God with us

At Christmas, we hear the incomparable account of the Nativity according to St. Luke, or (in the third set of Eucharistic lessons, and on the First Sunday after Christmas) the prologue to the Gospel according to St. John. But we do not hear St. Matthew's account. Yes, we get chapter two at the Feast of the Epiphany. But what about chapter one? We get it in the Daily Office for the Sunday after Christmas in Year One, and the Feast of the Holy Name in Year Two; if it appears anywhere in the Eucharistic Lectionary, I cannot recall it or find it at present [Edited later: it does appear in the Sunday Lectionary on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A]. It is not even the Gospel for the Feast of St. Joseph (Luke 2:41-52, the twelve-year old Jesus, who “must be about [his] Father's business.”).

What is St. Matthew's point with this important passage?

The first sentence of the Gospel according to St. Matthew is this: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” St. Matthew wants his readers to understand that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and that in him are fulfilled all the promises made to Abraham (cf Genesis 22:15-18, “... and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed”) and David (cf II Samuel 7, and the questioning of this promise in Psalm 89: “Lord, where are thy former lovingkindnesses, which thou swarest unto David in thy truth?" [v.49]).

It echoes also the similar “books of the generations” in the First Book of Moses: the “book of the generations of Adam” (5:1); the “generations of the sons of Noah” (10:1); “the generations of Shem” (11:10); “the generations of Isaac, Abraham's son” (25:19) and lastly “the generations of Jacob” (37:2). It places Jesus in the context of the Patriarchs; it further implies that he is not only the culmination of this long genealogy, but the beginning of something new, like unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

There would be many ways to trace the descent of a Jewish person from Abraham; all of them were his descendents, as were many others (e.g, the descendants of Ishmael). There would doubtless be many lines leading even from David to Jesus – St. Luke gives one which differs entirely from that of St. Matthew. But Matthew tracks the line through the kings of Judah. This is to show that Jesus is the legitimate Heir of David, “he that is born King of the Jews” (St. Matthew 2:2). But there is more: St. Matthew is reminding us of the Story. All of these people, from Abraham to Jechonias and his brethren at the time of the Exile, are known to us from the Old Testament. St. Matthew is making it crystal clear that Jesus is part of this Story and the culmination of it. In Jesus, the “author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2) has himself entered the Story. Nothing can ever again be the same.

Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. (1:22-23)

One final thought: This passage is one of the few glimpses we get of St. Joseph, “a just man” (v. 19). The Church begins with Our Lady St. Mary, who believed the words that had been spoken to her (St. Luke 1:45) and was the God-bearer, the Theotokos. But she was not alone: there were Elisabeth and Zecharias – and there was, after his vision in a dream, Joseph. He was at her side on that holy Night in Bethlehem; Joseph was with her, and with Him, as long as he lived; their shared belief in what had been shown them, and what was before their eyes every day, strengthened them through what was often a difficult and uncertain path. So it is today: we believe, and in our shared belief we strengthen one another.

What shall we do, that we might work the work of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. (St. John 6:28-29)

... with giving of thanks

Rejoice in the Lord alway, and again I say, rejoice.
Let your softness be known unto all men: the Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing: but in all prayer and supplication
let your petitions be manifest unto God with giving of thanks.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesu. (Philippians 4:4-7, my emphasis)

I think that the above translation is from the Great Bible. It is certainly from the fine sixteenth century anthem on this text, which we sang for the Eucharist on Sunday, wherein this was part of the Epistle.

After Sunday's service of Lessons and Carols described in the previous essay, I was worn out and a little discouraged about my musicianship. Since then, four people whom I respect, all of them musicians or clergy, have expressed their thanks to me and the choir for the service, telling me that it was meaningful for them. Two of them commented particularly on the little instrumental arrangement that I mentioned.

While Pride is always a danger when people speak well of your work, it remains helpful to say “Thank you.” Hearing and reading those words helped me today; these words can help almost anyone.

We are made in the image of God. One cannot take the converse very far without wandering far astray, but it is not too much of a stretch to think that God is likewise pleased when we say “thank you” (cf. St. Luke 17:11-19, the ten lepers). He does not need our encouragement – or does he? As the Body of Christ, I wonder whether we have some part in “fill[ing] up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24). Might it be that our poor efforts and prayers – and giving of thanks, most of all in the Great Thanksgiving, the Holy Eucharist – have helped our Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, through the dark places in his journey, in a manner not altogether foreign from the way in which we “bear one another's burdens” by encouraging each other in the dark places in our journeys?

That is probably indeed too much of a stretch; God is immutable, and the work of Christ is entire and complete without anything from us – indeed, we have nothing to offer. Still, it doesn't hurt to leaven our prayers and our lives “with giving of thanks,” both to God and to the people we encounter every day.

Lessons and Carols

Our annual Advent Service of Lessons and Carols was tonight. It is a Big Deal, at least for me, and I suspect for the choir. There are nine Lessons and a lot of music: this year there were eight congregational hymns and five choral pieces. It went well, some of it very well indeed.

One of the pieces was “Who is this?”, by John Ferguson. A performance by the composer and his choral ensemble, the St. Olaf Cantorei, is here. This was one of several moments during the service that I came unglued emotionally. We had a young undergraduate violist for the obbligato part, and I think she took it as seriously as I did.

Something that was more of a mixed result was the first movement of Cantata 140, “Wachet auf,” which we sang for Evensong a fortnight ago. Not having anything remotely approaching the funds needed to hire the orchestra for this, I tried an experiment, something I had wanted to do for years with an appropriate piece: we had the wind parts played on the organ, and I played the string parts on the piano. In our first piano-and-organ rehearsal, it became clear that we also needed the continuo line, so I engaged a cellist and bassist. The choir had sung this years ago under my predecessor, who taught them well; many of them still had it memorized.

At Evensong, I was pleased with how it turned out. But I received an e-mail indicating that two musicians in the congregation gave the opinion that the instruments were too loud, and the choral diction unintelligible. After bristling more than a little (I do not take criticism well, I wish I were better at it), I had the organist replace the Octave 4' with a softer Flute 4', I toned it down on the piano, and we worked on diction in rehearsal. In tonight's reading of the piece, most everything went well enough, but not my part of it; my playing was nowhere near an acceptable standard. Lesson: don't try this again. Or if we do, hire a pianist and limit my role to that of conductor. Second Lesson: if I am going to attempt ensemble playing, I had better work at it a lot more. I cannot say that my faulty playing was from sloth; I worked hard on this piece, harder than I have worked on anything that I have played this fall. But it was still crap. I was as much as one or two beats off from the ensemble at times, and there were several places where I completely missed some of my lines. Such an experience is unfortunately part of being a musician; when you play badly, you must simply let it go and move on to the next piece.

The school shooting in Connecticut on Friday put the Lesson from Isaiah 11 in a different light:

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.... They shall not hurt nor destroy on all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

It seemed appropriate to add an instrumental coda to the hymn that followed the lesson, “Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming,” in order to try and add some additional weight to this lesson in the service. More than appropriate: “inescapable” might be more accurate. On the bus yesterday morning, it came to me what to do. I wrote it out after Matins, and finished extracting the parts shortly before this afternoon's rehearsal. It was not much, just a little twenty-two measure coda for the instruments at hand: Flute, Viola, Violoncello, Contrabass. But I was very pleased with how it turned out; this was another moment where I came unglued. Our clergy responded well to the challenge of ministering to this congregation today in light of the shooting, which was much on people's minds. This little instrumental coda was my equivalent, such response as I could offer for the community. May all those little children, and the adults who sought to protect them, rest in peace.

Because I spent so much time on this, I hardly prepared the hymns at all. Several of them I did not play through even once. But they turned out well enough, by God's grace.

Near the end of the service, there comes the Collect for Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

We sang a fine choral setting of this by Craig Phillips for flute, organ, and choir – a setting commissioned by this parish. Last year I had the bad idea of laying the piece aside, for we had done it several years in a row. We all missed it, so the Phillips was back this year. It was a fine way to conclude the service, and was another moment when I came unglued.

May the music we have made this day be acceptable in the sight of the Lord, and beneficial for his people.

And he shall purify...

"And he shall purify," from Handel's Messiah

But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap. And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering of righteousness. (Malachi 3:2-3)

For other foundation can no man lay than is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. (I Corinthians 3:12-13)

We heard a fine sermon this morning from J., one of the handful of people who read these pages, based in part on the Old Testament lesson from Malachi, and the quotation from Isaiah incorporated into the day's Gospel account, St. Luke 3:1-6. She described how gold and silver are refined by fire, and how wool is “fulled” (and yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia as J. suggested: here is the link. In ancient times, it involved slaves walking on the woolen cloth ankle-deep in tubs of urine, which cleansed the raw wool from dirt, oils, and impurities.)

As J. said, none of this sounds easy if you are the silver ore being refined, or the wool being soaked in urine and beaten or trampled upon. But “he is like a refiner's fire, and like fuller's soap.” There is no getting around it; one way or another, all of us must be cleansed of everything that stands between us and God. It is not an easy process. All of this was in J.'s sermon.

