Hora Novissima

[Karl Moyer]

Hi, fellow AGO-ers,

I almost shouted Hallelujah out loud, Lent of no Lent, when I saw in today’s paper that our fellow member Dr. William Wright is going to lead his Franklin & Marshall forces in Horatio Parker’s very sensitive but seldom-performed oratorio Hora Novissima.    

Parker gets few performances these days, though our colleague Dr. Terry Heisey will open the annual summer arts festival organ recital with a Parker work to which I look forward greatly.  But this entire oratorio in performance is a great rarity, and if you are perhaps free and recovered from playing Sunday morning services, you might wish to take in what Bill is offering to Lancaster tomorrow afternoon.   

Parker wrote it at the height of his powers, having studied much earlier with Josef Rheinberger in Munich, returned to America, held various posts and later was appointed to an endowed chair at Yale, which he held until his death.  In 1892, date of this oratorio, and for some years prior, he was the organist at historic Trinity Church on Wall Street in New York City.  One can assume that this work was offered as evidence to the Yale folks of his worthiness for such a faculty appointment. 

Carolyn and I were going to do something else tomorrow afternoon, but coming to realize what our college Bill Wright is about to offer us has caused us to change our plans and take it it.  My thanks to Bill for taking on this rare but yet important work in the end of the 19th-century American growth period in symphonic and large-scale choral music. 

3 p,.m. in the Barshinger center facing College Avenue.  

Karl,  F.A.G.O. (Formerly A Good Organist)