Continuo: The Art of Creative Collaboration

Musforum, the network for female organists, held its first conference, “The Muse’s Voice,” in New York City on June 19 and 20, 2015, at four churches that boast women as music directors and organists: West End Collegiate Church, Emmanuel Lutheran Church, the Church of the Transfiguration, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Women who are organists, composers, and conductors from across the United States and Canada were the featured artists, and the programs included works by female composers. The conference was made possible, in part, by a generous grant from Barnard College, Columbia University.

The events began at noon on June 19 with a keynote address by Susan Ferré, who currently serves as music director of the non-profit organization Music in the Great North Woods (www.musicgnw.org) and as director of music and organist at St. Barnabas Church in Gorham, New Hampshire. A distinguished teacher of organ, Ferré served on the faculties of Pacific Lutheran University, Southern Methodist University, Perkins School of Theology, University of North Texas, and the University of Paris at Vincennes. For more than twenty years, she directed the Texas Baroque Ensemble, which presented little-known works on original instruments, and for fourteen years, directed the Early Music Weekend at Round Top, Texas.

In her address, Ferré spoke about her early experiences with sacred music, listening to African-American children singing hymns in a tiny schoolhouse in Ohio. During her college years in Texas, she encountered women who held prominent positions as college and church musicians in Texas and Oklahoma: Helen Hewitt at North Texas, Dora Poteet at Southern Methodist University, and Joyce Jones at Baylor. Moving to Paris for advanced studies with Jean Langlais, Ferré met the French masters Darius Milhaud, André Marchal, and Olivier Messiaen. Her experiences shaped her professional approach to the problems and prejudice that female organists face in the modern world. She suggested that fairness for all needs to become our goal, “The ‘token female’ becomes the ‘smart choice’ for the common good.” Women need to search for beauty and then communicate that joy and beauty with fearless determination. 

Rather, the role of the artist is transcendent: non-rational forces are essential to being whole as a human being. This is not quantifiable, but rather, art is able to express grief, beauty, love, to struggle with our own humanity, our own mortality. It is not empirically measurable, but the search for meaning comes through art, which has origins in all religious expression, fused with art, poetry, and music.

Following a delicious and convivial luncheon, the afternoon performances featured Canadian organist Karen Holmes and a song cycle by composer Pamela Decker for piano, soprano, and dancer. Holmes delved into the French Canadian tradition with lively, short organ works from an anonymous 17th-century manuscript, Livre d’orgue de Montreal. Her program included Courtes Pieces, Vol. VII, by Canadian composer Rachel Laurin and the Chromatic Partita by Ruth Watson Henderson. Pamela Decker wrote the poetry for her song cycle, Haven: Songs of Mystery and of Memory, and played the piano as accompanist for soprano Katherine Byrnes and dancer Clare Elise Hancock. The hour-long work has fourteen songs, some for soprano and piano alone, and others choreographed by the dancer. The performers used the whole space, having cleared the altar area to take advantage of the various heights of the front of the sanctuary at West End Collegiate Church. The music and dance combined beautifully to express the color, emotion, and elegance of the poetry.

Moving to Emmanuel Lutheran Church on Manhattan’s East Side, we enjoyed a wine and cheese hour prior to the evening performance by harpsichordist Alexandra Dunbar and violinist Karen Dekker. Music director Gwendolyn Toth very kindly allowed us to use one of her large two-manual harpsichords for the performance. Dunbar and Dekker offered a splendid early music program with selections by Bach, Couperin, Biber, and Corelli. The ensemble playing was perfectly coordinated; the rhythmic energy, precise articulation, and flawless technique made the repertoire come alive, both in the poignant slow movements and in the spirited finales.

Our second day began early in the morning on June 20 with a varied program by Christa Rakich on the Fisk organ at the Church of the Transfiguration. Rakich arranged a Sonata in F for flute and basso continuo by Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia, for organ solo. The three-movement work is full of late-Baroque verve and humor and worked very well indeed as a piece for organ alone. Rakich juxtaposed chorale preludes by Johannes Brahms and Ethel Smyth on the tune O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid and then contributed her own composition, Hommage à Pachelbel. The program concluded with the American premiere of a demanding recent work by the Dutch organist and composer Margaretha Christina de Jong, Prelude, Choral varié et Fugue sur Veni Redemptor Gentium.

Composer Hilary Tann discussed the creative process involved in her recent commission for the American Guild of Organists, Embertides. Louise Mundinger gave a detailed analysis of the piece along with a performance of excerpts, with extensive commentary from Hilary Tann. The morning concluded with two hours of inspired playing by four young women who are pursuing graduate study or have recently completed advanced programs in organ performance: Katelyn Emerson (one of The Diapason’s “20 under 30” Class of 2015), Mary Copeley, Emma Whitten, and Ashley Snavely. 

In the afternoon session, Marie Rubis Bauer, the organist of St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha, Nebraska, presented an eclectic program of early works by Scheidemann, Sweelinck, Aguilera de Heredia, and selections from a contemporary composition, Windows of Comfort: Two Organbooks by Dan Locklair. One of the most uplifting moments of the conference was the Evensong service at 4 p.m. at the Church of the Transfiguration. The celebrant of the service was the Rector, Bishop Andrew St. John. Music director Claudia Dumschat led her children’s choir in two English anthems, O Praise the Lord by Maurice Greene and Evening Hymn by Henry Purcell; the Magnificat and Nunc dimitis settings were composed by Sarah MacDonald. The angelic voices of the young singers were graciously accompanied by organist Judith Hancock.

The gala evening recital took place at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, featuring Kimberly Marshall, Sarah Jane Starcher Germani, Jennifer Pascual, and Gail Archer. Marshall offered the Mass ‘L’Homme armé’ by Margaret Vardell Sandresky; Starcher Germani presented Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Major, BWV 536, selections by Jeanne Demessieux, and Alexandre Guilmant’s Postlude for the Feast of the Assumption. Music director Pascual and Archer played programs composed by women: Libby Larsen, Johanna Senfter, Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, and Jeanne Demessieux, among others.

All the participants remarked upon the supportive and kind atmosphere of the weekend—we came together to affirm one another and to celebrate women as organists, composers, and conductors. We had enough social time to have meaningful conversations about our work; we made new friendships and deepened long-standing ties among our colleagues. Many women who are organists live a continent away from one another and have only rare opportunities to interact professionally. One can feel isolated and even discouraged by the general culture of the organ world, which too often diminishes the contribution of highly educated and skilled female musicians. Musforum grew out of my research on the success of female organists, which I published in the Journal of the International Alliance of Women in Music in spring 2013. The database of female organists is on the Musforum site: www.musforum.org as well as the complete program, biographies, photos, and an archival recording of the conference under “Events.” All women, no matter what age or point in their professional career, are welcome in the Musforum network. Join us by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. Women need to move forward in the field on the basis of merit: their education, skill, and accomplishment. The world will be enriched by our musical gifts, and we will lift up hearts and minds by the beauty and powerful inspiration of our song.

Handel with care

As I write this column we are barely past the Feast of the Epiphany and are   settling in for a bit of “wintery mix” that will bring sub-freezing temperatures plus the threat of snow to much of northern Texas. Blessedly, I am still basking in the warm memory of my most recent participation as continuo harpsichordist for a performance of George Frideric Handel’s greatest hit, his oratorio Messiah (Part I and the Hallelujah Chorus), presented on December 24 as the Sunday morning service at Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas.

