For all the saints

It has been a busy fortnight.

Last Sunday, we had Choral Matins for the first time in this parish for many years. For the occasion, we sang the Howells “Collegium Regale” morning canticles – the justly famous Te Deum, and the less-often performed Jubilate.

We had known of this service for less than a month, and prepared the music in three rehearsals, at the same time as we were working on the Victoria Requiem for a service tonight, November 2, and a challenging anthem for this morning's Eucharist. It was almost more than we could handle. The three rehearsals were tense, often discouraging. I was much aware that these choristers are all volunteers, free to walk away at any time, and I feared that some of them might. As it transpired, we were further hindered by illness and other circumstances; on the day of the Howells, our choir of fifteen singers numbered only ten. When we learned that morning that one of our strong sopranos had laryngitis, and another was out of town, one of the altos, Kay, graciously moved to soprano at the warmup rehearsal and sight-read the part. Without her, we could not have done it. Without the hard work of all ten of these choristers, we could not have done it.

It was not without flaws, but the choir sang from the heart and there were some fine moments.

And then, on to this Sunday's Requiem, the four-voice setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria. We sang it in place of our normal First Sunday Choral Evensong, with our rector, L.L., providing good leadership in the High Church manner. The Altar was moved to its proper position so that she could face liturgical East for the Eucharistic Prayer as is meet and right, assisted by Deacon and Subdeacon, with plenty of incense.

We do not normally have services like this in our parish.

The Victoria was, like the Howells, not without flaws. But it was pretty good; the liturgy as a whole was very good.

From the Organist's point of view, the Howells was challenging to play, and its preparation kept me from advance work on today's voluntaries: the Leo Sowerby setting of “Sine Nomine,” a setting of the same tune by Craig Phillips (of which more later), and tonight's postlude, the Messiaen “Apparition de l'eglise éternelle.” As of Friday morning, I had done first workouts of only the final six-page fugue of the Phillips, the last two pages of the Sowerby, and I had not touched the Messiaen. I have played all three pieces before, and they had good fingerings and registrations in place; otherwise, they would have been impossible. Even so, it was a lot of work for two days.

It came to a climax on Saturday. I spent the day on the bench, much of it on the first eleven pages of the Phillips (both a first and second workout that day, sandwiched around the Sowerby, and about fifteen minutes on a few measures of the Messiaen, and some work on the hymns and anthem accompaniment). Late in the day, the Swell to Pedal coupler malfunctioned; when engaged, it has been causing the middle F to “blip” momentarily. Now, the F was not blipping; it was sticking on, firm and immobile until the coupler was removed. I could not play any of this music without the pedal coupler.

So, the clock ticking away, I climbed into the organ. It was clear what was happening – the wooden sticker that engages the coupler for that note had come loose and was blocking the tail of the key up. I removed the offending sticker – easily done, but it meant that the note no longer had its coupler. The loose backfall looked like it might want to rub its neighbor, but it cannot be removed without much trouble, far more than I can handle, and the “repair,” such as it was, had to suffice. When I went back around to play the instrument, it seemed all right.

Sunday morning arrived, and the service went well. The Sowerby went well, the choir sang its anthem, “At the round earth's imagin'd corners” by Lee Hoiby, very well, the hymnody was good, and it came time for the Phillips.

As you will hear in the linked recording, there is a soft section about two-thirds of the way through where the pedal has the melody on a 4' stop, very exposed, with repeated use of the F. It chose this moment to lock up, as I had feared – when I played F, that loose backfall hung on its neighboring E and both pitches played. It took me most of the exposed passage to figure out that when I tapped the note a second time, it would clear.

I have nonetheless posted the recording on YouTube for several reasons. Partly, I think that I played it fairly well, despite the ugly “car horn” effect of those F/E double-notes. More to the point, I consider it a fine piece of music, and would recommend it to other organists. I do not know if it is published, but if it isn't, the composer would gladly sell you a copy, and would be pleased to hear of your interest.

Most of all, in playing it (and in posting it here) I sought to honor my friend D.D., for whom it was written upon his retirement a few years ago. I well remember the night when it was first performed, in a splendid reading by Brett Wolgast – a far better performance than what you hear in my video.

In my years at this parish, D.D. has been a constant support and encouragement. Without him and a few other friends, I would have thrown in the towel a few years ago.
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The Pilcher is starting to have a number of action problems, of which the adventure with the F is the latest. I do not know what to do; in sum, they are more than I can deal with myself. I have asked – twice – a young local technician to come and work on the instrument; he does not appear to be interested. There is a fine and experienced organ man in the community who used to work on the instrument, but is nowadays physically unable to contort himself into it. I could bring the fellows from Bedient back over, and pay milage from Nebraska for a service call. They would probably want to do thousands of dollars of work on the action.

For now, I will see if I can keep it patched up.