Das Orgeleinbuch

What are the questions?

An old adage says that the more experience you have in a field, the more you realize how little you know. This thought lurks at the back of my mind, ready to spring forth without notice. You hear a teenager say, “that’s the best movie ever made,” and you wonder how someone so young can be so sure. Then, pain of pains, you are reminded of similar cocksure statements you made when you were young. I knew so much when I was 18, 20, 22 years old that it was hard to imagine there would be more to know. Thank goodness for the inexorable professors who really did know more than I, and for the mentors who encouraged me in what I did know and never failed to point out those that were still mysteries to me. Whispered aside: A colorful and I think underused word in the English language is moil. The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000) gives “intr.v. 1. To toil, slave. 2. To churn about continuously. n. 1. Toil, drudgery. 2. Confusion, turmoil. (Note that moil is part of turmoil—what do you suppose tur means?) With that definition in your minds: I’ve been toiling and moiling (churning, drudgery, confusion) in the organ business since my first lessons as a young teenager and my first experiences in a workshop. There are completed projects and past performances of which I am very proud, and at least as many (God help us there are not more) that I’d like to forget. But that brings us to another most valuable adage: we learn from our mistakes. So as much as we’d like to forget them, we owe it to ourselves to keep their memory fresh lest they be classified as wasted pain. As I work in my shop I hear little voices saying, “if you do that . . . ” When I fail to listen to those voices I cut my finger or break the piece I’m working on. My friends might chuckle and say, “of course he’s hearing little voices—we’ve known that for years.” But the fact is, I think those little voices are the younger me seeing the scar on my hand caused twenty years ago by exactly the same obtuse motion. Those little voices are not signs of going over the edge, but are pearls of wisdom—that elusive and unquantifiable commodity that comes only from experience. And aren’t some of our best learned lessons those that rise from the smoldering coals of our mistakes? The master watches the motions of the apprentice and reaches for the Band-Aids® minutes before they are needed. The parent wishes to be able to spare the child inevitable pain, realizes that advice will not be heard, and has the Kleenex® on the kitchen table an hour before the school bus arrives.
I started by noting that the more you know, the less you know. A cubist view of that statement says that experience in a field reveals more questions than answers. If you really understand the questions, then you are getting somewhere. Often as I write I suppose I’m giving answers, or at least relating my experiences and observations as actualities. This time, I thought I’d give some questions, try to put them in context, and invite you to cogitate and moil over them. As always, I invite your comments: .

1. Which is better, tracker or electric action?

I grew up in the heart of the famed Revival, immersed in both new and antique pipe organs, believing tracker action to be the root of all that is good. As a young adult I had wonderful opportunities to work on massive electro-pneumatic instruments and was exposed to brilliant players doing magical things with them. I was startled when I realized that I was preferring the flexibility of fancy registration gizmos and the orchestral possibilities of these wonderful organs. Now I know I’m interested in good organs. As long as an instrument is well-conceived and well-built, it doesn’t make a whit of difference what kind of action it has. What do you think?

2. Why do some historical styles of organs have developed pedalboards and pedal divisions while others don’t?

The organs of 17th- and 18th-century France have simple and awkward pedalboards in comparison to those of northern Europe, and the music written for them reflects that. François Couperin le Grand (1668–1733) and J. S. Bach (1685–1750) were contemporaries—a quick glance shows the difference—most of Couperin’s music is notated on two staves. I’ve written before about the reproduced engraving that hangs over my desk (from l’Art du Facteur d’Orgues, Dom Bedos de Celles, 1766). It depicts a large 18th-century French organ shown in cross-section, with an organist playing. He is wearing a powdered wig (good thing it was tracker action, think of that powder clogging up the keyboard contacts), a heavy formal coat with long tails and buttoned cuffs, an equally heavy vest under the coat, and a sword whose tip was right next to his feet on that primitive pedalboard. A sword? No wonder they didn’t use the pedals. One fast flourish and your feet would be bleeding. Imagine the teacher saying, “Go ahead, take a stab at it.” And, to protect himself from injury he was wearing heavy boots. No Capezios here.

3. How do historical styles evolve?

It’s relatively easy to identify and study the differences between, for example, 18th-century French and German organs, but what caused the development of those differences? Was it the wine? Was it the spätzel?

4. Where did the different pitches of organ stops come from?

There is a simple answer—8' is the fundamental tone, 4' is first pitch of the overtone series, 22?3' is the second, and so on through 2', 13?5', 11?3', 11?7'. 102?3' is two octaves below 22?3' so 102?3' is the second overtone of 32' pitch—that series continues with 8', 62?5', 51?3'etc. The overtone series was perhaps first heard clearly in the tone of a big bell. The experienced listener can hear fifths and thirds clearly in the tone of such organ stops as an Oboe, Clarinet, Krummhorn, or Trumpet—in fact, those stops get their color from those strong overtones. That’s why you can hear the pitch of a Tierce so much more clearly against a reed than against warm and fuzzy Gedackt. (When I’m tuning those stops I have the habit of humming and singing parallel intervals and arpeggios inspired by the overtones —another example of the little voices in my head.) But the real question is how the perception of those overtones in the sound of an organ pipe led the early builders to experiment with creating individual stops that doubled overtones.

5. Is chiff a good thing?

During the aforementioned Revival many organbuilders experimented with “chiff, ” that characteristic chiffy consonant that starts the speech of an organ pipe. Every musical tone has some sort of attack that precedes the vowel of the note, and an organ pipe can be voiced to have lots of chiff or virtually no audible chiff. It’s a matter of personal preference, but if some people like it can it be all bad?

6. How does a modern church justify the cost of purchasing and maintaining a pipe organ?

Hardly an organ committee comes and goes without grappling with this one. A committee member asks, “with all the hunger and suffering in our community, why shouldn’t we use the money for a food pantry?” Our church buildings with their fancy windows, silver chalices, statuary, paintings, and pipe organs are expressions of our faith. Our culture is loaded with examples of historical expressions of faith through art—think of the liturgical music of Mozart and Bach, the sculptures of Michelangelo, the buildings designed by Bernini and Henry Vaughan. Are we better able to fund a soup kitchen from a building that makes obvious to our neighbors the strength of the bonds that tie us together as a community of faith?

7. How does a chestnut become a chestnut?

Given the production cycle of this publication, I am writing in mid-December, these few hours sequestered, escaping the tyranny of commercialized versions of our favorite Christmas carols.
Otherwise, I’m racing around the countryside tuning organs (plenty of opportunity to be humming arpeggios next to Krummhorns). Several of the churches I visit are presenting “Messiah Sings.” Handel’s masterpiece is a fantastic artwork. It’s easy to understand how it would filter down through generations as a perennial international favorite. But it’s very difficult music. The choir members in these churches have no idea how difficult it is. I’m sure they wouldn’t dream of tackling Handel’s Israel in Egypt, another masterwork that’s equally majestic and equally difficult to perform. Why is that?
Many parish organists will agree with my assertion that you could successfully plan and play a thousand weddings, fully pleasing all the families involved, with a repertory of ten pieces. We could all name the same list: Wagner, Mendelssohn, Schubert’s Ave, Jesu Joy, Clarke, Purcell, Stookey (“there is love . . . ”). You play through ten unfamiliar pieces for a bride and groom with no response, and they light up with the first six notes of Jesu Joy (boom-da-da dee-da-da . . . ). It doesn’t matter if you’re in Boston, Seattle, San Antonio, Milwaukee, or London. Why is that?
How many of us look forward to playing those wonderful sassy French noël variations—the ones with the non-existent pedal parts? I see volumes of Daquin and Balbastre on organ consoles all across New England. How many congregants recognize them as seasonal music? We erudite organists associate them with Christmas as readily as reindeer and O, Holy Night. Why is that?

8. Why did it take so long to develop equal temperament?

(Please do not interpret this as an indication of personal preference!)
Equal temperament is the most common system of tuning keyboard instruments and was not commonly used until at least the late nineteenth century. Pythagoras (6th century, BC) is credited with the development of the concept of tempering, of dividing the circle of fifths into the octave, a feat that is technically impossible. If you start on a single note and tune pure fifths around the circle of fifths, when you complete circle returning to C from F, you have nothing like a fifth. So over the centuries, various musicians, mathematicians, and theorists toiled and moiled developing systems that would divide that discrepancy over more and more of the intervals, allowing more of the twelve possible keys to be useful—or usable. The advent of Pythagorean tuning was natural, but I wonder why he or one of his contemporaries didn’t solve the problem by dividing the difference over all the intervals from the very beginning. That would have changed the development of music dramatically.
Some of these questions have real answers. Some of these questions have different answers, depending on whom you ask. I’ve given comments to introduce each of the questions that may lead a reader to deduce that I have an opinion. And those of you that know me personally may be able to read what you know to be my opinions, whether I know them or not. Why is that?
The questions frame the debate. If there’s a debate over a specific question, does it follow that there is no right or wrong answer?
Here’s an exercise that illustrates the elusiveness of correct answers. Take a well-known church building: St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York. Consider two well-known and successful organbuilders, respected for the toil and moil of their respective careers: Ernest Skinner and Taylor & Boody. Imagine what each would consider the ideal organ for the space. Now tell me, who’s right?

Renate McLaughlin has had a lifelong interest in organ music. She retired from a career as mathematics professor and university administrator in order to study music. She is now a senior, majoring in organ performance, and is looking forward to graduate school next fall.

