Vierne, Wesley, and Sunday Surprises

When I was getting started at the organ many years ago, Martha L. pointed me in good directions: the American Guild of Organists, and the annual Presbyterian Conference on Worship and Music at the Montreat conference center. More than that, she and her family welcomed me as a young friend, a frequent dinner guest, and helped me in many ways for all of the time I lived in that area. Years later when I was organist/director of a church a few hours’ drive from her, she used to sometimes pick up my mother on the way and bring her down for the Sunday morning service and a visit.

She has remained one of my best friends, though our paths have since led in different directions and we are not regularly in touch – much more my fault than hers.

She has asked that I play the Vierne Final at her funeral. I will certainly do this, in regard for her friendship.

I first heard this at one of the Montreat conferences, in her company, played splendidly by Marilyn Keiser, who was the organist that year. I learned the piece myself, and played it often for many years.

But not recently, not in close to twenty years, and definitely not on the Pilcher, which is not well suited to the piece. Still, I wanted to have it in readiness for the day when I will need to play it for Martha and her family. It needed a careful fingering, and it needed to be almost entirely re-learned.

At the Vigil, it went well. I am hesitant to post it on YouTube because there are thousands of versions already there, but perhaps my version can be an example of making it work on an unlikely instrument. I am encouraged by the second photograph in the clip, which is Vierne playing an instrument similar in size to our little Pilcher. The first photo would be a more suitable instrument for this music; I think it is the Cavaille-Coll at Notre Dame de Paris, where he was organist from 1900 to his death in 1937. Here is the clip.

The anthem for the Vigil was “Blessed be the God and Father” by Samuel Sebastian Wesley. We sang this at last summer’s RSCM Course; we sang it a few years ago at Judith’s ordination; and it has been one of my favorites for many years. I had not considered it an Easter anthem until I thought about the text: of course it is!

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. (I Peter 1:3)

Listening to the recording, it is not so good as I had thought at the time, not as good as we did it at the RSCM Course. But it is still very good, perhaps as good as we can do it with the choir watching their organist/conductor through a little mirror. Here it is.

There is a whopper of a mistake by the organist (me) at the transition to the final section, the big B flat dominant seventh chord. I played it on the Swell instead of the Great! Dumb, unforced error. I made the best of it and played the chord again on the Great, and off we went with the fughetta: “The Word of the Lord endureth forever.”

************
I do not like Easter Day. No, that is not quite true, for I love Easter Matins, when we get Psalms 148, 149, and 150, the “Christ our Passover” invitatory, the return of the Te Deum, and the Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John. And, above almost any other service of the year, Easter Evensong, when we get the account of the Road to Emmaus, and one can at last have a relaxed and prayerful time, for the first time since Last Epiphany.

But the three morning Eucharists? Not so much. It is more a matter of getting through them without disaster.

On this one Sunday of the year, I play hymns for the 7:45 Eucharist, which is normally a spoken “Eight O’Clock” service. I took communion with these people, whom I love and rarely see.

And I found myself with an unexpected bit of Music. Instead of the service bumping up against the 9:00, there was almost a half-hour in between. Enough time for a prelude, which I had not planned to play. I was at the organ, to more properly play the opening hymn (Jesus Christ is risen today), so I improvised on it. It is better if I prepare for improvisations, as I have described in these pages, but one of the reasons for preparing improvisations is to develop enough facility to play when one is not prepared, beyond Knowing the Tune (and I certainly know Easter Hymn, the tune for Jesus Christ is risen today). That went well, and I found myself enjoying the service after all – as with the Vigil, I was drawn into it in spite of myself. Here, it was the people. I looked out and saw many of our choristers and their families, including some who are no longer in the choir and who rarely come to church. And it was my privilege to help them sing the Easter hymns and rejoice in the resurrection of our mighty Lord and God.

At the 11:00, there came the moment I had feared – something had dropped between the cracks. The Eucharistic Prayer was underway, and I saw that I did not have the accompaniment for the Fraction Anthem, a setting of “Christ our Passover” by Jeffrey Rickard. I knew exactly where it was – in the stack of music from the Great Vigil (where we had sung it), sitting on my clavichord downstairs. But I was boxed in at the organ, with violoncello and bass to my left, and could go downstairs only by walking across the chancel in front of the Altar, with Eucharistic Prayer in full flight. And there was probably not time for that. The melody was in the bulletin, so I harmonized it from that.

There were other interesting moments, such as discovering that I was playing “The strife is o’er” in D major while the brass had it in E flat – we ran out of time in the warmup and did not run that one. I played merrily along, sensing only that things were slightly out of round, while the brass players whispered among themselves and managed to transpose their parts for the final two stanzas. It was ultimately my mistake, not only for not rehearsing it, but for my forgetting that I had done the parts that way to put it in a more graceful key for brass, intending to play it in E flat at the organ.

