Dialogue avec une artiste: A conversation with Ann Labounsky

Steven Egler

On October 13, 2012, Robert Powell was interviewed as part of a weekend celebration of his music and in honor of his 80th birthday (July 22, 2012). Special thanks to First Congregational Church, Saginaw, Michigan, where the interview was conducted; recording technician Kenneth Wuepper of Saginaw; Dr. Richard Featheringham, Professor Emeritus in the School of Business, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, who transcribed the interview; Robert Barker, photographer; and Nicholas Schmelter, director of music at First Congregational Church.

The weekend included a recital October 13 at First Congregational Church, Saginaw, featuring Nicholas Schmelter  performing the first portion of the concert on the church’s chapel organ, Aeolian-Skinner Op. 1327 (1956), and the second portion on piano with flutist Katie Welnetz and soprano Rayechel Nieman.

A concert of choral and organ music on October 14 at Trinity Episcopal Church, Bay City, Michigan, featured the Exultate Deo Choral Ensemble, conducted by Robert Sabourin of Midland, Michigan. Steven Egler and Nicholas Schmelter were the organists, and flutists Robert Hart and Lauren Rongo performed on several compositions.

These events were co-sponsored by First Congregational Church, Saginaw; Trinity Episcopal Church, Bay City; and the Saginaw Valley Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Robert Powell, born July 22, 1932, in Benoit, Mississippi, has approximately 300 compositions in print for organ, instrumental ensembles, handbells, choir, and flute and organ. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Louisiana State University and later a Master of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York as a student of Alec Wyton. From 1958–1960 he was Wyton’s assistant organist at St. John the Divine in upper Manhattan, and from 1960–1965 was organist-choirmaster at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Meridian, Mississippi. For three years (1965–1968), he served as director of music at St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, and then from 1968–2003 served as organist-choirmaster at Christ Episcopal Church, Greenville, South Carolina, until his retirement in 2003.

A longtime member of the Association of Anglican Musicians, Powell holds the Fellow and Choirmaster certificates of the American Guild of Organists, and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), from which he has received the Standard Award for the past twenty years. His well-known and popular service for the Episcopal Eucharistic liturgy appears in The Hymnal 1982 of the Episcopal Church.

He and his wife Nancy recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and are the parents of three, grandparents of four, and great-grandparents of one. Robert Powell was interviewed by Jason Overall shortly before his retirement (see The Diapason, November 2002).

Steven Egler: We are happy to have you with us this weekend for a late celebration of your 80th birthday and to enjoy your music.

Thank you. It’s a wonderful celebration for me.

You retired as organist-choirmaster at Christ Episcopal Church, Greenville, South Carolina, in 2003, but you are still playing. Is that correct?

That’s right. I’m playing in a small Methodist church. I started out to retire, and I managed three weeks. The first week I played for the Presbyterian church, and the second week I played for the Episcopal church I now attend. The third week I stayed home and wrote songs on Mary Baker Eddy texts for a lady who came later to Greenville as one of the actors in the Phantom of the Opera. She came over and we played through some songs. She gave us free tickets to Phantom of the Opera and took us backstage to show us how they made the boats go around and how the mechanics worked. That was enough retirement for me.

So it may be moot to ask if you miss being in church work, whether it’s full time or part time.

It’s different being in full-time church work. When I went to Christ Church, membership was about 1,500; when I left it was 4,000. There were lots of staff meetings and such. I felt like I never worked a day in my life, except at staff meetings. (laughter) Otherwise, I was writing, directing the choirs, and all that. I don’t miss it, but at the same time I do. I went straight into a small position where I don’t worry about choir members coming or going, and just play the organ—that is great fun. We have a good choir director, too; she and I are great friends. It’s five minutes from home, and they keep the church at 72 degrees all day and all night year round. 

We discussed that you were going to learn how to say “no” by the time you were 75. Have you learned how?

I have NOT learned how to say “no,” but it’s led to some interesting things. One time someone wanted me to write a setting of “Abide with Me” and to include the Agnus Dei. I didn’t think that the Agnus Dei had any relationship to “Abide with Me,” but I wrote it anyway and it was published.

Another instance was at the library snack shop. A man came over with a stack of papers. On the music paper he had written down a tune by Louis Bourgeois, and on the other stack a French poem he had translated and wanted me to set to the tune. This would have been a wonderful opportunity to say “no,” and I said “Ah,” but I did think that it would be a challenge. I set the text and it worked out because the poem was good. 

He told me exactly what to do. He wanted an introduction, a soprano solo in French, and then the choir—a tenor/bass choir—would sing in English; there would be an organ interlude, and the second verse would be sung by the choir in unison, and then the oboe and the organ would play. So I did all of those things and filled in the blanks. It was great fun.

If you had said “no,” it wouldn’t have happened.

No. On the other hand, people have come up with ideas for years, and I haven’t always agreed; but many projects have turned out to be blessings in disguise.

You just go forward and never stop composing.

Oh, yes. I go to the church in the morning and always write at the keyboard. I just write notes, so writing at the keyboard of an organ is the same as writing at the piano keyboard. I am not thinking that this will use a 16-foot stop here, a cromhorne or flute. I just push General 3 and hope for the best. (laughter)

You are still very prolific.

Some people don’t know when to put the pencil down! 

Austin Lovelace told me one time that this writing thing cycles. There are times when you are writing things and it is going really well. Sometimes you get to some part and you can’t do it; you go to sleep at night and the next day it’s already done because the subconscious takes care of it. 

Are you writing more music now?

That’s right. I have more time to write. I just go down to the church; I spend less time at it but write more. I am not as careful as Duruflé or someone like that would be. My teacher, Searle Wright, would say, “Write it down as fast as you possibly can and go back and correct it later.”

So I do it as fast as I possibly can and then I go back and correct my work. I have six publishers to submit music to. If they don’t want an anthem, I turn it into an organ piece and send it somewhere else. Sometimes that is accepted, so this recycling continues.

What are your current projects?

For the AGO Region IV Convention in Columbia, South Carolina, in 2013, I wrote a set of variations on “On This Day” (tune: Personent hodie). It’s a wild tune and was a challenge, but I managed to get six variations on the theme. It’s going to be played by Charles Tompkins: he suggested me for the commission. I’m also working on some pieces for GIA for brass and organ. 

How much does improvisation play into your composing?

A lot. John Ferguson told me one time what he does—I don’t know if he composes at the piano, but he must because he improvises and he writes his improvisations down. The hard thing about writing is getting an initial idea. John Rutter said that. Get the initial idea—a little motive—and improvise on a theme to get the initial idea and fill in the blanks. 

Improvisation has become more important both in organ playing in general and also in academia, where a certain amount of improvisation is expected.

Organists must improvise sooner or later. The wedding is going to start late and you have played all your music twice, the second time with different registrations, and the bride still hasn’t arrived, so you have to play something. You will feel better if you add something besides a C major chord, an F major chord, or a G major chord. In Searle Wright’s course, we had to learn how to improvise in different situations. It was fun and he was such a great teacher. He would use students’ names at graduations at Columbia at the cathedral [St. John the Divine] and he improvised on the names of three boys who had gotten doctorates: Cline, Davis, and Harrison. He would improvise on the syllables in their names. It was so clever, and then he’d throw in a fugue at the end. It was wonderful and so good. We were all pleased to be in his class.

Did those people know that was happening?

No, of course not. Only he knew it. It was so clever. I was fortunate to have such teachers in New York. I had Seth Bingham, too, after Harold Friedell died. Friedell played at St. Bartholomew’s Church and taught us all to improvise. Improvising is so important not just for weddings and funerals and things, but there are people who must have music to move from one place to another in the service—they must have some kind of walking music. You can just flop around or you can make some kind of form out of it. When the little kids come down for a kids’ sermon, then you can really have fun with that. It is always fun to create something on the spot.

I was very curious about your comment in The Diapason’s 2002 article concerning relationships.

If you have a good relationship with your choir, they will sing for you no matter what. Alec Wyton said that the choir director is 90 percent personality and 10 percent musical ability. So I have been fortunate in that I like the choir and the choir seems to like me, and we get along very well.

I was watching Bob Sabourin rehearse this morning—he is mentoring the entire choir, and thus they want to sing for him. He works them hard, which they should do; they don’t just chatter and carry on. They work hard because they want to, and come back because they like to. That’s the relationship that we organists and choir directors need with our choirs.

Now, in regard to the clergy, I have always had collegial relationships; I have always been able to say let’s have a cup of coffee and talk about something. I have always worked with good clergy who were very supportive. 

The church secretary/administrative assistant is absolutely wonderful. She’s from Mississippi like me and she will do things outside of her job description. In the Methodist church right now the minister, of course, and the secretary are Methodists, and the two Episcopalians are the choir director and the organist. We have a great relationship—all four of us—and we don’t have staff meetings.

That makes it even better.

You’re absolutely right. Sometimes the pastor, the choir, and organist can be very distant from everyone else. In the church where I am serving now, before the service starts we go down in the congregation and “play the crowd.” Then the minister gets up and says the announcements, the call to worship, and then I play the prelude, which means they have to listen.

That is a wonderful way to establish rapport with your church members. 

It works better in a small church. Going out into a church with 600 in the congregation—it’s hard to do that. But you can do it in small churches, where everybody knows each other. I am as fortunate as anybody could be. My advice to church musicians is to get to know everybody you can, work as hard as you can, and be cognizant of relationships with everybody in the parish—not just the choir.

I love the story about your playing too many verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Bishop Pike was at St. John the Divine before he became a bishop. I played “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” and played and played and lost my place and wasn’t looking, and I played 13 verses before I finally decided maybe I had better end. But I was forgiven. Then one time I played a hymn in the wrong place, and the clergyman whose name was Howard Johnson—a wonderful fellow—said when I told him this sad story, “The heavens didn’t fall.” 

And yet playing the text is important. I have students who come in and all the notes are just right, but they haven’t read any of the text and don’t know where to punctuate or breathe.

They’ll do something like “Thy kingdom come! On bended knee” (author: Frederick Hosmer). I don’t want the kingdom to come on bended knee particularly. My mentor told me to breathe with the congregation and to make them breathe and leave the same time between verses. I found the trick to that is to hold onto the last chord. When I let it go they know that I am trying to start. 

Tell us about your time with Alec Wyton.

We had Evensong every day except Monday, so I played the Evensong along with Morning Prayer. He wanted to make sure I knew how to play Anglican chant, so he didn’t play every service.  Of course, he conducted many services and I played a lot of them when he was conducting and that was a difficult task:  but he was down on the floor, and I was up in the loft. 

Let’s discuss teaching and mentoring.

I was fortunate to have people who saw something in me that I didn’t see.  The first one I had in high school was an organist named Walter Park. He was a wonderful fellow. He became the band director to just keep eating, but it didn’t suit him very well. He played in a small Episcopal church and I had a one-hour organ lesson every week. After the organ lesson, we would then have a three-hour composition lesson—all for the same price. I finally learned to write a little march like a Sousa march, and I used these ancient books that taught you voice leading. It was wonderful. Preston Ware Orem was the author of the book, Harmony Book for Beginners (1919). 

Mr. Park was a great person and encouraged me to write things, and I would bring them and we would look at them and talk about them. He made me feel that what I was doing was worthwhile. That is what mentors do. Later, of course, I studied with Alec Wyton who thought that I could be an assistant without falling completely to pieces. I told him at one time that I was scared of that place—blocks of stone! You know it scares you to death. There were other people who over the years were kind and helpful. But those two are the main ones.

So a teacher isn’t always a mentor?

These people and I were working together—we were learning the pieces together, writing the pieces together. I wrote the pieces and we would go over them. You might have done something here entirely different, let’s try that and see what happens—it was as if we were learning them together. That is true mentoring. It is difficult to be a mentor. I’m not that. It is probably easier for people who are full-time teachers.

I use the term “psyching out” the choir for a Sunday morning: that is mentoring. You are doing something that might be more difficult, and they’re hesitant about it.

They have the full confidence in you as the choir director. They will do their best, but they are not confident. One terrible thing happened during the Bach cantata “Praise Our God.” We were singing it in English and the choir got lost—completely lost in the final movement. Somewhere along the line a soprano came in and had the right place, and they all picked it up. I didn’t stop, I just kept on going. That kind of thing is challenging. Another time we did the St. John Passion with half the orchestra on this side and half the orchestra on the other side. Half the orchestra had gotten one-half beat behind the other half, and so we got through the first 26 pages and they had this extra beat. We started in for the da capo and we did it right the second time. I wasn’t going to stop!

What would you say afterward to your choir members when things didn’t go well?

I told them that it’s ok to make a mistake; I don’t dwell on it. “The heavens didn’t fall.” We have something else to do next week anyway. Don’t say too much about the mistakes. Think about the good things and move on.

What are your thoughts on the status of things in the church today?

I try to keep up with what is going on. There is some good writing among the church composers today, and I could name ten of them. One publisher told me a long time ago that they had put the music submissions in three piles: some of them they certainly don’t want, and the middle one could go either way. So much of that stuff is ok, and those tend to be both boring and exciting; and so choosing music is very difficult. 

What are their criteria for selecting music for publication?

I would say how they set the text, where the accents fall, and what kind of voicing they have. I can write for college choirs sometimes and make it interesting, but I don’t have a college choir to experiment with, and I never really had. I have always had between 15 and 20 people, so you write for what you have. Is the range bad or good, does it have an independent organ accompaniment?  

Publishers respond to various trends, and they are watching what happens.  Right now it seems that organ composers are writing music based upon gospel hymns. I have recently published three of my favorite gospel song arrangements. I enjoyed doing the gospel settings—I had fun with them.

It’s great to have them, and particularly the churches where they sing these hymns. To play “Sleepers Awake” is one thing, but not if they don’t know the hymn. They DO know “Fairest Lord Jesus,” “Open My Eyes That I May See,” and “Standing on the Promises,” and they can relate to these old favorites. Publishers may choose these arrangements in particular.

When you were in the Bronx, you had two anthems in the choir library.

On-the-job training. That’s what we would do, and Everett Hilty was the on-the-job supervisor [at Union Theological Seminary]. All I had was just one tenor, a few women, and a couple of basses. And the tenor anthem was “Seek Ye the Lord” by J. Rollins—one of the two anthems that I had. The other one was Wallingford Rieger’s “Easter Passacaglia,” which was for 16 parts. If they had had two sets of choirs, they couldn’t have sung that one. So in the end, I wrote two parts real quick. You know what sounds good and what doesn’t. You don’t have to make a canon of it, but you have to make the sound good.  

In the 2002 interview, you mentioned that a balance between “renewal” and “classical” music is more desirable. Can you elaborate?

