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: Linda Margetts

1. An Advent Christmas Suite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alfred Fedak
2. Noël no. 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louis-Claude Daquin
3. Come, Come, Ye Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .arr. by organist
4. Introduction and Variations on an Old Polish Carol . . . . . . . . . . Alexandre Guilmant
5. Auld Lang Syne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Linda Margetts

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.

“Auld Lang Syne” (arr. Margetts)

Normally, the organists on Temple Square perform their own arrangement of an “old melody” near the end of the program. But Linda’s “old melody” today is “Auld Lang Syne,” and it just made sense to put it at the actual end of the program instead of merely “near” the end.

For more than two centuries, “Auld Lang Syne” has been sung not only at New Year’s Eve celebrations, but at other important life transitions, as well: graduations, weddings, funerals, closing ceremonies. The meaning of the words is still curiously perplexing to many people who, nevertheless, know them well and sing them heartily.

“Auld Lang Syne” is a Scots phrase for an idea that translates loosely as “for the sake of old times.” These familiar lyrics were written by the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns, though Burns admitted much of it came from an earlier folk song that had never before been written down or published—he was simply the scribe for some of the song’s best-known phrases. Generally-speaking, the lyrics address our yearning to renew friendships, to bridge the distance of time and close the circle.

There are a number of other verses to “Auld Lang Syne” that aren’t usually sung on New Year’s Eve, and rephrase similar thoughts:

“We two have run about the hills,
And picked the daisies fine;
But we’ve wandered many a weary foot
Since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the stream,
From morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared,
Since auld lang syne.”¹

These words add a little more tenderness to the song’s message: though we may have drifted apart, walked different paths through life, and perhaps even had some disagreements, we have shared foundational experiences, and this is a good time to renew and reconcile. The Old Testament book of Proverbs advises us to stay friendly with our friends.² It seems like such a reasonable and good thing to do. And isn’t that just another way of saying we shouldn’t “forget old acquaintance.” Now is as good a time as any to share “a cup of kindness.”

Linda closes her program today, and this year’s episodes of Piping Up!, with her own arrangement of “Auld Lang Syne.”

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Lang_Syne
2. See Proverbs 18:24