"Organ," by Arthur Wills (book review)

I write of this book primarily for its material on improvisation, for which read on.

The book has been on my shelf for fifteen or twenty years, since it was given to me (along with several bags of other musical books) by Mary Landrum, of blessed memory. I have finally read it, with delight; I wish that I had read it immediately, for it would have saved me some wrong turns along my path.

Wills was the Organist of Ely Cathedral from 1958 to 1990. In one volume, he sought to fulfill at least three purposes: a historical outline of the organ’s physical and tonal development, a historical survey of the music for the organ, and a course of study for learning to play the instrument.

It is this last which is of interest for today, though I recommend the book for its other contents as well, particularly for its emphasis on English music for the organ with suggested repertoire, a topic often neglected in books about organ music.

Wills begins this section (“Acquiring the Skills,” Part IV of the book) with an eight-page syllabus for three years of study, taking the beginner (granted, with the considerable piano fluency that he [and I] consider a prerequisite) from the easiest slow movements of the Mendelssohn sonatas to such works as the Messiaen Messe de la Pentecôte, the Bach Clavierübung Part III, the Liszt Ad nos (of which I wrote longingly a few weeks ago). I would add that it would be a student with unusual diligence and not insignificant talent who would attain this level (and learn all of this repertoire!) in three years. But the works that he lists are indeed the core repertoire that a student should learn, arranged in a good pedagogical order.

He devotes the rest of Part IV (pp. 186-242) to Organ Improvisation. And here, buried in the back of a volume where one might not expect such a topic, is a Treasure. Wills is the first author I have encountered who begins with what amounts to Species Counterpoint, leading to work modeled on French Classic examples such as the Titelouze hymn settings – which, one comes to realize, are not far removed from Species work, with the chant tune in long notes in the pedal, the other parts moving contrapuntally above it. From there, the student moves to chorale improvisation modeled on Buxtehude and Bach; then free improvisation, starting with two-part textures as one would find in the Voluntaries of John Stanley and his contemporaries, and on to binary and ternary forms, and the sonata form, using Haydn and Mozart as examples for all of this (minuets, slow movements, sonata-allegro movements). The final “exercise” in the book is the improvisation of a four-movement symphonic form using what has been studied: first movement in sonata form, slow movement in ternary form, scherzo in rondo form, finale consisting of introduction, fugue and toccata.

All this is to be accomplished in the three-year course of study, alongside all of that repertoire. And not to forget: choral accompaniment, to which he had earlier devoted a few pages, noting such works as the Stanford Magnificat in A major and the Duruflé Requiem as especially profitable for study.

I suspect that Wills expected this sort of discipline from his students at the Royal College of Music, and it is surely his work as a teacher that lies behind this volume. I conclude with a quotation from one of his students, Stephen Cleobury, the current Director of Music at Kings College, Cambridge:

Notwithstanding the possible disadvantages of ranging over too wide a field, many organists have displayed great versatility in carrying out many differing tasks assigned to them – solo performance, improvisation and accompaniment, choir-training and conducting, teaching and adjudicating, arranging and composing. Such is the daily round of the English cathedral organist, and there are many musicians now at work in all branches of the profession who have reason to be grateful to this tradition and its guardians for their early training. I shall always value the insights that I gained as a pupil of Dr. Wills… (from the Foreward: p. 9)

I see from Amazon that the most recent edition of the book is 2001. My copy is the 1985 edition; I suspect that any edition would be suitable, and that older copies may be found at minimal expense on used-book sites.

Organ, by Arthur Wills (Yehudi Menuhin Music Guides)
Schirmer Books, 1985
ISBN 0-02-872850-5
(paperback: 256 pages)

Kenton Coe

For tonight, I have a new upload to YouTube: my prelude from the Midnight Mass [the link is further down this page]. It is a suite of six Christmas Carol settings by the Tennessee composer Kenton Coe. His website is here. I recommend that you visit it, if only to see the portrait of him and read his “random thoughts” on the homepage. Here is one:

I only trust a music that is a language between the composer and the listener: sharing an intellectual and spiritual experience. That music can be as simple as the simplest mountain carol, or as complicated as a piece by Elliot Carter. The only way to appreciate music is to listen to it, and listen to it, and listen to it. If it is in an unfamiliar style, keep listening. I had to play the recording of the Ives’ Concord Sonata fourteen times to begin to understand what it was about, and it was worth the effort!

This is something I am proud to put on the Net. It is about twenty-five minutes of music, and well worth the time to listen to it. I have played these pieces for twenty years and more, and they remain my favorite settings of these carols, by far.

Mr. Coe is one of the small number of Real Composers whom I have met. For many years, we lived in neighboring cities. He is very gracious, and has always encouraged me in my work with choirs and the organ.

I exchanged e-mails with Mr. Coe earlier this fall (our choir will be doing one of his anthems in 2016), and I told him that upon reflection, he is one of the main influences on my musical style. I can offer a composer no higher compliment, other than to perform his music.

Kenton Coe: Six Organ Preludes, Book II (Christmas Carols)
(composed in 1988)

Joy to the world
Puer nobis nascitur
Venite adoremus
Rosa mystica
Silent night
God rest ye merry, gentlemen

Artwork:
Angels appearing before the Shepherds (Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1911)
The Nativity (Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1520)
The Adoration of the Kings (Peter Breughel the Elder, c. 1556)
Virgin and Child (Madonna of Humility) – Andrea Mantegna, 1490

Boxing Day

I almost did not practice the hymns for tomorrow.

Preparations for Christmas Eve dominated the week. Somehow, the idea lodged in my head that there were two days to prepare for Sunday.

Well, yes, if one counts Christmas Day. But that morning was devoted to the Mass for the day, wherein Ting Davidson played violin. I wrote of this last year; it was a delight to work with her again in similar manner. Someday soon, her collegiate studies will end and it is unknowable whether she will make it home for Christmas after that, or at least not with enough time or energy to play for a church service. That makes a day like yesterday all the more precious to me. She is a terrific musician.

I could have stayed through the afternoon and practiced. But my wife was at home, with a day off after too many days of “big box” retail work, too much overtime.

It was not until this morning that I realized that this day is Saturday, not Friday, and this day is all that I have.

Our service tomorrow is Christmas Lessons and Carols, “so that no one has to work very hard,” as one of the clergy said. Right: prelude, ten hymns, postlude. Not much work for anyone.

I had the church to myself all day except for the noontime Al-Anon group; it is Boxing Day, and no one is working unless they must. I was feeling more than a little resentful at the clergy, taking a day off and spending time with their families. “No one has to work very hard.” I worked about three hours on the voluntaries, glad that I had spent two hours on them Thursday morning when that evening’s services were more pressing.

I looked at the hymnal, bristling with the tape flags for tomorrow’s hymns. “Just leave it. You have some time tomorrow morning. If you can’t play 'While shepherds watched' and ‘Joy to the world’ by now, you might as well hang up your shoes.”

It was that close. Yes, I could play these hymns and carols without practice. The service would probably go just fine with what I call “plain vanilla” hymnody – straight-up hymn playing without creativity, without thought or any more than a minimum of preparation.

And, by just a tiny amount, the Kingdom of God would be degraded. The people would go home and go on with their lives. When next year rolls around, they might stay at home rather than coming out for the First Sunday after Christmas Day.

What it boils down to is that by not practicing, not doing my best, I would be Bearing False Witness. I would be acting as if the Nativity of Our Lord were not important. I wrote of this in another connection here:

In the morning, I woke and prayed and knew what had to be done. Yes, I could have decided not to do it. Who would have known? Would it have made a difference to anyone in the world that I had felt a sense of incompleteness about a painting? ...

But it would have made me a whore to leave it incomplete. It would have made it easier to leave future work incomplete. It would have made it more and more difficult to draw upon that additional aching surge of effort that is always the difference between integrity and deceit in a created work. (Chaim Potok, “My Name is Asher Lev,” p. 328, quoted in the linked Music Box essay.)

I sighed, opened the hymnal, and started in on the first hymn, “Once in royal David’s city.” And, what do you know, once I got going, it was Good Work. It was clear whose voice that had been, telling me to “just leave it.” It was clear, also, what manner of spirit lay behind my resentment against the clergy for taking a day off. They have worked hard this week too, often dealing with thorny interpersonal issues that drain the life out of one's soul. That is the bread and butter of parish pastoral ministry, and it is much harder than sitting in a quiet church at the organ, practicing hymns. We must work together, and the Adversary (Hebrew: "ha-Satan") ever seeks to sow discord and resentment between us.

And if I think even for a moment that I have a tough job, I could trade places with my wife, who had an eight-hour shift at Customer Service and Returns on the day after Christmas.

Two and a half hours sufficed to work through the ten hymns. I am not doing anything new or dramatic, but I am using the stanza layouts that I have prepared in the past, and I could not have done so in tomorrow’s service without this day’s work.

