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)

When in our music God is glorified

The hymns went very well today.

Here is our opening hymn: “When in our music God is glorified” to the tune Engelberg. I remind you that it is an “organist's ear” perspective; the microphone is so close the organ that it is louder than it would be out in the room, where the congregation was singing vigorously. I post it here as an illustration of some of what I try to do when playing hymns (Note that it is an “unlisted” video; please do not share this link).

Introduction and stanza 1: solo tune in RH, alto and tenor in LH, pedal. All of this is on the Great, with the tune an octave higher.

Stanza 2: Great, played as written. Even when there is a hymn where you are doing things to some of the stanzas, there should normally be some of the stanzas that are “normal,” with nothing beyond what is in the printed text. Otherwise, all of your other techniques will quickly become tiresome.

Stanza 3: Reduce stops, still played as written.

Stanza 4: Add the swell reed (box at one-half); drop out the melody (play alto, tenor, bass at first; gradually build up into a descant by the end, opening the swell box – essentially I played an ascending scale with the printed harmonies. I did this in an attempt to depict the text of this stanza.)

Stanza 5: Full organ; descanting: “Let every instrument be tuned for praise/Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise...” Some of this is simply the same as what I played in stanza 4, but an octave higher.

The artwork is a painting by Titian: “The Trinity in Glory,” 1554.


And here is the improvisation from the middle service. As I described in yesterday's post, it is based on the hymn by Thomas Troeger and Carol Doran, “With glad exuberant carolings,” which in turn follows closely today's Epistle, Ephesians 5:15-20. As a second tune, I used the psalter tune Rendez a Dieu, combining them more or less in a sonata form.

I have quoted Gerre Hancock to the effect that with improvisations, there are no wrong notes. That is not altogether true, and I committed at least two examples here, places that are obvious slips which break the melodic lines. But I have posted it nonetheless in hopes that there is some worthwhile music in it; I thought that on the whole it went well enough. The photo is of the night sky over Spruce Knob in West Virginia, a place I know well. It reminds me of the sky back on our farm – it is not such a “big” sky because of the surrounding hills, but like Spruce Knob, there are no towns of any size in the area and no light pollution.


What did not go so well was the Toccata on which I lavished so much work. And I played it twice; the first time was not good at all, so I told the people that I was going to give it a second try. It was better, but there were two measures near the end – the very spot that I identified as the most difficult and gave the most work – that were nowhere close to what RVW wrote.

Well, that is how it goes sometimes. With any of the performing arts, you work and prepare and pray, and it may go well – sometimes very well. But it may fall apart, too. In this case, it didn't – not quite, though it was very close to doing so.

Still, the week's musical work was not wasted; it has made me a little better as an organist, and perhaps as a person. And it may be that, in spite of its faults, it communicated with the people.

A week with RVW

The Lord's Day: August 9

I hope to play the Vaughan Williams prelude on Bryn Calfaria next Sunday, since we are singing that tune (“Lord, enthroned in heavenly splendor,” Hymn 307). With that, I have often played as postlude the setting of Hyfrydol from the same set of three preludes on Welsh tunes, but I did that not too many months ago, on a Sunday when we sang that tune. I check my handful of organ scores by RVW, and in “A Vaughan Williams Organ Album” (Oxford University Press) I light upon the “Toccata: St. David's Day.” I have wanted for many years to play it, but I had thought that I should save it for a Sunday close that Feast (March 1). But when that time comes every spring, I am unwilling to play the Toccata because it is too cheerful for Lent. I will not have many more opportunities, so now is the time. “Doesn't look too hard,” I muse. “But that metronome marking. It could be a problem.”

Since the choir room is occupied by a jazz drummer hammering away at patterns, I take the piece upstairs to the Steinway in the church and work out the fingering. That goes smoothly and is indeed not difficult at all; there is only one passage on the last page that is a head-scratcher. Next, I get out the metronome and set it at the printed marking, presumably from RVW himself: Allegro, half note equalling 112. I think through the piece at that speed; it is insane. Not only would I be unable to play it that fast, but I do not think that it would sound well. Everything would be too rushed.

