Religion
Lexington Presbyterian Church will present another of its Music at Noon concerts, an organ recital by William McCorkle, on Thursday, Jan. 22, at noon in the church sanctuary. The program will feature the church’s C.B. Fisk pipe organ.
In the spirit of the Epiphany season, when scriptures are read which highlight moments or events where the deity of Jesus is revealed and manifested, the Jan. 22 program will offer sets of variations for organ on the melodies of important Reformation hymns to Jesus, with compositions by three master organists of 17th- and 18thcentury Germany: Georg Böhm, Johann Gottfried Walther, and Johann Sebastian Bach. The composition known as the “chorale partita,” a set of keyboard variations based on the music (melody) of a hymn, evolved as an important keyboard form in the 17th century. A significant early proponent of the form was the organist Georg Böhm, who flourished in the north German city of Lüneburg. His influence is seen in the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach, who almost certainly studied with Böhm, before developing an impressive career in the south-central German cities of Weimar and Leipzig; and Johann Gottfried Walther, Bach’s gifted contemporary, a leading light of music in Weimar.
