Adoro Devote - Healey Willan
Blessed are the Pure of Heart - W. Voullaire
Gracious Spirit Dwell With Me - K. Lee Scott
"Preambulum" in A Minor - Buxtehude
Hymns: #610 Blaenhafren, #314 Adoro Devote, #586 Pleading Savior
The prelude and Communion anthem for this week are both based on the offertory hymn for Sunday Adoro Devote, Humbly I Adore Thee. The prelude is by the Canadian composer Healey Willan. His setting is very simple. The chant melody is played on a solo stop in the left hand with accompaniment in the right hand that outlines the chant melody in shorter note values. The communion anthem features the same tune but sets the text Gracious Spirit, Dwell with Me. The tune is again presented unadorned. It is interesting to me that in both of the settings for Sunday the composers/arrangers chose to present the tune almost completely unaltered. The harmonies are varied but the tune remains the same. That is the nice thing about a really good tune. You don't have to change it to do interesting things with it.
The gradual anthem comes from a Moravian composer. There is very little information available on him so I would direct you to the info in the front cover of the octavo. The editor points out the similarities to the writings of Brahms which I think can be easily heard. I think that for me the thing which stands out is the stark contrast between the more timid, imitative writing of "Blessed are the pure in heart" to the strong statement " they shall see the Father" (the emphasis is mine). For Voullaire it does not seem to be a question. This is a promise and God keeps his promises.
The postlude is just fun. Many of us are familiar with the story of Bach walking hundreds of miles to hear Buxtehude play. This "Preambulum" is part of the stylus phantasticus tradition. In this kind of writing the composer alternates free sections with more structured fugal sections and shows of the different choruses, or ensembles available on the organ. This piece opens with a free section followed by a 4 voice fugue then a freer fugue in triple meter and closes with a free toccata like passage. Listen for the long pedal points at the beginning. In the Baroque period the orchestra would tune during the first section of these preludes to the organ pedals while the organist was improvising. This piece is meant to be free and fun, to sound like the organist is making it up...because he might be.
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