May16

Jan Kraybill in concert: "Inspiration"

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Online and in-person at St. Cecilia Cathedral, 701 N 40th St, Omaha, NE 68131

This event occurred on Sunday, May 16, but the video will be available for viewing for a week at this link: https://vimeo.com/event/941310/videos/542793396/. Notes regarding the video: (1) The sound quality is poor for the spoken comments at the beginning of the event, so skip the first 6 minutes and 30 seconds. (2) There is a 10-minute intermission, so skip that part too. Enjoy!

I'm was excited to return to perform on this beautiful Pasi pipe organ in the visually and acoustically stunning St. Cecilia Cathedral! Co-sponsored by the Omaha Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. My program, titled "Inspiration," featured various works by the master composer Johann Sebastian Bach, and then explored how his inspiration has spanned generations and geography, even to our own time and place.

To view a press release about this event, click https://www.cathedralartsproject.org/announcements/2021/4/5/kraybill-will-bring-the-joy-of-music-to-st-cecilia. To hear a short radio spot, click https://www.kvnonews.com/2021/05/cathedral-arts-project-to-host-organist-jan-kraybill/.

This concert was presented both in-person and via online live stream.

For those joining online, the printed program notes are below. Though fancy formatting is not possible in this software, I hope that the information will be informative and helpful to you as you listen.

Program notes: "Inspiration"

Inspire: the word comes from Latin roots, in-, meaning into, and -spirare, to breathe. Its primary definition is “to fill someone with the urge or ability to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.”

The past COVID-defined year has challenged all of us in the arts, both financially and philosophically. For me, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach has been an essential tool for dealing with concerns and issues that have arisen. Bach was not unfamiliar with serious difficulties, even early in life: he was orphaned at age ten. But his family was well-known for its generations of talented musicians, so he was surrounded and inspired by musical relatives. Soon he became well-known for his own extraordinary skills. His compositions displayed such creativity and scholarly expertise that they are recognized as the summation of the entire Baroque era. His entire life and career were centered in a small region in central Germany, but his influence extended far beyond confines of time and place. Aaron Copland wrote that in Bach’s music there is an “…inexhaustible wealth of musical riches, which no music lover can afford to ignore…What strikes me most markedly about Bach’s work is the marvelous rightness of it.”

We have been reminded this past year that just to breathe is something to treasure. Let’s take a few moments, together in this beautiful space, to breathe in the artistry of Bach and some of the composers he inspired. May we depart this place newly in-spired!

Toccata in E minor, BWV 914, by Johann Sebastian Bach (b. March 21, 1685, Eisenach, Germany; d. July 28, 1750, Leipzig, Germany)

Solo keyboard toccatas first emerged in Germany in the generations preceding Bach, and these dramatic works had become quite fashionable by his lifetime. Bach’s seven toccatas come from relatively early in his career, when he was serving as court organist for the Duke of Weimar. BWV 914 in E minor, written in 1710, is typical, containing improvisatory elements, virtuosic passagework, and fugal writing in its contrasting sections. Bach didn’t indicate which of the many keyboard instruments of his time should be used to play this work. It is well-suited to the organ, but it could also be played on an instrument without pedals – harpsichord, clavichord, or even pianoforte.

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 610, by J.S. Bach

Though well-known as a performer, teacher, scholar, court musician, conductor, and designer and tester of organs, it was the composition and performance of church music which occupied most of Bach’s time throughout his career. He composed hundreds of chorale preludes, works based on hymns. BWV 610 is an exquisite, meditative setting of Jesu, meine Freude (Jesus, Priceless Treasure), a hymn about characteristics of Christ.

Christus, der uns selig macht, BWV 747, by J.S. Bach

The unique features of this setting of the Passion hymn Christus, der uns selig macht (Christ, who makes us holy) have caused some scholars to conclude that it may have been composed very early in Bach’s compositional career, or that it may have been written by one of his contemporaries. This chorale prelude appears in both the BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, literally “Bach works catalogue”) and a newer catalogue of about 200 chorale preludes possibly by Bach, created by Reinmar Emans in the late 1990s.

Freu dich sehr, O meine Seele, BWV Anh. 52, by J.S. Bach

This chorale prelude on Freu dich sehr, O meine Seele (Rejoice greatly, O my soul) is included in the Anhang (Appendix) of the BWV catalogue. It is a delightful setting in triple meter for manuals alone, with the hymn melody in long notes in the topmost voice.

Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch (From heaven high), BWV 769, by J.S. Bach

When this work was published in 1747, Bach was near the end of his illustrious career. He submitted his Canonic Variations as a qualification for membership in the exclusive Mizler “Corresponding Society of the Musical Sciences.” In this work, Bach proved his technical skill by restricting himself to the strictest form of counterpoint, the canon. It’s a great challenge to create beautiful music within the rules that the canonic “follower” voice must state exactly that which the “leader” voice has previously established. As an added trick, Bach involved the performer as a partner in the composition. The manuscript he submitted, and the first published version of the Canonic Variations, appeared in cryptic “puzzle canon” notation, requiring the reader to use various clues to work out the proper canonic voices. Fortunately, Bach later published a fully worked-out version so we could check our answers!

Each of the five variations treats its canon and the chorale melody in a different way. In Variation I, the pedals play the hymn while the manuals play a canon at an interval of an octave. In Variation II, the distribution of canonic voices and hymn tune remains the same, but the canonic interval is at a fifth. Variation III’s canon occurs in the accompaniment between pedal and left hand, while the top of the right hand plays the hymn and the bottom plays free material. The hymn tune returns to the pedals for Variation IV, with the hands playing free material and an augmented canon: each note of the follower voice is twice as long as that of the leader. Unusually chromatic passages near the end of this variation contain Bach’s musical signature, B-A-C-H in German musical notation (B-flat, A, C, B-natural to us). In the final variation, there are four statements of the chorale melody. In each one, the canonic follower voice is a mirror (upside-down) image of its leader; additionally, each of the canons is at a different pitch interval. A brilliant three-measure coda combines all four phrases of the chorale melody on top of each other and concludes with one more B-A-C-H signature. Genius!

Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541, by J.S. Bach

One of the most joyous of his works, this prelude and fugue was composed when Bach was in his twenties. He revisited and revised it during the final decade of his life, and there is evidence that this work was part of the reason that his son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, successfully auditioned for an organist position in Dresden. The Prelude, marked Vivace (“lively”), is virtuosic and energetic, and the Fugue further explores the jaunty repeated-note patterns established in the Prelude.

Fugue No. 1 from Sechs Fugen über den Namen BACH, Op. 60, by Robert Schumann (b. Zwickau, Saxony [Germany], June 8, 1810; d. Endenich, Prussia [Germany], July 29, 1856)

Composers across genres and traditions have paid homage to Bach by basing compositions on his musical signature. When Robert Schumann was studying law and music in Leipzig – the city in which Bach served as Kappelmeister at the height of his career – he recorded in his class notes, “Constant improvisation daily. … Special enthusiasm for Schubert, Beethoven too, Bach less.” Later he gained a better appreciation for Bach’s fugues, which became a profound influence. Schumann composed his homage, Six Fugues on the Name BACH, in 1845. He wrote to his publisher, “This is a work which occupied me for the whole of the previous year in an effort to make it worthy of the lofty name it bears. It is also a work which, I believe, is likely to outlive my other creations the longest.” The first fugue, marked langsam (“slowly”), begins simply with the B-A-C-H motif. Romantic gestures and harmonies are added to the Baroque model, including the instruction nach und nach schneller und stärker (“gradually faster and stronger”).

Partita on ST. ANNE, by Paul Manz (b. May 10, 1919, Cleveland, Ohio; d. October 28, 2009, St. Paul, Minnesota)

The partita, or set of variations, was a form well-known to Bach and others in the Baroque period. The hymn tune ST. ANNE also comes from that period, being composed in 1708 by William Croft, the first organist at St. Anne’s Church (Church of England) in London. Isaac Watts’ poem from the same year, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” is often sung to this tune. Paul Manz was a concert and church organist, composer, teacher, and worship leader in the Lutheran tradition. He was most famous for his hymn festivals, during which his improvisations on hymn tunes inspired congregational singing. This partita concluded many of these festivals.

Prelude and Fugue in G minor, Op. 7, No. 3, by Marcel Dupré (b. May 3, 1886, Rouen, Normandy, France; d. May 30, 1971, Meudon, near Paris)

Marcel Dupré was a child prodigy; he entered the Paris Conservatory in 1904, studying with the great French organist/composers Guilmant, Vierne, and Widor. He earned his international reputation as a virtuoso by performing ten memorized recitals of the complete organ works of Bach, in Paris in the early 1920s. Later he became professor of organ and improvisation at the Paris Conservatory, and he served as its director 1954 to 1956. He was also organist at St. Sulpice church in Paris from 1934 until his death in 1971. Dupré wrote his Prelude and Fugue in G minor during his student years and premiered it himself in 1911. Its form follows the Prelude and Fugue model perfected by Bach, while incorporating 20th-century elements. The prelude opens very softly and remains quiet throughout. Its persistent sixteenth-note action, concentrated mostly in the left hand, provides rhythmic excitement in contrast to the long melodic lines heard in the right hand and pedals. The fugue is very active and complex. In its final pages the long melody from the prelude returns and gradually dominates the texture, and the full power of the organ brings the piece to a thrilling conclusion.