The final hymn is one that summarizes the story: “The first Nowell.” I saw my notes that the Willcocks harmonization from the green “Carols for Choirs” is good for the final stanza, so I went downstairs and got it out of the stack from the other night’s music. It is good indeed, and needed about fifteen minutes of work to get the cobwebs brushed off, for I have not used it for several years. It will be a better ending for tomorrow’s service than a plain vanilla play-through, much better.

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heavenly Lord;
that hath made heaven and earth of nought,
and with his blood mankind hath bought.
Nowell, Nowell!
Born is the King of Israel.

Three for Advent

Most of the world has moved on to Christmas – they got there the day after Halloween, for the most part. But we are not there yet.

Here are three pieces from the Fourth Sunday of Advent, all based in various ways on the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Elizabeth:

Improvisation on “Veni Emmanuel” and “Picardy”

Artwork: “Mary and Elizabeth” by Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945)

This improvisation came out rather dark in tone, and I hope that the Kollwitz print is a good match to it. I made another attempt at Sonata Form, with the exposition of the two tunes in A minor and C minor, a development mixing the two, and a rather abrupt return to the tonic for recapitulation. I remind myself that the only way I can become thoroughly comfortable with a form is by frequent use of it.

Kollwitz was born in East Prussia, and worked in Germany through two wars. The younger of her two sons died in World War I, greatly influencing the direction of her art for the rest of her life. A committed pacifist and socialist, the Nazi government forced her to resign her teaching position in 1933. All of her work was removed from German museums and she and her husband were threatened by the Gestapo. She continued to work through the later 1930’s, creating a major cycle of lithographs on “Death.” Her Berlin house was destroyed in a bombing raid in 1943, along with much of her work. Two hundred and seventy five etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs survive, enough to secure her reputation as one of the leading artists of twentieth century Germany.

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J. S. Bach: Two settings of Meine Seele erhebt den Herren (My soul doth magnify the Lord)
from the Schübler Chorales (BWV 648)
Fugue on the Magnificat (BWV 733)

These settings are a textbook for working with minimal material, for the tune is essentially no more than a psalm tone, two phrases. From this, Bach creates masterpieces.

In the first, Bach weaves an ostinato (first presented as a solo in the pedals) around the tune, creating a quiet, intense setting. The artwork is by Rembrandt; I love the quiet grace of the two women in the center of the painting, the light radiating from them.

Artwork: “The Visitation” by Rembrandt (1640)

For the second setting, Bach takes the first phrase of the psalm tone and makes it the subject for a fugue on full organ, organo pleno and bursting with energy. It is for manuals only until the tune finally appears in the pedals at a most profound climax of intensity.

Here, I have included a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, who has become one of my favorite twentieth-century American artists. Mary walks in the door, and Elizabeth, sitting at her kitchen table, recognizes that the world has changed forever: “He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek.”

Artwork: “The Visitation” by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1910)

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I will not post again before the Twelve Days; thus, I wish for all of you a most joyful and holy Christmas. The world has indeed changed forever.

The Lord be with you

I do not intend to see the new Star Wars movie.
But I saw the first one many years ago. In those days (and often since then), people would use a movie line as a good wish: "May the Force be with you." I have heard it several times in the last week.

I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the worldview behind that: an impersonal Force, complete with a Dark Side. The Force enables one to perform superhuman exploits, for good or ill - in essence, Magical Thinking, the notion that we can somehow influence Hidden Powers to bend the universe for our personal benefit. But that is ill-tempered on my part. It is just a movie, though its influence on popular culture has been considerable. I have many young friends who love the Star Wars movies and characters, so I will say no more.

Except for this: We have something greater than any Force -- a Person. So when we say something as common as "The Lord be with you" and respond "And with thy spirit," this is not a trivial wish.

The Lord is not going to bend the universe for our personal benefit, and he is not to be manipulated into anything. But he is our Friend, and he will be with you (and me) in life and death. That is good enough for me, and I wish it for you:

The Lord be with you.

Ad nos ad salutarem

Someday I would like to play this:
Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad Nos, ad salutarem undam” (Franz Liszt)


One of the perverse ways in which my mind has always worked is that when I am the busiest, that is when I have ideas about Big Projects, especially recitals. I am committed to play in the Lenten series for 2016 across town on the Casavant at the Congregational Church, and I must come up with something to do. There are easier things that I could do than this, but it is what this day I would love to attempt. I was thinking of it all night and on the bus ride into town this morning.

Among the organ music of Liszt, three pieces tower above the rest. The third (Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen”) I have played. The second (Prelude and Fugue on B.A.C.H.) is probably the best-known, and for that reason I am not much interested in attempting it. The first, written in 1850, is the “Ad Nos,” based on a chorale from the opera “The Prophets” by Louis Meyerbeer, one of the most noted composers of that era (and now almost forgotten). I have the score – it is in the same volume as the other two works, comprising 48 pages, some of it visually intimidating – I have looked at it and "read" parts of it mentally, but I have never heard this piece in performance, or even on a recording.

The modern musician in such a state does what I did this morning: I went to YouTube. There one may find a number of recordings. The one I linked at the beginning of this page is by Daniel Roth, in live performance on the masterpiece of Cavaille-Coll, the five-manual instrument at St. Sulpice in Paris.

Being a mechanical action (with Barker levers) instrument, Roth here employs two stop assistants, one on each side, each with multiple-page lists of stop changes, which Roth calls out to them as he plays. It is fascinating to watch them negotiate this long, complex work. It is a task that would be much easier on an instrument with electric stop action (at the least, if not some form of electric key action). But Liszt had no such action at his disposal. When he played it at the organ, he probably had stop assistants as one sees here.

There are two gaps in the recording, which is from the video archives of St. Sulpice, and there are doubtless many YouTube versions with better sound quality – I have sampled one by Dame Gillian Weir which is quite good, played at the Royal Albert Hall, and that recording includes the score so one can read the music as it plays. But the “behind the scenes” nature of this recording at St. Sulpice makes it especially interesting, at least to me. And it is a live recording. And, amazingly, it is a part of the Liturgy, a postlude. As the recording begins (and as Roth and his assistants busily prepare the stops), one hears the priests off somewhere down front, chanting the ending of the Mass. I marvel at the sort of Liturgy and Place that would support a major thirty-minute work as a postlude. Blessings be upon them!

It is enjoyable to watch Roth squinting through his glasses at the score, singing along with some of the melodies, most of all playing in the Grand Manner that such music (and such an instrument) require. At the end, he asks one of the assistants about the time, and he holds his wristwatch where Roth can read it – even as he is playing the final majestic chords. I wonder if they had to clear out for another Mass, and the long postlude was pushing the available time? Or perhaps he had to clear his mind and play the next Mass himself? That sort of thing is part of being an Organist – one always must have the external circumstances in a part of one’s mind, much more so than other classical performers.

As for my undertaking of the Ad Nos, it may come to naught like most of my Big Projects. I have other responsibilities between now and Lent, and I have pencilled in one of the large movements from the Livre du Saint-Sacrement of Messiaen for the April Evensong, which would be new to me and require quite a bit of work – I may not be up to doing both it and the Liszt. But I am growing old, and will not have many more opportunities to play such works as these; if not now, when?

Hanukkah: Cause us, O Lord

On this first Night of Hanukkah and Second Sunday of Advent, I have posted our anthem from Choral Evensong here.

Cause us, O Lord our God, to lie down each night in peace
and to awaken to renewed life and strength.
Lord, help us to order our lives by thy counsel,
lead us in the paths of righteousness.
Lord, be thou a shield about us, protect us,
save our world from sorrow, from hate, and from war.
Curb thou within us the will to do evil;
shelter us beneath the shadow of thy wings. Amen.

(text: a Jewish prayer)

As I mentioned a fortnight ago, I played the Prière of César Franck as the prelude. It turned out well enough, but there are plenty of good recordings on YouTube so I will not post mine. I did not select this anthem with the idea that it would be sung during Hanukkah; I chose it to fit the Lessons for tonight’s Evensong – Amos 6 and II Thessalonians 1. But it is a Jewish text, and far more timely than I had imagined. “Save our world from sorrow, from hate, and from war…”

We are Christians, of the household of God only by adoption, whom St. Paul describes as wild olive branches grafted to the rootstock. But Hanukkah was our deliverance, too. If the name of Israel had been erased from the earth in those days, there would have been no Messiah.

Thus, I selected Jewish images for the YouTube clip; a photo of a Menorah from a college Hillel center’s blog, and what I find to be an evocative Cubist painting from a modern artist (1970).

There is much more that I would like to say, but it must wait for another time. For tonight, for this Feast of the Dedication when the Lord granted his people deliverance when all seemed to be lost, it is enough to pray together.

Wedding Day

Today was the wedding of two young parishioners, Will and Stacy. It was simple, beautiful, and elegant. I am happy for them; I enjoyed working with them on the musical aspects, and I wish them well this day, and all the days of their life together.

When I contemplate retirement, one of the thoughts uppermost in my mind is “No more weddings!” I may be willing to play a few Sunday services as a substitute, and I have entertained the thought of becoming a Funeral Home Organist, if such positions still exist (they are being replaced by canned music, for the most part) -- but No Weddings. Not for any amount of money.

