organ voluntaries

Much of this week has been spent on the organ bench. The main task was to do first and second workouts on the June 1 evensong prelude: the trio setting by Bach of Allein Gott from the Clavierübung (BWV 676). That took about ten hours, for a piece that runs about six minutes in performance. And many hours will be needed on it next week, too.

That meant that I have postponed my work on tomorrow's voluntaries to the end of yesterday (about a half-hour) and today. When working up a piece in one day, I must make myself pretend that the one day is two days. The first workout (about four hours, with a good fingering already in place) was mostly this morning, then I had dinner and worked on the hymns and service music, then returned to the voluntaries for a second workout (about an hour). I think they will be fine, but I wish I had one more day. I believe that overnight, the subconscious processes the music in a way that allows it to be more settled the next day.


I recently finished reading a book: “Hymn Playing: A Modern Colloquium” (edited by Stuart Forster, MorningStar Music Publishers, 2013). The bulk of the book is drawn from interviews with eleven organists known for their hymn playing, including several players for whom I have high regard (John Ferguson, David Cherwien, Bruce Neswick), plus some others I know only by reputation (e.g., John Scott). It was a fine book, and I recommend it to any organists who may read this essay.

But one of the messages of the book is that hymn playing must be the top priority; the playing of organ literature is, some of them imply, a form of “showing off.” For example, Bruce Neswick had this to say about organ students at Westminster Choir College:

I was getting frustrated... with the general lack of awareness or ability in playing hymns.... We all want to play our great party pieces, but when it comes right down to it, what's really going to connect us to our workplaces and to our communities more than the way we play services? (p. 282-283)

I do not spend enough time on the hymnody. Nor do I spend enough time on my preparation for choral rehearsals. And I certainly do not spend enough time on office work. But neither do I spend enough time on the voluntaries, my “party pieces” as Neswick would call them - not enough time to play them as cleanly as they deserve.

Over my career, two clergy who have supervised me have said as much in my annual performance reviews. I am, in their view, “self-indulgent” to spend so much time on the organ bench. The last time this came up, I tried to obey: I started keeping a practice log with the idea of limiting myself to eight hours a week, which would include work on anthem accompaniments and hymnody as well as whatever time was left for the voluntaries. And I found that I simply could not do it. I could not allow the great festivals of the church to go by with cheesy half-prepared “easy” voluntaries.

My artistic and liturgical sense is that good organ music matters, and is worth the time it takes to prepare it. My example is J. S. Bach, who did far more than the minimum, and ignored those who would rather he paid closer attention to his duties as Latin Master at the school. I cannot produce music like his cantatas and Passions; I can barely play the organ music he wrote out for us. But within my time and place and the skills given me, I can try. I can at least put some time and effort into it.

Why am I playing the Allein Gott next week? It is the Sunday after Ascension Day, and if we are in tune with the liturgical year, we, like the apostles, are filled with “great joy” (St. Luke 24:52) at the victory of our great King, his ascension to the right hand of the Father, and his continued presence with us. The Allein Gott trio expresses these things as much as any music can do. So does the “9/8” C Major prelude and fugue, which will be the voluntary for that morning, and the two settings of Komm, heiliger Geist that begin the Eighteen Leipzig Chorales (for the Day of Pentecost), and the “St. Anne” prelude and fugue in E flat for Trinity Sunday. None of these pieces happen without some time on the bench.

First, there is tomorrow. I am playing two pieces from the Twenty-four pieces in free style by Louis Vierne. Here is the Carillon, which will be the postlude (Lord willing).