Jesus Christ is risen today

Blessed Easter to you and your loved ones!

The eggs you see in the picture above were decorated by Ausra yesterday. It's an old tradition in Lithuania to decorate Easter eggs which comes from the pagan times. The egg symbolizes rebirth.

The darker ones are made with the onion peel dye, the lighter ones - with the black currants and the small ones - are natural quail eggs.

 I have thought long about how could I surprise you on this wonderful occasion and it seems to me that the analysis of the Easter Hymn would work here well.

In this video, you will not only hear the famous Easter Hymn "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today" but I will also discuss it's tonal plan, modulations, cadences and each and every chord. I hope this video will inspire you to learn to play and appreciate it on a much deeper level.

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #90!

Today's guest is Peter van Tour who is a post-doctoral 
research fellow at the University of Leuven, Belgium. As a scholar in musicology, Peter has specialized in the counterpoint pedagogy and historic improvisation and composition.

​He studied Music Pedagogy (5 years) at Brabant Conservatory in Tilburg, Master in Musicology at the University of Utrecht and Master in Music Theory (MA) at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

Peter's PhD dissertation "Counterpoint and Partimento: Methods of Teaching Composition in Late Eighteenth-Century Naples" (Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Uppsala, 2015) highlights the practical teaching strategies at the Neapolitan conservatories during the late eighteenth century.

Listen to our podcast conversation about this publication.

​In 1995, Peter co-founded the Gotland School of Music Composition, where he has been teaching Music Theory until 2014.

In this conversation Peter shares his insights about his new publication on 189 partimenti of Nicola Sala from the late 18th century Naples. They are available here.

Enjoy and share your comments below.

​And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends.

Thanks for caring.

Listen to the conversation