Introduction

Religious conflicts brought about the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which devastated Germany. Reconstruction took at least one hundred years,1 encompassing the entire lifetime of J. S. Bach. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which ended the war, gave each sovereign of the over 300 principalities, which make up modern Germany, the right to determine the religion of the area under his (yes, they were all male) control. This resulted in a cultural competition among the numerous sovereigns, and it also led to the importing of French culture and its imitation (recall that Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” reigned from 1643 to 1715). Bach encountered French language, music, dance, and theater throughout his formative years. In the cities where Bach lived, he would have heard frequent performances of minuets, gavottes, courantes, sarabandes, etc.2
Christoph Wolff has provided additional evidence for Bach’s acquaintance with French music and French customs. In connection with the famous competition between J. S. Bach and Louis Marchand, scheduled to take place in Dresden in 1717, Wolff wrote that Bach would most likely have won the contest.3 Bach knew thoroughly the stylistic idioms of the French keyboard repertoire; and his own keyboard suites integrated genuine French elements from the very beginning. He consistently applied French terminology, but he also blended in Italian concerto elements (example: the prelude to BWV 808). Further, he incorporated polyphonic writing and fugal textures, especially for the concluding gigues. As we know, this highly anticipated contest with Marchand never took place, since Marchand unexpectedly and secretly left Dresden.

J. S. Bach’s life—a short version4

The towns where Johann Sebastian Bach lived and his key roles there can be summarized as follows. The context provided by this list is important, because Bach wrote the English and French suites fairly early in his career.
Eisenach: born March 21, 1685
Ohrdruf: 1695–1700, stayed with older brother
Lüneburg: 1700–1702, Choral Scholar
Arnstadt: 1703–1707, Organist (New Church)
Mühlhausen: 1707–1708, Organist and Town Musician (St. Blasius)
Weimar: 1708–1717, Ducal Court Organist and chamber musician, then Concertmaster
Cöthen: 1717–1723, Capellmeister for Prince Leopold
Leipzig: 1723–1750, Cantor and Director Musices (the dual title reflects the split in the town council of Leipzig)
Leipzig: died July 28, 1750

The keyboard music (other than organ music) by J. S. Bach

Bach wrote most of his music for keyboard (clavichord and harpsichord) during his years in Cöthen (1717–1723).5 He served the court as Capellmeister and director of chamber music (the highest social standing during his entire career!). An elite group of professional musicians stood at his disposal,6 and his duties focused on secular chamber music. Since the court belonged to the reformed church, Bach’s employer expected neither liturgical music nor organ music. It is clear from the prefaces that Bach wrote his keyboard works for didactic purposes—for members of his family and for his students. Additional evidence for this is that the Clavierbüchlein for Friedemann (1720) and the Clavierbüchlein for Anna Magdalena (1722) include material from the suites, but in rudimentary form and not in a systematic order.7
Howard Schott also noted that the French Suites (BWV 812–817) and the English Suites (BWV 806–811) belonged to the domestic musical repertoire of the Bach family.8 He continued with the assertion that the English suites are more Gallic in style and feeling than their French brethren. To mix things up a bit more, the preludes in the English suites are in Italian concerto-grosso style.9
On December 3, 1721, shortly after her wedding as Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach started a notebook of keyboard compositions.10 She recorded the title page and a few headings, but Bach himself wrote the musical entries. They included five short but sophisticated harpsichord suites, which would later become the French Suites, BWV 812–816.
The undisputed surviving harpsichord and clavichord works written during the Cöthen years are:11
Clavier Book for Wilhelm Friedemann
Clavier Book for Anna Magdalena
The Well-Tempered Clavier
15 Inventions
15 Sinfonias.
Further evidence that J. S. Bach wrote the keyboard pieces listed above, as well as the French and English suites, as pedagogical pieces for his family and his students (and not to gain favor with particular members of the royalty) was provided by one of Bach’s students, H. N. Gerber. Gerber studied with Bach in Leipzig and left an account of Bach as a keyboard teacher. According to Gerber, keyboard students started with the Inventions and the French and English suites, and they concluded with the 48 preludes and fugues in the Well-Tempered Clavier.12
Current scholarship indicates that the English Suites were composed in Bach’s Weimar years (1708–1717), and the French Suites were composed later, during his years in Cöthen.13

French Suites and English Suites

In the Baroque era, a suite consisted of a collection of dance tunes linked by the same key and often with some common thematic material. Concerning the origin of the suite, Bach scholar Albert Schweitzer believed that the dance suite was created by wandering musicians in the early 17th century who strung together music from different countries. Town pipers adopted this music and played sets with at least four movements: the allemande (German origin), courante (French origin), sarabande (Spanish origin), and gigue (English origin). Keyboard players adopted these dance suites from the pipers and developed the suites further.14
Bach brought the suite to its peak by giving each movement a musical identity and personality.15 Each of the six English suites and six French suites includes the expected allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue. (Details on the courante are discussed later in this article.) Each English suite begins with a prelude, which is followed by an allemande. Each French suite begins with an allemande. Each suite, English and French, ends with a gigue. Some movements in some of the English suites have doubles written out—these are the ornamented versions that a Baroque performer would have played on the repeats.
It is interesting to observe how our knowledge about J. S. Bach’s suites has increased in recent years by comparing what has been written about them at different times. The following comments, listed in chronological order, start with wild guesses and uncertainty and end with reasonable certainty about what we must currently regard as the truth.
(1) Writing in 1950, Alfred Kreutz, the editor of the English Suites for C. F. Peters Corporation, followed Forkel in asserting that the English Suites were written for a noble Englishman. But he also conceded that if the English Suites had been commissioned, we should be able to find some trace of this. He then mused that the English Suites might vaguely follow some musical work published in England, and he listed works by Purcell, Händel, and Dieupart as candidates.16
(2) Writing in 1954, Bach scholar Albert Schweitzer stated that both the English and the French suites were composed during Bach’s years in Cöthen.17
(3) In 1957, Rudolf Steglich, in his preface to the Henle edition of the English Suites, wrote that Bach referred to these suites as “suites avec préludes.”18 The notation, “faites pour les Anglois,” first appeared in a copy of these suites belonging to Johann Christian Bach, the “London Bach.”19 In the same preface, Steglich stated that the English Suites are more in the style of the young Bach than the “more elegant” French Suites.20 No autographs have survived.
(4) In 1972, the same Rudolf Steglich claimed in his preface to the Henle edition of the French Suites that these suites were written in Cöthen,21 and that the name “French Suites” was attached later. Many copies of the suites (but no autograph) have survived, attesting to the importance of these suites in students’ progress from the Inventions to the Well-Tempered Clavier.
(5) Writing in 2000, Christoph Wolff stated as a fact that the “so-called” English Suites originated in Bach’s later Weimar years,22 and that Bach himself used the perhaps more accurate name “suites avec préludes.” Wolff also asserts that the French Suites were written during Bach’s years in Cöthen.23
So by the 1970s, we appear to have figured out the background of Bach’s English and French suites, in spite of Fuller’s comment that discussion about why twelve of Bach’s suites are called English and French suites will continue for as long as these suites themselves are discussed.24
In total, Bach composed about 45 suites.25 Neither the six French Suites nor the six English Suites were published during Bach’s lifetime, but they were copied by hand by students and music lovers. Generally, only compositions likely to increase Bach’s stature as a virtuoso were published,26 due to the high cost of publication. Handwritten copies of both the French Suites and the English Suites go back to Bach’s early years in Leipzig.27
Manfred Bukofzer devoted an entire chapter in his book, Music in the Baroque Era, to develop the thesis that Bach fused national styles.28 He noted that the titles “English” suites and “French” suites are misleading (as well as not authentic):29 the suites were no longer tied to dance music, and only a skeleton of rhythmic patterns had survived. They had become abstract art music. (By the way, Bukofzer claimed that both sets of suites belong to the Cöthen period, and that on stylistic grounds, the English Suites were composed first.30)
Bukofzer stated that “in the French suites Italian, French, and German styles no longer stand side by side but wholly merge with Bach’s personal style.”31 He also observed that the melodic character of the dances in the French Suites leans toward the Italian style.

A surprise about the courante

Anthony Newman’s book on Bach and the Baroque includes a chapter entitled Dance Music, which incorporates a section on the courante.32 He explains that there are two types of courante in Baroque instrumental music: the corrente of Italian origin and the courante of French origin. The corrente is a quick dance in triple meter, usually 3/8; the courante is a slower dance, described as solemn and majestic, often in 3/2 meter. As a ballroom dance, the minuet replaced the courante by 1660.33 But because of its “rhythmic grace and complexity,” the courante remained popular in instrumental music throughout the Baroque period. Newman considered the courante as the most subtle and complex member of the dance suite. He also pointed out that both the courante and the corrente are often labeled as courante. [See Figures 1 and 2.]
Philipp Spitta also commented on the two styles of courante. He counted Bach’s French Suites and English Suites among Bach’s most important works.34 According to Spitta, the Italian form of the courante (i.e., the corrente) would normally have been replaced by the French form, except that it was too firmly settled to be driven out—“thus there existed side by side two utterly different types [of courante]. It would be well to distinguish once and for all between the corrente and the courante.”35
Webster’s New World Dictionary of Music defines the courante as a stately and courtly old French dance in triple meter, of moderate tempo and with much melodic ornamentation.36 The corrente is defined as an Italian variant of the French courante, with a faster tempo and less florid ornamentation.37 Typically, a courante is notated in 3/2 meter with a tendency to hemiolas that combine 6/4 and 3/2 accent patterns. It also tends toward polyphony. In contrast, a corrente uses a fast triple meter (3/4 or 3/8) and is generally homophonic.38
Four of Bach’s French Suites include correntes (labeled as courantes). They are small masterpieces with more balance and a more obvious sense of continuity than the correntes in the suites for solo violin or solo cello.39 Most have a slow harmonic movement, implying a fast tempo. All of Bach’s English Suites include French courantes.40 All of Bach’s French courantes possess a time signature of 3/2, except for the one in BWV 814 (French Suite III), where the time signature is 6/4.41
In Grove, Little and Cusick state flatly that “many of Bach’s ‘courante’ movements are actually correntes.”42 The mix-up between courantes and correntes may have been caused by early editors. It is interesting that Bach did not use the courante as a basis for works outside the realm of suites: we know of no courante arias or choruses in his other compositions.43
How much our knowledge of performance practices and the history of our music has increased in recent years is made evident in Frederick Dorian’s section on the courante.44 His book was published in 1942 and includes a preface by Eugene Ormandy. In the book, Dorian cited the conflicting descriptions for the courante. For example, Shakespeare called it “swift” and Quantz called it “pompous.” But Dorian ascribed the different descriptions to the development of the courante over time. He gave no hint that there might have been two national styles (Italian and French) that co-existed. Instead, he merely attributed the two different time signatures for courantes/correntes to lighter or heavier accents and considered 80 beats per minute as an appropriate tempo for both types.

