Prelude & Fugue in F Minor - Rachel Laurin

Province Chapel
Mississippi College
Prelude and Fugue in F Minor – Rachel Laurin (b. 1961)

Recently, the organ works of Canadian composer Rachel Laurin have gained critical acclaim among professional organists, including the Winner of the Holtkamp-AGO Composition Award 2008. This winning piece, the Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, captured the attention of North American organists and embraces elements of Romanticism and Impressionism.

Canadian composers have only recently received acknowledgement in the international organ world. Vierne, Dupré, Duruflé and Widor shaped the emerging French-Canadian style, as Achille Fortier and others returned from France to Canada and taught at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal.

At 19, Laurin enrolled in the Conservatoire. Unlike many who compose organ music based on religious musical material, Laurin intends most of her compositions as solely “concert works.” She has cited Canadian landscapes and orchestral performances as influences in her own pieces, comparing herself to Rachmaninoff in color and chromaticism.

The prelude opens with a melodic line specified to portray a singing voice, and the other hand imitates this line while the pedal mostly provides a drone and tonal center. After the first exposition and development of the fugue subject, the prelude’s improvisatory melody appears again. The seamless combination not only creates another uncommon monothematic prelude and fugue, but also testifies to Laurin’s contrapuntal skills. Although the Prelude and Fugue in F Minor explores chromatic landscapes, often blurring the sense of tonality, both sections settle in F-major chords.