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: Andrew Unsworth

1. Prelude on “Little David, Play on Your Harp” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Unsworth
2. a. Fugue, from Symphony no. 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . Louis Vierne
b. Cantilena . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Longhurst
3. a. Hymn: Come, Come, Ye Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arr. by organist
b. An old melody: I Stand All Amazed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .arr. by organist
4. Fantasia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . Charles Villiers Stanford

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.

“I Stand All Amazed” (Gabriel, arr. Unsworth)

The exceptionally popular evangelical crusades of Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver in the late 1910s and 20s often included rousing hymns and lively gospel songs. During many of these events, Rodeheaver would sing duets with another member of the evangelist team, Virginia Healey Asher, who had a very fine contralto voice. Rodeheaver and Asher sang and recorded together such beloved gospel standards as “The Old Rugged Cross” and “In the Garden.”

The songs of Charles Hutchinson Gabriel were also popularized through these spirited evangelical gatherings. Gabriel was a prolific writer of gospel songs with, by some estimates, nearly seven thousand compositions to his name. And he eventually worked for Homer Rodeheaver’s publishing company. But years earlier, in 1898, Gabriel had written a hymn, “Oh, It Is Wonderful,” also known as “I Stand All Amazed.” In this hymn, the verses are sung as a tenor/alto duet, very much in the same style as Rodeheaver’s and Asher’s gospel duets. I don’t know if they ever actually sang “I Stand All Amazed” at one of their crusade events—Homer Rodeheaver was a baritone, not a tenor—but I can imagine it in my mind’s ear, and picture the deeply stirring effect it would’ve had on the crowd, the same effect it has on so many listeners today, including me.

The words to Gabriel’s hymn “I Stand All Amazed” are, like many gospel songs of its time, quite personal and tender. Its evangelical fervor focuses on a powerful, individual, and intimate experience with the divine. The singer, contemplating Christ’s grace and love, is “confused,” apprehensive, “rebellious,” and “proud,” but, by the final verse, is humbled and awed by the unfathomable reach of God’s mercy. “Oh, it is wonderful,” the chorus exclaims, “that he should care for me, enough to die for me! Oh, it is wonderful—wonderful to me.”

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