In the planning process, I have been screamed at and cursed by mothers, once by a father (who was an ordained minister; that one was over the question as to whether his other daughter, the vocal soloist, could use a microphone and a portable sound system. I said “No,” and stood my ground). I have mediated between the family and the trumpet player who would not open his case without $200 cash money in hand – all this some thirty minutes before the wedding, for which I was being paid $50. I have had to preludize for ten extra minutes, twenty, thirty… I have started a five-minute piece to fill the extra time and within the first four bars been told “They are ready to roll; cut it short.” I have wondered whether the two-year old flower girl would make it down the aisle or sit down in the middle and start counting flower petals (as I vamped on Pachelbel’s Canon, playing the last page three times).

Any organist has stories. Clergy doubtless have stories to match, some of them about their organists. Some of the worst days of my professional life have been Wedding Days. And yet… some of the best days of my professional life have been Wedding Days.

I was in high school when I played my first wedding, and it was the first time I played an organ – a little electric thing with one octave of stubby pedals, in an Assembly of God church. The groom had been my neighbor and best friend when we were quite small, preschool and the early grades. Our paths diverged as I gravitated to music and he to sports (he is now well respected as a small-college basketball coach); the bride was likewise a close friend. She alone of the friends of my childhood and youth attended my mother’s funeral; she told me that day of something I had not known – through the early years while they were in town and I was off at college, my mother was the only adult who believed in them, that they would make it as a married couple (they have: forty-plus years so far).

And there was a day when the young woman who was probably my best friend in college – and is the only friend I still have from those days – was married in the living room of her home. She and I had gone to the music store and selected a rental piano for the event, a spinet. I played Mozart and Bach and Chopin and Beethoven and it was a Good Day, one that remains in my heart as a landmark.

I was at the Presbyterian church in Tennessee long enough for a generation of choristers to grow into adults, and played quite a few weddings for them. There was the one where the girl whom I had known since she was a toddler married a farmer, and the reception was out in the country, complete with bluegrass band and old-style flatfoot dancing. There was another where the bride decided that the place she wanted to wait before the wedding was upstairs in the organ/choir gallery because that was the place in the church where she felt most at home after all her years in choir – she sat on a stool beside the organ console, her bridesmaids around her – all of them former choirgirls – as I played the preservice music. I felt as if I were playing for the Bride of Christ, the holy Marriage Supper of the Lamb for which we long.

Every wedding, every marriage, is a glimpse of that eternal Day, when sorrow and pain shall be no more.

But in this life, there is plenty of sorrow and pain, and marriage is one of the places where it is most acute, for the pain comes to those whom we love the most, and the path is often very hard. One of the women I have described is now a widow; another cares for her husband who is disabled, while working a demanding full-time job and parenting teenagers.

Marriage is one of the Seven Sacraments, and like the others, much about it is a mystery. It is in the providence of God that He has set us in families, with the union of man and woman as the foundation. One finds that it is in the times of sickness, of pain and bereavement and anguish, when God is most present, and that Presence is manifested very often in the patient daily care of husband and wife for one another through the darkest of times. Or parent for child, or child for parent.

One ought not to think too much on these things on Wedding Days – but it is right there in the marriage vows, and a good thing it is; I have needed the remembrance of these vows many times over the years:

In the Name of God, I, N. take you, N. to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

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Some might be interested in what I play for weddings. It depends, of course, on what the Bride and Groom desire, within the limits of what is acceptable for Christian worship. Here is today’s music list, with some commentary:

Two short movements by Felix Mendelssohn: Adagio from the First Organ Sonata, and the Andante tranquillo from the Third Sonata. This latter Sonata he wrote for the marriage of his beloved sister Fanny – and then he was unable to play it, being injured in a carriage accident shortly before the day. I have used the majestic opening to the first movement, the Con moto maestoso, as a bridal procession, but the fugue that makes up the rest of the movement, based on the chorale Aus tiefer Not, is a bit much.

Vaughan Williams: “Wedding Tune for Ann,” from “A Vaughan Williams Organ Album” (Oxford Univ. Press) – a fine three-minute piece which is thoroughly suitable to the occasion. It is hard to find music by Real Composers that they intended for weddings and that still work in current practice. The only other that I can think of offhand is the Siciliano for a High Ceremony (Herbert Howells), a fine eight-minute piece composed for a 1953 wedding – but it is not for everyone; it has to be someone that would appreciate Howells’ musical style.

Chorale setting: Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele (J. S. Bach, from the Leipzig Chorales) – this was a favorite of Mendelssohn’s, and of many other organists since. It is a communion text, but the spirit befits a wedding – “deck thyself, my soul, with gladness.”

Canon in D (J. Pachelbel, arranged for organ by S. Drummond Wolff, Concordia Publishing House). For today’s service, the couple wanted “Pachelbel’s Canon,” but not as the processional, a purpose for which I have played it scores of times. Many serious musicians turn up their nose at this – there was a time when we had three excellent violinists in our parish, and I tried to get them to play the Canon for church – they looked at me as if I had committed an Unpardonable Sin and absolutely would not do it. But it is a terrific piece of music, and the mood of it is exactly right. Further, it can be cut short or stretched out to fit a procession – my poor copy is marked with so many cuts that I can hardly make out what I am doing. And today, I played the whole thing for the first time in quite a few years – I had to work on the middle parts, which I most often have cut.

More Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, from the Schübler Chorales. This is the one piece that I always play, because of the connection of the chorale text with the Bridegroom. And for a wedding two days before Advent, it is essential.

At this point, the procession begins:

Bach: “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” from “The Biggs Book of Organ Music” (ed. E. Power Biggs, H. W. Gray Publications). This is a useful volume for the church organist, not least for this arrangement of “Jesu, joy.” Like the Canon in D, it is a wedding staple, and very practical – it can be cut or extended to some degree, though not so readily as the Pachelbel.

On this day, the brother of the bride played a piano piece of his own composition for the brides’ procession. I worried about this, especially after he launched into the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars as the people gathered for the wedding rehearsal. But he was just poking fun at his sister; in the event, the piece was thoroughly appropriate, and far more meaningful than anything I could have done.

When it is up to me to play the procession, one of my staples is the Jeremiah Clarke Trumpet Voluntary (The Prince of Denmark). I play this from "Incidental Music for Weddings and Other Occasions, As played at the Royal Wedding at St. Paul's Cathedral, 29 July 1981," edited by Christopher Dearnley (the organist for that Occasion)- Basil Ramsey, publisher. It is a lovely little volume, complete with the stoplist for the very large instrument in that Place, and photos of various parts of the instrument.

And I am not above "Here comes the bride," or more properly, the Wedding March from Lohengrin (R. Wagner). Like the Pachelbel, it is a piece that can be trimmed or expanded to fit the time needed. I always include it in my suggestions to the couple; some laugh at me, for others it is precisely what is suitable. There are some clergy (and some organists) who forbid this piece; I am not one of them.

The recessional:
Trumpet Tune (Henry Purcell) – another wedding standard. At this point, I very often play the Wedding March from Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mendelssohn) which is my favorite. Or the piece that on this day followed the Purcell:

Overture and The Rejoicing, from “Firework Music” (G. F. Handel) – this is from the Biggs Book, which contains many other arrangements from Bach and Handel.

I used to play the Widor Toccata (Final, from the Fifth Organ Symphony), but that was on an instrument with electric action. On our mechanical-action Pilcher, my hand starts to fall off after about three pages, so I refuse to play it. But it is very effective if the instrument and organist are up to it. The Final from the First Symphony of Louis Vierne is another good choice if the circumstances are fitting.

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I was pleased this day to play my first wedding with our current rector. She does a splendidly dignified wedding, by far the best of any clergy with whom I have worked; it was indeed a delight to work with her this day. And she used the long form of the Blessing, which I have not heard since my own wedding, many years ago:

Most gracious God, we give you thanks for your tender love in sending Jesus Christ to come among us, to be born of a human mother, and to make the way of the cross to be the way of life. We thank you, also, for consecrating the union of man and woman in his Name. By the power of your Holy Spirit, pour out the abundance of your blessing upon this man and this woman. Defend them from every enemy. Lead them into all peace. Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts, a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their foreheads. Bless them in their work and in their companionship; in their sleeping and in their waking; in their joys and in their sorrows; in their life and in their death. Finally, in your mercy, bring them to that table where your saints feast for ever in your heavenly home; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Rest in peace.

Music by two Parisians:

Tierce en taille, and Cromorne en Taille, from the Messe de Paroisse (François Couperin)

Priere (César Franck)

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This morning, in the process of considering what music I might post here in response to the attacks in Paris last night, it struck me most suddenly that I have a responsibility tomorrow morning, akin to what those who will be preaching and leading prayers will have. Mine is but a small responsibility, but it did not until now occur to me. I am cancelling the postlude that I had planned and will play the Tierce en Taille which is linked above as a memorial prayer.

