Thanks for this, RJ, and the link to your other works. I could never compose anything, but I sure love to try out new music.

Many thanks, JulieColl, for your kind words. I remember reading as a kid an interview which Robert Lowell had given (he was still alive when I read it) about how he desperately tried, in his specifically religious poems, to avoid glibness: he wanted his faith to sound effortful and hard-won. So do I with mine, such as it is. Hence the lack of a formal, obvious harmonic conclusion in the Ave Maria's last measures.

I also wanted organists to avoid choosing stops that would sound gluey, sticky, and over-sentimental in the context (e.g. Vox Humana, Gamba). Besides, by no means all organs hereabouts have these stops anyway, even if I had sought them. But nearly every organ, however simple and small, has a basic Swell Gedackt or some other Swell flute.

Really enjoyed playing through this, even with my dodgy e-piano and dubious voice. (I wish I knew more about organ registration so as to imagine the intended sound.)

I love the way that the listener—or, at least, this listener—has no idea where it's heading, but that it all sounds so clear and reasonable after the fact. To me it all unfolds in such a gentle, organic, unforced way. Congrats!

David, we're in Fresno Diocese, 40 miles south of Fresno.

Apparently this video is demonstrating some samples ... anyway, it gives an idea of the timbre. ("Chiffy" seems to be an appropriate term.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkKdw2HZ0fc

Is this sound realistic enough to actual organists?

P.S. I just want to add that in answer to my own question above, I've come to the conclusion that religious music that wears its heart on its sleeve, so to speak, and does not allow the listener room to explore and meditate and form his/her own conclusions is not as spiritually satisfying as music that is more abstruse and retains a sense of mystery.

I would place Catholic devotional music such as one might find in a c. 1900's St. Basil Hymnal, music popular in the 1950's and Praise and Worship music in the category of religious music that has a pre-set, narrowly defined emotional impact closely tied to the age in which it was conceived and so necessarily has a short shelf life.

Music that is emotionally restrained and not immediately accessible, on the other hand, requires the listener to make some effort, and the result is usually far more rewarding and ultimately of more universal appeal. It's exciting to see contemporary composers like our two Australian friends and others like Kevin Allen developing, as I said before, a more cerebral and exalted genre of religious music that avoids the heavy emotional baggage of the last century.

Hope this makes sense. I'm still struggling to figure this all out.

Hi RJ:

This looks quite interesting. Do you have a MIDI simulation?

Often music notation programs can produce a MIDI simulation file along with a PDF score.

Hadn't thought of it as a possible organ instrumental, but maybe ... still, there is a RH part on the last page. Thanks, Chonak, for tip-off regarding music notation programs. I'll look up Sibelius to that end.

Update, three hours later: Right, have just wrestled the Sibelius instruction manual to the ground and thereby worked out how to save my score in MIDI format. The result has somehow turned the organ part into a piano timbre that wouldn't have been out of place in a Chicago tavern circa 1905, while simultaneously the vocal parts have become a vague indeterminate gargling (not always in the right octave, the bass part now resembling a contrabassoon), but we have, after a fashion, lift-off.

When you set up the score did you specify organ? It's labelled as such, so that's odd that its played back as a piano. What version of Sibelius are you using?

Also, I've found it helpful for playback purposes to write organ parts as a flute part (you can turn off the colors for notes out of range, if that's on by default). The midi setting for organ, at least in Sibelius 7, is a "full organ" sound. Since you want a gedackt, I'd suggest going into instruments (shortcut is the "i" key), adding some flutes, changing the clefs for LH and pedal parts (and renaming them, then copying the organ part into the flute lines. Go back to instruments and delete the organ from the score. If you've renamed the instruments and copied the music over, it will look exactly the same as it does now, but play back with a sound more similar to your intent.

That is most kind of you, sir. I am very pleased that David Basden's work was as well received in performance as it deserved to be. I am honored that my own might be considered alongside it.

So sorry to hear this, RJ. Have you tried J.W. Pepper? They offer some contemporary sacred music, from what I can tell. Keep composing whatever you do!

Have you ever tried alternating chant with polyphonic/choral verses? I'm very fond of that genre.

JWP is a distributor, not a publisher, I understand.

For the USA, Santa Barbara Music Press is adventurous.
RJ, We weren't able to prepare your AM for our last Sunday's concert, but we're going to keep it on the front burner.
The only thing that might discourage for-profit hard copy publishers I imagine might be the brevity and the focus upon the soprano line throughout. That said, musically sublime and gorgeous. You could try Gary P. at CanticaNova.com or maybe Sheet Music Plus and offer them a per copy deal.

"Not up to your usual standard" – huh!? Subtle as a brick!

Hope your Ave Maria gets a better reception elsewhere!

RJ, I recently played the Premier Kyrie - Plein Jeu from the Messe du Sixiesme Ton by Raison in a concert. I used your YouTube video as a study guide for that piece. Everyone raved about the piece, but how could they not?

I liked the organ. Thanks for the information, since I wondered who built it.

RJ, it's inspiring to see how much you have obviously researched the life of the composers whose music you play as in the case of Hindemith above.

Have you done much research on Frescobaldi and Merulo? I've become very fond of both, and esp. of Claude Merulo da Correggio lately. His organ toccatas---they're not difficult---are so delicate and unusual. Little excerpts are very nice as preludes and postludes since they are lengthy.

I like his Toccata Nono in the Fourth Tone, in particular the exquisite theme which begins at the F5 chord in the first measure on the second page (p. 52).

Here is an mp3 of Mr. Stove's piece. It is truly simple and stunning! Bravo!

(I love the part where the organ drops out and the voices are a cappella for a few bars)

RJ... I took the liberty to add a 16' to the pedal part. Hope that is OK.

UPDATE: ahhh.... I just noticed you had a registration that included a 16 in the ped.

listen to simulation

Thank you sirs. Yes, Francis, indeed the original calls for a 16-foot pedal part (coupled to manual) so your instinct was correct even before you saw the registration pointers at the beginning.

I don't know what actually made me cut off the organ part at m. 26, but as soon as I got the idea of doing so, I thought it seemed ... apposite. Only the sopranos, of all the voices, have a note more than a semitone different from the last note in the preceding measure, so I don't think any chorister could complain about intonation problems.

The single most valuable composition lesson I ever learned was from a percussionist friend - a former employee of the Sydney Symphony, and a man possibly known to Sydneysider David Basden - who didn't even realize that he was teaching me anything. (I offer this tip for the benefit of any other composers out there who haven't yet encountered it.)

Said percussionist friend told me that it's almost impossible for a singer to go off-pitch in Puccini, because every major vocal entry in every single Puccini opera is preceded by the same note appearing in another voice, or in at least one instrument. Just one of those stratagems by which Puccini differentiated his genius (yes, I said "genius", even if the Pucciniphobic Benjamin Britten rises from his tomb and punches my lights out) from the mere talent of Homo Sapiens.