Fanfare and Celebration by Pam Robison (b. 1947)
This piece was one of the winning compositions of the 2026 Women Composer Sunday composition contest sponsored by the AGO. Woman Composer Sunday is a global, annual event, originated by the Society of Women Organists and the Royal College of Organists in the U.K., to encourage the use of music by women composers on the Sunday nearest International Women’s Day. Pam Robison began playing for church services on a pump organ as a child in Nuneaton, England. She has served as a volunteer staff organist at Community of Christ International Headquarters in Independence, Missouri, since 1968. She holds degrees from Graceland University and Central Missouri State University. About this piece, Pam wrote, “The hymn tune drawn from Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ has always sounded celebratory, and I wanted to write a piece that could be used in multiple ways in worship — as a prelude, postlude, for a wedding. I originally wrote it to be played on a two-manual organ but also so that if one had access to a larger instrument, full advantage could be taken of trumpet stops.”
Chaconne in G minor, BWV 1179, by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
A recent milestone for scholars and fans of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach occurred late last year, when two long-lost chaconnes were officially recognized as being written by this great composer. Peter Wollny, currently director of the Bach Archive in Leipzig, Germany, found them over thirty years ago while he was a graduate student. He finally succeeded in authenticating them in 2025, proving that Bach composed these works early in his career, at around eighteen years old, while serving as a church organist in Arnstadt, Germany. They got their first performance in three centuries on November 17, 2025, at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, where Bach is buried. According to the New York Times, “The newly discovered pieces are more than a novelty. Several experts who have listened to them said they provided early evidence of Bach’s talent as he began to grow into the composer who is still revered as a titan more than three centuries after his birth.” A chaconne is a Baroque-era form in which melodic variations are placed above repeated bass lines or harmonies. The Chaconne in G minor is the second of the two “newest” Bach works.
Fugue in D, BWV 532b, by J.S. Bach
Contrasting with the previous work, this fugue is one of Bach’s most well-known. He composed it around 1709, when he was serving in the court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar, Germany. The Duke encouraged Bach to make use of his unique and obvious talents at the organ, and Bach developed a reputation as an organ virtuoso and improviser. The D Major Fugue shows the influence of Böhm, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, and other German composers whose works and playing Bach admired and studied. It is an explosion of creativity, with a dose of humor, all based on one simple musical idea, and is equally demanding for both hands and feet.
Sonata-Symphony No. 1 for Organ, Op. 42, by Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911)
Felix-Alexandre Guilmant was the first world-famous touring virtuoso organist. In his hometown of Paris, he played dedication recitals for significant new organs, including Saint-Sulpice and Notre-Dame. He inaugurated a major concert series at the magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Trocadéro Palace, a huge hall built for the Paris World Exhibition in 1878. He was also organ instructor at the Paris Conservatory from 1896 until his death. Abroad, he performed well-received recitals in Great Britain, many European countries, Russia, and the U.S. His first North American tour included performances at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a second tour followed in 1897-98, and a third in 1904 culminated in forty concerts at the Saint Louis Exhibition. His wide-ranging repertoire and cleverly-themed concert programs made him very popular with the general public.
Guilmant also served as organist at Saint-Trinité church in Paris, where he played its new Cavaillé-Coll organ from 1871 until 1901. His eight organ sonatas, composed during these thirty years, were highly influenced by the work and philosophies of the great French organbuilder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built the pipe organ at the church. Cavaillé-Coll’s many innovations in organ design included devices which enabled more expressive playing and new stops inspired by orchestral sounds. Guilmant and others of his time sought to express the beauty and grandeur of a full symphony at the organ. But Guilmant wrote of two schools of thought: “In one, the organ is treated as an orchestra, the production of orchestral effects being sought; while the other holds that the organ has so noble a tone quality, and so many resources of its own, that it need not servilely imitate the orchestra. I belong to the latter school. Berlioz said ‘The organ is Pope; the orchestra, Emperor.’ In other words, each is supreme in its own way.”
