The organ part and reduced score Symphony No. 4 - An Organ Symphony (2008) by Poul Ruders. Full score: WH31186 Orch. parts are available on hire: hire@ewh.dk Preface / Programme Note When introducing a large-scale symphonic work not only as a symphony but as an organ symphony it would be impossible not to think of and perhaps compare it with Camille Saint-Saëns’s famous SYMPHONY NO. 3 popularly known as the Organ Symphony. Well that is a risk I am prepared to take – and live with the consequences.Saint-Saëns however listed his work as a symphony avec/withorgan. The organ only appears in two out of the four sections of thepiece. In my symphony the instrument plays a far more significant part and is featured in all four movements. But it is not a concerto for organ and orchestra rather a symphony with organo obligato - a symphony with an organ part of a soloistic nature. So an Organ Symphony it is. The first movement PRELUDE is exactly that: a foreplay to what is in store for the rest of the symphony. It is slow (very slow!) and predominantly hushed: the organ and the orchestra wake up side-by-side getting to know one another.The second movement CORTÈGE is a slowly moving processional and it evokes extreme solemnity and austerity. Later on the music takes flight and the atmosphere lightens considerably a far more playful music emerging.This leads to the third movement ETUDE an exercise in instrumental virtuosity and technical challenge.The fourth and last movement is called CHACONNE but I could just as well have named it passacaglia (the definition of those two terms seems to blur even among the learned). Bearing in mind the last movement of Johannes Brahms´s SYMPHONY NO.4 which is universally agreed on as being a passacaglia I chose to avoid the Wrath of the Gods and opted for

Commissioned for the 26th International Organ Festival at St Albans 2011 and funded by the RVW Trust.Duration: 7.45 Performance notes Registration: the performer is free to determine the entire registration scheme except at bar 60 where a solo reed is mandatory.Pitch: manual passages at bars 25 32 38 are written for a solo 4' stop (s). The Pedal is at 16' (ad lib 32') unless otherwise indicated (bars 31 37 where a solo 8' is required).III - Sw.II - Gt.I - Pos/Ch Composer's note Esperanza is named after Camp Esperanza (Camp Hope) the location of the mission to rescue the thirty-three miners trappedunderground for seventy days in 2010 at the San Jose Mine in Chile a rescue that was televised live and was one of the most moving and inspiring things I have ever seen. By the most extraordinary coincidence I had already done a good deal of sketching for this Organ piece before this all happened and had determined on a 'darkness-to-light' kind of piece - so the coincidence as well as my feelings of elation were both too strong to ignore.The piece persues a course from a fairly knotty slow beginning (heralded by a few chords that recur at the very end) full of rising themes (another coincidence - the material had already been sketched before the miners were trapped underground) and reaching a loud climax the quick toccata-like second section bursting vigourously out of the tension which is created at the beginning of the work.

Nico Muhly’s prelude for his friend the Rev'd James Mustard features slow-moving harmonies with a breathy warmth but it’s through a sparkling crystalline pane of arpeggios. Nico Muhly has an almost incomparable understanding of the capabilities of the Pipe Organ as a musical instrument but also an equally deep understanding of and even affection for its limitations making his Organ pieces extremely unique.

The Funeral March is composed in C and proceeds at a grand and stately pace. The Flute duet provides an excellent contrast to the majesty of the piece.Handel’s great oratorio of 1739 Saul was conceived on a grand scale to tell the Old Testament story of King Saul David the slayer of Goliath and Saul’s son Jonathan. By the end both Saul and Jonathan have been killed and this moving funeral march marks that sombre moment in the oratorio. Saul is considered one of Handel's greatest works with particular praise for the Choral writing and for this funeral march.