Prelude on 'Picardy'

I realize seeing "Picardy" in the title will probably (hopefully!) get a fair number of listens to this piece.

If you've started, and are already thinking that you don't like, keep going! I think you will a mystical experience, if you allow it to happen!

John Pierre Herman Joubert (born 20 March 1927) is a British composer of South African descent, particularly of choral works. He has lived in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, England, for over 50 years as of 2017. A music academic at the universities of Hull and Birmingham for 36 years, Joubert took early retirement in 1986 to concentrate on composing and has remained active into his 80s. Though perhaps best known for his choral music, particularly the carols "Torches" and "There is No Rose of Such Virtue", and the anthem "O Lorde, the Maker of Al Thing," Joubert has composed over 160 works including two symphonies, four concertos and seven operas.

He has a number of significant organ works, but most are difficult and difficult for listener and performer.

The "Prelude on 'Picardy'" is found in "Easy Modern Organ Music" (Book Two), published by Oxford University Press in 1970.

So, is the work "easy"? That depends on your performance. I've played "at this" many times, never "doing it" until today. I've heard quite a few performances that "play the notes" but "miss the point" - at least to my way of thinking.

The work is dissonant, intense and highly mystical. The effect of "pile up and then release" runs throughout the piece, in always increasing dynamic levels, until the climax is reached and the final meltdown and "fall away" is reached.

Even if you don't "like" modern music, allow yourself to be moved by the spell this will create for you! It may not "convert" you to "dissonance," but I think that it will move you.

I have included the score below. I am not "willfully" breaking copyright, although I guess I am. I'm sharing to win new friends for the piece and the composer.

3 photos attached.