By gracious powers ...

Von guten Mächten treu und stillumgeben,
behütet und getröstet wunderbar...

By gracious powers so wonderfully sheltered,
and confidently waiting, come what may...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words, the beginning of a seven-stanza poem, in a letter addressed to his mother, 28 December 1944, from a Gestapo prison in Berlin. Some of it appears in a fine translation by Fred Pratt Green as number 695 in the Hymnal 1982. I cannot here quote either the German or English at length out of respect for copyright. The poem speaks of our trust in God no matter what comes, and thus fits the Lessons for this coming Sunday: the widow of Nain (St. Luke 7:11-17), St. Paul's winding road from Damascus which led him where he could not have imagined going (Galatians 1:11-24), Elijah and the widow of Zarephath who has but a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a vessel (I Kings 17:8-24).

We will sing this hymn, and my improvised prelude will be based on it. I began work this morning, and we will see where it leads. For now, I remain much influenced by the Furtwängler reading of the Bruckner Ninth that I heard on Sunday night and wrote about in the previous essay. The tune is Intercessor by Hubert Parry, a good fit to the text. I wrote out the tune in B minor to make a better key relationship with the opening hymn (D major) and took it upstairs to the piano.

One must begin by knowing the tune. I thought through it several times on the bus this morning in solfege, and began playing it at the piano, still singing the solfege syllables. Normally I try to move it through several keys, but I could not get it out of B minor.

If it stays in the direction it went today, it is going to be very dark.

And it seems to want to stay on the piano, our beloved old Steinway Model L. This is the last Sunday before it goes off to the rebuilder for new strings and other work -- all of it needed. But I am afraid. I fear that it might come back like the harsh soulless 1970's beast in the choir room, also a Steinway Model L. Those fears, and my love for this instrument, become part of the improvisatory work, too, as is the connection between Bonhoeffer in the Gestapo cell awaiting execution and Furtwängler and the orchestra in that same dark autumn and winter of 1944.

I think also of a time many years ago. A young woman in the church I then served had ovarian cancer. She and her husband were strong Evangelical Christians, many people prayed for them (including the likes of Billy and Ruth Graham, who had known them as children), and there was confidence that she would be all right. But it proved not to be so; after surgery, chemotherapy and all the rest, the cancer returned, worse than ever. At this point, many were still full of encouragement for the couple, assuring them that God would work a miracle. I tried to write a note to the young man, who was hardly thirty years old, and could not. Finally, I sent him a copy of this hymn. He was not a musician, but he knew Bonhoeffer's writings, and I think he knew that this text was a more honest statement of their situation than what most others were telling them. The young lady died a few months later; I played for her funeral. She and her husband are in the background of my work this morning, too.

I suppose what I am attempting to say is that music is never created without context. For better and for worse, everything that is in the musician - what he has read, or heard, or experienced, or seen - is part of the music that he makes.

I hope to include our opening hymn in the improvisation:

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform:
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
and rides upon the storm.

This is from William Cowper, number 677 in the Hymnal 1982, with the psalm tune London New. For my purposes, I wrote it out in B Major, with intent of using it as a coda. I tried to make it so this morning, in my practice; the piece refused to stop there. It insisted on being not a coda, but a B section, returning to Intercessor and B minor. In the service, it should work; if the improvisation returns to Intercessor and ends darkly, the opening hymn is the Cowper and London New, in D major, and a suitable answer to the questions.

Deep in unfathomable mines,
with never-failing skill,
he treasures up his bright designs,
and works his sovereign will.

I worked on the improvisation for about a half hour. I had another half hour before staff meeting, but could do no more. Nor could I lay it aside and do some of my other work. But I must; the playing of preludes and postludes is only part of my work, and I cannot allow it to push all else aside.

But sometimes it does. A piece of music takes over to such a degree that it is hard to do anything else. Artistic work of any kind is rarely efficient. One wishes to be productive, to do one thing, to move on to the next, to be organized, to Get Things Done. Sometimes that is possible, fortunately; sometimes - as today - it is not. The real work is going on under the surface. Beethoven would take a long walk, Haydn would get on his knees and pray. For me, a good night's sleep often brings more clarity in the morning. Writing about it as I am doing here is helpful. The one thing that seems important is to not fill what seems to be a void with noise. Watching television would be deadly, and would probably destroy whatever work is maturing in the subconscious. Even listening to other music would be dangerous - this, after I spent hours on Sunday evening immersing myself in Bruckner. The good part of that is that he will be near the forefront of whatever comes of this on Sunday.

I was ill-tempered in staff meeting, especially after it seemed that I was once again to be squeezed out of my life -- another jazz drummer is to be practicing in the choir room in the afternoons all summer -- the time when it is supposedly "quiet" around here -- there was a list of four concerts this week that the university wanted to relocate here because of river flooding (it later proved to be a false alarm; they decided they can keep three of them at their original location, and I already knew about the fourth, a trombone recital).

But, again, I cannot allow my musical work to push the rest of it aside.