The Trinity, Sketch Hymn Composition, 2026.

The Trinity was mostly inspired by the classic 19th-century Christian tune “Eventide” written by the English organist William Henry Monk1 (1823–1889) in 1861. “Eventide” is best known as the tune that accompanies “Abide with Me,”2 written by British Anglican cleric Henry Francis Lyte3 (1793–1847) in 1847. The Trinity is also inspired by a fascinating interview I stumbled upon years ago between Art Lange and Keith Jarrett. Interestingly, in the interview, Jarrett states, “If I could call everything I did Hymn, it would be appropriate, because that’s what they are when they’re correct.”4 Interestingly, when I then searched for citations of the quote, the first attribution in the AI summary falsely attributed it to Bob Dylan. I refreshed the search, and it said Leonard Bernstein; I refreshed again, and it said John Cage, then Charles Ives—each time with seemingly greater confidence. Such an occurrence paradoxically seemed to indirectly correlate with Jarrett’s quote.

After listening to many excellent renditions and variations of Abide with Me on YouTube, I learned to play it on the keyboard—and eventually attempted my own composition using a similar approach. The Trinity uses the same key signature as Abide with Me (E-flat major) and, ideally, employs a similar adante (moderately slow) tempo—ideal for sacred-liturgical preludes and postludes. The Trinity is a work in progress, but a few raw takes on the organ and other instruments are listed below.

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Footnotes

  1. “William Henry Monk.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Aug 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Monk. ↩︎
  2. “Abide with Me.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Jul 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abide_with_Me. ↩︎
  3. “Henry Francis Lyte.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Jul 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Francis_Lyte. ↩︎
  4. Lange, Art. “The Keith Jarrett Interview.” DownBeat, https://downbeat.com/microsites/ecm-jarrett/post_2-jarrectt-interview.html. Accessed 23 Aug. 2026. ↩︎

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