Chronicles of Advent

The Fourth Sunday of Advent

Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son; and thou shalt call his name Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14 and St. Matthew 1:23)

When I was planning the choir season and saw this for the First Lesson and Gospel of this day, my heart leaped. We can sing the Handel! Recitative and Aria from Messiah, “O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion.” And for what is probably the only year, the alto aria fits the youth choir to perfection. Our three young men are more tenors now than altos, but they can still sing in this range, along with the trebles. We can bring in a violinist (Leonardo Perez, a doctoral student at the university who is a delight to work with), and two young men of our parish on violoncello and bass for the continuo line, along with my friend Jean at the organ. The adult choir can join for the SATB ending.

And so it is; on this day, we sing. Days later as I write this, it rings in my heart.

Like the rest of Messiah, this aria and chorus are amazing. My opinion is that Handel wrote this piece in a burst of what was genuinely Divine Inspiration – how else could it have come into being, and in the breakneck speed in which he wrote it? The deeper one studies it, the more miraculous it is.

And the little recitative that begins it, the Scriptural tie to this day… less than thirty seconds, and absolutely perfect, right down to the tag line at the end: “God with us,” then the V-I cadence. We struggled with this in rehearsal, and had to sing it several times in the warmup; in the service, it was perfect. As with all that we sing, I want these words, this music, to take root in the hearts of our choristers.

I worried about the text. I could envision one of our twelve-year old boys raising his hand in rehearsal and asking “What is a virgin?” I asked my fellow-laborer in Christ (Nora) what to do; she was not encouraging. In essence, she advised me to dodge the question. Tell them to ask their parents at home, then call the parents of the child who raised the issue and tell them.

It did not come up. In a way, I wish it had, though I do not know how I could have addressed it in a rehearsal.

The virginity of St. Mary is one of the great Secrets of God, equal in stature to the other one: the bodily Resurrection of Christ from the dead. Both are thoroughly attested by Scripture, part of the central bedrock of Christian belief in all times and places -- until recently. The first is perhaps more scandalous than the last. It is so thoroughly unscientific. It is a rehash of legends from pagan mythology. It is, like the Resurrection, a pious fable tacked on generations later to suit the needs of the emerging church.

Or so they say.

And, like the Resurrection, it is absolutely true, whether the liberal theologians and clergy like it or not. Without it, there is no Incarnation; he is not Emmanuel, God with us, but just another teacher -- exactly as Gabriel explains to St. Mary at the Annunciation: "That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (St. Luke 1:35). For something that is as readily knowable as these doctrines, it is amazing how they remain a secret. Without faith, they are as invisible as if they were buried on the back side of the moon.

Our young people are not going to hear about this doctrine in our parish, and probably not anywhere in the Episcopal Church, where neither Virgin Birth nor Resurrection are widely believed. But perhaps they will someday remember singing this little recitative and wonder what it means.


Tuesday: Bulletin Crazy Day

As expected, much of today is committed to the service bulletins for the coming weekend. The day is further complicated by the Christmas luncheon for staff and volunteers – close to two hours. Many of the volunteers are retired, and perfectly happy to while away the afternoon. I am chomping at the bit, restlessly longing to get onto the bench and to my proper duty. But there is more bulletin work, and (of course) more e-mails. And I am tired, worn out from a Monday filled with errands, grocery shopping, cooking and dishwashing.

I finally get around to practice around 3 pm, and I had to postpone my young student’s lesson to another day in order to get any practicing at all. I begin with piano improvisation, working with the chorale Es ist ein Ros’. That goes well enough, so I try Stille Nacht. And I discover that I do not Know the Tune. Worse still, others are at work in the church, hearing me mangle it. I cannot control the third phrase of this wide-ranging tune and repeatedly miss notes in any key other than B flat major, even playing it in unison. It is thoroughly embarrassing; I have been a church musician for upwards of forty years and I cannot play “Silent Night?”

The people who are at work move on to one of their tasks: testing the sound system. One of the clergy has complained about the wireless microphone. It is clear that my attempts at music are disturbing them as they test it and that they likewise think that they are disturbing me, so I close the lid, replace the cover, and bow out.

Some time later, my friend John comes downstairs and tells me that they are done. I go to the organ, and make a beginning with the Third Variation on Vom Himmel hoch. It is the hardest part of the set: "Some canonic variations on the Christmas hymn" as Bach calls it. And it was for this that I cancelled H’s lesson; I knew that if I did not make a start on it today, I could not play it on Saturday night.

I do a First Workout of the latter half of the variation, ninety minutes on about two and a half pages. It is a start.

[I wrote about the Canonic Variations here, when I played them two years ago, and my recording is here.]

