Grand Fanfare on 'To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King'

- Dennis R. Johnson

Use: General
Required Resources: Organ

This fanfare has everything one might expect: reedy triads in motion, pedal solos, flashy alternating sixteenths, apeggios, and a big ending in five-part texture.

The hymn, "To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King," was penned in 1941 by Msgr. Martin B. Hellriegel (1890-1981), a German-American priest in Saint Louis MO. The refrain, "Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler, Christ Jesus Lord and Redeemer!" is a translation of the Latin, "Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!" The tune [Ich Glaub an Gott] was published in the Mainz Gesangbuch in 1870.

Dennis Johnson's fanfare on this hmyn tune appears as a fantasia whose six short sections are threaded into a brilliant illumination of the regal tune and text.

Of medium difficulty, the fanfare is scored for a three-manual organ, although it is quite playable on a two-manual instrument. It begins in the key of F Major, making it appropriate as a postlude following the singing of the hymn — or even instead of the hymn, as more parishes are embarcing the European practice of an organ recessional (certainly in line with the rubrics).

Wherever you program Dennis Johnson's Grand Fanfare on 'To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King', the effect will be masterful.