From the Archives

Distler and Messiaen

Fanfic, Filk, and the Story

The first of these essays dates from 2008, the centenary of both Distler and Messiaen. As my life has been devoted in large degree to these two composers over the last six weeks, it seems appropriate to revisit them. Since that time, we have had a performance of the “Quartet for the End of Time” in our parish church, part of a chamber music festival last summer. Its music continues to echo in my mind and heart.

As I prepared Les Anges, I was struck by its likeness in some respects to the “Dance of fury for the seven trumpets” from the Quartet (cf. Revelation 8, and 11:15-19). There, the four instruments are in unison throughout; in Les Anges, there are two voices, but the same rhythmic intensity. In both movements, Messiaen is seeking to portray Angels, but in different aspects – the one, unearthly joy; the other, unearthly terror and fury. He writes of the “Dance of fury”:

Music of stone, formidable granite sound; irresistible movement of steel, huge blocks of purple rage, icy drunkenness. Hear especially all the terrible fortissimo of the augmentation of the theme and changes of register of its different notes, towards the end of the piece.

It is well to remember that Angels have this other side, quite different from the one we see in the second chapter of St. Luke.

The second item? Yesterday, the Feast of Stephen, I played my old Archiv LP recording of the Christmas Oratorio. It reminded me of what I had written about it years ago, comparing it to “fanfic.” I still consider the comparison apt, and I still remember the 2006 movie I mentioned, “The Christmas Story.” It is probably still available on DVD. For those who live locally, I donated a copy to my favorite local library a few years ago.

The Christmas Oratorio is filled with magic from beginning to end. I think that the Alto soloist gets the best parts with arias such as “Bereite dich, Sion” and “Schlafe, mein Liebster,” but the Choir has plenty of fine music, not least the various harmonizations of stanzas from Vom Himmel hoch.

Here is the opening chorus, “Jauchzet, frohlocket” (in a fine performance from Spanish television via YouTube, complete with subtitles).

I love the intensity in the faces of everyone, instrumentalists and choristers alike. The way that the trumpets run up to the top in scales and arpeggios again and again is incredibly exciting, as is the choral counterpoint, and the string writing. No, it is ALL wonderful. And the Spanish source is a reminder that this is music for the whole world.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Christ is made the sure foundation

A comment following Friday's Pageant rehearsal, from a nine-year old choirgirl: “If there were no Christmas, there would be no Church.”

For other foundation can no man lay that that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (I Corinthians 3:11)

By the grace of God, my life is bound up with that of the Church, and at no time more than the final days of Advent and this day, the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. I long to build upon that sure foundation with gold, silver, precious stones; often enough, my works prove to be wood, hay, stubble. We cannot now judge which is which; we can only do our work with diligence in the light of reason granted to us, seeking by the power of the Holy Ghost to be crucified with Christ so that Christ can live in us.

Some of my work this week has gone well: this morning's prelude improvisation on Divinum mysterium went well, as did the hymnody, even the D Major scale in the pedals that opens “On this day earth shall ring.” Both of the choirs have sung well: the Eucharistic Psalmody for Advent IV and the Midnight Mass, the anthems at last week's Lessons and Carols service, the Youth Choir's two numbers at the Pageant last evening, and the Adult Choir's singing, with violin, of a fine Carl Schalk anthem last night. I delight in the choristers with whom I work, young and old, and if there is any good and lasting aspect of what I do, it probably is my contribution toward shaping them as “lively stones... a royal priesthood” (I Peter 2:9) built upon that foundation and offering up spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.

Yesterday, a busy day that extended from 8 am until 1:30 this morning, included one surprise for me: “The snow lay on the ground.” We sang this delightful carol at the Midnight Mass, and I determined to make an arrangement of it for the brass quintet, for they needed more to do in the service. I was still working on the lower brass parts at 8 pm, hardly an hour before the brass players arrived. With no time to do the work properly by sketching it out in score, I was writing the parts on the fly, sitting at my computer working with LilyPond and trying to keep everything straight in my head as I went. This put me in good company: Mozart often composed in this desperate last-minute manner, notably writing a piano concerto on the stagecoach from Vienna to Prague, handing the parts to the concertmaster when he arrived (never having produced a score for the work), rehearsing that afternoon and playing the concert that night, his own part at the piano existing solely in his head. He later wrote out score and piano part for publication; the work remains one of the masterpieces of the concerto repertoire. Mozart is a towering giant; I am not. But the small work which I attempted turned out well, which was part of the surprise. It sounded well on each of the instruments, and fit together quite as I had imagined. The other part of the surprise: my delight in this act of composition, of putting notes on a page for people to play, and later hearing them as actual, living music.

