Religion

Lexington Presbyterian Church will present an organ recital by William McCorkle, with Michael McLaughlin, baritone, tonight, Wednesday, April 26, at 7.

The concert features one of the happiest and brightest works in the organ literature, the “Messe Pour Les Couvents” (“Mass for the Convents”) by the French baroque master musician, Francois Couperin. In the organ mass, a distinctive late 17th-century French form, certain phrases of text (from the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei portions of the Mass) are represented by short organ pieces, in alternation with text phrases sung to a plainchant melody.

The “Mass for the Convents,” one of two such works published by the young Couperin in 1690, is considered one of the crowning works for the French classical organ of the 17th-18th centuries. The piece is particularly well suited for the C. B. Fisk pipe organ at Lexington Presbyterian.

William McCorkle has for many years concentrated his research and performance on keyboard and vocal music of the French baroque. He is delighted to welcome as collaborator baritone Michael McLaughlin, a senior at Washington and Lee University who is a singer, conductor and liturgical scholar, to present the alternating sung verses.

For those who can’t attend the concert, it will also be live-streamed from the Lexington Presbyterian website, lexpres.org.