Sunday 12 November 2023 at 8:00 PM
Eccles Organ Festival Recital
Aaron Tan
Winner of the 2021 Canadian International Organ competition
DMA candidate at the Eastman School of Music.
St. Alban’s Catholic Church in Rochester (NY)
Eccles Organ Festival Recital
Aaron Tan
Winner of the 2021 Canadian International Organ competition
DMA candidate at the Eastman School of Music.
St. Alban’s Catholic Church in Rochester (NY)
Program
"Heaven and Nature Sing"
Fernando Germani (1906–1998)
Toccata, Op. 12
Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637–1707)
Praeludium in e, BuxWV 142
Joseph Ermend Bonnal (1880–1944)
from Paysages euskariens
i. La Vallée du Béhorléguy, au matin
Judith Weir (b. 1954)
Wild Mossy Mountains
Judith Weir
The Tree of Peace
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
from The Nutcracker, Op. 81
i. The Christmas Tree (transcr. by Aaron Tan)
ii. Characteristic March (transcr. by Frederick Hohman)
Jeanne Demessieux (1921–1968)
Lumière (from 7 Méditations sur le Saint Esprit, Op. 6)
Henri Duparc (1848–1933)
Aux étoiles
(transc. by Aaron Tan)
Louis Vierne (1870–1937)
from Symphonie No. 5
v. Final
"Heaven and Nature Sing"
Fernando Germani (1906–1998)
Toccata, Op. 12
Georg Böhm (1661–1733)
Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637–1707)
Praeludium in e, BuxWV 142
Joseph Ermend Bonnal (1880–1944)
from Paysages euskariens
i. La Vallée du Béhorléguy, au matin
Judith Weir (b. 1954)
Wild Mossy Mountains
Judith Weir
The Tree of Peace
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893)
from The Nutcracker, Op. 81
i. The Christmas Tree (transcr. by Aaron Tan)
ii. Characteristic March (transcr. by Frederick Hohman)
Jeanne Demessieux (1921–1968)
Lumière (from 7 Méditations sur le Saint Esprit, Op. 6)
Henri Duparc (1848–1933)
Aux étoiles
(transc. by Aaron Tan)
Louis Vierne (1870–1937)
from Symphonie No. 5
v. Final
Concert organist Aaron Tan is a leading young artist in North America. In October 2021 he was awarded First Prize at the 2021 Canadian International Organ Competition as well as three additional awards for performances of specific works at the competition (the Sir Ernest MacMillan Award for Canadian competitors, the award for best performance of a work by Marcel Dupré, and best performance of a work by a Canadian composer). Originally from the Philippines and Canada, he is an organist and pianist who enjoys multi-faceted careers as a musician and a materials scientist.
Aaron's primary musical tutelage has been with John Tuttle, David Palmer, Joel Hastings, Martin Jean, and David Higgs. His musical upbringing started on the piano and later on the violin. He received his Associate (ARCT) diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada at the age of twelve and went on to earn his Licentiate (LTCL) and Fellowship (FTCL) diplomas in Piano Performance from Trinity College of Music, London, England, at 13 and 15 years of age, respectively. When he was 18, he also completed his ARCT diploma in Violin Performance.
In 2004, under the auspices of the Barwell Scholarship (awarded to pianists interested in learning the organ), he began organ studies with John Tuttle while concurrently entering as a freshman in Engineering Science at the University of Toronto. Since then, he has gone on to complete both Associate (ARCCO) and Fellowship (FRCCO) diplomas in organ from the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO). In addition, he has also won numerous noteworthy contests and scholarships including First Prize at the American Guild of Organists 2018 National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance, the Toronto RCCO Young Organists Competition, the Osborne Organ Competition of the Summer Institute of Church Music (Ontario), the RCCO's National Organ Playing Competition, the Charlotte Hoyt Bagnall Scholarship for Church Musicians, the Lilian Forsyth Scholarship, the 2012 Poland International Piano Festival Competition, the West Chester University Organ Competition, the Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition, the Sursa American Organ Competition.
Having recently received both MM and MMA degrees in organ from Yale University, Aaron is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York. Aaron also holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan and worked there as a postdoctoral researcher in the University's Laboratory for Complex Materials and Thin Films Research, studying the dielectric and thermal properties of polymer thin films.