Performance considerations

Anthony Newman wrote45 that with only notes on a page, it is almost impossible for a performer to “give the proper energy to the music.” Performers who played under composers who insisted that their music should be played exactly as written report that in actuality the composers did not follow their own instructions (Newman cites Stravinsky as an example).
In the space of less than half a page and without a comment, Fritz Rothschild quoted conflicting sources, which stated that the courante should be played quickly and that it should be played “seriously” [Der Couranten-Tact ist der allerernsthaffsteste [sic] den man finden kann].46 In addition, he gave several musical examples where he marked the locations of the beats in the score47 and clearly did not distinguish a corrente from a courante, indicating a slow tempo for the corrente!
Robert Donington48 observed that while normally in suites the title of a piece is a good indication of how the music should be played, this is not the case with the courante, since the Italian form (quick and “running” character) often is found with the French (solemn character) name.
Little concrete information is available about the tempo at which a courante should be played. All we know for sure is that some courantes are faster than others:49 François Couperin wrote courantes with the tempo notations “noblement,” “un peu plus viste,” “un peu plus gayement;” Nicholas-Antoine Lebègue wrote a “courante grave” followed by a “courante gaye”—all in the French style.
In the courante, notes inégales, when appropriate, are on the 8th-note level.50 According to Little and Jenne, notes inégales may be appropriate in Courante I in the English Suite in A Major (BWV 806).51 [However, I have never heard anyone perform a courante using notes inégales.]
Concerning performance of the courante, Rudolf Steglich, the editor of the Henle edition of the French Suites, paraphrased Mattheson (Bach’s contemporary in Hamburg) and J. G. Walther (Bach’s cousin and author of a musical encyclopedia). Steglich stated that the courante was originally a French ballroom dance “but now (under Italian influence) is a dance tune either in graceful, lightly flowing 3/4 time, or in an equally lilting yet ‘extremely serious’ rhythm. . . .
There is always something pleasing and delightful about it.” He did not mention the fact that the French Suites include both courantes and correntes, which require rather different interpretation!
Questions about ornamentation impact the interpretation of music. Unfortunately, there is no consistency in the surviving copies of the French and English suites, since at Bach’s time the notation for ornaments was not systematized in detail.52
Rudolf Steglich wrote about the courantes in the last three English Suites that they are to be played in flowing movements of three half-notes (not six quarter-notes), and that the change of rhythm to two-part time at the close of the sections is to be observed.53
Alfred Kreutz, editor of the English Suites for Peters Verlag, wrote that he deliberately gave no indications of tempo or dynamics, since this could only be done subjectively due to a lack of sources.54
It appears that the best we can do is to learn as much as we can about Bach’s suites, and the courantes in particular, but then rely on our musical taste, the particular instrument, and the acoustics of the room to do justice to the compositions.

Conclusion

We can accept as a fact that Baroque movements labeled as courante fall into two different categories: the swift corrente of Italian origin with running figuration and slow harmonic motion, and the complex and slower courante of French origin. Exactly how each is performed depends on the knowledge and good taste of the performer. 

Other articles of interest:

Registration and Sonority in J. S. Bach's Continuo Practice

Dear Harpsichordists: Why Don't We Play from Memory

Bach's English Suites in score

Jan-Piet Knijff teaches organ and chamber music and is organist-in-residence at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The City University of New York as well as the Artist’s Diploma from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists. He won both first prize and the Audience Prize at the International Bach Competition Lausanne, Switzerland. His organ teachers have included Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, and Christoph Wolff. Visit his website at <www.jpkmusic.com&gt;.

Introduction

Although only a handful of his organ works survive, Nicolaus Bruhns was undoubtedly one of the most important organists of his generation; the famous Bach Obituary mentions him as one of the composers Johann Sebastian took “as a model” for his own work.1 Bruhns was born less than twenty years before Bach, in December 1665, to a family of musicians in Schwabstedt in North Frisia. At the age of 16 he went to Lübeck to study violin with his uncle Peter Bruhns and organ and composition with Dieterich Buxtehude. On the latter’s recommendation, Bruhns worked in Copenhagen for a few years, but in 1689 he returned to the land of his birth to become organist at the Stadtkirche in Husum. He declined an offer from the city of Kiel to become organist there, accepting a 25% raise in Husum instead. After almost exactly eight years in the position, Bruhns died on March 29, 1697, only 31 years old. He was succeeded by his brother Georg, who had succeeded their father in Schwabstedt at the time Nicolaus was appointed in Husum. Georg stayed in Husum until his death in 1742.

Nicolaus must have been an equally virtuoso organist and violinist, and the story that he sometimes accompanied himself on the organ pedals while playing the violin rings true (Harald Vogel was apparently the first to suggest that the arpeggio passage in the “Great” E-minor Preludium may reflect this practice). Although Bruhns’s organ in Husum was not particularly large, it must have been a very fine instrument, as it was built by Gottfried Fritzsche (1629–32), one of the foremost builders of the time. After various alterations, it had 24 stops on three manuals (Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk) and pedal in 1723. In addition to a number of sacred cantatas, Bruhns’s works for organ include two preludia in E minor, one in G major, the chorale fantasy on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, and an Adagio in D major (surely a fragment from a larger preludium in that key, the Adagio was first published by Carus Verlag in the Husumer Orgelbuch, Stuttgart 2001). The authorship of the Preludium in G Minor, first published by Martin Geck in 1967, remains uncertain: its only source mentions a “Mons: Prunth” as the composer, and even if the last name is to be read as Bruhns, it is possible that the work is Georg’s, not Nicolaus’s, as Barbara Ann Raedeke has suggested;2 the piece is definitely much less convincing than Bruhns’s other organ works.3

Editions

Three editions of Bruhns’s organ works are currently available in print:

• Doblinger (Vienna & Munich, 1993), edited by Michael Radulescu. Vol. 1 contains the preludia in G major and E minor, vol. 2 the preludium in G minor and two versions of the chorale fantasy Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.

• Breitkopf & Härtel (Wiesbaden 1972), edited by Klaus Beckmann. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy. A revision of this edition that will include the Adagio in D Major is scheduled for publication.

• C.F. Peters (Frankfurt & New York, 1967), originally edited by Fritz Stein for the series Das Erbe deutscher Musik in 1937–9, revised by Martin Geck. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy.
Although no longer in print, the following edition can still be found in libraries and sometimes turns up in book sales:

• Kistner & Siegel (Organum series IV, vol. 8), edited by Max Seiffert. Contains only the preludia in E minor and G major.

Although all four editions can be considered scholarly “urtext” editions in their own right, there are vast differences among them. As welcome and “modern” as Seiffert’s editions in the Organum series were at the time of their publication, they are now mostly outdated, sometimes because new sources have turned up, sometimes because eighty years of scholarship (and performance) have led to new conclusions. Important to know is that Seiffert generally supplied tempo indications; he also generously added ties without telling you. The Peters edition, too, is now outdated.

Klaus Beckmann’s editions of the North German organ repertoire (his complete Buxtehude edition is best known, but he also did Böhm, Lübeck, Tunder, and many others) have often been criticized. Given the absence of autographs (manuscripts in the hand of the composer), Beckmann feels it is his task to establish as best a text as he can. In practice this often leads to changes that are arbitrary at best in the eyes of many scholars and performers. While Beckmann mentions everything (or most everything) in his critical commentary, the format he uses is not particularly inviting, to say the least; and if you don’t read German, the abbreviations are practically undecipherable. Although Beckmann’s Bruhns edition is certainly usable, you have to watch out, and better spend a couple of hours figuring out all the changes he made if you want to know what’s actually in the source.

The edition by Michael Radulescu stays much closer to the original: corrections are noted in an accessible commentary; editorial ties are dotted and editorial rests and ornaments put in brackets. The result is an edition that is very trustworthy but at the same time looks a little pedantic. An interesting feature is that Radulescu offers most pieces on two staves, with the pedal notes on the lower staff with the stems down. This is how an organist of Bruhns’s (and even Bach’s) time would have read virtually every organ work (assuming they used staff notation), but it is probably a little unpractical for most organists today, and there is hardly ever any doubt as to which bass notes belong in the pedal in Bruhns.

Most organists may prefer to play from the Beckmann edition after correcting the text on the basis of Radulescu’s edition. As an alternative, I have prepared an edition on three staves in which I have made suggestions for hand division by assigning right-hand notes to the top staff and left-hand notes to the middle staff. Since the source is written in German organ tablature (a kind of letter notation), any hand division is editorial anyway. The practice of indicating hand division however is widely used elsewhere in seventeenth-century keyboard music, and there are very few places open for serious discussion in the “Little” E-minor. The edition will be made available on-line, but for now, simply contact me by e-mail if you want a copy ([email protected]).