The Feast of St. Thomas, Apostle

I am determined to learn Stille Nacht, and give it a good forty minutes at the piano, first thing after I hang up my overcoat, playing it right up until Matins. As I described the other day in “Knowing the Tune,” it continues to be ugly for quite a while, with many times that I cannot even keep the groove going for all of the wrong notes in the tune – and then, about twenty minutes into my work, it suddenly becomes very good indeed. I wish I had recorded it.

From that: straight into Matins, the church still in semidarkness on this shortest day of the year. It is all I can do to sing the appointed Psalms – the twenty-third, the one hundred and twenty-first (“I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills…”). How is it that St. Thomas rates these loveliest of Psalms for the Matins of his Feast? And the lessons from the end of Job and the beginning of First Peter? Oh beloved Thomas, Apostle to India, friend of those who long for it to be true: pray for us.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…

The part that struck me today was from verses six and seven:

… though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ…

Making hash of Stille Nacht is not much for “manifold temptations,” nor even Bulletin Crazy Day in its semiannual appearance (we have a reprise early in Holy Week). But, small as these things are, they are indeed this week a trial of my faith. They are what Pressfield calls “Resistance,” for on a day like yesterday when I barely make it to the piano and then sound horrible when I do, it would be very easy to quit. Or when I tangle with the Third Variation, and find it every bit as challenging as I remember from two years ago – the thought arises “Why am I doing this?”

Please, dear Lord: may this work that we do, even when it is the stumbling over the simplest of things like a beginner, be “found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

How glad we’ll be to find it so!
Then with the shepherds let us go
To see what God for us has done
In sending us his own dear Son.

I work hard at the organ today, all of it on the Variations. It goes well, but by the end of the day I have worked through only two of the five variations. It leaves a lot of work for Friday and Saturday.

One of my street friends comes in and listens for a while. He prays for me after I pray for him: “Help Cassie to play well this week and make good music.” I treasure this support, for God listens to the prayers of the poor. The prayers of people like me – perhaps not so much.

The choral rehearsals go well. The youth choir is singing two movements from “Ceremony of Carols,” and they have the potential to be quite good. We conclude the rehearsal with our annual rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which grows more memorable every year.

More than half of the adult choir rehearsal is devoted to first beginnings on music for the spring, including a set of Responses for the May evensong; Kenneth Leighton, and it will take us that long to learn them. But we are ready for Christmas Eve; the choir sounds terrific.

Look, look, dear friends, look over there!
What lies within that manger bare?
Who is that lovely little one?
The baby Jesus, God’s dear Son.

Welcome to earth, O noble Guest,
Through whom this sinful world is blest!
You turned not from our needs away!
How can our thanks such love repay?

[to be continued]

Veni Emmanuel

As mentioned in the previous essay, I have been working on some of the concepts in the Mike Garson masterclass, and giving it higher priority – not so much more time from the week, but better time, first thing in the day when I am fresh. I had been feeling a little “stuck” in my improvisatory work, and I think that this work has gotten me out of the ditch.

Here is this morning’s improvisation. It is based on the three songs from the service, mostly the first:

- O come, O come, Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel)
- Mary, when the angel’s word (Tempus adest floridum)
- Creator of the stars of night (Conditor Alme)

Garson talks about his “now” music, where he has no preconception before he starts playing. I am trying to move a little in that direction, and to be less concerned about formal structure. But not entirely unconcerned, and neither is Garson; I think that he is trusting his subconscious to keep the unity of the piece. I am not there yet.

For one thing, I think it important to begin and end in the home key, in this case B minor/major. In between, I planned to go to the relative major (D) for “Tempus adest floridum” (best known as the tune for “Good King Wenceslaus,” but here with a modern text), and did so, having played around some during the week on a transition into it from the plainsong, and out of it.

I did not preconceive a key for “Conditor Alme.” As it happened, it was mostly in G major, moving to C major (about as far from the home key of B as possible). Nor did I plan what to do after that, beyond getting back to tonic.

And I think it turned out pretty well. I can hear many things that showed up during the week’s practice, but I had no idea which of them would show up today, or in what context, and none of it is exactly like anything I did through the week. For those who might be interested, there is a Serious Mistake at 4:16 – having moved in a direction that was a bit unexpected, I tripped over a note and lost the rhythmic “groove” for a moment. Yuck. “You can play any notes, but stay with the groove.”

But one must get past the fear of such things. To paraphrase another master (William Porter, organist) – we miss notes in our repertoire; what’s the difference when we miss them in an improvisation?

The whole thing is rather spacious – lots of long notes, lots of quiet. That comes partly from the two plainsongs, but partly from the day – clear and very cold, the sunshine streaming in the south window, just a handful of people at the service – four, when I started. It felt like the music needed to be gentle, reflective, so I sought to go in that direction.

