I don't do recitals all that much any more, but when I did I incorporated some of this. I always tried to get at least one piece from the major schools of music. There were some good variations on chants by composers of different periods. Let's face it, everyone doesn't like hearing music from one time period only. I would generally do a Baroque piece, a Romantic piece, then something more contemporary. I could fill in around those with other works.

Keep the buckle shoes dry, Jackson. I hear the hurricane/tropical storm may head toward Houston. Stay safe.

Besides the well-balanced diet of short and long, old and new, I sometimes focus on a single composer. I already posted a Cabezon program, and here are a few other examples:

First Friday Concert
Sept. 6, 2013, 11:15 AM
St. David of Wales Catholic Church, Richmond

Music of John Stanley (1712-1786)

Richard Mix, organ


Voluntary in d Opus 5 (1748) #8 in the Italian manner

Voluntary in F Op. 6 (1752) #4 cornets & flute

Voluntary in C Op.7 (1754) #2 trumpet & vox humana

Voluntary in a Op. 6 #2 cornet & echo

Voluntary in G Op. 7 #9 full organ

Voluntary in g Op. 5 #9 full organ & echo


John Stanley (who lost his eyesight at the age of two) was a child prodigy who secured his first professional post at the age of eleven at Christopher Wren's church at All Hallows Bread Street. The outstanding English-born composer of his day, he has remained somewhat overshadowed by Georg Friedrich Handel, his older contemporary. While Handel could not resist a joke about the blind leading the blind, he highly valued Stanley's assistance in leading annual performances of Messiah and Stanley eventually succeeded him as a governor of the Foundling Hospital.

Much of Stanley's music is for his own instrument, the 3-manual organ at St. Andrews, Holborn (another Wren building). In its bold unisons, octave leaps and orchestral effects the voluntary Opus 5 No. 8 shows the strong influence of Vivaldi, whose Four Seasons were published in Paris in 1740. Op. 6 No. 4 is more clearly in the English vein of (for example) William Boyce, whom he would later succeed as Master of the King's Band. The voluntaries for solo trumpet and cornet are also in the native tradition, while the prelude & fugue for full organ Opus 7 No. 9 shows Stanley in full command of the handelian manner.

Richard Mix (bass) appears with over a dozen Bay Area opera companies singing a repertoire that embraces Wagner and Monteverdi as well as Scelsi and Stockhausen. A former cellist, he made his singing debut as Truelove in Berkeley Contemporary Opera's 1992 production of The Rake's Progress and went on to the Darmstädter Sommerferienkurse für neue Musik, where he was awarded a Patenring grant and re-invited in 1994 and 1996. West coast premieres range from Arthur in Maxwell Davis' The Lighthouse to C.P.E. Bach’s 1789 Matthaeuspassion, and most recently Vladimir in Butterfly Country, whose Nabokovian title role was written for him by his wife, Ann Callaway. This Fall he will appear in Fabrezio De Rossi Re's King Kong, Amore Mio (Oct.  3). Since 2012 he has been the artistic director of Bella Musica, whose Fall semester begins Sept.10 and will focus on Lassus' Sibyline Prophecies and short works by Barber, Tavener and Rautavaara.  He currently directs the choirs at St. David of Wales Church in Richmond.

First Friday Organ Concerts at St. David's
11:15 AM, September 5, 2014

Looking forwards, glancing back:
Music of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)

Sonata in g minor, Wq 70.6
Allegro moderato-Adagio-Allegro

Fugue in E-flat Major, Wq 119/6

Prelude Ich ruf zu dir, BWV Anh. II 73

Richard Mix, organ

This year marks the tricentenial of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach, the second surviving son of Johann Sebastian (1685-1750). Like his brothers Wilhelm Friedemann and Johann Christian, he studied law but turned to composing as his profession and achieved considerable fame in his own right in Berlin before succeeding his godfather Georg Phillip Telemann as music director of Hamburg's churches. Startling as it seems, it is in fact this son of whom Mozart said "Bach is the father, we are all but children", Mozart's fruitful encounter with the elder Bach's work occuring later in his career after his move to Vienna.

In their dramatic contrasts of dynamics, sudden silences and harmonic audacities C. P. E. Bach's works of the 1750's (including the sonata in g minor, 1755) seem particularly avant-garde and in tune with the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) mood of the time's literature. The E-flat Fugue (1762) likewise exhibits a certain quirkiness in the construction of its first theme, but this is always held within bounds by a thorough mastery of the old contrapuntal technique.

In what can only have been a sinere tribute, much of C. P. E. Bach's Hamburg church music contains lengthy quotes of his father's music, written in what was no longer a fashionable style. The prelude on Ich ruf zu dir (I cry to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ, a hymn by Johann Agricola, 1492-1566) is a reworking of a famous piece by Johann Sebastian, originally part of the Orgelbüchlein from which he taught his children and pupils. This version quotes the original piece in its entirety and frames it with pre-, inter- and postludes. It was originally catalogued as a variant by the elder Bach (the BWV number standing for Bach Werke Verzeichnis) and never assigned a Wq. number in the catalogue of C. P. E. Bach's works by Wotquenne.

