JAMES MACMILLAN ORGAN WORKS STEPHEN FARR James MacMillan (b.1959) Organ Works 1. Kenga e Krushqve (2018) * [4:30] Stephen Farr organ 2. Gaudeamus in loci pace (1998) [6:11] The Rieger Organ of St Giles’ Cathedral, Edinburgh (1992) St Andrews’ Suite (2013) 3. One [2:12] 4. Two [3:28] 5. Three [2:25] 6. Offertorium (1986) [4:42] 7. Le Tombeau de Georges Rouault (2003) [14:09] 8. White Note Paraphrase (1994) [2:11] 9. Meditaon (2010) * [6:18] 10. Wedding Introit (1983) [2:52] 11. Toccata (2019) * [7:47] Total playing me [56:50] *world premiere recording James MacMillan: Organ Works variaons’ for organ and orchestra A Scotch Besary from 2004 – the organ has been a James MacMillan’s composions for key part of the sounds and colours that organ represent a small, but steadily MacMillan draws on to realise his increasing body of work that covers composional ambions. almost the enrety of the composer’s career to date, from experiments with Perhaps one of the most personal musical Scosh tradional music in the early gis MacMillan has given to his family in 1980s through to substanal virtuosic recent years is Kenga e Krushqve wrien fantasias from his sixeth year. Though for his son’s wedding in August 2018. As the pieces for solo organ are only a slight, the bride-to-be was Albanian, MacMillan but colourful strand of MacMillan’s arsc turned to this famous folksong from her fabric, they are some of his most personal homeland which is associated with and inmate creaons, oen wrien as weddings (the tle roughly translates as wedding gis for family, friends and for ‘Song of the In-Laws’) for the recessional the composer’s own bride on their at the end of the Nupal Mass. The piece wedding day in 1983. Taken on their own, is a whirlwind of raucous energy and they show one side of MacMillan’s passion with the same rhythm present expressive and vibrant wring for the throughout, gaining in momentum and instrument, but when added to his use power, almost unravelling in places due of the organ throughout his wider work to the fiery dance contained within. they show a composer well-versed in MacMillan’s suggeson that the organ the history, literature and culture of the play ‘like a bagpipe’ at the opening of d) ar instrument and someone seeking to the score is apt: this piece feels exactly tw embed this in every piece. For although like the ceremony it was wrien for, the there are only a handful of solo organ coming together of Albanian and Scosh pieces, MacMillan has wrien for the cultures in a feverish celebraon of life. It y: Philip Ga instrument in many different sengs: is both hearelt and thrilling in equal aph from the spiky, anxious outbursts in the measures. ogr emoonal Cantos Sagrados (1989) to the (Phot declamatory declaraon of Papal authority A much more serene offering is also one of in Tu es Petrus (2010), and perhaps most MacMillan’s most performed organ works, vividly in the deeply-sarical ‘enigmac Gaudeamus in loci pace (‘Let us rejoice in James MacMillan the peace of this place’) which was wrien the foundaon of the university in 1413 and before fading to a so and peaceful solo piece. It is one of MacMillan’s most in 1998 to celebrate the golden jubilee of first performed by Tom Wilkinson in June conclusion. difficult works for the instrument (in both the re-foundaon of Pluscarden Abbey, a 2013. The three pieces that comprise the terms of virtuosity and accessibility) but it Benedicne community in north-east suite have a funconal as well as celebratory Le Tombeau de Georges Rouault is is also one of his most visceral and original. Scotland. Although cut from an enrely nature being designed to be performed as MacMillan’s most substanal work for different cloth to the previous work, the voluntaries at university events and the organ to date, and certainly the most White Note Paraphrase is the second of the composer seeks to blend different materials ceremonies. The first is a strident allegro virtuosic and kaleidoscopic in his oeuvre. three early wedding gis, this me wrien again, with a soly unfolding plainchant vivace that ulises a bristling bitonality Wrien for leading concert organist for the composer’s brother in 1994 and first providing the framework for birdsong-like amidst pedal points and prominent melodic Thomas Troer in 2003 and premiered performed by Tom Carrick at the wedding interjecons that MacMillan refers to as sevenths. The second is more reflecve and by him on the organ of Symphony Hall, ceremony in June of that year. It covers ‘like a slip-jig’ (connuing the Scosh pastoral with a highly ornamented melodic Birmingham in 2004, it is a work of much of