RSCM Report: Part Two

For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building… But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any many build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. (I Corinthians 3:9-13)

I have often called upon this passage as a plumb line for my work, properly so. But much of our work is together, including choral work. There is enough music of the wood, hay, and stubble variety in the world; how can we as a group build with gold, silver, and precious stones? We who ourselves are dust and ashes, individually and together?

We can rehearse. We can build our skill level in various ways: lessons, scales and exercises, study. We can indeed become extremely good, like that semiprofessional choir on the eve of the Course. And we may find that for all our perfection we are “as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” (I Cor. 13:1) For “if I have not charity, I am nothing” (v. 2).

It has something to do with what I call Connection, following my teacher Dr. Flummerfelt. Some others, including one of the composers we sang this week, call it Attitude:

When singing, are you connected to the text and musical line with all of your being? Or are you going through the motions? It might be possible for instrumentalists to sometimes get away with the latter, but the voice is so thoroughly a window into the soul that it is immediately obvious if the singers are not Connected -- and, if the other basics are in place and the group has done its homework, Connection makes it possible for the song to touch the hearts of the listeners. This will never happen if the hearts of the singers are not likewise touched by the Song and absolutely committed to it. [from RSCM Report 2015]

But it also has to do with brokenness.

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body. (II Corinthians 4:7-10)

A perfect singer, confident in her ability, not a trouble in the world, will not have this treasure. There are not enough cracks for the light to shine through. Those who are carrying health issues, personal or family burdens, a broken heart, those who are derided and ostracized by their peers, or hungry and tired, without money for food and shelter – their song has the potential to become gold, silver, precious stones.

But not in their own strength. Not at all; if you ask such a singer if they are doing well, they will probably sigh and say “I wish! I am not any good at all. Everything I do is wrong, my best efforts are incomplete.”

The Swedish poet Karin Boye gives part of the answer, in an evening prayer we sang during the Course, set to music by Egil Hovland:

… for I know that you can finish what I found of joy or sorrow. All my harmful thoughts and actions, heal and make them new and wholesome. Take my days and make them over. Come, transform their dust to diamond. (translation by Gracia Grindal)

Perhaps the only way we can build the song with precious stones is to begin with dust - the burnt remains of the days in which we feel that we did nothing worthwhile, the hours of work where we have made no visible progress or gone backwards, the hurtful or foolish things we have thought, said, and done. “Come, transform their dust to diamond.”

Perhaps the reason such a song, and such singers, will have Connection and be able to sing truth that touches the hearts of those who hear it, is that the listeners likewise are earthen vessels, broken open so that they might receive the grace of God.

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Thursday, July 18

As torrents in summer,
Half-dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, tho’ the sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o’erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining!
(H. W. Longfellow, set to music by Edward Elgar)

I am “half-dried in my channel.” Year after year I have sought to do the work that is set before me, to make the liturgy and music better than they would be without me, to teach the Story and the Song to young and old. I am worn out. The Eucharistic liturgy for which I provide music every Sunday brings me little joy, little sustenance. It is “always winter, never Christmas,” as Lewis wrote of Narnia.

It was thus that I came to this day, discouraged by my bad singing and wrong notes, as well as my years and decades of work. Not even last night’s RSCM Evensong could touch me.

I came to Thursday Matins, organized by my friend Judith. And I was healed. The officiant was HMB, chorister from our parish, my godchild and student. She gets it, as was clear from her careful leadership of the Office. As do many others here this week, old and young. And I have been a small part of that for some of them.

This was also the day for the Course’s celebration of the Holy Eucharist. I have almost stopped taking communion at home. But here, there was dignity in the unaltered Rite Two liturgical text, a proper metal chalice (not pottery, such as we use at home). Music: a psalm and anthem.

Most of all, there was joy.

I joined the line of tenors going up to the front. The Body of Christ. The Cup of Salvation, administered by a friend. The prayers. The sending forth. Then midday meal with my friends the adults of the Course.

I had thought this Course might be my last. But on this day I know that I still belong here.

Rehearsals were more relaxed today, the music beginning to fall into place. The young folk had “water activities” as it said on the information sheet, a part of the week that is awaited with high anticipation.

And there was Evensong, the last of the midweek services, this time a full run-through of Saturday night’s music. I was no longer indifferent to it.

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Of the rest of the week, I need say little. It was very good. Some of the singing at Saturday’s evensong was among the best we have done at a Course, with strong Connection. On Sunday we sang at the Basilica as we have done for some years, this time from the rear gallery. I am told by a trustworthy listener that we sounded “guarded,” and I am inclined to agree. We sang well, but it was hard to connect with a congregation that we could not see. Should we remain in this setting next year, we must find a way to overcome this. But the acoustic placement in the gallery is better, we are not so cramped in, and we have chairs – in the front, we were always crammed onto risers, standing for most of the service. Not in the back; there is enough space for a choir three times our size.

And we are done. I congratulate Michael Velting, our music director for the week, especially noting the manner in which he put the hardest work at the beginning, emphasizing the Preces and Responses and especially the Lord’s Prayer setting in every rehearsal so that by Friday and Saturday, we were comfortable with them. In the same manner, the French diction for the Fauré benefited from an early start and many repetitions. More than that, I admire the manner in which he respected the choristers, expecting the best from them but always treating them with kindness.

The organist for the week, Nick Quardokus, is at this writing in the process of moving to New York City, where he begins work in August as assistant organist of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue. I encourage you to check him out on YouTube, where I have joined his nine subscribers.

Here is his playing of the Bach chorale Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend (BWV 655), a trio that I dearly love and have played several times for church, never as well as he does here.

After the evensong, I told him that I don’t like most of the organ playing I hear. “Most of it has no Connection,” I said. “But you do.”

May it ever be so. And I hope that he posts more of his work on YouTube.

Soli Deo gloria.

P.S. - I poked around a bit more on YouTube and found this:
Duruflé Requiem, with Nicholas at the organ - and it is my RSCM friend Kristin Lensch and her choir, from Calvary Church, Memphis. What an unexpected delight!

RSCM Report: Part One

Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante.
Que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix.
Dissipe le sommeil d’une âme languissante,
Qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois.

Pour on us the fire of your powerful grace,
That all hell may flee at the sound of your voice;
Banish the slumber of a weary soul,
That brings forgetfulness of your laws.
(Jean Racine, from Cantique de Jean Racine [G. Fauré])

One of the adult choirmen said to me on the last evening of the RSCM Course: “The trebles were singing the Phos Hilaron [Andrew Walker, a fine setting which we learned during the week], and I prayed ‘Lord, let me do this forever.’ And I got an answer: ‘You already are.’”

We were standing behind the building where the adults were staying, looking out at the trees in the early evening, after the Saturday evensong. Most of the adults had gone out to dinner; the choristers were cleaning up the common room of the building where they were staying and having the award presentation for the week. It was a time for thoughts of eternity, and its presence here and now in the Song.

I began the week wondering whether this would be my last Course. I have watched older singers in other venues make the choral experience all about their own pleasure from singing, sometimes about the food and accommodations and other aspects of their own physical comfort at the expense of others. I pray that I may never be like this in any aspect of my life but most of all in a choir. The RSCM Courses are not about the adults. They are for the choristers.



The Lord’s Day, July 14

Service above Self (Tulsi Gabbard)

In a sense, my Course begins tonight. We are hosting a concert by a semi-professional chamber choir on this, the night before we travel to RSCM. They were bumped from their scheduled venue only a few days ago and desperately needed a place to perform. Given the timing and my desire for a good night’s sleep, I wished it were otherwise.

The choir is highly skilled. It is a group of well-trained young adult singers from this half of the state who rehearse briefly, sing a complex program in multiple cities (three in thirty hours this weekend, ours being the last) and return to their duties until the next time. They clearly enjoy singing together, and the music is polished, beautiful, gorgeous in our good acoustic (which they loved). It was almost too much sound in their fortissimos; I had to hold my ears. Neither they nor I are used to that in this space.

It is after 11 pm by the time I get home, with an early start tomorrow. And it was clearly the right thing to do.

Monday, July 15

We leave home under a clear hot morning sky, driving south into the remnants of a tropical storm working its way up the Mississippi. First come high wispy clouds, growing thicker and lower, then the rain, hardly a mist at first but steady and growing.

After several years at capacity, this time the Course is again small. There are only two boy trebles, only a small handful of adults. There are plenty of teenage choirmen – a row of eleven bass/baritones, only one of them over the age of twenty-five, and four strong teenage tenors. And there are a sufficient number of girl trebles, eight of them from our parish. Seven of these girls are seated in front of me all week; three directly in front in the second row, four more in the front row. The other trebles, boys and girls, are equally strong and committed to the work at hand, but these seven girls are a special delight to me throughout the week, watching them work hard and be leaders.

By the end of vespers, I am exhausted. In my room, I drink tea and write for a few minutes, then lights out.

