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. Fantasia on "St. Anne" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .William Croft
2. How Fair and How Pleasant Art Thou. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Marcel Dupré
3. a. Come, Come, Ye Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arr. by organist
    b. Be Still My Soul^† . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .arr. by organist
4. Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur Ave Maris Stella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Flor Peeters

^† 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.

“Be Still My Soul (Finlandia)” (Sibelius, arr. Margetts)

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius wrote a patriotic tone poem, Finlandia, in 1899 as part of a protest over Russian control of the country’s press. This dramatic orchestral work includes a hymn-like slower section that, as with so many other hymn-like slower sections from orchestral works, was quickly turned into an actual hymn. Sibelius himself excerpted this music as a stand-alone vocal piece in 1937, and then arranged the music for mixed choir in 1948. With different words, this “Finlandia Hymn” remains one of the most revered patriotic anthems in Finland today.

Naturally, other texts have also been paired with this noble music. It’s been sung as “On Great Lone Hills,” “This Is My Song,” and “We Rest on Thee,” all these lyrics roughly contemporaneous with Sibelius. But the oldest and possibly best-known hymn sung to this music is adapted from a German poem first published in 1752, “Stille, mein Wille, dein Jesu hilft siegen” by Katharina von Schlegel. It was translated into English by Jane Borthwick as “Be Still, My Soul,” and was first published in 1855.

The words to this beautiful hymn offer encouragement when patience and faith are tested. Every verse advances a joyful outcome in Christ, even if the current challenges seem overwhelming. This hymn is usually published with three verses, sometimes four. But Borthwick’s original translation had five verses, and I think it might be helpful to familiarize ourselves with the message of this final verse that’s almost always omitted in current hymnals. It focuses less on suffering patiently the “cross of grief or pain,” the “thorny ways,” the “vale of tears,” “disappointment, grief, and fear.” Instead, this verse encourages us to act in worshipful faith now, not just endure with the hope of eventual relief.

“Be still, my soul!—begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall he view thee with a well-pleased eye.
Be still, my soul!—the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.”¹

It’s the most upbeat verse in a hymn about bearing affliction patiently.

1. Jane Borthwick and Sarah Findlater, Hymns from the Land of Luther (Edinburgh: W. P. Kennedy, 1865), pp. 107-108.