Church Suite No.1 - II. Arioso

Stanley E. Saxton (1904-2002) was professor emeritus of music at Skidmore College. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music from Syracuse University; he also studied organ with Marcel Dupre and Charles Marie Widor at the American School in Fontainbleau in France, as well as composition with Nadia Boulanger. He held his first church organist job at the age of 12, formed his own orchestra as a college freshman, and toured Europe with Paul Whiteman’s Collegians. A member of the American Guild of Organists, Saxton designed and built many pipe organs in the eastern U.S. He also pursued research in indigenous folk music as source material for compositions, and composed many published works for organ, piano, voice, and chorus.

The second movement of the suite is "Arioso", which Saxton states: "Accompaniment adapted from Corelli".

This performance features the Swell strings and the Orchestral Oboe with tremulant of the Solo. (See, my tremulant DOES work!)
At the end, the music switches quickly to a "ff mixture combination", which I toned down a bit, letting the Swell reeds dominate a bit, and actually doing a little decrescendo at the end. Hopefully this helps the "awkwardness" of the sudden loud and bright sounds which seem to intrude after the twisting reed solo.

THANKS again to Carson Cooman!