Tuesday, July 16

But either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind: a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise. (J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings, a passage from the House of Tom Bombadil)

During the morning’s ATB rehearsal, the rain falls steadily outside, a silver curtain almost like snow, falling with a gentleness unlike a typical summer rain in this part of the country. I think of Frodo, and how this might be my last time for singing intensively in this life. By afternoon and the full rehearsal with trebles, I am glad that it might be so. I become short-tempered in our work on the Preces and Responses, a setting which I do not like. I angrily scribble reminders into my score:

FASTER.
PUSH AHEAD.
PROPEL.
WATCH.
LONG EE, NOT SHORT.

It is a lesson in Humility. And Obedience. For most of the year, I am the organist/choirmaster and it is others who must sing the music I select, and sing it mostly the way I tell them. It is very good for me to be here, on the other side of the podium, missing notes and entrances, increasingly frustrated at my bad vocal production and mistakes.

It proved to be our most difficult rehearsal of the week, laying the groundwork for good singing in the coming days. I should know this, but it was hard to see it on this day.

What saves me is seeing the trebles, especially those seven girls from our parish in front of me, watching their discipline and energy, working hard from beginning to end much better than I.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have relighted the flame within us. (Albert Schweitzer)

“Thank you for teaching us Music,” one of my choristers from the 1980’s scrawled on a postcard in her childish script, with a hand-drawn bit of treble staff and a few notes for illustration. It has been given me to do this work for two generations of boys and girls. “Teach the Story and the Song,” my Credo sheet says, hanging on the side of my computer: “It is a treasure of inestimable value.”

Tuesday is the first of three midweek Choral Evensongs: the responses (which I still dislike), the Andrew Walker setting of the Phos Hilaron, Psalm 121, the Magnificat. Afterward, I walk as in the old days, enjoying the cool of the evening. Ten or fifteen years ago, I might have walked for an hour or more in the darkness, up the road to the highway, for I never much liked going to the adult gatherings in the evenings; my heart was too full from the music and liturgy to be with others.

No longer can I afford such a walk. It is Tuesday, there is a long way to go, and I am still exhausted from the weekend. After a few minutes, I go to my room and straight to bed.

Wednesday, July 17

I speak of retirement with two of my long-time friends, directors at other churches. It is tempting to tell them “Yes, I’ll come back,” and think that in retirement it can be as it has always been. When the time comes, these farewells will be hard.

In the afternoon rehearsal, there are long stretches when I can listen to the trebles and watch them. A farewell to this sound, these young people, may be hardest of all.

By the end of supper, a wall of black clouds towers above the big house (a former private residence with chapel and pipe organ at one end, where we rehearse). The thunderstorm arrives during rehearsal with lightning, thunder, and heavy rain; it continues through evensong. I am not at all Connected, singing poorly in the responses and the Fauré Cantique de Jean Racine, a piece that I hate to sing so badly. The group sings it well enough for this point in the week, but not me. I am emotionally dead, in a service where I am usually deeply moved.

To be continued.

A good idea, and a life in church music

“You should start a reference file,” he told us. John S. C. Kemp, that is, in his church music class at the Choir College, long ago. “Any time you run across a piece of choral music that you think might be useful, keep it. You will be glad you did.”

He was right.

I puzzled briefly over how to organize it, deciding to follow the system used by the Choir College, which in those days had what must have been one of the finest collections of choral octavos in the world, filling most of a room. The first accession is number one, the next one is number two, with all of them hole-punched and kept in ring binders. They had a card catalogue for searches of the collection by composer or title.

I had a few dozen things in a bulging file folder from my days as a fledgling church musician before graduate school, so I began with those, choosing one at random: an arrangement of “The King of love my Shepherd is” by John Ness Beck, number 0001 in my collection. It remains a useful, straightforward arrangement of this hymn and I have used it with two choirs over the years.

Like the Choir College, I began with a card file as index. Not many years later, I designed a database on my new Commodore 128 computer, adding many other search fields. In due time, I was able to move the database and other files that were important to me over to the new MS-DOS computer in the church office where (by that time) I was working. DOS 6.0, I think it was. None of this Windows stuff, not yet. I remain thankful for a long-obsolete bit of software: the Big Blue Reader, by SOGWAP (the company’s name, an acronym for “Son of God with all Power,” Romans 1:4). It allowed the user to read and write DOS-readable diskettes from the C-128 diskette drive.

Eventually, my database ended up in Lotus Approach, part of their excellent office software package, which is still what I use by preference: Lotus Word Pro, Lotus Organizer, Lotus 1-2-3. The database retains some limitations from the C-128 days when such matters as field length and file size were important, but it has served its purpose.

The latest item in the collection is number 2090, “Rejoice in the Lamb” by Benjamin Britten, following hard on the heels of #2089, the Collegium Regale evening canticles by Herbert Howells. Both were from a RSCM Course, as is much of the material in the database.

But I don’t keep everything. From last year’s Course, I added nothing.

For decades, I was a member of the American Choral Directors’ Association, and thus received mailings from choral publishers. I also subscribed to three publishers' listings, where for a small fee they sent single copies of all their new publications [MorningStar, GIA, and Oxford, for those who might be interested in such things]. Music workshops and conferences often include reading sessions, where a clinician puts a selection of choral music in front of a group of directors, who sight-read the packet. All of these venues were sources for good material that has been essential to my work.

And there was a lot that was less useful, especially in the unsolicited publishers’ mailings. All told, I would guess that I have kept perhaps one out of every thirty or forty titles that have crossed my path. That implies that I have sampled 60,000 or more over the years.

It makes you a better sight-reader.

More to the point, it gives you the tools to plan a choral season with music that will hopefully be of interest to the singers, within their skills as a group, appropriate to each Sunday’s liturgy, and accessible to the congregation.

Looking back over these 2090 octavos and books, I can trace my life in the church music profession. Lots of “practical” music, like the John Ness Beck item that begins the collection. Many things that I have sung and played with choirs in one or another place where I have worked, though these account for only a fraction of the collection, a quarter or less. Many hundreds of things that I would dearly love to do, but have never had the right opportunity.

Some items are reminders of one-time events which I can never possibly repeat: #1397, the Berlioz Te Deum, sung with the Choir College and the New York Philharmonic for an anniversary concert at Carnegie Hall. #1399, “An die Freude,” the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth. We sang this twice with the Philharmonic in Avery Fischer Hall (as it was then known); the one I remember most fondly was under the baton of Rafael Kubelik.

For that matter, #2089 and #2090, the Howells and Britten mentioned above: our singing of these things at the 2017 RSCM Course with Stephen Buzard was something we repeated at home, for Choral Evensong in May 2018. But I cannot imagine a situation where we could do either of them again.

Others are old friends: #0026, Let the peoples praise thee, O God (Wm. Mathias). #0278, the Preces and Responses by Byrd, Morley, Tomkins and (especially) Wm. Smith, in the Church Music Society edition of Dr. Watkins Shaw. #1282, Stanford in C. #1544, Messiah, by G. F. Handel.

It has been a good run.

Bless, O Lord, us thy servants who minister in thy temple: grant that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts we may shew forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I was glad when they said unto me...

I was glad when they said unto me: Let us go into the house of the LORD.

Here is a three-hour YouTube video of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, 2 June 1953, as broadcast by the BBC.

If you click the “more” button in the YouTube description, you will find a description of the musical forces – including twenty trebles chosen by audition from parish choirs by the RSCM, who spent a month in residence at Addington Palace preparing to join the choristers of the Abbey, St. Paul’s, and St. George’s, Windsor: 182 trebles in all. With the ATBs and orchestral forces: 480 musicians.

And you will find the music list. Of particular interest to my friends who attended this summer’s RSCM St. Louis Course, the Hubert Parry anthem “I was glad” (22 and a half minutes into the tape), in its proper liturgical setting. It comes at the end of a twenty-minute procession (accompanied by part of Handel’s Water Music) as the Queen enters the abbey, with the “Vivats” as she and her attendants pass under the Rood Screen into the choir and chancel. The quieter section “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem” comes as she kneels for prayer. Since this is a television broadcast, they unfortunately lower the volume for the announcer to speak during the climactic ending of the anthem, as the Crown and other regalia are placed on the Altar.

Following the Parry, a bit of high-stakes organ improvisation, by (I think) William McKie, organist of the Abbey. [Correction: I see in the comments to the video that McKie was conducting the combined musical forces during the service; Sir Adrian Boult had conducted the orchestral music before and after the service. Osborne Peasegood (1902-1962), sub-organist of the Abbey, was organist for the service.] There is a bit of Parry’s hymn tune Laudate Dominum (O praise ye the Lord) near the end of it, and additional improvisation at various points, most notably near the end as the retiring procession begins, leading up to the fanfare and the National Anthem (God save the Queen). First-rate playing in the grand English cathedral manner.