From 8:45 onward feels like a coda. I did not find the photographs for the YouTube clip until this afternoon, but the coda fits them well. Both photos (from the Hubble Space Telescope) are of the “Creator of the stars of night” in his workshop – they are areas where new stars are being made.

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Some of this work with improvisation filters into my hymn accompaniment. Certainly, when it is the same tune (like the three in this one, all played later in the service), I have much more freedom with the accompaniment than I would had I not spent the time to “know the tune.” But it carries over into my organ playing, too. I do not think that I improvise well at the organ (I hope to, someday), but I am getting better at playing the hymns.

These are from last week’s choral service: Five Advent Hymns. Numbers are from the Episcopal Hymnal 1982.

- 65: Prepare the way, O Zion
- “People, look East” (from the supplement Wonder, Love and Praise)
- 72: Hark, the glad sound, the Savior comes
- 60: Creator of the stars of night
- 444: Blest be the God of Israel

They are from the organist’s point of view – that is, the microphone is close to the instrument and one hears much more organ sound than the congregation would hear out in the room. I post them as an example of what I aim to do with the hymns.

I could not have played this way five years ago, perhaps not even one year ago; I would have been tied much closer to the page. And I emphasize that such progress as I am making is not coming from explicit work with the hymn accompaniments; it is carry-over from that half-hour or so at the piano every morning. I do of course practice the hymns, but no more than I have for years, and perhaps a bit less these days.

The final hymn, however, is an important caution to the improviser. It is a “big” English tune, with a fully-written out accompaniment by its composer, Basil Harwood. When presented with such a hymn, the organist should play exactly what is on the page, and that is what I do, perhaps filling in a chord here and there.

There are times when improvisation is not a good idea. Just play the notes.

The photos are of our beloved little Pilcher, taken on a sunny winter day much like today.

Know the Tune, revisited

“Know the Tune” is one of the foundations of improvisation, alongside “Speak the Language.”

I continue working with the Mike Garson online masterclass, mentioned a few weeks ago. One of his ideas takes “Know the Tune” to a higher level. He quotes the jazz pianist Thelonious Monk: take one tune. Set the metronome (he suggests setting it to play on beats two and four of the measure, and if you are new to this, set a fairly slow tempo), and play the tune. For two hours. You can play whatever notes may happen; you certainly should vary it, add chords or countermelodies, move it to different keys, whatever occurs to you. But don’t lose the groove; stay with that click. For two hours.

It is often good to take the same tune again the next day: he had one of his students play “Autumn Leaves” in this manner for two weeks, two hours a day. One thinks of the disciplines of the Desert Fathers or the Zen masters.

The virtues are many:

• After two hours, you will definitely know the tune, especially if you have played it in both hands (and the pedals, if you are at the organ), in a variety of keys, and perhaps different modes (such as Minor or Dorian instead of Major).

• You learn to Keep Going, another cardinal virtue of improvisation. It doesn’t have to sound good; it can sound positively awful (you are practicing, after all). But it has got to stay with the groove. You will learn that keeping the rhythm going is more important than what notes you play. You will learn, also, to take “wrong” notes (even in the tune) and turn them into “right” notes by what follows – it is probably an unexpected dissonance, so you can resolve it, use it as a pivot into an unexpected new key, repeat it so that it becomes an “ornament” to the tune or part of the form, or even an essential motive. A first step is to see if you can repeat it, make it a “variation” instead of a “mistake.”

• Most of all, as Garson explains, you will use up all of your “licks” in the first twenty minutes or so. Then there will be a while where it is not so good. And after that… you will begin to play as you never have before. You will find sonorities, approaches to the tune, that would not have occurred to you.

• And, best of all, it is fun. The only “pressure” is to stay with the groove; otherwise, anything goes.

Upon reflection, this is much of what I did when I was beginning to improvise at the organ and had finally gotten beyond harmonizing scales. I would sit at the organ on Fridays and Saturdays and play around with the Tune for a long time, very often an hour and sometimes two. And the “good” stuff wouldn’t start happening until well along into that time, exactly as Garson says. I would try to remember what I did (a tape recorder or similar device helps, and a pencil with some staff paper) and use it as the basis for Sunday’s improvisation.

Nowadays, it goes more quickly, especially if I have already worked with the Tune. This happens more and more with the middle service improvisations, for I have made it around the liturgical year a couple of times with improvising a prelude every Sunday. But in some respects it is even more important with a Tune that I know well; I have to get all of the stuff that I have already done with it out of my system in order to find something new to say about it. The ultimate example for this (as with almost anything else musical) is Bach; consider the chorales that he set multiple times for the organ, and how differently he approached it the second (or third, or fourth) time.