Aaron has served as Organ Scholar at St. John's Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan, Artist in Residence at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit, Assistant Organist at Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and Organ Scholar at the Church of the Resurrection, New York City, and currently serves as Director of Music at St. Alban's Catholic Church (Ordinariate) in Rochester New York. In 2019, Aaron released his first commercial recording, "Impressions". His second commercial recording is due for release in the Fall, and features post-Romantic 20th century works for organ by Whitlock, Demessieux, Karg-Elert, Vierne, and Duparc.
Aaron's primary musical tutelage has been with John Tuttle, David Palmer, Joel Hastings, Martin Jean, and David Higgs. His musical upbringing started on the piano and later on the violin. He received his Associate (ARCT) diploma in Piano Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada at the age of twelve and went on to earn his Licentiate (LTCL) and Fellowship (FTCL) diplomas in Piano Performance from Trinity College of Music, London, England, at 13 and 15 years of age, respectively. When he was 18, he also completed his ARCT diploma in Violin Performance.
In 2004, under the auspices of the Barwell Scholarship (awarded to pianists interested in learning the organ), he began organ studies with John Tuttle while concurrently entering as a freshman in Engineering Science at the University of Toronto. Since then, he has gone on to complete both Associate (ARCCO) and Fellowship (FRCCO) diplomas in organ from the Royal Canadian College of Organists (RCCO). In addition, he has also won numerous noteworthy contests and scholarships including First Prize at the American Guild of Organists 2018 National Young Artist Competition in Organ Performance, the Toronto RCCO Young Organists Competition, the Osborne Organ Competition of the Summer Institute of Church Music (Ontario), the RCCO's National Organ Playing Competition, the Charlotte Hoyt Bagnall Scholarship for Church Musicians, the Lilian Forsyth Scholarship, the 2012 Poland International Piano Festival Competition, the West Chester University Organ Competition, the Arthur Poister Scholarship Competition, the Sursa American Organ Competition.
Having recently received both MM and MMA degrees in organ from Yale University, Aaron is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester New York. Aaron also holds a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan and worked there as a postdoctoral researcher in the University's Laboratory for Complex Materials and Thin Films Research, studying the dielectric and thermal properties of polymer thin films.
Aaron has served as Organ Scholar at St. John's Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan, Artist in Residence at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit, Assistant Organist at Christ Church Cranbrook, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and Organ Scholar at the Church of the Resurrection, New York City, and currently serves as Director of Music at St. Alban's Catholic Church (Ordinariate) in Rochester New York. In 2019, Aaron released his first commercial recording, "Impressions". His second commercial recording is due for release in the Fall, and features post-Romantic 20th century works for organ by Whitlock, Demessieux, Karg-Elert, Vierne, and Duparc.
Program Notes
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
Germani was a native of Rome where he studied with Respighi, Bossi, and Manari. He was best-known not as a composer but as an international recitalist and teacher with formidable technique and an amazing memory. In 1927 he made his first U. S. tour, and for 40 years taught organ at conservatories in Siena and Rome, as well as a brief stint from 1936–1938 at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He served as titular organist at St. Peter’s in The Vatican from 1948–1959. Toccata in A, published in 1937, is his only organ composition. A graceful modal melody weaves its way through a brilliant 16th-note texture (à la Duruflé), at first in manual figurations and then in pedal passagework building to a rousing conclusion.
After receiving musical training from his father (and possibly Pachelbel and Reincken), Böhm resided in his native Thuringia in central Germany until 1698, when he was appointed as organist at the prestigious North German church of St. John’s in Lüneburg, remaining there for the rest of his life. Scholars believe the teenaged Bach, while a student in nearby Ohrdruf from 1700–1702, may have visited Böhm there. The genius of Böhm lies in his chorale partitas—a new innovation fusing the 17th-century secular partita with the sacred chorale variation. Although they have unmistakable harpsichord features, the partitas are also suitable as organ pieces. The chorale Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele [Rejoice greatly, O my soul] was originally composed in 1551 by Louis Bourgeois to accompany Psalm 42. Nowadays it usually accompanies the Advent hymn “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.” Böhm’s partita on the chorale comprises 12 variations. The first ten variations are in relatively simple harpsichord style; however, the penultimate variation, with massive homophony and pedal, is clearly intended for the organ. The surprising final variation is a harbinger of Bach’s “Schübler” style—a trio with individual phrases of the cantus firmus in the tenor introduced by an extended prelude and separated by interludes.
