Variations On Old Psalm-Tunes for Organ, Book 1

In the Variations on Old Psalm-Tunes for Organ, Dyson fully explores the composer’s chosen sources: Orlando Gibbons’s ‘Forth in Thy name, O Lord, I go’, Pry’s Psalter (1621) ‘O Lord, turn not away Thy face’, Thomas Campion’s ‘By the waters of Babylon’, and ‘God moves in a mysterious way’ from the Scottish Psalter (1635). These works are popular for service voluntaries. Twentieth century composer and educator George Dyson was a writer of ambitious and critically well-received works that, due to their unfashionably accessible, late Romantic style, were allowed to languish and are now in the process of reassessment and renewed performance. However, Dyson’s works for unison Voice and church music – in particular his two settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis – have remained active in the Anglican repertoire.