Savior, again to thy dear Name we raise . . .

One of my organist colleagues, nowadays the director of music at a major Roman Catholic cathedral in the eastern U.S., told me years ago that "playing the hymns is easy. You just learn a few formulas."

I wish.

I have never found playing the hymns to be easy. It is a constant challenge, demanding one's best efforts. It demands attentive and responsive listening to the congregation; it calls for careful pondering of the hymn texts, their music, and their relationship to one another and to the congregation.

Even at the most basic level, it is not easy. One must play the right notes at the right time, with proper articulations. A suitable tempo must be chosen, proper for the text and tune, and equally appropriate to the nature of the congregation that will sing it, and even to the time of day and the weather. One must maintain tempo and rhythmic accuracy, come what may -- yet remain responsive to the ebb and flow of the congregation's voice.

And then, one must eventually get beyond what is printed on the page. I learned much about this from a study course produced by the American Guild of Organists: "A Mini-Course in Creative Hymn Playing" by John Ferguson, the organist at St. Olaf College, and I have learned much by listening to other organists play the hymns, not least some who have played for RSCM courses. I have a couple of old CD's from the Girls' Courses at St. Philip's, Atlanta, with Bruce Neswick at the organ; I listened to the hymns (and his prelude and postlude improvisations) dozens of times, seeking to learn from him. One lesson was this: Don't play the tune!

This contradicts all that one is taught in the beginning stages. But, in a situation where one has a very strong choir, or a congregation that is absolutely confident of the tune, one can indeed let them carry it, and devote the organ to elaborating around it. I did this with our opening hymn this morning, "Come, thou Fount of every blessing" to the tune "Nettleton." I gave them the tune in the introduction and first stanza, and from there on I played arpeggios and chords around it, seeking to capture the sense of outdoorsy joyful abandon that is at the heart of this Early American tune.

But there are other times when one must certainly play the tune, and possibly little more than that. Our fourth hymn, "O God of Bethel, by whose hand" to the tune "Dundee," was somewhat unfamiliar to the congregation, especially in its text. The Hymnal 1982 gives a seventeenth century fauxbourdon accompaniment for it, with the tune in the tenor. I wanted to play it, but felt that it was too much for the congregation to handle; they would not find the tune and would falter. Thus, I began by playing only the tune, in the pedals (where I would leave it throughout), complete with a howler of a wrong note the first time through. In later stanzas, I added the bass line with the left hand (the tune still in the tenor, on the pedals with 8' and 4' and the manual couplers in order to be louder than the rest), then the soprano. It took more work to prepare this hymn than anything else that I played today, including the voluntaries; the coordination of playing the tenor in the pedals and other parts in the hands remains a challenge for me, always requiring a lot of practice. But it went nicely, and fit the tune and text extremely well.

And there are times when one ought not play at all. The closing hymn provides the title to this essay: "Savior, again to thy dear name we raise / with one accord our parting hymn of praise" (Hymn 345, to the tune "Ellers"). It is a fine old nineteenth century text and tune, not often sung these days. Like many nineteenth century tunes, it depends largely on its harmony, in four vocal parts. I love to let the congregation sing such tunes with unaccompanied harmony, but I had doubts about this one. Each phrase ends on a whole note, providing opportunity for the rhythm to come apart; the harmonic progressions are sufficiently chromatic as to be a challenge. But when the time came, I gave them the opportunity on the third stanza:

Grant us thy peace throughout our earthly life;
peace to thy Church from error and from strife;
peace to our land, the fruit of truth and love;
peace in each heart, thy Spirit from above.

They took about two measures to come to terms with it, and come to the collective understanding that "yes, we can do this." From then on, it was the finest music of the day: quiet, steady, prayerful.

I followed this with a quiet registration on the final stanza, and (taking another chance), a very quiet postlude on the tune, a setting by Emma Lou Diemer. It started soft, on 8's and 4's in the Swell with box closed, and got softer still. Were people to get up and mill about, it would be overwhelmed and lost. But people stayed and listened. I hope it gave them a gentle and graceful end to the liturgy.

Postludes are much like their equivalent at the movies, the music for the closing credits. I should write more about this sometime, but for now I will note that sometimes such music needs to be full of energy, but there are other times when something quiet is more fitting.

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I will share a memory from one of the aforementioned Atlanta RSCM Courses. We had finished our final rehearsal, and the director was thanking Mr. Neswick for his work at the organ, which was spectacular -- he is, in my opinion, probably the finest service organist in the Episcopal Church. "It is an uncommon privilege," the director said, "to have such an organist for a week. You will rarely hear someone play so well." I was in complete agreement with this -- but three of my choristers, across the way in the other side of the choir, were not. They looked at me and smiled, and it was clear that they were thinking "We hear someone who is as good as this every Sunday."

I will carry that with me as a treasure for the rest of my days.