There is much more of musical interest: first performances of anthems by Herbert Howells, William H. Harris, George Dyson; a newly composed Te Deum by William Walton, and anthems composed for the occasion by Healey Willan and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

RVW has a large musical part in this service: it is his setting of the Mass which is sung (the Credo and Sanctus from his G Minor Mass), plus his setting of the Old Hundredth Psalm Tune, arranged for this occasion (1 hour 53 minutes into the tape). This is a great masterpiece, one of my favorites of his works – but the greatest gem is a bit later, during Holy Communion: a short motet which RVW wrote for the occasion, “O taste and see” (2 hours 17 minutes). After all of the loud music and grandeur, an unaccompanied treble solo (sung by a small group of trebles, it sounds like), then the choir, quiet and unaccompanied. Ninety seconds and it is done. The effect in this context is stunning.

There is more even than this: some Stanford, and Samuel Sebastian Wesley, the Tudor anthem “Rejoice in the Lord alway,” an Amen by Gibbons, and “Zadok the Priest,” which has been sung at every coronation since Handel wrote it for George II. It is as essential to a British coronation as “I was glad” has become.

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Three impressions:

It is hard to overstate the impressiveness of the choir’s initial entrance in “I was glad,” the first vocal music of the day. Most of the congregation had been there for hours. A long prelude of orchestral music had preceded the procession. Already the leaders of church and state had walked down the aisle, the archbishops of York and Canterbury among them, and the Prime Ministers of the Commonwealth, followed by the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill, one of the heroes of the twentieth century. A brass fanfare, then the majestic introduction that begins the Parry. And then the choir sings.

The Coronation is above all else a sacred liturgy according to the use of the Church of England, in essence an Ordination, complete with Gospel, Creed, Offertory of Bread and Wine (handed to the Archbishop by the new Queen), Eucharistic Prayer, Confession, Communion. I wonder whether the next coronation will include such things, given the multi-cultural and thoroughly secular nature of modern Britain.

On this day, Elizabeth is a very serious and determined young woman. She came of age during the Battle of Britain and a war where it seemed that Britain might be destroyed forever; she knew that the post-war world was changing in ways that were unknowable, and that it was her responsibility to lead her people through it.

From her Christmas Message the previous December:

At my Coronation next June, I shall dedicate myself anew to your service. I shall do so in the presence of a great congregation, drawn from every part of the Commonwealth and Empire, while millions outside Westminster Abbey will hear the promises and the prayers being offered up within its walls, and see much of the ancient ceremony in which Kings and Queens before me have taken part through century upon century.

You will be keeping it as a holiday; but I want to ask you all, whatever your religion may be, to pray for me on that day - to pray that God may give me wisdom and strength to carry out the solemn promises I shall be making, and that I may faithfully serve Him and you, all the days of my life.

Give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb

Last night (May 6, the Sixth Sunday of Easter) was our final choral evensong of the season. As is our custom, it was sung by the combined youth and adult choirs. Because most of the youth choir was at last summer's RSCM Course, we were so bold as to attempt some music that would otherwise be more than we could handle, for we had sung it at the Course.

I could write of the Howells "Collegium Regale" Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and what a privilege it was to conduct this. I hope that I will never forget the delicate shimmering beauty of the opening, at first just the youth choir trebles and altos with the adult women joining a bit later. Or the four young choirmen singing the tenor lead that begins the Nunc Dimittis. Or the magnificence of the "Glory be to the Father...", which was profoundly moving.

I could write of how fine it was to be Organist for the Britten "Rejoice in the Lamb," the anthem for this evensong, and of my high regard for my friend Jean who directed this and played for the Howells, plus a significant prelude, and urged me to prepare a careful plan for the warmup rehearsal, timed to the minute for each item that we needed, and in the event, essential.

I could write of the Smith Responses, and our teen chorister Charles who was superb as Officiant. And I could write of my friend Nora, who was Preacher for the evening. And the David Hogan "O gracious Light," and the closing hymn, "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended," with the descant by John Scott (may he rest in peace) that we sang at last summer's Course. This proved the perfect ending to the service and was, again, profoundly moving for me and probably others.

But of all these things, what impressed me the most was the Psalmody, the three Psalms appointed for the Sixth Evening. I had thought we would need considerable rehearsal, because the two choirs do not routinely sing psalmody together, nor do they rehearse together. Nor was it a small group; with the combined choirs, we numbered about twenty-five. With psalmody, small is often best, for the ensemble is easier to achieve. And familiarity with one another's singing is essential. For best results, the group should sing Psalms together every day. Or several times a day, as the brothers and sisters of Religion do in the monastaries and convents.

We were arranged in divided choir, the adults on Cantoris, the youth on Decani. I reminded them to watch one another across the middle, and most of all to listen. We launched into Psalm 32: "Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven..." After a couple of verses, I quit playing. Then I walked to the back of the church, my arms folded so that I would not try to direct them.

They were flawless. Well, not quite; psalmody is never flawless. But they were extremely good. And they did not need me, or any direction, or even accompaniment. They could have gone right through the full set, which they did later in the service (Psalms 32, 33, and 34), but it was clear that for rehearsal, all that was needed was a couple of verses of each to remind them of the chants.

If there is one thing of which I am proud with these choristers, it is this: they have learned to sing the Psalms. David Willcocks used to say that the psalmody was what made a choir like the one he directed at King's what it was (and is). The psalms require sensitivity to diction, pacing, and most of all attentive ensemble with the other singers. I can attest on our more humble scale that much of what progress has been made during my tenure has been the result of the psalmody, both the Anglican Chant of evensong and the plainsong that is our staple for the morning Eucharists.

Getting through all of this music in good order was an accomplishment for our parish choir, young and old. But last night, I was numb to it, immediately carried off by concerns for the traditional end-of-season pizza supper (which went well), and some administrative concerns that appeared via e-mail, and by the Sunday evening routine of bulletin-making. The best I could say at that point was that I was glad it was done. But today is better; I can see what a Good Thing last night was, both in sum for all of the choir and individually for many of the choristers - and probably in many ways which I will never know, for them and for others. For a while longer, it remains my privilege and vocation to work with them and perhaps make a bit of difference. For this I offer my thanks to the One who calls us and whom we praise in song.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Simplifying Anthem Accompaniments

There are (at least) two types of keyboard accompaniments for choral music:

1) Accompaniment written for organ or piano. Some of these may require quite a lot of practice, but normally one plays the notes that are written, within the limitations of the instrument at hand.
2) Accompaniment originally for orchestra, with a keyboard reduction in the choral score. Most often, one does not play all of the notes.

The overriding principle for keyboard reductions:
“When in doubt, leave it out.”

Our goal is to produce a reasonable approximation of the orchestral score, sufficient to support the choir in its singing and to present the musical work to the listeners. Most keyboard reductions have far more material than is needed for this. To play everything that is printed would require massive technical skill and practice time.

So, leave things out. Lots of things. Reduce the “reduction” until it matches your capabilities and the time available to learn it. Get it down to something that you will be able to play fluently.

An example, from “Qui sedes” by Michael Haydn, in the fine edition by David Stein (Th. Presser 312-41692)

The choir is floating along with “Alleluias,” hardly a care in the world. The orchestra is bouncing along with an active bass line and lots of string figuration. In particular, lots of repeated sixteenth notes – easy on violin, not so much on organ. Add to that considerable leaping around – again, easy on violin, not so much on organ.

As you can see, I have scribbled over my copy until it is barely legible. I have left the bass line fairly intact (in the pedals), though there would be places to simplify it further, such as measure 65, where I was tempted to cross out the final three eighth notes. It is the upper staff where the chopping happens – I have crossed out at least one of the four sixteenth notes in every group of repeated notes, sometimes two of the four (leaving eighth notes in effect). I have chopped out lots of the inner parts, so that I can divide the remaining upper line (probably first violin originally) between the hands. And that got it to where I could play it, with sufficient practice. As printed, no way. Not even close.

[Unrelated tip: in measure 64, pedal line, after the third beat, I wrote in “PN”. That stands for “Pivot Note,” and tells me to shift my feet and legs to a different part of the pedalboard. I learned this decades ago from Carl Weinrich, formerly organist at Princeton University, who described this in The Diapason. I commend it to you. You might also notice that I have written in all of the fingering and pedalings. I commend this to you as well.]

Another example: a notorious passage from Handel’s Messiah (“For unto us a child is born”), in the Watkins Shaw edition:

At rehearsal letter G, the first and second violins are playing merrily along in parallel thirds. Fine for them; not impossible at the keyboard, but well beyond what I can do. I have not crossed out so many notes here as in the Haydn because it would have been illegible, but you can see what I have done from the fingering – for each group of four sixteenth notes, play the two-note sonority for the first and third notes, and a single note for the second and fourth. Just like that, it becomes playable. The other changes on this page are hopefully more subtle – chop out repeated notes (e.g., right hand, in the measure before G), cross out some notes from the middle parts and assign others to the left hand (top system second bar), strategically assign some of the bass line to the left hand instead of the pedal (two before G).

I have even added some notes, finding it necessary to fill in some of the chords in the left hand (top system last measure, and at G).

There was a time when such shameless hacking away at the careful work of editors (and there are none better than Watkins Shaw! Compare this with the old T. Tertius Noble edition for a lesson in making a fine keyboard reduction) burdened me with guilt. “You worthless lazy incompetent slug! You can’t even play a simple accompaniment. Surely everyone else zips through this stuff with ease. They probably sight-read it.”

