Composed in 2018 for the newly completed hyperorgan of the Orgelpark, Amsterdam, Trevor Grahl's Of Ancient Days employs its unfamiliar resources to tell a familiar story. The piece Of Ancient Days is a musical creation story, illustrating the birth of the world through sound in a unique composition for hyperorgan. For this creation he had a special companion, the composer Johan Sebastian Bach, whose partita Sei Gegruosset, Jesu Guotig runs through the piece like a silver thread, performed on the Utopa Baroque Organ by organist Francesca Ajossa.
The term 'hyperorgan' describes a complex, flexible interlinking of instruments and playing mechanisms. Key to its functioning is a digital console which was first installed in the Orgelpark in 2011 as an enhancement to the venue's 1922 Sauer organ. On the installation of the Utopa Baroque Organ in 2018 this console additionally became one of the two modes of access to this new instrument. The addition of a digital console enables both organs to be played from a single source forming a hyperorgan capable of blending both German Baroque and Romantic sound. The hard and software offers both instruments a host of new possibilities; new ways of controlling both organ's airflow and many other parameters are possible enabling the organs to sound very differently, producing as John Cage would have said, "glorious and shocking" sounds. And all this is acoustic, without loudspeakers!
In Of Ancient Days, Trevor Grahl shows both sides of the organ - the new and the old, which are both important, beautiful and exiting. Each movement is based on a different day of the Genesis creation narrative where elements stack on top of one another until the climax, the arrival of humans on the sixth day. Bach's partita Sei Gegruosset Jesu Guotig serves as the nights, offering a steadfast moment of pensive meditation amongst the creative action of the days.
Trevor Grahl is a tireless advocate of the (hyper)organ and has introduced countless composers and makers to its myriad creative possibilities. Played on one of the few hyperorgans in the world this will be the first time a specially-composed piece for this instrument will be released on CD; a world premiere recording!
