Prelude and Fuge - The Green Island

Ireland - the green island - has a beautiful national anthem, if you just listen to the melody. It is called "Amhrán na bhFiann", which probably means soldier song. But the melody is far from being a soldier's song, it is gentle and curved, so I chose it as the theme for the present piece.

The prelude has the form A-B-C-B-A. A is - and I don't know why I did it that way - a lively ragtime, B is an anticipation of the following fugue and places the melody of the hymn in a 3-part polyphonic movement. C is a threatening interlude and might express the conflict in Northern Ireland and on the border. A pedal solo leads over to B. The ragtime is taken up again and ends the prelude.

This is followed by a wide and dense fugue in 4 voices, in the middle of which the threatening scenario from the prelude reappears again.
The complete hymn in 4 parts ends the composition.

The piece sounds on the organ in Strassburg (Austria).

This time I added the MIDI File and the score. The MIDI File is without any control/program changes - the organ has to be disposed before play back. The Positive is on channel 2, the great organ on 1 and the pedal is on channel 3.