Chorale for Organ

As of this posting, composer Walter Arlen is 99 years of age and living in Santa Monica, California. An account of his very interesting life (with pictures) can be read at http://orelfoundation.org/journal/journalArticle/walter_arlen_things_turn_out_differently

In 1968, when I first met Walter Arlen, he was chair of music at Loyola University of Los Angeles, where I was quite active in the music program, even though I was studying classics and not music. At the time, Mr. Arlen was also a music critic at the Los Angeles Times.

Walter Arlen himself is not an organist, and because of that he asked me in 2019 to contribute some "organist-friendly" editings to his original score--a task which I gladly undertook. A noteworthy feature of this work is the simulated pealing of bells. If you listen carefully, you may even spot a place where real chimes could have been used, had they been available on this particular instrument.

I have also uploaded Walter Arlen's earlier (ca. 1966) Sonnet for Organ to contrebombarde.com.