The Eclectic Landscape of Ride in a High-Speed Train: An interview with Ad Wammes

Gregory Hand

The performance of notes inégales (the primarily French convention of performing equally notated melodies in an unequal fashion by alternating short and long notes) is often a major impediment to keyboardists unfamiliar with 17th- and 18th-century French music. Although there is a wealth of primary and secondary literature devoted to the topic of notes inégales,¹ this literature is usually focused on when notes inégales are to be used, and the differential ratio between the short and long notes. However, almost no literature exists that describes how notes inégales actually sounded. In this article, I will present new evidence on how notes inégales were performed in the eighteenth century, and how this knowledge can illuminate keyboard pedagogy and performance of notes inégales.

The very first challenge when playing French baroque music is to know exactly when notes inégales ought to be used. The treatises tend to be somewhat circumspect on the subject, occasionally just leaving it to a matter of taste. Here are but two examples of this maddening vagueness.

Nivers in 1665 states that “This style [notes inégales] is applied by personal discretion as are many other things which must be governed by the ear and by wisdom.”² 

Saint-Lambert in 1702 instructs: “When using this inequality of eighth notes or quarter notes, taste must decide if they ought to be altered a little or greatly. There are some pieces in which it works well to alter them greatly, and others where they require less. Taste judges this as it does tempo.”³

However, there is a body of repertoire that can shed light on this issue: the cantate françoise.⁴ This genre flourished in the first half of the 18th century, and arias in this genre predominantly feature an “instrumental anticipation,” a relatively new compositional device for French baroque vocal music. The instrumental anticipation is simply a short preview of the singer’s part, played by an instrumentalist as an introduction. 

Comparing the instrumental anticipation to the upcoming vocal part yields special insight into French baroque performance practice, and can sometimes prove that the vocal part ought to be performed with notes inégales. For example, in Figures 1 and 2 (both from the first air of Montéclair’s Le Triomphe de l’Amour), the two parts have the exact same melody. The instrumental part is dotted, but the vocal part is not. The vocal part is therefore an example of notes inégales: it is notated equally, but meant to be performed unequally.

Having isolated this melody as unambiguously using notes inégales, we can examine the text underlay to better understand how notes inégales should sound. Notice how naturally the text lends itself to inequality, with a slight lengthening of “ha-” and “des”, and a correspondingly shorter “-bi-” and “re-.” It is also clear that the text is set across the beat. That is, the momentum of the text carries us into the strong beat. I have illustrated this by adding arrows to Figure 2 to show the momentum of the text.

Figures 3 and 4, from Clérambault, Apollon et Doris (Book 4), First Air, contain another example of an unequally notated instrumental anticipation, followed by an equally notated vocal part. The vocal part must therefore also be an example of notes inégales. Here again we see that the text is naturally unequal, and that the momentum of the text is across the beat.

Figures 5 and 6, from Clérambault’s Clitie (Book 5), Second Air, are particularly interesting, since the composer explicitly asks for the eighth notes to be played inégales in the instrumental part. And once again, we see that the text underlay is set across the beat.

At first, it may seem puzzling that composers used a different notation for the same melody. In the first two examples above, the instrumental part was dotted, but the vocal part was not. In the third example, a performance directive asked for notes inégales, and this directive is missing from the vocal part. The central question is: why is the vocal part notated equally?

 The answer seems to be that dotting the vocal part was redundant, since the singer had the text underlay for reference. Since the French language is naturally unequal, there was no reason to waste engraving time to express a subtle rhythm that was obvious to the singer. If you know some French, try saying (or singing) “Pourquoy cher auteur de mes peines” without any inequality… it’s almost impossible! On the other hand, the instrumental part has no text, so there is no signal to the player when or where to use notes inégales. This forced the composer to write out the inequality using dotted rhythms.

This is fundamental to understanding notes inégales: it is a vocal phenomenon. As keyboardists, when we use notes inégales, we are imitating French song.

But what does it mean to imitate French song at the keyboard? Simply put, our performance needs to sound like it has a French text. This precludes a seamless legato: texts have consonants that break up the sound. At the keyboard, armed with a good and sensitive action, we use subtle articulations to project our “text.”

