SKU: A0.828227

Tune: DUKE STREET

Use: Prelude, Postlude

One Sunday my church was singing Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun as the opening hymn. It’s our tradition that the last stanza of a hymn is sung in unison, so that I as the organist can change the harmonization and keep things interesting. Sometimes I know ahead of time what I’m going to do, and sometimes I make it up on the spot.

On this particular morning I planned on being spontaneous. (Can spontaneity be planned?) When we got to the final stanza, I threw on the 16′ pedal reed and went to town.

I don’t know if this is the case for all musicians, but while I’m playing my brain is working on several different levels. Most of these are involved in actually playing the music, but there’s also a running commentary on how things are going. This commentary is usually really boring: It’s going okay. It’s going okay. It’s going okay. Sometimes the messages are more interesting: Uh-oh. She just dropped her mute. I missed that chord; remember to circle it when we’re done. My page turner appears to be on fire.

So: We’re in the final stanza of Jesus Shall Reign Where’er the Sun. Big, majestic hymn. Over a hundred congregants and choir members are enthusiastically singing in unison. I’m leading them from the organ with an improvised accompaniment that involves all of my limbs. It’s fair to say that I was concentrating hard.

Suddenly the commentary part of my brain breaks in: Dude, your feet are totally playing Canon in D. Cool!

Canon in D is the most famous work of Johann Pachelbel, a German composer who preceded Bach by a few decades. It’s overused at weddings, but it’s actually a really good piece of music. The original is for three violins and a basso continuo part, which would usually have been played by harpsichord and cello. In this case, the basso continuo plays the same eight measures again and again throughout the piece. This technique of repetition is called a ground bass. While that’s going on, the violins play several different themes on top of it.

When I was improvising that Sunday, my feet had accidentally wandered into that ground bass part, which happened to fit nicely with the melody we were singing. During the sermon (sorry Pastor!) I started going through the violin themes in my head, seeing if any of them could also match up with the hymn tune. Some of them worked and some didn’t. I decided to write a sort of theme and variations, where the hymn tune appears in various forms. Sometimes it’s played along with one of the violin themes, and sometimes a violin theme serves as an interlude on its own. And except for one passage, the left hand is always playing some version of the basso continuo theme. I also changed the meter from 4/4 to 3/4 to make it more interesting. It culminates in a climax worthy of a king. I hope you enjoy it.

SKU: A0.1148076

A rather dark arrangement for piano solo, focusing on the meaning of wonder as in a feeling of doubt or uncertainty.