Today is, in some circles, the remembrance of the First Martyrs of Rome, A.D. 64. Some were thrown to the beasts in the Coliseum; some were covered with tar and burned as human torches to the delight of Nero and his dinner guests. This began the persecution of Christians by the Empire, a process that extended in fits and starts for about two and a half centuries. Nero was looking for someone to blame for a fire that might have been started at his orders so that he could engage in some urban renewal. But the issue between Church and Empire ultimately came down to the insistence of the Christians that Jesus is Lord, and no other.
To cultivated Roman citizens, this was intolerably narrow-minded. If these Christians want to worship an obscure Jewish carpenter, fine. But they need to be tolerant of the customs of the Empire. No one really believed that the sitting emperor was a god, but what harm would it do to burn a little incense in his honor? It was simply the mark of being a good person, a part of the larger community, a broad community of many cultures, languages, and religions.
This week we read of an event that points down the same path:
German court rules that circumcision is 'bodily harm'
Just as the Christian faith was incomprehensible to the Roman authorities, the Jewish and Islamic position that circumcision is essential (e.g., Genesis 17:9-27) is incomprehensible to the German court. “The fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweigh[s] the fundamental rights of the parents.... [it contravenes] interests of the child to decide later in life on his religious beliefs.” A similar battle is being fought in the Netherlands, where the Dutch Medical Association opposes the practice.
But this is an issue on which, for a believing Jew or Moslem, there can be no compromise. “And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant” (Genesis 17:14). From the second BBC link: "'It's written in the Torah, in the Bible, that we should circumcise the child when the child is eight days old. What God tells us to do, we must do,' said Rabbi Jacobs, one of the Netherlands' most senior religious leaders.”
I Maccabees 1:41-61 is an example of a prior attempt to suppress circumcision, one vividly remembered by Jews: Antiochus Epiphanes sought to “westernize” the land and rid it of its antiquated and barbaric customs. He forbade circumcision, just as the Germans are now doing: “According to the decree, they put to death the women who had their children circumcised, and their families and those who circumcised them; and they hung the infants from their mothers' necks” (v. 60).
Broad-minded secular culture will always eventually come into conflict with faith. It is the one thing that such a culture cannot tolerate, for it stands in judgment upon it. We modern Westerners are oh so tolerant of every possible shade of opinion or belief – except that we cannot tolerate anyone, whether Jew, Christian, or Moslem, who is sufficiently committed to the God of Abraham so as to put that commitment above all else.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
The Creed, and the Virgin Birth
I followed a link a few weeks ago to the blog of Ben Myers.
What led me there was his essay on the Psalms, quoted by Tim Chesterton (who also has a terrific blog).
Today is another fine essay: “On the Virgin Birth: or why it is better to say the creed than to criticise it”
And so we can start to get our heads around the truth of the virgin birth only by confessing it. It's not an explanation or a conclusion that you could arrive at from other premises, historical or philosophical or whatever. It's a truth grasped in the humility of faith....
It's a good thing to be a Christian – I'm sorry to be so banal, but that's what really strikes me. It's a good thing to believe something that you didn't invent for yourself. It's a good thing to have a certain framework, a story that tells you what kind of place the world really is, so that there are some basic questions that are already settled, that you don't have to go on wringing your hands and wondering about. It's a privilege, a real privilege, to be able to join your voice to the church's confession: "... and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate" – and all the rest.
In a time and place where many scorn the historic creeds of the church, it is good to hear someone standing up for them. Thank you, Ben.
Friday, June 15, 2012
Music Publishing: an ominous sign
It is no secret that the business of publishing music is in trouble, especially choral music. Much of it comes from the ubiquity of the Xerox machine – for decades now, choral directors have too often obtained one copy of an anthem and Xeroxed it for their choir, instead of buying printed copies. This is illegal, but the inconvenience and expense of purchasing legal copies has been too much for many of my colleagues.
More recently, the appearance of the Choral Public Domain Library has added to the problems. CPDL is sort of a “Project Gutenberg” for choral music; there are equivalents for instrumental music as well. It has made it difficult for any publisher to contemplate the production of printed editions of the “classics” – anything that is in public domain – because (again) the choral director will face the choice of paying money for printed editions, or getting it for free. It is not in fact “free,” because Xeroxing costs money, but many situations are like it is in our parish: the purchase of music comes from our small music budget, but Xeroxing comes from the much larger “office supplies” budget.
The ominous sign, which provoked this essay? I received this afternoon what in the sales business is referred to as a “cold call” – an unsolicited telephone call from a gentleman at Paraclete Press, which is a fine and reputable publisher of choral music for the church. He wanted to sell me some of their new choral music, in particular a new Anglican Chant Psalter edited by George Guest at $49.95 per copy. It sounds splendid, though (as I told him) we could not use it because the text translation is not what is used in our parish. Here is a link to their description of the Psalter; if any readers out there can use such a book, I encourage you to consider it.
“Cold calls” are no fun for anyone. The rewards from them are meager. I sense that it may represent some desperation at Paraclete Press.
Perhaps more ominous still is my recent experience in ordering some music from Oxford University Press. In the world of Anglican music, they are the king of the hill (though Novello would have a place in there somewhere). Their catalogue of the Anglican standards is large. Or “was” large. It seems that they have gutted their choral catalogue, and turned the distribution of the leftovers over to Edition Peters. I am told by a friend in the business that they appear to have decided that it simply is not worth their while to publish composers such as Tallis or Gibbons or Purcell (thank you, CPDL, for this state of affairs), or even much of their twentieth-century (and copyrighted) material by composers such as William Mathias and John Rutter. If you already have a single copy of something you want to sing, they will grant permission to reprint it for a reasonable fee, but if you don't have a copy, you are out of luck. I have been a choral director for a long time, and started a file of reference copies of choral music in graduate school. Even after significant pruning a few years ago, it still runs to about 1500 titles that I think I might find useful someday, out of perhaps ten times that number that I have examined and discarded over the years. But what is a young person just beginning in this work to do?
