Works for Organ, Heavy Pedal Album

Navona Records has released a CD, WORKS FOR ORGAN, heavy pedal Vol. 2 (2023), which includes four of Deon Nielsen Price’s Chorales for Organ as well as compositions by John Rommereim, Richard E. Brown and Christopher J. Hoh. Organist Karel Martinek is choral conductor and organist at the St. Wenceslas Cathedral in Olomouc in the Czech Republic and artistic director of the International Organ Festival in Olomouc. He performs on the 3-manual Rieger-Kloss instrument, Op. 3589, in the Unicov Concert Hall, Czech Republic. The excellent organ has a varied specification, which enables the organist to select a wide variety of colorful sounds.

Deon Nielsen Price, former president of IAWM and the National Association of Composers, USA (NACUSA), is currently the resident composer at the Interfaith Center, Presidio Chapel in San Francisco. She grew up playing the organ and has served at various churches.

About her compositions Price writes: “I consider these chorales to be practical music that I can play for prelude, postlude or voluntary in worship services of many faiths.” She also explains that she “… arranged these Chorales from some of her earlier choral music.” 1

The opening, spirited Villanelle, presents the material modally in contrasting sections in 5/4 meter.  The melody occurs first in the major key, in unison, often forte, and is followed by a homophonic, minor response. This antiphonal pattern continues throughout the first part of the work and then combines the registration and the textual ideas as the composition gains dynamic momentum until the fortissimo conclusion.

Psalm quietly follows the joyful Villanelle and provides an excellent contrast with a slower tempo. The monophonic, then two-voice texture of the first 16 measures showcases different sounds in the right and the left hands. There is a gradual build-up to the final eight measures, which feature a fuller sound as the textures are filled out in both hands, and the pedal joins the chorus.

Price writes, “The title Persuasion refers to the idea that true power is attained not through force, but through persuasion.” 2  The frequently shifting meters of two or three beats in the measure leave the listener ever alert and slightly off balance. The quick tempo provides a jolly feeling as the composition bounces along. The use of many repeated seventh chords lends a contemporary feeling to  the brief piece. The slightly slower tempo at the conclusion provides a bit of stateliness.

The fourth composition, How Long, O Lord, Most Holy?, based on a tune by B. Cecil Gates, introduces the Adagio melody with a single voice in the pedal and adds an additional pedal part on the second half of the phrase. A four-voice texture continues until the end of the first verse. Price employs the same homophony for verse two, but more quietly registered and on manuals only. The repeat increases slightly in volume and leads to a forte on the final verse. The right hand and pedal are in an imitative style and are joined by the left hand until the closing homophony.

Throughout the recording organist Martinek’s performance is well articulated and cleanly played. He follows convincingly the composer’s suggestions of phrasings, articulations, dynamic changes and registrations. The choice of stops brings interesting colors, particularly in the Renaissance poetic form, Villanelle and in  Psalm, in which he contrasts the reeds in the right hand with the principals in the left. His excellent registrations and legato provide strength to the interpretation of How Long, O Lord, Most Holy?, which ends powerfully with a full, four-voice texture.

Price’s Chorales for Organ would be excellent for use in a worship service, as she indicates, but also would make a fine grouping for an organ concert. There is enough variety of compositional style and registrations to comprise an interesting section of a program. This CD demonstrates aptly the successful combining of the four works.

1, 2 Price’s notes to Reviewer of Chorales for Organ (submitted by composer to IAWM Journal for their Recently Released column)

Frances Nobert, organist, pianist and conductor, is former treasurer and  vice-president of IAWM. She is Professor Emerita of Music at Whittier College in Whittier, California.   She may be heard on the Raven label release, Music, She Wrote: Organ Compositions by Women