Cinq Apparitions: A Senior Recital featuring Nicholas Renkosik

carthage music department presents

Cinq Apparitions: A Senior Recital featuring Nicholas Renkosik, Organ

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Saturday, May 8, 2021 | 5 p.m.

Church of the Gesu | Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

program Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685-1750) Premier livre d’orgue: Suite du deuxième ton Louis-Nicolas Clérambault 1.

Plein jeu (1676-1749) 2. Duo 3. Trio

4.

Basse de cromorne 5. Flûtes

6.

Récit de nazard

7.

Caprice sur les grands jeux Fantasia in F minor, K. 608 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

(1756-1791) Apparition de l’église éternelle Olivier Messiaen

(1908-1992) Troisième symphonie pour grand orgue 4.

Adagio 5. Finale

Louis Vierne (1870-1937)

performer biography Born in 1998 and based out of the Chicagoland area, Nicholas Renkosik is a nationally acclaimed young organist that has performed at such venues as Sanfilippo’s Place De La Musique in Barrington Hills, IL; the Oriental and Riverside Theatres in Milwaukee, WI; the Coronado Theatre in Rockford, IL; Allen Organs of Chicago in Bolingbrook, IL; the Rialto Theatre in Joliet, IL; the Tampa Theatre in Tampa, FL; the Fox Theatre in St. Louis, MO; Carma (Carmex) Laboratories in Franklin, WI; the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, CA; the Lincoln Theatre in Belleville, IL, and Orchestra Hall in Chicago, IL. Nicholas also competed in the 2017 American Theatre Organ Society’s Young Organist’s Competition in Tampa, FL, and was placed as a runner up.

When he is not performing in a solo setting, Nicholas is an organist/ accompanist on staff at several churches in Northern Illinois. He has also appeared as a guest organist at the Oriental Theatre in Milwaukee, WI, for the annual Milwaukee Film Festival.

Nicholas studied instrumental performance at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, where he pursued a major in classical organ performance and a minor in classical piano performance. He was a student in the studios of Mr. Christopher Berry (organ) and Dr. Wael Farouk (piano).

thank you Nicholas would like to personally thank Prof. Christopher Berry, Dr. Wael Farouk, and Dr. James Ripley for their continued support, academically and professionally, in his preparing for this recital. Nicholas also wishes to thank his parents, Doug and Kathy; his best friend, Devin; his friends, fellow scholars, and the staff of the Carthage Music Department; and his brothers in Phi Kappa Sigma for their continued support and encouragement during his time in undergraduate.

program notes Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV 541 Johann Sebastian Bach has long been considered not only the ultimate master but also of Baroque music as a whole. The multitude of choral, instrumental ensemble, and solo works that he composed are considered some of the most widely celebrated and revered musical works known to mankind. The organ works especially are praised for their resourcefulness in studying technique and facilitation of the instrument.

Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G major is speculated to have been written around the time of 1730-1733. The prelude features many elements of virtuosity in its opening cadenza with its expansive stretch of the compass of keyboard, and the chordal structure and vertical texture underlying the melodic line in the pedal following this cadenza is very evocative of the style of Vivaldi and justly displays his influence on Bach’s works.

Premier livre d’orgue: Suite du deuxième ton Revered as one of the masters of the organ of the 17th and 18th centuries, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault wrote numerous works of great significance not only for the organ and harpsichord, but also for the vocal realm, with his significant contributions to the French Cantata style. Notable positions held by Clérambault included that of organist at the celebrated church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris as well as organist at the royal house of Saint-Cyr, an institution that housed poor girls descending from the lower-class nobility.

Clérambault would later succeed his teacher, notable organist and composer André Raison, as organist of Grand-Jacobins following Raison’s death in 1719.

Clérambault’s composition Suite du deuxième ton embodies the fashion of French classical dance music in its unique and varied individual movements.

Clérambault’s variety of registrations for the organ as well as utilization of different musical textures in the context of this work truly exemplify the French classic era. The Premier livre d’orgue (composed in 1710) from which the Suite du deuxième ton was published in was dedicated by Clérambault to his teacher, André Raison.

Fantasia in F minor, K. 608 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, prolific composer and celebrity of the arts in the Classical period, was considered one of the greatest composers for the keyboard during the 18th century. Mozart’s flare and uniquely individualistic quips found within his compositions set him apart from other composers of

program notes the era and made him a figurehead of the compositional field, especially for keyboard.

