And Can It Be That I Should Gain? - Piano Solo: Piano Solo

Victor Labenske's arrangements strike an uncommon balance: they sound sophisticated enough to enhance a worship service, yet require minimal practice time from busy church pianists. The stylistic variety means you're not programming 30 versions of the same musical approach, which keeps both the congregation and the performer engaged across a full year of services.

These arrangements respect the spiritual weight of familiar hymns while inviting pianistic engagement. The writing feels grounded and reverent without being stiff, with harmonic color that deepens without overshadowing the text and melody.

Church pianists who need reliable, well-crafted arrangements for weekly services without spending hours in preparation. This book is equally useful for advanced high school pianists developing sight-reading skills and earning festival credentials, or for college music education majors building their hymn-playing vocabulary.

• Study the arrangement's harmonic language first. Labenske often uses unexpected chord progressions within familiar melodies, so mapping these out before you sit at the keyboard prevents stumbling over surprises during service.
• Let the comb binding work for you during performance. Practicing with the book open and lay-flat removes the mental load of page turns, so you can focus on voicing and touch.
• Match the arrangement's stated style to the liturgical moment. A processional demands different energy than an offertory, and these arrangements reflect those distinctions.
• Pay attention to dynamic markings as textural clues. They often signal when to bring out inner voices or lean into accompaniment patterns rather than the melody.

Pull individual pieces throughout the liturgical year as preludes, offertories, and postludes rather than performing the entire collection at once. A Federation Festivals 2024-2028 selection means students preparing for festival can work on several pieces from this book in sequence, building cumulative confidence with this particular arranger's style.

• Reading and interpreting harmonic arrangements of familiar melodies
• Managing varied accompaniment patterns and textures within a single piece
• Adjusting touch and voicing for different liturgical contexts
• Sight-reading fluency across 30 distinct pieces
• Pedal control in arrangements ranging from sparse to fully voiced