If Oxford University Press can't make a go of it, it is hard to imagine who can.
[Edited to add: As it happens, the next item on my to-do list was to request permission to make additional copies of an O.U.P. title for our youth choir: "Choristers' Prayer" by Richard Proulx, published in 2002 and now out of print. We sang it in 2007, and need a few more copies for our larger youth choir to repeat it this fall. A visit to the O.U.P. website shows that they have not entirely abandoned choral music -- they have simply gotten out of the "old" stuff aside from publishing anthologies, and drastically cut back on their newer stuff. They still claim to have a catalogue of about 2,000 titles, which appear to be aimed more at the secular educational market than the church.]
More recently, the appearance of the Choral Public Domain Library has added to the problems. CPDL is sort of a “Project Gutenberg” for choral music; there are equivalents for instrumental music as well. It has made it difficult for any publisher to contemplate the production of printed editions of the “classics” – anything that is in public domain – because (again) the choral director will face the choice of paying money for printed editions, or getting it for free. It is not in fact “free,” because Xeroxing costs money, but many situations are like it is in our parish: the purchase of music comes from our small music budget, but Xeroxing comes from the much larger “office supplies” budget.
The ominous sign, which provoked this essay? I received this afternoon what in the sales business is referred to as a “cold call” – an unsolicited telephone call from a gentleman at Paraclete Press, which is a fine and reputable publisher of choral music for the church. He wanted to sell me some of their new choral music, in particular a new Anglican Chant Psalter edited by George Guest at $49.95 per copy. It sounds splendid, though (as I told him) we could not use it because the text translation is not what is used in our parish. Here is a link to their description of the Psalter; if any readers out there can use such a book, I encourage you to consider it.
“Cold calls” are no fun for anyone. The rewards from them are meager. I sense that it may represent some desperation at Paraclete Press.
Perhaps more ominous still is my recent experience in ordering some music from Oxford University Press. In the world of Anglican music, they are the king of the hill (though Novello would have a place in there somewhere). Their catalogue of the Anglican standards is large. Or “was” large. It seems that they have gutted their choral catalogue, and turned the distribution of the leftovers over to Edition Peters. I am told by a friend in the business that they appear to have decided that it simply is not worth their while to publish composers such as Tallis or Gibbons or Purcell (thank you, CPDL, for this state of affairs), or even much of their twentieth-century (and copyrighted) material by composers such as William Mathias and John Rutter. If you already have a single copy of something you want to sing, they will grant permission to reprint it for a reasonable fee, but if you don't have a copy, you are out of luck. I have been a choral director for a long time, and started a file of reference copies of choral music in graduate school. Even after significant pruning a few years ago, it still runs to about 1500 titles that I think I might find useful someday, out of perhaps ten times that number that I have examined and discarded over the years. But what is a young person just beginning in this work to do?
If Oxford University Press can't make a go of it, it is hard to imagine who can.
[Edited to add: As it happens, the next item on my to-do list was to request permission to make additional copies of an O.U.P. title for our youth choir: "Choristers' Prayer" by Richard Proulx, published in 2002 and now out of print. We sang it in 2007, and need a few more copies for our larger youth choir to repeat it this fall. A visit to the O.U.P. website shows that they have not entirely abandoned choral music -- they have simply gotten out of the "old" stuff aside from publishing anthologies, and drastically cut back on their newer stuff. They still claim to have a catalogue of about 2,000 titles, which appear to be aimed more at the secular educational market than the church.]
Thursday, June 14, 2012
A bit of housekeeping, and a rant
I have disabled anonymous comments. Henceforth, those who wish to comment will need to do one of those "word identification" bits.
I do not like doing this, but neither do I like dealing with the increasing stream of anonymous and obviously computer-generated spam.
Sigh.
This morning, I read with delight about Linus Torvald's award for developing Linux, and followed up with the Wikipedia article on Raspberry Pi, a little computer that sells for $25, mentioned in the BBC news story. Part of the motivation behind Raspberry Pi was the fact that fewer young people who enter computer science courses at university have any hardware-tinkering background or any real programming experience, as they often did in the 1980's and 90's. Nowadays, they have maybe done some web design and that's about it. Perhaps a cheap little computer that is nothing but an open circuit board without a case, monitor, or keyboard could tempt young geeks-to-be in better directions.
But more has changed than the hardware. There was a sense of geeky innocence about computers and especially the internet back in the early days. I have tried to write about my experiences of it here, the first post in the Music Box. But nowadays, the internet is not a safe place, nor is it even particularly enjoyable (most especially, I despise Facebook).
Big Brother is watching; anything you say or write or post, or the record of your visit to any website, can and will be used against you. And if that weren't bad enough, everyone wants to sell you something or scam you.
It is too much like Real Life.
I do not like doing this, but neither do I like dealing with the increasing stream of anonymous and obviously computer-generated spam.
Sigh.
This morning, I read with delight about Linus Torvald's award for developing Linux, and followed up with the Wikipedia article on Raspberry Pi, a little computer that sells for $25, mentioned in the BBC news story. Part of the motivation behind Raspberry Pi was the fact that fewer young people who enter computer science courses at university have any hardware-tinkering background or any real programming experience, as they often did in the 1980's and 90's. Nowadays, they have maybe done some web design and that's about it. Perhaps a cheap little computer that is nothing but an open circuit board without a case, monitor, or keyboard could tempt young geeks-to-be in better directions.
