MUSIC
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Cover Design: Lisa Baron | Cover Photo: Mark Teague Jack Mitchener Photo Courtesy of Phillip Truckenbrod Artists, LLC
MUSIC
GLOBAL BACH
Jack Mitchener, organist
Sunday, November 24, 2024, 4:00 p.m.
This concert was originally scheduled to take place on September 27, 2024 for the American Bach Society 2024 Conference at Emory University.
Emerson Concert Hall
Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
Program
Toccata in D Minor, BuxWV 155
Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731
Trio Sonata No. 6 in G Major, BWV 530
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637–1707)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach Vivace Lento
Allegro
Four Examples of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Legacy in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Fugue in C Minor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784)
Hilft, Herr Jesu, lass gelingen
Gottfried August Homilius (1714–1785)
O Gott du frommer Gott Ethel Smyth (No. IIa from Short Chorale Preludes) (1858–1944)
Allegro assai vivace Felix Mendelssohn (from Sonata in F Minor, op. 65, No. 1) (1809–1847)
Three Chorale Preludes from the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ (1970) Margaret Vardell Sandresky for John Mueller (b. 1921)
Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid – After Maurice Peter Shepherd Duruflé (2017), (from The Orgelbüchlein (b. 1995) Project, Vol. 4, No. 104) William Whitehead (b. 1970)
Timothy Byram-Wigfield (b. 1963)
Prelude on We Shall Overcome (1999) Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV 641
Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Werner Wortsman Memorial Organ Jaeckel Organs, Opus 45 (2005)
Program Notes
The recital this evening marks my first performance as a member of the Emory community and also is an offering for the 2024 conference of the American Bach Society. Since the theme of the conclave is “Global Bach,” I immediately thought of the influence Bach has had on all musicians since the eighteenth century. The program is designed to showcase two very different masterworks of Bach, each preceded by brief chorale preludes. The remaining pieces demonstrate one possible source of influence on Bach as well as the multifarious ways Bach influenced and inspired countless generations that followed him.
Buxtehude’s Toccata in D is a brilliant example of the stylus fantasticus: a work comprised of five main sections alternating between free figuration and contrapuntal writing. Each section will be highlighted by different combinations of organ stops. The piece opens with an improvisatory style that gives one an idea of how Buxtehude must have inspired Bach. That the young musician would journey over 200 miles to Lübeck to hear and learn from the older master is made clear when one studies, plays, and absorbs the architecture and thrilling display of virtuosity in this work. The opening pedal passages and independence of the pedal line in the second fugue and closing section are the beginnings of foundational technique that are so firmly established by Bach. An anomaly in his own day, Bach was an organist who could play challenging pedal lines in tandem with fast-moving manual passages. Yet, he was not the first to do this. He inherited the great tradition of seventeenth century North German organists such as Buxtehude who took advantage of independent and large pedal divisions in the great organs of the North to exhibit pedal dexterity.
In Bach’s short prelude on the chorale, Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731 (Dearest Jesus, we are here), the melody (cantus firmus) is clearly stated in the top voice and is highly ornamented. Immediately following is Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 6, BWV 530. Originally conceived as pedagogical works for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the six sonatas, BWV 525-30 were composed between 1727-1732 to be played on the pedal clavichord, a domestic practice instrument for German organists in the early eighteenth century. Despite their origin, these works suit the organ incredibly well. In the first movement of Sonata VI, Vivace, the main theme opens with the two treble parts in unison. Subsequent material includes arpeggiation in one hand while the other answers with chordal figuration. The extremely active pedal part requires quick speech of the organ pipes. For this reason, I have chosen to use 8-foot pitch in the pedal without a 16-foot stop. The second movement, Lento, is a slow duple meter (in 6/8) in which expressive melodic lines in the treble parts float over continuous eighth notes in the bass. There are rapturous moments of delicious dissonance that propel the movement ahead. The final movement, Allegro, is a display of Bach’s control of counterpoint with numerous stretti of the main theme throughout. There also are galantlike effects in the figuration and rhythm that show Bach’s awareness of style changes that arose in the 1720s. Because the bass part is a more typical continuo line, with no 16th-note passages, I have chosen to add a 16-foot stop in order to provide more gravitas.
The four pieces that are examples of Bach’s legacy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are intended to be played without pause. W. F. Bach, the eldest of Bach’s 20 children, was known to have been an exceptional organist, both in technique and improvisatory skill. He could play all of his father’s challenging organ fugues rife with independent and hairy pedal lines. Despite his gifts, very little organ music of W. F. Bach survives. The Fugue in C Minor is of a serious and hefty nature and is clearly reminiscent of his father’s pen. There is a passage after the middle cadence to E-flat Major (when the texture reduces to two voices) that is strikingly similar to a passage from Bach’s Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist, BWV 671. Nonetheless, the fugue ends with writing that is unlike anything in J. S. Bach’s oeuvre. Thus, Friedemann ultimately cultivates his own style and harmonic language.