I would add that when one starts with an ore that contains gold and silver, only a small fraction is precious metal, for example a quartz rock with a few tiny flakes of gold. That is how we are too – there is some “gold” in us, but there is a whole lot of other stuff.

St. Paul describes the work we do in apt terms: “gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble.” When it seems that we are working hard but making little or no progress, it is well to remember this passage. Most of what we do will not stand the fire – but by God's grace there may be a tiny bit of it that does. Rarely will we know which is which, except sometimes in hindsight. But God knows, he who is “like a refiner's fire.”

Music-making is one aspect of such work. We practice, we do our best, and it is never sufficient: most of it is “wood, hay, stubble.” But there is often “something” there, some element of true Music that shines like gold. If we persist, and if God persists with us, we improve; some of the dross is burned away, and we become better musicians. Someday (probably not in this life), he will have purified us completely, so that we “may offer unto the LORD an offering of righteousness.”

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Rosalynn and Jimmy

I received my annual Christmas Card from Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter the other day, and put it on my desk at home, right under the portrait of George Washington.

Yes, I know that the Carters send these Christmas cards out by the thousands, to all who donate to the Carter Center's work with tropical diseases and the monitoring of elections, and perhaps to Habitat supporters as well. But it is still a treat to hear from them every December. The card is always a print of one of Jimmy's oil paintings; this year, a dove on a blue background. He is not a great artist; this is just a hobby for him, and it gives their Christmas greeting a homespun touch.

The current president has embraced the social media: Facebook, Twitter. He doubtless has many thousands of "friends." Rosalynn and Jimmy are from another generation; they send Christmas cards. And thank-you notes: after my mother died, I sent a part of my inheritance to the Carter Center in her honor, a check that was for me a substantial sum, for my mother respected him every bit as much as I do. In due time, I received a short handwritten thank-you note from Jimmy Carter. I do not think that this was something a secretary did for him; I think that he took the time himself to write it.

He is a Good Man.

Some would say that he was not a good president; I would say that he was perhaps the last good president (as is morally good, not necessarily "good" in the sense of "successful") that we will have in this country. He was elected in the wave of revulsion over the moral bankruptcy of Richard Nixon, and times have changed; someone like Carter could never be elected now.

I send Rosalynn and Jimmy my heartfelt good wishes for a blessed Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year. May God's blessings be with them.

I ain't got long to stay here

This day, the First Sunday of Advent, in all of its Lessons and Music, is what the song describes: “the trumpet sounds within my soul.”

Our time here is short; we had best make the most of it. And it is not just our individual span, our “threescore years and ten.” All things shall come to an end, and after that, the judgment. The Bridegroom has tarried long. But he is coming.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP p. 159)

“Are you a Benedictine?”

After church last Sunday, a visitor asked me this. He is connected with the Benedictine Abbey of St. Meinrad, in southern Indiana and (I gather) was in town for the week.

I was confused; why would he think such a thing? It turns out that it was because of the Psalm. We had sung a plainsong setting of Psalm 132 in the service, and in his view, we sang it stylistically and well. The choir does good work with the psalmody; it is perhaps the best singing that we do. I do pester them about it quite a bit: shape of phrases (like a wave coming onto a tropical beach, then going back out), pause at the asterisk, diction. But the credit, if there is any, is mostly theirs; they have done this enough so that they listen to each other, and it is sung prayer – as it ought to be.

No, I am not a Benedictine. But my teacher was: Fr. Gerard Farrell, OSB (1919-2000). I am delighted to post a link to this page, which honors his memory.

He was an organ student of Flor Peeters and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. He became Choirmaster at the great Abbey of St. John in Collegeville, Minnesota in 1951. Among his innovations, he instituted daily Choral Vespers, where it had previously been sung only on Sundays. I suspect that he would be pleased that the pendulum has swung back sufficiently so that a service such as the one I described in the previous essay, most of it in Latin, would again be valued, or indeed permitted by those in authority.

After the Second Vatican Council and the changes to the monastic liturgy, especially the use of the Vernacular and the desire of many to abandon the heritage of Gregorian Chant, he strove to hold the old and new together, as outlined on the memorial page, but eventually in 1969 resigned from the position, like many other Catholic Church Musicians of those dark days. He moved east, and (among other duties) taught at Westminster Choir College, serving also as associate priest in the local parish. I had the privilege of taking his graduate course in Gregorian Chant; I wish I had continued with his advanced class in Semiology and Paleography (that is, working with the original chant manuscripts and grappling with issues of interpretation of the ancient Neumes; he was one of the masters of his generation in that field), but my paths led in other directions.

In the end, he was permitted to return to the Abbey; he taught week-long summer courses in Chant there in his final years, and went there to die, as is appropriate for a Brother of the Order of St. Benedict. He arrived there on December 30, 1999 with terminal cancer, and died on January 9, 2000, with Requiem Mass at the Abbey on January 12.

May he rest in peace. May he remember us his students before the Throne of Grace.

Choral Vespers

The current BBC Choral Evensong broadcast from Westminster Cathedral is a good example of Roman Catholic Choral Vespers, which is an ancestor of Anglican Choral Evensong. (For those who wish to listen to it, hurry: it disappears from the Net tomorrow.)

As in Evensong, there is an opening dialogue (V. Deus in adjutorum meum intende. R. Domine ad adjuvandum me festina), then an Office Hymn (where we would sing the Phos Hilaron, “O gracious Light”), then Psalmody.

There is but one Lesson, followed by the Magnificat. In this service, a Homily then occurred, followed by the Lord's Prayer (sung by the choir), spoken intercessions, an Anthem, dismissal, and organ postlude.

Nearly all of the service was in Latin, and most of it in plainsong.

My impressions: I miss the polyphonic Preces and Responses. So far as I know, there is no Roman Catholic equivalent of the Smith Responses, or Ayleward, or any of the other settings. Instead, the Preces is in plainsong and the “responses” are spoken – in this service, they were in a litany form, with short intercessions each followed by the response “Lord, hear our prayer.” As I have written elsewhere, one must sing the Preces as a chorister with enormous energy; I liken it to thoroughbreds in the starting gate, bursting with excitement at the prospect of what lies ahead; in many respects, it is my favorite part of the entire Office. At the other end, what could be finer than the third Amen in Smith? Or its equivalent in many other settings?

Over time, I suspect that I would miss Anglican Chant. The psalmody in this service is splendidly done, with good shape to the plainsong tones and good pauses at the asterisk. But psalmody in Anglican Chant has its own virtues, without which we would be impoverished.

I miss the Nunc Dimittis. In nearly all of the Anglican musical settings, the Nunc Dimittis is a quiet counterpoise to the often more energetic setting of the Magnificat. On the other hand, the Roman version of the Office puts a greater emphasis on the Song of Mary, an emphasis that is not without its advantages. In the service from Westminster Cathedral, by the time one reaches the Magnificat, there has been nearly a half-hour of Latin plainsong, and now – Polyphony! It is like the return of flowers and sunshine in spring. In this service, the setting was the “St. Patrick's Magnificat” by the distinguished Scottish composer James MacMillan, a fine and challenging unaccompanied setting worthy of the long tradition of Latin settings of the Canticle. But I can think of a dozen or more Anglican settings of the Nunc Dimittis which are precious to me. Again, we would be impoverished without such music.

And, as much as I love the great and venerable language of the Western Church, I miss English, or at least the traditional “Rite One” English for which Choral Evensong is almost the final refuge. I hold many aspects of Roman Catholic liturgy, theology, and practice in high esteem, but I also espouse many of the Reformed concepts enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer, not least the idea of liturgy in the English language.

Roman Catholic Vespers is an honorable tradition, much older than what we have as Anglicans. But it may be that Anglican Choral Evensong is our finest gift to the larger Church. There is nothing quite like it in any other tradition.

[Footnote: I commend the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, which outlines the theology of the Daily Office and how it is to be conducted in the Roman Catholic manner. I know of no document equivalent to this in Anglicanism – can anyone suggest something?]

Evensong: What's the point?

One of the choristers, a ten-year old girl, asked this of me as we were vesting for Evensong today. “What's the point? Why are we doing this?” I did not answer her well; at first I made light of it, saying something about getting through it so we could have the pizza supper after. But she persisted; it was a serious question. I still did not answer well, telling her that people have been doing this for thousands of years, and it is our turn to take part in it. This is true, but not a sufficient answer.

Similar thoughts were in my mind this week as I prepared the organ music for this day's services. The postlude this morning was a large-scale fantasy on Sine Nomine by Craig Phillips, a fine piece. As I struggled with it and grew weary, I asked myself: “Why am I playing this?” My answer: “To honor the Saints.” This was the parish celebration of All Saints' Day, transferred to Sunday, one of the seven principal Feasts of the Church.

Were St. Cecilia, or J. S. Bach, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, or R. E. Lee, or Hezekiah the King to walk in the door of my home, I would extend them every honor within my power. I would give them the best chair, bring them the best of my food and drink, try to tell them how much they have meant to me. Or so I imagine. But am I willing to do what is actually in my power – more than that, the work which is my proper and bounden duty as a church musician? Am I willing to do a little extra work to prepare some Music to honor them, and through them the Lord whom they served? And on this day, not only these few, but all the company of heaven: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and “all other thy righteous servants, known to us and unknown” (BCP p. 489)?

