John Burge

Commissioner: Duo Majoya, Marnie Giesbrecht, organ, and Joachim Segger, piano

Premiere: West End Christian Reformed Church, Edmonton, AB, November 4, 2016.

Duration: 40 minutes

Movements:

1. Spires
2. Gargoyles
3. Windows
4. Flying Buttresses
5. Foundations

Video of the premiere performance on YouTube by Duo Majoya:

Program Note: Cathedral Architecture began life as a work for organ and brass band, commissioned by the Hannaford Street Silver Band for a premiere performance at Metropolitan United Church, Toronto, Ontario, on November 3rd, 2012.  The work is dedicated to organist William O’Meara, the soloist for this premiere performance and an organist who has performed numerous compositions by John Burge in the past.  The HSSB released a recording of this premiere performance on a CD titled, ONTARIO REFLECTIONS: Hannaford Live, Vol. 1.  The work was subsequently rescored for organ and orchestra through a commission from the Kingston Symphony Association for a premiere performance on October 27th, 2013 in St. George’s Cathedral, Kingston, Ontario with the Cathedral’s organist, Michael Capon as soloist and Evan Mitchell, conducting.  Finally (and this surely will be the last version), the composer was very happy to make an arrangement of the work for organ and piano at the request of two wonderful Edmonton musicians, Marnie Giesbrecht and Joachim Seeger, who are both fine pianists and organists regularly presenting a concert series in Edmonton and touring under the name DUO MAJOYA.

At the work’s heart, Cathedral Architecture is really an organ concerto or symphony that musically captures the structural and design features of a large cathedral in sonic building blocks.  While the work is organized in five movements, the brevity of the first four movements coupled with the expansive last movement give the work a broader two-part sense of organization.  The first four contrasting movements are subtitled, “Spires, Gargoyles, Windows and Flying Buttresses,” and are presented in a slow-fast-slow-fast alternation of tempos. Each of these opening movements utilizes very distinctive organ colours, sometimes employed to accompany prominent solos from the band or orchestra.  The fifth and final movement is subtitled, “Foundations,” and is a passacaglia with a fixed bass line that is repeated throughout the movement beginning initially with a lengthy organ solo.  As the last movement unfolds, prominent passages from the opening four movements return in reverse order as the music builds an aural cathedral moving from the foundations through the buttresses, windows, gargoyles and spires until eventually reaching a coda that ends with as much volume as can be produced by all the musicians involved.