But more has changed than the hardware. There was a sense of geeky innocence about computers and especially the internet back in the early days. I have tried to write about my experiences of it here, the first post in the Music Box. But nowadays, the internet is not a safe place, nor is it even particularly enjoyable (most especially, I despise Facebook).
Big Brother is watching; anything you say or write or post, or the record of your visit to any website, can and will be used against you. And if that weren't bad enough, everyone wants to sell you something or scam you.
It is too much like Real Life.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
temptation...
It is clear to me that my Place is at my current parish for now, and (Lord willing) the next couple of years and probably quite a bit more. The parish is preparing to go into an interim period, and it is absolutely clear to me that I must help see them through it.
Further, my sense of the Spirit's leadership has been clear for quite a few years that this is my last full-time church position, for reasons known to God alone. I have paid no attention whatsoever to "positions available" listings in the organists' monthly journal. No matter what position might open up, I am Not Interested.
So what should come through my e-mail box today (via the RSCM newsletter) but this, perhaps the only church in the world in which I would be interested?
R. E. Lee Memorial Church, Episcopal, in Lexington, Virginia, invites applications for the position of full-time Director of Music.
This is Mr. Lee's church. I prayed there last summer [July 24, 2011] and his spirit is strong there, in some ways stronger in this church where he was Senior Warden than across the green in the Lee Chapel at his old office and burial place. Quite aside from all that, it is work for which I would be qualified, though handbells are important there and I have not dealt with them for the last twelve years (I have strong handbell experience for the twenty-odd years prior to that). It is an RSCM-affiliated parish with strong choral programs for children and adults. Their current pipe organ is not very good, but they are looking to replace it.
And it is in Virginia. Not just that, but my beloved Valley of Virginia. It is less than a two hour's drive from our old Farm in the hill country. We could put up a little vacation cottage there...
But it is not for me. For one thing, I am interested in it for the wrong reasons; the history of the place would blind me to the reality of the present. It would be like returning to work in the town where I grew up. And it would be entirely unsuitable for my wife, a thoroughgoing Midwesterner.
Why am I musing about this in a public venue? It guarantees that I will not succumb to temptation and send a resume off to Lexington.
Mr. Lee was offered a very attractive position which he refused because his Duty did not lie there. I can best honor him by doing the same. But I will say a prayer that they find a person suitable for the position and that God will bless them all in their ministry in that sleepy old college town.
Further, my sense of the Spirit's leadership has been clear for quite a few years that this is my last full-time church position, for reasons known to God alone. I have paid no attention whatsoever to "positions available" listings in the organists' monthly journal. No matter what position might open up, I am Not Interested.
So what should come through my e-mail box today (via the RSCM newsletter) but this, perhaps the only church in the world in which I would be interested?
R. E. Lee Memorial Church, Episcopal, in Lexington, Virginia, invites applications for the position of full-time Director of Music.
This is Mr. Lee's church. I prayed there last summer [July 24, 2011] and his spirit is strong there, in some ways stronger in this church where he was Senior Warden than across the green in the Lee Chapel at his old office and burial place. Quite aside from all that, it is work for which I would be qualified, though handbells are important there and I have not dealt with them for the last twelve years (I have strong handbell experience for the twenty-odd years prior to that). It is an RSCM-affiliated parish with strong choral programs for children and adults. Their current pipe organ is not very good, but they are looking to replace it.
And it is in Virginia. Not just that, but my beloved Valley of Virginia. It is less than a two hour's drive from our old Farm in the hill country. We could put up a little vacation cottage there...
But it is not for me. For one thing, I am interested in it for the wrong reasons; the history of the place would blind me to the reality of the present. It would be like returning to work in the town where I grew up. And it would be entirely unsuitable for my wife, a thoroughgoing Midwesterner.
Why am I musing about this in a public venue? It guarantees that I will not succumb to temptation and send a resume off to Lexington.
Mr. Lee was offered a very attractive position which he refused because his Duty did not lie there. I can best honor him by doing the same. But I will say a prayer that they find a person suitable for the position and that God will bless them all in their ministry in that sleepy old college town.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended
The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
the darkness falls at thy behest;
to thee our morning hymns ascended,
thy praise shall sanctify our rest.
For a variety of reasons I did not manage a proper warmup on the organ pieces either this morning or in the afternoon for Evensong; still, they all went well enough. I believe that I played well for the contemporary service too, finishing with a piano improvisation on St. Patrick's Breastplate, a tune which I love.
Better still, the choir sang well at both services. I was especially proud of them for repairing the pitch on the Evensong responses: we were drifting flat, I indicated to them that they should raise the pitch as we chanted the Lord's Prayer, and they did – just as we had practiced earlier in the choir season.
We had a small congregation at the Choral Eucharist, but they took a stanza of Nicaea (Holy, holy, holy; Lord God Almighty) unaccompanied with their usual elegant singing; this was another highlight of the day for me, much better than any of my own playing.
We thank thee that thy Church, unsleeping
while earth rolls onward into light,
through all the world her watch is keeping
and rests not now by day or night.
The day was not without its problems. One of the street people we have helped was in a bad way today; he came in at 6:30 am as I was attempting to practice, wanting money “to buy clothes.” He was acting strangely; I told him so, asking him if he was stoned. “No. That's the same thing the police thought; they said 'you're acting like you're on meth.' But I don't do drugs.” I am not convinced of that. I finally got him on his way, but he returned after the Choral Eucharist, again seeking money from the people “for some lunch.” They told him of the free dinner at the Salvation Army a bit later in the day.
I encountered him yet again as I returned from my own dinner at the Chinese restaurant. “My bus leaves at 4:00. I can't go to that Salvation Army dinner, and I'm hungry.” Despite my determination not to help him, I gave him $5.