Like most colleagues who own a harpsichord, I have had a career-long association with Handel’s masterpiece beginning during student days and continuing through many collaborations with professional ensembles such as the Dallas and Shreveport symphonies and multiple church choirs (my own as conductor from the keyboard, and others as keyboardist only). Like other particular holiday favorites (The Nutcracker and A Christmas Carol come to mind), Messiah can suffer from over-exposure. At this point in my life I am not certain that I would accept another engagement to perform the entire oratorio, but for this, a repeat booking to assist with Part I at Lovers Lane Church after having performed in a separate subsequent Good Friday presentation of Parts II and III during an appropriate liturgical season, I have come to admire the good taste of music director Jimmy Emery and the sensitive collaboration of his clergy. Music IS the sermon for these services: a pastoral welcome follows the organ prelude; the instrumental “Pifa” serves as an offertory, and a benediction before the organ postlude completes the spoken word segments for the service, thus allowing the powerful biblical texts and Handel’s beloved music to serve as the message.

For the 2017 presentation we had a complement of single strings, winds, trumpet, and tympani plus the collaboration of organist Sheryl Sebo at the classic Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ, moved from the original church for installation as the chancel instrument for the magnificent primary edifice for worship, no longer situated on the eponymous Lane, but now gracing the northeastern corner of Northwest Highway and Inwood Road in north Dallas. Due to his scheduling error the cellist did not arrive for the Saturday morning rehearsal, but a versatile bassist did noble service, and the continuo players gathered for an extra half hour of checking cues on Sunday morning, so all fit together seamlessly.

A few performance suggestions achieved from experience

I admire those among us who are proficient readers of figured bass, but for my own security I prefer to play from a realized score, and the published version that I use is a 1998 spiral-bound volume from Oxford University Press, edited by Clifford Bartlett (with continuo realization by Timothy Morris). This 167-page score contains all of the various transpositions and alternatively voiced arias as well as the rehearsal letters indicated in the Watkins Shaw vocal score published by Novello. (A practical hint: keep a stash of large paper clips close at hand, and ask the conductor for a list of the options that have been selected for performance prior to rehearsals.)

Of course, the presence of a printed realization does not require that every printed note must be played! For dynamic or expressive reasons one may wish to omit, or add, notes. A few of my favorite examples: in “O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion” (#9) try adding some upward scale figures to illustrate “get thee up into the high mountains.” Delay the harpsichord entrance at the beginning of #10, “For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,” then join the bass line at letter A: “. . . But the Lord shall arise . . .” Or, for the recitative #19, “Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened,” insert a bit of irresistible fun by adding some jolly arpeggiated upward sixteenth-notes to portray that lame man who is “leaping as an hart!”

Recommended books: Handel and Messiah

1) For an eminently readable biography of the composer, Christopher Hogwood’s tercentenary offering Handel (Thames and Hudson, London, 1984, USA 1985; ISBN 0-500-01355-1) is a winner with one hundred well-chosen illustrations (ten in color), a full chapter on the oratorios, and a complete chronological table of events in the composer’s long life.

2) Richard Luckett, the Pepys Librarian at Magdalene College, Cambridge UK, is the author of Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration (Victor Gollanz, Ltd, 1992; ISBN 0-575-05286-4), comprising ten cogent chapters that describe the background and history of the work’s creation, its varied performance styles through the years, and the changing tastes that have developed through the influence of the twentieth-century early music revival.

3) First Nights: Five Musical Premieres (Yale University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-300-07774-2) is James Forrest Kelly’s compendium of eventful happenings at the first public hearing of a major work by the composers Monteverdi, Beethoven, Berlioz, Stravinsky, and, as the subject of the book’s second chapter, Handel’s Messiah. Of particular interest is a discussion of recommended recordings of Handel’s oratorio (pages 342–344) as conducted by George Solti, Trevor Pinnock, William Christie, and Nicholas McGegan. The latter chose to record all the variant surviving material from Handel’s several versions of Messiah, thus providing the listener with the materials for constructing a unique performance of the oratorio to suit one’s individual interest and preferences.

A memorable venue: Handel’s house

Among my fondest memories of meaningful recitals, only a precious few hold the same rank as the thrill of performing an eighteenth-century keyboard transcription of the “Overture” to Messiah during one of my two concerts in Handel’s London lodging located at 25 Brook Street, Mayfair, known since 2001 as “The Handel House Museum.” A lovely two-manual harpsichord by Bruce Kennedy provides the player with an exceptional partner in this intimate space. Most wonderful, however, is the sense of awe that is induced by the thought that in these very rooms the great composer conceived his immortal music.

I did not wish to mention these events without hastening to mention the names of some other colleagues who have had the same opportunity. For this information I appealed to Jane Clark, a wonderful British friend and authority on Couperin and Scarlatti, as well as a superb performer of her late husband Stephen Dodgson’s keyboard music, with a request for a list of players from the United States who have presented concerts. Neither Jane nor I can vouch for its completeness (so I suggest that readers who have names to add should contact me so that I may add them in a future Harpsichord Notes column). In alphabetical order: Ruta Bloomfield, Elaine Funaro, Mark Kroll, Sonia Lee, Joyce Lindorff, Charlotte Mattax, Rebecca Pechefsky, Linton Powell, Michael Tsalka, and Kenneth Weiss—distinguished company, indeed!

Jane also noted that she was discouraging future performances of Handel’s great (but lengthy) Chaconne in G Major! (So, colleagues, be forewarned!)

Handel for harpsichord: a few suggestions

In the days before ubiquitous recording media existed, orchestral works were transcribed for home performances at the various available keyboards. Sixty Handel overtures from oratorios and operas are available in a volume of keyboard arrangements published by John Walsh (the younger) during the years 1708 to 1750. Dover Publications reprinted the entire collection in one volume in 1993. This facsimile of the “top sixty” begins at A (Acis and Galatea). [Aside: my first commercial recording was as a singer in the “Oberlin” chorus for Bernhard Paumgartner’s production of this opera at the Salzburger Landestheater in 1959, issued on a Columbia record in the United States.] The Dover volume includes both Messiah and Water Musick [sic], and concludes with Xerxes! This compendium should provide enough variety for a few decades of Handel House harpsichordists! If the occasional C clefs and idiosyncratic notational features of the facsimile edition are not to one’s liking, Novello issued Twenty Overtures In Authentic Keyboard Arrangements, edited by Terence Best (3 volumes, 1985) employing modern musical notation and printing.

Handel’s Eight Great Suites comprise typical eighteenth-century dance movements, several of which deserve to rank along with the best of such sets from the period. [Aside: in the early 1960s I nearly caused a riot in Eugene Selhorst’s graduate music literature seminar at the Eastman School of Music when I questioned the comment from a pianist who said that Handel was “not a first-rate composer for keyboard” by asking her if she had ever played any of them? She had not. A pity! My own favorites include the suites in E major (“Harmonious Blacksmith”), D minor (which culminates in a Presto movement also used to conclude the overture for the opera Il Pastor Fido), and the noble F minor. But the others are worthwhile too: multi-movement works in A major, F major, E minor, F-sharp minor, and G minor: all worthwhile and interesting music.