We had that at Christ Church. They had everything—classical, Anglican; but the other service—the bigger one—had plenty of guitars, basses, flutes that would play during the communion or special occasions, offertory or something, and the rest of it would be traditional. We used Hyfrydol or some of the traditional hymns. I didn’t play for it since they didn’t use organ; they had a piano player. It worked out very well. 

That parish was large enough to accommodate different services.

A small parish would probably end up going one way or the other. We attended a service in a nearby city, and we expected it to be a traditional Episcopal service and it wasn’t. It was the guitars and a singer with a microphone up front. I think they had a string of eight guitars, too. Flashed the words on the screen. Some classical person might be turned off, but it didn’t turn me it off. It was a very devotional service, and there was nothing wrong with it. It was just unusual—going in expecting something and coming out having experienced something else.

I tried different things when I was a choir director. If I had to advise anybody, it would be to try different things. One time we had handbells, and we were going to do “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.” The handbells and singers were going to come in and play something, and on the other side of the church they would come in from the other transept singing and playing the handbells. We were supposed to have been together all the time. Well, it didn’t work. Nobody was together. Handbells were playing, the people were singing, and there wasn’t much happening!

Then another time we had 40 in the choir and were going to do the Schütz Psalm 100. We had three choirs that were echoes—one choir and two echoes. The piece is wonderful, but I did it wrong. I put the main choir down front facing each other, and I put the first echo choir in the back, facing the congregation, and I put the third echo choir in the anteroom. We had loud, moderately loud, and soft, but we did it anyway.   

We experimented with Richard Felciano’s pieces, and they went very well. We had gospel choirs come in and sing with us, and we did all of this wonderful community stuff. It is good fun to try these different experiments and see what might happen. I had a brass group come in to play—half downstairs and half in the balcony and it did work. All these experiments worked out. Doing the same anthem six times a year: that’s not good fun.

Right now we’re in a situation where the congregation likes a wide variety of anthems—and sometimes you use the junior choir. We have a choir of 12 when they are all there—no tenors, and four good basses, and the sopranos are great. For a junior choir, you take an SATB anthem and make an SAB anthem out of it. You have to experiment; it is good training—you have eight people here in the choir and none of them tenors; what do you do? You can do all kinds of things.

One has to have an eye [and ear] for what will work.

You have to compose FOR them. Same thing as playing a descant in something; for instance, everybody knows Fairest Lord Jesus and it has a descant floating above, just for organ—that makes you sort of a minor composer compared to a major composer.

Regarding hymnals—you worked with the 1982 book for the Episcopal Church.

I thought The Hymnal 1940 was a treasure; Leo Sowerby was the general editor. The Hymnal 1982—my good friend Ray Glover was general editor—is very good. Other good influences upon the 1982 book were James Litton, David Hurd, and Marilyn Keiser, among others. Most of the hymns I find are very fine, including some of the hymns by Calvin Hampton. Some of the other denominational hymnals have included more Spanish hymns in their hymnals.

What do you have to say about that in terms of the future of hymnbooks?

We just don’t know what’s going to happen with the hymnbooks. It depends on how big your congregation is and if you have people from different cultures. I think there should be hymns for everybody—American hymns, Spanish hymns and Mexican hymns, Scandinavian hymns—because you never know when some enterprising organist will want to make them better known in their parish. I think they should be there.

Tell us about your involvement with organizations.

Oh, yes. I was with the Choristers Guild board for six years and that was a wonderful thing. I was on the AGO certification committee for four years and that was fun, too. There were some wonderful people there—Joyce Shupe Kull and Kathleen Thomerson—and I enjoyed meeting in New York at the AGO headquarters. I was involved with the orchestration portion of the exam.

I was on the National Council for six years (Councillor for Region V), and there were so many very good people who conducted the examinations. We divided the responsibilities according to our areas of expertise and discussed the questions/answers. 

You have been involved with the Association of Anglican Musicians.

They met in Greenville last year. I wrote them two anthems (published by Selah), and I was very pleased and excited. Some other people wrote music and then there was talk about professional concerns: problems that we all have, such as getting fired without due notice—to know what the people are doing about it; and they usually have very good sermons. Jeffrey Smith, the late Gerre Hancock, Marilyn Keiser, and others—always concerned with preserving good Episcopal church music. It is a great organization.

Tell me about your ASCAP award.

Alec Wyton asked if I wanted to be in ASCAP. They have a list of approved pieces for each composer—I have 170 pieces approved by ASCAP. When so many of my pieces are performed each year, I receive an award. They have given me the same award for the last 20 years.

Your biography mentions restoring a link to St. James. 

St. James, the oldest Episcopal church in the country, is in New London, Connecticut. They asked me to write a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis 35 years ago. As far as I know they never performed it. Then about five years ago a group of people called me up there, and they performed my music. It was great, but it has taken them 35 years. It was discovered in the church basement—when they were cleaning out the church basement, which they clean out once every 35 years! But they were kind enough to perform it, and they asked me to write another piece for them, so I ended up writing the Benedictus es, Domine. I set the text in English, and they said they took it to Bristol Cathedral in England. They are wonderful people out there and very good group of singers.

Tell us a little about your family.

I’m going to be a great-grandfather. Yes, we have three kids—one of them is still going to school, and he is about 50. The oldest one is married and has two children. She is a nurse practitioner in San Diego. My wife was a nurse, and my mother was a nurse. The granddaughter works in a hospital. You can’t be sick in our family with all those nurses. Of the three children, the youngest works for the patent office. They have sent him to Tokyo five times and to St. Petersburg and Moscow. He’s had a happy career. His wife works for a defense contractor, and they have two kids.

Would you change anything?

I would do it all over again. I can’t think of anything I would want to change. I would not go to staff meetings, if I didn’t have to.

How do you see your legacy as a church musician and as a composer? 

I don’t know what to say. I don’t think people should copy what I do specifically, because everybody has his/her own style—they should focus on what they are doing and hope that what they do will be memorable or useful to their generation and to following generations. You just don’t know what you have done that is going to be appreciated, such as with my communion service. I am pleased and flattered, and nothing can be better than to have your music sung. 

I hope that people who continue after me will write for real people. Craftsmanship is important, but music should be easy for real people to sing, not so complicated that only the collegiate choir can sing it. 

Erik Routley commented that he knew that there would be other hymnbooks and yet hoped they will keep a lot of the traditional material.

Traditional is good, and it fills that criteria—to be singable by real people, not just choirs. 

Congregations do not know how to read music that is going to jump a ninth or a seventh—not unless they are really lucky. You do want to make the congregation happy—they DO pay the salaries. Yet you don’t want to go overboard and dumb down to them; you want to meet them at their same level. You don’t want to take something like “Open My Eyes” and make a caricature of it. That is not a good thing. 

This has been a huge pleasure. I will look forward to the next major birthday.

That’s right. At 90 we’ll do this all over again! 

Steven Egler

*Moniker assigned to Fred Swann in the printed program for the AGO 2008 Distinguished Performer Award.

 

Frederick Swann is one of the most well-known organists of the 20th and early 21st centuries. In this conversation, which is really a mini-biography, he reveals much behind-the-scenes information about his numerous high-profile positions, his relationship with the Murtagh/McFarlane Artist Management, and his early musical experiences, along with observations about the organ and church music today. He is an extremely humble man who has met his many challenges and professional opportunities with modesty and dignity. 

Swann’s honors and achievements in recent years include: 2002, International Performer of the Year by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists; 2004, inaugural recital on the organ in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles; 2008, AGO Endowment Fund Distinguished Performer Award; 2009, Paul Creston Award by St. Malachy’s Chapel, New York City. In November 2014, he will be honored by the East Texas Pipe Organ Festival.

He has performed inaugural recitals on symphony-hall organs at Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Davies Hall (San Francisco), and Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall (Costa Mesa).

Frederick Swann is currently the consultant for the Ruffatti organ restoration project at the renamed Christ Cathedral, formerly the Crystal Cathedral, where he was director of music and organist (1982–1998). Christ Cathedral is scheduled to reopen in 2016. (See The Diapason, June 2014, pp. 26–28.)

This interview was conducted on May 8, 2014, in Saginaw, Michigan, as Swann was preparing for his May 9 inaugural recital on Scott Smith and Company Opus 3, a project renovating Skinner Organ Company Opus 751. Thanks go to Kenneth Wuepper of Saginaw, Michigan, the recording technician for the interview; the First Congregational Church, Saginaw, Michigan; and to Fred Swann himself for allowing us to interview him, for his assistance with editing, and for providing the photos that accompany this piece.

 

Steven Egler: Please tell us about your early years and your family. 

Frederick Swann: I am the son of a minister, and there were six children—three boys and three girls. I was number five, and there was a big space between me and the four older ones. 

From the very beginning, I was fascinated by the piano, and I would frequently bang on it at age 3 or 4. My parents were not particularly happy about that, so they locked the piano. Of course, any three-year-old can figure out how to get into a piano if he really wants to, and I did! 

When I was five, they decided that I could have piano lessons from May Carper, the organist of a church near my father’s church in Winchester, Virginia. One day I arrived early for a lesson and couldn’t find her. But I heard the organ going, and finally I found her at the organ console. I was hypnotized watching things popping in and out, lights were flashing, her hands and feet were flying, and I thought, “Oh my! That looks like fun. I’ve got to do that!” 

I asked her if I could play, but my legs were so short they wouldn’t reach the pedals. I kept after her, so she bribed me: if I had a good piano lesson, she would let me “bang” on the organ for five minutes before I went home. Then when my legs got longer—when I was about eight—she started showing me things about the organ and that you had to play it differently—not like a piano. They were really not organ lessons, because I just was continuing on the piano, but she still told me a lot about the organ. It was very good that she did because the organist in my father’s church, Braddock Street Methodist Church, suddenly died, and I became the organist of the church—there was no one else to play. It must have been simply awful, but that’s how I got started at age ten, and I’ve just kept on. I was a lucky kid since I didn’t have to decide what I was going to do when I grew up: I just started playing and kept doing it. 

 

Can you recall what those early church services were like and being thrust onto the bench?

Mostly I just played the hymns. The choir director, Madeline Riley, was somewhat of an organist herself, but the console was not located where she could play and direct. I would play the hymns, and she would show me how to play simple accompaniments.

I would practice during the week, and then my Saturday routine was that I always went to the horse opera theater—cowboy Western—for ten cents. On my way home, I’d go by the church and make sure that I had everything ready for the next morning.

I don’t remember too much about the services, except that it was an old Möller organ and setting the pistons made a lot of noise. I would love to “play with” setting the pistons, and the choir director would always come around to slap my hands because they could hear the noise out in the church. 

My biggest excitement came one Easter morning. There were certain stops that I was not allowed to use, and one was a great big Open Diapason in the Great. The church, however, was full and they were really singing, so she came by and pulled out the Open Diapason. I was just thrilled to death! I thought, “This is heaven,” since I had not been allowed to make that much noise before. 

That went on for a couple years, and then we moved down valley to Staunton in 1943. There I started studying with the organist of Trinity Episcopal Church, Dr. Carl Broman, singing in the choir, and getting a lot of very good musical education at the same time. He was a very fine musician.

 

You mentioned moving as a PK (preacher’s kid). Was that frequent as a child?

Not so much. I left home to go to school when I wasn’t quite 16, and we had only lived in three places. I was born in Lewisburg, West Virginia, but only lived there six weeks. We then moved to Clifton Forge, Virginia, where my father, Theodore M. Swann, pastored the Methodist church. Six years later, we moved to Winchester and the Braddock Street Methodist Church for six years (1937–1943). Then we moved down the Shenandoah Valley to Staunton, where my father became a district superintendent and later a bishop. We didn’t have a home church as such because he was always traveling to other churches. This is the main reason I was allowed to attend Trinity Episcopal Church in Staunton where I was confirmed at age 13. I just loved it—the liturgy and the great music.

 

What attracted you to Northwestern University?

To tell you the truth, my childhood was not the happiest, and at that point in my life, the farthest place away that I had heard of was Chicago. With my Methodist background and it being a Methodist school, I won a scholarship and went there.

 

You studied with Thomas Matthews (1915–1999) who is known particularly for his choral anthems. How was he as a teacher? 

He was a fine teacher, and a very quiet but very fun man. He was inspiring as a teacher and was willing to let me try anything. He gave me very good ideas.

Most of my lessons were at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Evanston, on the fantastic E.M. Skinner organ. By my senior year, I’d started to do a lot of accompanying. Matthews was also the director of the Chicago Bach Choir that, for some reason, met in Evanston at St. Luke’s Church.

In 1952, we did the second United States performance of the Duruflé Requiem. The first had been performed slightly earlier at Calvary Church in New York City. At last count, I’ve played that marvelous work 91 times during my career. I played it many years later at Riverside Church with Duruflé himself conducting. 

Tom [Matthews] was a great improviser, so I learned a lot about improvisation and colorful use of the organ, both in organ literature and in adapting piano/orchestral scores to the organ.

I also studied with John Christensen, who was the organist at the First Methodist Church in Evanston, and was his assistant organist during my four years in college. During my senior year, I also became organist and choir director at First Baptist Church upon the retirement of William Harrison Barnes (1892–1980). Dr. Barnes was the author of The Contemporary American Organ (1930) and well known as an organ consultant.

 

You said that the Barnes family “adopted” you?

When I arrived on the scene at Northwestern University, they heard me play and thought that I was advanced for my age. They also had recently lost a son, and for some reason, I reminded them of him and they decided to take me into the family. They were also responsible for my introduction to Virgil Fox (1912–1980) and took me on my first trip to New York City. On Sunday, they took me to the choir loft of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to meet the organist, their close friend Charles Courboin (1884–1973). During the sermon at the Mass, Dr. Courboin said to me, “Why don’t you play the postlude?” Of course, I had never played in a room like that or on an organ of that size, but I knew the Langlais Te Deum from memory, so I managed to get through it with the crescendo pedal and a general piston or two. Later, I became very good friends with Dr. Courboin, and, in fact, I studied the complete organ works of Franck with him. This was a great privilege, for he was widely regarded as an expert on the works of Franck. He was a very fun-loving and wonderful man. He and his wife were both so good to me, and he never charged me a penny for all of those lessons!

 

You attended Union Theological Seminary. With whom did you study?

My primary teacher was Hugh Porter (1897–1960), who was the director of the School of Sacred Music at the seminary. The best thing, however, particularly at that time, was just being in New York. Those days were often referred to as the “glory days” because of the great names in church music who were at the other churches in town. On Sunday afternoons, you could hear Evensong at St. Thomas or St. Bartholomew’s. Plus, there were many choral programs and other concerts all of the time, so you learned as much being exposed to music itself in New York as you did with actual classroom or lesson study. 

