Festival Chorale Prelude On Yorkshire

About This Piece

This Festival Chorale Prelude on Yorkshire is a vivid, multi-layered celebration—fusing fugal complexity, toccata brilliance, and sheer dance-like joy into a single exhilarating work. From its bright opening in A-flat major, the piece launches with rhythmic propulsion and counterpoint, establishing a festive energy that never lets up. The music's architecture is bold and imaginative, guiding the listener through a series of unfolding textures: trumpet-tune fugue, canon, inversion, and jubilant dance. Each section adds fresh momentum without losing the underlying sense of order. As phrases of the Yorkshire carol emerge within the contrapuntal framework, they shine like familiar stars within a swirling musical sky. The closing section is pure celebration—a roaring final statement where the carol's melody is thundered in the bass while fugue voices soar above. This is a work of great technical ambition, but its purpose is clear: to awaken the heart with joy at the birth of Christ.

Notes from the Composer

Yorkshire, unfortunately, is one of the many carols which of late, has gone out of public favor. "Christians now awake! Salute this happy morn on which the Savior of the world was born!" These words require a joyous approach to composition. The Prelude opens with the organ blowing across the lips of multitudinous pipes. Then follows a toccata section which introduces the trumpet-tune fugue's subject. After all voices having their turn at the subject, Yorkshire's first phrase appears against the subject. Canons follow along with a four-voice development of the inverted subject and Yorkshire's second and third phrase. A dance section follows where the hosts of heaven leap for joy at Christ's birth. A three-voice stretti in inversion follow and a repeat of the dance. The piece roars to an end with Yorkshire's last phrase in augmentation in the bass using the 32' Bombarde; the fugal subject and contrapuntal voices soar above it in joy.

Additional Notes

• •Reclaiming a Forgotten Carol: Yorkshire has faded from common usage, but this setting revives it with energy, reverence, and bold creativity.
• •Layered Forms: The piece weaves together toccata, fugue, canon, inversion, and stretti.