Well, many days I do consider myself to be worthless, lazy, and incompetent. But somehow I have to get through this thing with the choir if we are going to sing it. And I have to chop away at it to get it to where that is possible. Either that or hire an orchestra.

That thought is why I am writing this essay, with examples. Trust me: “everyone else” does not zip through this stuff. The best I can tell, the sort of work I have described is normal. So I no longer permit myself to wallow in guilt. Neither should you. Do what you have to do to make the accompaniments playable. By you. In the practice time that you have. If you are one of the rare people who can rip off eight bars of sixteenth notes in parallel thirds in your right hand, go for it, and I tip my hat to you. If a page like either of the examples I have given causes you to shudder with dread, sharpen your pencil, sit down at the keyboard, and see what you can do.

When in doubt, leave it out.

[Afterword: There is a third kind of accompaniment – reading from open score, making it all fit at the piano or organ on the fly as you go. It is said that Franz Liszt could take a brand-new score by the likes of Wagner or Bruckner – in manuscript, not nicely printed like what we normally face – sit down at the piano, and sight-read it at tempo.

I can only bow my head in wonder, praising the God who put musicians like that on this earth.
Soli Deo Gloria.]

What wondrous love is this

When I was sinking down, O my soul;
When I was sinking down beneath God’s righteous frown,
Christ laid aside His crown for my soul.

It has been a long while since I have posted a recording online; I think that it was before Advent, and here it is near the end of Lent.

It has been a long while since I have practiced sufficiently, and I am not there yet; just four hours this week, two of them on Saturday. Much of that has been the result of non-musical events, but some (especially of late) has been plain old Resistance.

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. (Steven Pressfield, “The War of Art,” p. 15)

Maybe it is the three-month lapse in my work, just barely scraping by musically from Sunday to Sunday.
Maybe it is my sense that I am no longer reliable in my playing.
Maybe it is my efforts to work in a different manner, efforts still in their infancy and hindered by lack of practice.

Maybe it is the clavichord, which has been my lifeline. More days than not, my ten or fifteen minutes of improvisation after Matins on the quiet little instrument in my office has been my only time at a keyboard.


Maybe it is a turning point.


I played well today, on those four hours of practice. I played well last week, on five hours, four of them on Saturday. Good solid hymnody, good improvisations, decent playing of repertoire pieces for postludes. No falling apart from the “yips.” My practicing, such as it was, has been careful and good, interspersed with Alexander laydowns.

I am too close to the improvisations to discern accurately whether they are any good. They have recently been quite a ways outside of my past manner of playing, at first not so good but much better the past few weeks. It is scaring me to play them; it is frightening to play anything at all, repertoire pieces or improvisations or even hymn tunes. Not stage fright, and mostly not fear of falling apart in midstream; rather, it is fear of the unexpected directions my music seems to be leading.

And it is not just my work at the organ and piano. A few weeks ago, the youth choir sang the Byrd motet “Ave verum corpus” for the church service. It was amazing. Every one of their rehearsals this spring has been amazing, the adult rehearsals too. Again, this is not my doing.

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? (Pressfield, p. 125)

Here is today’s piano improvisation, on the shape-note tune Wondrous Love, posted on SoundCloud.

To God and to the Lamb I will sing,
To God and to the Lamb who is the great I Am,
While millions join the theme, I will sing.

Church Music: an essay

A lot of young church musicians do not survive the transition from school to church. Some of the fault is with the way organists and choral musicians are trained. They are schooled almost exclusively toward the goal of becoming the finest performers possible at the organ, and toward working with highly skilled young adult choristers, all of them with fabulous voices and quick and active minds. They sing and play only the finest literature; the pipe organs at their disposal are of the highest quality. They work at minutiae to bring their work to the highest possible standard. Unless they are very fortunate, they learn very little about working with children, or with teenagers, or with amateur adult singers of all ages, more elderly than otherwise. They learn nothing about "contemporary music" (meaning “anything with guitars”) except that it is to be avoided at all costs. They learn nothing about working with difficult clergy or parishioners, which probably is the downfall of more young church musicians than any other factor.

****

You graduate. You get a part-time position in a typical parish. The organ is a Baldwin electronic, circa 1970, with several of the pedal contacts corroded into dysfunction. The choir is, well, a typical parish choir: let's say eight persons, one of whom is under the age of sixty. There is one baritone who can sing tenor, sort of, in a pinch -- but he works every other Sunday morning. There is one other bass, age seventy-six, who has had three heart attacks and now has a large, wobbly voice because his cardiovascular fitness is barely enough to allow him to walk into the choir room. And he does not see very well. The other six are women. One of them played clarinet in her high school band (that was in the 1950's), so she reads music, sort of. The others all sing "by ear." Sort of.

A variety of vocal and other problems are in evidence; "white" tone, bleaty vibratos, no head voice. One woman has vocal nodules (as it proved) which she got, she tells you, from when she was in a mental hospital after her husband died "and I screamed, night and day." Another woman (the one who is under sixty) is epileptic, and more likely to have a seizure when she is stressed -- like, for example, in the middle of the anthem during the Christmas Eve service the previous year.

Since you have never worked with any singer who has any vocal problems whatsoever, you are at a loss. You want the choir to sound like your college choir, which had sung the B Minor Mass that spring before graduation. You want to do music like that: Bach and Palestrina and Schutz and Byrd and Tallis and all the rest. But the music library consists entirely of illegal Xeroxes, and one of your first moves is a day of carting it all off to the recycling depot.

"We would like a children's choir." That is what they told you in the interview, and is one of the reasons you accepted the position, for you studied the RSCM method at college and observed the excellent choral program at the local Episcopal parish near the campus. They neglected to mention that there are currently no children in the parish. None. There is not one soul in the parish under the age of thirty-five. And the community, a small Pennsylvania town, is dying; unemployment is near twenty percent, and anyone who was able moved away years ago, so there is not a plethora of children anywhere in town.

"Hmmm.... I guess I'll have to put that on the back burner, for now."

And here comes Sunday morning with that Baldwin. You have never played an electronic organ, much less one of that vintage -- early transistor/printed circuit, where every "stop" sounds pretty much the same, and pushing down a whole row of stop tabs does little to change the sound, either in volume or timbre. You pull out the Bach Orgelbuchlein; it sounds horrible. You try a Mendelssohn sonata movement: ditto.

You are, again, at a loss.

I will spare you a discussion of the Vicar, who is entirely innocent of any sound training or experience in liturgy, homiletics, or, most of all, music -- though he considers himself an expert in all of these fields. His idea of good church music is "On Eagles' Wings." His idea of good liturgy is when he "improvises" the Eucharistic prayer, or "paraphrases" the Gospel reading from memory, leaving out some of the important bits. The first words spoken in the liturgy each Sunday are a cheerful "Good morning!!!!"

But I had best not spare you the Contemporary Service on Sunday evenings. "We have a praise band," they said in the interview. It proves to consist of three Boomer-age lady guitarists (now in their seventies) who think they are the second coming of Joni Mitchell. They know the basic three chords and play with what is commonly called the "Catholic strum." That is all they can do; they cannot handle other chords, or other strumming techniques, or (heaven forbid) finger-picking. You did not take Guitar Methods 101 at school -- indeed, it was not offered -- so, again, you are at a loss. But, being a good soldier, you join them on the electric piano (a twenty-year old Clavinova with a few dead notes), and do your best. You learn the eight songs which are the complete repertoire of the Service. About a dozen people show up on Sunday evenings, mostly ex-Cursillistas. The Vicar is in his element, loving the "casual informality" of the atmosphere.

After a year or so of this, many a young church musician decides that a career in restaurant table service and dishwashing would be more to his liking. Or maybe truck driving.

****

The secret, if there is one, lies in that woman who wants your help in learning how to somehow sing again after screaming her voice away in the mental hospital. And that bass, who has sung in choirs since childhood and loves music and has watched his voice, his strength, and his health disappear, and is just trying to hang on and finish what he has carried thus far, a life which the Psalmist described thus: "I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will praise my God while I have my being." And that woman with the epilepsy, who loves God -- indeed, God is her sole reliance -- and wants to sing, and does not want to make a scene this Christmas. But if making a scene is what is going to happen, she is still going to be there, because it her choir, and her parish, and most of all her Lord who was born that night.

Despite yourself, if you are lucky (or better, "blessed"), you care about these people. It is not because you are supposed to (though you are); you just do. You can't help it. You recognize that you have been given the responsibility of helping these individuals grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ. The tools at your disposal, such as the Baldwin and the choral library, are not the best, but they are what you have.

You pray a lot.

There is nothing else for it; you pray so much that you become known for it. You teach the same things over and over, and it appears that it makes no difference -- but, sometimes, after many repetitions, it does. You send cards to your choristers when they are sick; you visit them in the hospital when you can (an aside: this is much harder to do than it used to be, because they often do not permit people like choral directors, who are neither family nor authorized church professionals, to so much as discern what room the person is in, or even if they are in the hospital at all.) I emphasize that this is not because you are supposed to, or with any end in view (such as building your choir); you can't help it.

