Merton • Choral Prelude (Trio)

Here I present David Thorne's positively delightful trio (subtitled "Choral Prelude") on the hymn tune MERTON.

This score can be found in the Oxford Hymn Settings for Organists, Advent and Christmas, Volume 1.

The score only calls for a single presentation of the full melody, however the ending and introduction are the same which facilitates an easy segue to repeat the whole piece. Considering its short length and delightful character, I opted to play it through twice.

Recorded in HW5 with a bit of reverb (Church01-Omni-6.7m-LR-3.8s) added since the Rosales is so dry in its natural setting. I loaded a shorter reverb and dialed it back to 70%. I think this little bit of extra space really helps the instrument come alive in a new way.