 

What advice do you have for young people these days who see themselves being organists as their primary calling, attend university, and expect to be prepared for the big, wide world?

I usually remind my students that they really have to love playing the organ and really have to love what they are doing. 

As far as becoming a concert organist, one has to realize that the field is very full. There are dozens and dozens of organists under management, many of whom play very few recitals because there are so many organists available. 

If you think that you want to be a church organist, if this is something you feel you just have to do, go ahead and do it. But realize that there are not that many full-time church jobs where you are going to be able to make a living. So, learn the organ, play it as well as you can, find a church to play in, but be aware that you may also need other sources of income, maybe teaching or perhaps even something in the business world.

One of my current university students at Redlands is also studying to become a dentist, and he is one of the most talented students I’ve ever had. I believe that he could have a career in the concert field and in church work, but he’s preparing to have some other source of income. 

It’s not that there aren’t jobs available: they’re just not jobs at which you can make a living.

 

I’d like to discuss the sizes of the various organs you have played. One source cites First Congregational Church, Christ Cathedral (formerly Crystal Cathedral), and Riverside Church respectively as the third, fifth, and fifteenth largest organs in the world. You have presided over each one of these instruments. 

Theoretically, the First Congregational Church in Los Angeles, where I was for three years after I retired from the Crystal Cathedral, contains the world’s largest church organ. There’s very little difference in the size of First Congregational and the organ at the Cathedral of St. Stephen in Passau, Germany, but interestingly, in a book that I picked up the last time I played there, it lists the largest organs in the world; they even put First Congregational’s organ before theirs! 

Actually, the Wanamaker organ (now Macy’s) in Philadelphia is the world’s largest operating organ. (The Atlantic City, New Jersey, Boardwalk Hall—formerly the Atlantic City Convention Center—organ is bigger, but most of it doesn’t play at this point.) 

Many people are obsessed with size, yet size is not everything. I have played many small and modest-sized instruments that were extremely beautiful and satisfying.

 

Please tell us about New York and the various pre-Riverside positions that you held. 

When I was in school at Union, I had a fieldwork position, the West Center Church in Bronxville, New York, but at that time I had already agreed to substitute for Virgil Fox whenever he was away, which was quite a bit.

My job in Bronxville was with the understanding that I had to be at Riverside when necessary. I was the official substitute organist (at Riverside) for a couple of years. When I graduated, Clarence Dickinson (1873–1969), whom I knew very well, had a heart attack—he was the organist and choirmaster at the Brick Church—and they asked me if I would fill in for him for nearly two years. At the same time, I became Harold Friedell’s (1905–1958) assistant at St. Bartholomew’s Church. I’d play in the morning at the Brick Church at 92nd Street and run down Park Avenue to play 4 o’clock Evensong at St. Bartholomew’s. There was a church in between called Park Avenue Christian Church, and they performed their oratorios at 2 o’clock on Sunday afternoon. Sometimes I would stop there and accompany an oratorio between playing services at Brick Church and St. Bart’s. 

Some Sundays, I also played Riverside! I would finish at St. Bart’s, jump off the bench (Harold [Friedell] would finish the service), run downstairs and out the door where there was a car waiting to whisk me to Riverside. Somebody else would have played the opening hymn, and I’d jump on the bench and play the oratorio. It was crazy and I don’t how I did it, except that when you’re young, you do all kinds of foolish things and don’t think anything about it.

 

Of course, I assume that you knew the organs and had rehearsed with the choirs.

Yes, plus the enormous amount of preparation for all the other music involved. 

 

And those were with just organ accompaniments and no orchestra?

Yes. Fortunately, the organs were all big, beautiful instruments with every color in the world, and it was a wonderful experience. After a while, I played almost every oratorio in the standard repertory. At Riverside we even did the United States premieres of a couple of works—Stabat Mater (1925–1926) of Szymanowsky (1882–1937) and the Hodie (1954) of Vaughan Williams (1872–1958). It was a wonderful experience, both to learn the music and also to learn how to adapt the scores quickly to the organ.

 

Were you ever overwhelmed playing those large instruments?

No, but there were many challenges and satisfaction in being able to find solutions. 

I can remember Maurice and Marie-Madeleine Chevalier-Duruflé, who were very good friends, when they played their first recital in America at the Riverside Church. They had come for the 1964 AGO national convention in Philadelphia the week before, but Maurice had hurt his back and couldn’t perform, so Marie-Madeleine played the recital. 

I’m telling you this because I’m thinking about big organs and how they affect people. When the Duruflés entered the Riverside chancel and saw the console, Maurice put his hand on his head and said, “Oh, mon Dieu!” Marie-Madeleine said, “Ooooooo,” rubbing her hands. She just couldn’t wait to get at it. I don’t think that I ever said “Ooooo” and rubbed my hands, but I was always so thrilled by the color possibilities of an organ such as the Riverside organ.

When I first played at Riverside in 1952, the organ was not the Aeolian-Skinner. It was the original 1931 Hook & Hastings controlled by the Aeolian-Skinner console that had been recently installed. When they began putting in the new organ in 1953, they had to keep the organ going every Sunday for services, oratorios, and everything else. I can remember one time when there were two Greats—the old Great was on one side of the chancel, and the new Great was on the other. I had to flip a switch depending on which Great I was using. It was a real headache and I didn’t get that much time at the organ, but here again when you’re young, you think, “Oh well. I’ll work it out.” It was a challenge.

 

You mention color and large instruments. I’ve heard you play many times, both in person and on recordings, and I can say that you are an organ symphonist in how you approach your music-making. Obviously, all of these instruments that you have experienced have been an incredible influence upon you.

Absolutely. On any instrument, I explore every stop in the organ, and of course, with a large organ, it is important to find orchestral colors for the oratorio accompaniments. I always feel that if there’s a stop there, it’s supposed be used and you can usually find a way to do it. 

 

Please tell us about your time at Riverside Church in New York City. 

In the fall of 1952, I started substituting for Virgil Fox, and in 1957 the staff at the church changed quite a bit. Virgil’s career began to blossom, and thus, he was there very rarely, so they decided they would hire an organist. I was hired as organist, not as assistant organist, at the church. From then until his association with the church dissolved completely in 1965, he very rarely played—probably a handful of times a year, but his name was kept because he was famous. 

I was actually in the Army when I was appointed organist. I was not going to be released for another six months, so Richard Peek, who was studying in New York at the time, filled in for me as organist for the next several months. Then in January 1958, I started playing full-time.

 

Did you ever work directly with Virgil Fox? 

Maybe a few times, but very rarely. He was a real character in addition, of course, to being an incredible musician and technician. Amazing! 

 

So William H. Barnes introduced you to Virgil Fox. Was he responsible for getting you in the door at Riverside? 

Absolutely. Virgil was born in Illinois and got his career start in Illinois—that’s where he met the Barneses. As a result, I knew Virgil before that first trip to New York. 

 

Please tell us about the choir program at Riverside, which was well known and directed by Richard Weagley (1909–1989). 

He was a great musician and wonderful to work with. He retired in 1967, when the program had been reduced from an oratorio every Sunday to just eight or nine a season. There was less work, so they asked me if I would be director of music and organist, which meant that I was the primary organist but was responsible mainly for the choir. Then I was given an assistant organist, and I had some great ones: Marilyn Keiser, John Walker, and Robert MacDonald, to name a few. They were wonderful people, and we’ve remained lifelong friends. I had the whole show, basically, until I left January 1, 1983, to move to California.

 

One of the first recordings I heard of you was with the marvelous soprano Louise Natale (1918–1992). 

Louise was a fabulous soprano. She had sung with Robert Shaw and was one of his main soloists for many years, and we were so fortunate to have her at Riverside. I encouraged her to sing [Jaromir] Weinberger’s (1896–1967) cantata, The Way to Emmaus (1940), and she did it magnificently with that organ to accompany her. 

We started doing it on Easter afternoon, and we did it for 25 consecutive Easters! After all of the loud music and the “Alleluias” all morning and then to come at 5 o’clock with the sun streaming across the Hudson through the beautiful windows and to end the Easter Day quietly was a very moving experience for a lot of people, and eventually the church was filled. 

 

Did you position the console so that you were able to conduct the choir from the console? 

The console was not movable and worked just fine as far as services were concerned, but for the oratorios I would have to go out front and conduct while one of my assistants played. I think the only time I played and had somebody else conduct was when we performed Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. The accompaniment was so complicated and so wonderful that I wanted to hear it using all of that organ. So we engaged as conductor Dr. Harvey Smith from Arizona (now deceased). Of course, I had trained the choir before he arrived.

 

Could you explain why there was overlapping time before you left Riverside and when you began your position at the Crystal Cathedral? 

When the Crystal Cathedral had just been built and the organ installed, there were many festivities to open the organ. Pierre Cochereau came to play with orchestra, and a week later I played the first solo recital on the organ. Additionally, they asked me, as long I was there, to play the Sunday morning service. I played the morning service, and afterwards, Dr. and Mrs. Schuller wanted to meet with me. They asked me if I would become the organist of the church. I told them that they had a very fine organist, Richard Unfried, who was a friend of mine, and that the job did not exist. I said that I knew they were without a director of music and asked them if they’d like to discuss that. They said, “No,” that they only wanted me to play the organ. I indicated that I was not interested, since they already had a fine organist. 

So I went home to New York, and four days later, there at my office door at Riverside Church stood Robert Schuller. He said, “I just want you to know that Arvella and I have come light years since our discussion last Sunday, and we’d like to offer you the position of director of music and organist. Would you please fly out to meet with us next Monday to make arrangements.” He then turned around and left! 

I flew out to California with no intention whatsoever of moving, but I had already fallen under the magic spell of that fantastic cathedral and the organ, and as is sometimes said, “They made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse.” 

The arrangement that we finally made was that I would spend one week a month in California—working with the choir, etc.—and the other three weeks a month in New York. That’s what I did the first six months and then moved full-time to California in January 1983. 

I played the last service at Riverside at midnight, December 31, 1982, and then January 2, 1983, I flew to Toronto to play a recital in Roy Thomson Hall, and then flew immediately to California to meet the moving van, set up housekeeping, and get started with the new position. 

People would always ask me if I missed New York, and I’d tell them that I didn’t have time to miss New York! The music program was very large (at the Crystal Cathedral) with several hundred people in the program. I had to learn the organ and get the choir going, so I didn’t have time to think—to miss New York.

 

What was it like working with Robert Schuller (b. 1926)? 

It was wonderful. What you see on television with him is what you get. Both he and Mrs. Schuller, Arvella de Haan (1929–2014), treated me beautifully all the years that I was there, and we became very good friends. 

Dr. Schuller wasn’t around that much since he was always out speaking and raising money. Mrs. Schuller was in charge of worship and the music.

It took us a while to learn which buttons to push with each other, but we eventually became very good friends. She was an organist herself and told me I could do Palestrina and Hubert Parry’s I was glad anytime that I wanted, but I would have to do “the other things that we do,” too. But they wanted me specifically to bring that type of music—the “big Eastern church music.” They wanted me to provide music they felt would be commensurate with the new cathedral building, a great organ, and a fine choir. Thus, I was able to stretch them in doing a lot of that music, but they also stretched me into various other forms of music. 

There was an enormous variety of music. We could have a country-Western singer, a Metropolitan Opera star, an English cathedral anthem, and a Bach prelude and fugue, all of these and more in one service, but the best thing was that whatever we did was done with the best taste, and to the best of everyone’s ability.

Johnnie Carl, a fantastic musician, was in charge of the instrumental program and contemporary music. It was a learning experience for all of us, and I thoroughly enjoyed my 16-plus years there. The people made it: the choir especially. 

 

And you just happened to be on television every week, too!

Yes, eventually I got over being nervous about cameras peering over my shoulder, and occasionally I’d look up and see a cameraman standing on top of the organ console getting ready to shoot something! It was all very enjoyable, and many stories can be told about that!

 

That’s almost a book.

Oh, easily! One of those stories is about Alicia the tiger that was born at the cathedral. Her mother was one of the 60 animals used in the “Glory of Easter” production. I knew her mother, and her mother’s trainer. After Alicia was about a week old I went to the animal compound and played with her mother a bit, and the trainer gradually moved Alicia closer. Her mother didn’t object, so I picked up Alicia (she weighed only 35 pounds) and scratched her stomach and played with her every day for two weeks after that. Tigers (tame ones, anyway) are somewhat like elephants—they can bond with you, remember you, and when you see them after being away for months they’ll come right over and nuzzle you like a kitten—with the trainer nearby, of course.

It used to scare my staff to death when she’d come to my office and come right over and want to play. She was from an animal training facility that provided animals for movies, and had a reputation for being the most-tame “cat” in the business. She’s retired now. Organists all over the world were fascinated, and wherever I traveled—Jean Guillou’s apartment in Paris, or one in Berlin—there was one of the photos framed.

 

After the Crystal Cathedral, you went to the First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, for three years (1998–2001).

Right. When the Crystal Cathedral organ went in, their nose went out of joint at First Congregational Church because, up to that point, they had the largest organ in the area, so they set about to make it bigger and better than the Crystal Cathedral organ. About the time that the organ was finished, their organist Lloyd Holtzgraf retired, and they said, “Okay, we’ve got the bigger organ. Now we want the big organist from the other place.”

As Rev. Schuller had done earlier, the Congregationalists made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. At the heart of it was simply the fact that I was really worn out from all that I’d had to do at the Crystal Cathedral. I was playing the organ less and less and doing administrative work and conducting more. So I thought it would be rewarding to play the organ for awhile. I went to First Congregational Church with the understanding that I would only stay three years and retire on my 70th birthday, which I did right to the day in 2001.

That was a wonderful time there, too. Thomas Somerville, a great Bach scholar, was the director of music, and we did wonderful music. The congregation just loved that organ and would remain motionless and utterly quiet during preludes and postludes. It was a great place to make music—a smart move, and I’m so glad that I did it.

 

And since 2001, you have been organ artist in residence at St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Palm Desert, California. 

When it came time to retire, I decided not to move back east—I’d already shoveled enough snow! I had many friends in Palm Springs and had visited there a lot and decided to retire there. I’d even purchased a home three years earlier and was able to rent it out until I needed it.