I have been working at the piano in this manner, with adaptation to my circumstances, for a couple of weeks.

For one thing, my encounter with the Yamaha and Casio hybrid pianos had already caused me to change my work day, putting higher value on playing the Steinway in the church. I go upstairs, take the cover off the piano, raise the lid, say the prayer, and play for at least a half-hour, no matter how much other work I must do. Not two hours; I cannot justify that. But a half hour at the least, sometimes forty-five minutes or so. Before, if I had a lot of organ practicing and other work to do, I would often go many days without playing the piano, then scramble to catch up on Friday and Saturday. And I would just push the piano cover back, leaving the lid down, because I was always in a hurry.

No. For the time that remains to me, I am going to enjoy playing this piano. I am going to luxuriate in the visual beauty of the strings and plate and soundboard, the immediacy of the sound, the fabulous acoustic, the surroundings, the divine Presence in the tabernacle, its candle flickering.

I think that this attitude helps my music. It makes me more aware that it is all Gift.
It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.

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I begin with the unison tune, in the key that I intend for Sunday’s improvisation – typically a fifth above the key of the first hymn. I use the same one or two or three tunes all week, the ones that will be in the Sunday service. I sing along with the solfege syllables, especially if I am less familiar with the tune. As the Tune attains a comfort level, I add things, let it take me where it wants to go.

I do not often use the metronome, because I want to have the opportunity to change tempo between variations. But I do keep the “groove” – the meter and rhythm and general feel - going. And I do not stop; if it is one tune, I aim for it to be a continuous set of variations. There might be what sounds like a stop – a whole note chord, perhaps several whole notes tied. Or rests. But underneath these long notes and rests, the pulse continues. Thus, when the music moves on, it continues to feel like the same composition.

If my intent is to work with multiple tunes, I might move to the second tune in the dominant or other related key, as if I were building a sonata form, and I might continue in that manner, with development of one or both tunes and a recapitulation – and then, if there is time, continue with more variations. If a two-tune improvisation is my goal, it often seems to work better to work with just one tune the first day, the second tune the second day (so that it is thoroughly worked out and “known”), and both tunes from then on.

When it is time to stop, I make my best effort to bring the piece to a convincing conclusion, for that is something I must practice doing. If the first attempt is not so good, I might stretch it on into a little coda so that I can make another attempt.

There is a final benefit: Later in the day, I will hopefully make it over to the Pilcher. I open its fallboard, sit down, turn on the music lamp, say another prayer, and dig into my work on the repertoire and the hymns, often challenging, hard work that pushes me to the limit.

And I find that this, too, is Gift. It is not to be despised, or taken for granted.

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Footnote: Here (again) is the link to the Mike Garson masterclass.

I have now listened to the four parts – roughly two hours – twice through, parts of it more than that. I may share a few more ideas in future essays, but I do not want to say too much; it is his work, copyrighted, and I hope he makes some money on it.

In one sense, there is hardly anything in it that is practical. Mostly, he sits at his piano and talks, occasionally demonstrating things. There is not much “nuts and bolts” information about jazz scales, or harmonies, or anything that one might expect in a master class: “I teach by inspiration,” he says in one of the videos. But there is a lot that has made me think about my playing, and I consider this all the more valuable, more so than any amount of “nuts and bolts,” and more applicable to what I do, which differs in important ways from what he does.

And there are nuggets of pure gold, such as the one I have here described from Mr. Monk. There is excellent advice on Slow Practice and working on details, one measure or a half measure at a time. There is a lot about the spiritual nature of what we are doing, of listening to the Higher Self, and seeking to find that in one’s students. And healing: for oneself, other people, and the world.

I will not work in this manner forever; there is much else that I should do, such as contrapuntal work, additional work with forms, and technical development – things like scales, arpeggios, exercises drawn from repertoire.

And imitation of the masters: that must wait for another essay.

[Added Feb. 2017: Here is a later essay, related to this one, and a YouTube example of a practice session using the ideas described above.]

The Feast of Nicholas

December 6, 2016

As it says in the Episcopal “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” little is known for sure about St. Nicholas. He was a bishop; he was tortured and imprisoned for his faith during the persecution of Diocletian. He was perhaps at the Council of Nicaea.

But the many legends about him surely have some basis in fact. It seems clear that he was a friend of sailors, and of the poor. And most of all, children. He is their patron saint, and thus the Patron of the Royal School of Church Music. For those who have earned an RSCM Ribbon, the guy on the medal is Nicholas, dressed as a bishop.