Of course, if we are playing a melody with lots of leaps, or long virtuosic passages, the music is probably instrumentally conceived rather than vocally conceived, and the use of notes inégales would be inappropriate. But primarily stepwise melodies, with clear phrases (like sentences and clauses), will be best projected with notes inégales.

Fingering is an important aspect of playing notes inégales at the keyboard. We must devise a fingering that allows us to easily transfer the momentum across the beat. This is not a new idea: in 1716 François Couperin, in L’art de toucher le claveçin (p. 29), prescribed the right-hand scale fingering shown in Figure 7.

(Note that the passage starts on the second eighth note of the measure. Since the passage ends on an “orphan” eighth note, the engraver didn’t include the first eighth note rest, in order to make the total time values in the two measures add up correctly.)

This fingering aligns perfectly with across-the-beat notes inégales performance. For example, in the ascending scale, the given fingering naturally transfers the momentum from each short 3 to the following longer 4.

It is also important to note that these fingerings are totally unlike North German and English early fingerings. The fingerings of those schools stress within-the-beat performance, and in my opinion, this is simply because those languages are not spoken or sung as unequally as French.

To train ourselves to play the keyboard with a French accent, it can be helpful to add a text when we practice. As an example, I have selected the “Petit Fugue sur la Chromhorne” from François Couperin’s Messe pour les Couvents. For this piece, I engraved an edition myself from a facsimile of the original print, and added a text (see Figure 8). I chose to add the text from the Clérambault aria above (Figures 5 and 6), since it has the same rhythm and meter as the Couperin. Keeping this text in mind while practicing will make the notes inégales sound effortless, and will allow each “au-” to transfer its momentum across the beat to the following “-teur.”

It is vitally important to ignore the instrumental-style beaming, which is a difficult task for performers. When two eighth notes are beamed together (like “cher” and “au-”), we often feel obligated to somehow bind those two notes together. But this impulse will destroy our French accent. When playing French baroque keyboard music, we need to have our beam-cutting scissors close at hand. In fact, the vocal parts from the cantates cited in Figures 2, 5, and 8 are completely unbeamed!

Another impulse to avoid is putting an artificial break at the bar line. For many musicians, this is an ingrained habit. But it is absolutely contrary to a good French accent at the keyboard.

Obviously we cannot conclusively generalize about how a language is
sung from only three examples. I strongly encourage keyboardists to investigate the rich and dramatic music contained in the cantates françoises.
As we get used to singing them, it becomes easy to transfer this singing style to French baroque keyboard music. And when we reach that point, we no longer worry about ratios,
articulation, or fingering. We simply project the imagined text, like an
orator.⁵ We need only to remember to “play it like you say it!”

 

Notes

1. A review of the literature regarding notes inégales is summarized in Stephen E. Hefling, Rhythmic Alteration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Music: Notes Inégales and Overdotting (New York: Schirmer Books, 1993), 3–61.

2. Guillaume Gabriel Nivers, Livre d’orgue contenant cent Pieces de tous les Tons de l’Eglise. par le Sr. Nivers Me. compositeur en musique et organiste de l’Eglise St. Sulpice de Paris (Paris: chez l’Autheur proche S. Sulpice et R. Ballard seul Imp. du Roy pr. la musique, 1665), Preface. Cited and translated in Judith Caswell, “Rhythmic Inequality and Tempo in French Music Between 1650 and 1740” (PhD diss., University of Minnesota, 1973), 105.

3. Michel de Saint-Lambert, Les Principes du Clavecin Contenant une Explication exacte de tout ce qui concerne la Tablature & le Clavier (Paris: Chez Christophe Ballard, 1702), pp. 25-26. Cited and translated in Caswell, “Rhythmic Inequality,” 141.

4. The history of this repertoire can be found in David Tunley, The Eighteenth Century French Cantata (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Many of the cantates are available in facsimile.

5. Those interested in the art of French baroque musical oration will find Patricia Ranum’s book, The Harmonic Orator, to be an invaluable and inspiring guide.

 

Bibliography

Clérambault, Louis-Nicolas. Cantates Françoises Mellées de Simphonies; Dediées a Monseigneur le Maréchal de Villeroy. Composées par Mr. Clérambault, Livre IVe. Paris: L’Auteur, 1720. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 10). New York: Garland, 1990.

———. Cantates Françoises Mellées de Simphonies; Dediées a la Reine. Composées par Mr. Clérambault, Livre Ve. Paris: L’Auteur, 1726. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 10). New York: Garland, 1990.