You figure out how to get the best possible results out of the Baldwin -- a task for which your academic training has given you no preparation whatsoever -- and you play with care and integrity for every service. You learn how to play your eight Cursillo songs with the "Joni Mitchell girls" -- and you find that, despite yourself, you care even about them. And the people who show up at the Sunday evening service. You find that they, with the handful who attend the traditional morning service, are the lifeblood of that little town, fighting to keep it alive.

And, just maybe, the hardest of all, the Vicar. You come to recognize that he is as clueless as you are, and that is the source of much of his bluster. To him, this is a dead-end parish in a dead-end town, and a dead-end for his career. No bishopric or cushy suburban parish for him, because now that he is middle-aged, all of a sudden the ideal bishop is in his forties. His seminary training prepared him for the work of ministry about as well as your conservatory training did for church music, and he has been trying to figure it out "on the job" ever since.

****

Lest you think that this essay is autobiographical, it is not. For one thing, my first post-graduate instrument was an Allen, not a Baldwin. And I have never lived or worked in Pennsylvania. And I had worked as a part-time church musician for some years before going to graduate school; this was of inestimable value. Nonetheless, I made many, many mistakes. I still do. Two of the persons I described are more-or-less based on choristers with whom I had the privilege of working at previous parishes where I have served, and who taught me much by their glorious witness to the power of God.

And I have entirely given up on hospital visits.

****

Perhaps you stay in the parish, despite everything. One day, a vestry member says "Gee, maybe we should think about a pipe organ!" Over time, you assemble a choral library of sorts. Your choir grows from eight to eleven. A family with children moves to town and joins the church; you incorporate the children into the choir (and figure out how to work with them in this setting), and now the choir is fourteen persons. A new Vicar comes, and she is a little easier to work with, partly because she sang in a church choir when she was a child and it was essential to her vocation.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps you play that Baldwin to your dying day. Perhaps the Vicar retires, and the parish cannot afford to hire a replacement. Perhaps they cannot afford to keep you on staff, either. Perhaps the place closes down altogether. Perhaps the whole community closes down.

None of this matters. What matters is each one of those singers, and the people out in the pews, and even that Vicar. Their spiritual growth and welfare matters. On the Day of Doom, the Baldwin, the illegal Xeroxes, the guitars, the vestments, the church building, even the town in which you lived -- all of it will have been calcined to dust. What will remain is the people, your brothers and sisters, standing with you and singing the glories of the Lamb. You are given a small part in preparing them for that Day.

No one said it would be easy.

****
(Adapted slightly from my old LiveJournal, Nov. 25, 2009)

O day full of grace (and a recipe)

I have not posted a Recipe for a long while, and this is not really one, just a variation. One of our family favorites is the Middle-Eastern salad called Tabbouleh, made with bulgur wheat, large amounts of fresh parsley and mint, black olives, cucumber, tomato, olive oil and lemon juice, plus other additions ad libitum.

Yesterday when I made our weekly batch, I used Kasha (toasted buckwheat) in place of the bulgur. It adds its own distinctive flavor (sort of nuttish, perhaps a bit like walnuts?) and I think that I prefer it. There is the added advantage that the dish now becomes gluten-free; here is a link discussing that aspect, and noting other nutritional advantages, particularly buckwheat’s high levels of fiber and protein. [Edited to add: My wife does not like this at all. I do. Your experience may vary.]

---------------
On the current Episcopal calendar, this day (Sept. 8) is the feast of two nineteenth century Danish Christians: S. Kirkegaard and N. F. S. Gruntvig. The former is more generally known; the latter is more important to me because of his hymns. Our choir is working on an arrangement of one: “Built on a Rock the Church must stand/even when steeples are falling.” Here is another, which I love even better, as much for its tune Den Signede Dag as for the text: “O Day full of grace, which we behold.”

Most of all, I love the arrangement of this by F. Melius Christiansen for his St. Olaf Choir, especially the way it begins. It is a grand undertaking to sing this, which I once did at a music workshop (Presbyterian Conference on Worship and Music at Montreat, NC – that year, Anton Armstrong, one of Christiansen’s successors at St. Olaf, was the adult choir director and clinician). Here is a recording of the hymn by another fine choir, the Nordic Choir of Luther College.

I recall Mike Wagner’s sermon at the RSCM course this summer, wherein he spoke of the Collegiate Choir at Luther College (in which he sang) and “taking it home,” with “it” being what I call Connection. If one doubts what “it” or “connection” might be, this recording is a fine demonstration. May these young people take “it” with them wherever they go.

RSCM Report, part three: Taking it Home

I have taken choristers to RSCM courses for upwards of thirty years. Most of those years, it has been just a few young people, a fraction of the choir back home. Where I now work, it began with two little girls entering the fourth grade, the minimum age for the course. They came home with a vision of the possibilities and did all that was in their power to make the parish youth choir better. As did I, year after year.

This year we took fourteen choristers and a proctor. It is almost the entire Youth Choir, plus Tom (who now sings with the adult choir). No longer do we need one or two people to show the others how it is done; they all know, and several of them were among the leading choristers vocally and musically. All of them know what it is like to sing this kind of music well, with connection and intensity and total commitment, among a group where everyone is at that level. All of them surely want to keep singing this way.

It is an opportunity unique to my decades of church music, and unique to the choirs participating in the course this year. I do not think that any of the other directors are returning home to as strong of a group as I will face in our first rehearsals a month from now - not even Mr. Buzard, our course director, who has the task of building a program for young singers from scratch at a distinguished cathedral where there have been choirs, but no young singers for almost a century. I am sure he would love to start with a group such as what we will have back in Iowa City.

It is a test for me. How can I help these choristers maintain the level of work that they have done this week? Here we have six hours or more of rehearsal a day; at home, it amounts to one hour a week, and many of the choristers cannot be there for all of that. That is the issue, a perennial issue for most church choirs of all ages. One rehearsal a week is not sufficient; it is like trying to play the organ by practicing one day a week.

But the choristers (and adults) have busy lives, of which choral music is only a part, and it is right that it be so. On the wider scale, is choral music at a high level going to be solely for the handful of places with choir schools, daily rehearsals, daily choral services, semi-professional and highly trained singers on the ATB parts? Is music at this level a closed door to everyone else?

The answer to that comes down, in microcosm, to what I do with these choristers back home, starting on Wednesday, August 23. We repeat the Bruce Neswick anthem “The Invitation” for a service with the bishop on Friday, September 8. Can we sing that anthem and that service with the intensity we gave to choral evensong at the RSCM? Can we then carry this forward into the fall and winter? We plan to sing the Vaughan Williams setting of “Lord, thou hast been our refuge” on Christ the King; can we make this as strong as the Howells canticles and “Rejoice in the Lamb” at the course? And in doing such things, can we incorporate new first-year choristers and give them a good start?

I can and must do some things at home which are not feasible at the course. Can I do better about teaching them solfege and making them independent musicians? Can I work with our young choirmen? They are not maintaining good posture at all times in rehearsal. Several of them need to open their mouths for a taller vocal space. Can I help them make these things habitual? Many of the choristers, trebles and teens alike, are not marking their scores. That is because I have not taught them to do this, and that is one of the ways in which choristers - or any professional musicians - can remember what they have rehearsed when it has been a week since they last met. Can I help them make music an essential part of their lives for the rest of their days, and beyond that through the ages of eternity? And most of all, can I through the music we sing and rehearse do my part in bringing them into the full maturity of the image of Christ?

And can we do all of this in that one little hour per week? For me, it is now or never. I will be judged on this at the Day of Doom. Will it be recorded in the presence of my Lord and the holy angels that I gave it all that I have, leaning ever on the Holy Paraclete for guidance and strength? Or will the record state that I slacked off, allowed the choristers given into my care to slack off, and squandered the opportunity? “Where much is given, much is required.”

Jesu, juva.

----------------------
I acknowledge Mike Wagner for his sermon at one of the weekday evensongs at the Course, which I think he titled “Taking it home.” Mike sings in one of the finest choirs in America (the Nordic Choir of Luther College), and described how another collegiate director said to his director “this choir has ‘it,’” meaning by “it” what I call “connection.” Our RSCM director of a few years ago, Andrew Walker, called it “attitude.”

Back at the Choir College, Dr. Flummerfelt described it as Connection, and I will probably use that word, though Attitude needs less explanation. When singing, are you connected to the text and musical line with all of your being? Or are you going through the motions? It might be possible for instrumentalists to sometimes get away with the latter, but the voice is so thoroughly a window into the soul that it is immediately obvious if the singers are not Connected -- and, if the other basics are in place and the group has done its homework, Connection makes it possible for the song to touch the hearts of the listeners. This will never happen if the hearts of the singers are not likewise touched by the Song and absolutely committed to it.

Whatever we call it, we had it at the Course, and now we must take it home. Tomorrow’s essay will describe an example of how this is done.

