- Title
- Concerto for Organ and Orchestra
- Year
- 1986
- Instrumentation
- Organ and Orchestra
- Notes
- Written for Lawrence Moe, University organist at UC Berkeley. It has been said the organ is the pope and the orchestra is the king and they will never live together, something Felciano tried to disprove. Plays with psycho-acoustic phenomena, the center section attempts to create the illusion of a perpetually ascending "Shepard Scale"; an acoustical Escher staircase, in which an ascending glissando never seems to reach its goal. The piece is also an homage to Bach, the notes B A C H occur in all sorts of permutations, as well as references to the counter subject of the Great Dorian Fugue and its climactic pedal trill.
- Review
- " ...demonstrates the extent to which the composer searches for relatively untapped ideas ...such as the use of the Shepard Scale (i.e. the aural illusion that pitches are rising or falling steadily when they aren't really going anywhere). Felciano finds virtuosity in ideas such as these and in harmonic treatments rather than in showy displays. "
—R.L.C., The Music Connoisseur
" ...finely constructed ...eloquent ...fresh and refreshing"
—Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Chronicle
