These nine songs were recorded live at the Sheraton Wooden-Nickel in Huntsville, AL sometime around 1978. At that time, the Huntsville Sheraton Motor Inn was owned by the famous New-York Helmsley (Leona and Harry) family. The period during which I played there (1977-1979) was during the heyday of the club. The Refections featured female-vocalist Roberta Silva and all band members, Barry Billings (guitar and vocals), Billy Lee (bass-guitar and vocals), Rusty Reeves (drums and vocals), and Stan Owen, Jr. (keyboards and vocals) sing both solo and backup vocals.
I don’t remember exactly when I first encountered Alexander Borodin’s “Nocturne.” My recollection is that while I was still an employed church-organist, a couple requested that I play this piece for their upcoming wedding. This was likely in the time I was organist at Holmes St. United Methodist Church (Huntsville, AL, USA). I believe that the couple provided me with a piano arrangement, which I rearranged for organ. At that time, I made note to someday record this piece in its string-quartet format.
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) truly was a 19th-century Renaissance man. Professionally, he practiced as a doctor, chemist, and composer. He was outstanding in all three professions and is credited with several notable discoveries in chemistry. While researching this blog-post, I found the musical score (notation) for Borodin’s string-quartet version of the piece in the public-domain. According to this Wikipedia article, the piece (also called, “Nocturne”) was composed by Borodin for his wife’s twentieth anniversary gift.
During my research, I also found a short 2006 Disney animation called “The Little Match Girl.” The Disney animation features the Nocturne. Copyright issues prevented my thoughts of merely replacing the audio in the Disney version animation with mine. I began thinking about alternative video presentations and decided that re-animating would be unrealistic time-wise, given my current animation skills. I searched for another way to present this piece. Eventually I found a translation of the Hans Christian Andersen short-story on which the Disney animation was based. I used my go-to, Mac-only slideshow-creation app, FotoMagico to make this simple presentation that again provides video to accompany the music, rather than vice versa.
To assist your more focused listening to the piece, notice that the piece makes extensive use of the “canon.” A canon is a musical form/device where one part is played/sung and is followed by one or more parts, in turn, singing/playing the same part. Well-known canons are “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and Pachebel’s Canon (another wedding favorite). Duets between each pair of the instruments (violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello) are featured throughout.
The strings sounds I recorded are made by the software instrument, “Synful Orchestra.” I have been surprised by how well it renders solo strings considering Synful Orchestra Strings are likely the best in my toolbox.
I hope that enjoy and are enriched by my presentation.
During the years I served as church-organist, I was constantly searching for organ music to play at services. I subscribed to several organ journals that published quarterly volumes of hymn-arrangements that provided some nice arrangements of pieces appropriate for the liturgical calendar. Over the years, I realized that I had a very strong affinity for many early American folk-hymns whose arrangements I encountered. At that time, I made a note that I would like to, in the future, identify and record the favorites of ones I previously performed.
Several years ago (actually, November, 2012), I unpacked all of my organ literature stored in my hall-closet and scoured all of the volumes to find the folk-hymn pieces I had most liked. At that time, I made note of each piece to record. Earlier this year, after finishing my 4th of July (Stars and Stripes Forever) project, I decided to finally begin this project — to record all of my favorite early American folk hymns arranged for pipe-organ. My goal was to finish this project well before Thanksgiving to allow me sufficient time for this year’s Christmas project. I have done that.
The organ I used is a multi-historical-period pipe-organ-instrument, living in my computer and composed of organ audio-samples from Baroque, Renaissance, Classical, and Modern-Period organs that are part of Garritan’s Classical Organ product. Additionally, I used a few pipe-organ programs from my Kurzweil PC3K8.
This turned out to be the largest project that I have done since the multi-year Nutcracker. The twenty-three arrangements are fifty-three+ minutes of music. The tunes range from very soft to very loud and very slow to quite lively. I have allowed both very soft and very loud sections to remain unaltered — without making soft louder and loud softer. Respectfully, if the volume hurts your ears or you can’t hear it — please use your volume knob (veiled attempt at humor).
I hope you enjoy listening, maybe a little bit at a time…
Click on the mp3 player to play
Title
mp3 Audio
Loud
Composer
Come O Thou Traveler Unknown
Traditional Scottish Folk Tune. Arr, James Mansfield.
Beach Spring
Sacred Harp, Philadelphia, 1844
Land Of Rest
Appalachian Tune. Arr. Wilbur Held.
Foundation
Arr. Wilbur Held
Simple Gifts
Shaker Tune. Arr. Wilbur Held.
Detroit
Sacred Harp. Arr. Wilbur Held.
Wedlock
Sacred Harp. Arr. Wilbur Held.
Kedron
William Walker, Southern Harmony, 1835. Arr. Wilbur Held.
My Soul Forsakes Her Vain Delight
(Leander). Arr. Gardner Reed.
Thou Man Of Grief, Remember Me
Arr. Gardner Reed
David The King Was Greatly Grieved And Moved
(David’s Lamentation). Arr. Gardner Reed.
On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand
(The Promised Land). Arr. Gardner Reed.
Alas, And Did My Savior Bleed?
Arr. Gardner Reed
Fight On, My Soul
Arr. Gardner Reed
Do Not I Love Thee, O My Lord?
Arr. Gardner Reed
Once More, My Soul The Rising Day
(Consolation). Arr. Gardner Reed.
My Comfort By Day, My Song In The Night
From Wyeth’s Repository of Sacred Music, 1813. Arr. Gilbert M. Martin.
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