Chants, Birds, Colors, Rhythms:
the music of Olivier Messiaen

Saint David of Wales Catholic Church
First Friday Concert
December 5 2008, 11:15 AM

Richard Mix, organ

O sacrum convivium (1937) Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

Le Dieu caché (Livre du Saint Sacrament, 1984) Messiaen
Alleluia for Corpus Christi, [invocation of the Trinity], Tristram’s Grackle heard at Madi, adoration, Alleluia, [Trinity], Tristram’s Grackle, adoration, Olivacious Warbler heard at Lod, near Tel Aviv, adoration.

Râga from Rrrrrr...(1982) Mauricio Kagel (1931-1908)

Veni veni Emanuel Calvin Hampton (1938-1984)

Les Desseins éternelles (La Nativité du Seigneur, 1935) Messiaen
��fGod, in his love, choose us to be his adopted children through Jesus Christ, to the praise of the glory of his grace. (Eph.)

Jésus accept la Soufrance (La Nativité du Seigneur) Messiaen
For this reason, when he came into the world, he said:
"Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. (Hebr.10:5)

Capriccio fatto sopra il cucchù Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)

“Dieu est simple” Messiaen
(mvmt. VIII from Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité, 1973)
Alleluia for All Saints; The Three are One (cretan rhythm); Father Son and Spirit; “O depth of the riches of God’s wisdom and science!” (Rom.11:33), Miçra varna; ” Jesus said:’come unto me, all you who are tired and heavy laden’” (Math.11:28); “And Jesus said:’My yoke is easy and my burden light.’” (Math.11:30); “Who will give me the wings of a dove? I would��e fly away and find rest.” (Ps.34:7); Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)


Upcoming events at St. David’s:
December 21, 6:00 PM Sing-along Messiah (Part 1) with gregorian vespers
January 2, 11:15 AM Next first Friday concert

I used Vespers as a Cabanilles tricentenial theme as well as an excuse to include the perennial Girolamo:

Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (1644-1712)
and Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
Music for Vespers

Saint David of Wales Catholic Church
First Friday Concerts
Friday October 5, 2012 11:15 AM

Richard Mix, organ

2. Tiento de falsas Juan Bautista José Cabanilles (1644-1712)
First set of verses for Vesper Psalms: Psalm CIX Dixit Dominus

��10 verses in the 1st mode: Psalm CX Confiteor

Passacalles

***

From Il secondo libro di toccate, canzone, versi d'hinni, Magnificat, gagliarde, correnti et altre partite d'intavolatura di cembalo et organo (1627):

Hymn: Iste confessor Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)

Magnificat 6. toni Frescobaldi

VIII. Toccata di durezze e ligature Frescobaldi

Canzona VI. Frescobaldi

Performers are most happy to be greeted following the noontime Exposition of the Holy Eucharist. This service lasts slightly less than a quarter-hour and anyone is welcome to participate or observe. The order of service and music (following the announced entrance hymn) may be found at Nos. 85-89 in the pew hymnal; the service always concludes with hymn 306.

The next first Friday concert on November 2, All Souls Day, will feature Sermisy's Requiem.

Looks like a great program, Mark; being a bit of an imposter as an organist, I'm rather jealous of all your pedaliter literature!
Chorale programming somewhat resembles Lied programming, it that one relies on groups, from preexisting cycles/partite to single poets/single tunes to thematic bouquets. My much lamented mentor Anna Carol Dudley did a song recital grouped by morning, noon, evening & night, and I followed suit in gathering my stray favorites by season, which turned out to be immensely pleasurable in spite of the flimsy premise:

Chant d'automne Op. 5 No. 1 (1879) Gabriel Fauré
Herbsttag (3 Rilke Lieder, 1958) Elizabeth Austin
Walking (1902) Charles Ives
The Choirmaster's Burial (Winter Words, Op. 52, 1953) Benjamin Britten

На холмах Грузии (The Hills of Georgia) Op. 3 No. 4 (1866) Rimsky-Korsakov
Lonesome Man (Blue Mountain Ballads, 1946) Paul Bowles
The Snowman (5 Poems of Wallace Stevens, 1984) Allen Shearer
Ich bin der Welt abhanden bekommen (1901) Gustav Mahler

********

Sestina (from Vladimir in Butterfly Country, 2011) Ann Callaway
Märzveilchen, Op. 40 No. 1 (1840) Robert Schumann
Erwartung, Op. 2 No. 1 (1899) Arnold Schönberg
Der Jäger (Mörike Liederbuch, 1888) Hugo Wolf

Feldeinsamkeit, Op. 86 No. 2 (1878) Johannes Brahms
Der Einsame, Op. 41 (c.1825) Franz Schubert
Grantchester (1920) Ives
A Green Lowland of Pianos, Op. 45 No. 2 (1974) Samuel Barber

Another vote for NOT doing chronological. From an aesthetics point of view, I also think it tends to reinforce this modernist idea that newer things have somehow transcended the old.