Overview

Let’s start off with getting an idea of the whole piece. Don’t start playing right away; just take a look at the score and see what’s going on. At the very beginning, you will notice the pedals rushing in with a dazzling solo, resulting in a “drum roll” (m. 5 ff.), supported by strong off-beat manual chords. This section is followed by a short Adagio (mm. 10–16). Then follows an Allegro in 12/8 with extensive use of the echo effect. Notice how at the end (mm. 33 ff.) the roles are inverted: the echo comes first this time!

Another short Adagio (mm. 39–46) leads to a fugue, marked Vivace (mm. 47–84). Take a look at the pedal and notice how the fugue can be divided in three short sections: mm. 47–67; 67–76; and 76–84. Once again a short Adagio, and we arrive at the final Allegro (mm. 90–105), a dialogue between soprano and pedal, ending in a playful series of arpeggiated chords.

The concluding Adagio begins with off-beat repeated chords in the hands (mm. 106–110), followed by a pedal point supporting expressive harmonies. A diminished-seventh chord is emphasized by a rhetorical pause before it resolves into the final cadence.

Beginning to play

Now that you have an idea of the piece as a whole, it’s time to start playing. But, unless you’re an experienced player and a good sight reader, don’t try to sight-read the whole piece at once. Why not start with the opening pedal solo, clearly conceived for alternating toes and really not very hard to play at all. Play the first four measures (finishing of with the first notes of m. 5) and notice how Bruhns already has told you a whole story! To get an even better idea of the expressive writing, try playing the pedal solo as “solid” chords, either with a hand (or both hands) or actually in the pedal (Example 1).
Now that you have the opening measures under your belt, let’s take a look at the very end of the piece: simply sight-read the last three measures—no big deal. Now, why not connect the beginning four measures and the last three: after the first note in m. 5, simply jump to m. 117. Play this combination of beginning and end a few times; it gives you a sort of “summary” of the piece, a “framework” to fill in the rest of the music. It’s a good idea to return to your little “summary” regularly when working on the piece; it helps you to bear in mind the end-goal of your journey.

For now, continue with the opening section, trying the pedal “drum roll.” This works best when played mildly staccato (as if repeating the note at the same pitch). Forget whatever you may have learned about keeping your knees together when playing the pedals: that doesn’t help very much in this kind of situation. Instead, think of your right knee moving out over your right foot when playing that high b. Once the pedal part feels comfortable, try adding those off-beat manual chords. You want them to be strong and expressive, sure, but since they come on light beats, try not to give them their exact full length (rather something like a dotted eighth note).

In m. 8, there is a mistake in the manuscript; the most logical solution may be to play quarter-note chords (as in Radulescu’s edition), but many organists have become used to hearing eighth-note chords here (as in Beckmann), which does give a little change of pace. See what you like best; it doesn’t really matter too much, and from the point of view of the source, you could argue either way.
When arriving at the Adagio in m. 11, be sure to keep (approximately) the same tempo by “thinking” sixteenths in that measure.

The 12/8 echo section

Think of the eighths in the right hand as triplets; you can maintain the same tempo for this section. It’s easiest to reserve the right hand for the “triplets” and take all the other manual notes in the left hand. Here are some fingering suggestions for the first two measures (Example 2).
Using the same finger for neighboring notes helps creating a clear, slightly detached sound. Make sure not to overdo it: you don’t want the music to sound too jumpy (at least, I don’t). If you feel really uncomfortable using this kind of fingering, you can easily change it, for example by using a thumb on the e'' before the d#'' in m. 18; just try to avoid a “Romantic” legato. For the left hand, you may find it easiest to start with the index finger on the first two notes. The pedal won’t give you much trouble; I would avoid heels, simply playing right-right-left-right in m. 27. In m. 36, simply stick with the right toe; “lean” a little into every note so that they don’t become too short, but you still want them to be clearly articulated.

Take your time for the manual changes to the “echo” manual and back (no matter which manual you use for the echo); the little bit of time it takes to get from one manual to another (and vice versa) actually helps making the echo effect clearer. In general, try to make your movements easy and pleasant; when it feels that way, there’s a good chance the music will also sound that way.

The fugue

Again, resist the temptation to sight-read the whole fugue. Instead, pick out the entries of the theme first and then play them in the appropriate hand or feet. Here’s how it works:

m. 47: theme in soprano, played in the right hand;

m. 50: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 53: theme in tenor, left;

m. 56: theme in bass, pedals.

Those four entries constitute the exposition of the fugue. After an “episode,” a kind of development of the motive from m. 48, we’re back to business:

m. 67: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 70: theme in tenor, left;

m. 73: theme in bass, pedals.

Finally, there are two incomplete entries of the theme:

m. 76: in alto, right hand (but put the left index finger on the long g' in m. 77);

m. 77: in soprano, right hand (with the thumb going under the left index finger on the first beat of m. 78).

This gives you the outline for the fugue. Here, by the way, is my fingering for the theme (Example 3). In the pedal, once again try to avoid the heels (Example 4).

While we’re at it: what is the reason for avoiding the heels in this kind of music? Well, first off, it makes you look good in historically informed organ circles, where the general assumption is that the heel was not (or very rarely) used in organ music up to (and including) Bach. Although we have no idea what virtuoso performers like Bruhns (and Bach) did in real life, most if not all of their music can be comfortably played without using the heel. More importantly, it’s usually easier to get a good sound and the “right” kind of touch that way. It is not true that it was (or is) impossible to use heels on seventeenth-century pedals, although it’s generally more difficult at the center (around c) than at the extremes. If you find it hard to imagine that an inventive virtuoso like Bruhns never ever in his lifetime hit on the idea of using the other part of his foot, you may want to support your theory by pointing out m. 60 in the G-major preludium, where the left foot plays two neighboring sixteenths (B–c) while the right foot is otherwise engaged. However, using the heel does not make this spot particularly easy to play either! In the end it’s not so much what you do in those exceptional cases that matters but your general approach.

Here are some more fingering suggestions for the fugue (Examples 5a and 5b). In mm. 59–61, reserve the right hand for the top voice only, combining alto and tenor in the left hand. In mm. 65–67, I recommend taking the three middle voices in the left hand, again reserving the right hand for the top line. It’s nice to have all of your right hand to shape this nice melodic line as well as possible, and to play a trill on the dotted quarter b¢ in m. 66 (see below).

The section ends with the same two measures three times (Bruhns did that more often, see the end of the second fugue of the “Great” E-minor). What to do? Well, unless you want to be boring, I wouldn’t play them the same three times. Here are some options:

• Change manuals, perhaps playing forte, piano, and pianissimo. On Buxtehude’s organ, the manuals would probably have been Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk, respectively. The problem with this is the pedal: you will probably need to adjust the pedal registration at least once (or even twice). It is possible, of course, to play the pedal part in the left hand (combining the three upper parts in the right) when going to a quieter manual (even though Bruhns’s writing does not seem to suggest it).

• Add a few ornaments the second time, and perhaps some more (or different ones) the third time.

• Play on the same manual throughout but “think” different dynamics: really strong the first time, milder the second, as light as you can the third time; or: loud at first, then more quietly, and loud again. Don’t worry too much about how the difference in sound happens; if you have a clear concept and communicate it to the organ the best you can, the result will be noticeable somehow to a sensitive listener.

Finally, a combination of two or all of the above may be even more effective. Whatever you do, if you use pedals, again reserve the right hand for the soprano and make sure to play the left hand pick-up chord really light (and short) in order to make place for the right-hand f#¢. Radulescu’s edition has a half-note chord at the beginning of m. 83; this certainly needs to be shortened to a quarter to make the soprano clear (you find this kind of thing frequently in chorale preludes by Buxtehude, for example).

The Allegro

Since this section is essentially a dialogue between right hand and pedals (think of it as the first violins on the one hand and the cellos and double basses on the other), why not begin with playing just that dialogue, without the supporting chords. To get an idea of how things sound, you can even start off with playing the pedal part in the left hand. However you do it, try to get a smooth dialogue going without “waiting for the bus” at every barline. The fingering is pretty obvious; the pedaling is a little more challenging, although there are really not that many options. Here is my suggestion (Example 6).


Yes, the left foot has to leap around a bit. And yes, you have to be a little careful to make the left-foot notes sound not too hacked (particularly the first g#). But using heels (and, for my part, silent substitution) doesn’t make things much easier either. In my experience, as long as the bench is at the right height and if you let go of the idea of keeping your knees together at all costs, the toe-only solution is easiest and sounds best. Here are some ways to play around with this spot in order to get the music “into your feet” (Example 7).

Make up your own variations! Much better to play around and have fun with a little tune like this than banging out the notes in the score a zillion times. While you’re playing around, try to make things feel as comfortable as possible. If things don’t feel quite right, try to adjust the height of the bench just a little or to move it back or forward a bit; small things can make a huge difference. Become sensitive to the way you move and try to find ways to make it easier for you.

One finger is crucial to keep you going: no matter what finger you’re using right before it (chances are it’s a thumb or else the index), put your little pinky on the third beat in m. 97.

When adding the chords to the soprano-bass dialogue, make sure not to make the quarter notes too long. The eighth-note pick-ups can be nice and short (without making them too jumpy, of course).
In m. 104, the manuscript has g¢¢ followed by f#¢. Clearly, the two notes must be in the same register. It’s really up to what you think sounds best and/or makes most sense here (Beckmann goes for high, Radulescu for low).