So, I turn to YouTube, and find this recording by David Briggs: his tempo is half note at about 88, and is thoroughly convincing. That is good news; I am fairly confident that I can play it at that speed. But I wish I had more than one week to do it.

Tuesday: The Feast of St. Clare

I am determined to get some work done before staff meeting, and dig in on the First Workout, which I have described elsewhere. The danger with organ practice at this hour on Tuesdays is that I have to drag myself away from it for the meeting at 10 am, and sure enough, the hour finds me in the middle of things. “Just a few more minutes...” I mutter and work right up to the last moment.

I complete the first workout after the meeting. It is not going to be so easy as I had thought. No metronome work today, excepting the final playthrough at half tempo, quarter note equalling 88. I make many mistakes at what should be a tempo where I could play it cleanly after one workout.

Wednesday: The Feast of Florence Nightingale

One of my working principles is the “One Big Thing.” Each day after Matins and a second breakfast while I check email and the Net, I tackle the Big Thing, the one thing that is most important. Today it is most certainly the Toccata. I head upstairs and work at it until dinner, about three hours.

The second day's work is the time to use the metronome. I start with the half-page passage that will be the most difficult (about one page from the end), work through it with the modified rhythms. Some of this does not go well, so I work through the various rhythmic adjustments several times. Then at last, I try the half-page with the metronome: quarter note at about 120 (which would be half note at 60), then ratchet it up a click to 124, then 128. I continue playing the half-page until I reach a tempo where I cannot play it cleanly: quarter note at 152. I need 176, but it is not going to happen today. After what is always a mistake-filled playing (for, after all, I have pushed it to that point), I play it slowly to settle it in my mind: back to half tempo, quarter note at 88.

This half-page has taken a bit over one hour. I get off the bench, stretch, say a Little Office. Back to work: the next bit of music after that half page, and on to the end, working in the same manner. Each time after I have reached the stage of playing it with the metronome, I go back to that half page where I started and include it in the playthrough, adding each new section as I get to it. Once I have made it to the end, I work backwards, adding sections that come before the hard part – some of these are challenging, too. But all in all, it goes well enough for this stage in the week: I work almost all of it up to 168, just one marking short of my goal. To round off the day's work at the organ, I take my third break (with another Little Office. I love including these in my practice; why haven't I been doing this all these years?) and do the final playthrough at half tempo.

Friday: The Feast of Jonathan Daniels

He was a seminarian in the 1960's at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, attending the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Answering a call for helpers from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., he went to Selma, Alabama. While entering a store with three companions, they were approached by an angry white man with a gun; it became clear that he was going to shoot one of them, a sixteen-year old black girl. Daniels pushed her to the side in the scuffle and took the blast of the twelve-gauge shotgun himself, which killed him. He was twenty-six years old.


Crunch time. I work another four hours today on the Toccata. Parts of it are still not going well, but I have learned a lesson: this week I have pushed the tempo so hard that my rhythmic variations have become spastic in places, which is precisely what I should avoid. The point of the fingering, slow practice, and rhythmic practice is to avoid that very thing. Calm, controlled playing, no matter what the tempo might be.

Four hours is enough; I must work on other music for Sunday. I start the prelude on Bryn Calfaria, which I have played many times. A first workout takes about thirty minutes. It is good that there is no more, because I am pushing my physical limits; one of my fingers is beginning to hurt and my wrists are very tired. Mental limits, too – I am frazzled.

But it is good to spend this time with Mr. Vaughan Williams. The Bryn Calfaria is going well, and parts of it are profoundly moving. Sweat and tears are pouring down my face by the time I am done.

I hardly know how to thank him for what his music has meant to me. There is the Fantasia on a Theme of Tallis, which has brought me healing many times, and the Hodie, and the symphonic music. I cannot forget his work on the English Hymnal, bringing folk tunes such as Forest Green and Kingsfold into our hymnody, to say nothing of his own tunes, Sine nomine and King's Weston and the gentle Down Ampney. And there is the anthem “Lord, thou hast been our refuge.” Working with our choristers on this has been one of the chief events of my life in music; I tried to describe it here: October 23, 2011.

These organ pieces are on a smaller scale, but they too partake of the same vision. It is akin somewhat to what I sense in J. R. R. Tolkien, for both of them were rooted in an England that is no more. With JRRT, we see it in the Shire of the Hobbits and in characters such as old Bilbo, and Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin; with RVW, we hear it in "The Lark Ascending," or indeed on almost every page of his music.

