December 8, 2013 - Advent 2

Impromptu Pastorale Op. 27 - Dudley Buck
Every Valley - Joseph M. Martin
He Shall Come Down Like Rain - Dudley Buck
Magnificat - Johann Pachelbel

Hymns: #76 Winchester New, #67 Psalm 42,
              #597 Jerusalem

The music this week is primarily American with a touch of the German Baroque thrown in at the tail end. The Pachelbel fugue hardly seems out of place alongside the gradual anthem written by Joseph Martin which, though written only thirteen years ago is written in the style of a baroque chorus. The prelude and communion anthem are written by the American born and German trained Dudley Buck. The Impromptu Pastorale could easily have been influenced by the Pastorale of J.S. Bach. The communion anthem is very much Victorian American but Buck sticks a fugue in two thirds of the way through it which shows his knowledge of counterpoint.

Dudley Buck (1839-1909) was an American organist and composer who trained at the Leipzig Conservatory and later studied in Paris. Upon returning to the United States he took a job in Hartford. However, he was not satisfied and moved to Chicago in 1869. He lost everything in the Chicago fire of 1871 and moved to Boston, accepting a post at the New England Conservatory. In 1875 he moved to New York City where he spent the remainder of his career at Holy Trinity Church. Buck was the first American organ recitalist and spent part of his career touring playing orchestral transcriptions and bringing the music of Bach and Mendelssohn to American audiences. He also wrote the first American organ sonata. This Impromptu Pastorale Op. 27 is typical of Buck’s lighter character pieces. The melody is lyrical though a bit sentimental and is passed around throughout the orchestral stops on the organ starting with the oboe and moving to flute and clarinet. The anthem He Shall Come Down Like Rain begins with a quartet followed by a soprano solo before the full choir enters. Buck then writes a short fugue before moving to thick chords at a faster tempo and finally an Amen. His choral music was quite popular during his lifetime. Some of this was due to his proximity to the Handel and Haydn Society which premiered some of his large scale works. His secular cantatas on Manifest Destiny were very successful in the United States.

Joseph Martin (b. 1953) is an American composer that started his career as a concert pianist and has since become the head of the Sacred music department at Shawnee Press. Every Valley is taken from his cantata The Winter Rose which tells the story of the Birth of Christ with the metaphor of Christ as the Rose of Sharon. This is a fun imitation of Baroque style complete with a short imitative section. This is a fresh take on the classic text from Isaiah and offers a nice alternative to the Messiah aria.

Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) wrote a series of fugues on the Magnificat. Contrary to what popular culture would have us believe, he wrote more than just the Canon in D. This series of pieces features fugues for keyboard, not specifically organ, but keyboard. These were composed during his final years while he was at Nuremberg. This fugue is a peppy, light way to move forward toward Christmas.