Music for Worship

By Dan Forrest

This is a collection of piano arrangements transcribed for organ. Some of them work nicely and are effective; others--in my opinion--didn't seem to transfer as well to the organ, similar to how many orchestral transcriptions work on the piano but not always well. Despite this, with a...

little flexibility from the organist, each is a nice arrangement with new harmonies and styles that aren't often seen in typical sacred organ arrangements. It's not a perfect collection, but I'd buy it again, and I will definitely find it useful and enjoyable to play from.

I was quite excited to invest in newer arrangements of standard hymns. However these arrangements did not make the crossover from choral music to organ music at all. I am a pianist as well as organist and have played for choirs as a pianist. I'm sure these were nice...

choir arrangements, and if they were played on a small organ in a small space they would probably be nice. However, I found that often the parts were oddly divided between hands for downplaying and the pedals, while still keeping it simple could have been used more effectively. There was not an overall sense of building toward a climax in a piece that is appropriate for an organ. Managing the "dramatic" elements of a piece work differently on an organ. A lot of it is timing and contrast in style that is slightly different than it is in choral music. So while the original arranger had some good ideas, the secondary arranger who put this book in organ form had a very poor understanding or the instrument.