Finally, you might just “throw in the towel” and create your own transcription of Percy Grainger’s “clog dance” Handel in the Strand (composed for piano and strings in 1911–1912, and, as he noted in a later edition for keyboard, “dished up for piano solo,” March 25, 1930, in Denton, Texas!!). What merriment it must have brought to Dallas’s “neighbor to the north,” now home to the impressive University of North Texas School of Music.  

And I’ll wager that, if the weather was as cold then as it is right now, Percy Grainger’s hot pianism could have turned most of the frozen precipitation into a dazzling dancing delight!

October 4–6, 2015

Marcia Van Oyen earned master’s and DMA degrees at the University of Michigan, studying organ with Robert Glasgow. She is currently minister of music, worship, and fine arts at First United Methodist Church in Plymouth, Michigan.

The 55th annual University of Michigan Organ Conference, with the theme “Organ Music of Central Europe,” took place October 4–6, 2015. Following Michele Johns’ retirement celebration in 2014, and the Marilyn Mason fête the year before, this conference was a quieter affair, attracting mostly local Michigan alumni and current students. 

Renovation and expansion of the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance

Beautiful autumn weather on Monday permitted lunch outdoors, on the terrace of the new William K. and Delores S. Brehm Pavilion, part of a $29.5 million renovation and expansion of the Earl V. Moore Building, designed by Eero Saarinen and originally opened in 1964. Lack of funding when the structure was built led to compromises, and Saarinen’s original vision was not fully realized. The building was never able to accommodate the school’s full spectrum of music courses or faculty. Some of the building’s limitations were addressed in 1985 with the addition of the Margaret Dow Towsley Center, which added the McIntosh Theatre and Blanche Anderson Moore Organ Hall. 

The new Brehm Pavilion includes a rehearsal hall for large ensembles, a music technology center, a state-of-the-art lecture hall, percussion practice rooms, and new classrooms. Substantial renovations resulted in additional practice rooms, a public commons, acoustical, aesthetic, and functional improvements to existing rehearsal, performance and studio spaces, and faculty offices. 

 Sunday conference events

Sunday afternoon at Hill Auditorium, Douglas Reed played a superb concert, “A Tribute to William Albright and William Bolcom.” It was an ambitious program, to be sure, and not for the faint of heart performer, but Reed was more than up to the challenge. He began with two works of Albright’s “public” music, Carillon-Bombarde and Hymn, both published works, then provided a contrast with what Albright considered his “private” music—“Whistler (1834–1903): Three Nocturnes,” which remains in manuscript form. The nocturnes need the reference of Whistler’s three paintings in order to be appreciated, and Reed provided these, in color, in the program. Each painting portrays a scene at twilight, offering variations of light and shade, which is reflected in the music. 

Next, Reed included his own transcription of the last two sections of Bolcom’s Song for St. Cecilia’s Day (originally for SATB chorus and organ), which was composed in memory of William Albright and dedicated to his son, John. Bolcom’s miniature on Abide With Me followed, then the gospel prelude on Amazing Grace. Reed’s articulation was both precise and expressive, elucidating the subtleties of the dense scores, and he deftly negotiated their copious technical demands. 

The last section of the program returned to Albright with selections from Organbooks I and III, which are particularly representative of his works as “a new means of idiomatic expression for the organ.” Albright described them as “part of a much larger scheme implying many more pieces each of which explores other sound and style capabilities peculiar to the instrument: some simple, some complex, some even working with popular idioms; all, however, hopefully demonstrating the richness and variety of organ sound.” Again Reed proved to be more than up to the task of presenting these works in all their intricacies with precision and ease, playing “Underground Stream,” “Melisma,” “Basse de Trompette,” “Jig for the Feet (Totentanz),” “Nocturne,” and the unpublished “Chorale Prelude,” intended to be the fifth movement of Organbook I. This entertaining work served as a reminder of Albright’s penchant for injecting humor into his writing (he includes quotes from film music) and the juxtaposition of opposites. 

Fourth annual Michigan 

Improvisation Competition

The fourth annual Michigan Improvisation Competition took place Sunday evening at the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, providing contestants with the ample resources of the church’s Schoenstein organ (III/42). The Ann Arbor AGO chapter provided a dinner beforehand for conference attendees. 

Preliminary round judges Joe Balistreri (a member of The Diapason’s “20 under 30” Class of 2015), Gale Kramer, and Darlene Kuperus evaluated recorded entries. Each contestant created a set of variations on a hymn tune and a free improvisation on an assigned original theme. From a field of thirteen entries, five contestants were invited to the final round, which involved similar improvisational challenges—a set of variations on the hymn tune Salzburg and a free improvisation on a given original theme. Final round judges Huw Lewis, Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra, and Scott Hyslop evaluated players on thematic development, musical form, stylistic consistency, control of harmonic language, rhythmic interest, and effective use of the instrument. Having heard the final round each of the competition’s four years, I can attest to the fact that the level of playing has improved each year, rendering the judging challenging. 

First prize was awarded to Matthew Koraus of New York, second and audience prizes to Alejandro D. Consolacion, II of New Jersey, and third prize to Brennan Szafron of South Carolina. Additional finalists were Robert Wisniewski of Ohio and Benjamin Cornelius-Bates of Pennsylvania. It is interesting to note that most of the finalists are also composers. The prizes were sponsored by the American Center for Church Music. 

Monday lectures

The opening lecture Monday morning took place in Blanche Anderson Moore Organ Hall. Andrzej Szadejko of the Gdansk Music Academy, Poland, gave a lecture-recital, “The Less Known Pupils of Bach: Why we (don’t) care about our masters or generation changes,” sponsored in part by the Poland U. S. Campus Arts Project at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Szadejko has performed extensively in northern Europe, made nine recordings, published articles in Polish music journals, and was awarded a prize for his thesis on two pupils of Bach—Friedrich Christian Mohrheim and Johann Georg Müthel. Mohrheim, who was the copyist for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, was music director at St. Mary’s Church in Gdansk, and composed chorale preludes and trios for the organ. In contrast to the music of Bach, Mohrheim’s works are characteristic of the style galant and empfindsamer Stil. Müthel’s works are very dramatic, in the Sturm und Drang style. Szadejko played works by Volckmar, Gleimann, and Gronau to demonstrate the style prevalent in northern Europe—a mixture of north German, Italian, and new ideas—then works by Mohrheim and Müthel. Szadejko is a skillful, expressive player, and his performances were the highlight of the session. He is deeply immersed in his research, delving into all the details, and one got the feeling he would have happily shared his findings as long as he had a listener.

Joseph Gascho, assistant professor of harpsichord, gave an engaging session on playing continuo in Watkins Lecture Hall, a room outfitted with a grand piano, harpsichord, and portative organ, as well as the ability to project examples from a computer. Gascho asserted that the shape of the bass line drives a piece, referring to it as a “vertebrate being.” In his teaching, he uses singers and dance to illustrate unequal emphasis on notes, or the sense of strong and weak beats. In this session, he worked through a recitative from Messiah and Purcell’s “Lord, What Is Man” from Harmonie Sacrae with graduate student soprano Ariane Abela, demonstrating how the continuo player’s choices affect the singer’s performance and the expression of the piece. His advice to the audience was “You’ll play better with an unrealized continuo part” and “Take the challenge of finding the joy in making decisions regarding what to play.” He discussed different ways to realize continuo and their effects, soliciting feedback as to whether organ or harpsichord was better suited to the music demonstrated. Gascho’s personable approach made this an enjoyable and valuable session. 

