Unitarian composer Edvard Grieg once wrote, “Composers like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I wanted only to build dwellings for people to feel happy and at home.” Grieg’s intimate, folk-derived Lyric Pieces for piano are the embodiment of nature-based, approachable theology. “Bell Ringing,” the opening piece of the Centering Music, presents other-worldly sounds and harmonies in an impressionistic haze, while “Woodland Peace,” the Offertory music, seems like an intimate dialogue between humans and the vastness of nature.
Elsewhere, Edward MacDowell, a leading composer of the so-called New England School, furnishes tender portraits of floral scenes in his Woodland Sketches. MacDowell is among the first generation of classically-oriented American composers especially associated with the New England Transcendentalist movement. The Afro-Canadian R. Nathaniel Dett provides the following seasonal sentiment to preface the last movement of his Cinnamon Grove suite, also included in the Centering Music: “Oh, the winter’ll soon be over, children,--Yes, my Lord!”
The CUUC Choir is on hand as well, with expressions of Earth-based theologies. Read on for programming details.
Centering Music:
Bell-Ringing, Op. 54, No. 6
The CUUC Choir is on hand as well, with expressions of Earth-based theologies. Read on for programming details.
Centering Music:
Bell-Ringing, Op. 54, No. 6
Edvard Grieg
From Woodland Sketches, Op. 51
To a Wild Rose
To a Water-lily
Edward MacDowell
From Cinnamon Grove
IV. Allegretto
R. Nathaniel Dett
Anthem: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas
For the Beauty of the Earth
John Rutter
Offertory:
Woodland Peace, Op. 71, No. 4
Grieg
Anthem:
For the Earth Forever Turning
Kim Oler
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