Music Notes for Sunday, January 5, 2025

Prélude sur l’Introït de l’Épiphanie (Opus 13) – Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)

 

Click to watch the video on Youtube

This Sunday’s organ prelude in church, the Prélude sur l’Introït de l’Épiphanie (Opus 13) of Maurice Duruflé, dates from the early 1960s. It is one of this composer’s less well-known works and appears in a volume of compositions (Orgue et Liturgie) assembled and prefaced by the French musicologist Norbert Dufourcq. Each of the préludes in the volume is based on a plainsong introit. Duruflé’s Prélude is on the introit for the Feast of the Epiphany, ‘Ecce advenit dominator Dominus’.

The piece forms a postscript to Duruflé’s Four Gregorian Motets, and it was premiered along with them at a concert in Paris in May 1961. Soft sparkling mixtures and a pungent solo trumpet celebrate the arrival on earth of the King of Heaven: ‘Behold, the Lord our Ruler comes …’ The composer has carefully set the Gregorian rhythmic patterns resulting in a series of bars of irregular length and music which simply flows.

Gerald Harder

 

 

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Music Notes for Holy Family — December 29, 2024

 

In dir ist Freude (BWV 615) – J. S. Bach (1685-1750)

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From the Netherlands Bach Society Web Site:

Short-short-short-long is the rhythm of the ultra-short melodic fragment around which this chorale prelude – this Sunday’s organ postlude in church, the title of which translates to “In thee is joy” – is constructed. They are the four opening notes of an extremely cheerful New Year’s carol, which in turn is based on a sixteenth-century balletto by Gastoldi in triple time. This explains both the dance-like character of the piece and its tempo. The rhythmical motif keeps recurring on other notes in the hymn, which is why the words, too, keep almost completely to the rather breathless structure. But Bach sticks teasingly to these four opening notes, of which two are even the same note. It is only by degrees that we get to hear the whole melody, but even then the little motif keeps popping up. It is a joke that is well suited to the irrepressibly cheerful festoons that decorate the notes. It is supported in the bass by an ostinato with features reminiscent of a carillon. This, too, endorses the jubilant words – a hymn of praise to the coming of Christ.

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