G.P.S. - Performance, and Epilogue

March 15: Tuesday (T minus 1)

Sunday night, I awoke several times with my fingers twitching, “playing” through parts of the piece. All day Monday, I was like a wound-up spring. It is a bringing-to-birth, an “incarnation.” I have mentioned Dorothy Sayers' book The Mind of the Maker. Her thesis is that our human creative work is one of the principal ways in which we are made in the image of God (c.f. Genesis 1:26-29). He creates, we likewise create on a limited scale, what Tolkien would call “subcreation.” Sayers does not explore this, but it occurs to me that the Satanic temptation “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” is perhaps in part a temptation to burst the bounds of our creative finitude, to create on god-like scale. We would make a Gesamtkunstwerk, an all-encompassing work of art, a Tower reaching to the heavens. Such enterprises do not end well (c.f. Genesis 11).

Sayers quotes from her own play, The Zeal of Thy House:

For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity. (p. 37-38).

In the work of the performing musician, the Idea is the first conception of the program, the vision of the Music in its finished perfection. It is also the composition itself, the fruit of another's labors (or one's own; once the musician turns from composition to performance of what he has written, it is in no way different from the playing of another composer's work). The Energy is the process which I have sought to describe in these entries; the “sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.”

Sayers speaks primarily of her own craft, that of Writer, but it applies to Music and the other arts. Later she writes:

The resistance to creation which the writer encounters in his creature [in my case, the Franck] is sufficiently evident, both to himself and to others – particularly to those others who have the misfortune to live with him during the period when his Energy is engaged on a job of work. The human maker is, indeed, almost excessively vocal about the perplexities and agonies of creation and the intractability of his material. Almost equally evident, however, though perhaps less readily explained, is the creature's violent urge to be created.... [T]hat a work of creation struggles and insistently demands to be brought into being is a fact that no genuine artist would think of denying.... whenever the creature's desire for existence is dominant, everything else will have to give way to it; the writer will push all other calls aside and get down to his task in a spirit of mingled delight and exasperation. (p. 140-1)

There are always some passages that weigh on the mind. In this case, there are two: the final page of the scherzo, and an eight-measure section of the pedal line in the finale, a passage which is notorious in the organ literature. These spots receive more than their share of careful practice, for they are evidences of “the intractability of [the] material.” But if one neglects the easier parts, they can come unglued in performance, too. Every note, every phrase must have its due share of attention.

One of the goals of the slow playing with rhythmic practice that I have described is to develop in a good way what is sometimes called “ballistic motion.” When one performs a physically complex action such as a basketball jump shot – or playing the Grande Pièce Symphonique – the larger action is comprised of many small steps. At first, one must consciously think about each step, but the action must soon become automatic. Thus, I begin slowly, working in “bite-sized” chunks of four measures – an amount of material which can be grasped by the mind as one unit – and build speed at first with little two-note groupings. Ballistic motion will develop whether one does it purposefully or not, but if left to chance, it is not likely to develop in an efficient way. Extraneous motions will be part of it, and wherever they exist, mistakes are likely to follow as the piece is brought to performance tempo.

In these final stages, I am no longer working primarily in four-measure phrases. Instead, the basic units are much larger, from one point of relative repose to the next. I continue to play the section slowly, then with the rhythms long-short, and short-long. From there, it varies: more difficult passages get the full treatment, while with easier passages I can go directly to playing in one-measure groups, and then to the full passage at tempo. My goal is for this entire passage, perhaps one or two pages or even more, to be one seamless unit, a ballistic motion as smooth as a perfect jump shot. There is a part of the brain that knows exactly what to do in every detail in order to play the passage, without conscious attention.

One sometimes hears young students play their recital pieces with “finger memory.” The ballistic motion is in place – the piece is “in the hands” -- but not necessarily in the conscious mind. If the ballistic motion is de-railed, it cannot continue without assistance from the consciousness which knows in what direction the music needs to go, and can put things back on track. Thus, I build in “starting places” where a new ballistic motion may begin. The first note of every measure is the most important of these – thus, the need to always practice in one-measure groups. Ideally, every note would be a new “starting place,” learned from the hours of practice in the two-note groupings.

My work today on Franck is limited to a three-hour session at the recital instrument, just enough for one final workout, beginning to end, the sixth and last. It goes well. At last, I am ready to play, and just in time.