Mozart composed many pieces on commission for elite families throughout Europe in order to sustain himself. The Fantasia in F minor is a prime example of one of these types of works, as it was originally composed for a large tabletop mechanical clock that incorporated a small pipe organ. The original title that was attributed to the work by Mozart was “An organ piece for a clock” (musical incipit of the Allegro and Andante in F Minor, K. 608, dated March 3, 1791). While neither the mechanical instrument nor the definitive manuscript to this piece still exist, it became widely well received after its composition and held a huge influence on the composers of the latter half of the classical era as Beethoven even arranged the fugue. The overall jarring nature of the allegro movements in the first and final iterations of the A sections create a thundering sense of excitement while the B section provides a lovely adagio in three with a characteristically classical subtlety.

Apparition de l’église éternelle Olivier Messiaen is regarded as one of the key figures of the music world in the 20th century. His experimentation with tonality and harmony have been regarded as a visionary in the music world. Messiaen’s mother was a poet, and his father was a teacher of English who translated the works of Shakespeare into French. Messiaen’s career as a musician began with the early exposure he received as a youth, his main musical influences being Debussy and Ravel among others. Another pivotal point of influence for Messiaen in his development was his Roman Catholic faith. All of these influences combined with Messiaen’s intense and rigorous training which began at the Paris Conservatoire (where he studied with such greats as Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré) when he was only eleven years old greatly shaped his theological outlook and vision regarding his own musical compositions. Messiaen’s post at Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, which he held from 1931 until his death in 1992, has long been considered one of the most celebrated musical careers in not only the history of the organ but also of modern European music.

Apparition de l’église éternelle quite literally translates to the “Apparition of the eternal church”. Messiaen offered the following poem, which he composed, as a preface to the musical work:

program notes Made out of living stone, Made out of heavenly stone, It appears in heaven: It is the Lamb’s bride!

It is the heavenly church Made out of heavenly stone Which is the chosen’s souls.

They are in God, and God is in them For heavenly eternity!

The imagery described in this poem has been attributed to Dante’s description of the inferno among other things, but Messiaen’s personal interpretation of his faith plays the ultimate key role in his compositions for the organ. Apparition de l’église éternelle begins with a slow and steady climax of not only harmonic structure, but also dynamic level. The piece begins with a quiet roar and slowly climaxes to a grand cadence of C major, then descending back to the starting dynamic level in its closing. This overall dynamic form embodies that of an arch. Messiaen’s complex harmonies and reiteration of both harmonic and melodic ideas further contributes to this arch form and the overall rising and sinking of the church. A striking and intensely emotional piece, the performance of this work not only infiltrates the ears, mind, and heart of the listener but also those of the performer.

Troisième symphonie pour grand orgue Louis Vierne has long been regarded as one of the luminaries of the Romantic organ world. Vierne began piano studies at the age of ten with Louis Specht, a blind instructor at Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Young Blind). It was during this time that Vierne heard César Franck play the organ. He later recalled being very compelled hearing and feeling the organ while not being able to visually distinguish his surroundings due to his vision impairments. Vierne’s career would only continue to blossom after this having moved on to study with Charles-Marie Widor and Alexandre Guilmant respectively at the Paris Conservatoire.

Vierne would become the titular organist at Notre Dame in Paris in the year 1900, a post that he held until his death in 1937.

Vierne’s Troisième symphonie pour grand orgue was written in 1911 as a part of his collection of six secular organ symphonies. These symphonies were composed to display the abilities of not only the organist performing the works but also the breadth of color that the organs could bring forth. This

program notes was a tradition that Vierne was carrying forward from his teacher CharlesMarie Widor. Vierne wrote his symphonies with the organs built by Artisde Cavaillé-Coll in mind, with the warm and massive sounding foundation stops and fire-filled reeds. The fourth movement of the third symphony is a slow, intensely chromatic, and emotion filled adagio movement that explores many different keys and tonalities on both extremes of the manuals. Some have said this movement has Wagnerian properties, but its French flavorings remain predominant throughout. The fifth movement, Finale, is a brilliant French toccata that utilizes a distinct and highly rhythmic melody throughout the piece which appears in both the manuals and pedal. The ending of this movement culminates in a glorious fanfare like banter between both manuals and pedal.

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