On this Feast of Nicholas, I was visited by the two men that I have helped for years, about an hour apart. One of them needed fuel for his “new” car (a beat-up wreck of an old rusted-out Plymouth). He asked for $5; to his surprise, I rode with him to the gas station and treated him to a full tank.

The other showed up with a young friend, perhaps in her twenties or thirties. I have heard of this person for several years, and had not until now met her. She was very cautious and did not speak for a good twenty minutes; she listened to the other two of us talk. She wandered over to the youth choir bulletin board and finally spoke; in a quiet voice she asked me about the Lent Madness bracket chart from last spring, there on the board, and the “trading cards” for the previous winners of the Golden Halo, starting with C. S. Lewis. She seemed comfortable with the idea of Saints, but not comfortable at all about being inside a church building. I can’t blame her; churches are often thoroughly unfriendly to those who live on the edge, as I suspect she does. And it is not unknown for churches and those who work in them to do positive harm to people, harm that is sufficient to scare them away from church for the rest of their life.

I think that Nicholas would be a friend to people like these. I am honored that on this day, I was granted opportunity to do the same.

Both of my friends expressed concern for this country and its future. With each of them, we talked about that for a good while. They are both convicted felons and in this state will never be permitted to vote. But they still care, and their premonition is like mine; we are in for some hard times. Perhaps not right away, and definitely not just because of the election of Mr. Trump – the three of us agree that Mrs. Clinton would have been just as bad if not worse. But sooner rather than later. One of them views it through apocalyptic lenses; the End is near, and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The other is just scared, worried about what it will be like for a poor old veteran in bad health – a sailor, no less, veteran of the U.S. Navy - in and out of drug addiction and sometimes out on the street. Like my other friend, he also spoke of the Day of Doom: "When He comes, I don't look forward to standing before him. I've got a lot to answer for." I quoted the verse from Malachi: "For who may abide the day of His coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth?" - there is not a one of us who can do anything except fall on our knees before Him when He sits on the throne of judgement.

It struck me afterwards that I was able to speak freely with them on these topics, in a manner in which I cannot with the church people, where I feel that I am walking on eggshells when politics comes up, to say nothing of eschatology. It struck me also that these two men (and the young lady) have a much better idea what “hard times” can be like than I do, or most of my middle-class friends. And they are worried.

Nicholas, pray for us.

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.

Hope changes everything

From the song “Sing, People, Sing,” by Pat Humphries and Sandy Opatow, as arranged by Jean Littlejohn:

O hear the banjo ring
Hear the people sing
Hope changes everything
Sing, people, sing.

Jean’s choir, the Family Folk Machine, sang this in their concert this afternoon.

From Russ Feingold, former Senator from Wisconsin who lost a bid in the recent election to return to the Senate: in an e-mail to his supporters after the election, he wrote “… something is happening in our country. I don't understand it completely. I don't think anybody does. But we as Americans have to do the best we can to deal with the pain in this country and get people to come together.”

It looks to me like we are in for hard times. I have said it before: under the label “national calamity” in the sidebar to the left, I see that I have said it in one way or another twenty-one times in this blog. Here is part of one such essay, from 2013:

The final hymn festival, the closing event of the [Hymn Society] conference, was titled "New shoots and buds: new directions in congregational song," led (mostly) by Tony Alonso and Hilary Seraph Donaldson with lots of other musicians -- almost all of them under the age of thirty (Hilary's father Andrew, a long-time Hymn Society leader, was one of the exceptions; it was great to see father and daughter together among the musicians.)

I learned that the organizers had not met in person before the conference. The planning, extending over a year, was done entirely through meetings on Skype and through other forms of electronic communication.

And they see what I see in the world. The penultimate hymn was a call to eschatological hope, which is central to the witness of the Church -- a hymn that they said was hard for them to find. It was sung to the strong shape-note tune "Morning Trumpet," with lines like this:

“Let the banker and the president beware the trumpet's call,
And beat swords of greed and commerce into equal shares for all.
Let the teachers speak in wisdom, let the music-makers play,
Let the weavers weave the tent where we shall gather on that day.

“Lowly eyes shall be lifted, while the tyrants taste their fear,
For that sound is both a gospel and a warning...”
("The trumpet in the morning," by Rory Cooney)

I sang, we all sang, with tears in our eyes, longing for that day when all shall be made right.

Later that day as I drove west through the Alleghenies into one last mist-shrouded mountain sunset, I thought of these brave words and those who sang them. Will they -- will we -- have the strength to stand when the drone attacks and "peacekeepers" kill our friends, spies and informers are everywhere, and all is darkness -- as it already is in parts of the world?