the same ground as the Offertorium, vernacular theme). As the piece begins to line reminiscent of Gaudeamus in loci pace. astonishing colour and variaon throughout but here (as the tle suggests) scking slowly move to a climax, the birdsong is The final piece sees MacMillan paying its quicksilver fieen-minute duraon. The enrely to the white notes of the organ suddenly set free and quietly fades into homage to two of his most lasng influences, work was wrien in homage to Rouault manuals and pedalboard. Like much of the distance leaving only the silence and Bach and Messiaen, with the rigour of one (1871–1958), one of the most significant MacMillan’s work it is a mix of influences, peace of the abbey, and the melessness and the colour of the other playing out in French arsts of the first half of the here Gregorian chant, folksong and Bach of such a space. this short andante. tweneth century and a leading light in chorales. But if you peer a lile deeper the arsc revival of French Catholic there is music of a very different cast One of MacMillan’s most important recent Of the trio of wedding gis that MacMillan culture during that period. Rouault’s work present, the love duet from MacMillan’s collaboraons has been with the University composed in the 1980s and 90s, the is dark-hued and not afraid to find the opera Inés de Castro that the composer of St Andrews where he has been appointed Offertorium is perhaps the most beauful divine in some of the basest elements was feverishly composing at the me. a Professor of Theology, Imaginaon and and certainly the most directly inspired by of contemporary society, and this the Arts in the School of Divinity. As well folk music of the three. Wrien for an old characterisaon is reflected throughout Like the cross-ferlisaon between material as giving talks, seminars and lectures, school friend and first performed by the MacMillan’s composion. The work alludes in White Note Paraphrase, the same MacMillan has been part of the composer at the wedding ceremony in to prostutes, clowns and indignant technique is used by MacMillan in TheoArstry Composers’ Scheme which 1986 it bears all the hallmarks of the judges amidst a pantomime of other Meditaon, wrien for Philip Sawyer and has seen him mentor a new generaon of composer’s vernacular musings from this characters and personalies, all seemingly the Edinburgh Fesval Fringe in 2010. composers of sacred music amongst the period: drones, ornaments and plainve longing for the presence of Christ to bring Here MacMillan draws on his motet Qui august seng of one of Scotland’s most modality. The mulple embellishments order to the chaos. The work feels like a meditabitur (‘He who meditates’) from venerable instuons. The link with the would soon become part of MacMillan’s natural companion piece to A Scotch the second book of The Strathclyde Motets, university heralded the composion of composional lexicon, from the smallest Besary, with the menagerie of imagined a set which has provided the ferle ground the St Andrews’ Suite, commissioned in to the grandest pieces, but here they feel animals present there, replaced by a for many works from the composer in the celebraon of the 600th anniversary of inmate and earnest, gradually building panoply of grotesque characters in the years aer its composion. Here the material is essenally the same between more tradional music. In many ways the the motet and organ work, but a light is Toccata brings this recording full circle, as shone on different colours, tones and mid-way through the piece a familiar tune moods in the laer. A cantus firmus begins marked ‘dance-like’ comes into view: this the piece in the pedals before moving to vibrant uerance is no other than the the manuals, where increasingly frenec melody from Kenga e Krushqve which figuraons finally herald an unexpectedly MacMillan had completed the year earlier, loud and dramac final chord. now found in a slightly more subdued fashion than the wild folk dance that The final work in the trio of wedding gis greeted his new Albanian in-laws. is the Wedding Introit wrien for the composer’s own nupals in Edinburgh © 2020 Phillip Armstrong Cooke in July 1983, where the premiere was given by Michael Bonaventure. It strikes Phillip A. Cooke’s book The Music of James MacMillan a similar tone to the two later pieces was published in 2019 by Boydell Press mixing the vernacular with the idiomac in a simple and effecve manner. Rather than quong from one of his own works, MacMillan chooses to allude to the famous Irish folksong She moved through the fair, which leaves a melancholy air to this beauful miniature.