As he purportedly did with Böhm, the young Bach also visited Buxtehude at St. Mary’s in Lübeck, where Buxtehude had begun his lifelong work at age 31. Buxtehude’s music represents the high point of the 17th-century North German organ school, particularly his praeludia, a genre featuring alternating free improvisatory and fugal sections. Buxtehude left two praeludia in E minor—one large, one small. The five-part Praeludium in E Minor, BuxWV 142, with its three fugues, is the larger one and his most important free organ work. Its introductory section leads to a fully developed canzone-type fugue with a violinistic descending subject. A central second fugue, in 3/2, follows, with a descending chromatic subject and equally chromatic countersubject. A very ornate, improvisatory interlude leads to the contrasting third and final fugue leaping forth as a cheerful jig. Its virtuosic pedal part supports imitations and hammered chords on the manuals. The piece ends with a brief and brilliant recitative.
Born in the French Basque country, Ermend-Bonnal studied in Paris with Vierne, Tournemire, Guilmant, and Fauré, occasionally filling in for Tournemire at Sainte-Clotilde. In 1920 he returned to the Basque country in Bayonne as director of the conservatory and organist of Saint-André until 1942, when he returned to Paris to succeed Tournemire at Sainte-Clotilde. The first of his three Paysages euskariens [Basque Landscapes], La Vallée du Béhorléguy, au matin [Béhorléguy Valley at Dawn], is a picturesque tableau in E major and borrows its thematic material from regional folklore. With hints of Tournemire, the harmonic language and symphonic style are reminiscent of Vierne.
Dame Judith Weir was born in Scotland and is one of the most significant composers living in Britain today. In 2014, she became the first woman to hold the position of Master of the Queen’s Music and was one of twelve composers to write music for the recent coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. One of Weir’s best-known organ compositions is another “landscape” piece, Wild Mossy Mountains, titled after a Robert Burns poem. Weir explains that the overall shape of the music (in a handwritten score with no bar lines or time signatures) has the smoothly rising and falling contours of the Scottish hillsides Burns was describing. Michael Bonaventure first performed the piece in Edinburgh in 1982. The Tree of Peace was commissioned in memory of Richard Axtell, organist of the parish church in West Tarring, West Sussex, where Charles Harrison premiered it in 2017. The piece is in three main sections, with a gradual increase of tempo throughout. The opening Cantabile provides the thematic material, which is then developed in an energetic central section marked Animato. The concluding Molto mosso presents the opening theme in augmentation. Throughout the music is an orchestral sense of color and structure.
A staple of Utah culture, Tchaikovsky’s 1892 masterpiece, The Nutcracker, was his last ballet. Every year since 1963, Ballet West has performed Willam Christensen’s original version, replicating the first American performance of the complete ballet that he produced in San Francisco in 1944. The story, based on a children’s fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann, is set in Nürnberg, Germany on Christmas Eve, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor. During the opening number, Decoration and Lighting of the Christmas Tree, the parents are busy trimming the tree. Nine o’clock strikes and the children with some friends burst into the scene and all join in a lively March around the room.
Due to her daughter’s exceptional musical talent, Jeanne Demessieux’s mother moved her family from Montpellier, in southern France, to Paris. At age 12, Demessieux was appointed organist at Temple du Saint-Esprit and served there until six years before her untimely death. Like her teacher, Marcel Dupré, she concertized throughout Europe and the United States and was renowned for her prodigious pedal technique. On her first American concert tour in 1953 Demessieux is said to have played 1,500 pieces from memory, and in high heel shoes. Her few published compositions reveal her virtuoso technique. Dating from 1947, her Seven Meditations on the Holy Spirit is inspired by sections from the Pentecost liturgy. They reflect the tradition of Dupré as well as the early language of Messiaen. The sparkling final meditation, Lumière [Light] in E major, is reminiscent of “The Angels” from Messiaen’s La Nativité written a decade earlier.
Paris native Henri Duparc was among the earliest students of César Franck and is known today as a composer of French art songs. Plagued not only by increasing vision loss which led to total blindness, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in an abrupt end to composing at age 37. He destroyed most of his music, leaving fewer than 40 works. Aux étoiles [To the Stars] is a slow triple-meter nocturne in C major. It was initially composed as part of Duparc’s abandoned opera, La Roussalka, and then reworked as part of his 1874 Poème nocturne for orchestra. In 1910, he again revised the piece and various arrangements were published for piano solo, piano duet, and organ solo. The arrangement heard this evening is by Mr. Tan himself. The epigraph reads, “The starry illumination of the nights! Who can know the secret virtues of this light, so humble yet with the immensity as its source?” The serene opening and closing sections frame a central episode in a high register.
