Meditation on Bach, Brahms and Buxtehude

SALISBURY — The Congregational Church of Salisbury, UCC held its monthly Mid-day Music and Meditation on Friday, Feb. 3, a concert performed by the church’s music director, David Baranowski, who played three pieces on organ.

Baranowski started with the first movement of the Brahms Requiem, a famous choral piece that he arranged purely for organ for the sake of the concert. He gracefully navigated the rises and falls of this work with great expression, leaning into the heavy emotion of the piece. Baranowski got the idea to perform this movement as he will be directing the Brahms Requiem with a choir of 100 in May at Manhattanville College.

The next two pieces —Buxtehude’s “Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne in C, buxWV 137” and Bach’s “Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C major, BWV 564” — were picked for their connection and influence on each other. Both pieces are from the Baroque period, and Bach is considered one of the primary composers of the time. Buxtehude was nearing the end of his life when Bach was a student, and held a great deal of influence on Bach’s compositional style through his own compositions.

Baranowski played the Buxtehude for last month’s presentation, but elected to play it again this month for the sake of comparison with the Bach.

Both pieces required a steady and practiced hand which Baranowski exhibited with ease, weaving through complex and blindingly fast runs of notes with both hands and feet while still bringing appropriate emphasis to each piece’s melodic material. This particular Bach piece is famously difficult for its speed and level of precision, and  was executed flawlessly.

The musical meditations take place on the first Friday of every month at Salisbury Congregational at noon. March will feature flutist Cecelia Burns joining Baranowski for a Bach flute sonata and will feature Baranowski on harpsichord.