Two of the fears I have about helping people were in evidence today: one is the idea that I am throwing money away, giving it to people who will immediately spend it on drugs or booze, which may have happened with that $5 (and some of the other money I have given this fellow over the past months). The other fear is entanglement: another of our “regulars” passed through a couple of times today. He was fresh out of jail, having spent a week there for marijuana possession, and full of cheer. But he was asking a long-term commitment of me that I am not willing to give.
And all of this was when I wanted to focus on the day's music, which is my primary duty.
As o'er each continent and island
the dawn leads on another day,
the voice of prayer is never silent,
nor dies the strain of praise away.
This weekend is the Queen's Jubilee. I believe that when an earthly monarch is faithful to her duty as she has been for these sixty years, it points toward the King of Kings, whose name is Faithful and True (Revelation 19:4-16). The manner in which Elizabeth's life is bound up with her nation and her subjects is not dissimilar in its way to the manner in which the Christ has become bound up with us his servants, giving his life for us. I think that she would be pleased if her life could point others toward the one whom she acknowledges as Lord and Saviour.
[EDITED to add, mostly for my own reference: A Sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Tuesday 5th June 2012]
So be it, Lord; thy throne shall never,
like earth's proud empires, pass away;
thy kingdom stands, and grows for ever,
till all thy creatures own thy sway.
By the time I got everyone out the door after an evening concert and locked the church, I was reduced to puttering around and doing a few items from my overflowing “In” box while listening to the BBC Choral Evensong. As our fine Evensong sermon said, this day is a point of equipoise; we have finished one cycle and begin another.
There is a book entitled “Lark Rise to Candleford,” given to me by one of my dearest friends many years ago. In that book, it became clear in retrospect that Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee was a point of transition, after which most of what had been good fell into decay and death. It may be that this Diamond Jubilee is too; the world seems bent on careening toward ruin.
Unto God's care we commit ourselves, and all the families of the earth.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Addendum
Upon reflection, it is clear that the playing of the organ works of Bach is not the only reason I exist. I left the previous essay as it was, for it is indicative that this is how I felt by the end of a long day of practice; I was entirely caught up in the music. There are other reasons: in order to add my voice to the prayers of Holy Mother Church in the Daily Office, especially Choral Evensong; to encourage others, especially my wife and friends (and in a small way, those of you who read these pages).
Not least, I exist in order to do my part in preparing the choristers and others committed to my care for that great and final Day through the disciplines of choral rehearsal, congregational hymns, service music, and Psalmody. We shall hear of this tomorrow at Evensong:
Not least, I exist in order to do my part in preparing the choristers and others committed to my care for that great and final Day through the disciplines of choral rehearsal, congregational hymns, service music, and Psalmody. We shall hear of this tomorrow at Evensong:
Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour unto him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her it was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. (Revelation 19:7-9)
Friday, June 1, 2012
Friday night: Bach and the glory of God
The Bach pieces have gone well these last two Sundays. This week, Trinity Sunday, is the larger part of it, with the E Flat “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue, the large settings of the Kyrie/Christe/Kyrie from the Clavierubung, plus a reprise of the gentle second setting of Komm, heiliger Geist for a memorial service tomorrow morning (plus, I think, Vor deinen Thron tret' ich for the postlude. It is an unusual service, and I am not yet sure what to do to conclude it. The final hymn is at the piano, so I might improvise a postlude instead of playing Bach. My normal funeral postlude is the St. Anne Fugue, but in this case it doesn't seem quite right).
Today held almost six hours of practice on these things, running well into the evening; I just finished a little while ago. I am worn out.
I mentioned the biography of Bach by Malcolm Boyd in the essay on May 18. He notes that Bach scholarship since the 1970's has tended to put Bach's motivations in a different light. No longer do the modern scholars think that he sought in any particular way to glorify God by what he was doing; he worked in churches for much of his life, but it was simply a way to make a living. His true motivation, so they say, was Music.
I think that this says more about modern scholarship than it does about Bach.
One always learns from the great composers. This fortnight of Bach has taught me some specifically musical lessons, but they are probably less important than the spiritual lesson. As I worked my way through the Kyrie/Christe/Kyrie this evening – three hours of it – the lesson was the one summarized in the Westminster Catechism of the Puritans:
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Insofar as one can gather anything about a composer from his music, it seems clear to me that Bach wrote these three pieces, and the entire Third Part of the Clavierubung from which all of this Sunday's organ music is to come, with no other end than the glory of the undivided Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That is what is left for the organist as well, once the dross is burned out.
Or it should be thus. Some months ago, I heard a performance of the E Flat Prelude and Fugue that seemed to have a different motivation behind it: virtuosity, and the glorification of the performer. The player was a graduate student, and perhaps he will grow into this music in a few decades. Or not; I am not sure one can play these things if one insists on coming at them from a thoroughly secular perspective.
Is it a waste of time to spend all this time playing Bach? Perhaps.
But it is the reason I exist.
Today held almost six hours of practice on these things, running well into the evening; I just finished a little while ago. I am worn out.
I mentioned the biography of Bach by Malcolm Boyd in the essay on May 18. He notes that Bach scholarship since the 1970's has tended to put Bach's motivations in a different light. No longer do the modern scholars think that he sought in any particular way to glorify God by what he was doing; he worked in churches for much of his life, but it was simply a way to make a living. His true motivation, so they say, was Music.
I think that this says more about modern scholarship than it does about Bach.
One always learns from the great composers. This fortnight of Bach has taught me some specifically musical lessons, but they are probably less important than the spiritual lesson. As I worked my way through the Kyrie/Christe/Kyrie this evening – three hours of it – the lesson was the one summarized in the Westminster Catechism of the Puritans:
Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever.
