Music: Sun Feb 24

Anger—irrational, righteous, explosive—finds expression in the solo piano music performed at Sunday morning’s worship service. Sometimes characterized as a Titan shaking his fists at the Heavens, Beethoven seems to unleash a natural fury in the final movement of his so-called “Moonlight Sonata,” performed as part of the Centering Music. The Chicago-born Robert Muczynski contributes a short, punchy Prelude, which traverses the extremes of the keyboard of an insistent, menacing ostinato. In the Offertory, a movement from Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana provides a portrait of the fictitious character Johannes Kreisler in one of his fits of outraged alienation. In its central section, the piece mimics the rational development of a Bach fugal exposition, but the frenzied pace recalls the original meaning of the French word fugue: flight. Elsewhere, the CUUC Choir is on hand with less irritable creations, including Harold Arlen’s aspirational “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and the uplifting “Fill-a Me Up.” Read on for programming details.

Centering Music: Adam Kent, piano
Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 “Moonlight”
                      III. Presto agitato
                                                          Ludwig van Beethoven

Prelude No. 6
                                                          Robert Muxzynski

Anthem: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas
"Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
                Music by Harold Arlen, Lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, arr. by Mark Hayes

Offertory:
Kreisleriana, Op. 16
                        VII: Sehr rasch
                                                          Robert Schumann

Anthem: Kim Armstrong Force and Ernest Kennedy, Soloists
"Fill-a Me Up"
                                                          Pepper Choplin