This coming weekend, on Reformation Sunday (October 31), Boston will have a first chance to hear First Lutheran Church re-dedicate their newly expanded (and now complete) Richards, Fowkes organ. Bálint Karosi will play a half-hour Präludium at 3:30, before the 4:00 PM service. During the summer just past, the instrument’s builders installed and carefully voiced a Schalmey 4’ in the Rückpositiv, a Vox Humana 8’ in the Haupt Werk, and a Cornet 2’ in the Pedal. At the same time, the builders slyly added their own gift to the parish, an additional stop that those present on Sunday will enjoy.

The Prelude will begin with a majestic Präambulum in D by 17th-c. Hamburg organist Heinrich Scheidemann, display the darker moods of Buxtehude with the solo organ version of a haunting commemorative cantata, and finish up with many sides of J.S. Bach, including two contrasting settings of his signature Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr. Should you go, you will decidedly experience a different organ than you have heard at FLC before. The three new reeds are truly something to write home about.

(The music of the Präludium and service were to have been played by celebrated Frisian organist/improviser Sietze de Vries, but the vagaries of obtaining American visas for visiting artists put an unexpected end to this plan.)