Organ music for the Third Sunday in Lent

Prelude
Ruhig Bewegt from Sonata II – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
Attende, Domine – Jeanne Demessieux (1921-68)

Postlude
Lebhaft from Sonata II – Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)


Paul Hindemith was a musician, composer and music educator who lived and worked in Germany, Turkey and the United States of America. Hindemith had an uneasy relationship with the Nazi government – his music was denounced in 1934, and Hindemith was concerned for the safety of his wife, who was Jewish – which led him to seek postings in Turkey (where he established the Ankara conservatorium) and ultimately to emigrate to the USA in 1940. Hindemith wrote three organ sonatas during the years 1937 and 1940, each one expressing his deep affinity with German music traditions. Sonata II explores classical sonata idiom, and has affinities with the style of the late-eighteenth century. The Sonata is cast in three movements, of which we will hear the first two today.
The second movement, Ruhig Bewegt (peaceful but with movement), is an aria. This piece alternates between the manuals, giving contrast between smaller and larger combinations.
The first movement, Lebhaft (lively), which we will hear as the postlude today, has a cyclical pattern where the main theme punctuates the musical rhetoric. While the form is conventional, the harmony is notable for containing numerous unexpected turns. There is a parallel in Hindemith's pattern of modulations in this piece with Bach's St Matthew Passion, where increasingly sharp key signatures mark Jesus' journey to the cross (in German the same word is used for both the musical and religious sign, kreuz).
Jeanne Demessieux was one of the most important organists of the mid-twentieth century in France. After studies with Marcel Dupré, Demessieux went on to hold academic posts in Paris, Nancy and Liège, and held organist posts in Paris at Saint-Esprit (in the 12th arrondissment) and La Madeleine. Demessieux was widely active as a recitalist and recording artist, and like her teacher she was able to play more than 1,000 pieces from memory. It is said that she was challenged to re-learn her entire repertoire in order to play the pedal parts wearing stiletto heels (ie: to play the pedal parts using only toes); Demessieux's technical pieces certainly bear witness to a dazzling technique.
Today we will hear a paraphrase on the Lent prose, Attende, Domine, for which you can find the melody and text in the New English Hymnal (507). In this piece, Demessieux explores the modal possibilities of the chant. The piece maintains a steady texture with five voices consistently present, and the highly contrapuntal compositional method produces surprising clashes that give a sense of tension and release in the inner voices. Demessieux specifies that the registration is the fonds, a combination of stops that has a rich flavour on the instruments she knew (the combination is made up of all the 8' stops, including stops with names such as Flute, Gamba, Diapason/Montre, and Bourdon). Fonds conveys a sense of expansiveness and calm. Here we find a world of surprising possibilities, an opening of the door of mercy.