Music for Friends

At the end of August, I wrote:

In the dark days, I did not think that I would play another recital, but I have scheduled one for Sunday, October 13 at 6 pm. Most of it will be improvisation, for when I realized that I could improvise instead of playing ninety minutes or so of repertoire, it became clear that it was possible, where I probably cannot now play a genuine full recital. I may not be able to do even this much adequately – especially a second half that will be a long-form piano improvisation on hymn tunes, a prospect that seemed liberating when I conceived it, but increasingly fills me with terror – but I am viewing the evening as a last opportunity to play a little music for my friends and I hope that they will overlook a few wrong notes. Maybe a lot of wrong notes, and perhaps they might find some Music in it somewhere.

I resisted (and still resist) calling it a Recital. I am done with such things. Eventually, I called it “Music for Friends.” It helped me to think of it that way – I have nothing to prove and I no longer care what anyone thinks of my playing. It consisted of three parts, which are now on YouTube:

a Free Improvisation at the clavichord
the Six Pieces for Organ by Herbert Howells
and an Improvisation on submitted hymn tunes

For this, I invited my friend Jean to select two or three hymn tunes. I think that her daughter Claire and perhaps her son Ben helped with this. There was one Big Tune - “I bind unto myself today” or St. Patrick’s Breastplate, with its companion Dierdre (“Christ be with me...”) embedded in it. And there was one Little Tune: the canon “Go now in peace” by Natalie Sleeth, We sing this every Sunday in our parish as the children leave for Children’s Chapel (with, on many weeks, me wishing I could go with them). When Jean handed me the envelope with the tunes and I opened it, I must have had an interesting expression on my face, because people giggled.

Well, some questions were settled: the tunes, obviously. The key: I had already decided to play in whatever key the main tune was printed. It seemed good to save “Go now in peace” for near the end, as a prayer for these my friends who were listening. With that, it was time to play. As I said above, St. Patrick’s Breastplate is a Big Tune, and it became immediately clear that it was going to as loud and grand as I could make it. As the piece developed, it bordered on “out of control” more often than I would have liked, with plenty of wrong notes, but it would have been dreadfully wrong to play it safe with such a tune.

I finished. As ever, I had no idea if the work was any good. In listening to it since, I do think that there was some Real Music here and there, for which I am grateful. The part I like best is when it finally turns the corner into “Go now in peace,” about the twelve minute mark. It came to me that this Little Tune was related to Deirdre in some interesting ways, so I was able to play around with that for a while, especially in the coda.

All this was Gift: Soli Deo Gloria.

As for the rest, I was glad that Jean encouraged me to go ahead with the little clavichord improvisation. One Friday afternoon we carried it upstairs from my office to the church and took turns playing it. The sound could hardly be heard at all. But, as Jean said, after a minute or so, one’s listening was transformed, and it could after all be heard in its quiet grace.

And the Howells… It went much better than I could have possibly hoped. No breakdowns from the yips. Wrong notes, yes; but upon several listenings since, it came out the way that I think these pieces should go, within the limitations of our beloved little Pilcher. I am proud to put it on YouTube in hopes that it may help others who want to hear these pieces as a set and perhaps play them.

I had always liked the fifth piece, the “Saraband (in Modo Elegiaco),” less than the others when I have played it by itself. But in the final days of my preparations, I came to understand that it works much better in the context of the other pieces, especially with something close to an immediate attaca from the end of the fourth piece. That makes the Saraband feel like a continuation and ultimately consummation, leaving the air cleared for the final Paean.

I was granted another Gift a few weeks later: the prelude for Evensong was the great Passacaglia of J. S. Bach, and that, like the Howells, went much better than anything I could have hoped. It was not quite my farewell to the great organ works of Bach – the next Sunday I played (badly) the B minor prelude and (somewhat less badly) fugue, and there are a few quiet chorale preludes ahead in Advent – but I am happy that at least I could do the Passacaglia well this one time.

That is enough for today. I have not often written in the Music Box this fall, seeking to focus on Finishing the Course – six Sundays left. I do not know what role the Music Box might play in my retirement, if any. But I thank you my readers for your kind thoughts.