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.