Insofar as one can gather anything about a composer from his music, it seems clear to me that Bach wrote these three pieces, and the entire Third Part of the Clavierubung from which all of this Sunday's organ music is to come, with no other end than the glory of the undivided Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That is what is left for the organist as well, once the dross is burned out.
Or it should be thus. Some months ago, I heard a performance of the E Flat Prelude and Fugue that seemed to have a different motivation behind it: virtuosity, and the glorification of the performer. The player was a graduate student, and perhaps he will grow into this music in a few decades. Or not; I am not sure one can play these things if one insists on coming at them from a thoroughly secular perspective.
Is it a waste of time to spend all this time playing Bach? Perhaps.
But it is the reason I exist.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Sunday Warmups, and Death of a Keyboard
Sunday Warmups
Playing accurately in the Sunday services has been a concern for me; on many occasions, I have been adequately prepared, but have made too many note errors when the time came to play in the service. I have mostly played better in my sporadic recitals, which causes me to think that the problem is with my Sunday routine. Circumstances are not ideal; I must do whatever practice there will be before Matins at 7:15, and the choral service (with organ) is not until 11:00. Try as I might, I find it difficult to arrive at the church before about 6:00 -- many weeks it is more like 6:15 or even 6:30, especially in the winter -- and there are other things which I must do before climbing on the organ bench. It falls to me to unlock the church, turn on the lights, open the Sacristry and Vestry, prepare the Chapel for Matins. Thus, I am usually left with forty minutes or less of practice time, and some of this belongs to the hymns and service music.
There is not enough time for a full Workout on the voluntaries. And a simple play-through at tempo has not proven adequate. Nor is it sufficient to do a slow play-through as I do to conclude my Workouts on a piece. I have tried a new method for my warmup these past two Sundays, as follows: (1) At slow tempo (perhaps half-tempo), play through a “period” -- that is, a musically logical section of about one or two pages, or roughly forty-five seconds or a minute in performance duration. (2) Play it again, using one of the modified rhythms that are basic to my practice technique, perhaps one-beat groupings (typically four sixteenth-notes). (3) Move on to the next period.
That’s it. It takes about three times the performance duration of the piece to get through it in this manner. Unfortunately, I ran out of time on both Sundays and had to skimp on the easier passages. With today's two settings of Komm, heiliger Geist, the fantasia which I played as postlude got the full treatment, which it definitely needed. The second setting, which I played as a prelude, has leisurely stretches of two-voice counterpoint in the manuals between phrases of the chorale; this is where I skimped. I gave the statements of the chorale and the exquisite (and tricky) coda the full treatment. Service settings and anthem accompaniments get the same treatment.
For the hymns, most of the preparation happens earlier in the week, especially on Saturday. On Sunday morning, I must play through my introduction, and start each stanza in order to work through the stop changes between stanzas and have them clear in my mind, also to remind myself what techniques I am applying to each stanza. I write all of this down on a slip of paper which is clipped to the hymnal, but it needs the Sunday morning “reminder.” If a stanza has a significant improvisatory content, I play through the entire stanza.
Death of a Keyboard
In 1995, I got the notion that as a Keyboard Musician, I ought to have an electronic keyboard. After considerable research and shopping, I purchased an Ensoniq EPS-16 Plus. It was the floor demonstrator at the music store, the model was being superseded by something newer, and I was able to buy it at half price, about $1,200. The EPS-16 loaded its operating system and sound files from floppy diskettes, which were the same as were used on the Apple II computer. [HERE is a description and photo of the machine. Note that it gets a five-star “Awesome” rating. I would agree, except for the repair and obsolescence issue – for which see below.]
I eventually built my own speakers (an enjoyable project, and they turned out very well) and used a home stereo amplifier from a pawn shop. It all worked well, and I used it professionally a few times, mostly for funerals in locations where there was not an instrument. But I never played it very much, especially after we sold our house and moved into an apartment with no space to leave it set up. For these last twelve years it has mostly languished in its black bag behind my rocking chair.
Last fall I got it out, set it up, and prepared to play. It did not work. I took it to the local music store, and the technician opened it up. He found that a resistor had fried on the motherboard. This ought to be a simple repair, but it turned out that there are no schematics or technical notes on the Ensoniq EPS anywhere, nor are any replacement motherboards available. When the company was bought out in 1998 and then dissolved a couple of years later, any technical information that might have existed disappeared. The technician consulted with colleagues and hunted around on the Internet: nothing. So, my keyboard was dead. “As useless as a broken pot,” as the Psalmist says.
At the technician’s advice, I looked around on eBay with the idea of getting an identical unit and seeing if I could keep one unit working by using the other for parts. I even bid on a couple of used units, but the price always got away from me.
Half a year has passed. I have come to realize that my wife was right: on the day that it died, she said “You never use it. Why do you keep it around?” But it has taken me this long to come to where I was ready to part with it. My attachment to it was that I put a lot of time into learning how to use it well. I sampled several ranks of organ pipes from the instrument I played at the time so that I could practice organ music at home -- something I never did after all that work.
Getting rid of it forces me to admit that I was probably wrong in buying it in the first place. But I suppose the experience has been instructive, in the same way that most of my interactions with computers have been – as soon as one gets properly comfortable with a computer, it is obsolete, along with all of the software one has learned to use.
I am tempted to swear off electronic musical instruments. Why own something that will only last twenty years or so and is unrepairable? A traditional acoustic piano or a mechanical action pipe organ will last a lifetime, more likely several lifetimes. And when they break down, they can be repaired. But I have kept the speakers, amplifier, stand, and other accessories that would be usable with another unit, in case I change my mind. If I do, I suspect I will not like it as well as my old EPS.
