I wrote this organ prelude for the centennial of Stanford Memorial Church, as a companion to the postlude We Speak of Love (my opus 10). Both were performed by Robert Huw Morgan, University Organist, at the University Public Worship service in 2003, exactly one hundred years after the church was first dedicated. The work is built on Old Hundredth, the tune sung to “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

The piece is marked maestoso and moves in a broad triple meter, in G major. The piece opens with a full-throated forte introduction, threaded with mordents that return at the recapitulation. After several measures, the hymn tune enters in half notes in the Pedal, reinforced by reeds that come and go with it, while the Swell carries tall chords and the Great supplies harmonic ornament. The first phrase cadences deceptively on an E-major chord, and brings in a toccata-like flourish of descending eighth-note figures.

The second phrase of the tune follows the same plan—the melody in the Pedal with reeds, tall chords above, harmony in the Great. This time, the deceptive cadence turns to a B-major chord, again with flourishes. The third phrase maintains the pattern and stretches it a little further, without a deceptive cadence and without flourishes this time, but with continued toccata-like intensity.

The fourth and final phrase begins again with the hymn tune in the reed-reinforced Pedal, but at its closing word the music turns once more, this time a deceptive cadence to C-major. A fanfare ensues, now with triplets and big chords, leading to a rising sixteenth-note scale in both hands that arrives on a fermata over a very tall dominant-seventh chord. Finally, the opening material and its mordents reappear, giving way to broad block chords, marked molto rall. ad lib. al fine. A coda terminating in rising sixteenth-note scales in both hands, marked quasi glissando ad lib., repeat the exuberance, and a final swell of sound brings the piece to rest on a towering G major, crowned by an offset high A.

The audio sample is taken from the opening of the piece.