FEBRUARY 15TH 2015 3:00pm
St. Cuthbert’s Anglican - Oakville
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Choral-Sinfonia "Lobe den Herren, den machtigen Konig der Ehren" (BWV 137) |
J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750) |
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Choral-Fantaisie "Ein fest’ Burg ist unser Gott" |
Michael Praetorius (1571 - 1621) |
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Allegro Maestoso (Sonate III, op.65) |
F. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 – 1847) |
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Variations sur le choral |
Denis Bédard (b. 1950) |
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Psalm Prelude on ’Caithness’ |
Eric Robertson (b. 1948) |
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Fanfare for Reformation |
Walter Pelz (b. 1926) |
500 years ago this October 31st Martin Luther famously touched off the Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church at Wittenburg, where they would be seen by the legions of Catholics who would attend Mass for the Feast of All Saints the next day. But the musical Reformation, from which the trove of Christian song has been so richly blessed, can be argued to have begun five years later with the martyrdom in Brussels of two monks who took oaths of priesthood in the new religion, and were tried and burned for heresy.
Deeply affected by the fate of these two brave monks, and of countless others martyred for their belief in the tenets of Protestantism, Luther wrote the words and music to his very first, and now mostly-forgotten hymn, beginning it with the words "Ein neues Lied wir heben an" - "A new song we are raising." Those six words were really the preamble to what is much less a hymn than a heroic ode to God’s triumph in the heretics’ fall, and as such never became established in church usage - but unknown to Luther at the time those six words boldly ushered in the continuing story of the Lutheran Chorale and its many descendants, which would transform and define the church’s song for centuries.
This program follows the treasure trove of the organ’s incarnations of the melodies best known to us today, from the earliest days to the tradition’s continuation in Canada today