When I moved to Palm Springs, John Wright had come from Memphis to St. Margaret’s Church as organist and choirmaster. I had opened a new organ in his church in San Antonio, Texas, years before. He invited me to practice at St. Margaret’s whenever I wanted, as long as I played a recital during the year. I said, “Okay.” I was still out on the road finishing up several recitals that I had on the books. This went on for a couple years, and he said, “Why don’t you play for church once in a while.” I said, “Oh no. I’ve done that and I’m tired.” But he kept after me and I finally agreed. In recent years, I have been playing at least two Sundays a month and sometimes more often than that, plus all of the festival services. John is then able to concentrate on conducting the choir—a very good choir—and the organ is a large four-manual Quimby. Friends who visit are always amazed to find, out in the middle of the desert, a big choir, big church, big organ. I think they thought that we beat on bamboo! But, it’s been very enjoyable, and it is a wonderful congregation. I can walk in and play and walk out, and I don’t have to attend staff meetings. After a lifetime of doing that, I’m happy just to be able to play the organ.

 

That takes us to another leg of your journey: your performing career and association with the Murtagh and now Karen McFarlane artist management. As far back as I can I remember, I can see your smiling face on the back page of magazines (The Diapason and The American Organist). When did you start with the management?

Soon after I went to Riverside—I can’t remember the exact date. I was with the management for over 40 years.

Lilian Murtagh was the assistant to Bernard LaBerge, the famous manager of organists and other musicians in this country. After LaBerge’s death in 1952, she continued as head of the organ division (under what had become Colbert-LaBerge). She then purchased the organ division in 1962 and continued until her death in 1976 when Karen McFarlane became president. Murtagh was a dear, dear lady and so very good as a manager. 

It was great to get to know all of the famous organists who were with the management: it was a wonderful relationship. 

Lilian had gotten to know my secretary at Riverside, Karen McFarlane, and after Lilian became ill and realized that she didn’t have long to live, she asked Karen to consider taking over the management. Thus Karen McFarlane became the manager from 1976–2000.

 

So you and Karen McFarlane go way back.

We go way, way back! She had done some playing for me and was my secretary at Riverside. Then she became my concert manager. She’s like a sister and is a very dear friend.

When I retired I intended to finish recitals that I already had on the books, but I really didn’t intend to play anymore, so I asked them to please take my picture off the back page. I’ve curtailed my performing to maybe two or three concerts a year, mainly because the travel is becoming more difficult.

 

Do you have any more recordings in the works? 

No, I did my last one in 2010 (Gothic Records) on the magnificent Casavant organ, Opus 1230, in the Memorial Chapel at the University of Redlands. Recording is very nerve-wracking at my age. I can still play adequately as long as a microphone has not been turned on. When that happens, I become the Florence Foster Jenkins of the organ!

Going back to the LP days, I think that there’s a total of about 30 recordings. A lot are from Mirrosonic, Vista, Decca, and, of course, Gothic. It’s not an enormous number—many people record a lot more—and some of those are organ and some are with choir.

Some things I’ve recorded more than once, and I don’t really apologize for that. Marie-Claire Alain was once asked why she recorded three sets of the complete Bach works; she answered, “Because my ideas change or I learn.” It’s the same with all of us, and I would hate to think that we were not constantly changing.

 

Please tell us about your varied teaching experiences, the positions you’ve held, and your students. 

I’ve had a whole bunch. The first formal teaching that I did was at the Guilmant Organ School (1899–ca. 1970) in New York. It was established in the early 20th century by William Carl, who was the organist at First Presbyterian Church, New York City. He had been a student of Guilmant. I came to it late, actually just the last three years of its life, and I had about eight to ten students. Then I began teaching organ and accompanying the choir at Teachers College, Columbia University. I also did some private teaching at Union Seminary where I was also the fieldwork supervisor; I would go out to students’ churches, take notes, and make suggestions. 

In 1973, I became head of the organ department at the Manhattan School of Music. At that time, it was housed in the old Juilliard School buildings across the street from the Riverside Church, which was very convenient. I held that position for eight years during the 1970s until I left New York for California. 

When I first went to California, there was absolutely no time for teaching. But after I finally “retired,” playing almost no recitals and just playing at St. Margaret’s, in 2007 I became the university organist and artist teacher of organ for the University of Redlands, just an hour west toward Los Angeles. 

The Casavant organ there, originally installed in 1927, was completely restored in 2002 at the same time that the building was being retrofitted for earthquakes. It’s a marvelous organ, totally enclosed—even the three 32-foot stops. It’s a thrilling sound, even with the orchestra and choir and soloists. Just a short while ago, we were able to fill up all of the blank knobs on the console and add another 20 ranks.

I have very good students there. 

 

What about the composer in you?

Oh, I’m not a composer! 

 

You wrote a wonderful Trumpet Tune.

I don’t know how wonderful it is, but people seem to enjoy it. One man has even made a handbell arrangement of it that is published. There are a few other organ pieces, too.

The other compositions are mainly anthems, and they were all written when I was at the Crystal Cathedral, because I couldn’t find what I wanted to fit with the service of the day or they were not the right length. They all had to be written in major keys, had to be loud, and had to end with the sopranos on high C, so there isn’t a great deal of variety. But the publishers wanted them: because I was the organist at the Crystal Cathedral, and they thought they would sell! I don’t know if they ever did or not—a few of them did, I guess—but I make no claims to being a composer, whatsoever. 

There are several hymn arrangements and preludes that are also published. In particular, Toccata on “O God, Our Help, In Ages Past” is fun to watch— it made good television. It has lots of work jumping manuals, which idea I got from Petr Eben’s Moto Ostinato. I played it for him once and he burst out laughing. I said, “Well, it was your idea!”

 

Please reflect upon your time as President of the American Guild of Organists (2002–2008), which is when I first got to know you. 

I was amazed that I got elected, and I’m sure the only reason was because of television and concerts. A lot of people don’t know most of the people who are ever nominated for office, so they usually vote for the ones who are best known. I enjoyed it very much. We had a wonderful group of people on the National Council—you were there—everybody worked well together and with the administration of the Guild. It was a very happy time and I feel that we accomplished a lot of things. In addition to the POEs (Pipe Organ Encounters), there were many highlights of my years there. I will be forever grateful for the opportunity to serve the Guild in that way.

 

What do you see as the function, the purpose, and even the future of the AGO?

I think that the Guild is very much alive. It is still very influential—it’s the largest and oldest organization (founded in 1896) of its kind for musicians and for instruments in this country. 

The only other musical organization that is older is the Royal College of Organists in London, which in 2014 is celebrating its 150th anniversary. They used to wield an enormous amount of power, and even had a big office building. The organ and organist had been well thought of in halls and cathedrals, but a recent article in the New York Times said that they have fallen on bad times and there are not as many jobs. They are now focusing on reinventing themselves by reaching out more to the general public. I don’t how they will do it, but they are determined. 

Generally speaking, I believe that the Guild is on firmer ground now than it’s ever been. I’m very optimistic about the future of the AGO and about the organ in general. There are many naysayers who think that the organ is dying and that there are too few people interested in becoming organists. This is simply not true.

Some of the major organ builders no longer exist, but there still are organs being built—some of them very large and expensive—as well as smaller organs. Along with all of the recordings that exist, I feel very optimistic about future of the organ, and I don’t believe it’s going to die anytime soon.

 

What do you like to do in your free time?

I don’t have a lot of free time, although I try to walk one to two miles daily—I am not in shape to do any great physical activity, but I do enjoy walking. I live in a two-story condominium, just so I can have the exercise of going up and down steps many times a day. I like reading, going out to eat, and I love being with friends.

There are many retired organists where I live in Palm Springs, many of whom I have known for years. It’s fun having a very nice social life, too. 

 

Very little grass grows under your feet. 

No. I learned several years ago—and I practice it religiously—that when you get into your ninth decade, you do not want to sit and stare at the wall. The day may come when I have to do that, but until it does, I’ll keep as physically and mentally active as I possibly can. I do crossword puzzles and everything I can to stay active. 

 

Do you practice everyday? 

I’m embarrassed to say that I do not. I should, but I practiced a lot in recent weeks to prepare for the recital here. 

 

Here is where humility must be brushed aside for the sake of honesty. You have everything on your résumé: you are without a doubt the most well-known and most visible organist of our day . . . 

. . . fading fast, as there are some real barn-burners coming along nowadays who are really going to go right to the top and who are creating a lot of stir in the organ world. I’m thankful for them because we need to keep the organ world alive . . . 

 

What do you see being your important contribution(s) to our profession? 

Regardless of what some people might think, I’m really modest and somewhat shy. I have been given wonderful opportunities in my career, such as having been blessed to serve in church positions most organists can only dream about. I’ve played close to 3,000 recitals in various places around the world, including a lot of daily recitals in churches, as well as being on television for over 16 years.

With the combination of things like that and teaching, I feel that I’ve helped to contribute to keeping the organ alive. I don’t believe that I’ve done any one thing in particular that I could cite as being outstanding. Rather, I’m grateful to have been given so many opportunities. I’ve tried to make the most of those opportunities for the advancement of the organ and its music. I’m more embarrassed than pleased when people compliment me.

 

At this point in your life and career what occurs to you as the most pleasurable reward resulting from your more than 70-year career?

That’s easy! In addition to being grateful for all the music making I’ve been fortunate to do, it’s the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve been able to bring joy and encouragement to others. One thing that has surprised me in recent years, and keeps happening more and more, is hearing from colleagues in the profession that my service playing or a recital or teaching, often on a very specific occasion, was a life-changing event for them in their career path. I am so very grateful for these expressions! More important, it makes me aware that all of us should take time to consider the influence we may unconsciously be having on others. 

 

Good advice for all. Thank you, Fred. You are the gem of our ocean! 

James Kibbie

James Kibbie is Chair of the Organ Department and University Organist at the University of Michigan.

Daniel Roth is widely acclaimed as a leading French organ recitalist, recording artist, improviser, teacher, and composer. He is titular organist of the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where his predecessors included Widor and Dupré, and he has held teaching positions at major institutions in France, Germany, and the United States. He has won prestigious competitions, including the Grand Prix de Chartres, and is a Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Organists. I spoke with him in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during his appointment as visiting artist in organ at the University of Michigan.

 

James Kibbie: Daniel, it’s been an honor to have you work with our students at the University of Michigan as visiting artist. What are your impressions of organ study in the United States?

Daniel Roth: I think there has always been a very high level in the States. Many teachers at different universities have a wonderful background by having had lessons in Europe with several great masters, then coming back to the States. Also, in the States you have organists who have studied musicology besides their training on the instrument. In Europe, we sometimes have teachers who are only wonderful players; there is not always a basis of research.

 

Wasn’t it Widor’s idea that musicians must also study history and other subjects? Organ students in American colleges and universities have other course requirements such as music theory, history, and general studies. Is it the same in France?

Today, and for a number of years, things are changing. We had in France the conservatoire system, and really in this system there are many interpreters who did not have much experience with musicological research. The conservatoire system is a system of music interpretation. It’s difficult to generalize because musicians are very different, but you found in the conservatoire system many organists who did not have this base of musicology.

 

Are the organ students in France today different than when you were a student?

Oh, yes. The two great conservatoires, Paris and Lyon, now have the university system. In my days you could do only an instrument in the conservatoire, no harmony, no music history. Music students arranged their studies as they wanted. When I was in the Paris Conservatoire in the 1960s, I did the classes of harmony with Maurice Duruflé, counterpoint and fugue with Marcel Bitsch, accompaniment with Henriette Puig-Roget, and organ and improvisation with Rolande Falcinelli. In 1960 there was a strict director of the conservatoire, and every student had to take a class in music history with Norbert Dufourcq. This was very new!

 

Does it hurt the students’ organ performance to require other studies?

It depends—some students are able to study many things together, others not. Achieving a high level in music performance needs a lot of time. It’s a matter of organization . . . 

 

Your improvisation at your recital this week was truly moving. This is so interesting to us in the United States. How do you teach your students to improvise?

I don’t anymore—I’m retired! [laughs]

 

Well then, how did you?

Of course, teaching improvisation is not an easy task. You must begin with much hope, and the student must be encouraged. Training in improvisation involves so many things together. You need much training in writing music. In the Paris Conservatoire harmony class, every week we had to realize a given bass and a given chant, counterpoint exercises, and a fugue. The best thing when you want to become a good improviser is to study the different major styles of music history, starting with Monteverdi and going up to our time, study the evolution of harmony, and improvise in the different styles. Counterpoint is very important in our field of organ, of course. 

 

Did you use Marcel Dupré’s Traité d’improvisation?

Yes, I used that even before coming to Paris. In Mulhouse, I started the little preparatory exercises for improvisation by Marcel Dupré with my organ teacher. Dupré’s exercises are very good to train beginning improvisation. He starts with harmonizing melodies and then quickly moves to improvising commentary to a melody. He eventually gets to a sonata movement. The theme (four measures) ends on the dominant, you improvise several commentaries modulating to the neighboring keys, a bridge on an element of the theme, the whole theme comes back, this builds the exposition, then comes the development on another element and the recapitulation.

 

When we had dinner at Jim and Mary Ann Wilkes’ home, you told a wonderful story of how you became an organist because of a film about Albert Schweitzer.

When I was a little boy, we went to church in a little village near Mulhouse in Alsace. There was a big organ, so I heard the organ, but until the age of 10, I was only interested in painting and drawing. It was my great passion. Then my father bought a piano. He wanted me to play the piano, but I had no great interest, I must say. I didn’t have a very kind teacher, you know, so piano was a little burden. But Albert Schweitzer was becoming well known, and I was born in Alsace, and Albert Schweitzer was also from Alsace. I was absolutely fascinated by his personality. Besides being a theologian and a medical doctor in Africa, he was also an organist, a specialist in Bach, and in organbuilding—it’s amazing. The movie “Il est minuit, docteur Schweitzer” (“It’s Midnight, Dr. Schweitzer”) came out when I was 11. The actor was a wonderful actor from Alsace, Pierre Fresney. In the middle of the movie you see Albert Schweitzer playing his piano in Lambaréné, which was a piano with a pedalboard attached, and in his mind he was in a great cathedral with a nice organ. As a little child, I was very much impressed by this. When I left this movie with my mother, I told her, “Maman, I absolutely want to become an organist.” I then got another piano teacher, a wonderful lady, and was practicing the organ for six hours a day.

 

How did you come to study with Rolande Falcinelli?

In my hometown of Mulhouse I had a teacher who was a great admirer of Dupré, and during these years I only heard great compliments for the Dupré school. When I came to Paris, I had lessons with Rolande Falcinelli, a student of Dupré, and she was wonderful with me. She organized all my studies and presented me to the teachers of counterpoint and harmony. She prepared me for the entrance exam for the conservatoire.

 

What was the entrance examination?

In those days in the organ class (it’s different now), we had to improvise a sonata andante on one theme as explained in the first volume of Dupré’s Traité d’improvisation. We had also to improvise the exposition, first divertissement, and relative key of a fugue, but with a countersubject, which you had to retain. This needs great training, which I didn’t have in Mulhouse. Also, all the organ pieces had to be played by memory, which had not been asked in the organ class in Mulhouse. 