But this is neither my calling nor my chief delight. That would be the singing of hymns, with which our congregation continually blesses me, and all others who hear them, with their beauty, intelligence, and grace. We did much unaccompanied or minimally accompanied singing last night; it was all so good that I hardly wanted to play the organ at all. I just wanted to listen to them.

Les Anges did not go well; I would grade it as perhaps a C minus, though it appears to have had its intended effect – one person was reported to have commented that part of it sounded “like angels flying up to heaven.” As Distler did a month ago, my teacher Messiaen has sent me back to the practice room with a challenge that, again, I do not see clearly how to address. I have much improved my practice methods, and (partly through last month's lessons from Distler) had last night's Messiaen thoroughly prepared. It was comfortably solid when I laid it aside before noon yesterday. The challenge: how to consistently transfer this into the playing of the music in public, especially in the liturgy when there are many mental distractions?

Distractions were part of last night's problem: I did not get my mind sufficiently still before launching into the piece – frequently a problem with postludes – and Les Anges is of a nature that once begun, it is a headlong rush, a flurry of angels' wings like thousands of geese taking off from a lake. So perhaps my challenge is not so much technical as it is spiritual, perhaps related to my insights learned from the pause at the asterisk in plainsong psalmody, discussed in the previous essay. How can one, almost instantly, become centered and in the proper frame of mind for the music at hand?

But all this is superstructure, work for another day. This day, this highest of days, is a day to praise him who is the foundation, the head and cornerstone. Christopher Smart, at Hymn 386:

We sing of God, the mighty source
of all things; the stupendous force
on which all strength depends;
from whose right arm, beneath whose eyes,
all period, pow'r, and enterprise
commences, reigns, and ends.

Tell them I AM, the Lord God said,
to Moses while on earth in dread
and smitten to the heart,
at once, above, beneath, around,
all nature without voice or sound
replied, “O Lord, thou art.”

Glorious the sun in mid career;
glorious th'assembled fires appear;
glorious the comet's train:
glorious the trumpet and alarm;
glorious th'almighty stretched-out arm;
glorious th'enraptured main:

Glorious, most glorious, is the crown
of him that brought salvation down
by meekness, Mary's son;
seers that stupendous truth believed,
and now the matchless deed's achieved,
determined, dared, and done.

Plainsong Psalmody from Portsmouth

The current BBC Choral Evensong is from Portsmouth Cathedral, and presents an outstanding example of plainsong psalmody. Most cathedral Evensongs are done with Anglican Chant, and it is worthwhile to listen to the plainsong as a contrast; it begins about 7'20” into the broadcast and continues for about ten minutes. A few items to note:

-- the pause at the asterisk: I have learned from my own singing of the psalms and from choral rehearsals in trying to do it this way (and undoing past habits of not making much of a pause) that this is spiritually valuable. It causes one to slow down. Evidence for this is that I tend to forget and rush through the asterisk when I am in a hurry, or not focused on the moment. I would go so far as to say that this little silence is a principal contributor to the following:

-- the hypnotic quality of the chant, when carried through the large quantity of psalmody appointed in the Offices: This has the potential to aid in the spiritual connectedness that is sought in Taizé music, and more effectively in plainsong than in the latter, in my opinion.

-- the shaping of phrases: In plainsong, most phrases have an arched shape, especially when there is much text on the reciting note. There is a slight crescendo through the reciting note, and relaxation through the ending. Many have likened it to ocean waves calmly and rhythmically washing up the beach and receding. The Portsmouth choir does it exceedingly well.

-- the objectivity: In our parish, we sometimes sing Eucharistic psalmody to the Ionian Psalter of Peter Hallock. These settings are excellent, and much valued. Hallock takes a radically different approach, with wide swings of dynamic, expressive of the text – and there is much in the Psalter that, on its surface, calls for such expressiveness. Anglican Chant psalmody can partake of such expression, as well. But that is not the approach of plainsong psalmody; it is the calm, meditative prayer of Holy Mother Church, generation after generation through all the vicissitudes of life, in spiritual union with the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.

-- the organ accompaniment: It is modest, and entirely in the background. In our parish, we generally sing plainsong without accompaniment, but if the organ is to be used, this is the way it should be done. Good plainsong accompaniment adds to the hypnotic quality of the chant.