We sang the hymns, we finished (as always) with the congregation singing the Hallelujah Chorus, and it was Done.


Footnotes (Wednesday morning):
This is the four hundred and first post at the Music Box. There have been some 39,000 page views, which surprises me. I send my grateful thanks to those of you who read these pages, and prayers for God’s blessings.

Another thing dropped through the cracks – the RSCM scholarship check. I had it in hand on Maundy Thursday, but it got buried on my desk (despite my work last Wednesday to sort things into priorities). And the deadline of April 1 seemed sufficiently distant to not worry too much about it – until the registrar’s e-mail showed up this morning reminding people of the deadline. I took the check to the Mailboxes place (the USPS having closed its downtown office) to see about next day delivery. That would be somewhere over $40. I settled for Priority Mail, with expected delivery on April 1, not guaranteed. That was $8.95, money that I would have saved if I had been more diligent.

I hope there are no more things of this sort Out There. I did get the quarterly ASCAP report in, and I am reasonably prepared for tonight’s rehearsals. Things are more or less back to normal.

But it is a “new normal,” perhaps. It may be that some of the disciplines I have learned this Lent (mostly from William Law) might carry over. It may be that the ten pounds I have lost since Shrove Tuesday might mostly stay off – eating a bag of Matt’s Chocolate Chip Cookies in three days is not a good start on that, but we shall see.

It may be that despite all appearances, our Lord Christ is loose in the world, making all things new. [a thank-you to Fr. Tim for this idea, in his Easter sermon]:

... there’s one more thing we need to say about what the resurrection means to us: it means that Jesus is on the loose.

They tried to nail Jesus down, but they couldn’t do it. Love is stronger than death. The power of God is stronger than all the hatred of human beings. And the risen Jesus has not abandoned us; he is still at work in the lives of people who follow him.
But you can’t summon him up like a genie in a bottle. He’s not under our control, so that we can produce him like a conjuror’s trick. When we read the stories of the risen Jesus in the gospels and the Book of Acts, it’s quite clear that no one really knew when he was going to show up. People could call on his name, but they could not make him answer. He was the one who was going to take the initiative. He was the one who would decide what he was going to do.

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.

the Three Days

Maundy Thursday
Time to practice. I begin with two hours on the Vierne, a solid workout.
There is little more than that; an hour or so on tonight’s music. The “D” in the middle of the pedalboard is not working; this will be a problem for a large piece in D major, to say nothing of the hymns and other music. But there is no time for it today; I must play the organ as it is.

All too soon, the day is done. The choir arrives, we begin. As I had hoped, the Bruckner Pange lingua does have Connection – but it also has some shaky intonation. Connection and Accuracy – I have emphasized the one at the expense of the other. Good choral singing must have both. It is hard – one rarely hears both at the same time, even from the best of choirs. We did better with the Duruflé Tantum ergo, immediately following: here is the YouTube link.

This night is the most complex of the services for the choir: four anthems. We finish with a procession back to the darkened church for the Stripping of the Altar. The choir clusters tightly together in the entrance (where there is enough light to see our scores), and we chant Psalm 22.

Good Friday
The day begins with the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified at 7 am, led by my friend Fr. H. He is a retired priest, and the service is very much of the Old School. The Solemn Collects, Confession, Lord’s Prayer, and distribution of the reserved Sacrament. Following that, I am the officiant for Matins and Litany. A visitor joins us, a man in town on business who saw our service list on the website.

And then, to work. I must do something about that D in the pedals. As with much organ work (at least on mechanical action instruments), the diagnosis of a “dead” note is fairly straightforward – it almost has to be a failure somewhere in the linkage between key and pallet (in the windchest, under the pipes). And there it is – a locknut that has slipped off the pallet pulldown wire.

And as with much organ work, figuring out how to get to the thing and fix it is very much the harder part. I remove some things, lay on my belly, reach through the other trackers, and finally get the tiny screwdriver onto the locking screw with one hand while holding the nut in place with the other. This was after several failures (the nut dropping to the floor and again needing to be fished out with tweezers), when I learned a lesson: tighten the locking screw a little at a time until there is a friction fit on the wire, then push it up the wire into position. The friction helps keep it in place long enough to fully tighten it. All told (counting diagnosis, removing and replacing parts, doing the little repair): close to two hours. But I console myself that getting a repairman here on Good Friday or Holy Saturday would be pretty much impossible, not to mention expensive. And I learned a little something about organ repair.

While I am working, one of the two men I still support with alms shows up. He has spent the night in jail, and we talk about it for a while – “I couldn’t sleep, so I prayed all night,” he said. I think of Paul and Silas, and how much better of a Christian this fellow is, for all his faults, than I am.