I was taken to task by a commenter after the election because of my hardness of heart and lack of political activism. I was told that I need to get off of my organ bench and live up to my “loudly proclaimed discipleship.”

Well, no I don’t. Instead, I must redouble my efforts to play better, to be a better choral director and church musician.

One part of what I must do - what all musicians must do, young and old – is sing together. My friend Jean has a big role in this, here in our community. In a different way, I have a role, too: there are specific things – true things - that we can sing in a church choir and in a Christian congregation that a community group cannot, and things that I can share through the music of Bach and Messiaen and others, and our work as choral singers, and in my own creations, that are my particular responsibility.

There are times when Music is one of the few ways that we can find hope.
There are times when Music binds up the wounds of the soul and body.
There are times when the Song is what holds us together.
There are times when the only way we can come together is by singing.

It seems insignificant. Impractical. Powerless.
No more than a mustard seed, or yeast in the dough.

But it is what I am called to do. So is Jean, so are countless others around the world, and not just musicians: poets, authors, dancers, artists, anyone who creates. We must put our best stuff out there, and keep on doing it, no matter what. Why? “Hope changes everything.”

I cannot see how it can change anything at all; that is why it is Hope, for it is not based on what we can see.

But “we are saved by hope.” (Romans 8:24)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
(Emily Dickinson)

From this morning's liturgy:
To thy heavenly banquet (Alexis Lvov)

… if written down, it would appear as a well-thought-out work.

It has always been known that the greatest pianoforte players were also the greatest composers; but how did they play? Not like the pianists of today, who prance up and down the keyboard with passages which they have practiced—putsch, putsch, putsch;—what does that mean? Nothing! When true pianoforte virtuosi played it was always something homogeneous, an entity; if written down, it would appear as a well-thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other thing is nothing. (Ludwig van Beethoven, as recalled by Wenzel Tomaschek – see the footnote)

Recently, I subscribed to the journal “International Piano.” having learned to my dismay that the old “Piano Quarterly” which I read for years is defunct.

In the current issue (pages 16-17), one of the columnists discusses a recent list of the “twenty-five greatest pianists” of all time, prepared by a UK classical music station. The columnist points out that such lists are always highly subjective, no more than “light entertainment.” He complains that the list includes pianists who died before the age of recordings, about whom we can go only on hearsay – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Clara Schumann. Then he claims that none of these could stand up against the current generation of virtuosi. “Beethoven would have made the Top 25 in 1800. But in 1900—let alone 2016? No way. Even Liszt, acknowledged as the greatest pianist of the nineteenth century by most of his peers, would struggle against the talents of today.”

I don’t think so.

Not in the terms described by Beethoven. I would much rather hear him play – wrong notes, broken strings and hammers, deafness and all – than any of the modern players, “prancing up and down the keyboard” with their carefully manicured repertoire. “From the heart—may it return to the heart,” Beethoven said of the Missa Solemnis, and there is no doubt that this characterized all of his playing. Mozart, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann – it was the same with them.

But that is beside my point.

“… it was always something homogeneous, an entity; if written down it would appear as a well-thought-out work. That is pianoforte playing; the other thing is nothing.”

A “well-thought-out work.” That is how I want to play. That is why the constant struggle to improvise inside of a form rather than just “noodling” is so important.

At the suggestion of a friend, I listened to some recordings by a well-known New Age pianist (whom I will not here name). He succeeded in what I think was his aim – music that is intentionally bland. All mezzo-forte so that it can serve as background at home or in the workplace – no pianos that would disappear behind background noise, no fortes that would draw attention to themselves. The typical piece is (to my way of thinking) a mere fragment – two or perhaps three chords carefully chosen so as to never resolve in a cadence, in a simple and repeated left-hand figuration, with bits of melody and a few gentle jazz riffs in the right hand. To put it in the best light, it is relaxing, so long as one does not listen too closely.

That is what I want to avoid.

A convoluted path led me to the work of Mike Garson, a pianist who is best known for his work with the rock musician David Bowie, plus the bands “Nine Inch Nails” and “Smashing Pumpkins.” Not music to which I have until now paid any attention – I knew the name “David Bowie” (may he rest in peace) but had never listened to so much as one of his songs until the other day. For an example of Garson’s work in this context, I would recommend the song “Aladdin Sane.” Garson has a classical piano background, plus a lot of experience in jazz. And he has sought to find his own way of playing. It is a far cry from the New Age pianist who carefully stays in the background.

I can learn from this man. A good introduction to Garson’s way of thinking, which is highly spiritual in its ethos, can be found in this interview. His work is so different from anything I have done as to be extremely valuable for me. Thus, I shelled out $50 for his video “master class.” I am not very far into it as yet, but there are many ideas here. He describes his “Now Music” (his term for solo improvisation), and his beginning with it – a discipline of improvising little “etudes” – at first, just fifteen seconds or so, working at a specific figuration or other musical element. He says that he did more than three thousand of these.

