Festive Hymn Settings, Set 8

Michael Bedford offers a fresh and exciting set of arrangements for the Easter season. These settings of favorite Easter hymn tunes are festive and creative and offer a rewarding challenge for the experienced organist.

Score-Morton Gould's Fall River Legend ballet suite for Orchestra. Study score.Fall River Legend was commissioned by Ballet Theatre with choreography by Agnes de Mille music byMorton Gould and sets by Oliver Smith and recieved its world premiere performance at the Metropolitan Opera House New York on April 22 1948.Having selected for her subject the historical Lizzie Borden murder case deMille used both pantomime and ballet techniques to convey the story. Morton Gould created the musical score in a similar way alternating programmatic sections with more formal dance patterns. The set dance movements formthe basis of this orchestral suite omitting most of the purely dramatic sequences.A feeling of austerity and doom opens the Prologue followed by a group of Waltzes depicting Lizzie's childhood. The sadness of Lizzie'sgirlhood is reflected in the nostalgic Elegy. Church social is a setting for a parish dance and Hymnal Variations suggest the old New England hymn tunes. The festive Cotillion is an exhuberant sequence of dancing patterns.Epilogue returns to the foreboding mood of the prologue.

Kirchenkantate, Bwv 192, 1730Ca. Par BACH JOHANN SEBASTIAN. The cantata 'Nun danket alle Gott” (Now thank we all our God) BWV 192 is based on the text of the well-known hymn. It is therefore one of a small number of chorale cantatas which contain no free poetic texts. Correspondingly, there are no recitatives either. It has only recently been assumed that this three-movement work was not intended for Leipzig, but was actually written in 1730 for Bach's prestigious position as Kapellmeister of Saxe-Weissenfels. The court of Duke Christian enjoyed the its sojourn in the newly-renovated castle of its secondary residence in Sangerhausen and, at Trinity, in the court church, celebrated the anniversary of its consecration with festive music. Bach evidently occasionally contributed to this. The work does not survive complete. Even in the 18th century a full score evidently no longer existed, just a set of parts, the tenor part of which is entirely missing. For the new edition the missing part has been reconstructed by Detlev Schulten (Leipzig)./ Répertoire / Chœur Mixte et Piano