RSCM Report, part two: Some thoughts on Renaissance polyphony

In some respects, the most challenging piece in our repertoire was the Ave Maria by Robert Parsons (c. 1530-1570). For the singer, especially in the ATB parts, it is a doorway into another plane of existence. From the outset, we launch into long melismatic lines on the first words, Ave Maria. The tenor (which is what I sang) has twenty-four notes on the syllable “ri”; the other voice parts are similar. The melody goes on, and when you sense that it is nearing a cadence, it goes on some more, far beyond what I can sing in one breath, or even two or three.

Why? For what reason would a composer write such a ravishingly beautiful melody for two words, most of it for one syllable? And then bury it in the middle of the texture, where no one except the tenors will know how beautiful it is?

It is for love of Our Lady. Love even for her name, love overflowing into melody.

And that is not enough, for the basses and the two alto parts are also singing, their melodies equally beautiful, the four lower vocal parts overlapping one another, entwined most wonderfully. And finally, the trebles soar above the texture in long notes. At first, Ave. Just the one word, as if they cannot bear to go on. Then Ave Maria.

The music flows onward, phrase after phrase, each more beautiful than the last. Gratia plena. Benedicta tu. The melismas seek to show how completely full of grace she is, how blessed. Fifteen hundred years and more of painters and sculptors, of architects and poets, have sought to express this; I think that they fall short of the musicians. Perhaps it is because our art is participatory; one experiences it properly only by singing it. The choral art is communal, as well; no person can experience this motet without the other singers. Renaissance polyphony of this sort is one of the clearest expressions of community. The six vocal parts are thoroughly interdependent. As a singer, you focus on your own part, but you are constantly aware of the other parts, all related to one another, but each with its own melodic and rhythmic flow. So it is with the Kingdom of God.

The Parsons is a masterpiece. The Ave verum corpus of William Byrd (c. 1540-1623) is even more of a masterpiece. Three pages, only a few minutes - but every note is exactly what it should be. Offhand, the only thing to which I can compare it in size and perfection is the motet on the same text by W. A. Mozart, one of his finest works -- but the Byrd is its equal. Here, the music expresses devotion to the Real Presence of Christ in the transfigured Bread and Wine - at a time and place when both the theological truth and the Latin language were illegal. As Mr. Buzard told the choristers, this was never sung in public in Byrd’s lifetime; it was probably sung in secret at someone’s house, and probably with one person to a part. It is thus more intimate than the Parsons, each voice part more of an individual outpouring of love, of wonderment at the Sacred Mystery. But it is still four parts, no one complete in itself - still the expression of a community, albeit small. In our rehearsals at home, I told the choristers that the Byrd is a very great masterpiece, and I hoped that they would grow to love it as much as I do. Mr. Buzard said pretty much the same thing to them at the Course.

O dulcis,
O pie,
O Jesu fili Mariae,
Miserere mei.

For the most part, we have shied away from this repertoire at the RSCM courses. It is often challenging to maintain one’s own part with so much going on around it, and I suspect the idea is that it would be a bit much for young choristers to master in one week; also, it is less dramatic than music of later eras and (one might think) less immediately interesting to young singers.

I submit two points: First, it was not the trebles who found either the Parsons or the Byrd to be difficult; it was the ATBs. Second, one would need a heart of stone to remain unmoved in the singing of either of these motets. That is as true of a ten-year old chorister as it is of an old choirmaster like me. I wonder what it is like to experience something like the Byrd for the first time.

We sang these things at the Basilica of Saint Louis. Crowded onto the choral risers behind the Altar, surrounded by these my friends, many of them choristers from our parish, singing these things in such close proximity, the vocal parts interweaving into a whole, was an extraordinary experience. And I think we sang the Byrd with more connection than the Tallis Scholars in the recording linked below, or any of the several other recordings I sampled – perhaps because we had many trebles and teen ATBs for whom this was their first exposure to the piece.

Earlier, I gave short shrift to the visual artists. They are in fact part of this as well; the music needs the gorgeous large acoustic of the Basilica, about seven or eight seconds of reverberation. It is supported by the visual splendor; everywhere one looks in such a building, there are statues, mosaics, paintings, windows -- all pointing toward our Lord Christ. They are beautiful and compelling - but the music breathes life into the room.

----------
Here are YouTube recordings of the Parsons and the Byrd – not by us; some of our services were live-streamed, but I am not aware of any recordings that remain on the Net.

RSCM report: part one

Rejoice in God, O ye Tongues; give the glory to the Lord, and the Lamb.
Nations and languages, and every Creature, in which is the breath of Life.
Let man and beast appear before him, and magnify his name together.
(Christopher Smart)

This year, I am not writing a detailed account of our RSCM experiences. Were I to make the attempt, I would mostly be repeating what I have written in other years: for example here and here. I content myself with a few observations:

Last year, the trebles began the week sounding tentative, young. This year, the distinctive sound of a strong, confident treble section was present from the first warmups. On the other hand, last year we had an unusually large group of adult tenors and basses. This year, it was one of the smallest adult contingents of recent years. It was our turn to sound tentative in the first rehearsals, for the large majority of the tenors and basses (and one of the male altos) were young men in middle school and high school, some with newly changed voices. These young choirmen are one of the special glories of the St. Louis Course, this year perhaps more than any other. By the end of the week, they sang with distinction.

This year’s music director was Stephen Buzard, who recently moved to St. James Cathedral in Chicago as organist/choirmaster after service at St. Thomas, New York City as assistant and then interim director. It was he who had to carry forward that top-line choral program after the sudden death of John Scott in 2015. Stephen attended the St. Louis Course as a treble; I remember him from those days. That made it a special delight to have him return as the course’s music director - his first time directing an RSCM Course. I expect that it will not be his last. He is every bit the equal of the distinguished musicians we have had in the past, and better than most of them. I grew quite fond of him this week, as did the choristers.

Our repertoire for the week was challenging, featuring the Britten “Rejoice in the Lamb.” One of my choristers, eyeing the forty-page choral score, asked at our first rehearsal back home: “Are we going to sing ALL of this?” Yes. And we did it exceedingly well. As if that weren’t enough, we had the Howells Collegium Regale evening canticles on the same service.

At the Sunday Mass in the Basilica, we sang three of the finest Latin motets, of which I will have more to say in Part Two:
- Parsons: Ave Maria
- Byrd: Ave verum corpus
- Duruflé: Ubi caritas

I hope that the choristers will long remember what it feels like to sing such things in that acoustic, and in the context of a Catholic Mass. I hope also that this music was an icon for those who heard it, a window into the eternal Song. It was a privilege to live intensively with this music for a week, and to sing it with these people whom I love.

That brings me to my final point: my pride in these choristers from our parish, and my affection for them, as well as for many of the adults and choristers from other congregations who have over the years become my friends. Were we to never gather again, it would be a hard thing. But we shall: as I have said many times, it is my hope that we might together make music before the Lord our God through the ages of eternity. My guess is that it might not be that different in essence from the rehearsals and services at the RSCM courses and (sometimes) back home. Then we shall hear the voices of our fellow choristers as they really are, complete in Christ and more glorious than anything we can here imagine (C. S. Lewis wrote of this, frequently).

Looking about the dining hall at meals, the chapel during rehearsals and midweek evensongs, and seeing groups of them singing, talking, laughing, playing, making new friends and renewing old friendships with young people from other choirs, sometimes supporting one another through difficulty, and at the last watching them reunite with their parents after Evensong, I thought my heart would burst for joy.

Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to thy never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come, knowing that thou art doing better things for them than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP p. 831)

[to be continued]

Martin How and the RSCM

Here is a setting of the Evening Canticles by Martin How, the only setting I know that uses the American BCP’s “Rite Two” text.

I cannot pretend to write properly about Martin How; a beginning might be made at Wikipedia and a bit more may be found in the online archives of the RSCM. But not enough. My point of contact with him was the Chorister Training Scheme. When I began RSCM work in the 1980’s, it was with Mr. How’s “little blue cards” (and red, for the Chorister level), with the slender handbook explaining how to use them. I still have the handbook, and still refer to it for the wisdom condensed into its 38 pages. In a manner that I gather was typical of him, How’s name does not appear anywhere in this volume, or on the CTS materials. Instead he explains: “What is presented here is not an entirely new approach, but the bringing together of ideas and experience which have proved successful.”

Indeed they have. Times have changed since the 1950’s and 60’s when he developed the Scheme, and the RSCM’s training materials have changed – and not always, in my opinion, for the better. But Mr. How’s “bringing together of ideas and experience” have been in some respects the foundation of my life’s work. I believe that if Mr. How were to walk into this afternoon’s Youth Choir rehearsal in our parish – and most certainly were he to slip into a rehearsal at the St. Louis RSCM Course this summer – he would immediately recognize what we are doing.

I am grateful for musicians such as Mr. How who, despite the commitments of an active musical life, find the time to teach others how to do the work, by written and spoken words and most of all by example.

