Chorale Prelude no,10 "So wünsch ich mir zu guter Letzt"

Christopher Maxim’s (b.1971) "So wünsch ich mir zu guter Letzt"("I wish that my last hour may be") is a deeply expressive organ meditation published by Paraclete Press as part of the collection Eleven Chorale Preludes. The has the rather moving dedication "In memory of my dear friend and teacher James Hamilton Brown Music Master at Calday Granger Grammar School for his whole career known to his pupils as Minim"
The work draws its thematic inspiration from the historic German chorale melody associated with Johann Rist’s 1642 sacred poem. The text represents a faithful soul's serene petition for a peaceful hour of death (ein selig's Stündlein, wohl zu sterben), viewing the passage out of this world not as a moment of fear, but as a crown of heavenly inheritance and an escape from earthly suffering.
Architecturally, the collection functions as a direct 21st-century homage to Johannes Brahms’s final masterpiece, the Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122. Rather than attempting a strict imitation of historic styles, Maxim notes that the numerical and structural alignment is intentional, but stresses that his pieces "are no more pastiches of Brahms than his were of Bach."
The simple beauty of the Hauptwerk flutes and the pedal 4' Octave capture the serene nature of this piece.