An organ recital in progress: part 107

Dear SMM Community,
 

The next part of my online organ recital is here, and I hope that you enjoy it. I offer up these musical meditations as part of our parish efforts to find ways to keep you connected at this time. Recorded on my house organ, the instrument is a musical facsimile of the great 'Father' Willis organ at Salisbury Cathedral.

Today, I present Herbert Howells’s Saraband (in modo elegiaco).


The fifth of Six pieces, Herbert Howells’s (1892-1983) Saraband (in modo elegiaco) was completed on 16 September 1945, the week of the tenth anniversary of his son’s death. Out of the despair of the opening section rises a haunting melody from the “orchestral oboe” stop, out of which emerges a gradual and steady crescendo as grief gives way to hope.



With best wishes,
Andrew Adair
Director of Music