Präludium und Fuge D-Dur "Ireland's Call"

A complete new arrangement of this prelude and fugue to the beautiful melody of the Irish national hymn "Ireland's Call".

The expansive prelude has 3 parts, a ragtime, a polyphonic interlude around the beautiful melody of the song in the middle voice and a seemingly threatening short section in D minor, which has toccata-like features. The pedal solo is not to be missed, nor is a long organ point in the pedal, over which a brisk semiquaver movement runs and parts of the song melody are heard in inversion. The ragtime ends the prelude and leads into a sweeping four-part fugue on the song "Ireland's Call". In the middle section of the fugue, the threatening part of the prelude is taken up. Finally, the fugue ends in a dazzling D major chord.
The conclusion of this composition is a 4-part song movement of the hymn, which I already composed many years ago.
The organ St. John Cantius is very well suited for the reproduction of my Opus 1, which consists of 8 large works.

A few more words about the Irish hymn:

Ireland's Call is a song commissioned by the Irish Rugby Football Union in 1995 to be sung before the start of international matches of the Irish national rugby union team. The composer is Phil Coulter. It was later adopted by the national hockey, cricket, korfball and rugby league teams.
Maybe I got the idea of starting with a ragtime from this unusual origin story of the anthem, who knows?

These national teams represent both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom. Only teams representing the Republic of Ireland alone sing the Irish national anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann, exclusively. In other cases, Amhrán na bhFiann and Ireland's Call are played in succession at home matches in the Republic of Ireland, and only Ireland's Call is played at away matches.

Usually only the first verse is sung, followed by the chorus. The chorus is then repeated at a higher pitch. At the end, the last line of the chorus is also repeated.