Washington University Symphony Orchestra to present “OrganFest” Nov. 19

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will present “OrganFest,” a concert showcasing the university’s recently refurbished Graham Chapel organ, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 19.

The performance is free and open to the public. Graham Chapel is located immediately north of the Mallinckrodt Student Center, 6445 Forsyth Blvd. For more information, call (314) 935-4841 or email staylor@wustl.edu.

Dan Presgrave, instrumental music coordinator in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences, conducts the 70-plus-member Symphony Orchestra. Featured soloist are William Partridge, Jr., Washington University organist; and Barbara Raedeke, instructor in organ in the Department of Music.

Over the last three centuries the popularity of organ music has rested mainly on its solo repertoire, especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). Yet as concert halls were increasingly built with pipe organs on their stages, subsequent composers wrote works for organ with orchestra accompaniment and the organ concerto became a part of the orchestral repertoire.

“OrganFest” will open with Crown Imperial — in which the organ is treated as a regular member of the orchestra — by the British composer William Walton (1902-83). A march of great ceremonial pomp, the piece was originally written for the coronation of King George VI in 1937.

The program then continues with a pair of contrasting organ concertos: Concerto in B-flat Major, op. 4, no. 2 (c. 1735) by George Frideric Handel (1685-1759); and Concerto for Organ in G Major (1936) by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963).

Raedeke, who serves as organist-choir director at Parkway United Church of Christ, will perform the Handel concerto, one of six composed for his Opus 4 set, a hallmark of the genre. Handel — like his contemporary Bach — was inclined to demonstrate his own prowess as a performer by composing virtuosic works for keyboard instruments and continued to appear as a soloist well into old age. Prior to Opus 4, Handel had written the earliest known orchestral music with a featured solo part for organ; it appears in an instrumental section of his oratorio Il trionfo del Tempo.

Partridge, organist-choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral, will perform the Poulenc concerto, the composer’s only work for organ. Commissioned by Princesse Edmond de Polignac, an important patron of the arts in 1930s Paris, the piece opens with references to Bach’s Fantasia in G minor, though it mainly reflects a style of writing — sometimes introspective, sometimes grand and flashy — that dominated French organ music during Poulenc’s own time. Unlike the typical concerto, which consists of three movements, the concerto consists of multiple contrasting sections — including powerful dissonances and playful, jazzy rhythms — that elide into one large movement.

The program concludes with Symphony No. 1 in F minor by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), performed in honor of the composer’s centennial year. Written when Shostakovich was only 19, the work displays a youthful enthusiasm as well as an affinity for both the grand symphonies of 19th century Russia and the satiric, acerbic music of his older contemporaries Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. The piece also contrasts with the darker mood of Shostakovich’s subsequent works — such as the Seventh Symphony (Leningrad) and the Eleventh Symphony (The Year 1905) — which today serve as a musical monument to Russia’s tragic history.

Renovations to the Graham Chapel organ were completed last year. Work involved considerable internal and exterior repairs as well as replacing ten ranks of reeds and equipping the instrument with a new four-manual console and a new pedalboard. The chapel’s original organ, built by the Kilgen Company of St. Louis, made its debut when the building was dedicated in 1909. The current instrument, built by the M.P. Moller Organ Company in 1948, was previously renovated in 1980. The latest restoration was made possible thanks to funds provided by the Roland Quest Memorial Trust and matching sources.