I would love to play the Franck instead, but it is well beyond anything I could prepare in one day. [Edited to add: I think that I can play it for the next choral evensong, December 6.] I do encourage you to listen to the Franck, or the Couperin. Perhaps light a candle. Certainly, pray for those who have died, and those who are bereaved, and those who are injured. And all of us, around the world, who must live this day and the next and the next after that, trusting only in the mercies and providence of God.

There have been other terrorist killings, some of them worse than this. Upon hearing the news last night, I thought immediately of the 2004 Madrid bombings, and the schoolchildren of Beslan, in the Ossetia region of Russia, also in 2004. And the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.

This one, last night in Paris, feels like 9/11/01. As with that event, I fear that the consequences will be profound, and not for the best.

Open my eyes

Here is a recording of our choir singing the Gilbert Martin arrangement of an old gospel hymn: "Open my eyes that I may see." It is taken from our liturgy on October 25, and I am just now getting around to posting it.

We also sang the Howells Te Deum and Jubilate at that service, and it went pretty well. But I am not going to post the recordings; there are many versions on YouTube that are much better than we could ever hope to do.

But this one, "Open my eyes," has only one other YouTube version, a good rendition in Chinese, so ours is worth posting.

While working with the YouTube video manager, I noticed that several of my Bach organ recordings have had copyright claims placed on them. I suppose that I should be flattered that the computer who does these things for YouTube thinks that my versions are sufficiently close to their Property to warrant a claim. I am not.

But I do not see a good way to dispute the claim. The YouTube dispute form gives several options that could be checked off and none of them apply completely. On the one hand, the video is not entirely of my creation - J. S. Bach wrote the music, and the artwork is from WikiArt, by some of the Masters of old time. These things are in the public domain, but they are most decidedly not my work.

And on the other hand, I am not willing to claim that the YouTube clips are entirely in the public domain; they are not, for I have a performance right in them. That is to say: I am very pleased for anyone to listen to this music. But I am not pleased for some rights organization to come and make money on what is not theirs.

And, most of all, there is the danger that by disputing the claim, the publisher who claims rights can summarily shut down my YouTube channel and this MusicBox. I know of one blog that disappeared in just this fashion, without notice or recourse. Or I could find myself embroiled in litigation.

So I am going to let it go.

[Edited 11/20/15 to add this news story}

YouTube owner Google says it will help fund up to $1m (£650,000) in legal fees for some content creators who have received copyright takedown notices. It will step in if it feels their material is considered to be fair use. However the firm admitted that only a handful of people have been chosen to benefit from this support. Copyright holders are able to make requests to Google - or other sites - to take down content under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).....

"We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns," wrote Fred von Lohmann, Google's copyright legal director, in a blog post....

"We're doing this because we recognise that creators can be intimidated by the DMCA's counter-notification process and the potential for litigation that comes with it.

"While we can't offer legal protection to every video creator - or even every video that has a strong fair use defence - we'll continue to resist legally unsupported DMCA takedowns as part of our normal processes."

I once was lost but now am found

Here is an improvisation on “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”

My plan was for an A-B-A form in C Major, with leanings toward C Lydian (F sharps). For the middle section, I strayed as far as possible, to F sharp minor (which is one reason I included the F sharps in the beginning), and tried something new (for me) – a direct quotation from what was to be sung by the choir that day: a fragment of the Te Deum by Howells, from his Collegium Regale setting. I made a continuation in that harmonic style, with a truncated return of the A section.

We did not sing the Howells until the later service that morning, so it was a stretch for me to include it in the improvisation. But it was much on my mind. The phrase that I quoted was this: “When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death; thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” It seems to me that this is at the foundation of the “amazing grace” of which Newton wrote.

This hymn, “Amazing Grace” is important to me as it is for many. In retrospect, it was one of the first pieces of Real Church Music that I encountered. I could not have articulated it at the time (my infancy in Christ and likewise in music, at about age twelve, newly baptized and in my first year of piano lessons), but I sensed that there was an integrity to this text by John Newton and its shape-note tune, crafted by the folk tradition in the very region where I was living, that was not present in most of the Baptist gospel songs that were the exclusive diet of the congregation. I love those songs too, but they are not at the same level. In fact, there is hardly anything at this level.

For those who might want a deeper look into the hymn, Bill Moyers did a PBS video about it some years ago. One can get a taste of it is from Moyers’ website, where one can read the transcript and hear some excerpts from the video. The full program on DVD might be in your public library.

We feebly struggle, they in glory shine

We met at 4:45 for an hour of rehearsal before Choral Evensong. On this day, it was the Youth Choir as well as our adult choir and the St. Simeon singers who assist with evensong. We had an ambitious music list, including the Bainton anthem “And I saw a new heaven” and the Gibbons Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from his Short Service. This rehearsal was the only opportunity to combine the adults and youth choir, it was not nearly enough time, and it was a challenging workout, serious and intense.

During the break afterwards, our youngest chorister (known to those who attended this year’s RSCM Course) spoke with me; she said that it was hard; she did not know whether she could do it all again – that is, sing all the music again for the church service. “That is all right,” I told her; “Choral Evensong requires all that you have.”

I have tried to explain this many times on these pages – why is Choral Evensong so important? Why does it matter so much more to me than the Holy Eucharist?

Why was this service, this night, so important?

Part of the answer is what the chorister had already learned, in her first evensong as a part of this choir; one cannot properly sing Evensong without an absolute commitment that requires all that you have. And that is all right; it is indeed our bounden duty. “Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.”

As we heard this summer from Mr. Walker: “One hundred percent, all of the time.”

One chorister who demonstrated this was Lucy. She arrived for the rehearsal and told me that she hardly had any voice, which was obvious as soon as she spoke. But she had nonetheless come. She sang a little, but mostly she led by example. She lined up the younger choristers for the procession, she was as attentive and fully committed to the rehearsal and service – even when she was unable to sing – as she had been at the RSCM course this summer. By so doing, she showed the younger choristers how it is done. And that is a very great gift, one that I cannot give them.

We were far from perfect. There were plenty of wrong notes, and there were places that with more combined rehearsal would have been more confident. But I believe that every chorister, from youngest to oldest, brought their full commitment to the music and the liturgy. I could hear it in their sound, and so could everyone in the congregation.

Afterwards at the choir’s pizza supper, I spoke again with our youngest chorister. She had learned another lesson; the service seemed shorter than the rehearsal. “They always do,” I said. When it comes time to sing, or play, it goes by so quickly. She liked the Evensong very much; she also spoke of RSCM, and said that she wants very much to go back next summer.

So do I.

But we have something special right here in our parish. There are moments, nowadays, when singing or accompanying this choir, especially the combined choir as we had tonight, is every bit as good as being in the Chapel at Todd Hall, or the Basilica.

Thanks be to God.
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We finished the service with the hymn “For all the saints.” I wanted the youth choir to know this hymn, for it is no longer sung in some places, and rarely with all eight stanzas even here in our parish. I assigned the youth trebles to solo out my favorite stanza, which is a good summary for tonight:

O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle, they in glory shine;
Yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia.

There was some good music today; I have been listening to the recordings while bringing order to the choir room and working on next Sunday’s bulletins. I might post some more YouTube tracks, but for tonight, what I want to share is my piano improvisation from the 9:00 service. Like much else today, it was not adequately prepared, but it turned out all right. It has been a challenging week at the church, and next week will be no easier, not with a funeral on Tuesday. There have been two or three times when I have not seen a way forward, and always, always – too much work, too little time. “We feebly struggle, they in glory shine…”

The Chronicles

The books of I and II Chronicles are entirely absent from the Revised Common Lectionary. Only a few disconnected bits appear in the Daily Office Lectionary, interspersed into the narrative of I and II Kings that we have recently completed. I submit that this is a grievous error, akin to using only one Gospel account for public worship (perhaps St. Luke, as it is the most elegantly written), entirely ignoring St. Matthew and Mark, and taking only a few stray bits from St. John. We have four accounts of the Messiah’s ministry for very good reasons, not least to emphasize the centrality of these events. It is for similar reasons that Genesis contains two creation stories, and other passages where it appears that two or more parallel oral histories have been stitched together. Exodus contains but the one account of the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the Torah, but it is revisited several times in the Psalter (especially Psalms 105 and 106, but also Psalm 78 and others), and is never far from the heart of the prophets.

It has been my custom for decades to read the Chronicles at this point in the two-year Daily cycle, after the completion of II Kings, alongside the bits from Jeremiah and Lamentations that have occupied us for the last week or so and the reading of Ezra and Nehemiah that begins tomorrow. I commend this practice to you, especially the reading of the Chronicles as a connected narrative in one swoop.

I will admit that I do not read the genealogies closely, and skim lightly over some of the other passages. But they are not to be entirely skipped. Some observations:

Adam, Sheth, Enosh
Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered (I Chron. 1:1-2)

Thus begins the nine chapter genealogy. It profits from being read aloud, for it then becomes clear that the names are grouped for ease of memorization. It boggles my mind to consider such a task, but it is equally clear that some people did exactly that – they memorized these lists of names so that they could retain them as a part of their history, long before such things were committed to writing. It is also striking how little bits of family lore slip into the lists, just as they would when an old person is recounting her memories to the youngsters. There are many such examples in I Chronicles; here is one.

