Margaret Griebling-Haigh: "Cortege d'antan" for oboe, EH, and organ
Cortege d'antan
for oboe, English horn, and organ
by Margaret Griebling-Haigh (b. 1960)- American composer
Three instruments with long histories in European church music, the oboe, the English horn, and the organ, make up this unusual trio, Cortege d'antan. The French title means "a procession from long ago"; imagine a group of medieval holy men making their way slowly down the aisle of an enormous and awe-inspiring French cathedral, all full of tall stone columns and shafts of sunlight. However, the piece has no actual religious derivations but rather makes use of the ancient sounding colors of echoing perfect fifths in its opening and closing chanted duets of the oboe and English horn, in dialogue with sudden rhapsodic outbursts of opinion from the organ.