Aided by such thoughts and encouraged by their examples, I gave it a good effort this week. In the event, the Phillips had more errors than is fitting, but some of the other music in this week's liturgies did go well. When we sang “For all the saints” this morning, all eight stanzas of it with a fanfare going into stanza seven, it was an Event.

When the combined youth and adult choirs sang the Bainton anthem “And I saw a new heaven” at tonight's Evensong, it was likewise an Event. For that matter, their singing of Psalm 150 to the chant in C major by Stanford was equally extraordinary.

To my young friend and fellow chorister in the Lord's service: No, I cannot give you a proper answer, not with words. But I pray that the very experience of it may lead you in the direction of an answer. Were you to stand where I stood, in the midst of the choristers as they sang, and see the intensity in the faces of many of them, young and old, perhaps you would begin to understand. I know you could hear it all around you – I saw a bit of it in your face, as well.

What's the point? What's the point of two months' choral rehearsals to get to one evening service? Or ten hours and more on the organ bench for one postlude that ended up not going very well? Behind these questions, why have people sung or said or prayed Matins and Evensong in one form or another all these years, in every imaginable language and setting and circumstance? Some of the point lies in what singing and praying together before God, and working at it with all our energies and skills, does to bring us a little closer to our maturity in the image of Christ, a little closer in every rehearsal and service. The preparations for this service have made us a better choir, and better choral singers individually. I believe that it was also beneficial to those who were in tonight's congregation, many of them parents of choristers.

But there is more: all of it, all of the work, all of the thousands of years of prayer and psalmody and praise embodied in the Daily Office, especially the Choral Office, is our “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1) for the honor of the One before whom we stand, who alone is worthy of praise.

Suicide bomb in Nigeria

Link

As the people of St. Rita's Roman Catholic Church in Kaduna, Nigeria celebrated Holy Mass this morning, a suicide bomber drove his vehicle right through the church wall, where it exploded and killed at least seven people, injuring many more.

The corner of the church where this happened was the Choir; it appears that most of those injured and killed were choir singers and their children.

May these holy martyrs, our fellow choristers, be granted a place in the holy City, New Jerusalem.
May their Lord, who washed the feet of his disciples, wipe away all their tears and bind up their wounds.

May all who persevere in the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the face of Islamic persecution be strengthened, and especially all choristers and church musicians.

May the prayer of Our Lord apply to those who do such things, as well as to those Christians who strike out in reprisal: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

In paradisum

Alfred the Great

In honor of Alfred the Great, King of the West Saxons: born in the Year of Our Lord 849, died October 26, 899, buried at Winchester.

I will not attempt to write of this man, who alone of British kings bears the title "Great." But I will direct you to an extended poem by G. K. Chesterton:

The Ballad of the White Horse

Collect of the Day:

O Sovereign Lord, who didst bring thy servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also, we beseech thee, a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

piano update

The university technician tuned the Steinway L up in the church this week, and it sounds splendid. He likewise re-glued the missing ivory keytop. Also, we received the written proposal from the piano rebuilder, outlining three options ranging from $15,500 to $26,500.

It occurred to me that, since we happen to have a newer Model L in the choir room, I should do some comparative study. I spent about an hour going back and forth between the two Model L's, plucking strings, checking downbearing and soundboard crown, playing and listening. Yes, I can indeed hear the difference in a plucked string in the mid-treble, as the rebuilder demonstrated: “Hear this? There is no bloom to the sound. The tone is dead. Probably the soundboard is dead.” (At the time, the string sounded fine to me, no matter what he said.) He followed that up by demonstrating that, with his dial-type downbearing gauge, there was zero downbearing on the treble bridge, as I mentioned previously. That got my attention; I know from my studies and experience that downbearing is necessary. A piano does not need much, and too much is as bad as too little, but there must be a little bit, or the tone does not transmit from the string through the bridge to the soundboard.

But today, with my old-fashioned mechanical downbearing gauge – a brass device that you place over the strings at the bridge; if it rocks back and forth there is downbearing; if not, there isn't – I found sufficient downbearing at every point on the piano – I checked every note that is accessible without removing the bass strings. I do not know what was going on with the rebuilder's measurement; one of us is wrong, and he is the expert. But this is a very simple measurement, one I have done many times.

Further, I plucked a lot of strings. The one he demonstrated is the only one that is genuinely “dead.” Its neighbors do indeed have some “bloom” to their sound, though not as much as on the 1971 piano in the choir room. This is an excellent sign; one dead string (when said string is 88 years old) is simply a dead string. If they are all dead in a range of an octave or so, one would have to suspect serious problems with the soundboard. The more general (and, in reality, very slight) difference in tone between the upstairs strings and those on downstairs piano is most likely attributable to the age of the strings.

Granted, there is less downbearing upstairs than on the Model L in the choir room, and that could account for part of why I do not like that piano. Excessive downbearing causes the tone to be harsh, and in my opinion Steinway was not doing their best work in the 1970's [see footnote].

Three lessons for going forward:

-- It is likely that the only things our 1924 Model L needs in terms of tone are new strings and new hammers, or at the least re-shaping and voicing of the existing hammers. No new soundboard. But, as the university technician said, if one is getting new strings, it only adds about $1,000 to install a new pinblock, and it would be a good idea on an 88-year old piano. And if one is doing all that, this would be the time to refinish the case. “But,” as he said, “One has to question whether this piano is worth a complete rebuild-and-refinish.” (Am I the only person who likes this piano?)

-- Secondly, I must be cautious about our rebuilder, whom I am glad that I have not named. As I mentioned, I was impressed with the examples of his work that I played at the Steinway dealer, and he comes with the highest recommendations from people whom I trust. But he strikes me as unduly anxious to “pad the bill” with marginally useful work. I do not think him dishonest – though I want to have a talk with him about those downbearing measurements – I simply think that we must be prepared to firmly and repeatedly say “No” to work that we do not consider necessary, and have a contract that explicitly outlines what work is to be performed.

-- Thirdly, I should not have doubted myself so much based on his comment about fitness for “serious work.” I took the time to look more closely at the piano, based in part on his derogatory comment, and found that yes, it IS suitable, even in its current condition, for “serious work.” As am I.

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[Footnote: “In 1972, after a long-running financial struggle, legal expenses, and a lack of business interest among some of the Steinway family members, the firm was sold to CBS. At that time CBS owned many enterprises in the entertainment industry, including guitar maker Fender, electro-mechanical piano maker Rhodes, and the baseball team New York Yankees. CBS had plans to form a musical conglomerate that made and sold music in all forms and through all outlets, including records, radio, television, and musical instruments. This new conglomerate was evidently not as successful as CBS had expected, and Steinway was sold in 1985, along with classical and church organ maker Rodgers and flute and piccolo maker Gemeinhardt, to a group of Boston-area investors." (From Wikipedia, s.v. “Steinway and Sons,” accessed 10/21/2012)

Like much of American industry in that period, Steinway was facing intense competition from Japan, specifically the piano builders Yamaha and Kawai, who were making excellent instruments at very much lower cost. More recent Steinways (since they escaped from CBS in 1985) are much better, and as I noted the other day, the brand-new ones I played in the lobby of the Fine Arts Center are outstanding pianos. Modern Yamahas and Kawais are too, though the prices are now about the same as comparable Steinways. These days, the competition for both the American and Japanese builders increasingly comes from China.

Also of interest: The Making of a Steinway Grand (Lenehan, Michael, in the Atlantic Monthly, August 1982). This is a good description of how a quality grand piano is built. About three-quarters through the article, in the section titled “The Man in the Middle,” one can read about the period where “Steinway change[d] from a family operation to a corporate one, as men like Henry and John Steinway and John Bogyos yield[ed] gradually to the executives at CBS headquarters.” Some reading between the lines is recommended. This part of the article also describes the Teflon bushing episode which would have been impolite of me to mention to the Steinway salesman a couple of weeks ago.]

Couperin, and a visit to Saint-Gervais

I have become obsessive about the writing in of fingerings as a first step in learning a new piece on the organ. There are, however, exceptions, and this Sunday's music by François Couperin (1668-1733) exemplifies one of them: music of the French Classical period. I love this repertoire; all it takes is a four-measure phrase to transport one back into the Ancien Régime. There is an elegance, a grace, at times a grandeur, to this music that one finds nowhere else in the history of music.

But this music cannot be pinned down. It is filled with ornamentation, with notes inégales, with a fluidity of rhythm, and always an improvisatory spirit. I am unwilling to commit to playing the ornaments in specific places; with this music I try different things each time I play through a piece in a practice session. When it comes time to play it in public, the ornaments will likely be drawn from the variety of them that have been tried in rehearsal, but I leave it to the subconscious to make the decisions, hopefully in good taste.

Written fingerings remain helpful in places, especially in passages where there is less ornamentation. But on the whole, I leave much more to the moment of performance than I would with any other part of the organ repertoire.