Student recital and masterclass

James Kibbie and Kola Owolabi’s students played a recital Monday morning on the Fisk organ in Blanche Anderson Moore Hall, which featured repertoire celebrating the 350th birthday of Nicolaus Bruhns. The complete extant works of Bruhns (six pieces) were supplemented with works by Böhm, Buxtehude, and Tunder to fill out the program. All the student performers—Dean Robinson, Paul Giessner, Sherri Brown, Jennifer Shin, Andrew Lang, Joe Moss, Mary Zelinski, Stephanie Yu, and Phillip Radtke—played well. At least half of them had been students of Michigan organ alumni. James Kibbie made a point of thanking the alumni in his introduction to the program, crediting them with helping to increase enrollment with student recommendations and scholarship contributions. 

Three students—Joe Moss, Mary Zelinski, and Jennifer Shin—had the privilege of playing for a masterclass with Diane Meredith Belcher later the same day. Belcher encouraged the students to do research about their pieces to provide context, and to practice piston changes, treating them as another note to learn. Working with Joe Moss on David Conte’s Soliloquy, she suggested conducting your own playing, breathing with the music, and attention to details to make the music come alive. With Jennifer Shin, who played Dupré’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, she recommended “skeletal” practice—playing only the strong beats to feel comfortable and insert rest into the process. For Mary Zelinski, who played the Grave from Vierne’s Symphonie V, Belcher recommended having your physical motions match the mood of the piece, and for romantic music, pushing through long notes and dwelling on shorter notes. Belcher also spent time talking about making sure you are grounded on the organ bench, using Wilma Jensen’s maxim of being able to bend and touch your nose to the keyboard without falling forward. She also suggested applying techniques from Feldenkrais movement to organ playing.

Monday performances

Late Monday afternoon, we returned to Hill Auditorium to hear Andrew Earhart, a fifth-year student pursuing degrees in organ performance and naval architecture and marine engineering, perform Petr Eben’s monumental The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, for organ and speaker. Eben’s final and largest organ work, it is a fourteen-movement musical allegory, originally improvised during an organ festival in Melbourne, Australia, in 1991. The work was inspired by a 400-year-old book, written by a Czech bishop named Comenius, which fascinated Eben. The book is a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress, relating the experiences and final redemption of a traveler encountering various people and situations. Eben says, “the whole atmosphere of the text is not an idyllic stroll through the world but a bitter, satirical, bizarre, and sometimes almost apocalyptic view of the world—and such is the character of the music.” 

Despite Eben’s description, the music is basically tonal, though certainly full of chord clusters, spiky melodies, strident reed sounds, and sharp contrasts. The fanfare-filled prologue introduces some of the work’s musical themes, which are taken from chorales from Komensky’s Amsterdam Cantional. Excellent and emotive narration by Malcolm Tulip of the theater department helped bring the story to life. At about 80 minutes in length, the work is certainly taxing for the organist. Earhart ably handled the voluminous score, truly engaged in the music, and played with conviction and passion. 

Prior to James Kibbie’s performance Monday evening, I spoke with several people who had heard him perform the same repertoire in Grand Rapids and Detroit recently, and to a person, could not wait to hear the program again. Kibbie did not disappoint. His exquisite playing, from memory, provided no obstacles to a pure musical experience, and the thrill of hearing a performer completely absorbed in the music was a true delight. Kibbie is absolutely at home with the selections of Alain and Tournemire that comprised the concert. Alain’s sonorities are refreshing and light-infused, and hearing six of his works in succession was enlightening. The program began with the Première and Deuxième Fantasies, succeeded by the Première and Deuxième Preludes Profanes. The serene Postlude pour l’office de complies was followed by a dramatic rendering of Litanies to round out the first half. Kibbie’s tempo for Litanies was torrentially fast and frantic, but clear and crisp. He achieved Marie-Claire Alain’s directive that “this piece must be played with great rush.”

As with the Alain works, it was satisfying to hear Tournemire’s Cinq Improvisations all in one sitting, offering the listener insight into Tournemire’s style and idioms as an improviser. The Petite rapsodie improvisée sparkled and the Cantilène improvisée featured the organ’s sweet flute sounds. The improvisations on the Te Deum, Ave Maris Stella, and Victimae Paschali were declamatory and heroic in contrast, with the perfectly paced Victimae Paschali the most striking of the three. Again, Kibbie proved himself at one with the music, giving an authoritative performance, absolutely assured and stunningly played.

Tuesday lectures

Tuesday morning sessions were held in the lovely Assembly Hall in the Rackham Building, which was built in 1935 in Art Deco style. Departing from his usual organ music appreciation session often peppered with sonic curiosities, Michael Barone began with an overview of the most recent Pipedreams tour—Historic Organs of Poland—which took place in June 2015. His photo travelogue also included recordings of some of the instruments the group visited. Many of the instruments have beautifully ornate organ cases with gold leaf and intricate carvings, some still housing the original instrument and some now fronting new instruments. There is a wealth of information about this tour and the instruments visited on the Pipedreams website (see pipedreams.publicradio.org, “Polish Memories”).

Following Barone’s travelogue, Brooks Grantier gave a wonderful lecture, “Cornflakes and Cornopeans: the Collaborations, Collusions, and Collisions of W. R. Kellogg and E. M. Skinner.” His talk focused on the people, personalities, and relationships involved with buying and building organs, based on correspondence from the Kellogg Foundation Archives. Grantier established the scene by relating the tale of W. K. Kellogg’s older brother, who ran a sanitarium in Battle Creek, which became world famous for promoting healthy living. W. K. was the financial manager, discovering corn flakes by accident when some wheat paste was left out overnight. Kellogg refused to market the new “cornflakes” beyond the sanitarium. Following C. W. Post’s theft of the recipe and subsequent success with Post Toasties and Grape Nuts, W. K. Kellogg started his own business, out-marketing Post selling cereal and becoming tremendously successful with the Kellogg Company. 

Having built a lovely home in Battle Creek, Kellogg—not a musician, but a faithful church attendee—sought a house organ. Professor Edwin Barnes, who lived next door, recommended E. M. Skinner to build the house organ. It was to be the finest player organ in the country, fully automatic, and one of the largest house player organs Skinner built. Kellogg also helped fund instruments for the Presbyterian and Catholic churches in Battle Creek, contingent upon them being built by Skinner. When he purchased a home in Pomona, California, Kellogg had Skinner build another house organ there. He also funded the large Aeolian-Skinner organ (four manuals, 72 ranks) in Kellogg Auditorium in Battle Creek, completed in 1933 and designed by E. M. Skinner. This project helped keep Aeolian-Skinner afloat during the Great Depression. Lively, spirited correspondence between Kellogg, William Zeuch, and E. M. Skinner provided insight into the wrangling and strong opinions that were part and parcel of the interactions among these three men. Brooks Grantier is an engaging and entertaining lecturer, and the fascinating tale of Kellogg and Skinner made for delightful listening. He closed by noting that E. M. Skinner died in financial hardship with his work repudiated, while Kellogg died in comfortable circumstances, known for his unparalleled philanthropy.

