Music for the start of Lent

Today is Shrove Tuesday, traditionally given over to pancakes and confession.  In certain parts of the world, the weekend-long party of Mardi-Gras will be winding down today.

Lent is a season with many colours, and this can be found in a lot of organ music dwelling on lenten themes.  Over the next few weeks I will endeavour to bring some of this music to you here.

Today I've prepared a performance of Durch Adams Fall, a chorale discussing the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden.  The setting is by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, the great Dutch organist of the seventeenth century.

Sweelinck was in a rather enviable position.  The reformation had swept through Amsterdam with a fair amount of strength, and among the many things removed from worship was the organ.  However, organs were not destroyed because they were owned by the city, who did not wish to loose them.  As organist of the New Church, Sweelinck was called on to play the organ at times other than during church services, a pattern which calls to mind the modern concert.

For this reason, Sweelinck's music explores a range of genres, with a particular emphasis on variations of chorale melodies, popular songs and dance tunes.  His chorale variations provided inspiration to many other composers; his use of a large variety of figuration and motifs demonstrate his fertile imagination and commanding keyboard technique.

The piece I'm presenting today sets the chorale in two versus, or variations.  The style is imitative, with each line of the chorale melody providing a series of themes to explore.

Here is the melody with the German text, translated below.

Through Adam’s fall human nature
and character is completely corrupted,
the same poison has been inherited by us,
so that we would not be able to recover health
without comfort from God, who has redeemed us
from the great harm
that was done when the serpent overcame Eve
and led her to bring God’s wrath upon herself.

To see the rest of the chorale text, go here.

This performance was recorded at the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Hawthorn, last weekend.  For your interest, the registrations are as follows:

Verse 1: Gt -- Open Diapason No. 2, Gt/Ped
Verse 2: Gt -- Clarabella, Principal, Flute, Gt/Ped.

The track is HERE.  It is optimized for listening through earphones, so it may not sound the best through speakers.