I get the Pilcher buttoned up just in time to be out of the way for the midday Good Friday service. I am not involved in this, so I go downstairs. The other of my two friends comes by; he is hungry, and not looking well. I take him to the buffet a block from the church and buy him some soup with crackers and bread – he currently has no teeth so that is about all that he can eat without difficulty. He wants me to stay and eat with him. No, not now. Not during the Three Hours. We pray, and I go back to the church.

The issue that I must resolve this afternoon when the organ is not available to me for practice is what to play for next Sunday’s choral evensong. I have the perfect piece, and pencilled it into my planning notebook months ago – “The Two Walls of Water,” from the Messiaen Livre du Saint Sacrement. There could be no more perfect fit to the First Lesson, which is Exodus 14:5-22, which ends with that very thought:

And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

I have much desired to learn this; it is almost the last of the larger movements in the Livre that I have not played. But it is twenty pages, much of it highly virtuosic. If I had found the time to work on it through the last year, I could do it. But not in one week, starting from scratch. I play a couple of pages and thoroughly convince myself of that.

Here is a fine performance by Olivier Latry.

I would say “Next Time,” but it would require the confluence of Second Sunday of Easter, Daily Office Year Two, with the First Sunday of the month. That has happened only once before in my tenure, in 2002.

I scratch through the title, and insert a replacement: the Pièce d’Orgue by Bach. That I can (hopefully) brush up in a week. Here is the link to where I played it last year at the Great Vigil.


Holy Saturday
I am again the officiant for the little services in the morning, attended only by Fr. H., his wife Jean, and me: Matins, and the Liturgy of the Day (BCP p. 283). After that, I spend all of the day on the bench, as much as I can physically take. I sing Evensong in my office as the sun sets, and it is time.

We have a longer-than-usual warmup, but it is not enough; we barely touch the Psalmody which is so much a part of the Great Vigil. Much of the time is spent on the logistics, which are complex.

My heart is not in it. I just want to get through it and be done.
But the liturgy is stronger than that: by the time the parish hall is filled with the candlelight, all of it finding its source from the Paschal Candle, and the Deacon, my friend Judith, is singing the Exsultet, I am carried away.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

After the Nine Lessons and their Psalmody, the congregation processes toward the Church for the Eucharist. I take the shortcut to be at the organ. The Rector desires instrumental music as the congregation enters the brightly-lit church after the announcement that “The Lord is risen indeed,” and my music from last year (Bach: Christ lag ins Todes Banden) was too short. So I am playing some Messiaen: “The resurrection of Christ.”

I have wondered how this will go; it is very loud, and not as accessible to the listener as the Bach.

It is magnificent. The choir is ringing handbells throughout, and the combination of Messiaen and bells is overpowering. Here is the YouTube link, but it barely captures how it was.

The choir sings, the Eucharist is good, I play the Vierne, and we are done.
I will hopefully have a bit more to say about these things, but not today.

the voice of the Church

Wednesday of Holy Week
(9 am) I need to practice. But the rehearsal with the brass quintet is at noon, and I must have Parts to set before them.

And many of them are buried somewhere on my desk. Now the impending chaos that comes from allowing things to pile up confronts me. I spend the first half-hour and more digging through the papers, putting some in a pile to do Later (that is, next week. High in this stack are various matters relating to the RSCM Course this summer), others in a pile to do Real Soon Now (some of it before tonight’s rehearsals), and a depressingly large pile of things that are Not Important, and Not Urgent. They are mostly things that people have given me to read, and I need somehow to honor their intent. But not now.

Some of the most important of the brass Parts lie at the very bottom of the pile, along with the elusive list of the five players’ names and instruments – I had the names in my head, but incorrectly lined up with their instruments. I adjust the church bulletin, thankful to catch this in time.

The big part of this work, now that I have found them, is adding tuba parts to the things that were arranged for quartet, not quintet, most of all the anthem. I scribble something out, finishing at 11:40. Time to go upstairs for the rehearsal.

It is in this manner that a great deal of composing and arranging is done – scribbling something out at the last possible moment. And some of the work done in such a manner is of the highest order. Not mine; if it is adequate, I will be content.

(later)
The brass rehearsal goes well, finishing at 12:30 on the dot. It is a good group, all the better because they play regularly together – they are the graduate student brass quintet of the local university. The tuba player gives me a "thumbs up" on my scribbled parts.

The afternoon is devoted to setup and preparation for the choral rehearsals: youth choir at 4:15, adult choirs at 7:00. I put the adult music in order and take it upstairs to the church, make my plans for the youth choir, set up the room, and it is 4:00.

“Sing, don’t Talk.”
But today some Talking is in order: review of the Proper Liturgies for Holy Week from the BCP, review of the difference between Proper and Ordinary, some final discussion of the Lent Madness, which has occupied us (perhaps too much) during Lent. For today is the Finals: Julian of Norwich vs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I have quotes from each of them to read.