March 16: Wednesday

In the university town where I work, there are over a thousand recitals and concerts annually. Each of them represents an undertaking that, for a time, has been all-consuming for the musicians involved.

So does the writing of a book, the production of a play, the making of a visual work of art, or a quilt, or a violin, or a barn. The effort and commitment are the same in kind for craft, folk art, and “high” art. This last differs perhaps in the path being less clearly charted, but even here, there are traditions that provide a place to begin.

Here at the end, it is important to me, as it was initially, that this is a “Lenten Meditation,” not a “Noontime Recital.” The Grande Pièce Symphonique is music of a spirit suitable for Lent. Perhaps it may direct the hearts of some of its listeners toward thoughts of a serious nature. It is not enough to play for oneself; the music must be shared, even if only with one or two others. The musician hopes that in some way it makes a difference.

Sayers describes this aspect of the work in chapter eight of The Mind of the Maker: “Pentecost.”

... a book has no influence until somebody can read it.

Before the Energy [which is incarnate in the book, or essay, or other writing] was revealed or incarnate it was, as we have seen, already present in Power within the creator's mind, but now that Power is released for communication to other men.... It dwells in them and works upon them with creative energy, producing in them fresh manifestations of Power.

This is the Power of the Word, and it is dangerous. Every word—even every idle word—will be accounted for at the day of judgment. (p. 111)

For the writer, this aspect, the “third person” of the creative trinity, is when the writing is published, read by others, and takes its own life in the world of ideas in small or large ways. For the musician, it is the performance. Music does not exist until it is performed—and heard—and ceases its audible existence as soon as the last notes die away. But the Idea expressed in the composition may take root and bear fruit in surprising ways, perhaps generations later. When a performer takes up a piece of Old Music such as the Franck, the Idea embodied in it, now almost a century and a half old, is brought to light anew.

This raises the question of whether or not the Classics in music, literature, and art have any lasting value. It is obvious to me that they do, but many would disagree. A local choral director whom I respect, active in music education circles, takes the view that Classical Music is simply a collection of “museum pieces,” and she rarely uses any of it in her work (implying as well that “museums” are places that are irrelevant to the lives of ordinary people). It is more important, in her view, that the music sung by her choirs be fresh and immediate, enjoyable to the singers, and constructive of community in the choir. She does not think that Classical Music can do these things in the twenty-first century.

Today, I made my small contribution to this interchange of artistic Ideas, giving the Grande Pièce Symphonique a fresh opportunity to do its work in the world. At best, it is likely to be a very small bit of work: my little half-hour “Lenten Meditation,” one of thousands of concerts in this town, heard by perhaps twenty or thirty persons, is not going to change the world in any large way. But small as it is, today's music will not be entirely without consequence, for a Song is every bit as dangerous as a Word, and every Song, along with every Word, “will be accounted for at the day of judgment.” One of my teachers used to say “Never play a note unless you mean it.”

The first and overwhelming impression when one finally gets around to performing the music which has taken so many hours to prepare is always how quickly it is over. As I began the last movement I thought “Am I here already? How can this be?”

The second impression is always that one has played horribly, made wreckage of this beautiful music. This is not a small thing, for every imperfection in performance weakens the power of the Idea and reduces its potential to achieve its work.

Upon a day of reflection (I write this on Thursday, the day after the concert), there were too many mistakes, but some aspects of the playing were good. I believe that I gave shape to the music as well as I am able to do in terms of phrasing, tempos, articulation of the form, and registrations. Wrong notes can distort this, but not entirely eradicate it.

But what about the wrong notes? I have tried for years to figure out how to play more accurately, and I believe that I have made some progress, most of all in adopting the practice regime outlined in this series. Of the two passages which most concerned me, one went smoothly; the other was a bit shaky, but I do not think that I actually missed any of the notes. All of the note errors were in other places, “easy” places, including one a mere thirteen measures into the piece and another at the final cadence of the (slow) fourth movement, both of them marring especially beautiful moments.

It would have been better to have the piece ready a month ago, using the final weeks for maintenance practice. My preparations, reaching a state of readiness only on the day before the recital, were more on the order of cramming for a final exam. But I believe that I did all that I could do without neglecting my other duties. The things which kept me from working more in December and January on the Franck were primarily:

- the Christmas services
- “Some Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch” played at the January evensong – and played rather well, as I recall.
- Stanford in A for the February Evensong
- the Mozart Laudate Dominum

All of this was worthy of the time committed to it. And, since the difficult parts of the Franck went well, I am not sure that additional preparation would have improved the results.

