Organ Recital (ONLINE ONLY)
The 2025 Truro Cathedral Organ Recital Series welcomes first-rate organists to play Truro’s acclaimed Father Willis Organ.
This week, we will have a pre-recorded organ recital for you from assistant director of music, Andrew Wyatt, to watch online via this event page or our YouTube channel from 13:10. Do keep an eye on this page for more information and the live-stream.
This is an ONLINE ONLY event.
Programme
Sonata no.3 in A Major Op.65, No.3: Con moto maestoso Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
"In common with his German predecessors, contemporaries and successors—Beethoven, Spohr, Weber, Schumann, Brahms, Bruch, Reger—Mendelssohn, pianist and organist, master of the majestic and the modest, the supreme Bach revivalist of his generation, married Classicism and Romanticism. Weighing counterpoint and chorale, profundity and piety, the late A major Organ Sonata (completed in Bad Soden near Frankfurt am Main, 17 August 1844, a month before the Violin Concerto) was the third of a set of six, culminating a series of compositions for the instrument begun in Berlin in the 1820s. Central to its design is a four-part fugue in A minor (on a 4/4 subject led by a bold anacrusis head-motif [E-F-D-G sharp] announced in the bass followed by tenor, alto and soprano entries) offset against a pedal line on the 1524 Lutheran chorale Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu Dir (Psalm 130, ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord’). This fugue is flanked by matching prologue and interlude paragraphs in the major, con moto maestoso, fortissimo, the second tonally milder."
Vater unser im Himmelreich, IGB 24 Georg Böhm (1661-1733)
"Georg Böhm, an important figure in Bach’s development, takes an attractive lyrical view of the chorale: Vater unser im Himmelreich (the Lords Prayer), where he models the hymn as a formal coloratura aria. The subdued intensity of the solo lines and the beautifully crafted accompaniment look ahead to the further delineation of styles which became gradually more formalised and generic in the 18th century. Indeed, Johann Gottfried Walther embellished the work in a study in high-baroque melodic sophistication - this is the version you'll hear today.
Cortège et Litanie, op.19 no2 Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
"If the popular Cortège et Litanie, Op 19 No 2, composed in 1922, is typical of a savant composer skilled in giving formal shape to a piece in which two contrasted themes combine in a final peroration, its second theme also suggests a specifically Russian melodic motif. Parisian composers of Dupré’s generation had become familiar with Russian music, sacred as well as secular. Moreover, the expatriate Alexander Glazunov, who lived his later years in Paris, was a composer friend whose own organ Fantaisie of 1934 is dedicated to Dupré.
The Cortège et Litanie began as five pieces of incidental music requested by a playwright friend and originally written for small orchestra. Then, on one of his American tours, Dupré was overheard playing the piece privately on the piano and was encouraged by another friend, the American impresario Alexander Russell, to transcribe it for organ: ‘You have the time … on the railway journey. It’ll be superb!’ And so it was. Later, Dupré wrote the version for organ and orchestra which he first gave in America on the huge Wanamaker organ with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Stokowski."
The series runs from March to October and each recital lasts around 45 minutes. There is no charge to attend or listen to these concerts, and the cathedral only asks that if you are able, you consider making a donation - the income generated by the generosity of both the audience and artists (who play for free) directly supports music at the cathedral and the ability to continue to offer such community events.
Truro Cathedral is a registered charity number 1207821 and relies on public donations to meet costs. Truro Cathedral welcomes regular or single donations from its supporters.
To give regularly by Direct Debit, please use the Parish Giving Scheme
Single donations can be made through the cathedral website
Popular donations are £5/person