Now Sheshan had no sons, but daughters. And Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his servant to wife; and she bare him Attai. And Attai begat Nathan, and Nathan begat Zabad… (I Chron. 2:34-36)

As a child, I sat for hours in utter boredom in my grandfather’s sitting room, the flies buzzing in the windows, as he and his sisters spoke of relatives and ancestors long dead, slipping in stories in exactly this manner. I wish that I had listened.

It is worthy of note also that there are no dates. Just the names, in their order, with an occasional reference to the wider events of the kingdom, such as “in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah” (4:41).

And these are they whom David set over the service of song

And these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, after that the ark had rest. And they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing, until Solomon had built the house of the LORD in Jerusalem: and then they waited on their office according to their order… (6:31-32)

It is a delight to read these names, “they that waited, with their children” (v. 33). As the commentaries observe, these musicians, these Levites (and the porters, the equivalent of modern-day church sextons and ushers) are elsewhere nameless. It is only the priests who are considered worthy of mention by name.

This parallels current practice. In the church hallway upstairs, one may find photographs of the Bishops of Iowa and the Rectors and other clergy of this parish. No musicians. No Christian educators. And especially, no sextons or vergers, no ladies and gentlemen of the Altar Guild.

It is well to know by evidence of Holy Scripture that these persons are not unknown to God.

So they brought the ark of God, and set it in the midst of the tent that David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt sacrifices and praise offerings before God… And he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the LORD, and to record, and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth… (16:1, 4-5a)

Then on that day David delivered this psalm to thank the LORD into the hand of Asaph and his brethren. Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make know his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, talk ye of all his wondrous works (v. 7-9)

The following passage (v. 8-36) is an anthology drawn from several of the Psalms, which the commentary assures us are all “post-exilic.” I would not be so sure, not in the face of a direct statement in Scripture that they came from the hand of David at the very time that the ark came to Jerusalem.

After the psalms, the passage continues:

So he left there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD Asaph and his brethren to minister before the ark continually, as every day’s work required (16:37)

To any church musician, that last part has resonance. Three thousand years later, the ministry continues “as every day’s work requires.”

Yet more names

Chapters 23 through 27 are an account of those who ministered at the time when David, “old and full of days, made Solomon his son king over Israel” (23:1). It is a treasure to know these names, even to the point of the ordering of the musicians into twenty-four bands (25:8-31), after “they cast lots, ward against ward, as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar (v. 8). We see in this passage that then as now the music involves not just the adults and the most accomplished, but the small as well as the great, the teacher and the scholar. The musicians learned their work from childhood by doing it alongside their parents, their uncles and grandparents, the others of the musical community. This is a model for modern church music, a model which is too often ignored by musicians and parishes who do not have the patience to include the children in anything meaningful or important.

Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals… (25:1)

The close relation of prophecy and music is a subject too large to address here; it is enough to note that one does not simply “play” at music; it must be a prophetic work, guided (as with all prophecy) by the Spirit of God. In this context, one may well consider St. Paul’s teachings in I Corinthians 12 through 14:

Follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts, but rather that ye may prophesy… he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort (14:1,3)

And of course, this:

What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (14:15)

The conclusion of the matter: Holy Men and Holy Women

Time fails to delve further into these things, but I cannot pass II Chronicles without the mention of two passages, both of them with the essential details presented here and not in II Kings:

Also the Levites which were the singers, all of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun, with their sons and their brethren, being arrayed in white line, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets: It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD… that the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God (II Chronicles 5:11-14)

Those who have been involved in the church’s music for very long have experienced such moments, when the musicians (including the congregation as they sing) are “as one,” and the Shekinah, the “cloud” that is the outward sign of the glory of the LORD, fills the house to the point that we are overcome and (at least for the moment) cannot continue.

This is not something of human manufacture. There is always the temptation to use music to manipulate, to achieve a desired effect or to implant an agenda. These are unworthy goals which stand in the way of music’s proper function, which is to help the people attain their unity in Christ (“as one”) and together to come into the divine Presence.
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Hezekiah began to reign when he was five and twenty years old, and he reigned nine and twenty years in Jerusalem… and he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that David his father had done. He in the first year of his reign, in the first month, opened the doors of the house of the LORD, and repaired them… (II Chron. 29:1-3)

The reign of Hezekiah is one of the central passages of the Old Testament. Fittingly, it is recorded not once or twice, but three times (II Kings, here in II Chronicles, and Isaiah). It is only here that the account is given in detail of the cleansing of the House and the restoration of worship according to its ancient and proper pattern, including the musical work (29:25-28), and the great Passover, such as had not been since the time of Solomon (chapter 30).

The Sages say that there are four holy men who found God on their own, out of the darkness without human assistance (though not without Divine help and revelation): Abraham, Job, the Messiah – and Hezekiah. He had grown up in the wicked court of his father Ahaz, and somehow he found it in his heart to do as he did.

But he was not the last king worthy of his fathers, for as we read in the Chronicles, there was one more revival under Josiah (chapters 34 and 35). He too restored the passover, with the musical service (35:15), so that it was written

And there was no passover like to that kept in Israel from the days of Samuel the prophet (35:18).

When he died in battle at the age of thirty-nine,

… all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day… (35:24-25).

The end was now at hand. But it is not a small thing for one’s death to be lamented by Jeremiah the prophet – perhaps in musical form, as might be implied by the context. One might also note the “singing women” in this verse; until now, we have heard nothing of female musicians, and it is good to know that they were there. Unlike the men, we do not even have their names, nor anything about what they did (beyond “lamentations”). But like the men, they are known to God and their music is not forgotten; like all music that is true, it ever remains in the heart of God.

We live in time and can see and hear but the present moment, with memories of the past – our own memories, and those preserved in the genealogies and stories and writings passed from our ancestors. Music preeminently is the art of the Present – it exists in its only true form, its live sound in performance, only in the moment. But God stands above the circle of time and perceives it all, in its entirety, all at once and forever.

When love is found

There is a new clip on YouTube: our anthem from this past Sunday.
When Love is Found (Daniel Kallman)

Sunday's lessons were one of the few occasions in the Lectionary when the subject of Marriage appears. Musically, we were able to support this with our anthem, with a fine text by Brian Wren that recognizes how marital love changes. By the time one has been married thirty or forty years, it is quite different from the first days of “falling in love.” Here is a link to the Hymnary.org page. It appears that if you agree to the licensing terms, you may download a copy of the text from the publisher for personal use.

We also had a song by John Bell that relates mostly to the lesson from Genesis 2, where Woman and Man are made and become “one flesh,” a verse quoted by Jesus in the Gospel (St. Mark 10:2-16). Jesus adds: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” The song: “Women and men as God intended.” The Hymnary.org page does not include a text. The song may be found in the Iona collection “One is the Body.”

The second painting on the YouTube clip, “Marriage” by Nicholas Poussin, is one of a series that he painted on the Seven Sacraments. They are all worthy of study. Here is the link. He painted the series twice, but some of the paintings were destroyed in a fire in 1816 – thus, there are two versions for some of the Sacraments, and one for the others.

Brown Gold

With pleasure, I direct my readers to this video:
Brown Gold (a song about composting)

The group is the Family Folk Machine, which is directed by Jean Littlejohn. She is an amazing musician. Not only can she do everything that I can (playing the organ, directing choirs), but she has a side that I entirely lack – folk music. She plays guitar and banjo, and most of all she founded the Folk Machine and has developed it into a confident fun-loving group of singers and players that has become important to our community. She writes most of the arrangements for the group. Besides the string band that accompanies the video, they also have a more “classical” string ensemble – violin, cello – made up of some of the FFM children, and Jean writes the arrangements for them as well. Their concerts, which are always a delight, include a healthy dose of group singing by the audience, and that is a central part of the FFM's mission.

Not all of their songs are as light-hearted as “Brown Gold,” for there is quite a lot in the folk tradition that is dark, and the FFM explores that side as well. In the same concert where they sang “Brown Gold” and (my favorite from that program) the song “Home-Grown Tomatoes,” they also had songs about migrant workers and the Dust Bowl here in the Midwest.

I am pleased that they have produced this, their first “music video.” I hope that there will be more. I am proud of the three girls who sing solos near the beginning; they are in our parish choirs. So are two other singers in the video.

Back in the spring, Jean suggested an idea that has developed into what we call the “St. Simeon's Choir.” It is an auditioned group of singers that join the regular adult choir for the First Sunday Evensongs, and it has allowed several people – including Jean, and two of the girls from the video – who are unable to be with us for every Wednesday night and Sunday morning to sing the Evensongs. Tomorrow will be our second service with the expanded ensemble.

In a lesser world, there would be only one kind of music, and it would be a gift of grace to have it. But our God is not only gracious, but extravagant. We have music of every possible style. This becomes a test for working musicians, a test that many often fail -- can we step outside of our own style? Can we listen with joy to something completely different? If not, we cannot long continue in joy even with our own music; it will wither and die.