Couperin, François. L’art de toucher le clavecin. Paris: l’Auteur, 1716. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb38808175z (accessed May 3, 2015).

———. Pièces d’orgue II. Messe propre pour les couvents de religieux et religieuses. Paris: Chéz l’autheur, 1690. Facsimile. Courlay, France: Editions J. M. Fuzeau, 1986.

Helfling, Stephen E. Rhythmic Alteration in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth- Century Music: Notes Inégales and Overdotting. New York: Schirmer Books, 1993. 

Montéclair, Michel Pignolet de. Cantates: à Une et à Deux Voix et avec Sinfonie. Composées par Mr. Montèclair. Second Livre, qui contient six Cantates Françoises et une Cantate Italiène. Paris: L’Auteur, Foucault, [s.d.]. Facsimile, with an introduction by David Tunley (The eighteenth century French cantata, 12). New York: Garland, 1990.

Ranum, Patricia M. The Harmonic Orator. Hillsdale, New York: Pendragon Press, 2001.

Tunley, David. The Eighteenth Century French Cantata. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Ann Labounsky

Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser. Church Music Association of America, P.O. Box 4344, Roswell, NM 88202 (musicasacra.com), 2014, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-9916452-0-6, 456 pages.

Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen by Stephen Schloesser. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2014, $40.00, ISBN 978-0-8028-0762-5, 572 pages.

 

These two new books present the results of academic research on Charles Tournemire and on the life and works of Olivier Messiaen. Through the efforts of Jennifer Donelson, the guiding light behind the academic outreach of the Church Music Association of America and the managing editor of Sacred Music (the official publication of the CMAA), there have been two conferences on Tournemire, the first in Miami in 2011 and the second in Pittsburgh in 2012. Mystic Modern is a reproduction of the papers given at the Miami and Pittsburgh conferences. Stephen Schloesser, author of Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen, is a Jesuit priest and professor of history at Loyola University, Chicago, and also the author of Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933. 

Mystic Modern was published in the summer of 2014 in time for the annual CMAA Colloquium in Indianapolis. Schloesser’s Messiaen book was also published in July 2014, coinciding with the American Guild of Organists’ national convention in Boston. Beyond the coincidence in publication dates, what is remarkable about the two books is the relationship between Tournemire and Messiaen. Tournemire influenced Messiaen to a much greater extent than is normally assumed; but Messiaen eclipsed his mentor by gaining greater fame during his lifetime. Book after book has been written about Messiaen, while Tournemire has remained in relative obscurity until fairly recently.

A first glance at both of these books reveals that there is much more to understand about Charles Tournemire and Olivier Messiaen than one can know only through a study of their musical scores. This “much more” element encompasses knowledge of the personal lives of the two men and the personal relationship between them. It also focuses on how history, culture, theology, literature, symbolism, and aesthetics affected them both. Mystic Modern and Visions of Amen are a must read not only for scholars or devotees of Tournemire and Messiaen, but for those interested in liturgy, music, and theology. Fortunately both books can be read in small sections, slowly and with the help of excellent indices. In the case of Visions of Amen, Messiaen’s important duo-piano work from 1943, a link to an audio recording of a live performance is included in the text.

Tournemire was certainly a modern composer who influenced Messiaen, Langlais, and many other 20th-century French composers. The extent of his “modernism” led many to dismiss his music as obtuse, and his mysticism certainly was another reason that many dismissed his music as unapproachable. Stephen Schloesser explains Tournemire’s “modernism” in his 2005 book, Jazz Age Catholicism:

Tournemire imagined the musical devices representing ‘passion’—chromaticism, polytonalism, and the perceived resulting ‘dissonance’—as the most appropriate material carriers of the ‘eternal’ and unchanging Latin forms. Images of dress abounded in ancient chants were imagined to be ‘clothed’ in ‘modern’ musical fashions.¹

The main Tournemire scholarship consists of a doctoral dissertation by Ruth Sisson, a picture book of photos by Ianco Pascal, and the notated catalogue of his works by Joël-Marie Fauquet from 1979.² Stephen Schloesser devotes a large part of Jazz Age Catholicism to the study of Tournemire. Lastly, Marie-Louise Langlais has published on the Internet portions of Tournemire’s Memoires that specifically address music (http://ml-langlais.com/Tournemire). The French journal L’Orgue is in the process of issuing the complete Tournemire Memoires. The editors of Mystic Modern had access to the complete version and quoted extensively from it in their essays, The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method and How does Music Speak of God.

