Tuba Mirum

Gordon Lawson was born in Lenzie, near Glasgow in December 1931 and was educated in Glasgow and later in N. Wales where, during World War 11 his father was working for a government ministry. In 1950, he went up to St. Johns College, Cambridge and gained his MA and B.Mus. In 1954 he joined the R.A. for national service and in 1956, was appointed to Ellesmere College, moving to Malvern in 1962 to become assistant Director of Music and to Brighton in 1966 as Director of Music.

He retired from teaching in 1987 to devote more time to composition, to travel abroad as an examiner for the Royal Schools of Music, to care for an elderly relative and to spend more time in Spain where he has had a property since 1973 and which is now his permanent home. He has more than 150 compositions to his name, many of which are published.

It turns out that I have a "history" with this piece...

It was published by Selah Publishing Company in 1998 and was the "Winning composition for the 75th Anniversary Organ Composition Contest of the Eastern New York Chapter of the American Guild of Organists."

The premiere performance was given at the cathedral from which I was canned in 2001, and I was the "page-turner" at this performance, and the one who had "worked out" the registration for the performer.

That performance did little for me, as I don't think the organist knew much about English organ music.

The piece itself is really quite grandiose and even spectacular. It has substance and presence, and the very "long-spun melody" is quite different from the usual "trumpet tune" sort of piece.

That theme is in the two "framing sections," while the middle part is quite fascinating, passing through many keys with lots of chromatic notes moving all around.

"Tuba mirum" is a part of the "Dies Irae," a Latin poetic sequence used in the Requiem Mass, but this is no "funeral piece" to be mourned over!

It is a piece of uplifting triumph!

Two photos of Gordon Lawson are attached below.