Music Notes for May 22

Sunday's organ prelude by J.S. Bach goes by many names. "Wir glauben all' einen Gott (We All Believe in One True God) is a chorale prelude set as a three-voice fugue with pedal accompaniment. It is also known as the Dorian Fugue because it is based on the D minor scale and tonality but often without B flats which would make it D Dorian- modal, not tonal. The reoccurring B naturals reflect the Dorain modal scale and resultant harmonies. The organ pedal part, the bottom voice, is a series of ascending lines in rising intervals of the third. The text, “Wir glauben,” is the Creed from Martin Luther’s Reformed liturgy and many believe that the rising pedal line symbolically represents “faith”, hence another name- “The Faith Fugue.”

Why would this chorale prelude, We All Believe in One True God, be played on Trinity Sunday? The obvious answer is the doctrinal mystery that God is three persons in one God, a mystery difficult to put forth in the spoken word but so elegantly and artfully defined in Bach’s prelude. Remember? It is a three voice fugue woven into a unified whole. The Trinity doctrine is believed in faith so there is the symbolism of the “Faith motive” in the organ pedal part. Bach, the theologian puts the Trinity into both your heart and mind! Bach succeeds in exegesis where theologians and our minds often fail to comprehend. Bach does understand the trinity and this chorale prelude can perhaps help our understanding simply because his artful music enables us to feel a thought, especially one so divinely mysterious.

On Wednesday, June 15 at 7:00 pm, The Friends of Music Guild Concert Series sponsors a special summer concert featuring internationally known cellist and teacher, Olga Redkina. Educated in Russia with performance degrees from Kazan State University and here in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University, Olga is principle cellist with the Johnstown Symphony and offers a cello camp here at St. Paul’s, June 15 through 18. Among other works, her concert will feature “Variations on a Rococo Theme” by Tchaikovsky. We are also delighted that Olga will offer prelude music on Sunday, June 5^th. To register for Olga’s cello camp at St. Paul’s and to receive further information, go to OlgaRedkina.com.