Fugue on 'Ave maris stella' was first performed by the composer at the Southern Cathedrals Festival Evensong in Chichester Cathedral on 16 July 2026 and was subsequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
It is published by Goodmusic.
Composer’s note
My friend Peter Stevens suggested an organ piece based on Ave maris stella and this fugue is the result. Its subject is drawn from the first three words of the hymn and therefore from the first twelve pitches of the chant; I have aimed for a melodic and rhythmic contour that mirrors the words. The combination of duplets and triplets in the subject sets up cross-rhythms that then persist throughout.
From bar 24 the subject is dismantled and gradually reassembled. Here I was thinking of Schoenberg’s Klangfarbenmelodie, and in particular Webern’s use of it in his orchestration of Bach’s six-part Ricercar, in which a single line is passed between constantly changing colours. The organist’s equivalent is a change of manual: the performer is encouraged to use as many as are available, dispersing the fragments around contrasting but balancing registrations. (If only one manual is available, that is also fine, but the distribution between the hands may need to change.)
Between bars 34 and 60 the music remains entirely on the white notes, a device borrowed from Bruckner and Shostakovich. A second, slower subject enters — in effect a cantus firmus — created from the same twelve pitches. Stretto in both subjects tightens alongside a gradual crescendo; contrapuntal complexity peaks around bar 56, where for a moment there are six simultaneous subject statements.
The contrapuntal density subsides: stretto ceases and the cantus firmus subject drops out after bar 60. The escalating crescendo and the momentum of continuous triplets propel the music towards a cadence that isn’t technically interrupted but should certainly feel like it.
I have sometimes wondered whether the final three bars should be quiet. The performer is welcome to experiment.