Charles Tournemire (1877–1939) died in the same year that I was born, and perhaps for this coincidence, I felt a special connection to this man. My first exposure to the “mystic modern” Tournemire was during the 1950s, in hearing my first organ teacher Paul Sifler play some of Tournemire’s music on several recitals. I remember the music sounded strange and exotic, like the music of Olivier Messiaen that Sifler played, which I, as a teenager, did not understand. It was later, as a pupil of Jean Langlais in Paris during the early 1960s, that I came to know Tournemire’s music in a different way. Langlais often played Tournemire’s music at Sainte-Clotilde on the organ that Tournemire knew and loved and often played the Eli, Eli, lamma sabacthani from the Sept Paroles of Tournemire. This blind teacher taught me the first movement and the last movement (Consummatum est) at Sainte-Clotilde during late Wednesday evenings in a dimly lit, empty church with the incomparable sounds of the Cavaillé-Coll organ. And he spoke about Tournemire as someone he knew well—little things about how he taught, how his personality was particularly quirky and unpredictable. He encouraged me to meet Tournemire’s second wife, Mme. Alice Tournemire, in her apartment—the apartment where her late husband had lived and taught. She read portions of his Memoires regarding the Symphonie-Choral, which I was planning to perform at Sainte-Clotilde. The more I played and heard Tournemire’s music, the more fascinated I became with it. His music was not instantly appealing; rather, it permeated my being slowly and compellingly.

 

Mystic Modern

The contents of Mystic Modern are divided into three sections, which develop the theme of Tournemire’s legacy as liturgical commentator, music inventor, and littéraire. In the preface, “Tournemire the Liturgical Commentator,” Donelson discusses Tournemire’s role as organist in the Roman Catholic Church and especially his place in the long line of composers incorporating Gregorian chant into both their composed works and their improvisations. 

 

The liturgical commentator

“The Organ as Liturgical Commentator—Some Thoughts, Magisterial and Otherwise” by Monsignor Andrew R. Wadsworth, begins with Wadsworth’s recollections of Messiaen’s improvisations during a Low Mass at La Trinité and then discusses the liturgical norms with an historical overview of the documents pertaining to them. He implores organists to follow Tournemire’s example in L’Orgue mystique: to improvise on the chants proper to each Sunday’s liturgy.

“Joseph Bonnet as a Catalyst in the Early-Twentieth-Century Gregorian Chant Revival,” by Susan Treacy, explains Bonnet’s decisive role in encouraging Tournemire to write L’Orgue mystique. Through explanations of Bonnet’s work as a liturgical organist in churches where he served, Treacy explains why Bonnet did not write any chant-based organ music. Although Bonnet was an abbot in the Benedictine order and was devoted to the propagation of Gregorian chant, he made a distinct difference between his published secular pieces for recital use and his improvised chant-based pieces for the liturgy. As a pupil of Charles Tournemire and fellow native of Bordeaux, Bonnet’s relationships with Dom Mocquereau and Justine Ward were also important in the founding of the Gregorian Institute. Even Bonnet’s church wedding, with a schola from the Gregorian Institute and with Tournemire as one of the organists, reflected his devotion to the propagation of Gregorian chant.

In “Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique and its Place in the Legacy of the Organ Mass,” Edward Schaefer gives an exhaustive summary of the development of the organ Mass, its specific usage in various countries, and the ecclesiastical documents governing organ Masses. A number of charts give illustrations of the use of the organ at the various parts of the Mass. There is a long list of the ecclesiastical ceremonials governing the use of music in the Mass and a chronological list of organ settings of the Mass. Schaefer concludes that with the renewed interest and practice of the Extraordinary form of the Mass, the practical use of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique is possible. This was demonstrated during the first Tournemire symposium. Some of the material is based on Schaefer’s dissertation from Catholic University.³

“Liturgy and Gregorian Chant in L’Orgue mystique of Charles Tournemire,” by Robert Sutherland Lord, was originally published in 1984 in The Organ Yearbook, edited by Peter Williams. The seminal importance of this article lies in Lord’s identification of all the chants from L’Orgue mystique and their origin, Tournemire’s original plan for the composition of the work, and the ways in which the composer departed from his plan in the choice of chants. The chants from the Liber Antiphonarius (Solesmes, 1897) were the sources of most of the chants that Tournemire used for the Elevation. This volume of chant is out of print, but Lord obtained a copy from the former assistant organist at Notre Dame, Paris, Pierre Moreau. Lord includes copies of these chants in the article.