Saturday: The Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin

Mary, the Mother who cared for Jesus, now cares with maternal affection and pain for this wounded world. Just as her pierced heart mourned the death of Jesus, so now she grieves for the sufferings of the crucified poor and for the creatures of this world laid waste by human power. Completely transfigured, she now lives with Jesus, and all creatures sing of her fairness. She is the Woman, “clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1). Carried up into heaven, she is the Mother and Queen of all creation. In her glorified body, together with the Risen Christ, part of creation has reached the fullness of its beauty. She treasures the entire life of Jesus in her heart (cf. Lk 2:19,51), and now understands the meaning of all things. Hence, we can ask her to enable us to look at this world with eyes of wisdom. (Francis I: Encyclical Letter “Laudato si'”, paragraph 241)

Yesterday's work has borne fruit; the Toccata goes well this morning; ninety minutes and I am content to lay it aside for tomorrow. Bryn Calfaria is solid too, very secure after a second workout.

But there is much more: a middle service improvisation, songs and hymns. And not just any songs: tomorrow's Epistle includes the great mandate for music in the life of Holy Mother Church:

Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:17-20)

For this, we are singing Fred Pratt Green's hymn “When in our music God is glorified” with the tune Engelberg by RVW's teacher, C. V. Stanford; George Herbert's poem “Let all the world in every corner sing,” with the tune Augustine by my teacher Erik Routley; and a hymn by Thomas Troeger and Carol Doran, “With glad exuberant carolings,” which in some ways is the best of all. It is this last that I plan to use as the heart of my improvisation, paired with the Psalter tune Rendez a Dieu (“Father, we thank thee who hast planted”). I work on these tunes for a couple of hours, downstairs on the brown upright piano outside my office door.

It has been a full week, and I have neglected much else for the sake of tomorrow's music. In the middle, struggling with the rhythmic variations and metronome on the Toccata, I lost sight of why I am doing this: today's work on the hymns made it clear, and showed me why I had ended up with the Toccata in the first place, by “what some would call chance.”

How often, making music, we have found
a new dimension in the world of sound,
as worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!

So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
in faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
borne witness to the truth in every tongue,
Alleluia!

(Fred Pratt Green: copyright © 1972, Hope Publishing Co.)

Let all who are thirsty come

Here is my piano improvisation from Sunday, based on the Taizé song “Let all who are thirsty, come.” One of the concepts that I learned from the Arnold Schoenberg book “Fundamentals of Musical Composition” was how important it is to keep the accompaniment figuration pretty much the same rather than changing from one thing to another. It contributes greatly to the unity of the piece. I may have overdone it in this one, but at least it is clear.

The photographs in the clip are from a sacred place that I was able to visit when I lived in Tennessee: the Red Clay State Park. It is located in the far southeast corner of the state near the borders with Alabama and Georgia, and it was the capital (if there was such a thing) of the Cherokee Nation, the place where they held their councils. It was here that they learned from the U.S. Government that they would be removed to what is now Oklahoma so that their lands could be taken by white settlers, and their hills dug up for gold and gemstones. And it was from here that they departed on the Trail of Tears.

In my opinion, the best response to this injustice came from the Honorable David Crockett, congressman from Tennessee. He fought Andrew Jackson and public opinion every step of the way on the Indian Removal Act, and when it was all over, he lost his seat because his views were so unpopular with the voters. When he got back to Tennessee, he said:

I told the people of my district that I would serve them as faithfully as I had done; but if not, they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.

And so he did, famously meeting his end at the Alamo in 1836. One eyewitness account (from Ben, a slave) was that his body was surrounded by “no less than sixteen Mexican corpses.”


But the spring at Red Clay remains, and to this day it is palpably sacred, what some would call a “thin place” where one can more readily sense the Holy. There is a sense in which such a place is a sign of the springs of living water of which Our Lord spoke in the sixth chapter of St. John.

Let all who are thirsty come,
Let all who wish receive the water of life freely.
Amen, come, Lord Jesus.
(Taizé song, based on Scriptural texts)