This brings me again to the Satanic temptation: I cannot make my musical work larger or better than what I can do in the time and energy allotted to me in this life. I must, instead, adjust my expectations and not try to do so much that I do it badly. At the same time, I must avoid the opposite extreme of “playing it safe,” never taking the risks that are inherent in any music worthy of the name. Our Lord warned against this in St. Matthew 25:14-30, calling the one who buried his talent a “wicked and slothful servant,” casting him into outer darkness. “[T]here shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

I ate a leisurely lunch at an Indian restaurant, drank a cup of tea in my office, and turned my attention to the wedding music, the Messiaen for Sunday, and the evening's choir rehearsal.

Epilogue: Friday morning, March 18

This morning, my mailbox at the church contained a CD, a recording of the Franck. C.H., the organbuilder who was unable to attend the performance, arranged to have it recorded. I am glad for his sake that he did, because the Franck fits his instrument splendidly and shows its expressive possibilities in a way that may not often be heard.

Upon review, I find that I played both better and worse than I had thought. There were the four major note errors that I knew were there. With two of them, I was able to modify the voice leading so that to someone unfamiliar with the piece, they would be musically plausible (though inferior to what Franck wrote). The other two were simply wrong, both of them in a pedal statement of the theme in the latter part of the first movement. But both of these went by so quickly that they were not “train-wrecks,” the complete de-railing of the music which can all too easily happen. In short, the note errors which glared at me in my memory of the performance were not so bad as I had thought.

What was worse were some faults in interpretation. I was not smooth in my use of the Swell pedal at a couple of places; the amount of “breathing space” between several of the phrases was wrong, mostly too short; at the cadence ending the second movement, I made the rallantando too big; I rushed the tempo in part of the scherzo and had to pull it back in line; I failed to push the tempo slightly in the finale from the beginning of the fugue onwards. But there were many other interpretative outcomes through the course of the work which went very well indeed, or at least the way that I think they should.

All of the errors weakened the Idea, as I described earlier. “[N]ow we see through a glass, darkly: but then face to face ....” The Satanic temptation would say “You must be perfect.” The Gospel grace answers “You will be perfect.”

But not yet.

In retrospect, I am struck with what a vast and important Idea this piece embodies. The Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Clothilde was hardly four years old in 1863 when Franck wrote this piece, which would have been impossible without this new type of instrument, an instrument whose potential Franck unveiled. Neither he nor anyone else in France had written anything remotely like this for the organ, and it must have been astonishing to its first hearers. We have the organ symphonies of Widor and Vierne and much other music of similar nature from the French symphonic organ tradition that began with Franck – indeed, with this piece – so it is less overwhelming to us. But the Grande Pièce Symphonique remains, I think, an Idea which continues to do its work in the world. I am honored to have helped that work along a little bit this week.

Whitsunday, and the Leipzig Chorales

This day is the feast of the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life, one of the seven Principal Feasts of the Church. My organ voluntaries today were the first two chorale preludes from the great Leipzig Chorales, gathered as a collection by J. S. Bach in his final years. The collection begins with Komm, heiliger Geist “in organo pleno” [see the first link at the end for a YouTube performance]. It is followed by a second setting, “alio modo” (“in another form”). The first (which was my postlude) represents one aspect of the Spirit: Her boundless energy, Her infinite capacity to be “outside the box,” outside any possible limitation and beyond even our wildest hopes and imaginings. The second is the quiet and gentle Comforter, the “still, small voice” who guides us when we are perplexed, binds up our wounds, patiently forms us into the image of Christ. The first is the mighty wind and the tongues of fire that fell on the disciples; the second is the water of life, flowing out from the throne of God – and from each believer – for the healing of the nations (Ezekiel 47, Revelation 22:1-2, St. John 7:37-39)

But there is also a subtext to this Day which is heard in the Daily Office Lessons:
- Deuteronomy 16:9-12
- Acts 4:18-33
- St. John 4:19-26

Deuteronomy makes clear that this feast of thanksgiving is not just for the elites. It is for everyone, and especially the “stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow.”

And thou shalt rejoice before the LORD thy God, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite that is within thy gates, and the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are among you.... And thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in Egypt.

Our Lord Christ tells the Woman of Samaria that the worship of the living God is no longer bound to any place, nor limited to the priests and Levites and the few who have been the chosen.