In “The Twentieth-Century Franco-Belgian Art of Improvisation: Marcel Dupré, Charles Tournemire, and Flor Peeters,” Ronald Prowse discusses differences in techniques between written compositions and improvisations in the works of Dupré, Tournemire, and Flor Peeters and cites musical examples from the chant Ave Maris Stella. Using works by those three composers, Prowse deftly compares the techniques that all three of them used in treating the same chant. He often cites his own experiences studying improvisation with Pierre Toucheque, who had been a pupil of Peeters. He often quotes Tournemire, from his book on improvisation, Précis d’exécution, de registration et d’improvisation à l’orgue, stating that a master improviser creates illusions.⁴ The issue of the difference between written composition and improvisation echoes throughout this collection of essays and remains in some ways an unanswered question.

 

The musical inventor

Prowse’s essay leads logically into the second section, “Tournemire the Musical Inventor,” which deals with Tournemire’s musical language, including his choice and sense of tempo—as well as his compositional process and impact, not merely on the Sainte-Clotilde school, but on modern French organ repertoire in general. 

In his essay “Performance Practice for the Organ Music of Charles Tournemire,” Timothy Tikker describes his lessons with Langlais and Langlais’s reports of his study with Tournemire. Tikker’s account matched what I had learned from Langlais, including the story of Langlais’s meeting with Tournemire and the invitation to become the latter’s successor at Sainte-Clotilde. The two works Tikker analyzes in detail regarding interpretation (No. 7 from L’Orgue mystique, Epiphania Domini, and Mulier, ecce filius tuus, Ecce Mater tua, from Sept Chorals-Poèmes, op. 67) were pieces that I also had studied with Langlais, and I agree with his conclusions. Tikker gives detailed graphs with measure numbers indicated and, in some places, metronome markings. Of particular interest in this essay is Tikker’s extensive discussion of the Sainte-Clotilde organ. Tournemire’s specific registrations in L’Orgue mystique include the use of sub couplers and the term petites mixtures, which indicates soft mutation stops such as gamba with a nazard. It is interesting to note that Tournemire played all of L’Orgue mystique on his nine-stop house organ, regrettably never at Sainte-Clotilde. Tikker quotes this specification from Tournemire’s Précis. One of Tikker’s particularly insightful points is his comparison of German Romantic organs and their influence on the compositions of Reger and Karg-Elert, which used the full organ in the lower registers, and Tournemire’s use of full organ that was based on the “treble-ascendant voicing for its success.”⁵

“Catalogue of Charles Tournemire’s ‘Brouillon’ [Rough Sketches] for L’Orgue mystique BNF, Mus., Ms. 19929,” by Robert Sutherland Lord, is the result of Lord’s studying the 1,282 pages of rough sketches of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique found in the Bibliothèque Nationale after Lord had written an extensive article on this seminal work of Tournemire. From these sketches Lord was able to determine the exact date of each office and how Tournemire departed from his original plan. Lord’s conclusion stated: 

 

After having completed the manuscript catalogue, we can verify that the “Rough Sketches” document—in sharp contrast to the “Plan” considered in my 1984 study—is far more than a mere framework for L’Orgue mystique. The “Rough Sketches” provide the harmonies, the rhythms, and the paraphrases for forty-two of the fifty-one offices. The BNF Ms. 19929 remains the only evidence we have of Tournemire’s musical preparation for any organ work he composed.⁶

From the harmonic and rhythmic details of Tournemire’s plan for L’Orgue mystique, Bogusław Raba’s article, “Creating a Mystical Musical Eschatology: Diatonic and Chromatic Dialectic in Charles Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique” continues the discussion of the conflict between the diatonic and chromatic dialectic in Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique. Raba uses the term dialectic as follows: 

 