And if there is not something like the Family Folk Machine in a community, keeping the folk traditions alive, something withers and dies in the community as well.

Thank you, Jean and the FFM singers and players, for the imagination and hard work that has brought the Folk Machine to our community. May it prosper and "grow a lot" and help our community to do the same.

Confirmation: Children of the heavenly Father

Today was the Bishop's Visitation, with the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. The appointed Gospel was St. Mark 9:30-37, wherein Jesus takes a little child in his arms and tells the disciples that “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”

With that in mind, our anthem was a setting of the old Swedish hymn “Children of the heavenly Father” by Daniel Kallman. Here is the YouTube clip from this morning's service.

I have been ill at ease for several days and not at all productive in my work. Today I realized why; this day was important to me, so much that I could focus on little else – very much like I get during Holy Week, or the run-up to our Lessons and Carols service in Advent, or the day of the first choir rehearsals of the fall season.

Our Bishop does not often visit our parish; his last visit was the installation of our current rector, about a year and a half ago, and he has not done Confirmation here for many years. He prefers to administer “regional” confirmations (of which today's service was one, though we had no candidates from beyond our parish), and the last one of those was I think more than a year ago.

We had two young adults who were both baptized and confirmed today – one of them, J., sings in the choir, and both of them are Musicians, string players. And we had two young children – one a child of about one or two years, the other an infant of about one month, on his first visit to Church. His parents are dear to me, and this child has not come to them easily, so it was highly emotional for me, and for many others who know them. May he live to see his children's children.

The confirmation included the two young men, as I mentioned, another adult who is new to our parish, plus two high school students who have gone through the multiple years of preparation for confirmation. They also are dear to me; one of them sang in our youth choir when he was a child and attended an RSCM Course with us.

And it included one of my friends, who asked me to be her sponsor. When the time came, I presented her to the Bishop, stumbling over her name, and alongside her husband and children, laid hands on her as the Bishop administered this holy Sacrament.

Strengthen, O Lord, your servant N. with your Holy Spirit; empower her for your service; and sustain her all the days of her life. Amen (BCP p. 309)

The power that is in this Sacrament differs from what one senses in Holy Baptism. There is a determination and strength in Confirmation, as the above prayer suggests. And there is a sustenance. I have found it so; I do not think that I would have persevered in my Christian life, and certainly not in my work as a church musician, without the inward grace of this Sacrament. Like the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, the inward grace of Confirmation seems to appear most of all very much later, years and decades later, when it is most needed.

And like all of the Sacraments, the power is not something “supernatural.” Not at all. It is, rather, thoroughly “natural” – the power I sensed today as I joined in the laying on of hands is the same power that one senses in a sunrise, or the vigorous strength of a tree in its full maturity, or the irresistible onset of Spring. I believe that this “naturalness” can be found only in the works of the One we serve, and never in the counterfeits of the Enemy. His works can dazzle, or entertain, or overpower with violence, or carry one away with the frenzy of a mob bent on mayhem and murder. But there is no life in them.

The wisdom that comes from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. (St. James 3:17, from today's Epistle)

In closing, I include my prelude improvisation from the middle service. It is a set of variations on the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation,” with the tune “Lobe den Herren.”

Many of the important examples of the Variation form stray quite far from the tune as the variations continue; I tried to emulate this by moving to the dominant minor and including several passages of development, and avoiding full statements of the theme through much of the improvisation. A critic could call it a confused mish-mash of conflicting forms, with elements of A-B-A, and sonata form, and even a hint of rondo. But to my ear, it seems to work, and to present some possibilities for future efforts.

I did not realize how much of me was bound up into this day's liturgies until they were done. I was able to join my friend and her family for a relaxed dinner at a barbecue house, followed by an hour's nap in my Honda, up on the top level of the parking ramp in the sunshine, and then I spent the balance of the afternoon and evening working out fingerings. Most of it was for the Dorian Toccata and Fugue of Bach, which is on the schedule for Christ the King. It is a serious and intense work, and it was good to delve into it, and I found that I could do so with a freedom that had eluded me this week.

I took a break after the Toccata for Evensong in our church's courtyard as the sun set and the half-moon sailed across the clear sky. The psalm for this Twentieth Evening is 104, the psalm that most closely relates to the world of Nature. Near the end is a passage that is one of my watchwords; I have it posted in Hebrew in my office. In its context in the Psalm, it is a reminder that Music (when it is done aright), being one of the works of our Maker, partakes in the “naturalness” of all that lives and grows and nurtures and heals.

Ashira l'Adonai b'hachai
Azemerah leohi b'odi
Ye'erav alaiou sichi
Esemach b'Adonai

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live;
I will praise my God while I have my being.
May these words of mine please him;
I will rejoice in the LORD.

Evening Song, Canticles, and H. M. the Queen

Our First Sunday choral evensong on Sept. 6 went well. I do not have time to say much about it beyond grateful thanks to the choristers, especially the new choristers of the St. Simeon's Choir, which augments the regular Trinity Choir for evensongs – this was the first time for the combined groups.

But I do wish to refer you to some music from the service:

The organ prelude: by David Hurd, “Evening Song.” It is a quiet and contemplative piece, obviously influenced by Messiaen. I own Dr. Hurd an enormous debt, for he was the first Organist that I heard. I was eighteen, newly arrived at Duke, and singing in the Chapel Choir for the first Sunday of the term, when it was open to all comers. As we processed into the Duke Chapel, Hurd was playing the Bach Prelude and Fugue in B Minor on the old Aeolian organ - I believe that this was his first Sunday, as well, at least his first semester as Chapel Organist.

The Bach piece changed my life. I had no idea that Real Music could be a part of Christian worship. I knew of Bach -- by this time, I had played some of the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier -- but I had never heard any of the organ music; indeed, I had never heard a pipe organ.

I did not take organ lessons at Duke: a friend who was an organ major discouraged me from it. But the seed was planted. And I did not sing in the Duke Choirs; I auditioned - twice - and did not make the cut. This was grievous to me at the time, but it has proven to be better for me as a choral director; it has given me a firm commitment to the welcoming of all who evidence sufficient desire to come to rehearsals.

And here are the Canticles: the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. These were composed for our choir by Justin Mann during the year that our Pilcher organ was in storage for a construction project and we were worshipping in the Parish Hall. Thus, the accompaniment is for piano. I do not know of another setting of the Canticles with piano accompaniment, which in my opinion should give this version wide applicability. On two Wednesdays' rehearsal, we did not entirely do it justice, but I hope that the YouTube clip gives a sufficient idea of the piece.

I must hurry on, but I cannot close without special thanks to Jean L., who suggested the idea of the St. Simeon's Choir and did much to make it possible.

And I also wish to congratulate Her Majesty the Queen: on this day, she passes Victoria as the longest-reigning British monarch. She is the "Royal" in the Royal School of Church Music -- that is, she is the RSCM's Royal Patron. Her mother, of blessed memory, was the Patron after the death of George VI (who, until his death, was the Patron, as was his father). It is said that she frequently visited the RSCM Courses in Great Britain, to hang out with the choristers and especially the directors, with whom she would have a bit of sherry or other refreshment. And she was diligent in this work to the end of her long life. Since then, Elizabeth R. has been the Patron. She is not a great fan of classical music, but she takes the RSCM seriously and supports its work.

Long live the Queen!

In my Father's house are many mansions

Today was a housewarming party for my friends N., J. and their children. Being Monday, it is also my Sabbath. And it was a beautiful sunny day of late summer. I was unsure of the parking in their neighborhood, so I left my Honda in the staff parking behind the church and walked, about fifteen minutes through a fine older neighborhood. And I found the place, which is on a street that I had never visited; a quiet side street close the children's school – once I got within about a half-block, all I had to do was to follow my ears to the house where lots of children were playing in the backyard – what seemed to be about half of our Youth Choir, plus many others.

It was the sort of house that I love: nineteenth century, with old wavy glass in the windows, what looked like pine floors, low ceilings, especially in the tiny bedrooms upstairs – which can be reached only by way of a narrow steep staircase. Too many homes of Episcopalians are cold and sterile, everything perfectly placed and mostly new, more like a luxury hotel suite than any place where a person could actually live. This was Home, a place that had clearly been home to several generations and brimming with life.

On this day, it was full of children, tumbling up and down the stairs, through the rooms, in and out the back door into the yard. I mostly stood in a corner of the kitchen with my friend's father and watched, talking of the Greatest Generation and what has followed, and comparing it to the generation of the War Between the States, who did what they could to ensure that nothing like that would ever happen again. It may have been such a family that first built this house, back in the 1880's or thereabouts. And I am sure that the great-grandparents of these children, who would have been of that Great Generation, would be pleased that they have a Home in a quiet neighborhood where they can walk to school, and would say a prayer that they never see the dark days of Depression and War.

I pray that for them, too.

All in all, it made for a fine Sabbath of rest for me to be there among these people, the parents who could almost (by age) be my children, and their children, running about and enjoying the day. It reminded me more than a little of the fictional household of Arthur and Molly Weasley.