And a lot of singing: their project for April 10 is the conclusion of Handel’s Messiah – Worthy is the Lamb, Blessing and Honor, and the Amen. This is a tall order for a choir at our level, but the afternoon’s work goes well. We have a group of trebles, all around ten or eleven years old, who have grown into choristers who can take something like the Handel and sing it with strong Connection and delight. It is an honor to work with this choir.

The evening’s adult rehearsal goes well; I stay on task, though I talk a little too much, reading them Bonhoeffer quotes about Singing. We lay the foundation for next Sunday’s Evensong, review the music for Saturday night and Sunday, then work with the smaller group on the Maundy Thursday music and liturgy. They had volunteered to stay past our 9:00 dismissal for extra work, and I take them up on it. I hope that the extra half-hour will solidify the Thursday anthems – the one that is shakiest is the Duruflé Tantum ergo. Some of this group’s singing equals or even surpasses the level of Connection that I had heard and seen in those ten-year-old trebles, especially on the Bruckner Pange lingua. Without that sort of all-out conviction, of connection to the Music, Bruckner’s choral music (or for that matter, his orchestral music) fails, for when we sing it well, we are mirroring the love of God that was in his simple and pure heart. But here also, there is the transition at the page turn… it remains shaky.

No organ practice today, for all that I desired it. That leaves a lot of work for tomorrow.

Bonhoeffer, from his book “Christian Community, or Life Together”:

It is the voice of the Church that is heard in singing together. It is not you that sings, it is the Church that is singing, and you, as a member of the Church, may share in its song. Thus all singing together that is right must serve to widen our spiritual horizon, make us see our little company as a member of the great Christian Church on earth, and help us willingly and gladly to join our singing, be it feeble or good, to the song of the Church…

The more we sing, the more joy we will derive from it, but, above all, the more devotion and discipline and joy we put into our singing, the richer will be the blessing that will come to the whole life of the fellowship from singing together.

Within our darkest night

Within our darkest night,
you kindle the fire that never dies away.
(Taizé song)

Tuesday of Holy Week:
In my years of church music I had played only one Taizé service. This evening was my second.

We use Taizé music during communion at our 9:00 service. I have attended Taizé services, memorably one at the Hymn Society Conference in Maryville, Tennessee decades ago, where Bob Batastini was introducing the songs and prayers of Taizé to American church musicians and clergy. Each night that week for the end of day, we crowded into the little chapel, many of us standing in the aisles and back, singing these songs, all of them new to me. It was there, from Batastini, that I learned how important the dynamics are to this music – it is not all slow and soft, as some musicians seem to think. Within most of the songs individually, there is an ebb and flow of dynamic – within the little eight or sixteen bar structure, and on the larger scale as the song repeats and the sound grows and softens and (perhaps) grows again and finally ends.

More recently, I was at a memorable Taizé service at the 2013 Hymn Society Conference (Richmond, Virginia). I wrote of it here.

Should the coming decades bring what I expect, the quiet witness of these Brothers [of Taizé], just Brother Roger at first and then for many years fewer than ten of them, stands as a model for those facing times of famine, death, tumult and war. No matter what the circumstances, it is always possible to live the Christian life in community, and to serve as Christ's hands in the healing of the nations.

More specifically, we church musicians must keep the Taizé songs and their manner of worship in mind. There is more strength to these songs, these prayers, than one might think.

This night, this Tuesday of Holy Week 2016, will stand in my memory alongside those other Taizé nights.

Partly, it was the company assembled: twelve of us, all of them people I know and love. Partly, it was the context: the Islamic State attack in Brussels was on the minds of many, the depressing spectacle of the U.S. electoral season with its attendant fears for the future of our country on others – my Intention as I lit a small candle during the silence was for my little godchild and student, who was among those present, that Christ might be with her whatever comes her way. And we gathered during Holy Week, when it is most clearly seen that Christ walks before us into every suffering, every darkness.

And partly, we made Real Music. The songs went as well as could be with a small group, for many of the twelve were good singers – not just vocally, but in terms of singing “with the spirit and with the understanding also.” The space was as it should be for a Taizé service, being made so by my friend and fellow-laborer John, with candles and a cross, elegance and beauty. There were readings and prayers and silences, all guided by my friend Raisin, whose understanding of this sort of liturgy is profound.

If I had one wish, it would have been that the songs and silences and prayers would have been longer. We sang and prayed for an hour; it seemed but a few minutes, and it was difficult to leave any of the songs. The best I could tell, every one of them achieved the goal that is behind Taizé singing – song as an icon, a window into the Eternal.

One of the twelve persons, who arrived late, said afterwards “We should do a lot more of this. Maybe every week.” No. This night, this confluence of time and space and persons, was enough, at least for now.


In closing, I note that two of the sixty musical bits that now lie before me are Taizé songs:

Stay with me, remain here with me.
Watch and pray.