The BBC only keeps the Evensong broadcasts online for a week; this one will disappear after Tuesday, Dec. 27. For those who encounter this posting after that, similar examples from Portsmouth might be found on YouTube – I haven't looked, so I cannot say for sure.

Next up from BBC Choral Evensong: the Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, beginning on Christmas Day.

Les Anges

The heavenly host praised God and said: Glory to God in the highest

Distler was my teacher earlier this month; now it is Messiaen. This is one of the nine “meditations” on the Nativity of Christ. Les Anges, “The Angels,” is the only one of the nine that I have not played, before this fortnight.

Here is Messiaen playing it:

What sort of music do the angels make? It is surely different from ours. Tolkien somewhere wrote about how it is that Elves and Men differ in their poetry, their songs – most of all because the Gift of Eru lies between them: Elves live forever, unless felled by accident or war, while Men grow old and die. He most directly addresses the issue in a practical way with the Song of Galadriel, when the Fellowship of the Ring prepares to leave Lothlorien.

The analogy carries over to Angels and Men. Our thought patterns differ, and so will our music. But Messiaen perhaps sensed that we have a model before us, an order of creature radically different (though, like us, mortal), but gifted with song: the birds. Messiaen's angels here sound at times like a tree full of songbirds in the spring, and they go twittering off into the distance at the end. Yet, the angels are unlike birds; they are creatures of might, beauty, intelligence, and glory, among the greatest works of our Maker's hand.

As I work at the organ console this week, I imagine myself in solidarity with the angels as they prepared for that night above the fields near Bethlehem. That night was as important to them as it is to us, and I have no doubt that they were as eager (and perhaps anxious?) as any human choir or orchestra before a performance. I suspect that in this, we are alike: music does not come into being without work, study, and preparation. So I work, perhaps as they worked. But we work to the same end:

Gloria in excelsis Deo
et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.
Laudamus te.
Benedictus te.
Adoramus te.
Glorificamus te.
Gratias agimus tibi
propter magnam gloriam tuam.

Revelation 12:1-10

And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars....

We read this at Mattins this morning. Stories known by heart (like this passage) remain inexhaustible treasuries of grace, with new details coming to the foreground each time they are read.

These two ideas struck me today:

-- The “crown of twelve stars” can be taken as representation of the twelve tribes of Israel. St. Mary and her son are the consummation of the history of Israel, the crowning glory of her people. It is through her that the latter part of Isaiah (chapters 40 and onward) finds fulfillment, with the grace of God extending through Israel into all the world.

-- The “war in heaven” (v. 7-9): I see now that this cosmic battle is related to St. Mary and the Incarnation. In one sense, “Michael and his angels fought against the dragon” (v. 7) ages ago, before the foundation of the earth. But Biblical time is slippery. The Hebrew language gets that part right; the verbs do not represent past, present, and future in the clear-cut manner of Indo-European languages. My point: the juxaposition of these two stories indicates that the victory of St. Michael and his angels over “that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole earth” (v. 9) is possible only through Christ, and not simply Christ as the heavenly Second Person of the Trinity, but in his person as Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man, incarnate of the Virgin Mary. “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15, the first lesson at Mattins). St. Mary is inextricably bound up into these things, into this story. Nova, nova: Ave fit ex Eva. It is indeed a new thing that has come to pass.

We held our Advent service of Nine Lessons and Carols this evening. We began with Genesis 3:1-15 as we had done at Mattins, and concluded with St. Matthew's account of the Incarnation (ch. 1, verses 18-25, “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise...”). This follows the genealogy, the “book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (v. 1-16). The eternal purposes of God here become focused through all these generations into one time, one place, one child. And through this child, “that old serpent” is finally overcome, as promised to Eve at the beginning:

No more let sins and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found.

A quick prayer, with further thoughts: Benedict XVI, and St. Mary

I read this morning a news account claiming that the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, is looking “tired" and "weak,” much declined in energy over the last few months. He has been in excellent health, but he is 84 years old. The news account (which I am not going to link) speculated at length as to whether he might retire, obviously hoping that he might. Not likely: the last Pope to retire did so in 1415.

Benedict has spoken on this subject, in 2010: "If a pope clearly realizes that he is no longer physically, psychologically and spiritually capable of handling the duties of his office, then he has a right, and under some circumstances, also an obligation to resign." But he went on to say that “One can resign at a peaceful moment or when one simply cannot go on. But one must not run away from danger and say that someone else should do it."