[T]he hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

The door is open for the likes of William Tyndale, who told one of the prelates of his day that “ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more Scripture than thou doest.” From the first, Christianity has been most of all a religion of slaves, outcasts, beggars, sharecroppers, peasants, common working folk, and children. And, miraculously, it is all this without setting them against the rich, the well-educated, the comfortable; there is room for all. This is the work of the Holy Ghost, in concert with the Father and the Son. The door is now open for everyone.

“Would God that all the LORD's people were prophets,” said Moses (Numbers 11:29). Today is this hope fulfilled: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy... And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18, quoting Joel).

One of the ways in which this is fulfilled is through Music, which is given to all of us in one form or another. In Friday's Epistle from the Daily Offices we heard this:

[B]e filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart to the Lord (Ephesians 5:19)

When we sing well, or play well, the music is living water flowing out from us. It is not our doing; it is the work of the Spirit.

For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity. (Dorothy Sayers, “The Mind of the Maker” p. 37-38, quoted here.)

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I would love to play the Leipzig Chorales as a concert, or more probably as two concerts on successive nights. One sometimes hears the Clavierübung chorales in concert, with the Prelude and Fugue in E flat framing them, and it makes a highly effective programme. I do not recall ever hearing of the Leipzig Chorales as a programme, though surely many have done it. I believe that this music, heard all at once, would be a most profound lesson in the art of the organ chorale. Not only does Bach demonstrate many ways in which the Tune can be treated, he offers multiple versions of some of the chorales, showing the range of possibilities – as we heard today with the two widely divergent settings of Komm, heiliger Geist.

Were I to do such a thing, today's two voluntaries would be the beginning of the first concert, the first fifteen minutes. There would follow:

An Wasserflussen Babylon
Schmücke dich, O liebe Seele
Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend
O Lamm Gottes unschuldig
Three settings of Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland

This set of preludes would begin and end strongly and contain sufficient variety to be engaging. If we sang the chorales, it would help the audience understand what Bach is doing, and would make a good full programme. The problem might be with the second night's music:

Three settings of Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr'
Two settings of Jesus Christus, unser Heiland
Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist
Some Canonic Variations on the Christmas song Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her
Vor deinen Thron tret ich

For the most part, this music is quiet. It might be especially difficult to maintain interest through the Canonic Variations so late in a program; they are sublime, but the listener (and the player) must be attentive. It would be well to end with the Vor deinen Thron, composed in part on the final day of Bach's life. It would be very well indeed; coming to such an ending would be a chief reason for playing these programs.

In practical terms, I have played all but four of these chorales, and one of the four is fingered and on the schedule for October (Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend – I am excited to finally be playing this delightful piece). Several of these are among the chief parts of my repertoire, music that is perhaps more important to me than any other – in that category I would place the quiet setting of Komm, Heiliger Geist from this morning, the O Lamm Gottes, the first setting of Allein Gott, and Vor deinen Thron. But I do not know if I could get all of them to performance level at the same time; it is a lot of music.

Here are recordings of the Eighteen Chorales, but without the Canonic Variations, played very well by Hans Otto in 1970 on two Silbermann organs of the sort that would have been familiar to Bach. All told, it is about ninety minutes of music.

First part
Second part
Third part

And here is Helmut Walcha playing the Canonic Variations on another Silbermann organ, from perhaps 1960.

endings and beginnings

The last spring recital is finished. The accompanist came downstairs to shake my hand and wish me a good summer. He has been a student here in the jazz department and in classical piano, playing Rachmaninoff and Prokofieff and Scriabin well into the night upstairs on the good Steinway, year after year. This fall, he will be with the others in the new music building, not here.

The teacher was a classical saxophonist in the doctoral program; he graduated a few years ago, after years of the saxophone quartet that he headed rehearsing here at the church. This afternoon’s event was his spring studio recital. After the students had left and I had locked the doors, he got out his own instrument and played in the church. I stood outside in the courtyard, singing Evensong with the fireflies, the light streaming through the stained glass from inside the church. The last daylight faded, the first stars appeared.

Eventually, he found me and, like the pianist, shook my hand and thanked me. “This place is so beautiful,” he said, looking back at the church. “There isn’t another acoustic like this anywhere around.”


Ascension, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday – all past. The choirs are on summer holiday, after one final gathering this past Wednesday. This week, since Trinity, remained full, thanks to yesterday’s wedding. This afternoon, I finished the 2015-16 planning cycle, pencilling the last voluntaries into my planning book, ordering the choral music for the youth choir’s fall season.

