Music: Sun Oct 4

 

The monthly theme of Resilience and the weekly sermon title “The Inner Wound” prompt thoughts of Ludwig van Beethoven, the 250^th anniversary of whose birth is marked in 2020. Beethoven perceived his growing hearing loss at around the age of 30. At first, he told no one, and, in his famous “Heiligenstadt Testament” of 1802, he raged against the cosmos at the injustice of being robbed of the one sense which should have been keener in him than in other mortals. His persistence as a composer, and the increasingly revolutionary music he penned, as he withdrew from public performance, is one of  history’s greatest examples of resilience and transcendence. The works by Beethoven included in this morning’s Gathering and Centering Music all date from this time of crisis.

In the world of the arts, white supremacy has existed side-by-side with a fascination with the culture of otherness. Many of the solo piano works performed this morning reflect the appropriation of non-white musical idioms by classical composers. Examples include the delightful rags of American composer William Bolcom, the Blues-inspired Prelude No. 2 of George Gershwin, Claude Debussy’s tribute to Vaudeville in his “Golliwogg’s Cakewalk,” and Manuel de Falla’s incorporation of Andalusian gypsy music in the dashing farruca from his ballet “El sombrero de tres picos.” Read on for programming details.

Gathering Music: Adam Kent, piano
Hymn 127: "Can I See Another's Woe?"

Piano Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31, No. 2 “Tempest”

            II. Adagio

                                    Ludwig van Beethoven

Hymn 126: "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing"

Centering Music:
Piano Sonata No. 12 in Ab Major, Op. 26

I.               Andante con variazioni

Beethoven

 

Opening Music:

“Danza del molinero” from El sombrero de tres picos (“The Miller’s Dance” from The Three-Cornered Hat)

Manuel de Falla

                       

Interlude I:
From “The Garden of Eden”

II.  The Eternal Feminine: A Slow Drag

William Bolcom

Interlude II:

From “The Garden of Eden”

IV.   Through Eden’s Gates: Cakewalk

Meditation:

Prelude No. 2 “Blues Lullaby”

                                                George Gershwin

Music for Parting:

Golliwogg’s Cakewalk

                                    Claude Debussy