Organist Beth Zucchino

ORGANIST ZUCCHINO PLAYS HOLIDAY TREATS IN AGO RECITAL AT INCARNATION

In the fourth recital in the fourth season of Twilight Pipe Organ Mini Recitals organist Beth Zucchino delighted a large audience in Santa Rosa’s Church of the Incarnation with a provocative program.

Ms. Zucchino opened with Bach’s four-part Pastorella pro organa (BWV 590) and closed with Rheinberger’s Pastorale, Con moto, from his Sonata for Organ No. 3 in G major, Op. 88. The Pastorale musical form, Italian in origin, is usually written in ‘triplets’ or is based upon meters in three, and many times has a “drone” (single note) in the pedal, and conjures up images of shepherds in idyllic settings. Bach, as usual, took this form and besides the opening serene shepherd setting enriched it with movements described as portraying the Magi adoration, the Holy Family, and angels above the manger. But the Leipzig master but never abandoned the root of the Pastorale form. The artist’s choice of stops on the organ matched the “color” of each movement. The Rheinberger rendition of the Pastorale, played with full organum plenum, emphasized the triple meter within the context of a rich harmonic development, romantic in nature but certainly not divorced from the tightness of form derived from its Baroque origins. The framing of the program with this musical form was very effective.

Sandwiched between the Pastorales was Alexandre-François-Pierre Boëly’s 14-movement Quatorze préludes avec pédale obligée sur les cantiques de Denizot, Op. 15. The work is obviously based on Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, composed 130 years earlier. Boëly took the music from “Cantiques du Premier Advenement de Jesu–Christ,” unaccompanied songs on the subject of the Nativity by “le Conte d’Alsinois” (the anagrammatic pseudonym of Nicolas Denisot) who was one of the Pléiades. They introduced to French poetry modern forms such as the sonnet. Boëly in his rendering emphasized strict yet fluid compositional styles in each movement, never overstating nor extending each movement. Ms. Zucchino captured these concise, rich gems, using well chosen stops and articulation, and included a silent pause between each so they could be “digested” before the next.

These seldom heard delicacies were a treat for this holiday season and appropriately fitting a day when national events were hard to understand or comprehend.

These recitals are co-sponsored by the Redwood Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and the fifth of the series January 11th will feature soprano Carol Menke performing with Incarnation staff organist Harold Julander.