Organum
for solo pipe organ

Work no. 209
2022

Given my lifelong fascination with counterpoint and its history, I've always wanted to compose an organum, something vaguely Gothic and in two voices. It seemed an almost insurmountable task. Composing for the organ is difficult enough, since the repertoire spans many centuries, and coming up with something new is a challenge. Creating an organum meant that I would also have to come up with something new in a very old genre, comprehensively explored by many others. I tried many times, until finally in early 2022 this piece practically wrote itself one evening, and after a few revisions, I was really happy with it.

Somehow this piece became the basis of a private joke in our group of friends, about adding an -um to instrument names: we joked about composing a flutum, a xylophonum, or even a hornum, if the mood was right... I actually did compose a tiny spoof of this piece for solo piano, called Pianum, much to everyone's amusement.

The piece was first performed by Carson Cooman in March 2022. Another version of the piece was recorded by Luca Massaglia in May 2023. Both performances are linked below.