Aside from fingerings, one learns the music as one would learn any keyboard score: slow play-throughs a phrase at a time, rhythmic variants, work in larger and larger segments – but with continuing variety of ornamentation, constant experimentation with tempo on the small scale – hold back a little here, push ahead a little there.

It so happens that Couperin's church, Saint-Gervais in Paris, has survived to this day. The instrument is very precious, one of only four organs in Paris to survive the Revolution and all that followed in more or less original condition. Here is a link to the Saint-Gervais page from the excellent website "Organs of Paris" describing the church and the instrument, and here is a sampling of music by Couperin played on the instrument, with video of the church. I especially love the passage at about 3:30 in the video where one sees the console.

R. E. Lee

[reposted from my old LiveJournal page, 10/12/09]

September 28, 1870 was a chill and rainy afternoon in Lexington, Virginia. Mr. Lee was not feeling well, and his wife thought he should stay home instead of going to the vestry meeting at the church. But it was an important meeting, and he was the senior warden. He put on his old military cloak and walked through the rain to the church. There was no heat in the building; he presided over the long meeting, wrapped in his cloak. The issue at hand was an attempt to supplement the rector’s income; the vestry determined to subscribe a fund for the purpose. The clerk totalled the figures, and they were $55 short of what they needed. “I will give that sum,” Lee said quietly.

He walked home in the rain, hung up his cloak, and joined his family at the dining room table, where the evening meal was ready. He stood at the chair to say grace, as always. But no words would come. He had suffered a stroke, and died on the morning of October 12.

(the above is adapted from Douglas Freeman’s biography of Lee: Book IV, chapter 27)

Robert E. Lee will never be on the Episcopal calendar as a saint. I consider him one, so I will say a few words here in his honor. He was faithful with daily Morning and Evening Prayer throughout his adult life. From his days at Christ Church, Alexandria to his connections with St. Paul’s Church, Richmond and his final years in Lexington at what is now the Robert E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church, he was unfailingly faithful in his support of the church as layman, vestryman, and warden; the above sketch of the events of September 28 is entirely in character in this regard. He was a man of prayer and Christian virtues. He did all within his power to see to the welfare, both spiritual and physical, of those under his care as soldiers or as students.

There is in the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond the cooking set that Lee used during the war: a soldier’s little tin pot and plate and cup, much like the Boy Scout set that I use when camping. Although he was the commanding general, Lee lived simply during the war, eating the same fare as his soldiers, fare that grew increasingly scanty as the war progressed. From time to time, admirers would send General Lee a fine Virginia ham, or some wine, or a blackberry pie. He would express his sincere thanks for the gifts, and quietly send them to the hospitals.

It is unpopular in the circles of Liberal Religion in which I find myself to contemplate the idea of a Christian soldier; this is one of several reasons that I suppose Lee would never be considered for the sanctoral calendar, even in the recent large expansion thereof. Christians are supposed to be opposed to war, so the Liberals would say. Indeed, most of them always have been, Lee among them -- but there have been those, like Mr. Lee, who have answered the call when it could not with integrity be avoided. Like everything else he undertook, Lee discharged his duties as soldier and commander to the best of his ability. After the war he commented that he never fought the Northerners with any bitterness or rancor, and prayed for them every day. Armchair generals can second-guess one or two of his decisions, and in the end his cause failed. But none of that dims the glory of his achievements, a glory that has little to do with victory or defeat.

As much as I admire his role as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, I equally admire his work as an educator and administrator before and after the war: Commandant of the Military Academy at West Point, president of Washington College. I wish I could do half as well with the young people in my care, and the matters which fall under my administration.

Mr. Lee stands as an example of how a Christian layman ought to live in the world: constant in prayer, devoted to family, doing the work that is before him with care, dispatch, and integrity, and always entrusting it to Divine Providence, in good times and bad.

From Lee’s papers: “There is a true glory and a true honor; the glory of duty done -- the honor of integrity of principle.”

----
From time to time, I make pilgrimage to the Lee Chapel on the campus of what is now Washington and Lee University. It is a holy place, one I enter with awe. Beside the statue of Lee in the front, reclining in uniform as if sleeping on the battleground, is an important portrait of George Washington, the only American public figure whom I would consider Lee's equal. After the completion of the chapel in 1868, Mr. Lee sat in the front pew for every chapel service. His office in the basement has been preserved as it was when he left it that rainy afternoon in September; he is buried just a few steps away.

Outside the door is the final resting place of Traveller. I always pay my respects to him, too. He was foaled not many miles away from my farm back in the Appalachians, a fact which pleases me. Lee had other horses, notably Lucy Long and Brown-Roan. But Traveller was his favorite, and the one with whom Lee is remembered. He did not long survive his master; he stepped on a nail, developed lockjaw, and had to be put down in 1871.

Stephen Vincent Benet, from his poem John Brown’s Body, with the first part of the description taken from one of Lee’s letters:

And now at last,
Comes Traveller and his master. Look at them well.
The horse is an iron-grey, sixteen hands high,
Short back, deep chest, strong haunch, flat legs, small head,
Delicate ear, quick eye, black mane and tail,
Wise brain, obedient mouth.
Such horses are
The jewels of the horseman's hands and thighs,
They go by the word and hardly need the rein.
They bred such horses in Virginia then,
Horses that were remembered after death
And buried not so far from Christian ground
That if their sleeping riders should arise
They could not witch them from the earth again
And ride a printless course along the grass
With the old manage and light ease of hand. . . .

Erik Routley (1917-82)

Dr. Routley passed from this life thirty years ago yesterday, October 8, 1982, while on the road for a church music workshop at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Nashville, Tennessee. Perhaps more than any other single person, he was central to my spiritual formation.

I had the privilege of attending Westminster Choir College during his tenure as Chaplain and Professor. His graduate courses in Liturgy and Hymnody are my only formal training in those subjects. His weekly sermons in the College Chapel taught me what it means to undertake this work of Church Music and memories of those Tuesday mornings have often sustained me through the dry places when the work of music has seemed meaningless, a lost cause. I had the further privileges of serving on the Chapel Committee, and, as graduate assistant for the church music department, of preparing the weekly service bulletins for those Tuesday liturgies.

When word reached me of his death, I felt lost, even though by that time I was serving in a parish far away. It seemed to me that there was no one to carry forward his work, in a time of liturgical and musical upheaval when his wisdom was needed more than ever. At the distance of thirty years, others have arisen to supply theological underpinning to the work of church music, but I still think that I was correct in that judgment for that critical moment in the early 1980's. I must trust the Lord of Hosts that Dr. Routley's work on this earth was done, no matter how it might appear.

I miss him.

Hymns are delightful and dangerous things. They are regarded, in the late twentieth century, as inseparable from the worship of all but a very few Christian groups. They are as familiar an activity as reading a newspaper: in worship they are for many people the most intelligible and agreeable of all the activities they are invited to join in or to witness; they are the most easily memorized of all Christian statements, and one who has not been in a church for most of a lifetime, but who was brought in church when young, remembers some hymns, though everything else may be forgotten. [Routley, Erik: Christian Hymns Observed (Princeton, NJ: Prestige Publications, 1982): p. 1]

… Singing goes with whatever means most to people. But hymnody introduces into the life of the church a creative tension between the passing and the timeless, between the spatially universal and the local, which without them the church would disregard to its lasting detriment.... It is perhaps surprising... how much abuse they survive: but, if we may ignore for a moment the present age's impatience with history, we may judge that what meant so much to Ambrose, St. Francis and St. Thomas Aquinas, to J. S. Bach and Isaac Watts and John Wesley, to Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and your own Christian neighbour, is worth treasuring, preserving and nourishing. Even if our heathen children don't want them, we will not hide them from them: another generation will be grateful if we don't. [Ibid., p. 107]

Cassi goes shopping

As it happened, this weekend was the Steinway Extravaganza at the dealer -- a number of new and used Steinways were on hand for this special sales event, including two that had been rebuilt by our visiting technician. There were concerts, demonstrations, special events all weekend. I was at the door on the stroke of 10 am when the store opened on Friday.

My first task: play the two rebuilds and evaluate the technician’s work. He had suggested that I do so, and told me which pianos were his. My second task: play as many pianos as they would allow, and see if I could tell the difference between a good piano and a bad one.

I began in the main grand piano showroom with the mixed brands, all of them small, mostly baby grands. Both of the rebuilds were here, one of them a Model O dating from 1917. I noted that it still had its original soundboard. The work was first-rate, and both pianos were indeed as good as new -- “but not quite,” as I was later told by the salesman: “there have been subtle improvements in the design over the years.” I resisted the urge to mention the Teflon bushings that appeared – briefly – in Steinways back in the 1970's; such matters are best left unspoken in polite company.

