Chorale, Fugue, and Celebration

In June of 2024, the Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, Texas presented a series of services focused on the theme of love. Specifically, Pastor Charles Swindoll presented a series of four sermons taken from 1 Corinthians 13. This arrangement was written to help communicate the message of these sermons through music.

This work for brass band is based on the hymntune Love Divine, All Loves Excelling by Charles Wesley from 1747. It is a five part arch form that begins with a chorale statement in a minor mode followed by the intial major presentation of the hymntune. The third major section returns to a minor key, but this time melodic fragments are presented as a fugue before a return to the second hymntune presentation. Through a series of harmonic modulations, the chorale returns in the final section, this time in major with melodic fragments of the hymn interspersed with material from the opening chorale. The totality of the form, then, becomes A-B-C-B-A.