This is hardly a peaceful moment for the Church or the world that he loves so dearly. He is not going to walk away from his duty; instead, he has trips scheduled to Mexico and Cuba next spring.

But before that, there is Christmas, which is grueling for any priest, religious, or church musician. With all my heart, I wish him well. And that is why I offer this quick prayer, before attending to my own duties for the Fourth Sunday of Advent:

LORD God of hosts, look with favor upon thy servant Benedict, Bishop of Rome. Uphold him in his service to thee through this coming week. Grant him a sense of thy presence and every spiritual blessing, for the benefit of thy holy Church throughout the world: through him who is the Great Shepherd of the Church, even Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

-------
[Further thoughts, later in the day]
Christmas is more than a grueling ordeal; it is a joy, more so the more one enters into it through the Church's liturgy and song. And I doubt not that it is one of the chief joys of the Holy Father, whose love for Our Lady shines through all of his writings. I hope that this is a good week for him.

One of my favorite passages from his writings comes at the end of the encyclical letter Spe salvi, where he turns to Mary, the "Star of Hope" (Ave maris stella):

With a hymn composed in the eighth or ninth century, thus for over a thousand years, the Church has greeted Mary, the Mother of God, as “Star of the Sea”: Ave maris stella. Human life is a journey. Towards what destination? How do we find the way? Life is like a voyage on the sea of history, often dark and stormy, a voyage in which we watch for the stars that indicate the route. The true stars of our life are the people who have lived good lives. They are lights of hope. Certainly, Jesus Christ is the true light, the sun that has risen above all the shadows of history. But to reach him we also need lights close by—people who shine with his light and so guide us along our way. Who more than Mary could be a star of hope for us? With her “yes” she opened the door of our world to God himself; she became the living Ark of the Covenant, in whom God took flesh, became one of us, and pitched his tent among us (cf. Jn 1:14)....

Through you [Mary], through your “yes”, the hope of the ages became reality, entering this world and its history. You bowed low before the greatness of this task and gave your consent: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:38).... But alongside the joy which, with your Magnificat, you proclaimed in word and song for all the centuries to hear, you also knew the dark sayings of the prophets about the suffering of the servant of God in this world.... Notwithstanding the great joy that marked the beginning of Jesus's ministry, in the synagogue of Nazareth you must already have experienced the truth of the saying about the “sign of contradiction” (cf. Lk 4:28ff). In this way you saw the growing power of hostility and rejection which built up around Jesus until the hour of the Cross, when you had to look upon the Saviour of the world, the heir of David, the Son of God dying like a failure, exposed to mockery, between criminals. Then you received the word of Jesus: “Woman, behold, your Son!” (Jn 19:26). From the Cross you received a new mission. From the Cross you became a mother in a new way: the mother of all those who believe in your Son Jesus and wish to follow him. The sword of sorrow pierced your heart. Did hope die? Did the world remain definitively without light, and life without purpose? At that moment, deep down, you probably listened again to the word spoken by the angel in answer to your fear at the time of the Annunciation: “Do not be afraid, Mary!” (Lk 1:30).... In that hour at Nazareth the angel had also said to you: “Of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:33). Could it have ended before it began? No, at the foot of the Cross, on the strength of Jesus's own word, you became the mother of believers. In this faith, which even in the darkness of Holy Saturday bore the certitude of hope, you made your way towards Easter morning. The joy of the Resurrection touched your heart and united you in a new way to the disciples, destined to become the family of Jesus through faith. In this way ... you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way!

Distler, teachers, Evensong, and Mozart

I thank the choir for a fine Evensong today. The Weelkes Magnificat was the best that we have sung it, and the anthem (“Cause us, O Lord,” by Ronald Nelson) was splendid. And J.'s sermon was outstanding, helping me make sense of a particularly thorny pair of lessons (Amos 6:1-14, II Thessalonians 1:5-12).

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I scheduled Hugo Distler's Partita on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland for today's Choral Evensong. It was the last of three major organ works which I have attempted since All Saints' Day. I did not get any work done on it until I had completed the Phillips and Bach pieces – so, I have had to learn it in a fortnight. I applied my standard practice routine to it, working out a complete fingering, then spending about six hours on the First Workout, and subsequently about three hours of every work day.

But it became clear that I was stuck. There was no way that I could bring it up to performance tempo, marked with Germanic precision by Distler in the score. And it is not that I was only a few metronome markings shy; on several of the movements, I was barely playing it at half tempo, and try as I might, I could go no faster. I considered dropping the piece, but what then would I play for Advent Evensong?

