I don't have time for this

Our parish observes the Stations of the Cross on the Tuesdays of Lent at 12:15. Today, it was especially inconvenient.

Tuesdays are always a hard day, the one day of the work week which I regularly dread. The morning is normally consumed by staff meeting, plus a follow-up meeting of the clergy and musician (me). After that, there are often many loose ends that must be promptly addressed. Today, with the Rector returning from a fortnight away and Holy Week looming ahead, there were more than usual. And what I want and need to do is Practice.

Noon found me mired in e-mail “conversations” concerning this Sunday's bulletin for the middle service and its music. I looked at the little clock in the corner of the computer screen, saw that it was 12:14, and rushed upstairs to the church, where I was to lead the service, leaving my work in shreds, loose ends and stray parts hanging about.

Part of the problem is copyrights. The musicians leading this service had suggested a song which one of them realized Sunday night was unsuitable; they sent me an alternative this morning, in PDF form. I got it pasted into the draft (after returning downstairs from the Stations), and opened our account with our copyright licensing service to record the modifications. But this PDF song is not covered under our license. It is an Oregon Catholic Press song, and we have the GIA license. These two companies are cutthroat competitors for the huge Roman Catholic market, and most decidedly do not cooperate with one another. So I had to get back to the group and request yet another replacement song; we shall see how that goes.

I hate copyrights. I hate the “Mickey Mouse” copyright law with which the Disney Corp. and its puppets in the U.S. Congress have saddled us. But it is the law of the land, and as Christians we must obey it: “Render tribute to whom tribute is due.” I equally hate it that the more “contemporary” (meaning “since 1960, and involving guitars”) side of church music has become so overtly about the maximization of Profit, ever since the publishers realized that there was serious Money to be made here if they could enforce their copyrights.

In the midst of all this: Stations of the Cross. “I don't have time for this,” I thought as I went up the stairs two steps at a time and rushed into the church at the stroke of 12:15. One lady was there; she and I have been the normal congregation for the Stations this spring; another gentleman (not from our parish) joined us about halfway through. He had come last Tuesday, and this week he sat, or rather knelt, in one of the pews in silence rather than following us around from station to station.

It is all highly inconvenient.

Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –

Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –

Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
(Emily Dickinson)

Our Lord Christ found it highly inconvenient too. “Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour” (St. John 12:27). The inconvenience is, I am learning, one of the chief spiritual benefits of observing the Stations. It brings me crashing to a halt right in the midst of my most hectic and frustrating work day when there is never enough time, shakes me by the scruff of my neck, and makes me look at what we have done, what I have done.

'Twas I, Lord Jesus,
I it was denied thee:
I crucified thee.
(Hymn 158: Ah, holy Jesus)

J. S. Bach, Thomas Ken, and the Queen

Today, March 21, is the birthday of J. S. Bach. In his honor, my fellow organist M.S. played an all-Bach program for the noontime Lenten recital at the Congregational Church today. Her playing is elegant, secure, and splendid. I wish that I could hear her more often, but on Sundays, she is on the bench at the Presbyterian Church and I am at the Episcopal Church. If one is a musician, one must often sacrifice the opportunity to hear others play in order to be faithful to one's own rehearsals, practicing, and services.

Today is the Feast of Thomas Ken, Bishop. One of his Office Hymns applies to the above:

Redeem thy misspent time that's past
And live each day as if thy last;
Improve thy talent with due care,
For the great day thyself prepare.

This is the second stanza of the morning hymn “Awake, my soul, and with the sun,” number 11 in the Hymnal 1982, and unaccountably omitted from the hymn by the Editors of that book. It is the best part of the hymn, except perhaps for the final stanza, of which more shortly. I have copied it into my hymnal, and posted a written-out copy of it on my door as an admonition.

Bishop Ken was, earlier in his life, Chaplain to King Charles II. He got himself shuffled off into a bishopric and out of the King's household because he continually rebuked the King for his dissolute manner of life.

And that brings me to the current Queen. Yesterday she addressed the joint Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee.