I still own one keyboard instrument: a Clavichord. It currently functions primarily as a table in my office, as there is no space for it in our apartment. It is no more obsolete now than it was thirty-plus years when I built it from a kit. It works fine, and if it doesn’t, I can repair it -- indeed, there is hardly anything that can go wrong with it other than an occasional broken string. For now, I rarely use it, not when I can conveniently play the organ or piano. But when I retire, it will likely be my primary instrument.
On Friday, I took the Ensoniq to the music store and gave it to the technician. He is going to keep it around for parts, many of which are interchangeable with other Ensoniq instruments.
Playing accurately in the Sunday services has been a concern for me; on many occasions, I have been adequately prepared, but have made too many note errors when the time came to play in the service. I have mostly played better in my sporadic recitals, which causes me to think that the problem is with my Sunday routine. Circumstances are not ideal; I must do whatever practice there will be before Matins at 7:15, and the choral service (with organ) is not until 11:00. Try as I might, I find it difficult to arrive at the church before about 6:00 -- many weeks it is more like 6:15 or even 6:30, especially in the winter -- and there are other things which I must do before climbing on the organ bench. It falls to me to unlock the church, turn on the lights, open the Sacristry and Vestry, prepare the Chapel for Matins. Thus, I am usually left with forty minutes or less of practice time, and some of this belongs to the hymns and service music.
There is not enough time for a full Workout on the voluntaries. And a simple play-through at tempo has not proven adequate. Nor is it sufficient to do a slow play-through as I do to conclude my Workouts on a piece. I have tried a new method for my warmup these past two Sundays, as follows: (1) At slow tempo (perhaps half-tempo), play through a “period” -- that is, a musically logical section of about one or two pages, or roughly forty-five seconds or a minute in performance duration. (2) Play it again, using one of the modified rhythms that are basic to my practice technique, perhaps one-beat groupings (typically four sixteenth-notes). (3) Move on to the next period.
That’s it. It takes about three times the performance duration of the piece to get through it in this manner. Unfortunately, I ran out of time on both Sundays and had to skimp on the easier passages. With today's two settings of Komm, heiliger Geist, the fantasia which I played as postlude got the full treatment, which it definitely needed. The second setting, which I played as a prelude, has leisurely stretches of two-voice counterpoint in the manuals between phrases of the chorale; this is where I skimped. I gave the statements of the chorale and the exquisite (and tricky) coda the full treatment. Service settings and anthem accompaniments get the same treatment.
For the hymns, most of the preparation happens earlier in the week, especially on Saturday. On Sunday morning, I must play through my introduction, and start each stanza in order to work through the stop changes between stanzas and have them clear in my mind, also to remind myself what techniques I am applying to each stanza. I write all of this down on a slip of paper which is clipped to the hymnal, but it needs the Sunday morning “reminder.” If a stanza has a significant improvisatory content, I play through the entire stanza.
Death of a Keyboard
In 1995, I got the notion that as a Keyboard Musician, I ought to have an electronic keyboard. After considerable research and shopping, I purchased an Ensoniq EPS-16 Plus. It was the floor demonstrator at the music store, the model was being superseded by something newer, and I was able to buy it at half price, about $1,200. The EPS-16 loaded its operating system and sound files from floppy diskettes, which were the same as were used on the Apple II computer. [HERE is a description and photo of the machine. Note that it gets a five-star “Awesome” rating. I would agree, except for the repair and obsolescence issue – for which see below.]
I eventually built my own speakers (an enjoyable project, and they turned out very well) and used a home stereo amplifier from a pawn shop. It all worked well, and I used it professionally a few times, mostly for funerals in locations where there was not an instrument. But I never played it very much, especially after we sold our house and moved into an apartment with no space to leave it set up. For these last twelve years it has mostly languished in its black bag behind my rocking chair.
Last fall I got it out, set it up, and prepared to play. It did not work. I took it to the local music store, and the technician opened it up. He found that a resistor had fried on the motherboard. This ought to be a simple repair, but it turned out that there are no schematics or technical notes on the Ensoniq EPS anywhere, nor are any replacement motherboards available. When the company was bought out in 1998 and then dissolved a couple of years later, any technical information that might have existed disappeared. The technician consulted with colleagues and hunted around on the Internet: nothing. So, my keyboard was dead. “As useless as a broken pot,” as the Psalmist says.
At the technician’s advice, I looked around on eBay with the idea of getting an identical unit and seeing if I could keep one unit working by using the other for parts. I even bid on a couple of used units, but the price always got away from me.
Half a year has passed. I have come to realize that my wife was right: on the day that it died, she said “You never use it. Why do you keep it around?” But it has taken me this long to come to where I was ready to part with it. My attachment to it was that I put a lot of time into learning how to use it well. I sampled several ranks of organ pipes from the instrument I played at the time so that I could practice organ music at home -- something I never did after all that work.
Getting rid of it forces me to admit that I was probably wrong in buying it in the first place. But I suppose the experience has been instructive, in the same way that most of my interactions with computers have been – as soon as one gets properly comfortable with a computer, it is obsolete, along with all of the software one has learned to use.
I am tempted to swear off electronic musical instruments. Why own something that will only last twenty years or so and is unrepairable? A traditional acoustic piano or a mechanical action pipe organ will last a lifetime, more likely several lifetimes. And when they break down, they can be repaired. But I have kept the speakers, amplifier, stand, and other accessories that would be usable with another unit, in case I change my mind. If I do, I suspect I will not like it as well as my old EPS.
I still own one keyboard instrument: a Clavichord. It currently functions primarily as a table in my office, as there is no space for it in our apartment. It is no more obsolete now than it was thirty-plus years when I built it from a kit. It works fine, and if it doesn’t, I can repair it -- indeed, there is hardly anything that can go wrong with it other than an occasional broken string. For now, I rarely use it, not when I can conveniently play the organ or piano. But when I retire, it will likely be my primary instrument.