Vierne was named organist of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1900. A quarter century later
in 1924, after a hiatus of ten years without producing an organ symphony, Vierne composed his monumental Fifth Symphony. The effervescent joy of his previous four symphonies was replaced by anguish and despair from the melancholy of an unhappy marriage and divorce, professional disappointments, and the death of his eldest son and brother in World War I. Additionally, the symphony displays a Wagnerian aesthetic recalling Tristan with its unprecedented chromaticism, abandonment of tonal references, and a cyclical double leitmotif. The opening Grave movement introduces the two very different themes integrated throughout the symphony: the first is diatonic descending by thirds, while the other is chromatic and tormented with vague atonality. Final, cast in sonata form, is the unbridled fifth movement and bursts forth as a French toccata denoting victory of joy over pain. It unexpectedly transforms the first Grave theme into a bright, swinging carillon tune in A major. The central Meno mosso sections reverse the second theme, so it is no longer one of bitterness. The movement concludes in sheer and dazzling virtuosity.
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
Germani was a native of Rome where he studied with Respighi, Bossi, and Manari. He was best-known not as a composer but as an international recitalist and teacher with formidable technique and an amazing memory. In 1927 he made his first U. S. tour, and for 40 years taught organ at conservatories in Siena and Rome, as well as a brief stint from 1936–1938 at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He served as titular organist at St. Peter’s in The Vatican from 1948–1959. Toccata in A, published in 1937, is his only organ composition. A graceful modal melody weaves its way through a brilliant 16th-note texture (à la Duruflé), at first in manual figurations and then in pedal passagework building to a rousing conclusion.
After receiving musical training from his father (and possibly Pachelbel and Reincken), Böhm resided in his native Thuringia in central Germany until 1698, when he was appointed as organist at the prestigious North German church of St. John’s in Lüneburg, remaining there for the rest of his life. Scholars believe the teenaged Bach, while a student in nearby Ohrdruf from 1700–1702, may have visited Böhm there. The genius of Böhm lies in his chorale partitas—a new innovation fusing the 17th-century secular partita with the sacred chorale variation. Although they have unmistakable harpsichord features, the partitas are also suitable as organ pieces. The chorale Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele [Rejoice greatly, O my soul] was originally composed in 1551 by Louis Bourgeois to accompany Psalm 42. Nowadays it usually accompanies the Advent hymn “Comfort, Comfort Ye My People.” Böhm’s partita on the chorale comprises 12 variations. The first ten variations are in relatively simple harpsichord style; however, the penultimate variation, with massive homophony and pedal, is clearly intended for the organ. The surprising final variation is a harbinger of Bach’s “Schübler” style—a trio with individual phrases of the cantus firmus in the tenor introduced by an extended prelude and separated by interludes.
As he purportedly did with Böhm, the young Bach also visited Buxtehude at St. Mary’s in Lübeck, where Buxtehude had begun his lifelong work at age 31. Buxtehude’s music represents the high point of the 17th-century North German organ school, particularly his praeludia, a genre featuring alternating free improvisatory and fugal sections. Buxtehude left two praeludia in E minor—one large, one small. The five-part Praeludium in E Minor, BuxWV 142, with its three fugues, is the larger one and his most important free organ work. Its introductory section leads to a fully developed canzone-type fugue with a violinistic descending subject. A central second fugue, in 3/2, follows, with a descending chromatic subject and equally chromatic countersubject. A very ornate, improvisatory interlude leads to the contrasting third and final fugue leaping forth as a cheerful jig. Its virtuosic pedal part supports imitations and hammered chords on the manuals. The piece ends with a brief and brilliant recitative.
Born in the French Basque country, Ermend-Bonnal studied in Paris with Vierne, Tournemire, Guilmant, and Fauré, occasionally filling in for Tournemire at Sainte-Clotilde. In 1920 he returned to the Basque country in Bayonne as director of the conservatory and organist of Saint-André until 1942, when he returned to Paris to succeed Tournemire at Sainte-Clotilde. The first of his three Paysages euskariens [Basque Landscapes], La Vallée du Béhorléguy, au matin [Béhorléguy Valley at Dawn], is a picturesque tableau in E major and borrows its thematic material from regional folklore. With hints of Tournemire, the harmonic language and symphonic style are reminiscent of Vierne.
