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McCorkle Featured In Faculty Recital ‘Ahhh, Bach!’
The Washington and Lee University Department of Music presents a faculty recital by organist William McCorkle on Sunday, Oct. 20, at 3 p.m. The concert, which will take place in the Lexington Presbyterian Church, will display the church’s magnificent C. B. Fisk pipe organ, op. 128 (2007).
The program, entitled “Ahhh, Bach!” will offer a sample of the rich and varied body of organ compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), whom many consider to be the greatest master and most compelling exponent of the pipe organ and its literature. Many people do not realize that during his lifetime Bach’s primary fame and renown was due to his virtuososity as an organ player, and to his significant role in the evolution of the instrument through collaboration and consultation with organ builders and churches. It was not until the mid-nineteenth century, when the scholarly world ‘rediscovered’ the comprehensive scope and excellence of Bach’s overall compositional output, that he achieved the kind of celebrity and reverence which continue to this day.
McCorkle will offer a sampling — scarcely a ‘taster’s choice’ — of several types of Bach’s organ explorations. There will be a number of hymn-based works, known as chorale preludes (a term derived from the word ‘Choral,’ the German word for ‘hymn’), and several ‘free’ compositions, i.e., works freely composed with no hymn-tune inspiration or basis. These works are named which such common designations as “fantasia” or “prelude and fugue.” There will also be one “concerto,” in fact an arrangement for organ of a violin concerto by one of Bach’s patrons, demonstrating a popular 18th-century practice of transcribing orchestral works for the organ – the supreme ‘reducing’ instrument.
McCorkle is well known to areas audiences for decades of keyboard performances on organ, piano, and harpsichord, and for his work as a choral conductor and church musician. His keyboard repertoire includes music of many styles and periods, and encompasses solo, chamber, and concerto literature. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst College, he holds graduate degrees from Yale University. As recipient of the Edward Poole Lay Fellowship, he spent two years of study, research, and performance in France, working with Nadia Boulanger and William Christie. At Washington and Lee University, he was a staff accompanist for many years, and has taught organ and piano for more than a decade.
The performance will be streamed @ https://www.lexpres. org. No tickets are required. Please connect at 2:50 p.m. through the Lexington Presbyterian Church website https://www.lexpres. org. Join by clicking the “Live on YouTube” icon located on the top of the home page.