Tournemire’s musical poetics in L’Orgue mystique are constructed by means of a dialectical process of diatonic and chromatic textures. This procedure (along with its symbolic functions) seems to be inherited from the Romantic Liszt-Franck tradition and is used in the service of a large narrative formal structure.⁷

Raba equates diatonicism with “eternal peace” and chromaticism with emotional “passion.” For Raba, the melding of these two elements creates pandiatonic textures, which he believes are Tournemire’s legacy to Messiaen. Finally, Raba confesses that Tournemire’s style goes beyond any structural system, and he calls this a “mystical musical eschatology.” Raba makes interesting parallels between Tournemire’s use of dissonance and that of Scriabin and earlier composers such as Frescobaldi in the Elevations from his organ Masses.

Raba’s observations on dissonance from the numinous leads into the next essay, “From the ‘Triomphe de l’Art Modal’ to The Embrace of Fire: Charles Tournemire’s Gregorian Chant Legacy, Received and Refracted by Naji Hakim” by Crista Miller. Miller’s article locates Middle Eastern elements and Arabic improvisation (taqasim) present in Hakim’s organ works with common elements with Tournemire’s Sitio (I thirst) from the Sept Paroles and Hakim’s Embrace of Fire. Miller compares these techniques with Langlais’s Soleil du Soir. She also probes the creative process of these composers. Were they aware of the techniques that they were using? In interviews with Hakim, she explains that Hakim claimed that his process was “subconscious”—in other words, he was not consciously aware that he was using a particular technique, so much was it a part of his psyche.

I had also asked this question regarding synthetic and octatonic scales with both Langlais and Daniel Lesur, both of whom reported that they were unaware that they were using these scales. The question of awareness is one that pervades our study of these composers’ works and is especially relevant to their improvisations. Miller also examines the specialized use of the Vox humana in works by Tournemire, Langlais, and Hakim.

Miller and Vincent E. Rone both discuss the use of octatonic and synthetic scales in their complementary writings. Rone’s essay “From Tournemire to Vatican II: Harmonic Symmetry as Twentieth-Century French Catholic Musical Mysticism, 1928–1970” focuses on the means by which Tournemire, Duruflé, and Langlais expressed Catholic musical mysticism and, in the case of the two younger composers, the ways in which they did so in response to their frustrations during the period of the Vatican II council. Rone concentrates on the use of octatonic and whole-tone scale patterns in the three composers’ music; he uses examples from the final pieces in Tournemire’s Nativitas and Resurrectionis offices. As examples of post-Vatican II disillusionment, Rone cites Duruflé’s Messe ‘Cum Jubilo’ and Langlais’s Imploration pour la croyance, referring to the former as privileging the Ordinary’s “transcendent and eschatological imagery through harmonic symmetry and stasis, combining a synthetic scale with subtle linear unfolding of two whole-tone collections, third-related, and bitonal harmonies.”⁸ In the latter, however, the expression is pure anger. Rone refers to Ruth Sisson’s dissertation and the discussion of the “Tournemire chord,” which employs a C#-major triad with a G-major 6/3 chord over it. The musical examples are particularly helpful to the reader in understanding these compositional and aesthetic concepts. 

 

The littОraire

The final section, “Tournemire the Littéraire,” deals with the literary aspect of Tournemire’s music and dwells on the relationship of the symbolic character of Tourmemire’s musical “commentaries” (and the legacy of this role in Messiaen’s oeuvre). It also includes Charles Tournemire’s obtuse and convoluted language in his biography of Franck. Finally, it analyzes Tournemire and Messiaen’s shared inspiration, drawn from Ernest Hello’s writings and Tournemire’s eschatological reading of history. The editors took great care with the ordering of the essays to provide cohesion to the book, and the end of each essay includes a summary. 