 

So you were accepted into Rolande Falcinelli’s class at the conservatory?

Yes, I entered the organ class in 1961. In 1960, I had entered the class of Duruflé for harmony, and then in 1962 I started the counterpoint and fugue class. I stayed two years in the organ class with Rolande Falcinelli and got my First Prize in 1963. I was very happy to get her ideas, and still today I am very grateful to her because her teaching and improvisation were most perfect. She was an excellent teacher, and of course I learned everything about the Dupré tradition, Widor and so on. I am very grateful to Rolande Falcinelli for all I learned from her.

 

You also studied with Marie-Claire Alain?

In 1963, when I graduated from the organ class of the conservatoire, it was the time in Haarlem when the great movement for the real interpretation of old music started. You remember these three famous teachers, Anton Heiller, Luigi Tagliavini (who is still alive), and Marie-Claire Alain. At that time I felt the desire to go deeper into the interpretation of old music. With Rolande Falcinelli it was the Dupré tradition, you played the whole repertoire with the same touch, absolute legato or staccato (half-value). I felt the desire to learn more about the real interpretation of old music, so I went to have lessons with Marie-Claire Alain. She was a wonderful teacher. First of all, she was always very happy, very kind. Rolande Falcinelli was quite formal: “Mon petit, comment allez-vous?” You know Marie-Claire—with her, it was, “Ha-ha-ha, comment ça va, comment ça va?” 

I was extremely happy to study the completely new kind of interpretation with Marie-Claire. You have to research the composer, his instrument, his touch, not playing all the repertoire with the same touch. And then of course there’s the difference between the composers who want you to play the music straight and the composers who use rubato, like César Franck. Marie-Claire opened to me this world of research into the personality of each composer. Serve the composer, in the same way as Nikolaus Harnoncourt writes in his book, “The composer should be the highest authority.” I was fascinated by this and continued with it my whole life.

 

Your first church position was as the assistant to Mme. Falcinelli at Sacré-Cœur?

At Easter 1963, Rolande Falcinelli asked me to be her assistant at Sacré-Cœur Basilica because she was having great problems with the head priest there, a very difficult person. He did not like her way of playing, he didn’t like modern music at all. I often went to hear her, and she improvised in a wonderful way, but he didn’t like this in the liturgy. They agreed together she should have an assistant, and this is what I became on the Sunday after Easter, 1963. 

And then you became the titulaire of Sacré-Cœur?

At first, the head priest and Rolande Falcinelli agreed she would play one Sunday a month, and I would play the rest of the time. Finally in 1973, she told me, “Now I have had enough.” This probably was because Marcel Dupré had died in 1971, and he had the wish that Rolande Falcinelli would be his successor at Saint-Sulpice. The head priest of Saint-Sulpice formed a commission of organists to select the titulaire, he read them the letter of Dupré saying he wanted Rolande Falcinelli as his successor, and the commission voted. But at the end of this vote, the head priest took the ballots and said, “I am going to give these to the cardinal.” Then of course all the organists were unhappy—“What is the result of our vote?” After that, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald was named. Of course, Rolande Falcinelli was very bitter about this, and she told me, “I will quit now at Sacré-Cœur, and you will be my successor.” 

 

By this time, you had already won the Grand Prix de Chartres. In 1971, you won the grand prix for both interpretation and improvisation.

There were two of us. My good friend Yves Devernay and I both received the grand prix. The program was completely crazy, impossible, all by memory, and then we had to improvise a symphony. We shared the grand prix, and after he became one of the four organists at Notre-Dame. He was a wonderful person and a very good friend. He died in 1990.

 

How did it happen that you then went to Saint-Sulpice?

In 1974, I was invited to Washington, D.C., for two years to be the organist of the National Shrine and to teach at Catholic University. Then I came back to Sacré-Cœur, and we restored the organ because it was in very bad shape. In 1982, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald died, so the position at Saint-Sulpice was open. I was at Sacré-Cœur, I love this organ very much, and I did not think about changing, but I had several friends who pushed me, “You have to be a candidate at Saint-Sulpice. We are very worried about who will be there, and the organ,” and so on. Finally, I agreed to be a candidate. There were many candidates, and the exam for the post took a long time. This was in 1982. By 1984, when Pierre Cochereau died, there were still no rules about how to name an organist and still no organist in Saint-Sulpice. Finally, after the death of Cochereau, the cardinal redid the text on the nomination of organists in Paris. The cardinal wrote that the curé is the head of the parish, and he makes the final decision, but he has to get as consultants a commission of composers, organists, and liturgists. The text says that the curé may do this in two ways, either by organizing an official competition in interpretation and improvisation, or by an examination based on the curriculum vitae. The curé at Saint-Sulpice wanted to do it the second way, by curriculum vitae. I remember in February 1985, I was playing vespers at Sacré-Cœur, and my wife came and whispered in my ear, “You just have been named at Saint-Sulpice.” Oh, I lost the key!

 

Are the organs in the churches of Paris maintained by a city commission?

In France in 1905 there was separation of state and church. From this time on, all churches and their furniture belong to the towns. All cathedrals belong to the state. So when there is an organ restoration to be made, the town pays, or for a cathedral, the state, not the church. When the organ in a town is also an historic monument, then the state and the town divide the cost of restoration. For organ maintenance, it depends. In some places, it’s the town that pays for tuning. In other places, Saint-Sulpice for example, it’s the church.

I read an article in The Guardian newspaper that said the city commission does not have enough money to maintain the organs of Paris. Is it true?

Of course, as you know, there’s a financial crisis right now, a difficult time for the economy. There is a lack of money for restoration and for new organs, this is sure, but the maintenance in general is done.

 

What are your favorite organs?

Oh, I like in general all kinds of organs which are in a true aesthetic. I like very much historic organs all over the world. I am very fascinated by a North German organ, or an organ from Middle Germany or South Germany, or a typical Italian or Spanish organ. I like also new organs when they have a good aesthetic. I am sad when I see an historic organ that has been changed.

 

Yes, I think particularly of the many changes to César Franck’s organ at Sainte-Clotilde.

Yes, a catastrophe, and also Notre-Dame.

 

I wish the organ of Sainte-Clotilde could be restored to its original state.

I wish this also. The state commission for historic organs is interested in this, but in Paris it’s always politics, you know; the organs of Sainte-Clotilde and Notre-Dame have not been restored back to the original because of the organists. In Leipzig, for instance, you have the great organ of the Thomaskirche, by Sauer originally. It had been very much changed by the Orgelbewegung, taking out beautiful principals with nice scaling and putting in their place little mixtures and mutations. Years ago they organized the complete return to the original disposition of the organ. Or look at the Dom in Berlin, also a Sauer. After communism, they decided to restore that organ as it was originally, with pneumatic action and so on, beautifully poetic. 

 

Before we finish, we should talk a little about your children.

Yes! We have four children. The oldest is a girl, Anne-Marie, and she has completed fine arts school and is a specialist in mosaic. She lives now in Geneva and has done mosaics in schools and other places. Then we have three boys. The oldest boy is François-Xavier, and he has a wonderful career as a conductor. Then we have Vincent; he plays viola and is professor of viola at the Conservatoire of Metz in Lorraine. The last one, born in Washington, D.C. in 1976 (a bicentennial baby!) is not at all an artist. He is a professor of mathematics in Laval. And we have nine grandchildren from 4 to 17 years old, among them students in horn, trombone, flute, harpsichord, clarinet, percussion, and tuba. We are very proud!

 

Daniel, thank you so much. It’s been a delight visiting with you. 

A conversation with Steven Egler

Steven Egler

Steven Egler is Professor of Music at Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1976. He was a student of Robert Glasgow from 1969 to 1981, during which time he completed the B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees at The University of Michigan. Egler is also Councillor for Region V of the AGO.

SE: Please comment about the Gleasons, their teaching, and working with both of them.

RG: They’re both gone now. Harold way back [1980] and Catharine more recently [2003].

SE: How did they compare as teachers?

RG: Quite different from one another. She was very exacting. He was, too, but he was older--a generation older. I didn’t study with her except for some special repertoire. He would suggest that I take a particular piece to Mrs. Gleason that she’d been playing, so I could see what she had to say about it. That was interesting. I studied with Catharine for the whole summer after I had already finished the degree.

But Harold was somebody with a certain presence, because there was a wonderful human mind, sense of humor, and many, many years of experience--and not just in organ. In fact, some of his instructions would be to listen to some orchestral piece because it had something to do with what I was working on; so I did exactly as he told me to do. He had studio class every week--small class, five students.

Catharine’s main influence was in her playing. She played through her recitals before every time that she went on a tour, which was three or four times a year. She would play the tour programs for us up there in [Organ Studio] 427. We could watch everything that she did. Technique was all there. Everything was PERFECT. It was a wonderful example. No frothing at the mouth. Very elegant. THAT was most instructive.

SE: And it was always from memory, right.

RG: Yes.

SE: That’s interesting to me, about memorizing. What about extemporization?

RG: I wouldn’t give you a dime for an organist who couldn’t extemporize a little bit, who has to have every note written down on a piece of paper before he can play anything, who can’t even touch the manuals without having the notes down on the page. I-IV-V-I, if nothing more than that.

But they don’t seem to stress that enough everywhere. I don’t see why they can’t do it. Just scared to death. Make music, as it were. You know what I mean? If you leave your scores at home, on Sunday, go make music. Maybe find a hymn tune and just play on your own. But you know, we’re afraid of it, even though we’ve got music in us and enough technique in our fingers--but of course that takes daily practice.

SE: You’re absolutely right!

RG: It’s partly about your early experiences as a child. There was nothing wrong with sitting down and playing on the keyboard without having anything on the music rack.

SE: Your first teaching position was as professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, from 1951-1962. It must have been very exciting to get a teaching position right after receiving your graduate degree from the Eastman School. Please describe how this appointment came about.

RG: The appointment was in May of that year, and I started teaching in September [1951]. I knew about the place because I knew of at least one student at Eastman from Jacksonville who had been a student of Ruth Melville Bellatti who was the teacher there before I was. There had been Eastman teachers there in the department of music.

The school was about to get a new four-manual Aeolian-Skinner organ in the chapel. It was a beautiful organ, and I was lucky to have it while I was there--the last 10 years that I was there.

I went back to play there, and they gave me an honorary doctorate [Doctor of Music]. [The recital and conferring of the degree took place on October 3, 1975.] It was a high point for me. That concert was the first concert on the Jacksonville/MacMurray Civic Music Series. They had all kinds of things, you know: orchestra, pianists, from all over--not just one area. They had a full house, as I recall. Do you remember Ruth Melville Bellatti?

SE: No. I only recall hearing the name.

RG: She was my predecessor there once removed. She was a classmate of Catharine [Crozier]. She was a superb player, and she was the one that really got the ball rolling on that new organ.

SE: Didn’t Harold Gleason design that organ?

RG: He had a lot to do with it. He made some suggestions.

SE: That would explain the connection to Eastman. 

RG: Many of the teachers had been from Eastman way back into the 1930s. Joe Clelland went there back in the 1930s and brought Ruth to the faculty. That was one of the best things they ever did. Then she got married to Walt Bellatti and started raising a family. That’s when they got Wilbur Sheridan for four years, and then just the time before the organ was to arrive, he left--went to a college in Washington state, and that’s how I got the position. I saw the new organ specification on paper and thought, “You’re leaving this?” Those were wonderful years. Catharine Crozier played the opening recital.

SE: Didn’t you direct the orchestra at MacMurray?

RG: That was the first year that I was there. The director/chairman called me in and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to conduct the orchestra?” “Sure, I can’t wait.” “Well, you’re the only one around here with any orchestral experience.” I said, “What, I haven’t had any orchestral experience.” “Yes, but you’ve PLAYED in one.” That means you are a conductor if you’ve played in an orchestra.

Well, such as it was. They had five violins, clarinet, bassoon, that was it. String bass, cello, and PIANO--fill in, you see. It was kind of pitiful there for a while, but I was game--I had no choice! They had to grab players anywhere you could find them--faculty, local residents, students--and nobody was any good. It was pretty bad, and I wasn’t much better.

We had a concert coming up right away--Christmas Vespers--and we had to get together right away. In the first place, I had to find something that I thought they could play amongst this VAST repertoire in their library. At the first rehearsal, about half of the instruments were there. The next week, it was just be another arrangement of people, sort of like pick-up. I thought that this was hopeless, so I told the pianist to play loud! We’ll have to have something to carry us through. That was my experience with that orchestra. 

I also taught counterpoint, which I wasn’t planning to do, but this other teacher had left. He was the string teacher and taught counterpoint.

SE: How were your organ students there that first year?

RG: The first year, I think that I had six, and I was lucky to have that many. They didn’t know me, and the organ was coming next year. Then I started playing over the radio every Sunday afternoon, and that got a lot of attention for that area. Then the students began piling in, and there were some very good ones.

One of the prides of that school was the chapel building, which is a handsome building, and the organ. In the meantime, they have acquired a new music and arts building.

SE: How did your appointment to The University of Michigan come about?

RG: It was late in the year and I had been out in Los Angeles to play for my first national convention of the AGO. Then I played for Clarence Mader at his church in Los Angeles that summer, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Wilshire Boulevard.

Marilyn Mason had played in Springfield, Illinois that spring, and I went over to hear her, and I met her afterwards. Then, in a few days’ time, she called and asked if I would like to be considered for a job at The University of Michigan. There were no vacancies then, but that summer--June--it opened up. So they called me up, flew me back. I met with the dean and the executive board, and was offered the position. Just like that!

SE: Who was the dean of the School of Music then?

RG: James Wallace--a grand guy. Just first rate. He was an ideal dean. The door was always open to students and faculty alike. He was not impressed with himself. His trump card: he was very humane. He would never miss a faculty recital. If there were two on the same night, he would go to the first half of one and the second half of the other. It was the same with some of the older students. He’d show up! 

SE: What have been any highlights of your years at Michigan?

RG: There have been many, such as receiving the Harold Haugh Award for Excellence in Teaching; I appreciated getting that award. And the Eastman School of Music Alumni Achievement Award.

In February 2002, Eastman and the Rochester Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (organized by Tom Trenney) invited me back to do a masterclass for their students. They wanted me to do a roundtable discussion with David Craighead (“Conversation with the Masters”), talking about the “old days.”

Right at the end of that, the Director of the School of Music, James Undercofler, surprised me and presented me with [that year’s] award for Distinguished Alumni Achievement. It was like a diploma, and he read off the citation. This was a surprise, a big surprise.

