Are you sure you didn’t mean Buxtehude’s Passacaglia in D minor? Everyone knows Bach’s monumental Passacaglia is in C minor — in fact I know the piece so well because I played it on my master’s recital.

So yesterday when I went to Dan Werning‘s organ recital at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church yesterday, my ears perked up when he said, “If you have perfect pitch, this will be the first and only time you’ll hear the piece in the key of D minor! That’s because we have a dead note on the bottom C in the swell division, and rather bring our organ technician in from Germany to fix one note or take the piece off the program, I’ve transposed it to the key of D minor.”

You may recall that I once was asked to give the dedication recital at Our Lady of Peace Cathedral and opened with John Stanley’s Trumpet Voluntary in D major. Everything went fine in my practice, and then when I got to the church on the day of the concert, I was dumbfounded to discover that the D (an octave above middle C) was DEAD as a DOORNAIL! Do I instantly transpose everything to Db?

Obviously Dan didn’t make the transposition at sight, so after the concert, I asked to see his score.

Please! This piece is hard enough playing it in the original key! I’m way past trying to retrain my fingers to play it in another key—and to think that Dan punched this entire piece into Finale is mind-blowing!

Here’s a performance of the Passacaglia I like by Lionel Rogg (if you have perfect pitch, it sounds low, with A=415, so it sounds like it’s in B minor)

Here is the rest of Dan’s program:

Passacaglia and Fugue, BWV 582 (J.S. Bach)
Pieces for a Flute Clock, no. 32 (Franz Joseph Haydn)
Jerusalem (Andrew Unsworth)
When I survey the wondrous cross + Orchestra Suite No. 3 in D (arr. Linda McKechnie + J.S. Bach)
A mighty fortress (arr. Jan Bender)
All hail the power of Jesus name (arr. Richard Hudson and Michael Young)
Grand chorus dialogue (Eugène Gigout)

The congregation had the opportunity to sing Jerusalem with a descant from the movie, “Chariots of Fire.” I must admit it is the first time I have sung the real words of this hymn rather than the version I’ve known from page 597 of the Hymnal 1982.

Here are the *real* words:

And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God on England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrow of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire! I will not cease from mental fight, nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, till we have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.

The source of the lyrics is a poem by William Blake (1808), in which Blake implies that a visit by Jesus would briefly create heaven in England, in contrast to the “dark Satanic Mills” of the Industrial Revolution. Blake’s poem asks four questions rather than asserting the historical truth of Christ’s visit. Thus the poem merely implies that there may have been a divine visit, when there was briefly heaven in England. (Wikipedia)

Notice also that we sang “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” my second encounter with the hymn for the day! (read my prior post “Familiarity breeds … confusion“).