That is a terrific idea for someone who wants to learn to improvise; it is not far from Gerre Hancock’s suggestion to harmonize scales in many different musical styles – those too are a form of little “etude,” or “study.”

But that begs the question: what direction should I go? I have been reading about Beethoven; I could extract interesting bits from his sonatas and make them into etudes, with the goal of making these things my own. Or Chopin – another of Garson’s projects as he developed his “Now Music” was to improvise a Nocturne in every key. Or I could go back to Fux and the Gradus ad Parnassum – this is how to deal with the Gradus as an improviser, and perhaps the key to it I have been seeking – improvise a little phrase in species counterpoint, play it back and check for parallel fifths and other violations, try it again. I never made it past two-part counterpoint; what would happen if I ventured into three-part and beyond?

I cannot do all of these things, and the direction I choose will change the manner in which I will play. For now, I will continue with the Garson masterclass, and my work Sunday by Sunday. That is the context which must guide my work; though I can learn from Garson, I cannot play like him because I must begin the Gathering of the Holy Eucharist. My music must remain linked to the tunes that will be used in the service, and it cannot be so “in your face” as to draw undue attention to itself. But neither can it be bland background music which would imply that what is to follow is without significance.

*******
Footnote: The Beethoven quote is from the biography “Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph” by Jan Swafford, pg. 644. Swafford adds: “What Beethoven was talking about was not playing from score but rather improvisation. [Carl] Czerny noted that Beethoven’s more formal improvisations sounded like a published piece, just as Beethoven here said they should.” Swafford also adds in an endnote (p. 1026) that Tomaschek wrote his recollection many years after his visit to Beethoven, so it might have been distorted by time and memory.

I have been reading the Beethoven biography for several months. It has made me like Beethoven considerably less. But (and I think this is part of Swafford’s point) it is all the more amazing that his music could come into being when his mundane life was such a shambles.

Seid umschlungen, Millionen!
Diesen Küß der ganzen Welt!

Sanders for President, Part Two

At the outset, I must say that I am delighted that Queen Hillary got her comeuppance, alongside the Democratic National Committee and the mainstream media.

I have not forgiven her for the manner in which she illegally torpedoed the Sanders campaign, using the supposedly impartial Democratic National Committee as an arm of her campaign and the news media as mouthpieces for her campaign propaganda.

I have not forgiven her for calling my people “deplorables.” It was a defining moment for me when I realized that it is precisely what she would have thought of my parents and virtually everyone that I grew up with.

I have not forgiven her for being in bed with the Wall Street bankers, for being obviously more comfortable with the Goldman Sachs executives than with unemployed coal miners or people at a food bank in Kimball, West Virginia.


I wish that Donald Trump could have lost the election, too. I suspect that his supporters (I am not one of them) will soon discover that, like Clinton, he has both “public” positions and private positions on every issue. I suspect that his views are even more subject to the winds of expediency than Mrs. Clinton’s, and that is saying a lot. I suspect that his anti-establishment talk is no more than that – empty words. He is likely to give an even larger share to the 1% and the corporations in tax breaks, at the ultimate expense of those who will someday, in one way or another, be presented with the bill. These are likely to be the children who sing in my choir and their peers, coming of age in the 2030’s and beyond. I grieve for them.

I suspect that the United States will be a darker, more divided, and more dangerous place in three or four years, most of all for people who are not of white European descent.

Senator Sanders (born 1941) is not young; he will be pushing eighty by the 2020 campaign. Six months ago, I would have said Senator Elizabeth Warren would have been an acceptable second choice as a progressive candidate, but not after her shamefully enthusiastic endorsement of Clinton, when an endorsement of Sanders might have made a difference. “We trusted you,” hecklers cried during her speech at the Democratic convention; I hope that none of us will ever again trust Senator Warren.

But, whoever it might be, I think the stage is set for a genuinely progressive candidate to run against President Trump. By 2020, we will have a good idea what a Trump presidency is like, complete with Republican control of House and Senate and probably the Supreme Court. And I think a great many people by then will be ready for some genuine change.

The trouble is, there are more directions for change than one. The stage may also be set for a more effective candidate from the far right, perhaps a charismatic Iraq/Afghanistan war veteran with a fondness for armbands and torchlight parades. Mr. Trump’s campaign provided a model for how such a person could win an election in the United States. I suspect there are young adults who have been paying attention.