Stephen Schloesser’s first essay, “The Composer as Commentator: Music and Text in Tournemire’s Symbolist Method,” shows the importance of the texts in Dom Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique to Tournemire. So what then is this symbolist method? Schloesser describes it simply as “ . . . an essential relationship between a work and the literary text upon which it is based.”⁹ And he further states: 

 

For the symbolists, realism, naturalism, and positivism evacuated human existence of any mystery, fantasy, imagination, or dream world. In opposition to the positivists’ exclusive privileging of the visible, Symbolists gave pride of place to the invisible.¹⁰

 

As has been stated, Schloesser’s research on Tournemire was first published in Jazz Age Catholicism (2005). As a historian with appealing linguistic, writing, and musical skills, Schloesser has a gift of getting behind the events he is describing and going to the heart of their meaning. Here Schloesser shows how the literary texts in Guéranger’s L’Année liturgique directly inspired L’Orgue mystique. Schloesser hand-copied one example from Guéranger’s work—the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption—to demonstrate this important link between the text and the music. (It is possible to study the entire Guéranger work hand in hand with L’Orgue mystique and easily follow the plan for the entire work.) The important point is that the music is a commentary or a paraphrase of the linguistic text. All the tone painting and symbols that Tournemire uses are related to the texts, and it is important to study the texts first. Lest there be any confusion, Schloesser quotes Tournemire’s preface, which clearly states: “ . . . plainchant is, in sum, freely paraphrased for each piece in the flow of the works forming this collection.”¹¹ 

Schloesser then contrasts Messiaen’s straightforward use of textual references in all his organ works and explains how Messiaen was indebted to Tournemire for this example. Schloesser subsequently refers to numerous recital programs of Tournemire in which the term paraphrase is used in the program. The notion of symbolism, for Schloesser, comes from Tournemire’s models, Claude Debussy and Richard Wagner. Evidence of Tournemire’s deep involvement in the symbolist movement is carefully presented in the next six pages. Schloesser documents examples of Tournemire’s extensive use of the Wagnerian style of leitmotif, with the chant Ego Dormivi, the antiphon from Holy Saturday based on Psalm 3, used in ten of the L’Orgue mystique offices. Schloesser goes beyond what others have previously explained regarding Tournemire’s use of this leitmotif, relating the composer’s decision both to personal and professional circumstances. Schloesser refers to other music programs and cites the texts that Tournemire used to plan those programs. Particularly moving is the intent behind his concert at the church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul in 1932, which opened with a tribute to Leon Boëllmann, the deceased organist of the church. The program is a good example of Tournemire’s manner of presenting an organ recital; it included three selections from L’Orgue mystique with explanations of the importance of the texts behind them. Tournemire’s choice of works by other composers showed his sense of his place in history alongside Bonnet, a musicologist (Bonnet was editor of the multi-volume set of Historical Organ-Recitals), a symbolist, and a truly modern composer. Also touching was Schloesser’s description of the reasons for Tournemire’s choice of themes for the last office of this great work and his four-year struggle to complete it. It is clear in studying Schloesser’s excellent essay that any serious student of L’Orgue mystique must become intimately acquainted with Guéranger’s 15-volume pivotal work, which is available in several English translations.

Again, acknowledging the superb manner in which this book is organized, it is appropriate that Elizabeth McLain’s Messiaen-oriented essay “Messiaen’s L’Ascension: Musical Illumination of Spiritual Texts After the Model of Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique” follows that of Schloesser, whose discussion of Messiaen’s early life and influences in Visions of Amen is also covered in this review. McLain’s main point is that Tournemire’s use of commentaries on sacred texts in his compositions profoundly influenced Messiaen, but that unlike Tournemire, Messiaen’s quest was to take music inspired by sacred texts out of the church and into the concert hall. McLain’s essay explains that this early opus of Messiaen had its birth as an orchestral work, premiered in Paris before he had arranged it for organ. McLain gives many musical examples from the orchestral version of the work and clear structural and harmonic analyses of the entire work.

“Desperately Seeking Franck: Tournemire and D’Indy as Biographers” by R. J. Stove is the shortest of all the essays, but it is a fascinating comparison between Tournemire and D’Indy’s biographies of Franck. Anyone who has read any of Tournemire’s own writings can certainly agree with Stove’s description of Tournemire’s writing style as an “exotic jungle.” And further, “His high-flown French is a burden to imitate in any other language, let alone a language which lays as much stress on understatement, irony, and clarity as modern English usually does.”¹² Stove’s critical assessment of the two biographers, themselves students of Franck, explains much about the differences in their personalities and a possible jealousy on the part of Tournemire toward D’Indy, on account of the differences in the successes of their respective careers and their relationship to Franck. D’Indy had known Franck for two decades, while Tournemire had known him for only two years.