It soon became apparent to S., who appeared to assist me, that she should call K. from across the street. He led me over to the Fine Arts Center, where the big pianos were displayed in the lobby, all Steinways and Bostons (Steinway’s “budget” brand). This was a different world: no more of the upright pianos for eight-year-olds taking their first lessons, no more of the baby grands built for appearance more than sound, no more choice of color or finish. Here, all the pianos were black, sleek, powerful. The salesmen were all in white shirt, black suit and tie, the atmosphere was the quiet elegance of Serious Money. It is a seductive and dangerous environment. One can easily begin to think that $70,000 or $80,000 is but a trifle for such excellence. As a representative of Holy Mother Church, I had to keep at the forefront of my mind: Widows and orphans putting their pennies in the collection plate. Swaziland. The Crisis Center. Starving street people. For them, $70,000 or $80,000 is not a trifling matter.

I played another Model O, this one brand-new. They had already sold their Model A, the next size up, so I played a Model B; what a fine piano! I improvised on it for almost half an hour with three or four hymn tunes, mostly St. Patrick's Breastplate and St. Columba. I tried one of the Boston grands, right next to the Model O and the same size, about six feet long -- but half the price. “Designed by Steinway,” it said at the corner of the fallboard. It was a good piano, and at its Special Sale Price, only $28,995. I played on it for about ten minutes, improvising on “God of the Sparrow,” thereby sneaking in a bit of practice for Sunday. Very nice!

But then I moved back to the Model O and played the same music, as closely as I could by memory. The $35,000 difference in these pianos does indeed get you something; an indescribable richness and velvety tone that the Boston could not match.

Still, I remain attached to our old Model L, even in preference to that splendid Model B. I played it the next morning at the church to see whether I was delusional; no, even with its old age and faults and need for repair, it is a fine piano, or potentially so. It did seem a bit like an elderly dowager with its old discolored ivories, scratched-up case needing veneer repairs, and ninety-year old strings – but it spoke with integrity. I was tempted to scrap the whole project and just leave it precisely as it is, but I suspect that would not be for the best.

Some of our piano’s charm is probably the acoustic; our church is a better space aurally than the lobby of the Fine Arts Center. Or it might just be my tin ear, unable to discern what is Suitable for Serious Work, combined with sentiment for the old piano. It is good that the decisions will be made by committee, and not by me; I will seek the assistance of our chamber music pianist and others, as well as the members of the committee. But they are likely to give at least a little weight to my suggestions, so I must be careful and try to give good advice.

I thoroughly enjoyed the day at the Steinway dealer; I have never had such an experience. And I think that on top of all the rest, I played fairly well. Ten years ago, even five years ago, I could not have improvised for an hour and a quarter and made good music. I have, without intending to do so, developed my own Style at the piano, both in improvisation and in the playing of hymns (which is largely improvisation as well). And whether or not it pleases anyone else, it pleases me; it is precisely the music that I would like to hear (though I would like to play it better and more accurately). For this, I thank the Lord who has called me to this work and taught me day by day to do it better, for his great glory and praise and (hopefully) the benefit of his people.


Today (Sunday) was a Good Day. We admitted five new choristers to the youth choir. Never in my thirty-plus years of choral work have I been honored by such a large entering class of singers. It was a delight to see them, even (perhaps especially) some of the unanticipated aspects – little R. ended up with an adult-sized surplice which on her reached almost to the floor; second-year chorister T. assisted with the project and having too many of the white surplices in hand, so he dropped the extras on the floor in proper little-boy fashion (his mother was probably back in the pews rolling her eyes); K. with her hair thoroughly mussed from putting on the surplice, and a huge smile of delight on her face.

I did not improvise for the morning services as well as I had done at the music store, but the evensong prelude went well – again, music for piano. I played the Aria and Twenty-Fifth Variation from the Goldberg Variations. Lest I begin to be proud of my creativity, Bach reminds me how little progress I have made and how much work remains.

The choir sang well, especially the Ayleward Responses (with which we have struggled), and the new priest, Fr. W., conducted all of the day's services with dignity and grace. Blessings be with him.

The Twenty-Fifth Variation is amazing, even by the standards of Bach. By that time in a full performance of the Goldberg, one has heard almost an hour of music, taking the beautiful little aria through what seems to be every possibility – and then this. It is as if time stops.

A performance by Glenn Gould

Unsuitable for Serious Work

Thus the piano technician described our church instrument, a Steinway Model L built in 1924. “L’s are very rebuildable,” he said, “but this one, as it is, is completely unsuitable for serious work. No one would give you more than maybe $5,000 for it.”

For perspective, a comparable new Steinway retails for $67,200. That would be the Model O, as they discontinued Model L some years ago; both models are about six feet long, intended for a spacious living room or teaching studio. It is perhaps a bit undersized for a church, saved only by the live acoustic in our situation. The Model A (approx. 7 feet long, $77,400) would be better. Model B (8’, around $90,000) is as close to perfection as one can find in a piano, but would likely be too large in sound for chamber music and recitals by instrument or voice, which are important for us. The top-of-the-line Model D nine-foot piano, the staple of major concert stages, is in my opinion not as good of a piano as the Model B -- it is larger and stronger, but at the expense of the Model B’s elegance.

It all began last summer with the chamber music festival. The pianist, a member of our congregation and an outstanding musician, played our Model L intensively for a week and described it as “dead.” The university piano technician, who had just spent a week regulating and voicing the instrument, agreed, and recommended that we should have the instrument rebuilt.

Our Model L is nearly ninety years old. When the church got it some years ago, it was purchased as a “rebuilt” instrument, so I’m told. It appears that the “rebuilder” replaced the hammers and put a cheap open-pore finish on the case, nothing more, and probably over-charged the church for it. The strings are original; the action parts except for the hammers are original.

And I have been perfectly content with the piano. That was what rankled about the visiting technician’s statement on Thursday when he examined the instrument: “unsuitable for serious work.” If I have considered it suitable, it must be that what I do as a musician is not “serious work.” And it is not just this technician; it is the university technician and last summer’s chamber music pianist, both of whom have earned my high esteem for their work. What do they hear that I don’t?

I have never quite believed that I am a Real Musician, an Artist. Such statements feed my insecurity; I lay awake much of the night thinking about it. “Unsuitable for Serious Work.” I have given my all to this work for most of my lifetime, and still not amounted to much. It did not help that it came at the end of a week in which I had indeed not been much of a Musician. Playing a funeral at another church on Monday and one in our own church on Thursday -- in the first week of a new interim priest’s tenure -- threw us all off schedule, my practice time on Tuesday and Wednesday evaporated into meetings and bulletin preparation, I went into the Wednesday evening rehearsals unprepared, and it showed. As John Bertalot says in one of his books on choral conducting, that is inexcusable.

But it is equally inexcusable to wallow in self-pity. Yes, there are better musicians around. There are several in our congregation, including the aforementioned pianist (who is so amazing that I sit slack-jawed when I hear her play). God can call on the Cherubim and Seraphim, and all the company of heaven. But for whatever reasons, he has called on me to do this bit of music-making in this place, this week. “It’s a dumb job, but someone has to do it” comes to mind, but that is off the mark -- it is not a dumb job; it is an important job. The second half is what applies -- someone has to do it. I am unequal to the task, “unsuitable for serious work” -- but He is not, nor is His Spirit working among us. “When I am weak, He is strong.”

Being unequal to the task is part of the nature of being an Organist-Choirmaster: one never has time to do either half of the job properly. Most Organist-Choirmasters gravitate to one side or the other: they might be like the English Cathedral people who direct the choir and let their organ scholars do most of the playing, or they might be splendid organists who devote a minimum of effort to the choral work.



It was, in fact, the Week of the Piano. As I mentioned, I played a funeral at a small sister congregation on Monday; their deacon had called on Saturday and they were desperate; could I help? It was a simple service; three hymns, prelude and postlude music, all on the piano.

They had a small Schimmel grand piano. It was new; the finish shiny and black and luxurious, the keytops white and glistening, a fine solid new artist’s bench (a far cry from the creaky old relic at our church). At first, I liked the instrument very much, playing Bach rather softly as people chatted before the service. But when it came time to play a hymn, it was disappointing; it was as if there were no “bite” to the sound. Well, it was after all a very small grand. And it was not a Steinway.

On Thursday, as mentioned, the piano rebuilder came to evaluate our Model L. He is a fine technician, highly recommended by several people whom I trust, and he clearly understood pianos. He took the measure of this one in the space of about five minutes, and spent the rest of his time attempting to sell me on a total rebuild, to the tune of about $30,000. “You will have the equivalent of a new Steinway.” He wants to replace the soundboard, which has no cracks and no signs of trouble; absolutely not, so far as I am concerned. As my wife (a former violin maker) said later, “You’ve got that hundred-year old piece of wood in there. He is not going to be able to equal that.” He wants to replace the original ivory keytops with modern plastic ones. “Everyone has grown up with plastic keys. That is what artists expect in a piano.” He pointed at the one key that is missing its keytop: “They are starting to break off. It will only get worse. With a refinished piano, these beat-up old keytops will look horrible.” I am probably going to say “no” on that, also. For all that they show their age, ivory has a better feel than plastic, especially when the hands are sweaty.

