Recital Season, responses, and improvisations

Recital Season has begun: The parish hosted a doctoral recital on Double Bass this afternoon, and the Graduate Student Jazz Combo tonight. Both were excellent; both had fewer than twenty people in the audience. No parishioners attended.

I am of two minds about this work; I consider it important and I enjoy it – but it results in a day like today when I put in lots of hours and still do not discharge my duties. All told, the two programs consumed close to six hours. I tell myself that if it was my Duty, I should not feel badly about it. There would be no blessing on such work as I might have gotten done in those six hours if I did it by shirking what God wanted of me. And, the best I can tell, that would be hosting these two recitals.

Whether I like it or not, there will be a lot fewer recitals from now on: the School of Music will finally be moving into their new building this summer, eight years after they lost the old one to the flood.

****************

Some new YouTube clips:

Preces and Responses (Craig Phillips)
This is the only accompanied set of the responses that I know, and they are excellent.

Preces and Responses (David Drinkell)
Another fine set of the responses. The photo is from a webpage that has information about Drinkell, who sounds like a delightful character. He is a fan of Tolkien and LOTR, which raises him several levels in my estimation.

Walk as children of light (Daniel Kallman)
Our anthem from the April Evensong; it is so good to be done with Lent and into the Fifty Days!

Improvisation for the Fourth Sunday of Easter
I had three tunes that I wanted to include: one way to do that is a Rondo form, so that is what this is. “Resignation” (My Shepherd will supply my need) is the main tune that recurs each time in the tonic, following each of the other tunes, which are “St. Columba” (The king of love my Shepherd is) and “Old Hundredth” (All people that on earth do dwell). I don’t like all of this improvisation, but there are parts of it that I think went very well, especially the “C” section (Old Hundredth, which combines with Resignation), and the final return of the “A” section, where Old Hundredth continues to go alongside Resignation, with bits of St. Columba as well.

Improvisation on “Land of Rest”
This one is a set of Variations, from this morning’s service. It is structurally simpler than the previous.

****
I keep putting improvisations on YouTube; they are not much listened to. For that matter, I do not know if the congregation likes them or not. Someone did thank me for the “Land of Rest” variations this morning, and one of my friends sometimes listens to a CD of these things as she drives to work. All I know is that I like them; they are the sort of music I would want to listen to before a church service, or at certain other times -- I like to end my Sunday night with some of this music.

More to the point, they are functional. There was a time when the 9:00 service did not begin well. Since I began playing improvisations, people have entered quietly and perhaps have used the time to prepare themselves for worship. If that is the case, I am doing the right thing.

Cantare amantis est.

And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.

And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And the four beasts said, Amen. (Revelation 5:11-14a)

Worthy is the Lamb: this is what we sang on Sunday.

Writing is a solitary vocation. Lois McMaster Bujold (probably my favorite living author of fiction) has said (more or less) “You can have me, or you can have my books. You cannot have both,” when she is pressed to attend more science fiction conventions. She understands that the author’s work is to show up every day in front of her computer and put words on the screen.

It takes a different form for a musician.

Much of our work is likewise solitary. Even when I am preparing something that will ultimately be done in ensemble (an anthem accompaniment, or most of all, a hymntune), most of the work must be done alone on the organ bench.

But, unlike the author’s work, much of the musician’s task, and often the most important parts of it, are done in community. The choral rehearsal. The sacred Liturgy, especially Choral Evensong. The concert, in any form beyond a solo recital. Most of all, the conductor’s work. Score study and rehearsal planning are part of it, and these are solitary. But for the conductor, without an ensemble there is no music.

During this Sunday’s sermon, I looked over the choir and congregation. Starting with the teen altos right in front of me - Issay, Evan, Lily - I prayed for each of them, and worked my way on through the adults. Across the way and through the trebles, one by one. The instrumentalists: continuo players, trumpeters, the organist, sitting there with her son. And then through the congregation. It surprises me at such times that I know most of them by name, and sometimes know a bit of what struggles they are facing.

Long ago in a preaching workshop at the Montreat conference, the speaker, a Presbyterian senior minister at a prestigious and wealthy Manhattan church, told of the temptation to farm out the pastoral work to an assistant on his large staff. He said that he tried this briefly, but found that he could no longer preach. “How can I preach, when I don’t know what the people are going through?”

Cantare amantis est. This comes from St. Augustine, and is taped to my office window. Singing is about love, or springs from love, or is tied inseparably to love.

When it comes time to check the tuning and then step into place, there is Work to do. The conductor’s work is simpler and much easier than that of the singers or players; I need only give them what they need to sing and play together. Tempo. Cues. Cutoffs. In this case, the initial Breath is as important, perhaps, as it is in any piece of music, and we rehearsed it twice. Upbeat so that the continuo players can enter on the downbeat, then (as they enter), strong beat with deep centered rhythmic Breath so that trumpets and singers as one can proclaim: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.”

But I cannot do it for them. I can only help them do it together in the manner and spirit in which they all want to do it.

