This is the first solo recording on the grand Lively-Fulcher organ which was built in 2002 and is situated in the lush acoustics of the Memorial Church of the Holy Sepulcher at the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America in Washington, DC. The organ is played for Masses, a recital series and other periodic concerts, but in its first quarter-century of musical service it has not been featured on a solo album until this one.
All of the music recorded here has one or more connections to America’s capital city, Washington, DC, to another nation’s capital, or both. All of it comes from the 20th and 21st centuries. And, it’s all capital music! Each piece is “a find”—surprising, attractive, useful, but not widely known—and so deserves a broader audience. To quote Jiří Ropek, a former student of Bedřich Wiedermann and editor of some of his organ works, including two on this recording, “As a matter of course we are interested in compositions for organ that deserve a greater publicity.”
All of these compositions work in recital, and—really more important—most of them work well in a church service.
Anðelko Klobučar 1931–2016
Intrada, Pastorale e Toccata (1994)
A Vacation Find: During a July 2017 trip to Prague, Czech Republic, my husband and I chanced upon an international organ festival at St. Vitus Cathedral within the Prague Castle complex. In a Croatian organist’s program that included several toccatas, we found the best takeaway to be this versatile triptych by his elder compatriot—the composer, professor, and longtime organist of Zagreb’s cathedral, Anðelko Klobučar.
Bedřich Wiedermann 1883–1951
Two Chorale Preludes
- I. Anděl Gabriel (Angel Gabriel), composed 1913 on a Moravian folk hymn
- II. O, hlavo, plná trýzně (O sacred head, now wounded), composed 1934
A Revisited Find: As a high school student impressed by the Pipedreams organ program on public radio, I ordered a volume of Bedřich Wiedermann’s music after admiring a loud concert piece of his. Years later, I paid more attention to the Two Chorales quietly waiting within the same book, composed for Advent and Lent.
Czech organ virtuoso, composer, and professor Bedřich Wiedermann has been called the “Czech Dupré.” His compositional output comprises 350 opus numbers of widely varied instrumental and vocal music. He concertized extensively in his home country and performed abroad between the world wars (in England, New York City, Sweden, Germany, Belgium). The Angel Gabriel chorale prelude treats not the well-known Basque Advent carol, but one from Moravia—the region where Wiedermann grew up and where he researched folk and sacred songs in the early 1900s before moving to Prague. The classic Passion chorale, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, forms the basis of the Lenten prelude.
Ronald Arnatt 1930–2018
Sonata for Organ in three movements
- I. Grave–Allegro–Più mosso e tranquillo–Allegro
- II. Threnody: Andante tranquillo
- III. Dance in Five (Vivace)
Seek, and Ye Shall Find: When Dr. Arnatt visited my undergraduate school, Valparaiso University, in 1989, I enjoyed his organ recital and especially this sonata. I did not get to meet him that afternoon but wrote to him asking about the piece; he kindly mailed me an inscribed copy with a handwritten letter.
The cover of the score states, “Commissioned by the Kindler Foundation, Washington, DC, USA 1982.” Created in 1953, this foundation commemorates Hans Kindler, the Dutch-born cellist and conductor who was the founder and first conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington (established 1930–31). Its central purpose has been to commission new musical works annually and to have those works performed in Washington as part of the city’s cultural life. The Kindler Foundation has overwhelmingly commissioned dozens of instrumental chamber works, not solo keyboard pieces. So this sonata is most likely its sole commission for organ. It was published in 1984 by Basil Ramsey Music Publisher.
Dr. Arnatt led a distinguished career as organist, choir director, composer, professor, recitalist, music editor, president of the American Guild of Organists, and recipient of numerous awards, prizes, and fellowships. London-born, he emigrated with his parents to the United States in 1945. He served in prominent posts in Washington, DC, for several years early in his career; his other liturgical and academic appointments were in St. Louis, MO, Princeton, NJ, and Boston, MA.
Sonja Kahler b. 1968
American Ternion, Settings of Three American Hymntunes
- Scherzo on ENDLESS SONG How can I keep from singing?
- Perpetuum mobile on WONDROUS LOVE What wondrous love is this?
- Blues ternion on NETTLETON Come, thou fount of every blessing
On finding, please publish: Publishers, please note: this hymn suite and the next one are manuscripts awaiting your discovery.
Sonja Kahler
Drei Moderne, Settings of Three German Communion Chorales
- INNSBRUCK O bread of life from heaven
- SONNE DER GERECHTIGKEIT At the Lamb’s high feast we sing
- SCHMÜCKE DICH Soul, adorn yourself with gladness
Capitalizing on classic chorales: The first chorale setting uses key wedges. The second one swings. The third briefly quotes Messiaen’s landmark Le Banquet Céleste (1928), the final bars of which remind me of the end of the Schmücke dich chorale. So I thought, why not meld Johann Crüger’s serenely joyous communion melody from 1649 with some of Messiaen’s mystical meditation on the timelessness of the Eucharist?
Francis Pott b. 1957
Introduction, Toccata and Fugue, composed 2001
Score stolen, then found: I am grateful for the introduction to the striking music of Francis Pott by his longtime friend, Dr. Jeremy Filsell, who gifted me a copy of this score. It unfortunately vanished on a sunny midday in 2019 in northwest Washington, DC, when my car window was smashed and my music bag was stolen. Over the course of that afternoon and evening my labeled reading glasses, checkbook, and purse contents were found scattered up and down the block. Ultimately at nightfall a helpful police officer shined his flashlight into a nearby dumpster full of cardboard and revealed my music bag! the Pott score! the Bach and Dupré scores! my organ shoes! and my favorite pencils! A lucky find.
British composer, pianist, and academic Francis Pott, who taught for many years in London, enjoys an international reputation for his compositions. They include numerous major commissions and have been performed and broadcast across the United Kingdom and in more than 40 countries worldwide, to critical acclaim. Dr. Pott has won both national and international composition awards, and his sacred choral and organ works have received particular recognition. In 2021, he was named the recipient of the Medal of the Royal College of Organists, its highest award.
From the liner notes of Capital Finds (Raven OAR-201).