SE: How have organ teaching and playing evolved over the course of your 50-plus years of teaching? Compare your current students to former students.

RG: Students have changed in the 40 years I’ve been here. They’re not as open and natural. They’re more guarded--not all--more so than they used to be. They had more fun then. It’s all very serious now.

SE: How has the Organ Reform Movement affected organ building and performance?

RG: Well, the level of organ building and tonal design has improved somewhat; but I still enjoy a good E. M. Skinner with certain repertoire, and I have some students who feel that way. They are really fascinated with E. M. Skinner’s philosophy (if you want to use that word). I don’t find anything very charming in the neo-Baroque ideal. Cavaillé-Coll built organs according to his own ideal. He didn’t copy something from before. We wouldn’t have the great 19th-century heritage in France if he hadn’t followed his own creative urge.

SE: What advice would you give to young organists entering the profession today?

RG: Try to think of yourself as a musician first and don’t worry about what’s the latest thing. Follow your own musical instincts. I grew up playing on a flat, straight pedalboard in Oklahoma City, on the only mechanical action organ in town at that time, and I think that it’s still there. It never wore out. It was one of those Hinners--workhorse of an organ--and they just didn’t wear out. Like Austin--it doesn’t wear out.

SE: Can you say anything about your long-standing friendship/collegial relationship with Orpha Ochse?

RG: I first met Orpha when she was new at Eastman, as I was. I was sitting there (fourth floor), and she came up and asked me, “Does it make any difference which of these organs we can practice on?” I said, “No, as far as I know.” We just became friends. The organ department had a lot of new students that fall (1949), but of course, I’d been there since late June--taking lessons, practicing, working--and that’s when I got my church job, which was why I was there so early.

Her personality, sense of humor--very droll sense of humor--you’d think that she was dead serious about something, but she wasn’t. And she had this incredible ability to see into things--the phony side of things, which I appreciated very much, at that time especially.

SE: That must be an incredible thing to have a friend like Orpha over such a long period of time.

RG: Well she’s a rare bird, that’s one thing for sure, and she is also an extremely intelligent bird. She has an unbelievably sharp mind, and therefore it is fun, but you don’t fool her for a minute.

And her books are universally regarded and essential in any organist’s libary: The History of the Organ in the United States; Organists and Organ Playing in 19th-Century France and Belgium, a great resource; and more recently her books about the Austin and Murray Harris companies.

SE: What were some of your favorite organs to play throughout your career?

RG: The 1911 Austin at First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City.

The 1920 Kimball organ at the Shrine Auditorium, Masonic Temple, Oklahoma City.

The 1918 Kimball at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Oklahoma City.

At the Eastman School of Music, the 1936 G. Donald Harrison Aeolian-Skinner in Strong Auditorium. This was a totally different idea of organ design. I hear they’re going to restore it.

Church of the Advent, Boston, Massachusetts, 1936 Aeolian-Skinner. It has some of the loveliest sounds that you will hear anywhere. It, along with the Groton School instrument (1935), represented Harrison’s new “American Classic” design.

High on this list would be Merner Chapel, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illlinois: 4-manual Aeolian-Skinner (1952).

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1934 Aeolian-Skinner. It has been through many transformations/revisions but is now restored (under the supervision of current organist and former student, Peter Stoltzfus).

Bridges Hall, Pomona College, Claremont, California, 2002 C.B. Fisk. I just heard this a few weeks ago, demonstrated beautifully by college organist Bill Peterson--such an organ and such playing!

 

SE: What various influences led you to devote your efforts to the romantic repertoire?

RG: I like the music! I loved the Franck D-minor Symphony and heard it performed before I actually played it in the high-school orchestra. The Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3--a recording that I had on 78 record--the reeds of that organ were compelling. I identified with the sounds of those instruments right away. I did not know much about Cavaillé-Coll, but I knew that I liked those sounds.

SE: Do you want to say anything about your performing career, Bob?

RG: Well, I enjoyed it while it lasted. I’m not performing any more. I have what is called atrial fibrillation. Have you heard of that? My heart doesn’t have any rhythm: it doesn’t know where the beat is. It goes crazy because you can’t get enough oxygen for it to operate correctly, so I’m taking all of this medication--I have been now for a couple or three years. It keeps me sort of on an even keel.

The last performance that I did, I almost couldn’t play. I’d been out to West Texas. What a trip--nightmare of a trip! Flying out there, changing in Houston, missing the connection, galloping through the terminal, then missing the connection, then pain all over every inch of my body. It was heart failure. The heart was trying to do the best that it could, but it couldn’t keep up. I didn’t know that at that time. 

I got to the church the next morning. The organ man was there and the organ wasn’t ready to play. He said that I’d have to come back later on in a couple of hours and that they needed more time. I never got to the organ until the night before the performance. It didn’t go very well. I was too tired, by the time I got to second half, I thought that the other pieces were ho-hum, ordinary. Then I thought that maybe this was the right time to “turn the corner.”

I then went to North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, which was presenting a conference on Cavaillé-Coll. I did a recital of that repertoire on that organ in the main hall, and that was hard to do, too. I was just exhausted, and I couldn’t get rested. I thought then, “Just cool it. You don’t need to do this the rest of your life.” The more that I thought that way, the more comfortable I felt.

I played Widor Seventh, complete, on the last part of the program. I got into the next-to-last movement (slow movement) and the organ ciphered, so I had to stop, of course. By this time, I was so dizzy that I didn’t know which way was up, so they came up to see about me. I told Jesse Eschbach, my former student, that I couldn’t go on and that he would have to help me out and that I couldn’t finish the recital. Meanwhile, the audience was wondering what was happening since I didn’t return. I was supposed to teach a performance class the next morning. I did get up and do that.

Then I went to Memphis. I got things worked out, but there was trouble with the organ and one of these impossible situations where the console is where you can’t get to it--you needed to be an acrobat! Nice acoustics, though. Nice organ--Schantz. So I didn’t go. I didn’t play. I cancelled out about an hour before curtain time--too dizzy!

They all seemed to understand when I told them what had happened. But that was the last time I attempted to play anywhere, and I thought then, “That’s it. I’ve done this now since I was that high, so that’s fine.” Having made that decision, I felt as if there was a big weight lifted off of my shoulders. But I’m sorry that I didn’t know more about it (my situation) before that performance because people were down there and waiting. So I got on the plane the next morning and flew back here, and that was it.

SE: So, what about retirement and the whole concept of retirement?

RG: The concept of retirement? Well, at The University of Michigan we have what they call a retirement furlough. It’s a nice deal. You have another year to do things that you want to do and get paid full salary. You teach as much as you want to or not at all. And they’ll furnish you with a studio or office.

SE: So, will you do that then?

RG: I’m going to stay right here for the time being--and then, we’ll see. I have no idea what I’m going to do after that. I think I’m going to get together all of my annotated copies of all the scores of Franck, some Widor, and some Sowerby, and get those out. That’ll take me the next 10 years!

SE: What about recording?

RG: The only thing that I regret is that I didn’t go on and record more than I did. I wish I had gone ahead and done all the Franck. I had that in mind, but I didn’t get to it soon enough. And I’m not too happy with what I did, although I’ve been told over and over again how wonderful it is, so I thought, “OK, if you think it’s so wonderful, I’ll shut up.”

That was a wonderful organ (All Saints’ Episcopal, Worcester, Massachusetts) for Franck, rather than packing up and going abroad. I didn’t want to do that. There’s a lot more to a “telling” performance than a particular organ. The particular organ does help, but I don’t think you have to have only THIS organ. If you do, you’re kind of stuck.

SE: Your legacy as a teacher and a performer are legendary, and you have been an inspiration to countless numbers of organists, myself included. What do you feel has been your greatest contribution to the organ world?

RG: Students (without hesitation), and I don’t hesitate a minute to say that, in spite of a few huge disappointments; yet some times I can’t stand them! But that’s more lasting. And maybe, to a certain extent, my performance, because you demonstrate what you’ve been teaching. One should be able to do that: put up or shut up. But I’ve done that over a period of how many years, so I didn’t feel too badly about realizing I couldn’t do it anymore or shouldn’t do it anymore.

RB: It’s like a chain of succession.

RG: Well, we now have the next generation of mine. I’ve been blessed the past 54 years with some extraordinarily talented students--almost too numerous to list here.

Douglas Reed

William Albright would have celebrated his seventieth birthday on October 20, 2014. Born in 1944 in Gary, Indiana, he died unexpectedly at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on September 17, 1998. One of the most significant composers of organ music in the 20th century, Albright was known mainly for his keyboard works, although he composed for nearly every medium. He received many commissions and awards including the Queen Marie-José Prize for Organbook (1967), two Fulbright grants, two Guggenheim fellowships, two National Endowment for the Arts grants, and two Koussevitzky Competition Awards. His three Organbooks explore new means of idiomatic expression for the organ. A brilliant pianist and organist, he commissioned and premiered many new works for organ. He also performed and recorded the music of James P. Johnson, the complete piano music of Scott Joplin, and his own rag compositions.

The following interviews with Sarah Albright and John Carlson shed light on William Albright’s formative years and his creative process. 

 

Interview with Sarah Albright

Sarah and William Albright were married from 1966 to 1985. Sarah earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Salem College where she studied organ with John Mueller, and received the Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan as a student of Marilyn Mason. She studied in Paris for a year with Marie-Claire Alain. From 1985–2007, she was director of music at the First Unitarian Universalist Church in Ann Arbor. Presently, she teaches a large class of private piano students. 

 

Douglas Reed: How did you meet Bill?

Sarah Albright: I came here to graduate school in 1964 to study with Marilyn Mason. I first recall hearing Bill play in a student recital that fall. In the following months, we became good friends, and on Valentine’s Day, 1966, he proposed to me. We got married in June at the Presbyterian Church in Martinsville, Virginia. We had great music! Mr. Mueller came from Winston-Salem and played for the wedding and Rosemary Russell sang. She was my roommate and later taught at the University of Michigan. We went to Asheville, North Carolina, for our honeymoon and a week later, to Tanglewood where Bill was going to study with George Rochberg. We also met Bill Bolcom that summer. 

 

Let’s talk about your time in Paris. 

The first time we lived in Paris was in ’68–69. Bill had a Fulbright grant to study with Messiaen at the Conservatory. He also studied with Max Deutsch, who was a student of Schoenberg and conducted several of his works. Bill enjoyed being in Messiaen’s class. Messiaen played a lot of recordings for the class and frequently commented “c’est beau ça”. Messiaen also had a fondness for Ives, which Bill really liked, as Bill and Ives have the same birthday, October 20! Bill also looked forward to his lessons with Max Deutsch. They had many conversations about music, composition, and life, which Bill found stimulating and meaningful. 

Bill won the Queen Marie-José prize for Organbook (1967). Sargent Shriver, U.S. ambassador to France, gave a big reception at the American Embassy to honor Bill. The mayor of Geneva also had a dinner for us when Bill was invited to play a concert at the Geneva cathedral on a large Metzler organ. We did a lot of traveling out of Paris. One of Bill’s close high school friends and his wife came to Paris on their honeymoon and we traveled with them to play several organs in Germany, at Ebersmuenster and Marmoutier, and in Holland where we played the organ at Alkmaar and the beautiful Schnitger in Zwolle. 

We lived in Paris again in 1977, this time with our four-year-old son John and four-month-old daughter Elizabeth. Bill had a Guggenheim grant and we lived in an apartment in Neuilly. Here, he composed the Five Chromatic Dances for piano, partly inspired by a Chopin mazurka, op. 17, no. 4, which he often played when he was composing the Dances.

 

How do you think the Paris and European experience affected Bill and his music?

He loved Paris. He was very stimulated and inspired in Paris, where musicians, composers, and artists were appreciated. Yes, he was affected by the French music. He used to listen to Debussy’s La Mer and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring all the time. 

 

Can you speak about Bill’s early years? 

He was born in Gary, Indiana, but the family moved to New Jersey when Bill was in junior high. His father was a school administrator in West Orange, and his mother was a math teacher and a graduate of the University of Illinois. Bill and his two brothers were in the Cub Scouts, and their parents gave them many opportunities, including lots of Sunday school and church. In high school, Bill had a church job in a New Jersey suburb. 

In Gary, he was really fortunate to have had a fine piano teacher named Gladys Relph. When they moved to West Orange in 1959, he began studying piano with Rosetta Goodkind and composition with Hugh Aitken at the Juilliard Preparatory Department. When he was a junior in high school, he played the Grieg piano concerto with the New Jersey Symphony. During this time he used to take the train into New York for lessons and concerts and enjoyed walking around in the city.

He often checked out scores from the Newark public library for study, and spent a lot of time with two close friends, Glen Phillips, who sang in the St. Thomas Boy Choir, and Leonard Schaper. He and Len worked on building a pipe organ, and Bill played clarinet in the West Orange High School Band.

 

Please tell us about your children.

Bill loved our children, John and Elizabeth. He was very interested in their activities just as his father had been with him and his two brothers. John loved cars almost from day one and when he was about seven years old, we started going to the Detroit Auto Show. We had a great time admiring the cars, sitting in them, and taking pictures. Afterwards, we would take the People Mover to Greek Town for dinner. 

Elizabeth began dance classes at age four and we always looked forward to her dance recitals. Bill took her to dance concerts at U-M and a couple New York shows. He supported her dancing for years and was there to see her graduate from NYU in Fine Arts.

 

Can you speak about Bill’s work as a church musician?

Bill served as music director at the Ann Arbor Unitarian Universalist Church from 1966–1985. In 1970, he began a campaign to fund a new pipe organ for the sanctuary. To raise money he came up with the idea of having a “Ragtime Bash” to coincide with the rising popularity of classical ragtime music. These concerts were held annually until 2007 and were a huge success. The performers were nationally known ragtime players from southeast Michigan, and the church was overflowing with enthusiastic listeners.

From the money raised at the early concerts and donations from the congregation, the church was able to purchase a Holtkamp organ which was installed in 1973. Dedication recitals were played by Bill and the University of Michigan organ faculty. 

The choir loved working with Bill. They performed many standard choral works as well as music by Bill and other School of Music composers. Many students offered special music to enhance the worship services. Through the Ragtime concerts and installation of the organ, Bill had a very definite impact on the Ann Arbor community. The organ is now in a private home in New Orleans.

 

Do you have any final thoughts?

Bill was always appreciative of the teachers who guided and inspired him during his years as a student. Ross Lee Finney, Leslie Bassett, George Wilson, and Marilyn Mason at the U of M, and Messiaen, Max Deutsch, and George Rochberg, all influenced him with their thoughtful teaching and respect for his talent.

Tragically, Bill’s life and creativity were cut short due to complications of alcoholism. It affected his work, and his relationships with his family, friends, colleagues and students. People often tell me how much they miss him. We all do. 