Walking back to the church, I considered something that has sometimes nagged at me about Heaven – how could it be a perfect place and the Home of which all others are but a shadow without children running around and playing in the yard? It would not be fair for those who die as children and make their first entrance into Heaven as such to remain so; they must come to their full flowering of maturity, as must we all. So would there be no children in that place? On this day, the answer came to me: We are the children. All of us, clear back to Adam and Eve. In that place, the child that remains tucked away inside of us can peek its head around the door and see wonders beyond imagining. And all of his friends, all there. And a whole universe to play in. And at the same time, each of us with the maturity and wisdom of the ancients. And a Father who is more playful than the most mischievous child; one need only read in the Book of Nature and contemplate the God who created puppies and kittens and lambs in the spring.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

Hammered Dulcimer and miracles

I awoke early this morning with the thought that the Hammered Dulcimer could be an instrument for one of my young friends to learn. I did some “research” – that is, I spent about a half-hour on YouTube – and passed the results on to her mother.

But in the process, I was hooked.

This is one of those magical instruments which has always left me in awe of its beauty, quicksilver lightness, and grace. Here is a music video by Caleb Shetler that captures some of its spirit.

My favorite performer has always been John McCutcheon: here is one his videos.

For old times' sake, here is McCutcheon again, back in 1981, showing in the first half that he can also play the guitar. The second half is at the hammered dulcimer.

Back in those days, I was able to hear him in live performance several times, because he lived not far away in the mountains of Southwest Virginia.

Not only is the sound beautiful, but so are the instruments. And they are in a price range that I could afford. I spent some time looking at the websites of some builders. Oh, I want one of these!

And I could learn to play it. Here is the first of a series of instructional videos by Jess Dickinson
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Uh... when exactly will I do this? What will I have to neglect to do it? Is it not enough to play the organ? And the piano, with the chance to play that gorgeous Steinway in church every Sunday morning and as often as I can during the week?

That is the rub. I must focus on what I do, and not dream of going off on a tangent.
But I can enjoy the dulcimer and those who play it.

And after the morning's detour, it was a miracle of grace to go upstairs and open up the hundred-year-old Pilcher. Somehow, it was more beautiful in its ancient and venerable grace than before, this King of Instruments, this instrument of Bach and Franck and Messiaen, this instrument of Holy Mother Church and handmaiden of the Divine Liturgy.

And tomorrow, I hope to work with an ensemble yet more beautiful and gracious and precious in the sight of the Lord – for He made these instruments, these choristers with their voices. It is a miracle to sing; it is a miracle to work with singers in a choir. It is the first Sunday of the season for the adult choir, and in the evening – Choral Evensong.

All music is a miracle. I was glad of the reminder this morning.

Reading Music

This year, the Youth Choir has only one new chorister, plus two older choristers who have returned after some years away. Last year, we had a much larger number, but whether one or a dozen, I must teach them to read music. I wish I could say that all of our choristers can sight-sing with ease; they don't. But I have learned to set the standard lower: I would like for them to be able to find the place where we are rehearsing, follow their part in a choral score, sing or speak the rhythms accurately (at least to the level of eighth notes, dotted quarter/eighth patterns, triplets, and occasional sixteenth note passages), and have the basic concept of solfege.

I often draw a chart on the board that outlines the basics:
- follow the notes
- rhythm
- pitch
- other stuff

Follow the Notes:
A chorister is not going to get far if he is not in the same place on the page as the rest of the choir. Or even on the same anthem! It continues to surprise me how often a young chorister can appear to be singing merrily along through ten minutes of work on an anthem, and upon closer examination, she is looking at a completely different anthem. We had one example of that yesterday form a second-year chorister: We were rehearsing the preces and responses by William Byrd; he had the responses by William Smith, bound in the same book. Granted, the text is the same, but I should have caught his mistake more quickly. And (ideally) so should he. So, the first part of following the notes is Finding the Place -- the right anthem, the right page, the right part of the page. It helps when the director is consistent in his announcements: "page six, the second system, third measure." Or as those influenced by Gerre Hancock would say, "Six, two, three," expecting the choir to find it from that - they can, and many choristers seem to enjoy the challenge of moving so quickly.

To this end, I pair a new chorister with a more experienced singer, perhaps one or two years older, or even much older (e.g., middle school or high school). They share one music folder. At first, the new singer watches the older one follow the notes with his finger, then (perhaps on the second or third time through a passage) they trade; the new singer has the folder and follows the notes, with the older singer watching and helping when she gets off-track.

The new choristers invariably want their own choir folder; it is one of the marks of Belonging to the Choir. And I have too often given it to them too early; I did this last year with some of the new singers, and it was in the long run a setback for them. Perhaps a month or so of rehearsals is right for folder-sharing; enough time so that the new singer can confidently follow notes and find the place.

What is "Follow the Notes?" I learned this from watching James Litton work with his probationers at Trinity Church, Princeton many years ago. I tell the choir to follow the notes; they put their finger on the first one, I play a passage (a short passage, perhaps one or two measures at first), they go from one note to the next. I stop suddenly, go around the room, and see if they have it. If not, I help them find it. Over time, the passages get longer, up to several pages sometimes -- but the limit then becomes the practical rehearsal value, for part of what we are doing is having the choir hear a new passage so that they can sing it.

And that is what we do. We follow the notes for a large enough chunk to work on, then we immediately sing it. But (usually) not with words, not yet. For we have more to do.

Rhythm
Rhythm notation is easier to learn than pitch notation, so we start there. I use the Kodaly rhythmic syllables: "Tah" for a quarter note, "Ti" for an eighth note. Longer durations are multiple "Tahs" -- a dotted half note would be "Ta - ah - ah" with an emphasis on each of the three beats.

The very first stage is aural. Especially if there are a lot of new singers (like last year), I will clap a short rhythm, speaking the "Tah's and Ti's", they repeat it back to me. That way, they learn what the durations mean. Then we would work from an example on the whiteboard, speaking/clapping it as I point to the notes. Then we would do the same from an anthem score -- often, I have taken my example from an anthem that we are learning -- speaking it (and following notes as we do so), then singing it on the Tah's and Ti's.

My goal is for the choir (and especially the new singers) to get to where we can sight-read the rhythms directly from the printed music, using the tah's and ti's and speaking the rhythms. They usually catch on to this quickly, within a few weeks or a couple of months.

Even much later, and with an adult choir (if they have learned the Tah's and Ti's), we will use the rhythmic syllables for sight-singing and rehearsal. I use them myself when I work on the congregational hymns, and sing them to myself in the liturgy as I play, especially when it is a situation where the congregation's sound lags behind the organ.

Another advantage of this work is that it breaks the common pattern where a new singer is following the words and not the notes. She must somehow learn to do both at once, but it helps to ignore the words at first.

Pitch
This is harder. Much harder.

Again, I use the Kodaly/Curwen solfege syllables, with movable Do: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol-La-Ti-Do.
These go much further into the past, back to Guido of Arezzo in the early middle ages. And they remain essential, in my opinion. Others differ -- there are other systems, such as singing by interval. But this is what I teach.

The foundation is in our warmups. We always do scales - a descending scale down from Do to the bottom, then a turnaround and back up to the top. This is because descending patterns are better vocally for developing ease with register shifts. And with the children, we use the hand-signs (depicted in this article on the Kodaly Method). It gives them a tactile experience to go with the singing, and gives me a way to "line out" melodies. After they become thoroughly comfortable with scales and the hand signs, I will change directions in the middle of the scale, go back and forth stepwise, and try to "trick" them. They enjoy this.

After that is comfortable, I introduce skips in the melody. I begin with something like this:
Do-Re-Mi -- Do-Mi
where they have just sung the target of the skip and it is fresh in their memory.

All of this is by sound, rote, and hand-signing. It must be transferred to the page.

The first step is to write a scale on the board, with the solfa names. We sing from the board as I point to the notes; we go back and forth up and down the scale, and maybe do skips. Later, I will write an example from the music we are learning on the board and we will do the same; I point, they sing. Immediately after, we look at the printed score and do the same passage. Often, this is a hymn tune, for they are excellent material for this sort of work.

If the choir gets far enough along with this, we will eventually try to sight-read hymn tunes or anthem material on the solfa syllables, or do a second reading on the solfas after we have read it with the rhythm syllables. Most years, we don't develop much skill with this, though we often reach the point where we can slowly puzzle out a new tune with solfas as a group, the most experienced singers obviously taking a lead and the younger ones following.

I wish we could get further.

Other Stuff

That is, everything else that a music score tells us:
- words (vital for a singer! And this includes the vast domain of diction, phrase shaping, etc.)
- dynamic and tempo markings
- articulations (e.g., accents, breath marks)
- background material (composer, author, etc.)

And much more.

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Reading Music is a lifelong journey, a path I continue to walk. I can do no more than help the young people start down the path. But I am obliged to do at least that much.