At the beginning of the last Adagio, imagine the repeated chords as played on one bow by a group of string players, and remember they’re off-beat, and therefore light (Example 8).

Ornaments

In a number of places, this music needs ornamentation to be at its best, either simple or more elaborate. The soprano d in m. 10 needs a trill which would probably best start with the main note, although starting with the upper note e is certainly a possibility (see below). In m. 39, the long d in the pedal followed by the written-out turn cries out for a virtuoso, long trill, something like Example 9, or perhaps Example 10. In mm. 66 and 75 of the fugue, the dotted quarter in the soprano sounds best with a simple trill, starting with the main note, something like this (Example 11).

The suggested fingering helps to create a nice, clear trill; the articulation before the turn actually sounds good and suggests a bit of a diminuendo. But if you don’t like putting the middle finger over the index, simply put a thumb on the last note of the trill.

Most of the trills I have suggested here start with the main note. But isn’t there some kind of rule that trills in Baroque music always start with the upper note? Well, yes, but that’s one of those gross oversimplifications of popularized historically informed performance practice. In the seventeenth century, main-note trills seem to be the rule, although upper-note trills certainly exist, and apparently became quite fashionable in France in the second half of the century. A rule of thumb: if the note with the trill is itself consonant, start with the upper note; but if the note itself is dissonant, then start with the main note. In both cases, the first note of the trill is dissonant, creating that nice little bit of friction. Also, if the note immediately before the trill is already the upper note, you may not want to repeat it as the beginning note of the trill.

If you want to add a trill on the soprano d#'' in m. 85 (which would sound very nice), consider starting with the upper note. A trill on the soprano b¢ on the second beat of m. 97 could go either way, as long is the trill is short. The soprano c'' on the last beat of m. 100 could also go either way, depending on whether you want to emphasize the c'' (start with the main note) or whether you want to incorporate the preceding sixteenths in the trill (start with the upper note).

More ornamentation: the Adagios

The four Adagio sections, with almost exclusively whole notes and half notes, may sound lovely the way they are written—they would probably be considered an opportunity for (quite) extensive ornamentation by any performer of Bruhns’s time. How much and what exactly you want to do is ultimately up to you, but here are some ideas for mm. 10–16 (Example 12).

With these ideas as a basis, try to work something out for the other sections. Bear in mind that the ornamentation is supposed to make the music more expressive, not to show off your virtuosity or to emulate the composer. Try not to write your ornaments down, but instead play around with as many different ideas as you can come up with. Ideally, your ornamentation is going to be different from performance to performance! In the final Adagio, Bruhns uses imitation: the chromatic line a–g#–g–f# appears in the soprano (m. 111), tenor (m. 113) and, sort of, in the bass (m. 115). In order to bring out the imitation, you may want to use similar ornaments for both the soprano and the tenor line.

Registration

Large-scale pieces like preludes and toccatas are played with an organo pleno registration: principals 8', 4', 2', mixtures, the Quint 22?3' if there is one, and perhaps a flue stop 16' in the manuals (Bruhns might have used his Quintadena 16¢), and the same plus reeds in the pedals (use at least a Posaune 16' if you have one). You can add an 8' flute stop in the hands to make the sound a bit fuller, but avoid throwing in tons of 8' and 4' stops; that tends to make the sound muddy. You probably want a really big pedal registration for the solo at the beginning; if the pedal is not loud enough by itself, couple to one (or more) of the manuals.


The question is to what extent you want to vary registration for the various sections of a piece like this. Obviously, you will need an echo manual for the 12/8 section. You sometimes hear this section with a “small” registration (8+4+2, or 8+4+1, or something like that) and something like flutes 8+2 for the echo. As always, much depends on the organ and the particular situation, but I like to use at least a small pleno for this section with a few stops for the echo (which could effectively be played on the Brustwerk on an organ similar to Bruhns’s).
It could be nice if the fugue is a little quieter than the first and last sections; you could use a slightly lighter pleno or even principals 8+4+2, for example; of course, you would have to lighten the pedal, probably by taking off the reed(s) and perhaps the mixture. M. 85 could be a place to go back to a bigger registration, with further opportunities for a crescendo in m. 90 (marking the beginning of the Allegro), m. 106, and m. 117.

Tempo

The tempo of any performance of any piece of music depends on many factors including the acoustics of the hall, the time of the day, and without a doubt the mood of the performer. Many compositions can sound surprisingly convincing at very different tempi; the most important thing is that the tempo feels right to you! Nonetheless, here are some metronome markings for the piece; take them for what they are: a ballpark indication.

Beginning: ~66

12/8: ~60–66

Fugue: ~60

Allegro: ~96

Discography

Finally, for CD collectors, the following recordings of Bruhns’s complete organ works may be worth considering:

• Piet Kee: Bruhns and Buxtehude. Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark. Chandos CHAN0539.

• Lorenzo Ghielmi: Bruhns, Buxtehude, and Brunckhorst. Basilica San Simpliciano, Milan, Italy. Winter & Winter 910 070-2.

Creative freedom

Last Wednesday I was doing a service call at a church in New Jersey, where the Organ Clearing House installed a relocated organ a couple years ago. The pastor was holding keys as I tuned the reeds—a little unusual perhaps, except that this pastor was an organist before he was ordained. It was he who conceived and drove the acquisition of the organ, and we’ve enjoyed a friendly relationship since.

It’s a real pleasure for an organbuilder when a parish appreciates an instrument he has provided and uses it well. Along with the pastor’s affinity for the instrument, that church’s organist is doing a wonderful job finding his way around the organ, and using it creatively as he leads worship for the parish.

An organ tuner can tell a lot about a local organist by the character and quality of the list left on the console, and this organist’s lists are concise, accurate, and correct. When I commented on that, the pastor waxed enthusiastic about the organist’s work, and said something to the effect that although once in a while he disagreed with a choice, he knew he had to stay out of it and let his organist be creative. Terrific. How many organists out there would quail at the idea of working with (or for) an organist-pastor?

Yes, chef

A couple days later, Wendy and I went to the movies followed by a light supper at the friendly bar at the end of the block. While Wendy’s literary pull often draws us toward weighty films, this time we saw Chef. It included some personally painful scenes about divorced parents struggling to do right by their son, but otherwise it was fun, funny, and scintillating.

Carl Casper (John Favreau) is chef of a popular and prominent restaurant in Los Angeles owned by Riva (Dustin Hoffman). They learn that the big-shot restaurant critic (played by Oliver Platt) is coming to review the place, and Casper drums up excitement among the kitchen staff planning a special knockout menu. There are fantastic scenes involving a whole pig arriving in the kitchen in a big plastic bag, and a lot of mouth-watering test cooking. When Riva gets wind of this, he storms into the kitchen brandishing the regular menu and essentially orders Casper to present the usual fare. “It’s what we’re known for.” Casper protests, referring to their agreement that Riva wouldn’t interfere in the kitchen, but to no avail.

Predictably, the critic pans the place. Enter Casper’s son, the quintessential smarty-pants kid with a smart phone, who shares the resulting Twitter traffic with his dad. The critic has thousands of followers. Casper, the quintessential social-media newbie, pours fuel on the fire by mouthing off, thinking he was tweeting to the critic, and only the critic, and the fun really starts as Casper challenges the critic to return for a “real meal.” Hearing that news, Riva repeats his insistence, adds an ultimatum, and Casper storms out of the kitchen to find himself in an adventure that includes some mouth-watering food scenes and a hilarious caper with his ex-wife’s first husband. It’s all about creative freedom.

For all the saints

Fifth Avenue in New York City is a classy address, but with the Disney Store between 55th and 56th Streets, and the NBA (National Basketball Association) store between 47th and 48th Streets, it’s not quite as elegant as it once was. It’s hard to imagine Mrs. Astor or Mrs. Vanderbilt stopping in to buy an eight-foot-tall Mickey Mouse, even though either of them would have had help to carry it home. We’ll not discuss the Dennis Rodman sunglasses.

Halfway between these two tacky icons you’ll find St. Thomas Church. It’s a wonderful place for worship, a legendary place to hear music, and a refreshing respite from the million-dollar huckstering going on elsewhere in the neighborhood. (People routinely spend more on handbags in that neighborhood than I will ever spend to buy a car!) Walk into the nave and allow your breath to be taken away.

The reredos behind the high altar includes sixty figures of carved stone. I wonder if the artist proposed sixty-five, and the vestry voted to limit the project? People often refer to the “price per stop” of pipe organs. Do you suppose there’s a “price per saint” for a reredos?

In 1499, the 24-year-old Michelangelo completed Pietà, commissioned as the funeral monument to a French cardinal who was a representative to Rome. It’s a little over 68 inches tall and nearly 77 inches wide, and it weighs about 6,600 pounds. I did a Google search and learned that the current price of Carrara marble is $2.25 per pound. (Believe it or not, even though it’s prone to stains, people use it for kitchen counters. You shouldn’t carry coffee in paper cups inside St. Peter’s.) Looking at photos of Pietà, it’s hard to tell just how much of the original block of marble is left, but let’s guess that Michelangelo took away two thirds of the material to reveal his masterpiece. If so, the original block would have weighed 19,800 pounds. At today’s price, that’s $44,550. (I don’t know if that includes shipping.) Did Michelangelo’s commission specify the maximum weight and cost of the marble? Or did they simply provide him with a block? I wonder if Michelangelo tried to hold out for a larger block? Given cost-saving devices such as laser cutting tools, hydraulic cranes, diesel engines, and railroads, I bet the cost of marble relative to other consumer items is lower than it was in 1500. Just imagine the effort involved in bringing a 20,000-pound block down a mountain and 400 kilometers to Rome using technology available in 1500 AD.

