Prelude in B Flat

Continuing with works from "The Progressive Organist - Book 1) edited by C. H. Trevor.

Trevor often included very short works in his anthologies. There would usually be a clear teaching point, and when mastered these works provided an amateur parish organist with a range of "gap fillers" for service use.

In this work, the question of repeated notes arises. Again, as a rule, the first note loses half its value. I've marked this score in pencil for the benefit of a student of mine many years ago. In the first bar the pedal B Flat and left hand D are followed by their respective repeated notes on the 4th beat of the bar. I wrote in the count - 1, 2, 3 and 4 - with the dotted minims to be released early on the count of "and" to provide for a clean strike on 4 of the repeated note.

The other teaching point relates to an all too common fault - where a note tied across a bar or across a beat is released early. Look at the pedal part in Bar 3. The first note - F - is tied across from the previous bar, and it's immediately followed by another F thus requiring the tied first crotchet in Bar 3 to be reduced by half. It's tempting to release on the first beat of Bar 3, losing the extra half a beat altogether. Students need to be aware of this - especially in music such as Bach, where a note tied across a bar could well be the essential ingredient of a suspension - where the harmony changes from the first chord to the second, with the tied note creating a momentary dissonance. In this instance the harmony is the same on both chords, but the need to give the tied note its correct value is no less important.