Antiphonies, and living up to one's models

For tonight's evensong, I played "Antiphonies" by William Mathias. Like the Vaughan Williams Prelude and Fugue that I played recently, Mathias is another composer whom I respect; it was an honor to learn a significant organ work of his composition.

I normally do not listen to YouTube performances of music that I am practicing; I want to develop my own sense of the piece. But once I have played it, then it is very useful to listen to the versions of others, especially the great masters. It shows what I have done well, and where I must continue to work.

Here is how the work should sound. It is from a recording by John Scott, for whom Mathias wrote the piece in the 1980's, played at St. Paul's, London. The performance is full of energy, sparkling and colorful. Compared to this, my rendition comes off as a shabby street-urchin, full of wrong notes. What is a musician to do? We cannot play at the level of the great ones; we can only do the best we can.

There are reasons why I stand by my performance and do not hang my head in shame:
- I cannot imagine who else would play this piece in this town; it is somewhat obscure. Even Mr. Scott's YouTube version has fewer than twenty views, and there is only one other YouTube version that I can find, a fine recording by Timothy Byram-Wigfield at Winchester Cathedral. If I don't play it, it would not be heard in live performance, not here and not by these people.
- It fit the occasion of Evensong for the Fifth Sunday in Lent better than anything else I could contemplate, with its use of the Passion Sunday plainsong "Vexilla regis."
- My version of the Mathias shows how the piece works on a small instrument in a small room, very different from St. Paul's.
- One of the major differences between my version and Mr. Scott's is the tempo of the faster sections. I think that my tempi are appropriate for our mechanical action instrument; I would play the piece faster on an electric action, but I think that my version hangs together effectively.
- It may be that I bring a different perspective to the piece. Not better, mind you, but different, perhaps throwing a different light on the work.
- I am sure that Mr. Mathias would be happy for someone in the middle of Iowa to be playing this piece in 2017, thirty-five years after its 1982 premiere.
- Working on it has made me a better organist. Working on any good music does that.

I could say the same about the Anthem: a setting of "Ah, holy Jesus" by John Ferguson, for choir with solo viola. We sang it well, but we cannot approach the silken perfection of the St. Olaf Choir recording directed by the composer. I do, however, think that we matched them for Connection and intensity, and the same arguments apply as listed above.

In due time, I may post our versions of the Mathias and the Ferguson on YouTube. I cannot do so at present because of some computer issues.
[Edited April 29: Here is the Mathias.]

Rest in peace

May God’s peace and blessings be with the members of the Red Army Choir, the Alexandrov Ensemble, who died in the airplane crash over the Black Sea on Christmas Day. They were doing their duty: flying to a Russian military base in Syria to sing for the troops on deployment there.

One of my friends, who I think still reads these posts, does similar work as a musician in the U.S. military. It is important work, and not sufficiently respected in parts of the civilian musical world. Well, all of the military musicians of our country, and other countries, have my respect for what it is worth.


There are several video tributes to the Alexandrov Ensemble on YouTube. Here is a brief one, from what I think is a Russian television network. They are singing a patriotic song, "The Red Army is the strongest” with video of what I suppose is a May Day military parade in Moscow, followed by what is probably a folksong, “The Road.” Lest some find it jingoistic, it is simply part of what such an ensemble does, much like the Army band playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" at a White House event, or the military band playing the National Anthem in front of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's Christmas Message last weekend.

For a fuller sense of the choir’s work, here is their final concert, at the Bolshoi Theatre with instrumental ensemble and folk dancers. This is very fine choral singing, as one would find from equivalent U.S. choirs. Listen especially to the somewhat quieter songs starting at about 13’50” into the recording; it is a good way to remember these choristers.

It is my hope that President Trump might find a way to build peace between our nation and Russia. We have much in common, and many common interests in the world.

However that turns out, I hope that I might meet some of these choristers someday on the other side of Jordan, and that perhaps we might all sing together at the last, all of our divisions put aside forever.

I will sing with the Spirit

I will sing with the Spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also (I Corinthians 14:15)

Our choir sang John Rutter’s setting of this text, the motto of the Royal School of Church Music, at the November Evensong. In deciding whether to post it, I scanned YouTube, which claims “about 10,700 results” for this title. There is the version by Rutter’s own choir, the Cambridge Singers, another by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and what must be hundreds or thousands more from every part of the world, choirs large and small, professional and amateur. Here are a few that I enjoyed from the first couple of pages of results :

A girls’ choir from Jatipon, West Java, Indonesia.

Another girls’ choir (with nine members), from Ontario, Canada.

And yet another girls’ choir, this one in a performance that appears to be part of what won the choir a gold medal at a choral festival. It is a place that I cannot figure out where it is, or even what language is on the banner behind them. In many respects, this is my favorite version, even more than our own choir.

On a much larger scale, this performance is with a large festival choir and orchestra, I think in South Africa. It is a place named Kapstadt, and there is a city by that name there, and the wonderful ethnic mix of choir and orchestra could be South African. Thanks be to God; I remember the days when such a choir would have been impossible in that country. “Hope changes everything.”

The above performances are all in English; here is one in the language Malagasy, from the island of Madagascar, in a gorgeous church.

What these five choirs from around the world have in common is the beautiful and intense Connection with which they sing.

I think that we also sang with Connection, and I don’t find anything quite like our version, which is posted here, although (as usual) it is audio only; the photo is of our combined choirs from last year.

I write this essay as a reminder that what we do in our little corner of the Midwest is a very small part of the Song. It is sung everywhere, and unites us across cultures, ethnic backgrounds, language, and time. It is thus a sign of hope. Things will not always be as they are now; someday "they will beat their swords into plowshares," as we heard in the Advent lessons this morning.

Amazing grace

This was a hymn for last Sunday, and I have posted three new YouTube settings from those services:

Improvisation on Amazing Grace (New Britain)

Some may wish to compare this with my improvisation on the same tune from a year ago. One of the things I liked about that version was that I incorporated a bit of Howells, for that was the Sunday we sang the Collegium Regale Te Deum.

This year’s version is just “New Britain.” I sought to establish a contrast between a solemn version in the low tenor, in A flat, with a bit of scherzetto in the upper register in C major, leading to a dialogue between the two. But I think last year’s version was better, and perhaps one of the best I have done.


Peter Schickele is a well-known musicologist, the world’s leading scholar in the music of P.D.Q. Bach. But he is also a composer. This setting of Amazing Grace for choir has nothing to do with P.D.Q. Bach; it is a fine, serious piece. I am especially proud of the adult choir, who on this day numbered seven singers. Unlike some small Episcopal choirs, we do not have paid singers; all of them are volunteers, who over the course of a year give a lot of time and energy to the choir.

Here is an organ setting by Kenton Coe, one of six settings of early American hymn tunes.

I could write more about “Amazing Grace,” but instead I refer you to Bill Moyers. Some years ago, he prepared a documentary which can be found here.

A Documentary: Amazing Grace (Bill Moyers, for PBS)

The video quality is poor – someone recorded it on their home VCR. The sound quality is nonetheless pretty good. And the content is amazing. It runs an hour and twenty minutes; save it for a time when you can sit down and listen with attention. At the very least, watch the first half hour or so.

If you would prefer a version with better sound and video quality, many libraries will have the DVD, or it can be purchased. If you do that, please don’t buy it (or anything) from Amazon; get it here, from the PBS online store.

Sparrows and Light

One of the first YouTube clips I posted was my prelude on “God of the sparrow” two years ago on this Sunday, the blessing of animals.

Here is the version from today’s 9:00 service:
Improvisation: God of the Sparrow

This time, for the middle section I quote Royal Oak (All things bright and beautiful), which I think turned out well, and I like the return to the B major tonic that follows, and the coda. In places I am intentionally more free with the tunes than I was in 2014, and the form is more complex.

I cannot say which version is better. I wish I had made more progress in my skill level than what these two improvisations indicate.

Perhaps I have made a little progress; I am considerably more comfortable with “surprise” improvisations than I used to be. There was one in this day’s service at the end of communion when there were several minutes to fill. I returned to “God of the sparrow,” this time in D flat, and I think it was pretty good.

But I still cannot do as well at the organ. I played a prelude on the same tune at the choral service two hours later; it had some moments, but it was not as good as the piano version. There was a sixteen-bar period after the first couple of statements of the tune that I intended as a transition, but it was a boring progression of chords without motivic relation to anything, because I was more concerned for that moment with changing the registrations than I was with the musical content. Anyone who improvises must constantly purge his music of such things.

I take encouragement from C.P.E. Bach: somewhere in his Essay he says that the organ and harpsichord are difficult instruments for improvisation. The pianoforte and the clavichord are better suited for it.

Lord willing, I intend to keep trying.

Here is another clip, from last Sunday’s choral evensong:
O gladsome light (David Ashley White)

It is not without its problems, notably a couple of notes in the soprano. But it has strong connection and I am proud of the choir for the way they sang it. As with much of the choral music I post, I have put this on the Net because there are no other recordings on YouTube.