Thank you, Sarah.

 

Interview with John Carlson

John Carlson was Albright’s roommate for one year at the University of Michigan and a close friend in the following years. Carlson earned bachelor and master of music degrees in organ and a master of music degree in composition from the University of Michigan where he studied organ with Robert Glasgow and composition with George Balch Wilson and Leslie Bassett. Carlson taught at the University of Dayton and the University of Michigan, and maintained a private studio in Ann Arbor where he offered instruction in music theory and electronic music composition. His interest in the history and future of recording technologies led to the invention of a holographic data storage system for which he received two U.S. patents. He lives near Muskegon, Michigan, where he continues to pursue his interest in information storage and the acoustics of performance venues.

 

Douglas Reed: When did you meet Bill Albright? 

John Carlson: I met Bill in the fall of 1963 at the University of Michigan in the old School of Music on Maynard Street in Ann Arbor. We lived in the same dormitory. Bill’s roommate was Russell Peck, a fellow composition major. They played records constantly…mostly contemporary music, things that appealed to them as young composers. I frequently spent time in their room, and I vividly recall the first piece I heard: Stockhausen’s Gesang der Jünglinge. This seminal piece of electronic music was shockingly original, combining electronically generated sounds with conventionally produced singing.

The next year Bill and I became roommates. During that year, I came to appreciate the full extent of his musical capabilities as a composer, a performer…and teacher. He was so enthusiastic about imparting his interest and knowledge of this new music. And, Bill’s work ethic was very rigorous. The task at hand would be completed no matter how long it took. If that meant staying up all night, that’s what he did. 

 

Were there any fun times?

Certainly! We would frequently go as a group to the same concerts, movies, and other events such as the ONCE Festival. The ONCE Festival was not a one-time event. There was a series of festivals between 1961 and 1966. These were music and multi-media presentations by a group of composers, performers, and artists that involved use of drama, lighting, staging, and film. Perhaps a performance would occur but once, since you could never get those people together again under that venue and in that circumstance. Apparently, that’s where the title came from. There was a deep seriousness of intent by the original ONCE Group, which included several young composers, all students of Ross Lee Finney: Robert Ashley, George Cacioppo, Roger Reynolds, Donald Scavarda, and Gordon Mumma. Also involved was the artist Milton Cohen, who specialized at that time in theatrical lighting. Bill and I attended at least one ONCE Festival together, probably in 1964. Each one was held in a different place. One was on the top of a parking structure.

 

Do you remember any specific ONCE Festival events? What kinds of sounds did you hear?

One or two of these composers had access to the early University of Michigan Electronic Music Studio. Others worked with their own equipment. Perhaps they used a tape recorder to make a prepared audio tape which accompanied instruments or other activities. Perhaps a cartoon film was used, or someone made his own film. A projection of this film might accompany one or more people playing various instruments. Perhaps someone would recite a poem with dramatic lighting effects. 

Sometimes the intention was to not have a specific piece, but rather to set up a situation and let it evolve. So, the goal was not to provide a “written-down” piece, except for a set of instructions. It would not be possible to go back, pick something off the shelf and recreate it, nor was that the intent. 

 

This is a fine description of Bill’s TIC (1967), composed entirely of little cartoon bubbles with suggested activities for the performers (see Example 1). His BEULAHLAND RAG (1967–69) also includes much improvisation but more specific musical notation and timing (see Example 2). Bill was also the associate director of the University of Michigan Electronic Music Studio. Is there a relationship between his work with electronic music and his acoustic music?

Yes. Understanding some electronic studio techniques from the mid to late 60s may help performers and listeners understand his organ music from that time. The actual electronic generation of sound was done by signal generators that could be found in any electronic repair shop, but instead of just one or two, the University of Michigan studio had a dozen. A large part of working in the early electronic studio was manipulating these electronically generated sounds—sine waves, square waves, and saw-tooth waves—in order to get some kind of humanness to them, some warmth and shape. 

If a series of pitches were desired, each being a short percussive sound, each one would have to be generated and recorded separately on audiotape. Then the tape would be cut up with a razor blade in what was called a splicing block. Next, we taped the little pieces back together interspersed with paper “leader” tape in whatever order we wished. That segment of tape could be played at its recorded speed, either 15 or 7.5 inches per second, or played back at the alternate speed to raise or lower the recorded pitches by a factor of one octave. The tape could be reversed end for end and played backward. This work was extraordinarily time-consuming. The tapes we ended up with consisted of paper leader interspersed with recorded audio segments sometimes only a quarter or half-inch long. By the way, the old advertisement for Maxwell House with the so-called “drips” of coffee were actually sine waves at various pitches that had been chopped up into short segments in the manner I’ve just described.

This effect was difficult to achieve in the electronic music studio, but it was easy to get on the pipe organ. Bill got the same effect by playing widely spaced intervals staccato and very quickly on flute stops. 

 

In Pneuma (1966) there are several passages that sound like they came right out of the electronic music studio. This type of abrupt juxtaposition of sounds or textures surely has a connection with the splicing block you mentioned earlier. Surprising explosions or reductions of sound were stylistic characteristics in several of Bill’s early pieces. (See Example 3.¹⁸)

There aren’t many examples in his music where he emphasized electronic sound. In fact, tonal, rhythmic, and other traditional musical elements are documented in a number of articles and dissertations on his music. But Bill was quite aware of the ability of the modern pipe organ to juxtapose sounds in a way similar to what was being done in an electronic music studio. To a certain extent it was a lot easier on the organ than on any other instrument. 

 

At the end of Benediction (Organbook I), the alternation of two chords includes the rapid succession of ten different organ timbres (see Example 4).

It must have been a pleasure for Bill to produce such musical gestures so easily. Oddly enough, the Hammond organ has come to be respected as a precursor to the electronic synthesizer because of its unique ability to manipulate various sine waves selected by drawbars. Bill had a healthy respect for that. Also, the attack and decay of the Hammond organ sound is very abrupt. It’s suddenly on, and then it’s off. There is no soft beginning to each specific note. Each has a percussive quality that was very familiar to people working in the early electronic music field. 

 

That attack could be accentuated on the Hammond with various other controls. This relates to several passages in Benediction (Organbook) where the beginning of a sustained chord is articulated, by a louder, more harmonically developed sound on an adjacent manual. (See Example 5.²¹)

Another element you can hear in Bill’s organ music, a direct result of his work in the electronic music idiom, relates to masses of sounds or tone clusters. One of the techniques in the early electronic music studio was to gradually alter the speed of the tape recorder. We could do that with those professional tape recorders by taking them off the line voltage and, employing one of our sine-wave oscillators, generating our own alternating current so that we could operate it not only at 60 cycles per second, but also at 59, then 58, 57, 56, thereby decelerating the speed of the tape recorder’s motor. 

We could take a very complex natural sound—perhaps the low-pitched, sustained singing with complex overtones of a group of Tibetan monks—record it and then slow it down to half that speed to get it extremely low, or we could start the tape recorder playing back at an artificially higher speed and then slow the tape recorder down very, very carefully to make a glissando of this massed sound. You can hear Bill emulating that in his organ pieces where he asks for the palm of a hand to move a note-cluster up and down the keyboard slowly or rapidly. I’m sure this derives from his familiarity with electronic music. 

Of course, clusters and cluster glissandos were a part of a genre of organ technique for at least 40 or 50 years by Bill’s time. That’s how theatre organists simulated the sound of a departing locomotive. And what theatre organist has not slid the palm of the hand up to one of those big major chords with an added sixth?!

 

Did you work with Bill in the electronic music studio? You mentioned Bill’s tapping on the back of a door to create a sound.

My involvement in the studio was simply to assist him. If a dial needed to be turned while he was occupied with starting or stopping a tape recorder, or vice versa, I helped by turning that dial perhaps to make a sound go up or down, or with manipulating that tape recorder. 

And, yes, the door to the electronic music studio in Hill Auditorium was hollow, and it had a nice sound when you rapped it with your knuckles, and, of course, the sound changed as you moved from the edge of the door. If you started at the very top and simply started tapping it rapidly as you moved down toward the center of the door, you could get a descending pitch of sorts. At least the timbre changed. So, we found if you recorded that tapping sound at 15 inches-per-second and then slowed it down to 7.5, instead of having something that went “tic, tic, tic,” it would go “tok… tok… tok… tok.” And then if you re-recorded that sound with a lot of reverberation at 15ips and dropped the result down to 7.5, instead of “tok… tok…tok” it would have become “boom…boom…boom… boom.” It was so mundane, but looking back on it now, it holds some very fond memories. 

 

In the 1960s, the electronic music medium seemed so far removed from traditional music making, but it’s worth remembering that these developments did not just come “out of the blue.” There were numerous earlier developments such as the Theremin, Ondes Martenot, and the Hammond organ. Charles Ives, Edgard Varèse, Henry Cowell, and other composers used sound blocks and clusters.

Using mechanical devices and whatever else was at hand has always appealed to composers. Bill was very fond of the American expatriate composer Conlon Nancarrow who lived in Mexico. Nancarrow found that he could compose for player piano, thereby vastly exceeding the capabilities of the human hand in what became sophisticated and complex music. Bill did meet Nancarrow on at least one occasion when he returned to the United States. Bill not only enjoyed the music itself but also admired the methodology by which the compositions were created, as they demonstrate the lengths to which composers are willing to go to follow an aesthetic arrow. 

 

Yes, Bill spoke enthusiastically about Nancarrow in one of his lectures. He played a recording of Nancarrow’s Study No. 21 (Canon X) and cited these very things: how fast Nancarrow could get the music to go and how complex he could make the rhythm.²⁴ He could have the effect of three or four different hands playing the piano totally independent of one another at different rates of speed.

Much of Underground Stream (Organbook III, 1978) has three different rhythmic layers going on at the same time. The second section of Bill’s De Spiritum, called Celestial Duel, ends with material gradually speeding up from a moderate tempo (quarter=72) to Vivo (quarter=160) and accelerates beyond that to “presto pos.” It sounds just like some of the fast passages in Nancarrow’s Studies for player piano. 

Nancarrow pushed tempo to the limits of the player piano by punching holes in paper sheets. Bill’s formidable keyboard technique allowed him to achieve similar effects on the organ. 

 

Can you talk about your film-making experience?

While we were roommates in 1964–65, we collaborated in making several 8mm films. As students, the possibility of having our own professional video camera was virtually zero. Since 16mm film was terrifically expensive, we resorted to using 8mm film, which was in our budget. One of our productions was good enough to win second prize in the first Ann Arbor 8mm Film Festival.

 

What was it about?

(chuckle) It was…to use that all too frequently abused word…an experimental film. Our main character was the composer, Robert Morris, who willingly did just about anything we asked of him including running up and down the stairwell of Burton Tower. At one point we were aiming the camera down the stairwell and filming at a slow speed. After the film was processed and running at normal speed, it appeared as though Bob was corkscrewing himself right into the ground. We sped up the camera; we slowed it down; we reversed the film; we photographed things in stop action. All the same things we were doing in the electronic music studio, we did with film. We knew that we could splice film together and cut it up in the same way that we did audio tape. So, we could introduce snippets of color with mostly black and white. We even hired some school children to do a small bit part. We asked them if they wanted to be in the movies, and they said, “Of course!” So, we gave them a dime apiece, and they acted for us (laughter).

 

What did you have them do?

I think we told them to stand at attention for a few seconds and then to look to their left, and then all run away…or something like that. Anyway, we pieced this thing together. We had heard there was a new Ann Arbor Film Festival that had an 8mm division, so as a lark, we put it into the Festival, and lo and behold, we won second prize. It was shown to great acclaim and applause that next night in a coffee house in Ann Arbor. We were very proud of ourselves, although it was a silly little thing. But it was fun.

 

Could you tell about your invention and how Bill helped you with that?

When it became necessary for me to establish a legal “date of conception” for a holographic storage system I had invented, Bill spent many hours looking at every single page in a bound notebook, then signing and dating that page. This was a very generous thing that he did for me. In the process of reaching a patentable stage, the inventor is obligated to write his ideas into a bound notebook in his own hand using indelible ink detailing every feature of the invention. Each page must be signed by the inventor and two witnesses, who must be sufficiently knowledgeable about the technology so they can sign every page of the book, “witnessed and understood by….” One person was an old friend of mine, an M.D. with enough technical prowess to understand the technology. The other person was Bill Albright, who did, indeed, sit there for several afternoons looking over all the written material including the detailed diagrams until he understood each page. He would quiz me about things, I would quiz him about his knowledge of it, and when he felt he was comfortable doing so, he signed off on that page, and then we went to the next page and the next page.

 

And the nice bottom line is that you actually got the patent (U.S. Patent 4,420,829—“Holographic System for the Storage of Audio, Video and Computer Data”). 

Yes! 

 

Ross Lee Finney was one of Bill’s major composition teachers.

I barely knew Finney. By the time I became a composition student, Leslie Bassett was the head of the department. But, I had occasion to be at Ross Lee Finney’s house when he invited me for a private conversation, which I understand he did from time to time with all the composition majors. He was a brilliant man and very generous with his time. He was very tough, but in a nice way. That is to say, he wanted the students to employ their talents to the very best of their ability. There was a professionalism about him. 

Finney’s contribution was not only as a teacher, but he was also able to get many other well-known composers to come to the university and donate their time to the task at hand of teaching and associating with the student composers, plus putting together ensembles for performance. He had many contacts throughout the musical world, which he could exploit in the best sense of the word, all for the benefit of his students. When he retired, Leslie Bassett, in his own way, did the same thing. 

 

Then Bill continued that tradition when he became the chair of the department…

…succeeding Bassett, that’s right. And then Bill was succeeded by William Bolcom. So, there’s been a long heritage of top-notch composition teachers.

 

Let’s talk a little bit about the fun, humorous aspect of Toccata Satanique and literary associations. Bill told me it really had nothing to do with Satan, and, in fact, the title may have been an attempt to poke fun at such “devilish” ideas. He also spoke about Poe, Hawthorne, and other 19th-century writers who sometimes dealt with such subjects, and, of course, we have Tartini’s famous “Devil’s Trill” sonata and numerous pieces by Liszt and Berlioz. 

In the notes to his recording of the piece, he writes that Toccata Satanique “is a matinee performance by the devil at the console, an attempt to exorcise those fiendish virtuoso toccatas of Mulet, Widor, et al;…” Bill had a rapier wit. People who knew him well enjoyed his joking, his fun with words, his double-entendres, everything in the bag of tricks of people who enjoy interacting with others in a social environment when everyone is enjoying each other’s familiarities with certain literary things, musical gestures, artistic relationships, and whatnot. Some religious connotations and associations can have a humorous aspect to them, and so church musicians and the organ can be part of that basket of topics as well.