To his credit, he immediately located the reason the True Musicians find the piano to be “dead” -- a loss of crown. He measured it at the treble bridge: zero. This would account for a loss of brilliance in the sound. It can be addressed by lowering the plate when it is removed during restringing and the installation of a new pinblock.

And it does need restringing; any piano would after eighty-plus years. It should have been done by the previous “rebuilder.” If one is doing that, it makes sense to replace the pinblock as well, and to go ahead and refinish the case.

I am less convinced about the wholesale replacement of action parts. The hammers are slightly worn, and if it were my piano, I would probably re-shape them myself (which I have done as a piano technician, though only once on a top-quality piano -- my piano work has mostly been on spinets and old uprights) and regulate the action, but not replace anything. The university technician, however, recommended the complete action rebuild, as did the visiting rebuilder, and they are probably right; my approach would suffice for the way I play, and for the uses of the church, but would not suffice for, say, a doctoral degree recital or a professional-level chamber music festival.

The technicians would doubtless disagree, but the action rebuild could be done at a later date, for it is not in fact related to the case-pinblock-soundboard work. I can hear them now: “With these old worn hammers, it won’t sound at its best. Why not take care of everything at once?” I can think of some reasons, mostly having to do with stewardship of finances and the existing action parts. Yes, they are old. Yes, they are probably more fragile than new ones would be. But “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Still, I do not trust my judgement in these matters. I am just a church musician; what do I know about pianos, or about musical artistry at the highest levels? Aside from my responsibility as custodian of the church’s musical instruments, I love our old Model L. It has heart, something the newer university Steinway in our choir room does not (it is another Model L, built in 1971). I want, desperately, to do what is best for it.

It is time to visit the Steinway dealer.
(to be continued)

Bruckner: a documentary

The Life of Anton Bruckner (a documentary film by H. C. Fischer)

I ran across this on YouTube this evening, and have not yet watched all of it (somewhat over two hours).

For the present, I wish simply to note Bruckner's attachment to the pipe organ. It was here, on the organ bench, that he became a musical genius. While organist at the cathedral at Linz, he would improvise after Mass for hours. One can see and hear this instrument, unaltered since Bruckner's time, at about 25 minutes into the film.

Then he would work on his counterpoint, music theory, and compositions well into the night. Repeatedly one encounters notations in his workbooks: “two o'clock in the morning...” “four o'clock in the morning...”

Throughout his life, the organ was his preferred instrument. Later in life, he taught both music theory and organ performance at the conservatory in Vienna. For the last of a series of organ recitals in England, he improvised for an audience of seventy thousand at the Royal Albert Hall to delirious acclaim. And at the last, he was buried under the pipe organ in the chapel of the great monastery of St. Florian, where he had learned to play as a choirboy and returned repeatedly for spiritual solace.

Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the "Bruckner Symphony" is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence.... Now it is recognized that Bruckner's unorthodox structural methods were inevitable.... Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical. (Deryck Cook, s.v. "Bruckner, Anton," in the New Grove Dictionary of Music)

September 16, 1862

On this day one hundred fifty years ago, two armies faced one another near the village of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Army of Northern Virginia had crossed the Potomac into Maryland on September 3, fresh from victories in the Seven Days' campaign near Richmond and at Second Manassas.

In what I consider an example of the Hand of God at work in this war, two Federal soldiers came across a copy of Special Order 191, which a Confederate officer had wrapped around three cigars and accidentally dropped along the way. It outlined in detail General Lee's plans for the invasion and prodded the normally slow-moving and indecisive General George McClellan to vigorous pursuit, in hopes of catching Lee's army while it was divided in three parts.

After the Federals drove through stiff Confederate resistance at South Mountain (in essence, an extension into Maryland of the Blue Ridge Mountains), the dispersed Confederate forces hurried toward Sharpsburg, hoping to gather before they were overwhelmed by a Federal army three times their size. They set up in a defensive formation at Antietam Creek on September 15, barely ahead of the first Federal divisions. By evening, most of the Federal army had arrived, and the Confederates expected an all-out assault the next day, September 16. It did not come; McClellan thought that Lee had over 100,000 men instead of the 18,000 or so that were actually on hand, and waited for more reinforcements. This allowed time for more of the Confederate army to gather. At dawn on September 17, the Federals attacked.

Battle raged all day, the deadliest single day of battle in American history, some 22,000 casualties – one-third of the Confederate army, and a quarter of the Federal army.

I have walked that field several times; it is now the Antietam National Battlefield Park. The places are etched in history: the Bloody Corn Field, the Dunker's Church, the Sunken Road, Burnside's Bridge (where 400 Georgians stood off Burnside's corps of 12,500 men and 50 artillery pieces for three critical hours in the early afternoon).

I could write of the heroism of the Confederate soldiers, fighting with their backs to the Potomac against overwhelming odds. In some respects, this was their finest hour. But I must also write of the Army of the Potomac. This battle represents much of what the soldiers of this Army endured – they had superiority of numbers, equipment, and supplies, but they were failed by their generals. Some of them had been beaten repeatedly in the Shenandoah Valley campaign that spring, where Jackson with 17,000 men outwitted three Federal armies totaling 52,000 men. All of them had endured the defeats of the Seven Days' Campaign in midsummer, when they had come close enough to Richmond to see the church steeples and then been driven off. Hardly a fortnight before, their supply depot at Manassas had been pillaged and destroyed by Jackson's forces, which had slipped around behind them on the way into Maryland. And now, with a chance to win the war once and for all, their generals could not get them organized. Brigade after brigade, division after division, went into battle, fought bravely, bore heavy casualties, but every time they came close to breaking through, there were no reinforcements behind them to carry the day – even though almost a third of the Federal Army saw no action that day, not firing a single shot.

They would face two more years of this: the senseless and bloody frontal assault on Fredericksburg that winter and the “Mud March” that followed in January, the hell of the Wilderness in 1864, with Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor after that. But they would endure. They held the ground this day at Antietam Creek, they held it again the next summer at Gettysburg, they doggedly fought and battled and pressed on in spite of their generals – and they saved the Union.

I mentioned the Hand of God at work, a "chance" event that changed the complexion of the campaign. Without those three cigars and a couple of sharp-eyed soldiers, Lee's army would have been in Harrisburg and Baltimore before McClellan would have gotten started.

As a result of this battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Confederates are my people. But I acknowledge that the providence of God was not with their cause. If one would dare to guess at a meaning behind all that happened on these days in 1862 and the years that followed, one must in the end share Mr. Lincoln's conclusion stated in his Second Inaugural Address in March 1865. And all of us must still, a century and a half after, “strive on to finish the work we are in.”

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

-----
A footnote: I would be remiss to let this day pass without mention of Ambrose Powell Hill, general in the Confederate Army. His men, the famed "Light Division" of Jackson's corps, marched the seventeen miles from Harper's Ferry in eight hours, wading across the Potomac, and saved the day, Hill at the forefront in his red battle shirt, arriving at the moment of greatest need as the center of the Confederate line was about to fall apart, near 3:30 in the afternoon.

Walter Taylor, an aide to Lee, later wrote:

It is a singular fact, worthy of record, that in the last moments of both General Jackson and General Lee, when the mind wandered, in the very shadow of death, each should have uttered a command to A.P. Hill, the beloved and trusted lieutenant -- ever ready, ever sure and reliable, always prompt to obey and give the desired support. When the strife was fiercest they were wont to call on Hill.

Another quote from this website, from Captain W. O. Dodd, who fought in the Army of Tennessee; writing of that army's defeat at Franklin (south of Nashville) in November 1864:

"It seemed then, as it seems now, that a hand stronger than armies had decreed our overthrow."

I don't feel no ways tired

I leave you this Sunday night with a song, one that I suspect none of you have heard. I came upon it in this manner:

I knew of the work of the pianist/storyteller/composer Ken Medema from my days in the Presbyterian Church back in the 1980's and 90's; I attended one of his concerts with the church youth group. He is enormously creative, but I had forgotten about him until encountering a mention of him in a book on church music that I am reading, “Jubilate: Church Music in the Evangelical Tradition” by Don Hustad.

So, when I had completed my work for the day, I looked Ken up on the internet and found his website. On it, he has a list of podcasts, and I listened to the one titled “Pipe Down” (Nov. 22, 2011) which deals with his lifelong fascination with the pipe organ.

At the end of the forty-five minute podcast, he includes a song he found by the Norwegian duo of guitarist Knut Reiersrud and organist Iver Kleive, on the compilation “Nordic Nights.” The song is an old spiritual, “I don't feel no ways tired.” The performance includes (besides pipe organ and guitar) the singing group “Blind Boys of Alabama.” Here it is on YouTube. Many items on YouTube have millions of views; this one has just 621 views and no comments. I do not think that I have ever heard a pipe organ used in this manner. This performance is a treasure, and I commend it to you.

May God's blessings be with you this night and always.

A word on American politics

The Republicans and Democrats have held their national conventions. The U.S. general election is less than two months away.