Some of this challenges my limited conducting skills to the utmost and scares me to death, and I have worked hard to be ready, to find my way through the Genuine Conductor’s Score and not get lost in it -- as I did in the Wednesday youth choir rehearsal, at one critical point in the Amen confusing the soprano line with the viola part above it. I made additional markings so that I would not repeat the mistake, for the sopranos very much needed me there to get their entrance in the middle of the fugue.

So, I do the Work that is given me, and it goes well. It is exhilarating. I feel as if I am at the center of vast energies, a “portal for the Eternal,” as I quoted from Mr. Pressfield the other day.

But the energies are not so much about the Music as the People.

Cantare amantis est.

I am in contact with the altos, adults and teens, directly to my right, singing with such skill and energy. And the tenors, next to them, singing with fierce devotion, with Connection that would break down a wall of brass. And the basses, beyond them, and the instrumental bass and cello behind them, high school players for whom I think this day is a Big Thing. And the sopranos, strong and confident. And the organist, my friend Jean, whose eye contact with me is through a small mirror, but no less real and strong. And across the way, the trumpeters, graduate students, doing their Work with care, watching me for their cues. Beside and around them, the trebles. As I have written, some of these girls and boys have developed into leaders: Lucy, and Charlie, and Claire, and Greta, and YiYing. They can do this enormous piece and lead the younger ones through it; they have at times challenged me in rehearsals to teach them in better ways so that they can more fully grasp hold of this piece and Get It Right. They care; I see it in their eyes, I hear it in their sound.

Some of the youngest ones are a bit overwhelmed. They ought to be. I want this day’s Music to sink deep into their hearts - the treble choristers, the teens, adults, the congregation. I want it to be part of their connection with that Rock that will give them refuge all their journey long.

I do not know when we can do such a thing again. We have run through all of the funds available for instrumentalists, going into the red for this day’s trumpeters. We must tighten the belt. Good music can be made with a tight belt, and Lord willing we will do so. Next Sunday, the adult choir has a setting of Resignation, “My Shepherd will supply my need,” and they are likely to sing it well. Choir and piano, most of the choir part in unison or two parts. Scores that have been in our library for years. Cost: Zero, excepting my salary. We can do a lot of this.

But there is something about concerted music as we did on Sunday, choirs and instruments and organ together. It was enough to entice Bach to Leipzig, where he could do this every Sunday in the Hauptmusik -- the Cantata, and the larger works in their season - the Passion settings, the Christmas Oratorio, later on the music which became the B Minor Mass. No longer would he be writing much of the secular music he had done before, great as it was - the Brandenberg concerti, the music for solo violin and cello, the sonatas for harpsichord and single instrument, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Nor the organ preludes and fugues that he had done before that in Weimar. At Leipzig, his duties would not include playing the organ at all - though he eventually in that place would write his greatest music for the instrument. The concerted sacred music, every Sunday, was what he desired: the “well-ordered church music” to the glory of God and the edification of the people.

All of us who take church music seriously likewise desire a “well-ordered church music” and strive to bring it about, in the manner appropriate to our time and place.

This past Sunday, the Handel, was a part of that. Every Sunday, every Wednesday rehearsal, is likewise a part of that.


On second thought, it is not just the People. If it were, this would be no different from a social gathering or an entertainment. It is our gathering into the Music that binds us together into something larger and stronger than anything we could do individually, and opens a window into the spiritual reality that is ever with us, but not always sensed.

The Work that we did this week and in the rehearsals that led to it is a part of that greater Music. Even the words we sang and their context tell us of it: on this day, it was our little choir. On that day, it will be “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in them,” no longer seeing (and hearing) "through a glass darkly,” but face to face.

Soli Deo gloria.

The War of Art

The War of Art (Steven Pressfield, 2002)
Here is the author’s website, where he blogs regularly.

Pressfield is primarily an author of fiction, especially historical military fiction – for example, “Gates of Fire,” which takes place among the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. He is an ex-Marine, and his books are popular among the military. Some of them are required reading – “Tides of War,” about the Peloponnesian War, is on the book list at the Naval War College.

This book, “The War of Art,” is about creative endeavor, and the struggle that faces the artist, musician, writer – or human being of any description. “Resistance,” he names it, with a capital R. It is our enemy. Pressfield writes:

Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique and priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death. (p. 15)

It takes many forms: procrastination, fear, self-medication, drugs/alcohol/junk food, cruelty to others and to self, wasting time with television/internet, criticism of others, the fear of criticism from others…

It is universal; everyone faces it, every day. Resistance especially abhors “the pursuit of any calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art… any diet or health regimen… any program of spiritual advancement… education of every kind… any act of political, moral, or ethical courage…” (p. 5 and 6, where Pressfield lists eleven such activities). Resistance hates these things, and will do anything to “shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

It is spiritual warfare. I would call it the work of the Enemy, the Dragon who would devour us and all things living, and Pressfield would agree, at least to the extent of personifying it. That is why it is “Resistance,” with the capital R.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (I Peter 5:8-9)

But, as fearsome as it is, Resistance is, in a way, so easy to overcome. “One little word will fell him,” as Luther’s hymn says. All we have to do is show up and do the work. Now. This moment, the thing that God has for us to do. And as soon as we make a beginning, we find that we have allies.

