Zondagslied (Psalm 122)

A nice piece for a New Years Sunday. The psalm fits the "after-christmas" story of Simeon and Anna very well.

"Orgelius" is a pseudonym of the Dutch organist and composer Cor Kee (1900-1997). He was a pupil of Jan Zwart and initially, like his teacher, he wrote many romantic compositions on the psalms and other hymns. However, he gradually became more and more interested in modern and avant-garde music. The public however continued to demand for pieces in the style of the "Jan Zwart school". Reportedly, Cor Kee chose Orgelius as a pseudonym to satisfy the public demand while giving himself the freedom to move away from popular taste.

I don't think the style of this composition is exactly copied from Jan Zwart. However, it is very close to the style of another well-known and popular Zwart pupil: Feike Asma. It is a homophonic style of composing with a hymn melody as the only recurring theme. Pompous chorals full of big septime and none chords sandwich a couple of lighthearted and lyric sections. The swell pedal is extensively used and there are a number of rapid (de)crescendo's to connect the parts.

Because my Hauptwerk organ has no setzer buttons, I had to register everything by hand. This prompted me to use the Caen sample set. The Anches pistons came in very handy but still the registration changes are at times demanding. I think this piece works very well on a French-Romantic organ type, which by the way was becoming quite abundant in The Netherlands during the early life of Cor Kee.