A few years later, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint frescos on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo worked on that project from 1508 until 1512. I wonder if the Pope established a budget. I wonder if he put a limit on the number of scenes depicted. Did Michelangelo provide sketches for the client’s approval? I wonder if Julius II stopped in once in a while to check on the progress, and if so, did he ever put in his two cents’ worth about color choices? Did he pay attention to the vibrancy of the colors? “Mickey, that blue looks pretty rich. What’s the price per tube?” Did he fuss about how slow it was going? Or did he say, “Knock yourself out. Have a blast. Don’t worry about the cost.” I doubt it.  

A related thought: We have just finished dismantling an organ in a church where the pastor was downright unfriendly. I wonder if Julius II and Michelangelo liked each other? Early in the movie, the kitchen staff spreads the word to Chef Casper that “Riva is coming,” in sharp, explosive whispers. Think of Michelangelo’s young assistant hissing, “The Pope is coming . . . ”

You say you want a revolution…

In the early 1960s, the Beatles turned the music world upside down. The radical messages in the lyrics of their songs thrilled some people and terrified others. Old-timers fretted about the end of civilization, what with those hippie hairstyles and all. Funny, because looking at photos of the Fab Four from those days with dark jackets buttoned up, and skinny dark ties with white button-down shirts, they might as well be a quartet of congressmen—except they were too creative for that.  

Those songs were innovative and provocative. Millions of young people were influenced by them. And each of those millions has experienced the moment of hearing the Beatles for the first time in an elevator soundtrack—the music that changed the world reduced to twinkling away in the background. And what a gold mine is that twinkling. After pop-music icon Michael Jackson recorded a couple songs with former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney, Jackson seized an opportunity to incense McCartney by outbidding him to purchase the rights to the Beatles’ catalogue, putting McCartney in the position of having to pay licensing fees every time he wanted to sing Hey Jude.

According to the website Mail Online (of the British newspaper Daily Mail), following Jackson’s death, copyright laws allow the rights to return piecemeal to McCartney.  A revolution at what price?

Leave the driving to us

A week ago, I was waiting for a bus in the teeming New York Port Authority Bus Terminal, listening to a nondescript Vivaldi concerto for strings over tinny public speakers. I’ve been present for plenty of serious recording sessions where microphones and music stands are set about on a wood floor. There are open instrument cases strewn about along with half-finished bottles of water. A small group of musicians is playing their hearts out to the microphones for posterity. Together they listen to playbacks of each take, discuss, and start again. Do you suppose they realize that all that effort is destined for broadcast in a bus station? Does that define commercial success for a musical ensemble? Artistic fulfillment?

The parish organist spends all day Saturday at the console preparing a blockbuster postlude for the next morning. The recessional hymn is finished, benediction and response checked off, and he launches into it. Ten minutes later, with a paper cup of coffee in the narthex, the smiling congregants tell him, “The music was beautiful, as always.” I once appreciated that feedback, but when the same person says the same words with the same inflections week after week, year after year, it gets a little hollow. Was she listening? Did she notice anything special about it this week? Or does “as always” cover it for her, taking away the responsibility to listen critically?

Classical radio stations love listener surveys, inviting their audiences to vote on their favorite music. It’s like a sprawling focus group and allows the stations’ librarians to cull all that complicated overbearing music that no one likes from their record collections. No votes for Alban Berg? Out it goes. As a teenager listening faithfully to WCRB in Boston in the 1970s, I was already aware that it was a pretty short list of music they played: a Mozart symphony (number 40 in G minor), a Vivaldi concerto (Four Seasons), something by Respighi (Ancient Airs and Dances), another Vivaldi concerto (another season down, two to go).

The Louvre in Paris is one of the world’s largest museums with over 650,000 square feet of exhibit space. It’s the most visited in the world with nearly ten million visitors a year. There are more than 35,000 objects on display, but for most visitors only one is a focus point. It’s a painting about the size of a coffee-table book, thirty inches by twenty-one inches. Because it’s so very iconic and valuable it’s pretty much buried, concealed in a transparent vault. So many people throng to see it that most only get a quick glimpse. Of course it’s an essential artwork—enigmatic, mysterious, beautiful, wistful. But you can make more of your time in those hallowed halls if you simply don’t bother. Miss Mona will be fine without you. Go the other way and see all the rest of that glorious art at your own pace.

The art of organ building

It’s fun to wax poetic about organbuilding from the point of view of the humanities. The Greek physicist and inventor, Ctesibius (ca. 285–222 BC) created the hydraulis, widely considered to be not only a forerunner to the organ, but the actual first example of one. The remains of a primitive pipe organ were found in the ruins of Pompeii, the ancient Italian city destroyed by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. The organ in the Basilica of Valère in Switzerland, made famous by E. Power Biggs’s 1967 recording, Historic Organs of Switzerland, is accepted as the oldest playable organ in the world. Biggs’s jacket notes stated that the organ was built in 1390. Others now think it was more like 1435. But whether or not we need to quibble about a difference of 45 years, that’s a mighty old organ.

Twentieth-century organbuilders used sixteenth-century models as the basis for contemporary instruments around which developed a revolution in the trade. And many of those original sixteenth-century instruments survive and are played regularly, proof that such ancient ideals remain vital and relevant to modern musicians.

Organs built in the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries all combine the fruits of many skills. Take a close look at a metal organ pipe and marvel at the precision of the hand-drawn solder seams that join the various pieces of metal. Inspect the edges of leather gussets on a pipe organ bellows and see how the craftsman’s knife tapered the edge to microscopic thickness, just to ensure that there was no loose edge to get snagged and delaminate.

See the precision of the playing actions (either electro-pneumatic or mechanical)—how fast the notes repeat, how uniform is the touch and feel of the keys. And marvel at the glorious architectural casework, beautifully designed, built, and decorated to promote and project the instrument it contains, and to enhance its surroundings.

The company that built that organ is surely a collection of high-minded individuals, capable of the creation of such a masterpiece. But wait. You have no idea how many cooks might have been involved.

Art by committee

A church invites an organbuilder to present a proposal for a new instrument. He delivers a drawing or a model. Using blue tape, someone in the church marks off the space to be occupied by the proposed organ. That Saturday, the women of the altar guild arrive to prepare the sanctuary for tomorrow’s services. They see the tape outline—to them it looks like a police photo of a crime scene. They storm the rector’s office, demanding that the organ not cross a specified but imaginary line. Please don’t take offense, all you members of altar guilds. You do wonderful work and we’re grateful. But I know of one fine organ that was sorely compromised in the design stage by exactly this scenario.  

The same rector reviews the proposal. It looks a little imposing. Too fancy, too shiny. That organist has enough of an ego problem. Let’s tone it down a little.

The organist reviews the proposal. There’s no Larigot, there’s only one soft solo reed, and nothing at 32-foot. I’m not sure I can manage without a third (or fourth) keyboard. Can we beef it up a little?

The vestry/board of trustees/finance committee/session (your choice) reviews the proposal. No, our data suggests that we will not be able to raise more than…

And if the architect is still around, “How can you do this to my building?”

In the 1960s, comedian Allan Sherman (Hello muddah, hello fadduh . . .) produced a hilarious parody of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf in collaboration with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra. The recording of Peter and the Commissar was released in 1964, at the height of the Cold War—it was just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis—and using the familiar tunes and orchestrations of Prokofiev’s score (apparently no one had gotten their hands on those rights!), Sherman told in outrageous verse of how the fictional Peter had written a new tune, but had to obtain approval from the Commissars of Music before releasing it.

The Commissars had all sorts of ideas about how to improve it, including giving it the beat of a bossa nova—and gave Peter examples of their alterations to previous applications from famous composers like “Beethoven’s Fifth Cha-cha-cha,” “Brahms’ Lullaby Rock-n-Roll,” and “Pete Tschaikovsky’s Blues.” This kind of buffoonery was perfect for Fiedler and the Boston Pops. You can hear this terrific and biting romp online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFseskG8JTY.

Allan Sherman’s poetry reminds us of the stories of Julius II and Michelangelo, Riva and Chef Casper, Paul McCartney and his struggle to retain control of the artistic output of the combo that changed the world, and countless other examples in which a creator is disappointed by the influence of outside forces.  

One memorable line from Peter and the Commissar stands out: 

We all have heard the saying that is true as well as witty, 

A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee. 

Bill Halsey was born in Seattle, where he studied piano and composition from an early age. He fell in love with the organ after hearing a Corrette suite played on the Montreal Beckerath, and began organ lessons in his teens. While a student at the Sorbonne, he had the good fortune to gain access to the two-manual unmodified tracker-action Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint Bernard de la Chapelle, in a northern arrondissement of Paris. This fueled his interest in historic organs, and after spending fifteen years serving in organist positions at St. John Cantius, St. Peter Claver, Church of the Assumption, and the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, all in Brooklyn, New York, he took a permanent leave of absence to explore historic organs, first in France, and later in Italy.