It is here that Pressfield’s book is at its best, for me, when he turns to discussion of the spiritual forces that stand at our side. He speaks of the Muses, and of Angels. He begins every day’s work with Prayer, and commends the practice to his readers: “I say it out loud, in absolute earnest. Only then do I get down to business” (p. 110). He writes:

As Resistance works to keep us from becoming who we were born to be, equal and opposite powers are counterpoised against it. These are our allies and angels. (p. 107)

and in regard to the ideas that “come to us,” showing us how we should revise what we have written, or do differently in the next rehearsal:

Insights pop into our heads while we’re shaving or taking a shower or even, amazingly, while we’re actually working… If we forget something, [the angels/muses] remind us. If we veer off-course, they trim the tabs and steer us back… Clearly some intelligence is at work, independent of our conscious mind and yet in alliance with it, processing our material for us and alongside us. This is why artists are modest. They know they’re not doing the work; they’re just taking dictation. (p. 126-7)

I have written elsewhere about the mysterious way in which, overnight, what I call the “lizard brain” comes up with better fingerings, and insists on trying them. I had written down the fingerings and played them in my First Workout, but there are always places where, in the Second Workout, my hands refuse to play what I had done only yesterday. I have learned to go with it, to at least try it the new way – and most often, it is right. It is an improvement, a more efficient way of playing the passage, and it had entirely eluded my conscious mind.

This process of self-revision and self-correction is so common we don’t even notice. But it’s a miracle. And its implications are staggering. Who’s doing this revising anyway? What force is yanking at our sleeves? (p. 125)

Pressfield writes of the artist’s Territory. “Stevie Wonder’s territory is the piano… When Bill Gates pulls into the parking lot at Microsoft, he’s on his territory. When I sit down to write, I’m on mine.” He lists five qualities of Territory:

A territory provides sustenance.
A territory sustains us without any external input.
A territory can only be claimed alone.
A territory can only be claimed by work.
A territory returns exactly what you put in. (p. 154-155)

I have a Territory. It is the bench of the little Pilcher pipe organ upstairs in the church. It is that Steinway across from it. It is the choir room, and my little office at its side. It is our kitchen at home, where I do most of the cooking and nearly all of the dishwashing and grocery-shopping. Pressfield is right: when I sit down at the Pilcher, or arrange chairs or file music in the choir room, or dry the dishes and pots and put them away, each one in its proper place, I find sustenance. I hope also that I am a channel for sustenance to others.

When the artist works territorially, she reveres heaven. She aligns herself with the mysterious forces that power the universe and that seek, through her, to bring forth new life. By doing her work for its own sake, she sets herself at the service of these forces. (p. 156)

This is a great deal of high-minded talk. But, as Pressfield says, we must not think overmuch in this manner. What we have to do instead is to “show up every day.” Sit down at the computer and start typing. Or climb onto the bench and start playing. Or set up the chairs and write the plan on the board for youth choir, even when I am tired and don’t think that I can get through the rehearsal. Or open the doors into the church on Sunday morning and turn on the lights and put on my organ shoes. Or decide what to fix for dinner, put the pot on the stove, and chop the vegetables.

None of these things are easy. I must face down Resistance every day, and sometimes I am an abject failure. I fritter away the hours when I should be practicing. Or I eat Chocolate instead of dealing with a troublesome e-mail and the forces behind it which could de-rail our work together in the choir and community. I am afraid. Or tired. Or wallowing in Sloth, or Acedia.

But if we can bring ourselves to overcome Resistance by simply making a start, if we somehow find the courage to do these things and keep doing them,

… it makes God happy. Eternity, as Blake might have told us, has opened a portal into time.

And we’re it. (p. 124)

When I took on a young piano student last fall, it made me consider what I must teach her. What is essential to the work?

The first thing is Prayer. I taught her the little prayer that JSB used to write at the top of his scores: J.J.

Jesu, juva (Jesus, help!)

She is to say this every time she sits at a piano, right before she starts playing. We begin our lessons with it. I say it too, every time I sit down at a piano or organ and am ready to play. As Pressfield wrote, I say it out loud, in absolute earnest (well, I whisper it instead of saying it in full voice when I’m in church, ready to begin the service. And for rehearsals, the Choristers' Prayer serves the same purpose. The “absolute earnest” part still applies.)

But it is not enough to pray, not enough to simply ask Jesus for help. We must then play some notes. They don’t have to be good, they don’t even have to be correct, or played with good hand position and technique. If we pay attention and stay with it, day after day, these things will improve. Jesus will indeed help us.

Second Sunday of Easter

It is late, and I cannot write much.
Two new recordings:
Today’s piano improvisation, on “O sons and daughters, let us sing” and “Vreuchten” (This joyful Eastertide)

and from the March Evensong, at long last:
My heart is glad (Kenton Coe).

This was the first performance of this anthem in its current form. Mr. Coe wrote it many years ago, but when we asked permission to sing it, he revised it, sending the new score to us the weekend before we needed to begin rehearsals.

I would love to say more, and might do so another day. But not tonight.