Christ is Our Cornerstone - a pair of Darwall's 148th

The first was played by a friend of mine a few weeks back, Janet Linker's LAST VERSE harmonization of Darwall. I love it, just can't play it... yet...The second is the actual hymn from the 8am service August 28, 2011 played by me. I did my best to dress up the last verse, which happened to be Doxological. The organ registration is the same for both last verses, except I added the zimbelstern, and for the amen I pulled the '32 pedal reed. The organ is a 3 manual Rodgers pipe/digital combo with 6 ranks of pipes and 60 digital ranks. It is a joy to play!

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• lutheran
• organ
• hymn
• darwall
• rodgers

[OldPost661]

I've never heard Janet Linker's harmonization of that tune, and it's very inventive and exciting. At the same time, I think a congregation singing without really strong support from a choir might find it confusing. I think you'll find that the places with the very best traditional hymn singing (English cathedrals and the like) tend to stick more closely than you might imagine to the standard harmonizations.

What you did on August 28, for instance, was terrific! Keep it up!

[hoover1060]

@OldPost661 Thanks for your nice words. I love the Linker arrangement, but would agree with you it might be confusing to some. I remember the first time I heard it use I thought the melody was in the pedal! I'm working on learning it none the less, it will make a great postlude!

[mikedc2020]

This hymn is incredibly well-known so I believe you can certainly take more liberties with alternative harmonizations and improvisation. If you find that the congregation is getting lost, you can always throw on a big solo stop and guide them in! The only thing I noticed is that they lag behind in tempo.

[xraytech86]

Very nice work Jeff, I think ir sounded great. Your rgistrations sound very much the same as I'm used to in our church including the addition of he zimblestern in the final verse