----
I have been reading with considerable benefit the Dialogue of Catherine of Siena, a few pages at a time. Yesterday’s insight: this musical work that I do is for the love of my neighbors, which in turn is love of God and in fact the only way that I can by concrete action express any love for God. I do the best that I can because I want it to bring people closer to God, rather than driving them away as bad church music can do, and that is because by God’s grace I care about these people. Or, as my motto from St. Augustine puts it, Cantare amantis est. The music can only exist when it springs from love for those who will hear it, and those with whom one is rehearsing and performing, and at root, this is love of God.

That is worth spending some time on the bench.

We are bound to Him, and not He to us, because before He was loved, He loved us. There it is, then: we cannot love Him with this first love. Yet I say that God demands of us, that as He has loved us without any second thoughts, so He should be loved by us. In what way can we do this, then? I tell you, through a means which he has established, by which we can love Him freely; that is, we can be useful, not to Him -- which is impossible -- but to our neighbor. To show the love that we have for Him, we ought to serve and love every rational creature and extend our charity to good and bad -- as much to one who does us ill service and criticizes us as to one who serves us.

An Artist, a choral anthem, and an improvisation.

I have posted two more items on YouTube. First, our anthem from last Sunday:

Whom have I (Jane Marshall)

Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is nothing in the earth that I desire besides thee. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. (Psalm 73:25, 26)

Artwork: St. Simeon with the infant Jesus (Rembrandt, 1669)

I chose the painting because in this, old Simeon found his heaven on earth. He may well have thought of this verse from the Psalms as he beheld the Child.

*******************
Second, my improvisation from September 11, when we had the Gospel about the lost sheep, and Him who went after it:

What wondrous love is this
It is a set of variations, with an excursion to the tune St. Columba (The King of love my shepherd is), which was part of the service that day.

Artwork: Jesus with the crown of thorns (Ilya Repin, 1913)

Ilya Repin (1844-1930) was a revolutionary artist in his youth. Born in Ukraine, his studies and much of his career were in St. Petersburg, and his sympathies with the “Rebellion of the fourteen,” who left the Imperial Academy, calling themselves the “itinerants,” or Peredvizhniki. Much of his work was with portraits and groups of all kinds of people from peasants to aristocrats, including some who remain famous, such as the composer Modest Mussorgsky, a philosopher and two composers Odoevsky, Balakirev, and Glinka, and ten paintings of his friend, the author Leo Tolstoy. Here is one of Tolstoy at work in his study.

The painting on the YouTube clip (“Jesus with the crown of thorns”), in the challenging medium of oil paint on concrete, shows his interest in impressionism, awakened when he visited France and Italy. As with many impressionist works, it is better viewed at a distance – on my computer, it becomes strong when seen from across the room, but not so much up close. Most of his work is in the “realist” style that was revolutionary when Repin was young – but by the time of his death, hailed by the Soviets as the model for Socialist Realism.

Repin lived in his latter years a few miles from St. Petersburg across what was then the border with Finland, in a house he designed and built (since 1948, the town has been part of the USSR and now Russia).

Here is a good site to view his paintings.

From the biography on the Repin site: “His realistic works often expressed great psychological depth and showed the tensions within the existing social order.” It is a reminder that he lived in a challenging time and place, doing his best to make strong and honest art. May all artists, musicians, and writers do the same.

RSCM Report: Him let all your music honor

Sing, ye faithful, sing with gladness,
wake your noblest, sweetest strain,
with the praises of your Savior
let his house resound again;
Him let all your music honor,
and your songs exalt his reign
(John Ellerton, 1870)

Part Two: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Bruce Neswick is the music director for the week. He is one of the leading church musicians in the U.S. and, I suppose, the world. Among the work he has done: founding the Girls’ Choir at the Washington National Cathedral in the late 1990’s, serving with distinction as cathedral organist at Buffalo, Lexington (Kentucky), Atlanta, St. John the Divine in NYC, and now Trinity Cathedral, Portland. He and I are of similar age, and (as I learned) both of us vegetarians, having become so upon reading “Diet for a Small Planet” while college students in the 1970’s.

His work with the choir is in the grand Cathedral Tradition, what I often consider the “big leagues” of choral music – the choirs of men and boys (and, thanks in part to Bruce, girls) who rehearse daily and sing evensong several times a week. They work hard and intensively, and at their best, the young people in such choirs make some of the finest music in the world.

I know “educators” who would say that it is asking too much to expect children or teens to stay focused for anything beyond five minutes, much less an hour or more at a time through a challenging rehearsal. And that is what we had – plenty of fun and light-hearted humor (for which Mr. Neswick is a master), but steady, serious, detailed work. I am a professional musician, and I have been doing this sort of thing for a long time – and there was one morning when I was near panic, thinking “I can’t do this.” He was asking a level of perfection that seemed beyond me – and, by staying with it, I attained it, doing some things vocally that surpassed anything I had done before. I became a better musician this week.

And there were little fourth-graders at their first Course, doing the same thing. No one told them that they couldn’t be this good, that they couldn’t do serious and important work at the same level as adult professionals.

If they can do this, they can do a great many other things.

We sing: Neswick stops us, we focus on one detail in what we have sung; we stay with it until it is right, or at least improved. As we return to the same music in later rehearsals, we attend to smaller details that he had allowed to pass in the earlier singings, and make the phrases, the overall sweep of the anthems and canticles and psalms, better and more focused.

He is a master of framing his comments positively. Not once did he say “that’s wrong.” More likely responses would be “Almost,” or “Maybe that C sharp could be a little higher.” If a treble had tried a phrase as a solo (which is a constant part of the rehearsals) and missed it, Neswick would have one or two more join to try it again, and praise them when they get it right. If there was a note or other detail that the choir missed the first time, he often called on an experienced chorister to demonstrate how it should go. This is old-school, straight out of the RSCM Chorister Training Scheme materials of forty or fifty years ago. And it still works.

Increasingly, Caleigh and Lucy from our Iowa choir are among those on whom he calls. It may be that he came only gradually to recognize their solid musicianship. Clio and Sloane, both of them strong high school musicians, are also among those to whom Neswick turns when he needs a good example. The two of them sing the solo on the anthem “Prayer of the Venerable Bede” (Richard Proulx) – long, unaccompanied, and challenging. At the final evensong, they sing it from the rear gallery of the church; it is magical.

Duncan and Iain are among the boy trebles who are leaders. One of my young friends from previous courses was the tenor to whom Neswick would look: Saul, here from Texas with two younger brothers. It was not so long ago that he was a first-year treble; now, he has a gorgeous tenor voice and first-class musicianship, both as a singer and a violinist. He and his brother Diego demonstrated the latter with a violin duet at the talent show, drawing a standing ovation led by Mr. Neswick. I got to know Saul three years ago when I sang between him and his friend Mario, both of them (that year) brand-new tenors, much as I am this year with Charles and Charlie.

I am proud of all the Iowa choristers. The girls I have mentioned, but I must say more about Alice and Lily. They were not often called upon for solos or examples, but both of them were solid and reliable choristers all week long, fully engaged with the Song. And it is Lily who, back home, is always on time for every rehearsal (along with her younger brother), allowing nothing to take precedence over the choir and its work.

Mike and Tom are across the way, side by side in the bass section, with Mike doubling as proctor and Tom as junior proctor. I suspect that it is a special time for them to sing together, something they cannot often do in a choir nowadays. My friend Judith is in front of me: without her commitment to the Course, it would be difficult or impossible for our group to attend. Beside her is Max in the tenor section, focused and hard-working all week. Beside me is Charles, who became an alto this spring and is attending his first Course. He is a fine and intelligent young man, and it is a delight to sing with him.

I believe that all of us have become better musicians this week. And the treble Sound arrives. At first, there are occasional notes where Mr. Neswick has them sing it several times, working for a “red-hot” sound. Then, more steadily. By Friday, they are singing with a strong ringing tone almost all of the time – and when there is a note that is lacking support and focus, Neswick corrects them and they get it right.


How can I take this home?

Every year, I seek to bring what I have learned to my own work with the choirs in our parish. Most of the time, I fail. I try things, and they don’t work at home.

For one thing, I love Mr. Neswick’s pacing, which is breakneck. That is part of why we can work so well; there is no time to do anything other than work at our highest level. If I were to try this in our adult choir at home, there are a few singers who would be absolutely lost. They would not be able to keep up. I must respect that.

With the trebles, I must likewise respect that not all of them will be outstanding, highly focused choristers. Some of them do indeed have difficulty focusing on anything for more than a couple of minutes. And over the years, I have driven a few singers off by making the rehearsals more challenging than they could manage. I regret this, deeply.

But I can, and should, take home the most important parts of what Mr. Neswick does: Connection to the music, which he leads by his own example of total immersion in what we are doing. A renewed commitment to solfege. Love for the choristers, which grows increasingly clear as the week progresses, most of all in our farewells at the end when he was in tears (another way in which he and I are alike; if my choristers were to give me a card as they did him, I would be an emotional wreck). One detail at a time, staying with it until it has improved. Work where the choir is – as they improve, raise the bar.

[To be continued]