Like many others, I am disgusted with President Obama. He campaigned like a progressive, but since his election has done the bidding of his friends on Wall Street. Instead of the single-payer universal health care system that should be the simple and obvious choice for America, we have an Affordable Care Act that will mostly benefit the big insurance companies and will do nothing to contain health care costs, and has mostly not yet gone into effect. Instead of backing the unions that helped elect him, he stood on the sidelines in this summer's recall election in Wisconsin, which was a critical defeat for unions everywhere. Instead of prosecuting the criminal Wall Street bankers who have ruined our country, he bailed them out with taxpayer money. Instead of using anti-trust legislation to break up the “too big to fail” banks, he has allowed them to become larger than they were in 2008. Instead of repealing the so-called “Patriot” Act, he has continued the infringements of liberty begun by his predecessor, President Bush. The rich are richer, the poor are poorer, and we are all deeper in debt.

President Obama can make a good speech. But it seems to me that he is a hypocrite. He has no intention of fulfilling anything that he promises, no intention of doing anything that would offend his owners. At no point in these four years has he stood up to the Republicans and simply done what was right. If re-elected, there is no reason to expect this to change.

At least Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are not hypocrites. We know where they stand: if elected, they will destroy Social Security and Medicare, grind the faces of the poor and middle class in the dust with increased taxes and more offshoring of jobs to China, and hand even more tax breaks to the one percent. To know where Romney stands, one need only watch the film “When Mitt Romney comes to town.” He is all about money, mostly for himself. [Romney chuckles... “Make a profit. That's the name of the game.”]

What is a voter to do?

Bill Moyers addresses these issues this week on his show. He interviews Senator Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, a thoroughly good man, someone who (as he says) in Scandinavia would be a Democratic Socialist. Moyers then interviews Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, the Green Party candidates for President and Vice-President. It would be worth your while to watch these interviews, especially the one with Senator Sanders. I find myself in agreement with pretty much everything he says in this interview.

There is no way that I would vote for the Republican ticket. And there is no way that I will vote for Obama. Nor am I going to vote for Dr. Stein and Ms. Honkala, or any other third party candidates.

I am going to vote for Joe Biden.

I will ignore that other person on the ticket with him. Mr. Biden takes a lot of heat because he speaks his mind, but I think he has done well in the limited role that he has in the government. Almost alone of the people in big-time politics, he is not a millionaire.

And then there is this:
Elizabeth Warren addresses the Democratic Convention: “The system is rigged.”

I believe that she is one of the finest politicians around, someone who would indeed stand up to the one percent. Like it or not, I must take her endorsement of Obama seriously, along with that of Bill Clinton.

But we are headed in the wrong direction, and whoever wins in November, that is not likely to change in the next four years; if anything, it is likely to accelerate. Perhaps I could dare to pray for a ticket next time of Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, and that there is still an America to hold an election in 2012. And I will join the Psalmist and the prophets in praying for justice and righteousness.

Stepping away

And now, I must step away for a time. It is a busy season in my work, and I have devoted most of this day to writing the previous essay. I consider it my duty, and the right use of this day (and much of last night: most of it came to me about 2 am).

But it is time now for action, not talk. Our first choral rehearsal of the fall is a week from today.

By saying this here, I am more accountable: I depart for now, with intention of returning, perhaps in October. Look for me when the leaves fall.

May the blessings of God be with all who read these pages.

In defense of Choral Evensong: A reply to Bosco Peters

The Rev'd Bosco Peters, a priest in the Anglican Church of New Zealand, writes the most widely-read Liturgy blog in the world. I read it regularly with edification and enjoyment, and I commend it to you.

Recently he wrote an essay “Concert or Common Prayer?” Small as I am (my "Music Box" blog entries are read by an average of eight to ten persons), I am obliged to attempt a rebuttal.

Choral Evensong (and its sister Choral Matins, rarely seen these days) lies in lineal descent from the daily morning and evening offerings established in Exodus 29:38-46 -- “And there I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.” (v. 43). The daily sacrifices, and by extension prayer at the times of the sacrifices, carried over into the early Christian community. These sacrifices and prayers sanctified the places of worship where they were offered, and sanctified the day, making all the hours of it holy to the Lord.

As time passed, some persons received vocations from God to devote themselves more fully to prayer, first as anchorites in desert places and later more often in communities, a movement organized in the West under the Rule of St. Benedict. Chapters 8 through 20 of the Rule outline the manner in which the prayers of the Daily Office are to be conducted, with Psalmody and the reading of Scripture at their center.

In the Anglican Reformation, the seven Offices of the day became two, more plainly set forth and in English, parish clergy were directed to read them in the parish church every morning and evening, and it was expected that those from the parish who were able would join. Cathedrals and collegiate Chapels had a special obligation to maintain the Daily Office, which was already a part of their liturgical life. This process of revision is described in the Preface to the First Book of Common Prayer (1549), found in the American BCP of 1979 (hereafter “BCP”) at page 866-7.

The principal Offices had always been sung whenever possible, and it was logical that this should continue. As it happened, this was a golden age for choral music, and England was blessed with several great composers who turned their talents to the task of setting to music the new English texts. Much of their attention was devoted to music for Matins and Evensong. Polyphonic settings of the fixed prayers of the Offices appeared – one of the finest is by William Smith of Durham [Here is a rendition of the Responses], but there were others. Many polyphonic settings of the Magnificat, the Gospel Canticle for Vespers, already existed (in Latin); the composers wrote new settings for it in English, alongside the Nunc Dimittis, moved to Evensong from its former place in Compline. Here is one of my favorites from that era, from the Short Service of Gibbons.

Psalmody remained central to the Offices. Cranmer laid aside the complex arrangement of the Psalms that Benedict had established, and returned to the older and simpler Jewish devotional practice of praying the Psalter straight through in course over the space of a month. At first, they were sung to the plainsong tones. Over time, the plainsong was harmonized, and eventually developed into what we now know as Anglican Chant.

Thus it remains that “The Holy Eucharist, the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord's Day and other major Feasts, and Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, as set forth in this Book, are the regular services appointed for public worship in this Church.” (BCP p. 13, “Concerning the Service of the Church”). The choral singing of any of these services, whether Eucharist or Daily Prayer, exists in the larger context of all regular public worship in the Anglican tradition, spoken or sung, modest or elaborate.

In his essay, Fr. Peters' objections to Evensong are three: Intelligibility (“I could not pick out a single word that the choir was chanting...”), the lack of opportunity for active participation by those in the congregation, and the piety of the choristers and organists (or lack thereof). With all three of these, his points are well taken, but some response must be made.

Intelligibility.
This is a challenge for choirs. We know it, and good choirs work hard at it. I recently completed a week at an RSCM Course with some of our choristers under the direction of Dr. Dale Adelmann, of St. Phillip's Cathedral in Atlanta; he in turn follows in most respects the model of his teacher, Dr. George Guest, formerly of St. John's College, Cambridge, one of the places where the tradition of Choral Evensong is strongest. It would be fair to estimate that half or more of our rehearsal time at the Course was devoted to matters of diction, all with the intent of more faithfully presenting the text intelligibly.

The Psalms present an especially great challenge: there is a lot of text, the rhythm of the text is fluid in a manner unlike the metered choral music we more often sing, and pacing of the text and the shaping of the musical line in order to emphasize one or two important syllables in each half-verse is vital. It takes rehearsal, and intense focus from all choristers, to achieve the unity in these matters that is essential in order for the congregation to have any chance to understand the text. Still, it remains difficult and requires attention from the listener as well. And if all this fails, the texts are in the Prayerbook.

Most of the sung texts at Evensong are either the fixed prayers, the Canticles, or the Psalms. In the first case, the form of prayer we sing is not exactly that in our American BCP of 1979, but is close enough so that people can get the drift of the meaning – and it is identical at every Evensong (differing only in musical setting), so regular attenders can learn the texts by heart soon enough, as are the Canticles, which exactly follow the wording in the Rite One service of Evening Prayer (BCP p. 65, 66). We purposely sing the Psalms in the modern text of the 1979 BCP, which is what is in our pews. Many places sing the older translations of Coverdale from the 1662 BCP and its predecessors, but even so, a person could follow in the 1979 BCP and have a clear idea as to what is being sung. Anthem texts ought to be printed in a service bulletin, as we do, with translations when we sing in a language other than English.

Piety.
Peters notes that at a service in this tradition that he attended, only two of the adult choristers received communion. He writes: “The choir is part of the leadership of the service. Is there a critical mass of people of faith needed in a choir (in the leadership of any service) to move a service from the concert end of the spectrum to the common prayer end?”

My short answer is Yes. In the older RSCM training materials, one aphorism was this: Religion is caught, not taught. For this to happen within a choir, or for that matter a parish, there must indeed be some critical mass. It need not be large – it has never been large, never more than a remnant, at one time as few as eight persons (cf. I Peter 3:20 – Noah and the Ark).