On a recent trip to Pesaro, in the region of Le Marche in Italy, where I went to work as an accompanist with singers and visit some historic organs, I saw a number of Callido organs, both at Sant’Agostino in Pesaro and elsewhere, but I was also curious about organs outside of the classical period, both the very early (sixteenth century) and the late (nineteenth century) ones. My contact in Pesaro, Giuliana Maccaroni, the organist at Cristo Re, had given me a list of interesting Marchigian organs, one of which was a Morettini (1855) at the Monastero della Fonte Avellana in Serra Sant’Abbondio. During research on the Internet, I found that there was a later Morettini from 1889 at the Duomo of Cagli, in the same area, and also in Cagli, at the church of San Francesco, an organ from the last decades of the sixteenth century, attributed to Baldassare Malamini.
I arranged a trip to see all three of these instruments. The Internet is an amazing resource, but it still takes a little persistence to track down all the necessary telephone numbers. The parroco (parish priest) at the Cagli cathedral readily and graciously granted me an appointment at the cathedral, but he also told me that San Francesco was closed and not under the control of the diocese, but rather of the city government, which had been restoring it. After several failed attempts to call the city, I finally figured out that the offices were only open in the morning; I got through and they transferred me to the ufficio cultura (cultural office), where a very nice lady explained that, yes, I could visit San Francesco, but she wasn’t sure that the organ was playable—it might have been completely dismounted for the restoration.

Serra Sant’Abbondio,
Monastero della Fonte Avellana
The Fonte Avellana monastery is a famous and very old institution; it is mentioned by Dante. The monastery is up a winding road in the foothills of the Appenines. The buildings don’t look particularly old, just very solid, made of massive great stone that blends in with the hills. I was carrying a Tascam Portastudio 424 MKII in a giant artists’ briefcase, and my wife, Jane, who takes notes and works the recording equipment, was pulling a rolling suitcase containing the rest of my equipment—Rohde microphone, phantom power unit, electricity converter, and organ books and shoes.
The monastery has a little gift shop near the parking lot, for the summer visitors. It was open—more or less—during the winter, and I asked the man there where to go for my appointment. He pointed me to the church, and said “Ring the bell and ask the porter.” As we walked downhill to the church, I couldn’t help thinking of Brother Melitone in La forza del destino: “Siete voi il portier? E ben goffo costui—se appersi, parmi . . .” “Are you the porter? This guy’s really stupid! If I opened, it seems to me . . .” But the brother who opened was anything but a Brother Melitone. He was a friendly, somewhat athletic-looking young guy with tennis shoes on. He led us down a series of corridors to the church, where the organ sits in the left transept. It immediately surprised me how much it looked like a Callido. Same narrow bench, two rows of stop knobs, tira tutti, and a narrow stand for music, so that even one normal size score often falls off.
I noticed a normal-size console next to the Morettini, and asked what it was for. The brothers (another young man had joined us by now) started laughing. They said it was an electronic organ their organist had brought in order to play Bach. One of them sat down on the bench, and said, looking at all the controls, “Look, it’s Air Force One.”
Then it was time to turn the Morettini on. They looked at each other. “Where’s the key?” I thought, “Oh no, I’ve come all this way, and I can’t play the organ.” But eventually the key for the power switch was found. When I first heard the organ, again I was surprised. Callido’s organs, toward the end of his career, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, have a very Romantic lush sound. This organ was clean and dry like a Renaissance organ. Of course, there was no reason for the organ to sound like anything else but a traditional Italian organ. The French organ renaissance hadn’t happened by 1855, and Callidos in Le Marche are concentrated along the coast. I found out later that Morettini was a Perugian company first founded by Angelo Morettini and then taken over after his death by his son Nicola. This organ was from a time when they were building organs together. By 1889, Angelo had died and Nicola was running the firm, and it appears that eventually one of his descendants gave up the organ business and spent all the family’s money in South America. But during their heyday, they were quite prominent. They beat out Cavaillé-Coll for the contract to build an organ for the pope.
I played a fugue by Galliera and—just to show it could be done—Bach’s Passacaglia in C Minor. On a subsequent trip to Serra Sant’Abbondio, I went over the stoplist carefully, even though it has also been published in Organi storici delle Marche. Like a Callido organ, the upper partial ripieno stops (sometimes also called the male stops) break back by an octave for the high notes.
The organ is divided, like most Italian organs, but some bass solo stops, like the Bombardino, a reed, are 4′, while the soprano solo reeds, like the Corno Inglese, are 16′. An esthetic seems in play here where extremes are to be avoided, so that, playing a solo on either the soprano or bass reed, you end up in the same tenor register, which is (from a certain point of view) a better register for solo melodies than either extreme high notes or extreme low notes. Among the female (solo) stops, there is a very interesting trio of soft flutes, 8′ traversière, octave and tenth.
After I had finished playing, the monks invited Jane and me for lunch—a delicious meal of sausage and polenta—and conversation. There were about eight monks, of varying ages.

Cagli, Chiesa di San Francesco
The next morning we drove to Cagli. I had an appointment at the Ufficio Cultura at 9 am to be taken to see San Francesco, and then one at 2 pm to see the cathedral. Cagli is a charming town set on a hill overlooking a wooded shallow river. Towards the uphill side of the town is a very interesting rocca (fortress), where the walls bend outwards, I think as a defense against cannon balls. There is also a 19th-century theater that has stage machinery from Verdi’s era. His favorite director worked there, and it is still used for trial runs of many theater productions. The cultural officer had a young lady accompany us with a ring of keys for San Francesco, but she still wasn’t sure the organ was playable.
The Malamini organ is in a back choir loft (cantoria), and its case is amazing for the use of trompe l’oeil. The pipes seem to be surrounded by classical marble columns, but it’s all illusion and painted wood. After some searching, I found the switch for the blower and had one of the most amazing experiences I’ve had in a church. It wasn’t just the organ—that was amazing enough—but also the experience of playing late 16th-century music on it, surrounded by the artistic treasures in the church, the combinations of trompe l’oeil with painting and bas relief, etc. I played Merulo and various other pieces. The Merulo was almost an exact contemporary of the organ. The tuning of that type of organ makes Merulo sound interesting and anything with modulation—I played some 18th-century music too—sound rather terrible. Merulo and Frescobaldi usually sound boring on an organ tuned in equal temperament; even though intellectually I knew that the old just intonation made certain minor (or major) triads sound like different chords, rather than all the same chords up or down the scale, it was still a revelation to hear it on an actual organ.

Cagli, Duomo
After lunch, we went to the cathedral, but had to delay things somewhat because they were having a funeral. And not just any funeral—it reminded me of the policeman or fireman funerals I’d played for in Brooklyn. It seemed like the whole town had come out, but there were still plenty of people hanging out in the town square. Eventually, however, we went up to the organ loft.
There had been many changes in organ building since 1855, obviously, and the firm of Morettini had not been left behind. The French organ renaissance was in full swing by then, and I wasn’t surprised to see a two-manual organ with a French-style console and an appel for the ripieno and solo stops on the Great. There was no expression pedal however, and no Rückpositiv, just two manuals on the same windchest. I played the Galliera fugue again, a Padre Davide Elevation, and the Cantilène from Vierne’s Third Symphony, in honor of the French influence. Those are obviously in very different styles, but my wife said they all worked on the organ, though in different ways. Padre Davide from Bergamo was a slightly older contemporary of Donizetti who wrote some very flamboyant organ pieces. It’s easy to dismiss him; however, some of his stop combinations are very unusual. I can’t say the two Romantic organs I played on in Le Marche (the one at the Cagli cathedral and later on the Mascioni reworking of Callido in Fermo) really had the right stops to play him, but the cathedral in Cagli came close enough that I thought I had a new insight into the Davidian esthetic.
These three organs—all quite different from one another, but all equally connected to the artistic and religious circumstances of their construction, all quite modest affairs by American or even French standards—taught me that the value of an organ is not measured by bigness, number of pipes or flamboyance of individual stops, it is measured by the quality of the individual parts and the harmony of the whole. This is why, when playing music on these organs, one never notices what is absent, only what is there.
The author wishes to express thanks to all the church officials, city officials, priests and the brothers of Serra Sant’Abbondio who graciously opened their doors and their organs to an unknown American.

David Herman, DMA, MusD, is Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music and University Organist at the University of Delaware. The author of numerous reviews for The Diapason, he has enjoyed playing hymns in churches of various denominations for more than fifty years. His recent CD includes music by his teacher Jan Bender and by Bender’s teacher, Hugo Distler.

This is the third installment in a series of articles that will offer ideas for enriching service playing. (The first installment, on hymn playing, appeared in the September 2016 issue of The Diapason; the second installment, on transposition, appeared in the January 2017 issue.) These essays had their genesis in a series of articles written for Crescendo, the newsletter of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and are used with permission. This installment tackles the challenge of encountering and learning new music.

I. Sight-reading

The old joke: A visitor to Manhattan asks a policeman, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” The cop: “Practice, practice, practice!”

Sight-reading is a skill highly to be prized, but alas—there seems to be no shortcut in acquiring it. Nor is there much devoted to sight-reading skills in the standard organ methods or other books. The solution seems to be the same as that offered by the New York cop! Here are some suggestions and words of encouragement. 

Being a good sight-reader offers many advantages. It is an attribute that helps one secure and retain professional positions. Word gets around—“She can sight-read anything!” It is also helpful in playing through and learning new music. (There can be a downside: good sight-readers sometimes have a challenge in the business of working out details, especially fingering.) Sometimes we develop sight-reading skills in a non-voluntary way. I learned to sight-read some 55 years ago. At the church where I played during my high school years there was a Sunday evening service, the highlight of which (for them, not me) was a lengthy segment when members of the congregation called out hymn numbers to sing. I was expected to play each hymn at sight. Many of us have had such experiences, and we look back on them with belated appreciation, realizing that in such situations our skills at sight-reading were being developed and honed. Here are some suggestions for practicing.

• An opening thought: Practicing sight-reading, at least of music for manuals, does not necessarily require a trip to the church; a piano does just fine. Or, how about on the kitchen table, for developing concentration? (See below.)