This will be sung in procession Thursday night, just before Psalm 22 and the Stripping of the Altar.

And the other: Laudate Dominum. In its place – communion during the Great Vigil of Easter, and again at the 9:00 service on Easter Day – it says what must be said, and what in this parish could be said by no other song.

Laudate Dominum, omnes gentes.
Alleluia.

Holy Week 2016: Part One

Saturday: The Feast of St. Joseph

This year, the Passion and Resurrection are framed by the Incarnation: St. Joseph on the eve of Holy Week, and the Annunciation (March 25), transferred to the first open day after the Octave of Easter.

It is, of course, a Day of Preparation. Organ practice, lots of it. I made it through solid Workouts on the two big pieces for the week: the Samuel Barber Variations on “Wondrous Love” for Maundy Thursday, and the Final from the first symphony of Louis Vierne. More on that as the week progresses.

The Sunday of the Passion: Palm Sunday

A guest at Matins: a serious young man, perhaps in his twenties. He came in during the First Lesson, having been waiting for us in the Church – Sunday Matins is in the upstairs Chapel, because we were evicted from the Church by the previous Rector; our presence was disturbing to those who were arriving for the 7:45 Eucharist. I called out page numbers as we proceeded through the Office, but it was quickly clear that our guest was as thoroughly comfortable with Rite One Morning Prayer as Fr. H. (one of our retired priests) and I. It was good to have him there, and it may well have been as good for him to find a community of prayer as it was for the two of us, both old and nearing the end of our days, to have the company of a young man who cares about the things that so few consider to be worth their time.

I should know better. “The voice of prayer is never silent…” Prayer at morning and evening has been continuous in one form or another since the days of Moses, and probably before – perhaps all the way back to when the Lord God walked in the Garden in the cool of the day, seeking the company of the Man and Woman whom he had made. Who am I to think that it could die away when Fr. H. and I are gone from this life?

There have never been many who have been regular with the Daily Office. But there have, and ever shall be, always a few.

***

A lesson in improvisation: stay in the home key if the duration is uncertain.

This year, for the first time I was to “play something” as the people entered the church, having processed with palms around the block – formerly, we continued to sing. At the 9:00 service, it went well enough; at 11:00 on the organ and with a larger congregation, I essayed a modulation to the dominant. About the time I got well into that, the last of the procession came through the door, perhaps two or three minutes sooner than I had estimated. I rushed back to the tonic key, but did not round off the form satisfactorily.

Gerre Hancock recommends for such situations that one alternate phrases in an open-ended pattern (with the implication of staying in the home key): A, then B and return of A, then B and C, and return of B; C and D, and return of C, and so on until the liturgical action is complete (e.g., communion, or today’s procession). I was attempting a set of variations, which would also work – if I had stayed in the tonic.

****

Yoga and Psalmody: This afternoon was the final session of our Lenten Yoga class, taught by my friend and fellow-laborer Nora. I am an entire novice at this ancient practice, though I have some experience with the Alexander Technique and with Pilates, which (I find) have points of contact with Yoga.

Probably the most important shared concept is Breath, and the integration of Breath and Movement. This concept is shared with another ancient practice: Plainsong Psalmody. I went straight from the Yoga class to Evensong, up in the church, and I found my awareness of the Breath at the asterisk much deepened by what I had just done.

I must tell this to the choir on Wednesday, especially the Youth Choir. They follow my lead in taking a long break at the half-verse asterisk – if they don’t, I correct them until they do – but I suspect that they have no idea why it matters. It is a little silent centering of heart and spirit, right there in the middle of every psalm verse. It will help if they inhale slowly through the entire length of the pause, center the breath low in the abdomen, and do all of this with spiritual intention.

When we arrive at the Great Vigil in six days, the adult choir has about forty minutes of psalmody during the Office of Lessons, in the darkness by candlelight. If we could somehow Breathe with intention at all of those half-verses – hundreds of them, probably -- I suspect that we would be transformed.

***

The evening was devoted to next Sunday’s bulletins, and this Wednesday’s rehearsal plan. It will be a complex rehearsal: the first section will be devoted to the First Sunday Evensong (April 3, the Second Sunday of Easter). Some of the singers are dismissed, then we continue with work on the Great Vigil and Sunday morning; then, more of the singers are dismissed and a smaller group rehearses for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

It took longer to prepare a workable plan than the two hours that it will take to have the rehearsal. I had to go back several times and add little things that we must rehearse on Wednesday because there will be no time on Sunday morning, or Saturday evening.

All told, I am involved in sixty musical items, large and small, between the beginning of Maundy Thursday and the end of the 11:00 service on Easter Day, and the choir needs at least some rehearsal on the majority of them. That is what makes this Wednesday’s rehearsal harder than usual to plan.

