L.Ciampa: Postlude on Foundation

Foundation is an anonymous melody from the American colonies. It was first published by Joseph Funk in A Compilation of Genuine Church Music (Winchester, VA, 1832). It appeared again three years later in William Walkerʼs famous Southern Harmony. In those days, the tune was known as Protection. However, it became so closely associated with the 1787 text (also anonymous), “How Firm a Foundation”, that unsurprisingly the name Foundation took hold. Foundation was once one of the most popular church hymns in America.

Postlude on ‘Foundationʼ was composed for a church service in January, 2007, and not heard (or even thought about) again until three-and-a-half years later, when on 6 June 2010 it was performed at the glorious Methuen Memorial Music Hall. Also premièred that memorable afternoon in Methuen was Lenten Amethyst (Op. 207, No. 2) and Meditation on ʽBarbara Allenʼ (Op. 215).

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Meditation on Barbara Allen

Ciampa follows his popular arrangement of “Shenandoah” with another folk song arrangement, this time of “Barbara Allen“. The tune was one of the most popular songs in 18th-century England.
“Barbara Allen” is also in several moderan American hymnals, with the sacred text, “Accept, O Lord, the gifts we bring“. Ciampa’s lush arrangement was a hit at its 6 June 2010 premiere at the Methuen Memorial Music Hall. Its warmth and wide dynamic range are sure to make it a favorite chestnut among organists in concert and church.

L. Ciampa, Meditation on Barbara Allen (Op. 215) – Recorded live, 6 June 2010 (private recording by Paul Raila) – HYMN FESTIVAL, Methuen Memorial Music Hall – Leonardo Ciampa, organist

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25 Pieces for Advent and Christmas

This collection is the result of twenty yearsʾ worth of Advent and Christmas services, Masses, concerts, and recordings. Most of the twenty-five organ works were directly inspired by whatever organ I was playing at the time. The most distinguished of these was the renowned 1859 E. & G. G. Hook Organ at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, which I had the honor of playing between 1989 and 2001. Advent and Christmas offered the best opportunities to exploit this instrumentʾs full palette of tone colors. On 18 January 2005 the organ perished in a fire, a tragedy that I have never gotten over. For me, a December without organ pipes would be like a framed canvas without paint on it. It is my sincerest hope that the music in this collection add a few drops of color to your Yuletide celebrations. (Leonardo Ciampa, 2009)

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Audio demos

The work will consist of five short movements, each of 2-2.5 minutes in length. Each movement will be Mr. Briggs’s fantasy of how one of the organists of St. Clotilde’s Basilica in Paris would have improvised on the Gregorian Ave Maria. The movements will be: 1. Franck, 2. Pierné, 3. Tournemire, 4. Bonnal, and 5. Langlais. (Briggs studied with Langlais.)

Mr. Briggs is one of the most gifted organ improvisers in the world. His “Pentaptych” is sure to enter the repertoire of organists throughout the world.

Leonardo Ciampa: Shenandoah

Maestro Ciampa composed this arrangement of the beloved American song “Shenandoah” in July, 2009, as an encore for his tour of organ recitals in the Shenandoah Valley. It was first played on 19 July 2009 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Salem, Virginia. This very lush arrangement has the benefit of being playable on most any type of organ.

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Shenandoah, performed by Dr. Richard Elliott, Principal Organist of the Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, UT. Recorded in concert, January 18, 2010.

Leonardo Ciampa: Missa Salutaris

“The Gloria is really a mini opera. It should be on every alto’s voice recital. … Ciampa is writing in the style of the late Romantic Italian composers, but the music still sounds fresh. … The Benedictus is like heavenly light … In the Agnus Dei he followed the old convention of bringing back the music of the Kyrie, giving the Agnus Dei a note of finality. … With this lyrical, almost operatic Mass, Ciampa has resurrected his personal version of the stile nuovo. In that sense, he is the 21st-century Viadana.” — Joseph Cirou

Joseph Cirou is a former student of the late Dr. Edward Eigenschenck, himself a student of Louis Vierne. Mr. Cirou is the music director at St. John Vianney Church in Lithia Springs, GA. He completed undergraduate studies in organ at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, IL, and a Masters Degree with a concentration in voice from the same school. During his college years he sang with the Pro Oratorio Singers, which specialized in concert productions of the Oratorios of Perosi.

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Andrea Amici: La Fleur Nuptiale per pianoforte

La Fleur nuptiale is a short piece for piano, a musical meditation on the beauty of the unique and unrepeatable moment of marriage, dedicated to my beloved American friends Leonardo Ciampa and Jeanette McGlamery for their wedding.

Echoes of music of the past come together in the synthesis of a language that spans musical time, suspending the atmosphere in a perpetual waiting to reach a final climax with a quote from the wedding song par excellence, the chorus from Wagner’s Lohengrin, seen as if a reflection in the water.

The piano writing tends to dilate the melodic ideas across the width of the keyboard, even hinting at a Romantic style of pianism, with a succession of episodes, linked together by some basic motivic ideas, sharing a common fundamental idea and harmonic procedures typical of the writing of the author, based on a form of free diatonism, without extreme simultaneous chromatic complications, with chord structures built from time to time on characteristic intervals.

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Victor Searle: Three Japanese Melodies

Victor Searle has provided three arrangements of Japanese melodies, all colorfully registered and skillfully produced.

This is the first publication of a music by Victor Searle within the Consortium Internationale Compositorum, provided in an elegant edition, enriched by a reprint of a watercolor by Kenji Murata.

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Watch the video of Lullabye of Itsuku from the Three Japanese Melodies by Victor Searle, played by Russ Greene (organ) in an AGO Organ Spectacular Concert, “The Organ Heard ‘Round the World” on the Phoenix organ of St. Andrew’s Anglican in Winnipeg