It was here that Distler became my teacher. Wednesday morning, I tried a different approach on the fourth variation, the one that was most troublesome for me. I began with my standard approach: slow play-through of a phrase, followed by rhythmic groupings. But then, an innovation: I played the phrase with the metronome at a comfortably slow tempo of quarter note at 72, moved the tempo up to 76 and played it again. Again at 80. And 84. Then 88, still just this one phrase. I continued working it up until I broke down, which was (that day) at 96. I immediately played the phrase slowly to avoid the spastic too-fast practicing that I tend to fall into when faced with such a situation (and which I hear sometimes from the students who rehearse in our building). I moved on to the next phrase, working it up in the same manner. Finally, I played the whole variation a couple of notches below my break-down tempo, and finished with my usual slow play-through. It was now thoroughly comfortable at 88, where an hour previous, I would have completely broken down at that tempo, despite (by then) a week and a half of work on the piece.

The problem is that this took me over an hour for two pages of music which take about one minute in performance. On Friday, I was able to work it up to 104 with another hour's work, and on Saturday to 112, which gave me my performance tempo for today of 108. I am still well short of Distler's indicated tempo of 132 (actually 66 to the half note, which is the same), but I can now see how I could attain it, given another couple of weeks. I believe that I got it to a musically acceptable tempo for tonight's Evensong. I applied the same technique to two other places in the Partita with similar success, most notably the end of the Chaconne.

Metronomic practice is nothing new. But normally, I hear people play long sections, entire movements, with the metronome. My innovation is to work on one phrase at a time, in combination with the rhythmic groupings approach I have described elsewhere. It is not so much the playing of this little Fourth Variation; it is the methodological breakthrough. It presented me with a problem that could not be solved with any approach that I knew to attempt, and forced me to find another way, a method that will be of value in other contexts.

It seems that such lessons come to me only when it is too late for me to fully apply them to the work at hand. Most of the Distler remained well short of his indicated tempi in tonight's Evensong. But I hope that my playing of it, faults and all, communicated the musical idea of the piece. And I have come away from it a better organist.

I revere my teachers: Vera Payne, who led me through John Thompson's “Teaching Little Fingers to Play” and encouraged my love of music, despite my late start with it (age twelve); Ron Fishbaugh, the best of the several piano teachers I encountered at college and after, and who told me after I played a recital that had included Franck and Bach that I ought to take up the organ (I did not act on that for another several years); Donald McDonald, who took this self-taught organist, corrected his faults (as best he could), and set him on the path toward becoming a better organist.

But there are other teachers who speak to us through the pages of their music, as Distler has done for me this fortnight. First among these is J. S. Bach. When I began to play the organ, I could not locate anyone to teach me, but I knew where to look: the Orgelbüchlein. It was my primary “teacher” in those days, as the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Suites had been under Mr. Fishbaugh.

Tomorrow is the Feast of St. Clement of Alexandria. I believe that, in his love of learning, he would approve of these ideas, and see Jesus our Rabbi, our Teacher, in the background, for all learning ultimately comes from Him:

Master of eager youth,
Controlling, guiding,
Lifting our hearts to truth,
New power providing;
Shepherd of innocence,
Thou art our Confidence;
To thee, our sure Defense,
We bring our praises.

(number 362 in the Hymnal 1940. A version of this text is at 478 in the Hymnal 1982, omitting the stanza here quoted).

Tomorrow is also the spiritual birthday of W. A. Mozart, who departed this life on December 5, 1791. I enjoy all of his music, but I would say that he is at his best at the opera. Cosi fan tutti, the Marriage of Figaro, the Magic Flute, Don Giovanni... I love them all, largely for his lighthearted and sympathetic portrayal in music of the human condition.

While in graduate school, I had the opportunity of observing the girls' choir of Trinity Church, Princeton in rehearsal, directed in those days by James Litton. That January evening, they sight-read the treble line for the Introit and Kyrie of the Requiem, which they would be learning that spring with the ATBs of the choir. Watching and hearing them encounter this music is something I hope I always remember. They were my teachers that day, showing me why I should work with children's choirs. For reasons having to do mostly with scheduling, I will never direct a choir that can rehearse three times a week and learn to sing at that level, but within the possibilities of my time and place, I hope that I have helped young people (older people, too) encounter Real Music, and develop the skills to sing it as they have opportunity.

Here is a performance of the Introit and Kyrie, with Sir Georg Solti and the Vienna Philharmonic, from 5 December 1991, the 200th anniversary of Mozart's death.