Greetings from St. Stephen’s Concert Series This week’s featured artist is Nathan Laube who was scheduled to present the annual Frank H. Kenan Memorial Organ Recital at St. Stephen’s last Sunday. His (real) recital has been put on hold, but in our virtual concert he will be playing three major works. First we hear Duruflé’s Prelude and Fugue on the Name of Alain, played on the organ at the Cathedral of the Assumption in Louisville, KY. It is part of a recital streamed on July 8, 2020 to members attending the 43rd National Convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians. Next we hear one of the masterpieces of the 19th century organ repertoire, Julius Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm. Reubke was a student of Liszt who died of tuberculosis at the age of 24. One wonders what he might have composed if he had lived longer. The Reubke Sonata is performed on the 97 rank von Beckerath organ in the St. Paul Roman Catholic Cathedral in Pittsburgh. One can only marvel over Laube’s masterful performance on the huge instrument. But Mr. Laube has had plenty of experience playing on organ’s much larger. In the photo you see the immense Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia, housed in the Wanamaker Department Store, which has since become a Macy’s. Nathan was an assistant organist there while he attended Curtis. You next see Mr. Laube playing the organ in Ocean City, NJ. Mr. Laube, then 24, is obviously enjoying the experience immensely. Toward the end of the short video you hear snatches of his transcription of Liszt’s Les Preludes. Finally, you hear Mr. Laube play Deux Evocations, a pair of pieces written for him in 2017 by organist composer George Baker. You see and hear these pieces performed on a huge 101-stop instrument, the organ in St. Sulpice, where Charles Marie Widor was organist from 1870 to 1934. The mechanical action instrument, built in 1862, is the crowning masterpiece of Astride Cavallé-Coll, who retained much of the pipework of another master organ builder, Francois-Henri Clicquot (1732-1790). To describe the organ as a shrine is no exaggeration. The pieces honor two titular organists at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Louis Vierne (1870-1937) and Pierre Cochereau (1924-1984). Evocation I is subtitled June 2, 1937 and Ad Memoriam (Louis Vierne). June 2, 1937 is the date of Vierne’s dramatic death during a recital he was giving at Notre Dame. The piece uses hymn tunes associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary (i.e. Notre Dame). Evocation II is subtitled April 22, 1984 and Ad Memoriam (Pierre Cochereau). It is a toccata-like piece which uses three Easter hymn tunes. The organ at St. Sulpice has no pistons (buttons between manuals) for changing stops, so Mr. Laube has two stop assistants. Seated on the organ bench is Daniel Roth, the titular organist at the church. Mr. Laube’s other stop assistant is Meg Cutting, one of his organ students. .