Music for Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

In musicology, we talk about musical “text” as more than a libretto, or the words being sung. The notion of a readable text can apply to the notation in the score, the preface printed along with it (in prose or poetry), or the allusion to concepts or elements that might evoke a certain experience. Such is the case with my favourite composer, Charles Ives, who incessantly “quotes” passages from hymns, folk songs, and pieces from the classical canon in his scores – prompting many lifetimes spent untangling this text, its many hidden inclusions imparting new possible associations.

In organ music, one often finds symbolisms of faith woven into the score. When the genre of the solo “Sonata” came into vogue in the nineteenth century, composers faced a decision: whether to compose completely original material as was standard, or whether to acknowledge the tradition of setting liturgical melodies in organ music (Julius Reubke took another path entirely with his musical depiction of the 94^th psalm in the style of a tone-poem!).

Felix Mendelssohn’s six sonatas for organ set only three Lutheran chorales, one set of variations in the final sonata and two near-hidden inclusions in the first and third. I’ll play the first instance (part of Sonata 1) as the opening voluntary today, where a fiery, F-minor introduction alternates with a placid statement of the chorale Was mein Gott will, das g’scheh allzeit on the swell division. Mendelssohn would have known this melody from its pivotal setting in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which he was responsible for reviving, and the reverence with which he regards it is evident in this profound movement for solo organ.

Abraham Ross

Solemn Mass takes place at St. James’ Anglican Church, Vancouver at 10:30 am every Sunday.