A Sacred Tetralogy

Extract

These pieces, described as ‘meditations’, are in no sense religious programme-music. Their motivation (in the structural sense) is musical, not extra-musical. They seek to celebrate the Festivals of the Christian year not by direct representation (of bleating sheep, for instance, or sleigh bells, in the case of the first work), but by association; and not for any sectarian church only, but for the Church Universal. Partly for the unequalled richness of its sustained tone-colours, partly for its age-long association, the organ is uniquely able to meet this task, even if such a musical transubstantiation requires from the audience, for its fullest acceptance, a measure of rapport which can by no means be taken for granted in a secular age such as ours.