The list of sixty items does not include the Youth Choir rehearsal on Wednesday – they are focusing on the next time they sing, which is April 10 – nor the Taize service on Tuesday – nor the four additional Evensong items that will be in the Wednesday evening rehearsal – nor (thankfully) a prelude and postlude for Sunday morning; the brass quintet will do that.

For now, I am in fairly good shape in terms of practicing, thanks to hard work at the organ on Friday and Saturday. It is the organizational part that is on the edge of slipping into chaos. There may be some important things that I overlook until the moment they are needed., and there are certainly a great many small (and a few not-so-small) tasks that must all be completed in due time.

But I don’t need all sixty musical items at once; we can (and must) take One Service at a Time. The most complex of them is the Great Vigil, with twenty-one items; the simplest is Good Friday, with three hymns and a psalm.

When I feel overworked, I consider J. S. Bach, who worked much harder, and at a supremely high level. His example urges me onward, to do what I can in my time and place.

*****

I will attempt to write something here in the Music Box each day of this Week, and perhaps the Octave of Easter as well. In the meantime, here are a couple of YouTube clips from recent weeks.

First, an anthem: “When all else is gone.” The text by Shirley Erena Murray did not have a tune in her book “Touch the earth lightly” and I wanted very much for it to be sung on the appropriate Sunday as a response to I Corinthians 13. The only way for that to happen was for me to write something. It is again appropriate this week, the time “when all else is gone.”

when our faith is gone, when hope is vain,
love moves the stone,
love, love alone.
(Shirley Erena Murray, copyright © 2008)

Artwork: The deposition of Christ in the sepulchure (El Greco, c. 1575)


And an organ piece: this was the Liszt that I played for the midday Lenten recital at the Congregational church: here is the link. I should say a bit more about this music: here are part of my program notes from the concert.

Variations on “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” Franz LISZT (1811-86)

Friend of Berlioz, Chopin, Paganini, von Bulow, Wagner, Bruckner… at the center of the most radical wing of German music of the mid-nineteenth century… adored by audiences across Europe and constantly surrounded by admirers… champion of new music and supporter of young composers, through his efforts making possible the first productions of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin… generous supporter of those in need, playing many of his recitals as benefits for the poor or for disaster relief… one of the greatest pianists of all time… a Roman Catholic of deep and mystical leanings who contemplated the priesthood as a young man and turned again to the Church in his later years… This was Franz Liszt, a musician of great complexity and genius.

The Variations date from a period of inner turmoil and grief. Liszt had departed Weimar in unhappy circumstances, settling in Rome where his long-time mistress, the Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, had come in hopes of gaining a divorce or annulment from the Roman Catholic authorities; by this time, it was becoming clear that this was a hopeless effort. His son Daniel had died in 1859; his daughter Blandina died in childbirth in 1862, the most immediate impulse behind the Variations. About this time (1863), Liszt moved into a monastic cell at the Oratorio della Madonna di Rosario in Rome and took holy orders.

The Variations are built on the bass line of the first chorus of Bach’s Cantata 12, “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” – “Tears, complaints, cares, fear, anguish, and distress are the bitter bread of Christians.” Bach later used the same bass line as the ostinato of the Crucifixus from the B Minor Mass. Liszt develops this ostinato through a series of thirty increasingly free variations. After the final variation builds through a series of diminished seventh chords to a climax, a recitative leads to the conclusion, the chorale which closes Cantata 12: “Was Gott tut, daß ist wohlgetan” (“What God does is well-done”).

Artwork: Christ on the Mount of Olives, and the Angel with the Cup of Suffering (Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, c. 1750)

Christ being nailed to the Cross (Albrecht Dürer, 1511)

Christ carrying the Cross (El Greco, c. 1578)

A Serious Call

A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (William Law)

“I took it up expecting to find it a dull book, and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an over-match for me, and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of religious inquiry” (Samuel Johnson)

That was sufficient recommendation for me. Anything that is “quite an over-match” to Johnson is worthy of notice.

Thus, I have been reading Law during this Lent, and a better choice for the season could hardly be found. Given the laxity of the modern Episcopal Church, it is well to be reminded that such a voice as Law’s is integral to the Anglican heritage: Discipline. Severity, even. We must take the Christian life seriously, or not take it up at all.

[John] Keble once, before parting from [his friend Froude], seemed to have something on his mind which he wanted to say, but shrank from saying. At last, while waiting, I think, for a coach, he said to him before partings: “Froude, you said one day that Law’s Serious Call was a clever (or pretty, I forget which) book; it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement would be a pretty sight.” [quote taken from the Introduction, by C. Bigg (1899)]

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The best way for anyone to know how much he ought to aspire after holiness, is to consider, not how much will make his present life easy, but to ask himself, how much he thinks will make him easy at the hour of death.