On Friday, I took the Ensoniq to the music store and gave it to the technician. He is going to keep it around for parts, many of which are interchangeable with other Ensoniq instruments.
Friday, May 18, 2012
A fortnight of Bach
Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity: For the three Sundays in this period, I must play either Bach or Messiaen; nothing less will suffice. Last year I played three of the movements from Messiaen’s Ascension Suite, as Evensong fell on the Sunday after Ascension Day. This year, with Evensong on Trinity Sunday, the choice falls with Bach.
Having thus committed myself to a fortnight of Bach, I decided to further immerse myself by reading a biography: “Bach,” by Malcolm Boyd (Vintage Books: 1987). It is a delightful little volume (290 pages), intended primarily for the general reader.
“I must be about my Father’s business.” That would be a suitable epigraph for Bach; from his childhood, he worked diligently at the craft of Music. One sees this in an appendix of this biography: a list of Bach’s works by BWV number -- over a thousand of them. Many of these works are small of stature, but not all -- e.g.: the B Minor Mass (BWV 232), the St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), the Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Much, also, has been lost, especially in the church music: we have only two of the five Passion settings and slightly over half of the Cantatas.
Looking at this list, I am reminded of a project I would like to undertake before I die: a performance of all four books of the Clavierübung. I have played much of it over the years, but most of it would need a lot of work to prepare for a performance, especially all in one season. Crucially, almost none of it would have even a tangential relationship to my church duties.
Part I: Six Partitas for Clavier. I have played only one of these, back when I was an undergraduate student. They are thoroughly delightful, the equal in stature of the more famous Partitas for Solo Violin and Solo Violoncello. Quite aside from any larger project, it would benefit me to learn these.
Part II: Overture, and Italian Concerto. I have played the latter, when I was in my twenties, but not the former.
Part III (the only part for Organ): “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue, which I have played often (and which is coming up for this Trinity Sunday); nine settings of the Lutheran Kyrie and Gloria (three of these will be the prelude for Trinity Sunday Evensong: Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit; Christe, alle Welt Trost; Kyrie Gott Heiliger Geist); six “catechism” chorales, each in a large setting plus a small manuals-only setting, corresponding (perhaps) to Luther’s Greater and Lesser Catechisms (Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, baptism, penitence, Communion); four enigmatic (and rarely-played) Duets. At one time or another, I have played almost all of this, lacking only a couple of the chorale settings and one of the Duets. Some of them are quite challenging.
Part IV: the “Goldberg” Variations. Some twenty years ago, there was a year when the church I served was getting a new pipe organ. In those days, I played an annual recital, and with no organ at hand, I decided to play the Variations, and did so in concert at a nearby college chapel. They are a thoroughgoing delight to study and play. But they are not properly fingered, and I am not sure that I have the keyboard facility to play them nowadays. I will add that I played them on the pianoforte, and much prefer this instrument for them because of its expressive possibilities.
It would be magnificent to program this over a series of recitals. But I have become less ambitious about undertaking such a project as the years have passed; it would be a lot of work, perhaps more than I can do while performing my appointed duties. I often feel that I cannot even perform those at a reasonable standard, much less attempt something beyond them.
Yet it was precisely when he was my age, in his late fifties, that Bach undertook some of his most extensive projects: Parts Three and Four of the Clavierübung date from this period; the Musical Offering, the B Minor Mass, and the Art of Fugue lay ahead. And he did this work in the midst of numerous duties, all of which he discharged faithfully, and a household full of young children -- the last of them, Regina Susanna Bach, was born only in 1742, when Bach was fifty-seven, and at that point there were three other children under the age of ten still at home, plus two teenagers, one of them “feeble-minded” and needing significant care. [Anna Magdalena bore him thirteen children between 1723 and 1742, but seven of them had died in infancy or childhood. This is besides the seven children of Maria Barbara Bach, three of them still living by 1742.]
Throughout his life, Bach always did much more than was required or expected, in quantity but most especially in quality. Moreover, he continued to develop as a composer over his lifetime. If one compares some of his early preludes and fugues for the organ with the great contrapuntal works of his final years, one sees this clearly.
This Sunday, I must play the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 547, “which, if not the finest of all Bach’s organ works, is certainly one of the most original.... Even among Bach’s organ fugues, it is difficult to find one that surpasses this [fugue] in contrapuntal resource, or one that is better ‘orchestrated’ for the instrument.” (Boyd, p. 61)
Next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, I am to play the two settings of the chorale Komm, heiliger Geist (BWV 651-2) with which Bach began his final collection, generally called the “Eighteen Chorales.” Most of these were substantial expansions of works he had composed years ago at Weimar, and represent “[Bach] as a master of chorale settings on the grandest scale” (Boyd, p. 55).
This collection, like the Clavierübung, would make a magnificent organ programme, or (more likely) two or three programmes on successive evenings. One would begin with the exuberant organo pleno Fantasy on Komm, heiliger Geist, and the quiet and expansive second setting of the same tune, and finish at last with Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich (BWV 668). This would be a more manageable project than the Clavierübung, but still perhaps beyond my capacity.
Finally, Trinity Sunday brings the Prelude and Fugue in E flat from the Clavierübung, as mentioned above. Both the Prelude and the Fugue are thoroughly Trinitarian in their symbolism -- in a key signature of three flats, with three thematic groups, and many less obvious connections. If pressed to describe the doctrine of the Trinity, I would play this Fugue, perhaps with some explanatory comments.
And, as mentioned, I will play the three large settings of the Kyrie for the Evensong prelude.
