Organ music for the First Sunday in Lent

Prelude
O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig [BWV 618] – J.S. Bach
O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross [BWV 622] – Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Postlude
Christus, der uns selig macht [BWV 620] – J.S. Bach

Today's organ music comes from a collection called Orgelbüchlein (“Little Organ Book”), in which J.S. Bach composed a sequence of chorale preludes based on hymns for the liturgical year. Chorale preludes are a distinctive genre of organ music that arose out of improvisation practices where the organist embellished a hymn melody to express the sentiment of the text as the preparation for a congregation singing the hymn.

O Mencsh, bewein (“O man, weep for your great sin”) is one of Bach's most elaborate chorale preludes, with its sweeping upper voice and dramatic harmonic turn in the final bars. This piece expresses the pathos and tragedy of the human condition seen in the light of the cross. Albert Schweitzer described Bach's main musical idea in thus chorale prelude as a motif of grief, which has two characteristics: 'to depict lamentation of a noble kind [Bach] employs a sequence of notes tied in pairs; torturing grief is represented by a chromatic motive of five or six notes.' This chorale prelude is very chromatic, and uses musical gestures that would have pressed the organ tuning systems of Bach's day to their limits.

(Ignore the next few sentences if the intricacies of keyboard tuning seems like an impenetrable mystery! NB: The performance linked below was recorded on an instrument tuned to a baroque tuning system, where the intervals are distributed unequally through the octave. This means some intervals, such as thirds and fifths, are more in tune than in modern 'equal' tuning which allows us to play highly chromatic music without the discomfort of screaming dissonance -- but equally, it denies us a strong sense of key colour where this helps to underpin the musical rhetoric.)

Bach was a master of canon, a musical technique where a melody accompanies itself by having a second voice join in at an interval of time. Because it is a very strict form of composition, canon expresses obedience, and two chorale preludes today use canon to express differing types of obedience. O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (“O Lamb of God, unstained”) presents the chorale melody in canon between the pedal and the middle voice of the manuals. The canon is at the fifth, a perfect interval that alludes to Jesus' close relationship with the Father. The first type of grief motif, depicting lamentation of a noble kind, is used to create an accompaniment for the canon. Christus, der uns selig macht (“Christ, who makes us blessed”) presents the chorale melody in canon between the top voice of the manual and the pedals. This is a commentary on the hymn text which presents our obedience to Christ: the leading voice is at the top of the texture, a musical depiction of divinity. The following voice is in the lowest extreme of the texture, the pedals, alluding to our following Christ.