She has conducted herself with integrity these many years. Twelve Prime Ministers have come and gone; she has been the constant throughout. I believe that her presence has made possible the British Commonwealth, a family of nations encompassing (as she observed in the speech) one-third of the world's people. Had she been a worthless scoundrel like Charles II, it is hard to say what would have become of Great Britain in the latter half of the twentieth century.

My first taste of Bishop Ken came from a time when I knew nothing about him, not even the hymn of which the following is the final stanza. But this stanza was a staple of some of the churches I served, and has spread as widely perhaps as any bit of hymnody in the English language. For many years, I was unable to play an improvisation without landing in the key of G Major, ready to launch into the Doxology:

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav'nly host,
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

[Edited to add: I learned at Evensong tonight that this is no longer the Feast of Thomas Ken in the American church. According to the revised calendar, "Holy Women, Holy Men," this is now the feast of Thomas Cranmer, who was martyred on this day in 1556. Ken was pushed back a day to March 20, which in turn pushes Cuthbert off of his traditional feast day. He is now combined with Aidan of Lindisfarne on St. Aidan's traditional day, August 31.

I much prefer the old arrangement, wherein Cranmer was combined with Latimer and Ridley on the day of their martyrdom, October 16. But it matters little; all of them are saints, and all of them have reached their heavenly rest in the presence of the Lord. May we do likewise.]

Die blaue Blume

The Blue Flower

This afternoon, after playing the Liszt Weinen Klagen, I received at my office a vase of blue irises, with a note. It was from the organbuilder, C.H., who was at the concert on this instrument that he designed and installed, thanking me for a “masterly reading and interpretation,” with reference to the “blaue Blume” as a Romantic ideal, claiming that I “achieved that ideal today...”

I do not recall anyone ever sending or giving me flowers after a performance. It made me as giddy as a teenager. I still am, several hours later: I put the flowers out in the choir room for all to enjoy.

Die blaue Blume

Ich suche die blaue Blume,
Ich suche und finde sie nie,
Mir träumt, dass in der Blume
Mein gutes Glück mir blüh.
Ich wandre mit meiner Harfe
Durch Länder, Städt und Au'n,
Ob nirgends in der Runde
Die blaue Blume zu schaun.
Ich wandre schon seit lange,
Hab lang gehofft, vertraut,
Doch ach, noch nirgends hab ich
Die blaue Blum geschaut.

(Joseph von Eichendorff, 1818)

Via Crucis

On March 6, I am playing Liszt's Via Crucis, a series of meditations to accompany pilgrims through the Fourteen Stations of the Cross.

Only today have I gotten serious about preparations for this, having just now completed four hours of work on it. I played it once before, back in 2005, and the piece offers few technical challenges. But it calls for considerable intensity of emotion. I had forgotten how powerful it is.

There is an introduction, quoting Vexilla regis (“The royal banners forward go”), and fourteen short meditations. I have only a few minutes, so I will not go into detail beyond mentioning three striking moments:

--- the Sixth Station: St. Veronica wipes the Face of Jesus. Liszt gives the chorale “O Sacred Head sore wounded,” or with the German text, O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden, with a most amazing eight-bar coda.

--- the Eighth Station: the Daughters of Jerusalem. One hears the wailing of the women, and at the last, a terrifying eight-bar Allegro marziale on full organ, as Jesus envisions the imperial legions coming to destroy and kill.

--- the Twelfth Station: Jesus dies on the Cross. This is one of the longest movements of the work. There is a recitative-like section where He speaks the Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani, and then In manus tuas commendo spiritum meum. There follows another most amazing passage, passing through several major keys for the first time in the work, to the words: Consummatum est – It is finished. Finally, the chorale O Trauigkeit.

There is a lot of music this weekend. I am playing the B minor Prelude and Fugue of Bach for Sunday morning, and the Bach setting of O Lamm Gottes from the Eighteen Chorales for Evensong. The adult choir is singing the Evensong psalmody in unaccompanied plainsong: Psalms 22 and 23, for the Fourth Evening. The youth choir has a South African freedom song which we sang at last summer's RSCM: Bawo, Thixo Somandla. And there is much more – the Howells “St. John's Cambridge” Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, the Smith Responses, good anthems for the adult choir at Eucharist and Evensong.

I must get back to work on these things.