Christ lag in Todesbanden

The foundation of this composition is Martin Luther’s monumental 1524 Easter hymn, Christ lag in Todesbanden ("Christ Jesus lay in death's strong bands"). Luther's text and its brooding, Dorian-mode melody (adapted from the 11th-century Gregorian sequence Victimae paschali laudes) capture a fierce, cosmic battle between life and death. For centuries, this chorale has served as a rite of passage for organist-composers, famously set by Baroque masters like Heinrich Scheidemann, Johann Pachelbel, and most notably, J.S. Bach.
This is the sixth of Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ by British composer and organist Dr Christopher Maxim (b. 1971). Published by Paraclete Press in 2019, the collection was written as a direct 21st-century homage to Johannes Brahms’s final masterpiece, the Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122.
Maxim—a Cardiff University PhD graduate, specialist in historical keyboard music, and former Director of Music at St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green.
This is a fine demonstration of the thrilling tutti of this glorious organ.