• Select music that is not overly difficult to play; let the challenge be in the reading, not in the complexity of the music. Choose music to sight-read that is less difficult than what you would normally select to learn. 

• If sight-reading hymns is too difficult, practice sight-reading just the melody, then the melody with bass. Indeed, because traditional harmony is clearly defined by these outer voices, it is often possible to use only them in congregational singing; the organ registration helps fill in the middle.

• Bach chorale settings are like multivitamins; they provide many benefits. 

• Other possibilities include Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach and manual pieces such as those found in eighteenth-century English voluntaries, Franck’s L’Organiste, and many others.

• More vitamins: Warm up each day with scales on the piano. This benefits playing technique in general and, as a preparation for sight-reading, helps you think and play “in the key.” (Vitamins such as scales also help increase the blood flow in the hands for us older organists.)

• Keep a strict tempo—do not permit hesitations as you move your fingers from note to note. Instead, play slower, using a metronome, if necessary, to ensure steadiness.

• Keep going. Don’t stop to correct wrong notes—that’s not sight-reading, it’s practicing the piece!

• The experienced sight-reader looks slightly ahead, anticipating what is coming while also playing the notes of
the moment.

• Keep the fingers in touch with the keyboard, anticipating the next notes and moving each smoothly but quickly. 

• As with transposition and improvisation, “think in the key”—have the accidentals of the key in mind and anticipate upcoming modulations.

• Finally, as with practice of all kinds, play musically when sight-reading. Don’t settle for just playing notes—think about lines, shape, phrasing, and touch. 

Sight-reading resources 

Anne Marsden Thomas’s The Organist’s Hymnbook (Boosey & Hawkes, £21.95, www.boosey.com) provides a wealth of hymns for sight-reading, arranged in graded difficulty, beginning with two-part manual settings. (Because these settings maintain traditional hymnbook harmony, they can also be used in congregational accompaniment.) Early sections of most organ method books also contain pieces suitable for sight-reading.

Hymnbooks, of course, provide many appropriate examples. Select hymn tunes with simple harmonies and textures, however—not ones that are rhythmically or chromatically complex or have busy, contrapuntal textures.

Other resources include:

Hall, Jonathan B. “Ten Tips on Sight Reading.” The American Organist,  March 2009, 84–85.

Harris, Paul. Improve your sight-reading (in six volumes). Alfred Music, 1998.

Stewart, Stephie. Ten Tips for Improving Sight Reading. Blog from Sheet Music Plus: https://blog.sheetmusicplus.com/2013/01/16/10-tips-for-improving-sight-….

Nance,  Daryel. How to Practice Sight-Reading at the Keyboard. http://
danwebs.com/chorg/sightread.html.

I offer a suggestion, useful in all aspects of music learning, including sight-reading, improvisation, and new music: use a metronome in your practicing. The primary reason is that music unfolds through time; a metronome helps maintain a steady tempo and prevents you from playing faster than you’re able.

There is an old story about André Previn arranging an audition with the great conductor George Szell. Previn, hoping to be invited to play a piano concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra, went to Szell’s hotel room as instructed. He looked around. “Where is the piano, maestro?” “Ah, we don’t need a piano. You can play it on that,” he said, pointing to a table. Somewhat unnerved, Previn sat down and began to play the piano part of the concerto. And Szell immediately began to criticize Previn’s playing. “Too loud; too soft; not legato enough; the chords are not well voiced.” Finally, Szell stopped him, saying “It’s no use; it is unfortunately clear that you can’t play this piece.” And Previn said, “I don’t understand, maestro; it went fine on my kitchen table this morning.”

II. Learning new music

To play the organ properly, one should have a vision of Eternity.

—Charles-Marie Widor

Music, being identical with heaven, isn’t a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It’s a condition of eternity.

—Gustav Holst

Our profession offers a marvelous variety of activities. Most of us hold positions in churches and synagogues; some of us teach or play recitals. Through all these, I hope we continue to be students—studying new music, expanding our techniques, even learning from our students. Some of us study new music with the assistance of a teacher, while others learn on our own. A third possibility might be informal playing for a colleague: receiving encouragement and constructive feedback from a friend. 

This might sound strange, but when I do this I prefer playing for musicians who are not organists. Other instrumentalists will provide useful comments about lines, the need to breathe (Hurford: “Music must breathe if it is to live.”) and, especially, rhythm. They usually don’t sugarcoat their reactions. I remember, many years ago, trying out my first attempt at early French rhythms on a colleague, who was a clarinetist. “(Expletive deleted!),” he hollered; “Can’t you count?” I must have been going a little too far with my “inequalities.” Instrumentalists, unencumbered by what we organists know about styles, performance practice, and the idiosyncrasies of our instrument, will let you know some essential truths about your playing—especially rhythm and tempo!

Here are some suggestions for learning music. First, whether working alone or with a teacher, those starting out should have access to one or more organ method books (organ “tutors,” as our British colleagues say). Even advanced players return to these for their musical “vitamins”—pedal exercises, manual studies, scales, and more.

There are many excellent method books currently available, and I will mention but a few here (see details in the list of references, below). The Gleason book (Harold Gleason, Method of Organ Playing, eighth edition, 1996) continues to be a standard. I return to it when my feet are not behaving. I appreciate The Organist’s Manual by Roger Davis (1985) and very much admire the book by George Ritchie and George Stauffer, Organ Technique Modern and Early (2000), with its reference to techniques both old and new. A Practical Guide to Playing the Organ by Anne Marsden Thomas (1997), an experienced British pedagogue, is thorough and innovative. Her book even includes useful tips for practicing in a cold church: “Strap one or two hot water bottles to your body with a long scarf.” 

As you work on new music, some of the following may be helpful or thought provoking, as they have been for me. Anne Marsden Thomas writes:

• Concerning exercises: Play them as beautifully as you can. 

• Do not confuse touch with phrasing. (Touch is for clarity; phrasing is
for breaths.)

• Accent is an illusion on the organ. (An accent cannot be accomplished by merely pressing harder on the key.)

• Fingering is the means to an end. (Pedaling, too.)

Touch is perhaps the most critical of all the organist’s tools, for it is with touch that we communicate the essentials of music: rhythm, pulse, accents, breath. Touch should not be artificial or draw attention to itself. Rather, it is for the organist what diction is for the singer: in communicating to our listeners, we rely on touch to make the music clear. Peter Hurford offered an imaginative suggestion (recalled from a masterclass many years ago): Communication is accomplished by consonants—touch, articulation, and the space between notes. Emotion is expressed through aspects of legato touch—the vowels. I heartily commend Hurford’s slim but profound volume, Making Music on the Organ—a wonderful title!—published by Oxford University Press (revised edition, 1990, $51.00; https://global.oup.com). 

Additional suggestions

In choosing pieces to learn, first, it is important to like the music you are playing, so select works that you have heard and enjoy, or those written by a composer whose music you like. Second, choose music appropriate to your technical skills. It is more important to play well, of course, than to play an overly difficult piece. For example, many settings in Bach’s Orgelbüchlein are more challenging to play than the eight (“little”) preludes and fugues. (I once knew a teacher of a beginning student who said: “You’re just starting off, so let’s do something in the key of C—it’s the easiest.” So the student was assigned Bach’s Prelude in C Major, but not from the “eight little;” no, he was told to began with BWV 547—the “9/8!”)

Regarding ornaments, do not get bogged down in reading about how to play them. Seldom is there only one “correct” way of playing an embellishment. Ornaments should occur naturally. Work out your interpretation of the ornamented passages, massaging them into place. (Hurford: “Ornaments should marry with the music which they embellish.”) Then try them out on your teacher or a colleague who has a good understanding of the style. An oft-quoted line of Ralph Vaughan Williams, about studying: “I have learnt almost entirely what I have learnt by trying it out on the dog.”

With aspects of interpretation and performance practice, it is here that a teacher can be especially valuable. And, in a variation of this, what about two or more colleagues playing for one another? A group of learners, perhaps facilitated by an American Guild of Organists chapter, could meet together regularly: sharing ideas, techniques, and solutions while cheering each other on. Or, try it on the dog. In any case, play for as many people as possible. Each time we do this, we become more confident and less apprehensive about performance. 

The metronome can be very helpful in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of a practice session. When working out a new piece of music (after writing in solutions to any fingering or pedaling challenges), set the metronome to a comfortably slow tempo, one distinctly slower than the tempo at which you are able to play the notes with accurate pitches and rhythm. You may wish to begin with right hand and pedal, left hand and pedal combinations. While repeating one page or section, gradually increase the tempo one click at a time. This ensures an overall increase in tempo, but accomplished gradually so that comfort and accuracy do not suffer. As time goes by we seem to have less and less time for practicing; fortunately, at the same time we get smarter! This method can go a long way in helping you achieve the best results in the shortest time. 

Finally, quoting Anne Marsden Thomas once more: “Always play the right note.” Now, that might seem too obvious to mention. But the fact is, in playing a note incorrectly more than one time, we are in fact practicing that mistake. In a short time, we’re able to play the wrong note perfectly! It can be very difficult to erase that mistake from our motor memories.

Happy practicing! And play the right notes.

References

Davis, Roger E. The Organist’s Manual. New York: W. W. Norton, 1985.

Gleason, Harold, ed., and Catharine Crozier Gleason. Method of Organ Playing, eighth edition; Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.

Hurford, Peter. Making Music on the Organ. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988; revised edition, 1990.

Ritchie, George H. and George B. Stauffer. Organ Technique Modern and Early. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Thomas, Anne Mardsen. A Practical Guide to Playing the Organ. London: Cramer Music, Ltd., 1997. Accompanying volumes contain graded literature.