a different name in France but I know it as "Now the Green Blade Riseth" and it gets a very sophisticated treatment here:
The chromaticism kicks in with the first variation, rolling and rambling and painting the town red. It's a good example of harmonic shifts that wouldn't sound nearly as good played at a slower tempo but sound great whipped past at ear-massage speed. When the piece does slow down we get to hear the haunting third variation, a canon at the octave:
This smashes right into planing dissonances:
It's not often that organ music aims to shock, so moments like this certainly stand out in the rep. Other moments of inspiration come in the form of a triple canon at the fourth and fifth:
The rest is best left for you to discover, like extra presents hidden behind other presents, and the onus remains on me to find a way to show you the Gardner Read Chorale-Fantasia in recording form. We're halfway there, aren't we? Better make the green blade speedeth to the next article! (sorry)
~PNK
The chromaticism kicks in with the first variation, rolling and rambling and painting the town red. It's a good example of harmonic shifts that wouldn't sound nearly as good played at a slower tempo but sound great whipped past at ear-massage speed. When the piece does slow down we get to hear the haunting third variation, a canon at the octave:
This smashes right into planing dissonances:
It's not often that organ music aims to shock, so moments like this certainly stand out in the rep. Other moments of inspiration come in the form of a triple canon at the fourth and fifth:
The rest is best left for you to discover, like extra presents hidden behind other presents, and the onus remains on me to find a way to show you the Gardner Read Chorale-Fantasia in recording form. We're halfway there, aren't we? Better make the green blade speedeth to the next article! (sorry)
~PNK
No comments:
Post a Comment