Meditation on "Amazing Grace"

First recorded in 2019 by the other David (Agnus_Dei), he included a picture of the composer, a copy of the score, and details about the fussy right hand figurations in the introduction for his upload. See here: https://www.contrebombarde.com/concerthall/music/33703

I learned about Claude L. Murphree (1906–1958) when I became a master’s degree student at the University of Florida in 1999. He was the first University Organist (of three so far) at the University of Florida, a position he held from 1925 until his untimely death in 1958. A nephew of UF’s second president, Albert A. Murphree, he assumed the post soon after the dedication of the Andrew Anderson Memorial Pipe Organ in the University Auditorium—an instrument that became his life’s artistic focus. Over the next three decades he gave more than 550 recitals, establishing the Sunday-afternoon organ series as a Gainesville tradition and bringing the organ to thousands of listeners both in person and through regular radio broadcasts from the Auditorium. Murphree’s programs ranged widely, from Bach and Franck to his own hymn-based meditations and transcriptions. Among these, his Meditation on “Amazing Grace” (J. Fischer & Bro., 1951, dedicated to Dr. Elbert Adams) reveals his characteristic warmth of line and sensitivity to color, qualities that endeared him to generations of Floridians. His career was cut short by a fatal automobile accident in 1958, yet his influence on the musical life of the University endures. He was most recently honored in the centennial celebrations of the Andrew Anderson organ this year, where his legacy as both performer and arranger is warmly remembered. (I utilized ChatGPT to help compile this information.)

Played here on the beta of Bryn Mawr Presbyterian’s Rieger organ, this piece beautifully highlights a variety of different solo voices.