One of our adult choristers has moved to Virginia; he was back today, here for the weekend to load his possessions into a U-Haul. He has joined the choir of a big-time Episcopal church. And he said “the choir out there is larger. But we sing just as well as they do, and better on the Anglican chant.”

I resist the thought that somehow, this choir in this Midwestern town could possibly become a “big-time” program, the sort of place that I have always looked to for an example of how to Do It Right. We don’t have the paid singers that a major league choir would have; we have some choristers who would not pass an audition. We have an overworked organist/director who cannot devote enough time to either part of his job. The youth choir has just one rehearsal a week when all the articles in the journals say that you must have at least two, and that they must sing for church every Sunday. And half of our choristers aren’t even there for the whole rehearsal – they have other activities, and I often think that choir comes last on their list.

I cannot see how we could be an example to anyone; there must be better examples wherever one might want to find them. But here we are. If nothing else, we might be an example of working within what is possible, and allowing the music of this place to develop in its own direction – that would include my own work as an organist and pianist. I never expected that I would be improvising piano preludes every Sunday, and finding it one of the most challenging and satisfying parts of my work.

And I never dared hope that I could have a rehearsal like this past Wednesday. The choristers who are going to this summer’s RSCM course gathered for an afternoon read-through of the music. They sailed through it all, finding none of it particularly difficult. Five of them: three teen girls, a changing-voice alto (maybe; he might still be a second treble in July), a young tenor. The alto said “After the Handel Amen, this stuff isn’t so hard.” That was not at all to look down on the course music; they loved it, and recognized what it would take to prepare it. But they were not intimidated by it.

They refused to take a break; they wanted to keep on singing, seeing the time slip away. And they asked for another rehearsal.

The rehearsal ended, and I walked with friends over to the Mill (the local venue for Good Music), where youth choir families and some of the adult choir were gathering for an end-of-year celebration, eating and drinking and listening to the local bluegrass band. Some of the young choristers took to the dance floor alongside the elderly couples, one lady (probably in her eighties) in her red spangled blouse that has probably been her dancing outfit for fifty years, she and her husband having as much fun as the children. We stayed for hours, sitting and talking and enjoying the evening. I love these people; they are like family to me.

Cantare amantis est.

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The selection of music for upcoming weeks and months is the first part of a trinity, a “sub-creation” that is in its limited way a mirror, an icon of the Maker of all things in whose image we are made. I quoted this from Dorothy Sayers just a few weeks ago, after having noted it here:

For every work [or act] of creation is threefold, an earthly trinity to match the heavenly.

First [not in time, but merely in order of enumeration] there is the Creative Idea, passionless, timeless, beholding the whole work complete at once, the end in the beginning: and this is the image of the Father.

Second, there is the Creative Energy [or Activity] begotten of that idea, working in time from the beginning to the end, with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter: and this is the image of the Word.

Third, there is the Creative Power, the meaning of the work and its response in the lively soul: and this is the image of the indwelling Spirit.

And these three are one, each equally in itself the whole work, whereof none can exist without other: and this is the image of the Trinity.

The selection of music is the Creative Idea. And most years, there are a few points where the insight of what will work on a given Sunday overwhelms me, every bit as much as it actual performance might.

For today’s work, it was the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A: December 18, 2016. Chapter one of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, with supporting lessons from Isaiah and Romans, and Psalm 80. I needed something for the youth choir to sing that day, for that is the one day in Advent that will work for their schedule. I was thinking small, what with Christmas Eve around the corner – until it hit me: “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion…”

They could sing the alto “solo.” I took it to the piano and sang it through myself; some of it is a little low for trebles, but I am guessing that we will have boys for whom this will be ideal, and with them singing up in the alto/falsetto range alongside the girls and treble boys, it will be a beautiful and unique sound, a bit like the male alto in the linked recording. And then the adults can join them on the SATB section at the end.

It will be just right, exactly what needs to be said at that point in the liturgy, in the year, and in the development of these choirs and the life of this parish. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I wrote it into the planning calendar, “beholding the whole work complete at once.”

Arise, shine, for thy light is come.
And the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

It is a Gift to live in the Creative Idea for an afternoon, most of it working with organ voluntaries (for the adult schedule, hymnody, and psalmody are already in place; all that remained were the voluntaries and the youth choir). There are other moments where the Idea was overwhelming: the Stanford Te Deum in B flat with the adults for the Sunday in October when we have Choral Matins, the youth choir in September singing Alice Parker’s arrangement of “Be thou my vision” with (I hope) the string players drawn from the choir itself. And quite a few things in the organ music.