Gottfried August Homilius was a student of Bach in Leipzig and later became one of the most important musicians in Dresden. He composed primarily sacred music including 36 chorale preludes for the organ. Hilft, Herr Jesu, lass gelingen (Help us, Lord Jesus, to succeed) is a spritely and straightforward setting of the chorale. The melody occurs in the tenor
voice and will be played on a trumpet stop. The accompanying voices, a combination of scalar figuration and arpeggios, compliment the cantus firmus well. The registration will include the cymbelstern, a set of bells inside the organ.
Dame Ethel Smyth wrote a small amount of organ music that includes five short chorale preludes. The first of two settings by Smyth on O Gott du frommer Gott (O God thou faithful God), this piece shows a strong connection to Bach’s Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book). The complete chorale melody is clearly stated in the soprano voice throughout, and the figuration is developed, appearing first in one part, then another, very much like Bach. What sets Smyth’s music apart from Bach’s style, of course, is the harmonic language. It is decidedly nineteenth century romantic with chromatic inflections and modal mixture. The Picardy third at the end provides a resolution to C Major and sets up a good pivot to F Major, the key of the last piece in this set.
The fourth and final movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Sonata I, op. 65 is a brilliant and exciting display of manual and pedal virtuosity. From the beginning, ascending arpeggios create crescendos that result in a highly dramatic effect on the organ. Mendelssohn travels through multiple key areas and after a brief imitative passage, reaches a climax that is followed by a thrilling pedal cadenza. The movement comes to grand and glorious close with a heightened level of bravura.
The next section of the program is a set of three chorale preludes from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that demonstrate Bach’s influence. Margaret Vardell Sandresky is an organist and prolific composer, particularly of organ music, who studied at the Eastman School of Music in the 1940s with Howard Hanson. On January 5, 1970, Sandresky completed a setting of the chorale Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesu Christ (You prince of peace, Lord Jesus Christ) that is dedicated to the late Dr. John S. Mueller, Sandresky’s colleague at Salem College for 31 years. I studied organ and harpsichord with John Mueller and improvisation with Margaret Sandresky, and both had a profound influence on me. Both also were students of Helmut Walcha in Frankfurt, Germany, and from him learned a new approach to Bach interpretation. Much later in Mueller’s career— when I was his student—his understanding of baroque performance practice had evolved after much study and consultation with European experts. He instilled in me details such as clarity of articulation, artistic integrity, understanding of compositional structure, and above all, musical expression. His influence is still felt in the organ world today due to the work of many former students and their students as well as his pivotal involvement in the classic organ revival of the late twentieth century.
In Sandresky’s chorale prelude, the cantus firmus appears in augmentation in the pedal, and the performer is asked to play the other parts on two manuals with different sounds. The texture is most often in three parts, but occasionally a second part is added to one of the manuals, creating a four-part texture. The unadorned chorale melody in the pedal is enhanced by two distinct melodic lines in which figurative development, diminution, imitation, and inversion flourish. These compositional techniques demonstrate the connection to Bach. Another source of inspiration for Sandresky must have been BWV 116, the cantata Du Friedefürst, Herr Jesus Christ which Bach composed in Leipzig for the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity in 1724.
It seems surprising that a two-minute work would require a committee of composers, but such is the case with the setting of Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid (O God, how much heartache). This is the 2017 creation of Peter Shepherd, William Whitehead, and Timothy Byram-Wigfield and is included in The Orgelbüchlein Project, ed. Whitehead, a twenty-first century completion of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein. The Bach collection consists of 46 chorale preludes, but the original manuscript includes 118 other chorale titles that exist on empty pages. This volume is a veritable compendium of primarily brief, yet pithy, chorale settings. As a young music student, I had composer friends who borrowed my copy of the Orgelbüchlein because there was so much to learn within the pages of this invaluable collection. The committee work of the Shepherd, Whitehead, and ByramWigfield trio produced for The Orgelbüchlein Project a lovely setting of the chorale with the melody clearly stated in the soprano voice. The choice to compose in the style of Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) was brilliant and gives one the impression that this is a long-lost miniature of the French maître.
Adolphus Hailstork is a renowned American composer who studied with Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond at the Manhattan School of Music. Because of his own experience in organ playing and the influence of Nadia Boulanger, with whom he studied in Paris, Hailstork could not escape the voice of Bach. A composer who identifies as African-American, native American, and of European ancestry, Hailstork gives us in his Prelude on We Shall Overcome (an African-American spiritual) a baroquestyle chorale prelude in trio texture that seems to pay homage to Bach’s well-known Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645. In both works, the cantus firmus, without embellishment, enters to create a third voice in the midst of a delightful duo of treble and bass. Hailstork asks for a reed stop to illuminate the call for “We shall overcome.”