Often, Bach wrote the superscription “J.J.” over the first page of his manuscripts -- “Jesu, juva.” It was a prayer not just for himself, I think, but for those of us who attempt to play his music. It cannot be done without the help of our Lord, and when one makes it to the end, the only response is his, likewise written into most of his scores: “S.D.G.” -- Soli Deo Gloria. These are my prayers as I undertake this work over the next few weeks.
Having thus committed myself to a fortnight of Bach, I decided to further immerse myself by reading a biography: “Bach,” by Malcolm Boyd (Vintage Books: 1987). It is a delightful little volume (290 pages), intended primarily for the general reader.
“I must be about my Father’s business.” That would be a suitable epigraph for Bach; from his childhood, he worked diligently at the craft of Music. One sees this in an appendix of this biography: a list of Bach’s works by BWV number -- over a thousand of them. Many of these works are small of stature, but not all -- e.g.: the B Minor Mass (BWV 232), the St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244), the Musical Offering (BWV 1079). Much, also, has been lost, especially in the church music: we have only two of the five Passion settings and slightly over half of the Cantatas.
Looking at this list, I am reminded of a project I would like to undertake before I die: a performance of all four books of the Clavierübung. I have played much of it over the years, but most of it would need a lot of work to prepare for a performance, especially all in one season. Crucially, almost none of it would have even a tangential relationship to my church duties.
Part I: Six Partitas for Clavier. I have played only one of these, back when I was an undergraduate student. They are thoroughly delightful, the equal in stature of the more famous Partitas for Solo Violin and Solo Violoncello. Quite aside from any larger project, it would benefit me to learn these.
Part II: Overture, and Italian Concerto. I have played the latter, when I was in my twenties, but not the former.
Part III (the only part for Organ): “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue, which I have played often (and which is coming up for this Trinity Sunday); nine settings of the Lutheran Kyrie and Gloria (three of these will be the prelude for Trinity Sunday Evensong: Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit; Christe, alle Welt Trost; Kyrie Gott Heiliger Geist); six “catechism” chorales, each in a large setting plus a small manuals-only setting, corresponding (perhaps) to Luther’s Greater and Lesser Catechisms (Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, baptism, penitence, Communion); four enigmatic (and rarely-played) Duets. At one time or another, I have played almost all of this, lacking only a couple of the chorale settings and one of the Duets. Some of them are quite challenging.
Part IV: the “Goldberg” Variations. Some twenty years ago, there was a year when the church I served was getting a new pipe organ. In those days, I played an annual recital, and with no organ at hand, I decided to play the Variations, and did so in concert at a nearby college chapel. They are a thoroughgoing delight to study and play. But they are not properly fingered, and I am not sure that I have the keyboard facility to play them nowadays. I will add that I played them on the pianoforte, and much prefer this instrument for them because of its expressive possibilities.
It would be magnificent to program this over a series of recitals. But I have become less ambitious about undertaking such a project as the years have passed; it would be a lot of work, perhaps more than I can do while performing my appointed duties. I often feel that I cannot even perform those at a reasonable standard, much less attempt something beyond them.
Yet it was precisely when he was my age, in his late fifties, that Bach undertook some of his most extensive projects: Parts Three and Four of the Clavierübung date from this period; the Musical Offering, the B Minor Mass, and the Art of Fugue lay ahead. And he did this work in the midst of numerous duties, all of which he discharged faithfully, and a household full of young children -- the last of them, Regina Susanna Bach, was born only in 1742, when Bach was fifty-seven, and at that point there were three other children under the age of ten still at home, plus two teenagers, one of them “feeble-minded” and needing significant care. [Anna Magdalena bore him thirteen children between 1723 and 1742, but seven of them had died in infancy or childhood. This is besides the seven children of Maria Barbara Bach, three of them still living by 1742.]
Throughout his life, Bach always did much more than was required or expected, in quantity but most especially in quality. Moreover, he continued to develop as a composer over his lifetime. If one compares some of his early preludes and fugues for the organ with the great contrapuntal works of his final years, one sees this clearly.
This Sunday, I must play the Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 547, “which, if not the finest of all Bach’s organ works, is certainly one of the most original.... Even among Bach’s organ fugues, it is difficult to find one that surpasses this [fugue] in contrapuntal resource, or one that is better ‘orchestrated’ for the instrument.” (Boyd, p. 61)
Next Sunday, the Day of Pentecost, I am to play the two settings of the chorale Komm, heiliger Geist (BWV 651-2) with which Bach began his final collection, generally called the “Eighteen Chorales.” Most of these were substantial expansions of works he had composed years ago at Weimar, and represent “[Bach] as a master of chorale settings on the grandest scale” (Boyd, p. 55).
This collection, like the Clavierübung, would make a magnificent organ programme, or (more likely) two or three programmes on successive evenings. One would begin with the exuberant organo pleno Fantasy on Komm, heiliger Geist, and the quiet and expansive second setting of the same tune, and finish at last with Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich (BWV 668). This would be a more manageable project than the Clavierübung, but still perhaps beyond my capacity.
Finally, Trinity Sunday brings the Prelude and Fugue in E flat from the Clavierübung, as mentioned above. Both the Prelude and the Fugue are thoroughly Trinitarian in their symbolism -- in a key signature of three flats, with three thematic groups, and many less obvious connections. If pressed to describe the doctrine of the Trinity, I would play this Fugue, perhaps with some explanatory comments.
And, as mentioned, I will play the three large settings of the Kyrie for the Evensong prelude.
Often, Bach wrote the superscription “J.J.” over the first page of his manuscripts -- “Jesu, juva.” It was a prayer not just for himself, I think, but for those of us who attempt to play his music. It cannot be done without the help of our Lord, and when one makes it to the end, the only response is his, likewise written into most of his scores: “S.D.G.” -- Soli Deo Gloria. These are my prayers as I undertake this work over the next few weeks.
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