Now I, and all of us, will have to learn these things. It will take work, lots of it, “with sweat and passion, being incarnate in the bonds of matter. And this is the image of the Word.”

And then the Creative Power, the effect of this music in the hearts of those who hear it, as well as those who sing it.

Lord, thou hast been our refuge

October 23, 2011 - I have anticipated this day for a long time:

At the furthest reach of my plans: Oct. 23, 2011 - "Lord, thou hast been our refuge" (RVW), with the Youth Choir doing the semichorus part. This will be unorthodox, but I believe that RVW, practical musician that he was, would approve. The young people will sing the lines "The years of our life are threescore years and ten..." to the adults; I get chills imagining it, and contemplating a whole semester of living with Psalm 90 and this magnificent music alongside the young people. Singing it will teach them the Psalm more thoroughly than any words could do. (from the Music Box, June 9, 2010)

The Old Testament lesson for today was the last chapter of Deuteronomy, the ascent of Moses to the top of Pisgah, where the LORD showed him “all the land... unto the utmost sea.” The account says that “there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”

In response, the Lectionary appointed a selection from Psalm 90, whose superscription reads: “A prayer of Moses the man of God.”

Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another ...

There are two settings of Psalm 90 that surpass all others: one is the setting by Charles Ives with its incomparable quiet ending, “as church bells, from a distance” (notation in the parts for orchestral bells, measure 93). The entire piece is over a C pedal point in the organ, and is “as evolution: quiet, unseen and unheeded, but strong fundamentally” (notation in choral parts, measure 14). Ives worked on this piece for over thirty years, and “Mrs. Ives recalled his saying that it was the only one of his works that he was satisfied with.”

Shortly before Ives brought this to completion in 1923-24, Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his setting of the same text: “Lord, thou hast been our refuge.” It incorporates a stanza of St. Anne, “O God our help in ages past,” the metrical setting of Psalm 90 by Isaac Watts. At first this is pianississimo while the semichorus (the youth choir, in our rendition today) sings the first verses of the prose text. The hymn tune returns later, in other guise.

RVW wanted everyone to make music, and he gave options with this piece for performance by limited forces – the semichorus can be replaced by a solo baritone, and the trumpet is “ad lib,” and can be omitted – though with considerable loss to the effect. It seemed appropriate to me for our Youth Choir to sing the semichorus part, with the Adult Choir on the “full chorus,” and both choirs joining for the final pages. It works splendidly in the grandest of settings, but it also works in our little parish church, with our amateur choristers, young and old. Although our performance was far from perfect, I believe that RVW would be pleased with the way that we sang it. I certainly was.

I do not know if I can do this piece again; I barely made it through this day. After our one-and-only combined rehearsal with trumpet, organ, and both choirs, I was an emotional wreck. But I was saved by three things: the children, the congregation, and the trumpet.

After the rehearsal, one of the boys (Tom) complained about how loud it was: “I can't even hear myself.” “Yes. Isn't it grand?” I answered. One of the little girls (Elise) said pretty much the same thing, expressing her delight in it. They brought me back to earth with their reminder of the sheer practical childlike joy of making Real Music that is splendid and overwhelming. This is, I think, what Holy Scripture is expressing in passages such as II Chronicles 5:13-14 and Revelation 5:11-14.

It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD; so that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.

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...

Part way through the piece, I noticed the congregation. The youth choir filled the choir loft, relegating the adult choir to the front three pews. And behind them – the congregation, by this point listening intently. They too were part of the music, as was their inner response to it, a response that for some of them may echo for years to come. Dorothy Sayers explores this at length in “The Mind of the Maker,” to which I have referred in these pages. This is even more important when the audience/congregation and the musicians are one community, as we were today. The listeners enter into the music-making more fully, for they know the people from whom the music comes. Although the performance from Westminster Abbey linked above was from a much grander occasion, it too was “one community,” representing an entire nation on an important day of remembrance. This connects (again) with II Chronicles 5:13-14 and Revelation 5:11-14, where music serves this function on two of the most important occasions in history (past and future), and where, in the latter passage, the community encompasses “every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them.”


