A Gaelic Blessing

John Rutter (b. 1945)

A Gaelic Blessing

“Deep peace of the running wave to you…”

John Rutter’s A Gaelic Blessing is one of those pieces whose apparent simplicity depends upon extraordinarily careful balance. Originally conceived for voices, its long phrases, gentle harmonic suspensions, and repeated invocations of “deep peace” ask the organ to do something quite different from the contrapuntal work for which an instrument such as the Gallery Schlicker might seem ideally suited.

Here, clarity is used not to separate independent lines, but to suspend one color peacefully above another.

For the melody I chose a clear, almost icy solo color, floating above a softer and warmer foundation of strings and flutes. The result interested me precisely because I did not have to make the Schlicker pretend to be an English Romantic organ. Its characteristic transparency remains audible throughout. What changes is what that transparency is being asked to accomplish.

There is very little overt drama in this music. Its expressive world depends instead upon stillness, sustained line, harmonic warmth, and the sense that the melody is somehow hovering above its accompaniment. The organ’s clarity helps preserve that separation without disturbing the atmosphere of repose.

This recording is therefore another experiment in what the Schlicker can do. In Clara Schumann, clarity revealed counterpoint. In Zipp, it illuminated music closely connected with the twentieth-century organ reform tradition. In Diemer, clarity became rhythmic propulsion.

Here, it becomes peace.

Organ: Gallery Schlicker, First Congregational Church of Los Angeles
Virtual instrument: Evensong Music