FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 36/10

BRIDGING THE CENTURIES, THE SAN DIEGO ORGAN ANTHOLOGY. World Library Publications. $18.00. This collection was commissioned by the San Diego Chapter AGO (New Music Committee consisting of Christopher Cook, Alison Luedecke, and Kathleen Scheide) for the 2001 AGO Regional Convention in San Diego CA, and the eight organist-composers represented are all professionally based (or received formative training) in California. With one exception, all of the works are based upon pre-existing thematic material. Emma Lou Diemer’s Prelude on Lobe den Herren features three (with repeat, four) more-or-less complete statements of the hymn-tune on the reed plenum, in a syncopated 4/4-time. John Karl Hirten’s Fantasy on the Golden Sequence (Veni Sancte Spiritus) and Mary Beth Bennett’s Chaconne and Toccata on King’s Weston both deploy modal sonorities and mild harmonic tension; the latter piece states the complete theme fairly regularly, while the former only suggests it, often in a mild back-and-forth rocking within the interval of a major second. Kathleen Scheide’s Aria La Romanesca uses the venerable 17th-century ground bass in ten variations that begin and end quietly and build to a climax in the middle. Norberto Guinaldo’s Paraphrase on St. George’s Windsor is the only overtly “French” piece in the collection, whose fleeting 6/8 main section and contrasting slow middle section are framed by parallel opening and closing sections of an improvisatory character. The late Robert W. Jones’s Variations and Passacaglia on a Theme by Benjamin Britten (originally entitled “Everyone’s Guide to the Pipe Organ”) showcases diapasons, flutes, reeds, strings, and solo pedal, respectively, in each of five variations on the “Sentimental Sarabande” from Britten’s Simple Symphony, and the variations are better than the theme in every instance. Miguel del Aguila’s One of You Shall Betray Me, the only piece in the collection not based upon pre-existing thematic material, juxtaposes expressive chromaticism and rich lyrical writing, with jazz, and is one of those cases where a composer asserts an individual voice and finds genuine new meaning even within an outmoded, conservative tonal vocabulary. Pamela Decker’s Tango Toccata on a Theme by Melchoir Vulpius features multipartite statements of the chorale-like theme in different guises––in the bass with runs and arpeggios, in two reed solos, three tango statements, and toccata––with episodes, introduction, and coda, and seems to look back to older forms, but within a progressive, contemporary vocabulary.