Law is very much a son of his age, the early eighteenth century, a more rational time than ours. Passage after passage brought the Wesleys to mind as a corrective (they knew Law, and were much influenced by him.) Law is incomplete until the “heart is strangely warmed,” as happened to John and Charles, for the Christian life cannot in the last analysis be reduced so thoroughly to rational prescriptions.

But there are times when Rational Prescriptions are precisely what are needed.

This is a book that I want to revisit when, God willing, I attain Honorable Retirement. Throughout, Law speaks primarily to persons of leisure. He sees such a state as the opportunity to devote oneself entirely to prayer and good works:

[Since] you are no laborer, or tradesman, you are neither merchant nor soldier; consider yourself, therefore, as placed in a state in some degree like that of good Angels who are sent into the world as ministering spirits, for the general good of mankind, to assist, protect, and minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. For the more you are free from the common necessities of men, the more you are to imitate the higher perfections of Angels.

But until then,

… all Christians are to live wholly unto God in every state and condition, doing the work of their common calling in such a manner, and for such ends, as to make it a part of their devotion or service to God.

I was pricked toward repentance in every chapter, almost every page. Even those areas where I have made some small progress, such as the Hours of Prayer, give me no room for pride when I consider my customary dullness of heart and spirit.

It would be easy to show… how little and small matters are the first steps and natural beginnings of great perfection. But the two things which, of all others, most want to be under a strict rule, and which are the greatest blessings both to ourselves and others, when they are rightly used, are our time and our money. These talents are continual means and opportunities of doing good. He that is piously strict, and exact in the wise management of either of these, cannot be long ignorant of the right use of the other.

Law has much to say about the Giving of Alms. I am still thinking about this, for he addresses an issue that has concerned me. It is relatively easy to write a check to Church World Service or the Carter Center and help people Far Away. It is a little harder to hand over cash to the guys (and ladies) on the street who ask for it; I used to do a lot of this, but these days hardly any at all. But it is a great deal harder still to know how to deal with those who come to you, week after week, asking for money. Some of those who had been my “regulars” I have written off, refusing to give them any more, so I am currently down to two men. But Law makes me wonder if I have been wrong to curtail my giving as much as I have.

[One of the delights of the book is Law’s portrayals of imaginary examples, good and bad. “Miranda,” whom some say is possibly modelled on Law’s mother, is one of my favorites. Thus, the following:]

It may be, says Miranda, that I may often give to those who do not deserve it, or that will make an ill use of my alms. But what then? Is not this the very method of Divine goodness? Does not God make “His sun to rise on the evil and on the good?” …. Do I beg of God to deal with me, not according to my merit, but according to His own great goodness; and shall I be so absurd as to withhold my charity from a poor brother, because he may perhaps not deserve it: Shall I use a measure toward him, which I pray God never to use toward me.”

Or the following:

Now the rule of forgiving is also the rule of giving; you are not to give, or do good, to seven, but to seventy times seven. You are not to cease from giving, because you have given often to the same person, or to other persons, but must look upon yourself as much obliged to continue relieving those that continue to want, as you were obliged to relieve them once or twice.

I read these things, and was put much under conviction. But the editor found it necessary to add this footnote:

Law acted on these principles himself, and the effect on the poor of King’s Cliffe (the village where he lived) was the reverse of satisfactory.

I have written enough, I hope, to encourage my readers to dip into Law’s book. But I cannot end without special mention of Chapter 15: “Of Chanting, or Singing of Psalms in our Private Devotions. Of the Great Effects it hath upon our Hearts. Of the Means of Performing it in the Best Manner.”

There is one thing still remaining, that you must be required to observe, not only as fit and proper to be done, but as such as cannot be neglected without great prejudice to your devotions: and that is to begin all your prayers with a psalm. This is so right, is so beneficial to devotion, has so much effect upon our hearts, that it may be insisted upon as a common rule for all persons.

I do not mean, that you should read over a psalm, but that you should chant or sing one of those psalms, which we commonly call the reading psalms. For singing is as much the proper use of a psalm as devout supplication is the proper use of a form of prayer; and a psalm only read is very much like a prayer that is only looked over.

To which I can say “Amen.”

Lots of music

On an Evensong Sunday, there is a lot of music. I have an idea just how much from the day’s recordings – the first thing I do with them is to remove all the material for which I have no responsibility (e.g., sermons, prayers, etc.). For today, that leaves:

9:00 Eucharist: 26 minutes
Improvised prelude and six congregational songs, including service music and two Taizé songs during communion, all accompanied on piano.

11:00 Eucharist: 37 minutes
Organ prelude and postlude, four hymns, Psalm (unaccompanied plainsong), Anthem (accompanied on the piano), Trisagion, Sanctus, Agnus Dei.

Choral Evensong, with prelude: 51 minutes
Organ prelude, preces and responses, Invitatory (O gracious Light), three Psalms (Anglican chant), Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (Howells, the St. John’s Cambridge setting), anthem, hymn. My friend Jean L. accompanied the Canticles and the Anthem so that I could conduct them, which hopefully improved the results.