Many children's choirs (and adult choirs too) don't do this. It is slow, it takes rehearsal time (though not so much when you are using the songs and anthems they are working on as your teaching material). And most choirs are working toward a more immediate result -- that anthem next month, or the Christmas concert. I believe that this shortchanges the choristers.

Again, I wish we could do more. I feel badly when singers that I have trained audition for other groups -- for example, the voice trials at every summer's RSCM Course. I wish that they would be far superior to the singers from other choirs -- but that is Pride talking, and I must ignore it. And when the occasional person comes through the choir and goes on to be a professional musician, I wish that I could have given them a more thorough training. But at least they have the concepts, which may make their collegiate training a little easier.

One of my young people from years ago, now the principal flutist with a mid-level symphony in the southeast, came back from her first semester at college amazed that her flute teacher expected her and the other students to learn their parts in solfege. She thanked me for getting her started.

More broadly, and probably of more importance, I hope that I can help equip these young people to sing in church and community choirs throughout their life, and intelligently sing the Songs of Zion, the hymns of the church.

As a chalice cast of gold

Again, we sang one of the hymns by Thomas Troeger with tune by Carol Doran, “As a chalice cast of gold.”

The hymn was new to the congregation, so I used it for an improvised prelude at the choral service on the organ. It forms the A section of an A-B-A form, with the opening hymn, St. Denio (Immortal, invisible) as the B section. Here is the improvisation.

The artwork begins with a Salvador Dali painting. The second, “The Chalice” by Morris Graves (1910-2001), I found very striking – it is as if the chalice is filled with light, perhaps a galaxy. He was a painter in the Pacific Northwest, much influenced by Zen Buddhism and Asian art.

I will share with you also an example of how hymn playing and improvisation should be done: Healey Willan, at the church of St. Mary Magdalene, Toronto: Hymn (Ye watchers and ye holy ones) and concluding improvisation

He takes the hymn with a much slower tempo than any modern organist would dare attempt – that was apparently the style at his parish. There is another YouTube clip of Willan playing “Hail thee, festival day” as a processional, and it takes somewhat over twelve minutes. Most clergy would have a conniption.

But the improvisation... I would like to play like this when I grow up. Notice the intimate relation between the hymn tune and the improvisation, and the grandeur.

I gather from the comments to these clips that nowadays, hardly anyone attends St. Mary Magdalene. I wonder what has happened to them in the fifty years or so since Willan's time.

At a choir dinner on Saturday, one of the choristers said that she did not know any of the hymns we have sung over the past year. I hear similar comments frequently from people who move here from other churches, including Episcopal parishes – they don't know the hymns. It is a stark reminder that my musical work in this place is but a leaf in a windstorm, a storm that seems to be carrying away all that is worthwhile - including such things as these fine hymns by Troeger and Doran that I have sought to keep alive. I will soon be gone, and what will become of it all?

That is not my concern; I can only do my work, here and now.

I see that all things come to an end,
But your commandment has no bounds. (Psalm 119:96)

King David, and some loose ends

If the Daily Office Lectionary were to work straight through the Old Testament books, today would have been the second chapter of I Kings: chapter one was yesterday, chapter three is tomorrow. And chapter two is omitted, excepting the first four verses.

Longtime readers of the Music Box know that I love these untidy bits of Holy Scripture that the framers of the Lectionary thought it better to skip. Some of them would be boring as a spoken lesson in public liturgy (e.g., most of Leviticus, especially the details of the sacrifices and offerings, and the diagnosis of leprosy). Some of them would seem redundant, such as I and II Chronicles. I would submit that when the Scriptures see fit to repeat something, especially when there are differences in detail, it is not without reason (e.g., the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Some do not fit comfortably with modern liberal theology (e.g., Romans 1:26-27).

And some reflect badly on people, describing aspects of them that we would prefer to overlook. The second chapter of I Kings is one of these. “Now the days of David drew nigh that he should die, and he charged Solomon his son, saying...” (v. 1). David tells Solomon to see to it that some old scores are settled, and in such a manner that David will be guiltless, or at least appear so. (Any parallel with the death of Uriah the Hittite is purely a coincidence.)

The most troubling to me is David's instructions to see that Joab the son of Zeruiah (v. 5-6, and 28-34), who has been the captain of David's host all these many years, through good times and bad, does "not go down to the grave in peace" (v.6). There were many occasions when Joab's plain-spoken wisdom bailed David out (e.g., II Samuel 19:1-8, following the death of Absalom). David lists some reasons why Joab should die, but it seems thoroughly ungrateful to treat his friend this way – and worse, to not do the deed himself, but to leave it to Solomon so that he himself can remain guiltless.

Uh... is this the same David who wrote Psalm 23? And Psalm 51?

Yes, it is. And I believe that is the point, or one of the points. It would have been easy for those who brought the Books of the Kings into the form in which we have them (much of it perhaps in the time of Hezekiah, and some of it doubtless during or after the Exile) to gloss over these bits, just as the lectionary people have done in our time. But, guided (I believe) by the Holy Spirit, they felt it necessary to tell the truth. David was indeed capable of singing Psalm 23. He was able to dance before the LORD with all his might in utter abandonment to praise and adoration (II Samuel 6:12-16). He had the insight to be one of the greatest of Prophets as well as King, by writing Psalm 22 and many others about the Messiah who was to come – and it was he to whom God first made that promise explicit (II Samuel 7:1-17). And this same David was capable of doing some thoroughly horrible things.

And so are we.

I finish with two thoughts. I honor Joab the son of Zeruiah, as I have said. He is one of the heroes of the story, a thoroughly brave and loyal man of valor. And he died well. Knowing that Solomon was out to get him, he went to the Altar of God and took hold of it. At first, Solomon's hit-man, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada – who had been one of David's forty men of might (II Samuel 23:20-23), fighting alongside Joab for all these years – refused to obey his orders; he went back to Solomon, who told him to go ahead, even with Joab holding on to the horns of the Altar.

The people of that time viewed the Altar and the Holy Place as safe spaces – as we hope our churches are to this day. But I think that Joab did this just as much out of faith – if he was to die, he was going to do so while hanging on to his Lord with all his might. “And he was buried in his own house in the wilderness” (v. 34). I like that – Joab was the sort of man who would have wanted a house in the wilderness. Not Jerusalem; the wilderness. Out there where he could be on his own, and at peace.

And the second thought: This same David, whom our Lord was not ashamed to claim as ancestor, was “a man after God's own heart” (I Samuel 13:14, cf 16:7-13). In the modern synagogues, one can find the inscription: Know before whom you stand. More than almost anyone who has ever lived, David knew. Even when (and perhaps especially when) he didn't get it right, he knew.

Now these be the last words of David. David the son of Jesse said, and the man who was raised up on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel, said, The Spirit of the LORD spake by me, and his word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God. And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Although my house be not so with God [that is, I think, David knew that he had not always been just and how unworthy he was of the promises of God]; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire... (II Samuel 23:1-5, with my comment in italics, and emphasis at the end)

The Last Words of David, by Randall Thompson

There are many performances of this on YouTube; this one is very fine, and not viewed so many times as some of the others. By the Florida All-State Choir and Orchestra in 2011, it has the energy and commitment that high school singers can often bring to their work – and that us older musicians would do well to emulate.

Ye cannot serve the LORD

Choose you this day whom ye will serve... (Joshua 24:15)

The Old Testament Lesson for tomorrow's Holy Eucharist is Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18 (that is, in the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel-related track). It would be better had the framers of the lectionary included verses 3 through 13, wherein Joshua rehearses how God had cared for the people ever since he first called Abraham “and led him throughout all the land of Canaan.” He sent Moses and Aaron, and brought the people out of Egypt and through the Red Sea and through the wilderness. God said:

And I have given you a land for which ye did not labour, and cities which ye built not, and ye dwell in them; of the vineyards and oliveyards which ye planted not do ye eat. Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve... (v. 13-15a)

Joshua, by now an old man addressing the people for the last time, tells them that whatever they decide, “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” The people answer that “we will also serve the LORD, for he is our God” (v. 18), and there the appointed passage ends.

By ending here, the lectionary entirely misses the point, which is in the next verse:

And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins (v. 19).

This conundrum lies at the heart of the Old Testament; God calls a people to be his own, but we cannot live up to that vocation. All of the historical writings, from Exodus and Numbers right on through the Books of the Kings, and all of the prophets – from beginning to end they testify of this fact. We cannot serve the LORD. What are we to do? As St. Peter says in tomorrow's Gospel, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” (St. John 6:68).

The answer was foreseen throughout the Old Testament, right alongside the conundrum, for all of its writings speak of the anointed one who was to come, the Messiah. And we have it right here in chapter six of St. John:

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him who he hath sent. (v. 28-29)

That's it. What could be simpler? A child can do this – and as Jesus implies elsewhere, a child can probably do it better than the adults.

The theology is more fully worked out in the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans: we cannot be justified by our actions, even the best of them, but we are saved by faith, by the unmerited gift of God.

Through this grace, all is made right. The way is opened for us to be his people in truth, and for the cleansing of all things.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him. (Revelation 22:1-3)