Piping Up! Organ Concerts at Temple Square is streamed online every Wednesday at 12:00 noon MDT. Piping Up! can be viewed on TheTabernacleChoir.org, the Choir’s YouTube channel, the Choir’s Facebook page, and Broadcasts.ChurchofJesusChrist.org. When concerts are concluded, they are available for on-demand viewing on the Choir’s website, YouTube and Facebook.

These programs continue the tradition of noon organ recitals at Temple Square—a tradition that has lasted for more than a century. The concerts are produced without an audience and comply with all COVID-19 guidelines. Each concert will feature a different Tabernacle or Temple Square organist and is hosted by Luke Howard.

Repertoire

Organist: Joseph Peeples

1. Prelude on "Arise, O God, and Shine". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Clay Christiansen
2. a. "Allegro" from Concerto in A Minor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Johann Sebastian Bach
    b. Cantilène, from Suite Brève . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jean Langlais
3. a. Hymn: Come, Come, Ye Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arr. by organist
    b. An Old Melody: Prelude on "Sweet Hour of Prayer" . . . . . . . . . . . . .arr. by organist
4. Paraphrase sur un chœur de "Judas Maccabæus"^† . . . . . . . . . .Alexandre Guilmant

^† LISTENER REQUESTED SELECTION Go to the Piping Up! web page to make your request!

Focus Piece

An on-going feature of Piping Up! Organ Concerts at Temple Square is a focus piece with additional inspirational background on a specific repertoire selection. Written by host Luke Howard, a professor of music at Brigham Young University, the focus piece connects the music in a unique way to lift and inspire listeners.

“Allegro” from (Vivaldi) Concerto in A minor, BWV 593.i (J. S. Bach)

Antonio Vivaldi is almost a household name these days. A prolific composer during the late Italian baroque era, Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos and sonatas, and dozens of operas, cantatas, sacred motets and liturgical works. His set of four violin concerti titled “The Four Seasons” is one of the most popular pieces of classical music in our time. But it wasn’t always so. Vivaldi’s compositions were forgotten soon after his death, and he was largely unknown for nearly two centuries.

It was only in the mid-20th century that Vivaldi’s works began to be rediscovered and revived. A primary motivation for that revival was the reverence in which his music had been held by one Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach, of course, had also been forgotten after his death, and enjoyed his own revival a century before Vivaldi’s. But if, as the early 20^th-century reasoning surmised, the great J.S. Bach loved the music of this now-forgotten Italian composer, then perhaps we’d do well to find out for ourselves what Bach saw in Vivaldi. And so, the Vivaldi revival began less than one hundred years ago, and it continues today.

Without Bach’s enthusiasm for Vivaldi, he might still be languishing in obscurity. Our musical world would be smaller without the energy, color, and sheer joy that Vivaldi’s music offers so freely. It was a good thing that musicians took Bach’s endorsement of Vivaldi seriously.

We do well, too, when we follow trusted advice to actively seek out things “of good report” that we may not have been aware of before—things that are lovely, virtuous, and praiseworthy.¹ This isn’t just a way of discovering new repertoire to listen to, or a new book to read. It’s an essential guiderail along the path of spiritual devotion. We become more holy, more connected to the divine, when we wholeheartedly embrace all things that are good, beautiful, and deserving of praise. And we strengthen relationships when we share with those around us our own little discoveries that have illuminated and edified our lives, and when we rejoice with others in their newfound joys as well.

Joseph will now play the Allegro from J. S. Bach’s organ transcription of Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Violins in A minor. The concerto is RV 522 in the Vivaldi catalog, and the transcription is BWV 593 in the Bach catalog. And after today’s program is over, go and listen to Vivaldi’s original.

1. See Articles of Faith 1:13.