Clavier-Übung III: The Organ Mass?

March 6, 2009, 7:30

Solo organ recital featuring Joyce Shupe Kull

The Boulder Bach Festival audience has the rare opportunity to hear one of J. S. Bach’s most significant works for organ performed by the foremost performer and scholar of the work. Joyce Shupe Kull has chosen a concert from the Clavier-Übung III to perform on the recently refurbished organ at First Congregational Church in Boulder. Dubbed by some as “The Organ Mass” because of the number of chorale preludes that are based on hymns from the Lutheran Mass, it also contains the great Prelude and Fugue in E-flat. The entire work contains an astonishing variety of emotional content, musical styles, and Bach’s ingenious ways of suggesting images and sacred symbolism.

The First Congregational instrument is a 3-manual, 51-rank pipe organ. The original 1916 Estey organ was combined in the 1950s with a Hutchings organ, which came from Colorado College in Colorado Springs where it had been built in 1900. In 2007, the organ was completely refurbished, with several new ranks added, along with a new console, by David Salmen of South Dakota.

Please click below under Program Notes to read Ms. Kull’s informative notes about the Clavier-Übung III.

Location: First Congregational Church, 1128 Pine St. , Boulder, CO 80302

Ticket Prices
Adult: $20 in advance through the Dairy or at the door
Students: $10, Children 12 and under $5
No credit cards at the door