After lunch, Elizabeth McClain, graduate student in musicology, shared some of her dissertation research in the session “Messiaen’s Pre-war Organ Works: Organist, Theologian, and Non-Conformist,” illuminated through a study of L’Ascension and Les Corps Glorieux. She gave a detailed analysis of the organ works, but it was her commentary on neo-Thomism, neo-scholasticism, ressourcement, and non-conformism in Catholicism in the early twentieth century in France that provided the most insight into Messiaen’s music and world view. McClain asserted that Messiaen’s choice of style indicated his political leanings and discussed how he expressed the totality of human experience through the lens of spirituality, transcending the bounds of sacred and secular. Her rapid delivery made me long for the opportunity to read and digest her material, but her rigorous research is a great contribution to Messiaen scholarship.

Scott Hanoian, director of music and organist at Christ Church Grosse Pointe and conductor and music director of the University Musical Society Choral Union, offered a choral reading workshop at First Congregational Church. At Hanoian’s request, Cliff Hill (of Cliff Hill Music, a highly recommended and knowledgeable music supplier) selected a dozen recently published anthems, which he provided in complimentary packets for conference attendees. As Hanoian led the group in reading through the anthems, he offered suggestions on how to rehearse each piece and when it might be useful. 

Tuesday performances

Kola Owolabi played a program of interesting works on Tuesday afternoon at Hill Auditorium. He began with Fantasia on Sine Nomine by Craig Phillips, a very attractive set of continuous variations, featuring Phillips’s characteristic rhythmic gestures and irregular meters, transformation of themes, and piquant harmonies. The sixth and final variation is a fugue on the opening phrase of the tune, which morphs into toccata figuration to close the work. Bairstow’s Sonata in E-flat, the largest of his thirteen organ works, followed. It employs the full dynamic range of the organ and typically English solo sounds. The first movement has a wandering, pastoral melody, while the second, in stark contrast, is energetic with fanfare-like figures played on a solo Tuba. The third movement, a fugue, is in the form of an elevation—starting softly and calmly, increasing in energy and volume, then ebbing away.

Owolabi began the second half of the program with the rousing Concert Piece in the Form of a Polonaise by Lemare, a bombastic crowd-pleasing work. Next up was Capriccio by Polish composer Mieczyslaw Surzynski. This work is the first movement of Surzynski’s Ten Improvisations, published in 1910. It is romantic in style, with some striking harmonies. Calvin Hampton’s Three Pieces rounded out the concert. “Prayers and Alleluias” is reminiscent of Dupré’s Cortège and Litanie, employing a similar form. “In Paradisum” pays homage to Alain’s Le Jardin Suspendu, while “Pageant” takes cues from both Alain and Mathias. Owolabi’s playing throughout the program was polished and assured. He performs with nonchalance and ease, which allows the music to speak without the performer getting in the way. This was a polished, enjoyable program of refreshing and not often heard works.  

Before the evening concert, Tiffany Ng played a carillon concert consisting of works composed in the last eight years, including two world premieres. Ng has joined the Michigan faculty as assistant professor of carillon and university carillonist. Young and enthusiastic, Ng brings a strong interest in contemporary music and innovative approaches to carillon concerts. She has pioneered models for interactive “crowd-sourced” performances. While in California, she arranged for the collection of data from the Hayward seismic fault, ocean levels, and climate change, which involved hundreds of people sending in information. The data was translated into a musical score, which she sight-read for a concert. She says, “Now that we no longer need the unilateral time-keeping function of the carillon, I like to have a conversation with the audience.” She hopes to initiate collaboration with the engineering school just across north campus and adjacent to the Lurie carillon. A new outdoor gathering area surrounding the area currently under construction has the potential to provide a built-in audience for collaboration. Additional carillon music was heard the previous evening, played by Dennis Curry, carilloneur of Oakland University and Kirk in the Hills in Bloomfield Hills.

Diane Meredith Belcher’s concert attracted the largest audience of the conference events, attesting to her stature as an internationally renowned performer. She began her program with Passacaglia on a Theme by Dunstable, composed by one of her teachers, John Weaver. A powerful and well-written work on the Agincourt Hymn, Belcher played it with rhythmic tautness, seamless transitions, and passion. Belcher dedicated Franck’s Prière to victims of gun violence in the United States, particularly children and families. Her music slid to the floor as she got on the bench, and in unflappable style she quipped, “I’ll be a minute.” Though her tempo was a bit deliberate, from the outset she established a long flowing line, sometimes conducting with her arms. The Hill Auditorium organ provided the requisite beautiful sounds, and though she played with much conviction, the piece remained earthbound, lacking in ecstatic fervor at its climax. She was very much in her element in the Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, however, playing with subtle yet crystal clear articulation, absolutely at ease.

The second half of the program included three movements from Messiaen’s Les Corps Glorieux—“Force et agilité des Corps Glorieux,” “Joie et clarté des Corps Glorieux,” and “Le Mystère de la Sainte-Trinité.” Belcher performed them with precision and clarity. She closed the program with Organ, Timbrel, and Dance by German composer Johannes Matthias Michel. “Swing Five,” based on the chorale Erhalt uns Herr, borrows rhythm from Dave Brubeck’s jazz classic Take Five, while the “Bossa Nova” (based on Wünderbarer König) is typical of that genre, although its harmonies are quite conventional. The “Afro Cuban,” using the tune In Dir Ist Freude, is largely a toccata based on rhythms borrowed from Bernstein’s “America” from West Side Story. The rhythmic gestures in these pieces, which Belcher handled well, bring them into the realm of jazz, but the tonal palette, though sprinkled with bluesy chords, is too vanilla to fully enter the style. The set of three energetic pieces made for a fun and unexpected end to an excellent concert, though, and a rousing close to the conference.

Kudos to conference administrator Colin Knapp (also a member of the “20 under 30” Class of 2015), who does an excellent job keeping on top of all the conference details, making sure things run smoothly, and thanks to the Michigan Organ Department faculty for collaborating to continue offering the conference.

Tom Mueller is assistant professor of church music and university organist at Concordia University Irvine and associate organist at St. James’ in-the-City (Episcopal) in Los Angeles, California. He was the winner of the 2014 Schoenstein Competition in Hymn-Playing and is a member of The Diapason’s ‘20 Under 30’ Class of 2015. Mueller holds degrees from the University of Maine at Augusta, the University of Notre Dame, and the Eastman School of Music.

Since its inception in 2002, the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative (EROI) has transformed the musical landscape of Rochester, New York, and its surrounding community by assembling an extraordinary collection of new and historic organs. The EROI festivals showcase these instruments and bring together scholars, performers, and audiences to explore facets of organ history and culture. Previous conferences have focused on such diverse topics as film music, improvisation, pedal technique, the works and influence of Felix Mendelssohn, and the legacy of Anton Heiller. The 2016 conference explored a topic relevant to every organist: interaction between the organ and the human voice. Areas of emphasis included historical practice in accompaniment or alternation, modern performance practice in hymn playing, and the cognitive, psychological, and spiritual aspects of communal singing. 

Wednesday, October 26

As attendees arrived for the afternoon registration session, they were greeted with a recital by Eastman faculty and students on the historic 18th-century Italian Baroque organ at the University of Rochester’s Memorial Art Gallery. Housed in the museum’s Fountain Court, this instrument is complemented by a collection of 17th- and 18th-century European artwork displayed in the surrounding galleries—a feast for both eyes and ears!

The eminent sacred music scholar Robin Leaver gave the keynote address, which addressed the balance of power between organist and congregation. Citing historical sources and musical evidence, Leaver offered an overview of the evolution of congregational singing and accompaniment across denominational traditions, regions, and eras. Leaver’s presentation and ensuing discussion, informed by his many decades of research and reflection, was warmly received by the audience.