Guilmant composed his Sonata No. 1 in 1874. He later created a version for organ and orchestra, titled Symphony No. 1. The work opens with a stately introduction, after which an energetic pedal solo begins the main, faster section of the first movement. The second movement features beautiful, lyrical lines played on various solo voices and chorale-like sections for the organ stop called vox humana (“human voice”). This movement made such an impact at its premiere that the enthusiastic audience demanded it be repeated on the spot! The final movement contrasts virtuosic toccata sections with another chorale-like subject, and concludes this work in grand style.
beating by inti figgis-vizueta (b. 1993)
American composer and educator inti figgis-vizueta’s intent in composing is “to reconcile historical aesthetics and experimental practices with trans and indigenous futures.” Described as an “ever-intriguing, rising new music star” whose “arresting…sparse, beautiful” work brings “a sense of true dramatic stakes,” she creates music which draws inspiration from poetry, archeology, her Irish and Indigenous Andean heritage, queer and trans experience, and more. inti has been commissioned and performed by leading artists worldwide, and she is the recipient of the 2026 United States Artists Fellowship, among many other awards. She composed beating in 2017 and revised it in 2021. Its premiere was performed by organist Benjamin Teague, to whom the piece is dedicated.
Rhumba, by Robert Elmore (1913–1985)
Robert Elmore was born in India, where his parents were missionaries. When he was five, the family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska, and he began studying piano and organ. His professional career, based in Philadelphia, crossed denominational lines (he served as organist in Baptist, Catholic, and Moravian churches) and spanned stylistic traditions (he was a theatre organist as well as a classical musician). Rhumba, published in 1952, combines classical and theatre elements, and includes lots of footwork.
Amazing Grace by George Shearing (1919–2011)
The author of one of the most-loved Christian songs in the world was a slave trader, John Newton. He wasn’t particularly religious, but during a huge storm at sea he begged God for mercy. That moment was the beginning of his spiritual conversion. He eventually quit the slave trade, studied theology, and was ordained in the Church of England. He wrote his poem “Amazing Grace” to illustrate a sermon in 1773. Paired with the popular hymn tune New Britain, it became a hugely influential part of American religious and folk music during the 1800s. George Shearing’s setting, created over a century later, further illustrates the wonderful confluence of people, talents, and styles of our country’s musical history. Shearing was a British jazz pianist born in the Battersea area of London. Blind at birth, he grew up imitating recordings he had heard of famous jazz musician Fats Waller. From his first jobs playing in area pubs, Shearing became one of the best-known jazz pianists of his time, with a career that included performances for three U.S. presidents as well as Queen Elizabeth II. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1947. Upon being knighted by the Queen in 2007, he said, “the poor, blind kid from Battersea became Sir George Shearing. Now that’s a fairy tale come true.” He collaborated closely with an organist colleague, Dale Wood, to create distinctive and memorable organ arrangements of classic American hymn tunes.
Variations and Fugue on “Heil dir im Siegerkranz” (My Country ‘Tis of Thee) by Max Reger (1886–1971)
Johann Baptist Joseph Maximillian Reger has been called the greatest German composer of organ music since J.S. Bach. He was also a performer, conductor, and teacher, most notably at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig and in the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen. Despite its German title, U.S. audiences easily recognize the familiar tune upon which Reger’s Variations and Fugue on “Heil dir im Siegerkranz” is based. In fact, the hymn tune is labelled as America in many hymnals here; it was sung at George Washington’s inauguration. But many outside the U.S. also identify with this tune. Reger wrote his work based on it in 1901 to honor England’s Queen Victoria; her subjects knew the song as “God Save the Queen.” Reger’s fellow citizens in Germany recognized the tune as their national anthem (until 1918). It was Prussia’s anthem beginning as early as 1795. In addition to these, the list of countries which have promoted their own national unity with it is long and varied, and literally spans from A to Z: the current or former nations of Australia, Barbados, Bavaria, Canada, Greece, Iceland, Imperial Russia, Jamaica, the Kingdom of Hawaii, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Rhodesia, Saxony, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tuvalu, Wales, and Zimbabwe. The composer and date of the original tune are unknown. Nearly 150 classical composers, including Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms, Liszt, Debussy, Rossini, Verdi, Elgar, and Britten have used it in their compositions. So, when we in the United States hear or sing our beloved “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” we should remember that the anonymous tune we sing actually has no country at all ― or, perhaps more appropriately, it is a common ground we share with many of the Earth’s peoples!