A Book of Fire and Shadow: Sixteen Preludes for Organ

A Book of Fire and Shadow: Sixteen Preludes for Organ (2026)

This collection of preludes is conceived as an interconnected cycle, in which each piece foreshadows, echoes, and transforms materials drawn from within the set itself. Through free variation and reimagining, motifs, harmonic colours, rhythmic gestures, and textural ideas recur and evolve across the sixteen preludes, creating a web of subtle correspondences and developments. No external works are invoked or prepared for; these are not preludes in the conventional liturgical sense of introducing a hymn or chorale, but rather self-contained yet mutually referential meditations.

Each prelude is designed to stand alone as a brief, autonomous composition, or to serve as a prelude in performance where context permits. Alternatively, any selection or the entire sequence may be presented together to form larger, more substantial structures.

In composing these pieces, I have given free rein to the imagination, mindful only in part of the prelude’s traditional rôle within sacred or ceremonial settings. Instead, I have drawn upon a broader conception of the prelude—extending from the operatic overture to the proem, a poetic foreword that sets an atmosphere rather than announces what follows. The result is a wide expressive range: from slow, introspective, and quietly contemplative utterances, through whimsical inventions and quirky mechanisms, to fully impassioned episodes marked by sudden, unpredictable contrasts, outbursts, and dramatic shifts of intensity.

I am deeply indebted to Kat Farn for inviting me to write this set of preludes—a project I have found profoundly enjoyable and liberating.

The collection is dedicated to Kat with gratitude and admiration.

PRELUDES

1) c = 42       2’15”

2) c = 58       2’20”

3) c = 64       2’14”

4) c = 52       1’28”

5) c = 58       2’00”

6) c = 62       1’05”

7) c = 42       2’00”

8) c = 42       2’25”

9) c = 108     2’05”

10) c = 34     3’50”

11)c = 132   2’45”

12) c = 72     1’35”

13) c = 72     1’50”

14)c = 40 3’30”

15)c = 58. 1’50”

16)q = 96 2’20”