After dinner, attendees moved to Third Presbyterian Church for a hymn festival under the leadership of organists James Bobb and Aaron David Miller, with Peter DuBois conducting a combined choir drawn from local churches. The organists offered a varied selection of hymnody, ranging from Lutheran chorales to spirituals to Latin American hymns. The service included two hymns commissioned by Eastman’s George W. Utech Congregational Hymnody Fund: Scott Perkins’s setting of Timothy Dudley-Smith’s “What Glories Wait on God’s Appointed Time,” commissioned in 2014; and the premiere of composer Nico Muhly’s setting of Thomas Troeger’s “Lord, Keep Us Modest When We Claim.” For a composer with a substantial background in church music, Muhly’s angular hymn proved surprisingly unsatisfying. If anything, it demonstrated how deceptively difficult it is to write an enduring hymn tune.

Thursday, October 27

Thursday opened with a series of papers and demonstrations. The first of these, chaired by Eastman music theory faculty Elizabeth Marvin, focused primarily on aspects of psychology, cognition, and health in the act of communal singing. A second session of lecture demonstrations brought attendees to Christ Church, home of two notable organs: 1893 Hook & Hastings Opus 1573 and the Craighead-Saunders Organ, a process reconstruction of the 1776 Casparini organ located in Vilnius, Lithuania. Under the guidance of Kerala Snyder, these presentations focused primarily on issues of historical performance practice in the sacred music of France (Robert Bates), Italy (Edoardo Bellotti), and North Germany (Frederick Gable). A highlight of this session was Bates’s paper, “Alternation Practices in France during the Classical Period,” for which Bates was assisted by University of Houston graduate student Christopher Holman. Having spent his career engaged with the music of 17th- and 18th-century France as both a performer and scholar, Bates’s authoritative presentation offered a wealth of detail as well as questions for future inquiry. 

A short bus ride brought attendees to the village of Pittsford, a small outlying suburb of Rochester located on the Erie Canal, for a Singstunde—a traditional Moravian service consisting almost entirely of hymn singing. The First Presbyterian Church of Pittsford is home to 2008 Taylor & Boody Organbuilders’ Opus 57, an instrument based on the work of the early American organbuilder David Tannenberg. At the hands of Jack Mitchener, this organ proved exceptionally supportive of congregational singing. Mitchener’s masterful playing and sensitivity to both congregation and instrument was the high point of the conference. Moravian music scholar Reverend Nola Reed Knouse’s introductory lecture provided context for the service.

The final event of the day was a concert at Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral by Eastman faculty members Nathan Laube, Edoardo Bellotti, and Stephen Kennedy, who were joined by the Christ Church Schola Cantorum under the direction of Kennedy and assistant director Thatcher Lyman. The emphasis here was chant-based repertoire, and the program included works by de
Grigny, Banchieri, Bach, Rheinberger, and Latry (among others), along with a set of versets improvised in contemporary style by Kennedy. Memorable moments of this concert included Bellotti’s rendition of Johann Sebastian Bach’s rarely performed Fuga sopra il Magnificat, BWV 733, and Laube’s assured performance of Olivier Latry’s Salve Regina.

Friday, October 28

The final day of the festival opened at Third Presbyterian Church with an unusual event: a hymn-playing masterclass. James Bobb began with a presentation on the accompaniment of multicultural hymnody at the organ, along with an overview of basic jazz harmony, idioms, and notation. He was joined by Aaron David Miller and Rick Erickson, who coached Eastman students Ben Henderson, Alex Gilson, Caroline Robinson, Chase Loomer, Oliver Brett, and Ivan Bosnar in a variety of traditional and non-traditional hymns. This was a fascinating opportunity to see both differences and similarities in the work of three master church musicians, with a wealth of concepts and ideas shared in a collegial atmosphere.

After lunch, attendees returned to Christ Church for a session of lecture-demonstration exploring the historical use of the organ as an accompaniment to congregational song. Papers by two well-established scholars (Frederick Gable and Kerala Snyder) were paired with presentations by Eastman doctoral students Jacob Fuhrman and Derek Remeš. While all four papers were outstanding, Remeš’s work to reconstruct the accompanimental practice of Johann Sebastian Bach using historical sources was particularly notable.

The festival concluded with an evening recital by Eastman organ faculty members William Porter and David Higgs at Christ Church. While the previous evening’s concert focused exclusively on the chant tradition, the program for this recital consisted of repertoire based on chorales and psalm tunes and included several congregational hymns. Highlights from this program included Higgs’s performance of Bach’s Partite diverse sopra il corale O Gott, du frommer Gott, BWV 767, accompanied by an insightful verbal program note connecting specific chorale variations with theological imagery in the chorale text; Porter’s majestic improvised prelude and postlude to the hymn, “New Songs of Celebration Render,” sung to Rendez à Dieu; and the congregational singing of the chorale Es ist das Heil to a multi-verse accompaniment composed by Johann Gottlob Werner (1777–1822) and published in his 1807 Orgelschule. The opportunity to hear Werner’s chorale setting (which includes through-composed Zwischenspiele and surprisingly variable textures and harmonic support) sung by a fully engaged audience and supported by the full resources of the Craighead-Saunders organ was a revelation, and a fitting end to the conference.

Well-Tempered: Lou Harrison
and the harpsichord

Long before others had expressed interest in the use of varied historic temperaments for harpsichord tuning, the American composer Lou Harrison advocated using just, meantone, and other exotic ones as the preferred aural components for the realization of his early keyboard compositions. Among the earlier 20th-century works for plucked keyboards, Harrison’s Six Cembalo Sonatas (composed between 1934 and 1943) hold a special place because of his spare, mostly two-part idiom, perfectly suited for effective performance at the harpsichord, and his understanding that non-equal tuning adds a further dimension to the expressivity of music, an important advancement among composers of the early keyboard revival. Originally published as a facsimile of his holograph manuscript as part of the New Music Edition series produced by Harrison’s mentor and friend, Henry Cowell, Six Sonatas joined a small group of well-crafted American works for revival instruments, appearing midway between Theodore Ward Chanler’s Prelude and Fugue for Clavichord (1934, the unpublished manuscript is held by the Library of Congress) and Walter Piston’s Sonatina for Violin and Harpsichord (1945, published by Boosey and Hawkes). Harrison’s six short pieces have continued to garner kudos from a small but savvy group of players who program revival repertory.

While gathering material for my 1989 book Harpsichord in America, I wrote to the American iconoclast with some questions about the genesis of these early works. His answers came in an extensive two-page typewritten, single-spaced letter, dated September 11, 1979, from which I quote the following passages:

It is entirely possible that [a dating problem] derives from the fact that I wrote [the sonatas] individually or in groups of two at several times, thus the first one actually dates from the mid-30’s but the whole set was not completed until the early ‘40’s. I am sorry that I cannot get you any closer dates than that. The original impulse came from two sources as the Sonatas themselves have probably already made clear to you. The first of these was my intense admiration for Manuel de Falla and especially for his use of the harpsichord in several instances including the famous Concerto. This was, in my own feelings, perhaps erroneously embedded in a matrix of feeling which concerned California. The ‘Mission Period’ style of life, artifacts, and feelings intrigued me very much. You will, of course, remember that this was the WPA period and that the dominant impulse was ‘Regionalism.’ Thus, the Cembalo Sonatas reflect ‘Nights in the Gardens of Spain,’ ‘Flamenco,’ as well as ‘Indian Dances’ and ‘Provincial Baroquery’ in the West. As to the question for whom they were composed, the answer is—everybody who is interested. Of several, I played the premiere on a tiny Wittmayer [spinet] that Eileen Washington had brought from Munich to San Francisco in the late ‘30’s and which was used at San Francisco State College (University now). Later, Henry Cowell published them in the New Music Edition and they were circulated by the State Department to various embassies as part of our cultural campaign. Alas for those days!!!

