Meditation in Blue on Iste Confessor – Rosalie Bonighton.

The hymn tune Iste Confessor will be familiar to those who sing from Together In Song, where it appears at number 61.  This is one of those marvellously modal tunes, and offers much material for the improviser and composer.  For those without access to a copy of the melody, it is quoted in Example 1.

Example 1: Iste Confessor melody

Rosalie Bonighton is a familiar figure on the Australian church music scene, and hers is a voice that I find personally very attractive.  As the composer note in the Southern Cross Collection points out, Bonighton’s style aims to bring idioms from jazz and blues into church and organ music.

The overall setting lilts along in a gentle 12/8.  The pedal plays a rhythmic ostinato, based on a long-short-long pattern (see Example 2).  This syncopated rhythmic figure reminds me of the amphimacer, or cretic metre, often found in folk poetry and English renaissance songs, such as Shall I die? Shall I fly? – not to mention countless advertising slogans and catch phrases such as “Lah-di-dah!”  This matches the earthy feel of the hymn tune quite nicely.

Example 2: Meditation in Blue -- R. Bonighton, pedal part, bar 1.

The basic approach to rhythm in a jazz or blues combo is to ‘swing’ – keep this in mind if the rhythmic subtlety called for by the score looks daunting.  ‘Swinging the beat’ is well established in the wider musical environment, but so much of our performance culture as organists militates against doing this.  The rhythm is easier if felt across a steady pulse, rather than adhering strictly to what is written.  You could do worse than sit at the organ bench practicing this figure while saying “Lah-di-dah.”

The harmony is based around seventh chords, as is typical for the idiom.  Many of the block chords are set in the higher inversions, which creates interesting ‘crunch’ chords when thirds are breached, or clusters created.  The harmony is very colourful, but without the sort of show-off impulse that seems to infect so many pieces that like to wear their style on the sleeve.  This piece calls for an understated approach, with subtle use of the swell box and a carefully worked out approach to the legato.  If you make the touch too smooth you will lose the sense of flow, and too detached and the piece will lack the essential singing character.

The melody appears clearly in the uppermost voice twice in the piece (at bars 5-19 and 49-64), where it is clearly marked as a solo line.  This interacts with ‘riff’ motives on the swell which occasionally move up to the great, much like the to-and-fro of a jazz combo where each part takes the foreground for a short time.

Organists wanting to find an accessible piece that makes use of familiar liturgical material will gain much from this piece, which sits in the wider tradition of the chorale fantasia.  The prevailing dynamic is pp to mf, with solo lines projected slightly above this.  The liturgical usefulness of this piece is clear; it could function equally well as a service prelude, or as an interlude – such as a quiet offertory piece, or at communion, or as a post-sermon reflection.

Meditation in Blue is in the Southern Cross Collection, available from the Society of Organists (Victoria) Inc.