Built on the Rock the Church doth stand

Bedrich Janacek was born May 18, 1920, and died on June 3, 2007. He was a Czech-born organist and composer, and studied at the State Conservatory in Prague. He made his debut as organist in 1938 and became an organ teacher at the State Conservatory in 1946. He settled in Sweden and worked as an organist at the konserterande in Western Europe with numerous appearances in radio. He served as Deputy organist at the Lund Cathedral. He graduated from the Royal College of music in Stockholm in 1961 and was a regular organist at Helgeandskyrkan. As a composer Janacek wrote mainly for organ, but also wrote the music for organ, wind instruments and choir. Bedrich Janacek was the one who rescued fellow supervisor Bohuslav Martinůs single organ at Vigilia (1959) by revising and completing it. (From Wikipedia - paraphrased)

The Two Chorale Preludes were published in 1966 by Oxford University Press, and are dedicated to the English organist, C. H. Trevor.

The first the short, but still rather monumental "Built on the Rock the Church doth stand" ("Kirken den er et gammelt hus"), is based on the splendid tune by L. M. Lindeman (1812-1887), Organist of Oslo Cathedral.

The text for the first verse is:

Built on the Rock the church doth stand,
Even when steeples are falling;
Crumbled have spires in every land,
Bells still are chiming and calling;
Calling the young and old to rest,
But above all the soul distressed,
Longing for rest everlasting.

This very powerful music, demonstrates the sentiment in that text, with the sense of rock-like permanence, surrounded by a sense of huge steeple bells swinging, ringing, and tragically falling...

The composer got a LOT of music into this brief "massive miniature."