Later they were played, I think, in part by Sylvia Marlowe in Times Hall [New York City] and then still later (this was the 50’s I believe) Ralph Kirkpatrick took them on tour nationally, along with Henry Cowell’s ‘set’. [Set of Four, composed for Kirkpatrick, published by Associated Music Publishers]. He also played all six Sonatas as a ‘Suite’ which I had had vaguely in mind when I arranged them in the printed order.

. . . I am very happy that you play a Dowd instrument. My own is a simple Zuckermann Flemish model, but I do enjoy it. Last night I re-tuned it in the Kirnberger Well Temperament, one of six tunings that I am going to be writing about for the Canadian magazine, Continuo . . . .

P. S. I now remembered that Margaret Fabrizio [harpsichord teacher at Stanford University] made a tape with me of the Sonatas on a tiny Wittmayer which she had in her home down in Big Sur during the late ‘50’s. We individually tuned each Sonata in Just Intonation and the result was fun.

What a personable and interesting letter to receive from a composer! But then this “gentle person” was so much more than merely a reliable source for new music! In The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (published in 1986) the extensive entry for Lou Harrison was written by his only slightly younger colleague Ned Rorem (born 1923), who provided this utterly fascinating introductory paragraph: 

Born in Portland, Oregon, on May 14, 1917, Harrison studied with Cowell in San Francisco, and with Schoenberg in Los Angeles [!]. During World War Two he organized recitals of percussion music with John Cage and by himself, while working as a florist, record clerk, poet, dancer, and dance critic, music copyist (his handwriting is known for its beauty), and playwright. . . . In 1943 he moved to New York City, where he was intellectually (though not musically) influenced by Virgil Thomson. . . . He wrote for [various musical publications] including The New York Herald Tribune . . . and conducted the first complete performance of a symphony by Charles Ives (the Third) in 1947.

Slightly more than four decades after that Ives symphony premiere, I had my one face-to-face meeting with Lou Harrison on Monday, April 25, 1988. I had the opportunity to speak with Lou when he and his life partner William Colvig (also born in Oregon in 1917) were in Dallas to attend a concert presented by the contemporary music ensemble Voices of Change. The program featured music by Toru Takemitsu and Harrison. During our brief conversation I asked Lou if he had composed any additional music for harpsichord, to which he responded that he had, indeed, just completed his new work, A Summerfield Set, and that he would be happy to send me a copy. The eagerly awaited package, mailed on May 5 from the Harrison-Colvig home at 7121 Viewpoint Road in Aptos, California, arrived on May 9. Inside were the Xeroxed pages of a three-movement piece comprising a Sonata—Air—Sonata da Capo, Ground, and Round for the Triumph of Alexander (the young son of organist-harpsichordist Susan and her husband Harry Summerfield). Suffice it to say that the first readings revealed a most attractive work, one that I have enjoyed playing on several occasions, including the first movement’s London premiere in recital at the Handel House.

The handwritten letter (seen in the accompanying illustration) corroborates Rorem’s comment about Harrison’s exceptional calligraphy, and it remains a highly prized treasure amidst my collection of composer/performer autographs.

In the years that came after Harrison’s wildly varied early career, the lauded composer/conductor became more and more fascinated with the ethnic music of America’s natives as well as the exotic scales and instruments to be found in Asia (which he visited for the first time in 1961). With Colvig, whom he met in San Francisco in 1967, Harrison travelled extensively, and the two men shared an interest in collecting and building unusual percussion instruments, including several Javanese gamelans for which ensembles Lou composed highly individual scores.

Among a very extensive list of compositions, two short operas are of particular interest: the first, Rapunzel, garnered two prizes for Lou. In 1954 he was awarded a 20th-Century Masterpiece Citation for the best composition utilizing voice and chamber orchestra at the Rome meeting of the International Conference of Contemporary Music. A second “prize” must surely have been that this winning selection, “Air,” was sung by none other than the young soprano Leontyne Price! Both composition and performance received ecstatic press notices.

A second opera, originally for puppets and esoteric instruments, is based on an episode from the life of Julius Caesar. Young Caesar was subsequently revised for traditional western instruments and human performers to enable performances by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. I hope that some enterprising opera company might schedule this work (which may be seen on YouTube) during the forthcoming Harrison centennial year. 

Although saddened by the death of Colvig in 2000, Lou remained musically productive until the final hours of his very productive life. Harrison was on his way to a celebratory festival devoted to his music organized by the Ohio State University in Columbus. Two graduate music students had been dispatched to drive Lou from Chicago to the campus. It was during a stop in Lafayette, Indiana, that the composer was felled by a fatal heart attack on February 2, 2003. The four concerts of Harrison’s music thus served as a memorial tribute, but it was far from a somber occasion. In a perceptive Wall Street Journal piece “Lou Harrison’s Music Is as Joyful as He Was” (February 18, 2003), author Brett Campbell concluded an extensive review of the wide-ranging Ohio State concerts with these exultant words: 

Characteristically, the composer had just finished revising the symphony [his third] after tinkering with it since its 1982 premiere, and he looked forward to hearing it performed. Looking forward while looking back, ever striving to create music of lasting beauty—that was the irrepressible, irreplaceable Lou Harrison. 

Celebrating the music of Lou Harrison: Scores and CDs

For my own centennial tribute to Lou and his music I plan to perform a selection, or perhaps even all of the Six Sonatas as well as my favorite movement (the Sonata) from A Summerfield Set during our final house concert of this current season (April 26, 2017). It was difficult to decide whether or not to publish this essay now or in May, but I have opted to do it well before the anniversary arrives in the hope that some of our readers will want to seek out the scores, learn the music, and perform Harrison’s music as a tribute to this important and truly unique American composer. 

The score of Six Cembalo Sonatas is available in Susan Summerfield’s revised, annotated score, published by Peer International Corporation, New York (1990; edition number 02-037365-535). The musical notation seems quite small (at least to my aging eyes), but Ms. Summerfield’s suggested ornamentation (printed in red) for the repetitions of both A and B sections in these pieces may be helpful to some players.

A Summerfield Set is listed in various editions. (I possess only the Xerox facsimile of the holograph.) Lou had indicated that Hermes Beard Press was the publisher; in a computer search for that organization I was directed to WorldCat and found there the publisher listed as FrogPeakMusic, Lebanon, New Hampshire (2009). 

A very fine traversal of Lou Harrison’s keyboard music that includes works for harpsichord, tack piano, and fortepiano, and utilizes his suggested historic and experimental tunings, is to be heard on a compact disc recorded by Linda Burman-Hall (New Albion Records, San Francisco, 2002), playing on instruments by Robert Greenberg, Joop Klinkhamer, and Thomas and Barbara Wolf. Excellent informative notes include diagrams charting the various non-equal tunings employed. Ms. Burman-Hall includes an additional 1999 Sonata for Harpsichord (8 minutes in length) and a collection of accessible shorter keyboard pieces that she has formed into a very beguiling suite (Village Music).