The Orgelbüchlein setting of Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein, BWV 641 (When we are in utmost need) is one of the most beautiful and elegant pieces in the collection. The cantus firmus, in the soprano voice, is
highly embellished and has abundant French style ornamentation. The accompanying voices incorporate the chorale tune in its original state and in inversion. This reflective piece of only two minutes will set the stage for the magnificent Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548, known as the “Wedge.” What is striking about this monumental work is the architecture and organization. In his earliest free organ works (i.e., ones that are not based on a chorale), Bach follows the tradition of seventeenth-century North Germans such as Buxtehude by composing praeludia that do not have independent preludes. In these types of pieces, the fugues are either built into the praeludia or follow after a half cadence (as in the Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 550). The Wedge Prelude is a fully independent and extraordinary work. The piece opens with a main theme stated in the top voice against chordal accompaniment. It is in the style of a violin solo with continuo. By the fifth measure, the pedal eighth notes begin and two bars later there are scalar passages that become a hallmark of the piece. There is a second theme that is enhanced by pedal points. The first theme returns, now in the tenor range with the accompanying voices above. Thus, invertible counterpoint is created. The Prelude ends with the same circle of fifths sequence and scalar figuration that Bach uses to approach the first major cadence.
A fugue is a compositional procedure in which a composer introduces a melodic idea or theme (often called a subject) in one voice, then imitates this same subject on a different pitch (usually the interval of a fifth away). The Fugue in E Minor is a massive structure that opens with a subject that begins on E natural and through the use of a chromatic compound melody (i.e., a melody in which one single line creates the allusion of two voices) wedges out to octave B naturals. After a major cadence, there is a lengthy middle section characterized by changes in texture and color, virtuoso scalar figuration, and harmonic sequences. This is the only Bach organ fugue in which he restates the entire opening section of the fugue at the end. The result is an A-B-A structure that is very much like a da capo aria of the Baroque, but also is a harbinger of classical form that becomes prevalent in the second half of the eighteenth century.
Composer Max Reger said “Bach is the alpha and omega.” CharlesMarie Widor, in the preface to his edition of the Complete Organ Works of Bach, said “Let the harmony penetrate even into the very bone. You know Bach: you know all.” Bach IS global. It is music that delights the soul and is ubiquitous. Thank you for joining me on this journey into the realm of Johann Sebastian Bach and his legacy.
—Jack Mitchener
Jack Mitchener, organist
Jack Mitchener has been praised for playing that is technically brilliant, yet expressive and poetic. According to the American Organist, “Mitchener brings music to life with his supple rhythmic control, clear phrasing, energy, and sensitivity.” In response to his recording on the historic Salem Tannenberg organ entitled Dulcet Tones, a reviewer for the International Record Review of London asserted: “Superb…an impressive and rather moving listening experience.”
Mitchener is university organist and artist affiliate in organ at Emory University. He also is professor of organ and director of the TownsendMcAfee Institute of Church Music in the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He served over five years as organist and artist-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. Philip and is now organist at Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, both in Atlanta. Before Mercer, he was a faculty member at the Oberlin Conservatory, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Salem College, and the Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.
He has concertized throughout the USA, Europe, and Asia, and many of his performances have been heard in television and radio broadcasts such as American Public Media’s “Pipe Dreams.” He has performed in venues such as the Church of St. Sulpice and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris; St. Thomas Church, New York City; Duke University Chapel; the Church of St. Augustine in Vienna; the Church of St. James (Jacobikirche) in Lübeck, Germany; and the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. He also has collaborated with musicians such as Nick Eanet (concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), the Mendelssohn and Ying String Quartets, lutenist Paul O’Dette, and composer John Corigliano. He won the national level competition of the Music Teachers National Association, the Philadelphia AGO Competition, and was a top prize-winner in the Dublin International Competition. He has recorded for the Gothic and Raven labels.
Mitchener has performed the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach and also has given recitals, lectures, and master classes for national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, the Music Teachers National Association, the Historical Keyboard Society in North America, the Society for SeventeenthCentury Music, the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, the Association of Anglican Musicians, the Fellowship of United Methodist Musicians, and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians. He has been a guest performer and teacher at many institutions throughout the US, as
well as in Hong Kong and Japan. He also has premiered works by Emma Lou Diemer, Dan Locklair, and Margaret Vardell Sandresky.
His major teachers include Marie-Claire Alain, Guy Bovet, David Craighead, David Higgs, John Mueller, and Russell Saunders (organ); Gerre Hancock (improvisation); James Cobb, Louise Leach, Kimberly Kabala, and Clifton Matthews (piano); and Arthur Haas and Huguette Dreyfus (harpsichord). He took three degrees (DMA, master’s degree in organ, and master’s degree in harpsichord) as well as two Performer’s Certificates in organ and harpsichord from the Eastman School of Music. During his studies at the Conservatoire National de Rueil-Malmaison, France, he was unanimously awarded the Médaille d’or (Gold Medal) in harpsichord and Prix d’Excellence and Prix de Virtuosité in organ. His high school diploma and bachelor’s degree are from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts.
For the American Guild of Organists, Mitchener has served as dean of the Atlanta and Winston-Salem, NC chapters and as a member of the executive committee for the Cleveland, OH and Rochester, NY chapters. He also served for six years as a member of the National Committee on Professional Education. He has been an adjudicator for numerous competitions including those on the national level for the AGO (most recently in July 2024 in San Francisco) as well as the Biarritz International Competition in France. He is a former president of the Board of Trustees of the Moravian Music Foundation and is a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda National Music Honor Society. Jack Mitchener is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC.
Music at Emory
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