VCH Organ Series: Pipe Up!

10 Dec 2018 Isaac Lee, organ Isaac Lee is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and Royal Danish Academy of Music.

He most recently completed a fellowship at Roskilde Cathedral. He has since relocated back to Singapore and maintains a busy schedule of teaching, performing, organizing concerts and educational events.

Pipe Up! Playlist

curated by Isaac Lee

ssoperfor.ms/pipeup

Lau Wen Rong, trumpet Prizewinner of the International Trumpet Guild Solo Competition in 2013, Lau Wen Rong completed his Master's Degree with Raymond Mase at The Juilliard School under the Frieda and Harry Aronson Scholarship. Wen Rong received his Bachelor of Music Degree from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music of the National University of Singapore, under the mentorship of Jon Dante. Wen Rong is proud to be a section trumpet player with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

The Allegro in B-flat major (1844), by the prodigious 19th century German Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn, is extremely economical in motifs, perhaps rivaling Widor’s Toccata, and is pervaded by an incessant rhythmic pattern in the pedals. It possesses ample charm and a winning melody that is sure to win listeners over.

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (1723), as it is commonly known in English, is the concluding movement to J.S. Bach’s Cantata No. 147.

The ritornello of this celebrated chorus is a real earworm and the chorale melody seamlessly weaves in and out of it.

The trumpet and organ go on a romp in Hakim’s effervescent Sonata for Trumpet and Organ (1994), a piece full of delicious trumpet licks and infectious rhythms. Naji

Hakim (b. 1955) is a Lebanese-French organist and composer who has written extensively for organ, organ with other instruments as well as concertos, chamber and vocal works.

Mendelssohn’s Andante in D major (1844) begins with a theme, plainly stated as a four-voice chorale, that melds into the first variation with a descant that glides the melody. The second variation of swirling triplets carries us to the third in lilting 6/8 meter. We end with a restatement of the opening.

The rising chromatic lines of Mendelssohn’s E minor Fugue (1839) fuels the piece with relentless drive. The virtuosic pedal passages betray Mendelssohn’s skill at the organ. The music builds up to a frenzy before relaxing into an Alla breve coda.

Programme notes by Isaac Lee

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