[Edited Nov. 15 to add: I received an anonymous comment on this post, and deleted it. Upon reflection it deserves better than that, and the person raises valid questions which serve as a counterpoise to what I wrote. I continue to maintain, as I did after the Democratic Convention, that I would never vote for Mrs. Clinton even if my vote handed the election to Mr. Trump. I remain comfortable with that decision and consider it thoroughly congruent with my Christian faith. I note that I did take action: I volunteered for the Sanders campaign and gave it financial support, partly because he would have easily defeated Mr. Trump. I gratefully accept this person's prayers for my hardness of heart.

Because there is no way to un-delete a comment, here it is, pasted from the notification e-mail:]

You write: "for calling my people deplorables." I hear that you were personally affronted and that your pride on behalf of your family and old friends was wounded. But, please, help me track both your logic and the juxtaposition with your professed Christian faith.

I have read the statement made by Secretary Clinton to which you refer, along with her apology for that statement. Secretary Clinton called out some Trump supporters for racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and islamaphobia. The days since the election have offered more than 200 episodes of harassment and violence committed in President-Elect Trump's name and verified by the SPLC and ACLU. It would appear that some followers and supporters of P-E Trump do indeed feel lifted up, validated, and emboldened to pursue acts of racism, sexism, homophobia, and islamaphobia.

Questions for your reflection:

1. Did you engage with Secretary Clinton's apology for the comments that personally offended you and your family? And if you did, how? And if you did not, why not? And what does your response illuminate about your faith and discipleship?

2. Having withheld your vote from Senator Clinton, how will you reconcile your conscience with the harms now visited upon women, people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, refugees, and our brothers and sisters who are Muslim and Jewish? You, as a white man, hold a privileged and protected status on the streets our our nation that none of the groups just named are able to enjoy. You have contributed to the burdens heaped upon their shoulders. I do hope you will be somewhere besides your organ bench when it comes to offering tangible protection to those groups. Your loudly proclaimed discipleship calls you to nothing else.

I lament and pray for your hardness of heart.

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.

Free Leonard Peltier

As of this writing, Native American activists and supporters are engaged in peaceful protest at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

Over the weekend, they were attacked by a heavily militarized force of police and national guards from several states, in action reminiscent of the old-time union-busting work of Pinkertons, FBI agents, state police, and the U.S. Army in the Appalachian coal fields (examples: the Battle of Matewan, the Battle of Blair Mountain). It is also very much in the spirit of the “Peacekeepers” from the Hunger Games books.

It also recalls the American Indian Movement and the 71-day siege of their encampment at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1973, an event that is now hardly a footnote in the history books.

As a part of the aftermath of this “incident,” the activist Leonard Peltier was framed for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents. In a highly irregular trial, he was sentenced to two life terms and remains in prison, over forty years later. Among those calling for Peltier’s release over this period: Amnesty International (which considers him a prisoner of conscience), the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela.

Several presidents have failed to pardon him, most notably Bill Clinton, who instead on his final day as president pardoned his buddy Marc Rich, reportedly in return for $1 million in gifts to Clinton-related groups, such as Hillary’s campaign for the U.S. Senate and the Clinton Library Foundation. Peltier had no rich friends to match such an “offer.”

Our presiding bishop, Michael Curry, has visited the Standing Rock encampment. He has called this standoff “another Selma.” But that was in the middle of a movement where a great many people, black and white, cared what happened, and the scenes of police dogs, tear gas, and brutality inflicted on the marchers did much to change public opinion. The Native Americans are a much smaller minority group, and I often think that most people in the mainstream culture simply do not care what happens to them. They are essentially invisible.

They have been trampled by the U.S. government from the beginning of this nation. It looks very much like it is going to happen again at Standing Rock. Yes, there may be public outcry for a while – as there was during and after the Wounded Knee incident. And yes, most people will forget and move on.

And, more than likely, there will be one or more Native American scapegoats to join Leonard Peltier in federal prison.

Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

****
Today is the Feast of All Saints.
I am not at all saying that Mr. Peltier is a saint; I have no idea.
And I am not saying that all of the people encamped at Standing Rock are saints.
But there are quite a few of them -- including at least one of my friends, a priest who reads this blog -- that are out there in the desert because of their faith, whether they see it as faith in the Christian God or by some other path.

Some of them may become martyrs before all is done.
Martyrdom or not, the path to sainthood can take you to places like Standing Rock, and to situations where it is not at all clear whether you will walk away whole in body, or at all.

The fruit of these days and weeks, however it turns out, may lie dormant for a long time, as it did after Blair Mountain, when it looked like the United Mine Workers of America was dead and gone. It was many years before they again became strong, and the memory of Blair Mountain and Matewan was a part of that.