Dame Judith Weir was born in Scotland and is one of the most significant composers living in Britain today. In 2014, she became the first woman to hold the position of Master of the Queen’s Music and was one of twelve composers to write music for the recent coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla. One of Weir’s best-known organ compositions is another “landscape” piece, Wild Mossy Mountains, titled after a Robert Burns poem. Weir explains that the overall shape of the music (in a handwritten score with no bar lines or time signatures) has the smoothly rising and falling contours of the Scottish hillsides Burns was describing. Michael Bonaventure first performed the piece in Edinburgh in 1982. The Tree of Peace was commissioned in memory of Richard Axtell, organist of the parish church in West Tarring, West Sussex, where Charles Harrison premiered it in 2017. The piece is in three main sections, with a gradual increase of tempo throughout. The opening Cantabile provides the thematic material, which is then developed in an energetic central section marked Animato. The concluding Molto mosso presents the opening theme in augmentation. Throughout the music is an orchestral sense of color and structure.
A staple of Utah culture, Tchaikovsky’s 1892 masterpiece, The Nutcracker, was his last ballet. Every year since 1963, Ballet West has performed Willam Christensen’s original version, replicating the first American performance of the complete ballet that he produced in San Francisco in 1944. The story, based on a children’s fairy tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann, is set in Nürnberg, Germany on Christmas Eve, where family and friends have gathered in the parlor. During the opening number, Decoration and Lighting of the Christmas Tree, the parents are busy trimming the tree. Nine o’clock strikes and the children with some friends burst into the scene and all join in a lively March around the room.
Due to her daughter’s exceptional musical talent, Jeanne Demessieux’s mother moved her family from Montpellier, in southern France, to Paris. At age 12, Demessieux was appointed organist at Temple du Saint-Esprit and served there until six years before her untimely death. Like her teacher, Marcel Dupré, she concertized throughout Europe and the United States and was renowned for her prodigious pedal technique. On her first American concert tour in 1953 Demessieux is said to have played 1,500 pieces from memory, and in high heel shoes. Her few published compositions reveal her virtuoso technique. Dating from 1947, her Seven Meditations on the Holy Spirit is inspired by sections from the Pentecost liturgy. They reflect the tradition of Dupré as well as the early language of Messiaen. The sparkling final meditation, Lumière [Light] in E major, is reminiscent of “The Angels” from Messiaen’s La Nativité written a decade earlier.
Paris native Henri Duparc was among the earliest students of César Franck and is known today as a composer of French art songs. Plagued not only by increasing vision loss which led to total blindness, he also suffered from mental illness resulting in an abrupt end to composing at age 37. He destroyed most of his music, leaving fewer than 40 works. Aux étoiles [To the Stars] is a slow triple-meter nocturne in C major. It was initially composed as part of Duparc’s abandoned opera, La Roussalka, and then reworked as part of his 1874 Poème nocturne for orchestra. In 1910, he again revised the piece and various arrangements were published for piano solo, piano duet, and organ solo. The arrangement heard this evening is by Mr. Tan himself. The epigraph reads, “The starry illumination of the nights! Who can know the secret virtues of this light, so humble yet with the immensity as its source?” The serene opening and closing sections frame a central episode in a high register.
Vierne was named organist of Notre-Dame Cathedral in 1900. A quarter century later
in 1924, after a hiatus of ten years without producing an organ symphony, Vierne composed his monumental Fifth Symphony. The effervescent joy of his previous four symphonies was replaced by anguish and despair from the melancholy of an unhappy marriage and divorce, professional disappointments, and the death of his eldest son and brother in World War I. Additionally, the symphony displays a Wagnerian aesthetic recalling Tristan with its unprecedented chromaticism, abandonment of tonal references, and a cyclical double leitmotif. The opening Grave movement introduces the two very different themes integrated throughout the symphony: the first is diatonic descending by thirds, while the other is chromatic and tormented with vague atonality. Final, cast in sonata form, is the unbridled fifth movement and bursts forth as a French toccata denoting victory of joy over pain. It unexpectedly transforms the first Grave theme into a bright, swinging carillon tune in A major. The central Meno mosso sections reverse the second theme, so it is no longer one of bitterness. The movement concludes in sheer and dazzling virtuosity.