Since I’ve been typing the weekly church bulletins for the 10:30 service since last fall when Carl’s computer died, one advantage (?) I’ve had is being able to change the organ music at the last moment. Even though I had already programmed Mendelssohn on the repertoire list, when I saw that the choir was singing Mozart and Haydn, I thought I’d better find something in the same period of music. So this week I’ll continue in the Classical vein and will be playing a transcription of the Largo (from Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet) for the prelude, a prelude on Mozart’s “Ave Verum” for the communion, and the finale of Mozart’s Fantaisie in F minor for the postlude. (Unfortunately I won’t be able to play the whole piece otherwise we’ll be in church as long as last week!)

Carl Crosier is officially “on the books” through August 31st, but he had decided that August 21st would be his final Sunday. So, tomorrow he is taking as a vacation day. Allen Bauchle will be conducting the choir in Haydn’s “How oft, instinct with warm divine,” and Mozart’s famous “Ave verum corpus.”

One of the most memorable performances we experienced of Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus” was in the Petrikirche in Leipzig. We went to a concert of the Mozart Requiem there and we were surprised to see that the church still bore scars of World War II bombing with windows boarded up. We noticed that the audience was extremely quiet as they entered the building, and then the conductor came out and lit the Paschal candle. Interspersed between the movements of Mozart’s Requiem were readings and chants, and I remember especially how beautiful the choral singing and orchestral playing sounded in the reverberant building.

At the end, no one clapped, but instead, the bells in the tower started ringing for several minutes. Then the choir and orchestra sang Mozart’s Ave Verum, which was not listed in the program, so it was almost used as an encore, except there was no applause preceding it. The piece never sounded so beautiful in these rather rundown surroundings. We found out later that this was a concert to honor AIDS victims.

Don’t forget that tomorrow we return to two Sunday morning services at 8:00 and 10:30 am. Choir warmup will be at 9:30 am.