Tonight, you will be able to hear a piece by Fredonia’s own Fr. Joseph Walter, played by world-renowned organist Cherry Rhodes on a Dobson pipe organ.

The premiere of Walter’s composition — “Chorale, Diferencias and Glosas on Puer Natus in Bethlehem” (A Child is Born in Bethlehem) — will be broadcast locally on Classical 94.5 WNED and WNJA 89.7 FM on “Pipedreams,” the largest nationally syndicated radio program for organ music in the country.

The premiere took place Oct. 7 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. Walter traveled to the concert with two friends, Joseph Smith and Douglas Smith, and his sister, Sr. Mary Walter, RSM.

“If you asked people who know organ music to list their top 10 or top 20 performers, Cherry would be on everybody’s list,” Walter noted in a phone interview with the OBSERVER. “She’s just a virtuoso, and it takes a virtuoso to play this piece, as it’s not an easy piece to perform. I was tickled when I sent it to her — and she’s performed some of my music before, but they were shorter pieces — … and she wanted to (perform it).”

Fr. Joseph Walter

Walter serves as pastor for both the St. Joseph and St. Anthony parishes in Fredonia. He previously served as pastor for St. Dominic in Westfield.

He completed his song this year after three and a half years and composed it specifically for Rhodes.

According to the concert’s program notes, “Chorale, Diferencias and Glosas on Puer Natus in Bethlehem” finds its influence from a 13th-century Gregorian chant Christmas hymn. Each phrase of the hymn tune occurs in a chorale harmonization, followed by a diferencia and a glosa. These latter forms flourished mostly in music of the Spanish Renaissance, notably in the music of Antonio de Cabezon.

In the diferencia, compositional techniques similar to those in the development section of the sonata form are employed, where fragments of material derived from the tune are explored in divergent ways. In the glosa, material from the preceding diferencia is utilized, but an emphasis is placed on ornamental figures in the fabric of the music.

In the last glosa, the chant melody is heard almost in its entirety in the pedal, but is interrupted by an extensive cadenza that leads to a climactic statement of the final phrase of the hymn tune.

“While the work is not intended to be programmatic, one may look upon it as loosely reflective of the hymn’s ideas and sentiments,” Walter stated in the concert’s program notes. “These embrace both the tenderness of the newborn Babe, who is Divine Love made visible, and the power of the Incarnation, which restores order to the cosmos, bringing salvation to a world sorely in need of redemption.”

Walter holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he studied composition with William Kothe and Morton Feldman. He has also studied with Dr. Donald Bohlen, retired chairman of the Composition program at the State University of New York at Fredonia, since 2008.

“I started composing when I was in high school, writing musicals,” Walter said. “As soon as I started writing, I fell in love with it, and I’ve been writing ever since. It was just like I got the bug, and that really became my niche in music.”

In 1999, Walter composed “Variations on Salve, Festa Dies” for Two Organs, premiered by Cherry Rhodes and Ladd Thomas. “Meditations on Salve, Festa Dies” (for organ solo, derived from two variations of the two-organ work) was premiered by Rhodes at the 2002 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists.

The “Pipedreams” program begins at 10 p.m. tonight, with Walter’s 16- to 17-minute piece being played roughly half an hour in.

You can also listen to the song’s premiere online by going to pipedreams.publicradio.org and clicking on “A Seasonal Celebration.”

Email: gfox@observertoday.com. Twitter: @gfoxnews