That comes to twenty-eight items (depending on how they are counted), six minutes short of two hours. Plus the choral rehearsals before the 11:00 Eucharist and Evensong, and my own practice in the early morning, and again in the afternoon before the Evensong rehearsal.

I am glad to do all of this. It is my vocation, the thing which the Lord of Hosts has assigned to me. I list all of this to make the following point:

Every one of these twenty-eight musical items needs its own integrity. As we do it, it must be the most important thing in the world. But as soon as we sing or play it, we must move on. That can be a challenge, and not just for musicians.



I am still reviewing the day’s recordings; there were some mistakes:
-- the 9:00 prelude had some problems, mostly in the development section, and I think that I can learn from what went wrong. This is the main reason I listen to these things.

-- the Evensong prelude had enough wrong with it that I am going to play it again next Sunday for the Eucharist.

There was also quite a bit of Real Music. For now, I will post two items from the 11:00 Eucharist:
-- Congregational Hymn: Come, ye sinners, poor and wretched (tune “Resignation”).
The congregation “took hold” of this very well, and I think it is a good example of what I mean by “Connection” to the sound. We should all do this, every time we play or sing a note.

-- 11:00 postlude - J. S. Bach: Fugue on a Theme of Corelli, BWV 579. This is something of an obscure piece that deserves to be played more often. It went very well, and comes complete with a bit of applause before the final cadence. Bach makes the listener think that he is done, and then he still has a bit more to say.
The photos are of our little Pilcher instrument.

of Buxtehude, the Morning Star, and the Light shining in darkness

This is the hour of banquet and of song (Joe Cox)
Choir of Trinity Episcopal Church, Iowa City: January 17, 2016
Artwork: Institution of the Eucharist (Fra Angelico, 1442)

This is a fine and simple little communion anthem, not previously found on YouTube. I am pleased to remedy that. There is another “Joe Cox” who comes up on a YouTube search, who is not the composer of this song. Not by a long shot.

And from the same Sunday, the Second after the Epiphany:

Fantasia on “Wie schon leuchtet” (Dietrich Buxtehude)
Artwork: from the blog “Things God taught me”
(an interesting blog, which I found by looking for artwork. I bookmarked this for further exploration; it appears to be evangelical, and sporadically updated – in that regard, much like the Music Box.)
and from the “Spill” blog
(This blog is quite active; it is mostly about pop and “alternative” music, the best I can tell. There is some language and other content which I would consider inappropriate for young people, or for that matter anyone. But there is also a lot of music from styles with which I am utterly unfamiliar, arranged in playlists, so I might explore it some after all.)
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The Buxtehude was one of the test pieces for my Associate’s Certificate many years ago, and I may have caused a change in the examination procedures. The syllabus that year listed the piece, with the comment “Any Edition.” So, I played it from the inexpensive Kalmus, which is what I had. Like the Buxtehude originals (and unlike the more expensive scholarly performing editions) which were written in tablature rather than standard notation, there was no indication of what notes should be played in the pedals and which should belong to the hands.

I played most of it on the manuals, as I still do. One of the examiners strenuously disagreed, since my version did not require any facility with the pedals, though he/she noted in the comments that I was not to be marked down for it, since no edition of the work had been specified.

Ever since, editions have always been specified in the Guild examination requirements.

The AAGO exam was my first experience going “on the road” as an organist, and a first time in a high-pressure playing situation. To this point, I had taught myself to play the organ, doing my work at the little Estey pipe organ in the Baptist church I was serving. I was terrified at the prospect of driving all the way to Roanoke, Virginia for the test and playing on a Big-Time Instrument, an Aeolian-Skinner in the Episcopal church.

It prepared me for what was to come: a spiritual Calling to further study, with a graduate audition at Westminster Choir College. I would not have been admitted into their Church Music program without that “AAGO” on my application, and I would not have had the courage to attempt it. I wrote about that experience here.

The piece has remained one of my favorites; I try to find occasion to play it every Epiphany season. So far, Lent has been difficult for me (and what is worse, some of my friends), and it has cheered me this morning to hear the Buxtehude again. In the hard times, I have remembered Last Epiphany, when we sang the Beethoven “Hallelujah” from his “Mount of Olives” (which I hope to post here in due time; I did not want to at the time because our singing of it had some serious shortcomings, but at this distance, I think the level of Connection, which was quite high, outweighs such considerations). And the memory of that music has strengthened me, by reminding me of Whom we sang that day.

O God, who before the passion of thy only-begotten Son didst reveal his glory upon the holy mount: Grant unto us that we, beholding by faith the light of his countenance, may be strengthened to bear our cross, and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Through Lent, through Holy Week, all the way to the Cross and the Tomb, He remains the Morning Star, the Light that “shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”