But it is not as simple as that. Long ago, controversy arose over the issue of whether the sacraments were valid when administered by a priest who was an unbeliever or a notorious sinner. The answer discerned by the church was that the sacraments are the work of God, and depend upon him for their validity – not upon the human hands that administer them. I would submit that to some degree the same can be said about the Song, the task entrusted to choir, organists, and other musicians (e.g., guitarists, cantors, praise band singers, members of a singing congregation). The Song is the expression and prayer of Holy Mother Church, is redeemed only by the blood of Christ, and has life only through the operation of the Holy Spirit. None of us fully cooperate in this activity. But when we are weak, we are carried along by others, by the “critical mass of people of faith” mentioned by Fr. Peters, and by the grace of God – manifested in part through the Song itself:

Sometimes a light surprises
the Christian while he sings;
it is the Lord who rises
with healing in his wings:
when comforts are declining,
he grants the soul again
a season of clear shining,
to cheer it after rain.
(William Cowper)

There is, I suspect, another issue at play: many church musicians (including choristers) do not like the Episcopal Church, and our dislike is most intensely focused on the clergy. We have watched for fifty years as they have denigrated our work, disbanded choirs, silenced organists, and presented us with a parade of liturgical texts increasingly divorced from Scripture or tradition (the New Zealand Church's recent efforts in regard to the Collects of the Day, said efforts rightly opposed by Fr. Peters, are an example). They have taken away the great hymns of the church and replaced them with trite recycled pop.

From the cheery “Good morning!!!” at the beginning of the Holy Eucharist to the end, the Sunday Eucharist is (at worst) all about the clergy, or (at best) about the gathered community there present (e.g., ten minutes of hugging and chitchat at the “peace,” followed by another ten minutes of parish announcements), and not to any great degree about the Lord. It is no wonder that many choristers and organists do not take communion, or do other things that the clergy would recognize as reflective of belief.

Instead, we sing. We play the organ, we direct the choir. Or if we can do none of these things, we attend Evensong. The Music is often all we have, the one thing that keeps us in the church, hanging on by our fingernails. I could name many people who would never come near a church were it not for choral music, and especially Choral Evensong. And, I submit, our faithful adherence to our bounden duty as choristers and organists is reflective of belief (cf. St. James 2:14-26), even if (when asked) we would say that we are “here for the music – full stop.”

For it is at Evensong that some degree of piety remains in the Church. There is no scope for the clergyperson's personality to shine, there is hopefully no Sermon, there is no hugging or chitchat, and certainly no recycled pop music. Instead, there is (for the choristers) Prayer at its most intense, immersion in Psalmody, and the constant companionship of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.

I have written mostly of those who participate as choristers in Evensong, and the spiritual benefit is for them the greatest. I have never prayed so intensely as when singing a good setting of the Preces and Responses (such as Smith, linked above); it requires all of one's spirit and mind and body (in terms of breath, posture, etc.), and absolute connection with the moment. I see this every time I teach the Smith, or Ayleward, or other good setting to the youth choir. They are drawn immediately to this music, and once they "get it," they are almost bursting with excitement at the beginning, like race horses at the starting gate: "O Lord, open thou our lips: And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise." [The Smith Preces are here, at the 4:10 mark in the YouTube clip, following a plainsong introit, and with an example of Anglican Chant psalmody following, all from the choir of Westminster Abbey]

In the “big league” choirs where Evensong is sung daily (such as Westminster Abbey), a chorister soon knows all 150 Psalms with an intimacy gained in no other way than by intense rehearsal – at St. John's, for example, Dr. Adelmann tells us that they sing the Morning Psalms for one term, and the Evening Psalms for the other term. Even in our parish, where we sing Evensong only once, the First Sunday of each month, the choristers have come to know that small selection of psalms – those appointed for the first seven evenings – extremely well. They know them well enough to have a good sense of what the entire Book of Psalms is about, why it is important to us, and how one might approach the other Psalms that we do not regularly sing. Like the Religious for whom the Offices and their Psalmody are central, this is a factor in Conversion of Life – at least for those who do not stop their ears to them.

For that is a challenge too: choristers and organists can become so angry at the church that they stop paying attention to what they are singing. That is why we begin our rehearsals with the Choristers' Prayer; we seek God's help in this matter.

Bless, O Lord, us thy servants who minister in thy temple: Grant that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may shew forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Lack of active participation:
There is benefit also for those who are not choristers, and for some of the same reasons. Attending Choral Evensong is precisely akin to the experience of visiting a monastic house, and listening in for a time on the conversation of their liturgy [“and there will I meet with the children of Israel...” it is, in some manner, through these Daily Prayers that God meets with the brothers or sisters – meets with them, forms them, and makes them into what he envisions them to be] – a conversation which began long before we arrived at their gate, and will continue long after we depart. As visitors, we are not fully part of it, but we are reminded of the great calm stream of liturgy and prayer, and invited to dip our toes into it – or wade in, or immerse ourselves in it and be carried away. Unlike the Eucharist, no one is going to pressure us at Evensong to “belong” and hug everyone, or chitchat, or preach at us, or give money (especially that; we are always asking for money in the church); the stream, the river of living water, is there (cf. St. John 7:38, Revelation 22:1-3), and we can approach it as we are able.

Most of all, we are not under the pressure of saying the right words at the right time, of what often passes for “active participation.” As when visiting the monastic house, we need not understand every word at Evensong, for much of what is going on is nonverbal. We certainly need not say anything or do anything; the activity is on a different level than that. We need not participate at all, if we are not ready. But when we are, we can join our heart and mind and spirit to the Psalms of David, the Magnificat, the prayers of Holy Mother Church. We can enter through the choral Office into the courts of heaven.

---

The office of Chorister is humble in comparison with that of Deacon, or Priest, or Bishop, but it is nonetheless a Vocation, and if it is the one to which God has called us, we must fulfill it. In the RSCM office of Admission to the Choir, the new Chorister answers these questions:

Minister: N., do you wish to join the choir?
New Chorister: I do.
Minister: As a member of the choir, will you do your best to help the people worship God?
New Chorister: I will.

For many of the nine-and-ten year olds who join our choir, this will prove to be a Life Profession. Many of them will still be singing in choirs when they are grandmothers and grandfathers.

With this office of Chorister (and more so with the office of Organist or Choirmaster), there comes a responsibility to represent the Lord Jesus Christ in a special way, akin to the responsibility that one who wears the collar must bear. When we act in an impious manner during the church services, it reflects badly on our Lord, just as a priest who mumbles his way through the liturgy, preaches without preparation or study, or uses the liturgy as a platform to “prance around in his finery” (as one of our parishioners says) brings discredit to the the Church and its Lord.

We must do better, as Fr. Peters rightly suggests. All of us, clergy and musicians alike, young and old, are works in progress. We endure the “patient hammerblows of grace” (Olivier Messiaen) and the Conversion of Life that they bring, in order to fit us for our place in the kingdom: “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (I Peter 2:5)

Fr. Peters is absolutely right that much of the problem lies in the lack of “liturgical training, study, and formation” which results in the forms of liturgy being passed on by “non-reflecting example,” and over time losing their content. It is incumbent upon choirmasters (of which I am one) to remedy this. We must ensure that our choristers understand what they are about when they sing Choral Evensong (or participate musically in the Eucharist). This can rarely happen, however, through explicit instruction. It must, after all, be primarily by example, or more precisely instruction backed by example. We must ourselves be “people of devout conduct, teaching the ways of earnestness to the Choirs committed to [our] charge” (“Declaration of Religious Principles” of the American Guild of Organists).

Opportunity arises when a young chorister raises her hand and asks what a phrase means in the Psalm that we are rehearsing, or the anthem text. Or a word, or phrase, from anywhere in the liturgy. As choirmaster, I must have created an atmosphere where choristers can inquire about such things, and then I must answer as best I can, or (better) help the group as a whole to come up with an answer. And it must be done without spending a lot of time on it – we have Work to do; we have to get the diction and pacing right for the Psalm, or get the Anthem learned. Those tasks in themselves are the more important part of formation; they require us to pay close attention to every word, every syllable of every word, and through the music devote our whole body, mind, spirit, and voice to the work at hand.

Last year, our combined choirs sang the Vaughan Williams anthem “Lord, thou hast been our refuge.” Psalm 90 is not part of our normal Evensong rotation, and this provided opportunity for us to learn the text in detail – about three months of work for our youth choir and perhaps two months for our adults – this was a stretch for us, about as great of a challenge as our all-volunteer parish choir can manage. I believe that what they carried away from the experience were these things, among others: they saw that I (and behind me Holy Mother Church) care enough about this text to spend three months working on it with them and then to sing it in church, and to do so in the finest manner possible (and in a setting composed by precisely the sort of agnostic described earlier, whose faith is most evident in his works). [Here is my essay about that day, last October]

They saw that the liturgy must include music of this sort, texts of this sort, and that such things do not happen without a lot of work – and that it is very much worth all that work. When the day arrived, they noted that Psalm 90 was appointed for the liturgy at that Eucharist, saw its relation to the liturgy as a response to the Old Testament lesson (I pointed out the nature of the connection explicitly that morning in the warmup), and they saw (not for the first time) that the choice of psalmody or anthem or hymnody is not based on personal whim or taste, whether mine or the Rector's, but on the considered and prayerful deployment of Scripture in the Lectionary, telling the Story over the course of the year – and this anthem, this day, had its place in that Story.