The trumpeter does not play until the hymn tune St. Anne returns on page twelve, more than five minutes into the piece. Her part appears to be simple, all of it in long notes, playing once through the hymn tune. But it is not; she needed careful and accurate cues from me, as did the trebles for their entrances, and the tenors for one key passage on page fourteen. And it was the hymn tune and my responsibility for it that carried me through the final pages.

Psallam spiritu et mente – I will sing with the spirit, and with the understanding also (I Cor. 14:15, the motto of the RSCM).

I become emotional at moments such as these, and the “understanding” must remain in control, else I would fail in my duty. A conductor has to do only one thing: give the ensemble what they need to get through the piece. The music-making comes from the singers and instrumentalists, not the conductor.


It was a Good Day. The choirs of this parish made this anthem their own, and sang it from the heart.

[When we sing,] we express ourselves and become vulnerable to God and to one another in our song in a unique way.... [There is] something intangible, something about health and healing that congregations and choirs experience in their innermost beings....

The point is that any music that bears repetition, music on which time and effort are worth being spent, will be fine art. The point is that music in worship, the highest activity of humankind, will of necessity invoke the finest craft and that, in turn, has the potential to issue in the finest art. Precisely because music serves a greater good than itself gives it the best chance to be the finest art. Gregorian chant, Palestrina motets, Bach cantatas, black spirituals, and innumerable hymns with their tunes are prime examples [as is this day's anthem] – amazing art and amazing gifts to the whole human race.
(Paul Westermeyer, “The Heart of the Matter,” p. 50-52)

JRRT, Part Three

I love this book.

For generations, many people of English-speaking lands lived with two books: the Holy Bible, and the Pilgrim’s Progess. This excellent book of John Bunyan’s has fallen out of favor, though it continues to be filled with treasures for those who find it. I submit that for my generation, Tolkien has served the function that Bunyan did for his time. Other books come and go; this one bears with repeated readings through a lifetime.

My older sister opened this door to me by giving me her copy of The Hobbit when I was in my early teens; looking at it as I write, I see her name inscribed on the cover, almost faded into obscurity. It, and the three volumes of LOTR which I soon purchased (95 cents apiece), are all in the old Ballantine paperback edition with the 1960’s psychedelic cover art. Through high school and college, I had on my wall a large poster which combined the three covers (which, together, make a sort of mural). Somewhere in graduate school and marriage, it disappeared; I am sorry to have lost it, though I cannot imagine what I would do with it now. But I still have the books; I have resisted purchasing better copies because these volumes are old friends, now beginning to fall to pieces. In these forty years, I suppose I have read them a dozen times or more.

At differing stages of life, I have found different connections with this tale. My first reading was nonstop, staying up all night for about a week and sleepwalking through my days at school and other responsibilities. I was caught up in the sheer adventure of it, and when I reached the end, I started right over for a second reading.

In subsequent readings, I have become increasingly aware of the author’s craft. In an essay, the author C.J. Cherryh analyzed one chapter, “Fog on the Barrow-Downs” (FOTR I.8), in terms of pacing, the alternation of light and dark, sentence structure, and much more; all are handled with consummate skill, and the entire trilogy would reward analysis of this sort. These details are part of what makes the book impossible to put down. Tolkien is, as Cherryh says elsewhere, “the grandfather of us all” in his craftsmanship.

Songs are scattered through the book, with their own two-page Index buried in the Appendices. They range from the silly songs beloved of hobbits to bits of ancient Tales from the Eldar Days and the fell songs of the Rohirrim, full of blood and ruin. It took me many readings and at least a score of years before I began to love them; many of them are now among my favorite parts of the Tale. They often say much that could not be expressed in prose and in every case are characteristic of those who sing them. I suspect that the Author labored long on them.

The greatest glory of all is the world behind the story, Middle-Earth. Perhaps no one but Tolkien could have made such a place, the fruit of a lifetime of imaginative “sub-creation.” Much of it flows directly from the real World of trees and rivers and mountains and living creatures, described with loving respect. Much is drawn from the “Cauldron of Story” of northern European folklore, and especially the ancient Languages which Tolkien loved, which are behind the Languages of Middle-Earth, and thus the names of people and places therein. The songs, the maps, the appendices -- all add to the sense that “long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green” (The Hobbit, chapter 1), there was such a place as the Forest of Fangorn or the City of Gondor with its white tower. One might easily imagine that we are in a distant continuation of that Story. I have never encountered another work of fiction with this level of verisimilitude, even among those writings which are acknowledged as the great classics of literature.