For a performance of A Summerfield Set on modern piano, I recommend the disc Lou Harrison (MMD60241X Music Masters, Amrico and Musical Heritage Society, 1990), which includes orchestral works (Solstice and Canticle) conducted by Denis Russell Davies. The elegant pianist Nohema Fernandez, at the time a faculty member at U CAL Santa Cruz, is currently Dean of the School of Music at U CAL Irvine. Her slightly more relaxed tempo of the Summerfield Sonata movement is closer to my preference, but that is a matter of personal taste. The Santa Cruz school’s website also makes available a complete listing of Lou Harrison’s extensive oeuvre. 

Another satisfying recording of Six Cembalo Sonatas may be found on Elaine Funaro’s 2001 Centaur CD Overture to Orpheus. Her instrument and its tuning are by the master harpsichord builder Richard Kingston.

I wish for us all both excitement and enjoyment as we explore the riches to be found in Lou Harrison’s beautiful and idiomatic music. Do be sure to share it with others, wherever you can.

The Art of the Harpsichord: Two Texas Treasures

In mid-June 2017 the Dallas Chapter of the American Guild of Organists hosted its most recent regional convention, an event that attracted a record number of registrants. In addition to programs featuring the plethora of recent organ installations in the metroplex, the area’s most unusual harpsichord also made a stellar impression. I had not been aware that the Magnum Opus instrument was now at home in Texas, but its current owner, Jason Alden, graciously loaned it for a recital by Elizabeth Farr, whose choice of works by Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, J. S. Bach, and Claude-Bénigne Balbastre proved to be the right vehicles for her skillful demonstration of the varied registrational possibilities made possible by this unique instrument.

The harpsichord’s builder wrote the following description of the 12-foot long instrument for publication in the convention program book:

The harpsichord was built in 1983 by Keith Hill and Philip Tyre. It is the largest harpsichord in existence having three keyboards, each of which has its own sweet-sounding 8-foot set of strings, plus a vocal 4-foot played on the middle manual and a robust-sounding 16-foot set of strings played only on the lowest manual. Called ‘Magnum Opus,’ this harpsichord was recently rebuilt by Keith Hill for the purpose of upgrading the acoustics, which involved replacing both soundboards. This harpsichord also has three buff stops (called ‘lute’ stops) in which pads of soft leather are brought into contact with the strings to dampen the bright harmonics of the plucked strings. Additionally, there are three pedals: one activates the 4-foot register for suddenly increasing the brilliance of the sound, another engages the 16-foot register for suddenly increasing the depth, breadth, and power of the sound, and a third pedal makes possible the coupling of all the three registers to be playable from the lowest manual for creating the loudest, strongest, richest sound of which any harpsichord is capable.

Owner Jason Alden is himself quite an addition to the metroplex’s musical scene: a Renaissance man who keeps busy with his Alden Organ Service Company and is also a top-notch organist whom I heard for the first time in concert as he played a superb recital at the most recent East Texas Pipe Organ Festival, thrilling us with a demanding program that culminated in the entire Vierne Symphonie IV. I subsequently invited Jason to relate the history of his involvement with the Magnum Opus harpsichord. He responded:

My association with the instrument was really a result of familiarity with Edward Parmentier’s studio instrument at the University of Michigan. I really still love that instrument because it sounds so colorful, warm, and transparent all at once. Also, it seemed well suited to a very wide variety of literature. You can imagine I heard just about everything played on it during Parmentier’s studio classes.

Once I was ‘out in the world’ I really longed for that kind of sound in my own instrument (a Hubbard double that had been built from a kit by my first harpsichord teacher, Bill Eifrig at Valparaiso University). The Hubbard ended up with a number of problems related to case stress and the collapsing of the gap spacers (which I had already replaced on my own some years before). So I decided to sell it even though I didn’t have another specific instrument in mind.

After looking at Keith’s website and having a couple of phone conversations with him, I quite resigned myself to the idea that I’d never be able to afford one of his instruments. I planned a trip to his shop anyway, hoping he’d take pity on my poor soul! So, I had a nice evening with him in Nashville, and played a couple of instruments he had recently finished. We got to talking about many things that night, and he mentioned that the Magnum Opus was ‘available.’ I was curious, but doubtful that it would work for my budget. After some lengthy discussions, I decided that it would, in fact, work as a home instrument.

Magnum Opus had been neglected for years, and Keith reported to me that when the instrument entered his shop the original soundboard had 17 cracks in it! It was irreparable! So, he began by replacing both soundboards. We decided that there should be decoration [on the soundboard] since the original was decorated. From there it required re-stringing and re-quilling. The result is as good as I could ever hope for as regards my preference for harpsichord sound. I find it not just thrilling to play (it is rather a harpsichord version of the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Rouen Cathedral), but the harpsichord remains intimate and inspires me each time I sit down to play it.

An Exception to
“Everything is Bigger in Texas”

A favorite trick question for visitors to our spacious music room is “How many harpsichords do you see here?” The most obvious answer is “four.” The usual complement of instruments on display comprises a William Dowd single, plus two-keyboard instruments by Yves Beaupré, Richard Kingston, and Willard Martin. A few inquisitive guests may have noticed an additional canvass-covered wing-shaped instrument stored behind the pipe organ: an Italian single by Tom and Barbara Wolf. But only a few very observant viewers give the exact correct total, which would be “six.” The omission of the usually overlooked harpsichord is not surprising, for it is only eight inches long and three inches wide: a handcrafted mini-harpsichord made for a dollhouse by Arthur Bell of Arlington, Texas.

Art Bell was a meticulous observer and connoisseur of miniature models, and his very rare specialty was the creation of exact scale replicas of historical keyboard instruments. My University of Texas at Arlington colleague Linton Powell was the proud owner of one of Bell’s model instruments. I first met the modeler himself at one of Linton’s annual faculty recitals, told Bell how much I admired his painstaking work in producing these scale miniatures, and asked him if I might commission one. A few letters back and forth ensued, his with pictures of several completed instruments that were available, and I opted for a French double with a decorated soundboard. Then came the biggest surprise of all: it was a gift! What a generous and thoughtful person!

Several years later when I learned that my first harpsichord mentor Isolde Ahlgrimm, now in an assisted-living apartment, had donated her David Rubio harpsichord to the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, I turned again to Art Bell and requested another miniature instrument that could be sent to help her overcome the terrible sense of loss that not having her instrument any longer had engendered. For the second time Bell refused payment. However, we were both deeply touched and amply rewarded by Frau Ahlgrimm’s heartfelt response in the last typewritten letter I received from her, dated July 22, 1992. I have kept her idiomatic spelling and syntax in the following excerpts:

. . . you should have seen me, the packing was put aside, I started to cry! Having my harpsichord back means so much to me. It was the worst moment of my moving . . . . As it is now, [the model] has a place of honour in my bookshelf and I feel as if it would have come back, telling me that I should not be unhappy, it always will keep me in memory . . . . I do still hope to get a place on the side of my harpsichord, somewhere on a nice cloude, the little one holding in my hand as a little baby. Mr. Bell did a wonderful work . . .

He did indeed! I only wish that these minute instruments were playable; an 8-by-3-inch model would be a dream instrument to transport, but its key span assuredly would be too narrow for human fingers. Might there be a viable solution?