One must be careful not to read in too much into a title. Actually the real purpose of a title might simply be to distinguish one piece from another when you’re talking with someone on the telephone. Sometimes, it doesn’t really get much beyond that. 

 

However, notes and comments on sketches for Night Procession and the Whistler Nocturnes suggest that in some cases Bill may have been thinking of titles right along with the musical concepts.

It’s possible that the title gave to the piece its nucleus, that is, the title might have to do with the style of the piece or it might be reminiscent of a certain performer whom he was trying to emulate. 

 

You performed several of Bill’s organ pieces. Did he have suggestions for you?

Bill coached me on the performance of Melisma. As usual, I was practicing it slowly at first and gradually picking up the tempo. Bill said, “You know that first little group of notes…you shouldn’t be able to hear the individual notes…it’s just baroop.” It’s a glissando. You have to do that fast! I can see him in the old electronic music studio with his hand on the dial of the signal generator and here’s a sine wave coming from the speakers, and he’d be twiddling the dial, making the sound barooarooaroo go up and down. (See Example 6.)

 

…which is like the beginning of Melisma…

Yes, but you can’t be playing the thing da-da-da-da-da-….It has to go so fast that it’s just a blur.

 

And with a traditional chromatic fingering, you can’t get it fast enough. So instead of (L.H.) 2-1-3-1-3, you use consecutive fingers 5-4-3-2-1 with a quick flick of the wrist.

I got the impression that Bill really wanted that thing to be at full bore velocity. Of course, you’re dealing with a person who is a virtuoso performer of great stamina. After all, he could keep up very well with those friends he’d invite over and with whom he’d play ragtime music all night long. You know, there were the legendary “cutting contests” [ragtime playing competitions] of the early ragtime pianists, and some of those fellows were still around, some who emulated that culture, so sheer speed and endurance was something Bill expected. Perhaps in his later years he modified that a little.

 

The question of tempo is a perennial one. When I performed Four Fancies (for harpsichord, 1979) and Symphony (for organ, 1986) he told me not to worry too much about tempo, that the most important thing was good rhythm. He commented specifically on honoring the complex rhythms in the second movement of the harpsichord piece, Mirror Bagatelle. Another time he wanted me to play much faster. When he narrated 1732: In Memoriam Johannes Albrecht (1984), he pushed me to the limit on several sections where he wanted it faster. “Let ’er rip!” he said.

I am reminded there are certain times in our musical past when new standards of velocity were set. I recently read a biography of the pianist Art Tatum who had extraordinary facility. As a young teenager, Oscar Peterson, another famous jazz pianist, thought he had arrived in terms of his technical prowess. He was told that by all of his relatives! Why shouldn’t he believe it? Oscar’s father brought home a record of Art Tatum and played it without telling Oscar anything about it. When it was all done, he asked his son, “Well, what ’ya think of that?” And Oscar said, “Boy, those guys are good!” And his father said, “Oscar, that’s only one man playing.” When Oscar realized his father was telling the truth, he said, “I didn’t go near a piano for three months.” 

When a standard like that is set, it forces people to do more than they think they can. You find that, yes, you can do it. Bill’s fingers weren’t built any differently than anybody else’s. With practice, you can achieve those velocities that he was looking for.

 

Thank you, John.

Thank you. It’s been a pleasure talking about an old friend and colleague and his music. 

A conversation with Steven Egler

Steven Egler

Steven Egler is Professor of Music at Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1976. He was a student of Robert Glasgow from 1969 to 1981, during which time he completed the B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees at The University of Michigan. Egler is also Councillor for Region V of the AGO.

Robert Glasgow, Professor of Music at The University of Michigan, will celebrate his 80th birthday on May 30, 2005. In honor of this occasion, I was delighted to be invited by Jerome Butera, editor of The Diapason, to interview Professor Glasgow, and did so on February 12, 2005. We had a wonderful afternoon at his organ studio in the School of Music, and he answered many questions about his life and career. Thanks to Prof. Glasgow for the interview, and we wish him Godspeed upon the occasion of his birthday and best wishes upon his forthcoming retirement.

Robert Glasgow has taught at The University of Michigan since 1962, after teaching at MacMurray College in Illinois and having graduated with distinction from the Eastman School, where he was also awarded the Performer’s Certificate. MacMurray College named him an honorary doctor of music, and his Michigan colleagues honored him with the Harold Haugh Award for excellence in the teaching of performance. He has concertized abroad several times, has toured the United States and Canada every season, and has appeared as a featured performer, lecturer and clinician at numerous national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists. Mr. Glasgow was named International Performer of the Year in 1997 by the New York AGO Chapter.

 

Personnel coded as follows:

SE--Steven Egler

RG--Robert Glasgow

RB--Robert Barker, who also took the photos that accompany this article.

SE: Bob, please tell us about your childhood in Oklahoma City and your early music training. Did you come from a musical family?

RG: I would say so. Both my parents played musical instruments. My mother was a pianist and somewhat of an organist. My father played violin rather well and also clarinet. In fact they played piano and violin in the church orchestra, and that is where they first met.

My mother heard about a new Presbyterian church being built in Ada, a little town in southeast Oklahoma. They were going to have a new organ; it was going to be a Hillgreen-Lane. When my mother learned about it she called to ask if they needed an organist. Of course, being a little town out there in the middle of nowhere, they said, yes, they needed an organist. My mother decided to take some organ lessons and be down there in about six weeks. So she did; took six lessons from a lady in Oklahoma City and learned how to play the pedals and the manuals--enough to play a service. So she became organist of that church.

SE: So your mother was an organist?

RG: She was a natural musician and she had a lot of piano study. When she was in high school, her piano teacher told my grandmother that she didn’t think that she was making the progress that she should. She said, “Your daughter has too much talent for her own good . . . that it was too easy for her.” By the way, when I started to play the accordion, she learned the accordion herself; then she’d listen to things on the radio and then she’d play them to me, and I’d learn them by ear. She’d learn them by ear and then transfer them to my ear when I’d come home from school. It was great fun!

Well, it’s easy! It’s the easiest way to learn music rather than read through all of those notes--the printed page! I still think that there’s something to be said for learning by ear at a young age. In the first place, making music is perfectly natural. It’s not going to become any more natural than it is right then.

You want students who can play with great persuasion and do not sound affected and contrived. Those who do play this way started off as youngsters playing by ear, singing tunes they’ve heard, listening to the radio.

SE: Who were some of the organists who inspired you as a young man?

RG: The organist at First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City, Mrs. J. S. Frank. Mr. Ken Wright of radio station WKY, who played a 4-manual Kilgen organ in the radio station studio--this organ produced some very beautiful sounds. His playing was very tasteful, he had good organ technique, and presented a good variety of popular style repertoire. For every broadcast he played his own theme song that was not published, but I learned to play it by ear. Jesse Crawford, a very famous theatre organist of the time. I had many of his recordings. Marcel Dupré came to Oklahoma City in 1939 to play a recital at First Christian Church. He had just played the wedding of the Duke of Windsor (Edward VIII) and Mrs. Simpson. The recital was a sell-out event. He brought his daughter Marguerite on the tour, and they played Franck, Dupré, etc.

SE: Did your parents encourage music study as a boy?

RG: Well, I guess so. They didn’t discourage it. It was a perfectly natural thing in our home when I was growing up. I was an only child.

SE: What instruments did you play?

RG: Accordion! I wanted to study and play the organ, but I could not reach the pedals, so I talked my folks into buying me an 80-bass accordion. That’s how I learned to play the pieces my mother taught me by ear--on that accordion.

SE: So that’s as close as you could get to the organ sound.

RG: Yes, it’s like an organ. It’s a wind instrument. I loved doing it, and I got pretty good at it. I was popular playing for church basement suppers and things like that.

SE: You were well known early on.

RG: Oh yes, I started playing at age nine, and by eleven I was hot stuff!

SE: Who was your first teacher?

RG: My mother. She taught me some piano. We had a little baby grand. She taught me how to read the notes. I had these little pieces that I was supposed to learn, but I’d sort of half learn them and I’d fill them in myself and fix them up. Mother would say, “You’re not playing what’s there.” I told her one time, “My way is better!” Talk about cheeky!

SE: So you learned your notes then after you played the accordion: you learned the accordion by ear.

RG: Almost everything that you played on the accordion had to be arranged for the instrument anyway. There was very little written for the accordion all by itself. My piano book had wonderful illustrations in it with the keyboard going up into the sky. It was wonderful, lovely, and all very visual. But the last piece in there was the Minuet in G of Beethoven. It has a B section--all 16th notes--and I looked at that and thought, “Oh boy, if I ever get to play that piece I’ll be really good.” That was the last piece in the book, and if you got that far you were a finished pianist.

SE: So you were done. That was it!

RG: Yes. All done.

SE: Then you were ready for the organ, the real thing.

RG: I was ready, but I still couldn’t reach the pedals, and I hadn’t enough piano according to the piano teacher. Our church organist was a wonderful musician--Oberlin-trained from way back. She took me later on, but she said then that I didn’t have enough piano.

We’re missing a very important part right in here when I took up the string bass, and that’s had much more of a lasting effect upon me than anything else. The junior high school orchestra wasn’t all that good, but by the time we got to high school, the orchestras were very good. We went to state competitions at the University of Oklahoma and won A-1 ratings. We played Mozart Symphony No. 40 and Eine Kleine Nachtmusik--music of that caliber--and also the Franck D-minor Symphony.

SE: So did you just start playing the string bass?

RG: No. Oklahoma City Public Schools offered instruction in strings: first of all, violin, some viola, and you got free lessons, class lessons. This was fourth grade and there were little-sized instruments. I didn’t care anything about that: I wanted to play the big strings. By seventh grade, I could do string bass or cello, so I took up string bass because I liked the look of the scroll at the top. I’d take that instrument home on weekends and practice it and learned to play it.

SE: There must have been something about the bass notes.

RG: Oh yes, indeed. It was a physical thing. It was wonderful to play in an ensemble like that, and we really became quite good. Then they had a junior symphony (Oklahoma State Junior Symphony), and you had to audition to get into that. I got into it, and that was more fun than anything. We did get to play the major repertoire then.

That had a lasting effect. By the time I got out of high school, I was finished. I couldn’t keep using the string bass in the school. I didn’t have one. And, anyhow, guess what came on then?

SE: World War II?

RG: It was already going. But one thing that I got out of that was the GI Bill--a godsend for everyone of that generation.

SE: And that paid for your education at Eastman?

RG: Yes, just did. The amount of time you got was the amount of time that you had been in the service, and mine worked out just right. Eastman cost more than anything; in those days it was $500 a year!

I came back and I didn’t know what I was going to do where music was concerned. I thought I’d be an architect and was very serious about it. I kept drawing all the time. I couldn’t get away from it. I’d draw house plans, church plans, and outsides of buildings. Some were not bad, as I look back on that. I was about ten or eleven years old when I started drawing pictures of houses and floor plans.

SE: What sort of time was there, Bob, between your time in the service and going to Eastman? Was there much of a gap there?

RG: Well, I didn’t go to Eastman right away because it was too late by the time I got out of the service. It was March, and I had been working on Eastman for well over a year before that; there were thousands of GI’s out of the military service, and they all wanted to do something, go somewhere with the GI Bill. By that time, I wasn’t even sure what I was going to do.

I decided I’d try for Eastman and then got the usual letter back stating, “No. We’re sorry, but you’re the low man on the totem pole. You’d be a transfer student.” That year I went to Oklahoma City University and was a piano major and had good teaching there. The faculty were all Eastman graduates. I then got busy with applications at Eastman and sent audition recordings of both my organ and piano playing.

I got this letter, “Sorry for you. You’re too late . . . way too many students . . . I don’t want to discourage you . . . but send your audition recordings to us right away.” Instead of sending it to the admissions office, I sent it to Harold Gleason. In days, I had this note back from him! The first big thrill that I had was that he wrote to me and said to check that I had all of my papers in, and that they wanted to have me there in the fall. WELL, that did it! He saw to it that I got in. So I found myself at Eastman that summer and got a church job right away. That plus the GI bill got me through without too much trouble or hardship.

SE: When did you start at Eastman?

RG: Summer of 1947. I started in with the program right then, but they classified me as a sophomore. Of course, I had the freshman year at OCU, and all that work was accepted. I took their basic exams.

SE: That must have been very exciting. 

RG: Well, it was! It was scary, too. I thought, “What am I doing here with all of these talented people? Good grief, they are going to find out about me. They are going to catch up to me and send me home.” I didn’t think that I was that good.

SE: It looks like that didn’t happen.

RG: It didn’t, fortunately. I was trying to figure out how I would explain it to the folks at home. It turned out that I stacked up pretty well with the rest, but at first I didn’t think that I was going to.

I went there because I had advice from people at home who were graduates of Eastman and who told me that there was only one place to go and only one teacher for me. There weren’t nearly so many organ teachers then and nearly so much good organ teaching then as there is now. 

SE: Who was your teacher in Oklahoma City?

RG: Dubert Dennis. He was an Oklahoma boy--Cherokee Indian--but he put me on the straight and narrow with the Gleason Method. I’ll tell you! Hand position. Finger action. I’d never had anyone be so fussy with me before. I thought, “I’ll get to Eastman. I’ll show them.” Turned out to be just the other way around, of course. I had to get off of my high horse. I did pretty quickly.

SE: We’ve all had someone like that in our background.

RG: You need to sit back where you belong and not where you don’t belong. It’s one of the best things a teacher can do for you sometimes. To say, “Wait just a minute. You’ll be there in a minute, but not right this minute.”

RB: Humility?

RG: I don’t think humility. It’s just honesty about where you are in terms of your development, and not imagining you are further along than you really are.  That’s often the trouble some students have: they think they are so much further along that they really are, and are unwilling to do “repair work.”

SE: That might be one of those later questions . . .

RG: Another big thrill while at Eastman was when I auditioned for the Performer’s Certificate. I thought that it would be fun to play with the orchestra. In those days you did not choose the concerto before you got accepted as a candidate for the Certificate.

I got chosen, and I thought that I would do the Poulenc, but it didn’t have any pedal cadenza. I wanted something that would show off the pedals. I found the Flor Peeters Concerto in a music store, so I chose that, and Howard Hanson liked it better than the Poulenc. Hanson was not a fan of Poulenc. 

He was a wonderful conductor and wonderful musician to work with on that concerto. It was the American premiere, and it did have a big pedal cadenza in it and a rousing climax. It just brought the house down. Flor Peeters knew how to write for organ and orchestra very effectively.