Probably every writer making a secondary world, a fantasy, every sub-creator, wishes in some measure to be a real maker, or hopes that he is drawing on reality: hopes that the peculiar quality of this secondary world (if not all the details) are derived from Reality, or are flowing into it. If he indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: ‘inner consistency of reality,’ it is difficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the ‘joy’ in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a ‘consolation’ for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, ‘Is it true?’ ... But in the ‘eucatastrophe’ [or “happy ending”] we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater -- it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world. (from the Epilogue to the essay “On Fairy-Stories”)

It is for this “far-off gleam or echo of evangelium” that I now read the books. I hear this echo in the merry chatter of Tom Bombadil, in the Hall of Fire at Rivendell, in the Golden Wood, in the long slow songs of the Ents, in the blowing of the horns of Rohan “like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains” (ROTK I.5), in the quiet voice of Samwise Gamgee holding his master’s bleeding hand amid the ruin of Orodruin, and at the last the “sound of singing that came over the water” from the “far green country under a swift sunrise.”

Appendices:

The Lord of the Rings, with The Hobbit, are not all that there is of Middle-Earth. I love The Silmarillion with almost equal intensity, and “Leaf by Niggle.”
This little story is generally paired with the essay “On Fairy-Stories” as “Tree and Leaf.” It is my favorite depiction of the process of artistic creation, and Purgatory. I will say no more: read the essay and the story, if you haven’t. A more systematic discussion of the concept of “subcreation” can be found in Dorothy L. Sayers' excellent book The Mind of the Maker.

And there are the contributions of others, not least the movies shepherded into creation by Peter Jackson. I have never been a fan of Peter Jackson, and I cringe at some of the choices he made in adapting the books into movies. He deserves credit, nonetheless, for tirelessly pursuing this task, negotiating the quicksands of finance, conflicting personalities, impossible schedules and all else involved in making a motion picture, and evoking fine work from hundreds of others. I think that most of the strength of the movies came from this last, the people who brought their skills to the project. I will mention only two examples:

- the soundtrack to LOTR, by Howard Shore. When I do not have time to properly re-visit Middle-Earth by reading the books, often I will play some of this music. It is an achievement of Wagnerian scope, and much of it is as ingrained in me as any of the classical works of music that I love.

- the work of Alan Lee, as conceptual designer, set decorator, and art director for the movies. One of my prized books is “The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook” (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). Like the Howard Shore music, these drawings and paintings can transport me into Middle-Earth in an instant. It is peculiar to me that Lee’s pencil sketches and drawings seem more effective than his more finished paintings, several of which are reproduced in the book. But the pencil sketches seem to be his strength as an artist. An example of them in the movies comes in the closing credits to ROTK: Lee sketched pencil portraits of all of the leading characters, strongly evocative portraits. A couple of them are reproduced in the book; I wish more of them were there.

The Road goes ever on and on...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it begun,
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet,
And whither then? I cannot say. (FOTR I.1)

I will never be heroic. Nor will I undertake a Quest upon which the world depends. For these things I am grateful.

But a Task has been entrusted to me, and I must discharge it to the best of my ability, as must we all. That Task involves more than a little “sub-creation,” through the medium of music. Each time that I sit down at the organ or piano, or sing, or lead others in singing, I am thereby creating, or helping others create, little “sub-creations,” each with their own character, for music is an art that exists only when it is played or sung. When all goes well, a Bach Fugue, or a Nunc Dimittis by Stanford or Gibbons, or a congregation singing an unaccompanied hymn stanza can be “a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth” just as fully in their way as LOTR. I have gained encouragement in this task from Niggle the Painter, and from the Author who wrote these things in, as he said, “a period in which I had many duties which I did not neglect, and many other interests as a learner and teacher that often absorbed me” (from the Foreward to the Ballantine edition).

And I have been much encouraged in every aspect of life by Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn, Eowyn of Rohan, Faramir, Legolas and Gimli, and many others in both the LOTR and the Silmarillion. This encouragement is very much akin to what one gains from the Communion of Saints. I do not think that it demeans either the real Saints whom we revere and follow or the imaginative creatures of fiction to say so.

... in God’s kingdom the presence of the greatest does not depress the small.... The Evangelium has not abrogated legends; it has hallowed them, especially the ‘happy ending.’ The Christian has still to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope, and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed. (from the Epilogue: “On Fairy-Stories”)