From Harmony, from heavenly Harmony...

But oh! what art can teach
What human voice can reach
The sacred organ's praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their Heav'nly ways
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race;
And trees unrooted left their place;
Sequacious of the lyre:
But bright Cecilia rais'd the wonder high'r;
When to her organ, vocal breath was giv'n,
An angel heard, and straight appear'd
Mistaking earth for Heav'n.

(John Dryden, “A Song for St. Cecilia's Day”)
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173449

Thursday, November 20: St. Edmund

As a church musician, I find that I cannot keep the Real Sabbath, not if I am to play on the following day. And the Lord's Day is most decidedly not a day of rest. So, I do what I can by observing Thursday as a day of rest, set apart from the others.

I have recently read a fine little book: “The Sabbath,” by Abraham Joshua Heschel. He introduced me to the concept of welcoming the Holy Day as a visiting Queen, or a Bride, and expanded on what I already knew of the sanctification of Time, which we Christians carry forward by means of the Daily Office. A quote:

Holiness in space, in nature, was known in other religions. New in the teaching of Judaism was that the idea of holiness was gradually shifted from space to time, from the realm of nature to the realm of history, from things to events.

And that brings us to St. Edmund. King of East Anglia in a time of darkness, he strove to keep his people and the holy Faith alive in the face of overwhelming odds. And, so the story goes, he did: not by sword or victory, but by martyrdom, setting an example that no infidels could erase from the hearts of the people.

For we sanctify Time not only by prayer, but by action.

Friday, November 21: Tallis, Byrd, Merbecke

Here are men that I should certainly emulate. I am not so certain of their sanctity as the framers of the Episcopal Calendar in “Holy Men, Holy Women” seem, but they, and the other great composers, remind us that this work is not easy:

The Song does not come without cost; to do it well, it requires all that you are, every part of your being.... It is, in short, a little “martyrdom.” We give ourselves over to the Song, without regard for where it will lead us.

Friday is normally a good working day: the Rector has the day off, the office is usually quiet – and by this time in the week, I am most often desperately scrambling to prepare for Sunday. Top of the list: a full workout of the Bach, beginning to end.

But first... After Matins, I go to the kitchen. We had a dinner on Wednesday evening, and the youth group is selling Thanksgiving pies, delivering them this Sunday. They need refrigerator storage space, and the church refrigerator is packed. I begin pulling things out – almost-empty juice bottles, an uncovered pitcher of iced tea that has been in the back corner long enough to grow a layer of mold, bags of grapes many months old, salad dressings and milk and coffee cream (“half and half”) well beyond their “best by” date, much more. I end up with two trash bags full. I empty the dishwasher and dish drainer, I wash the cups and glasses left in the sink. I appropriate some of the Wednesday leftovers for my dinner. I try to think holy thoughts. This is important work: it is the Lord's House, and this is His kitchen. These cups and plates, this refrigerator, are as holy as the vessels of the Altar (as I think St. Benedict says, more or less). As children of the household, if we neglect to do our chores now, what will happen when we are There?

It is now 10:45, and I have not done any of my Good Habits (except Matins, and on this day the Great Litany). They are not going to happen today; Bach awaits.

I get my Full Workout, beginning to end, starting with the Fugue. It is solid, but the Toccata, untouched since Sunday evening, is not. I must “brush off the cobwebs” as I often tell the choir. It is enough; there is now the possibility of being ready to play the piece on Sunday.

The Toccata begins with a long tonic pedal point, fifty-four measures. Then (after a pedal solo) there is a dominant pedal point, another fifty-four measures. At the end of the Toccata, there is a majestic descent down the scale in the pedals to the low C, the dominant, and another pedal point, this one thirty measures (counting the octave leaps on C with which it ends), and Bach takes us toward the final cadence. With all this preparation, we need a thoroughgoing resolution, perhaps another pedal point on the tonic. We do not get it; all we have is one chord. At least it has a fermata.

The balance is not restored until the end of the Fugue, which (in the context of Sunday's liturgy) will be over an hour later, as the postlude. The final entry of the main fugal subject in the pedal is sufficient. When that pedal comes in on the low F with full organ, we have Arrived. It is a place where the organist always wishes there were one more stop, perhaps a 32' Montre like they have at the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City: they are the large pipes you can see in this photo.

For we have not in truth Arrived: that will happen only on the Last Day, when the sanctification of Time is complete: “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.” (Revelation 22:13)

Saturday, November 22: St. Cecilia

Sing for the morning's joy, Cecilia, sing,
In words of youth and phrases of the Spring;
Walk the bright colonnades by fountains' spray,
And sing as sunlight fills the waking day;
Till angels, voyaging in upper air
Pause on a wing and gather the clear sound
Into celestial joy, wound and unwound,
A silver chain, or golden as your hair.
(from "A Hymn to St. Cecilia" by Herbert Howells: text by Ursula Vaughan Williams)

I keep a Holy Card of this great Lady on the organ console to remind me of her every day when I climb onto the bench. This day especially, I seek her intercessions; there is Work to Do. But I open the day with what proves a grievous error: not only do I skip my Good Habits for yet another day, but I skip Matins in my haste to get on the bench.

The Toccata does not go well. I work on it for three hours. In the final slow playthrough, which is supposed to settle me down, I cannot play one passage at all (measures 223-4). Not even at half tempo. I am forced to stop and work on it with the rhythms and try to patch things up. The place may well be a Train Wreck tomorrow, a place where the piece comes apart and I am forced to stop. Shortly after, still in the playthrough, D. comes in the church. When I realize that he is there, I stop, though I do not want to, not in the middle.

In my evaluation on Tuesday, my lowest score was for displaying Poor Judgment, mostly in regard to these men from the street that I have helped. The Rector correctly observed that many of them are not genuine in their requests for help, and that they have caused me considerable emotional distress. And my friend N., who has helped me much in going Cold Turkey on helping these people financially, pointed out to me that the Diocesan Policy on sexual boundaries that we studied this Tuesday says that we are not to give money to anyone with whom we are in a ministry relationship. That includes D.

Lately, he has mostly come for prayer, not money: his mother died of cancer about a week ago, and he has other problems, such as an uncertain roof over his head and his constant struggle with drug addiction (he is doing fairly well these days, but “Every day is hard,” he says. I believe him. I think that his bereavement has been a strong push back toward the drugs, for they would ease the pain. So far, I think he has resisted.) Today he wanted money: I said no, telling him of the reasons above.

But I thought of tomorrow's Gospel, and St. Elizabeth, and St. James, whose Epistle we read this past week in the Office (chapter 2, verse 17: Faith without works is dead.)

I finish the Toccata's playthrough, exhausted in mind, body, and spirit.

Elizabeth, pray for us, that we may be Generous.
Edmond, pray for us, that we may be Brave.
Cecilia, pray for us, that we may Sing.

After some food and a cup of tea, I am back on the bench for the Fugue. It goes well; about an hour's work and it is done.

I see that this is my three hundredth post in the Music Box. Thank you all for reading it.

(to be continued)