In her essay, “How Does Music Speak of God? A Dialogue of Ideas between Messiaen, Tournemire, and Hello,” Jennifer Donelson compares in great depth the approaches to addressing God through music in the writings of Tournemire, Messiaen, and the mystic writer from Brittany, Ernest Hello (1828–1885). She explains how the writings of Hello, particularly his 1872 work L’Homme: La Vie—La Science—L’Art, “encapsulates an understanding that was friendly to the Symbolist and anti-positivist tendencies of both composers.”¹³ Hello’s influences on Tournemire are found in Tournemire’s writings, particularly in his unpublished memoirs and correspondence between the two composers. Donelson explains with great care the differences in philosophy between Messiaen, seeking a perfect expression of the Catholic faith, and that of Tournemire. In conclusion she sums up the answer to the title of her essay in quoting Hello:

In a “clear vision of the role of the Catholic faith in art and culture, Hello saw spiritual realities as more real than material (indeed, as their source) and concluded that, for art to be truly beautiful or ‘sincere,’ the artist must have a clear vision of the world as redeemed by God with the Incarnate Christ at the center of God’s plan for salvation.”¹⁴

Peter Bannister’s essay, “Charles Tournemire and the ‘Bureau of Eschatology’” explains the meaning of eschatology in the historical context of the first half of the twentieth century in France. Bannister quotes frequently from the 20th-century Swiss Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. The author’s reference to “Bureau of Eschatology” refers to Balthasar’s quote from Troeltsch’s dictum, “The bureau of eschatology is usually closed,” explaining that “this was true enough of the liberalism of the nineteenth century, but since the turn of the century the office has been working overtime.”¹⁵ Bannister explains the notion of life as a progression from darkness to light, often quoting from Léon Bloy, the French agnostic who converted to a strict form of Roman Catholicism, and Tournemire’s unpublished memoirs, and symphonies. Bannister laments the paucity of writings about Tournemire, citing the lack of primary source material. Bannister does not mention that this problem will soon be rectified; a forthcoming issue of the French review L’Orgue will be devoted to the difficult and highly secretive diary of Tournemire, Memoires.

I, for one, am not as pessimistic as Bannister when he states: “The likelihood is that for years to come, Tournemire will sadly continue to be regarded as an obscure figure outside the (dwindling) organ world . . . ”¹⁶ The two Tournemire conferences and these essays belie his conclusion. Consider that such composers as Bach, Mendelssohn, Rheinberger, and Langlais were less appreciated during their lifetimes than after their deaths, and certainly today they are not considered as “obscure figures.” 

Tennille Shuster’s cover, a surrealistic picture of the front of the Basilica of Sainte-Clotilde with dramatic reddish-brown clouds in the background, reflects the book’s mystical nature. The typeface and illustrations are exquisitely reproduced. 

Drs. Donelson and Schloesser are to be commended on the physical beauty of the book and the depth of scholarship that the book represents.

 

Visions of Amen

Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen is an esoteric, extremely difficult seven-movement work for two pianists at two separate pianos, and its difficulty lies both in its technical demands (requiring extremes in dynamic range and tessitura) and in its obscure symbolism (which deals with astrology, theology, angels, saints, and birds). In the biographical aspect of this latest book on the early life of Messiaen, Stephen Schloesser develops the themes surrounding the composer’s connections with the mystic Charles Tournemire. 

The driving force behind the book came from Schloesser’s collaboration with pianists Hyesook Kim (Calvin College) and Stéphane Lemelin (University of Ottawa), with whom Schloesser received a $5,000 grant from the Calvin Center for Christian Scholarship for a project entitled “Olivier Messiaen’s Religious Perspective and Performance of Visions of l’Amen.” In 2004–2005 the two pianists performed the work at a number of locations in the U.S. and Canada, with Schloesser giving lecture notes on the work and Messiaen’s life. Their original plan was to produce a compact disc with liner notes written by Schloesser. The Messiaen centennial in 2008, however, yielded a plethora of new material for Schloesser, and the project subsequently grew into the present book format, with a link to the audio recording on the Internet. A detailed analysis of the work with timings from the recording makes it possible to follow the work without the score.

The title of the book leads one to believe that Schloesser focuses on the early life and music of this composer. But the extent and depth of the material goes far beyond a discussion of Messiaen’s early years. Schloesser examines Messiaen’s entire life, giving explanations of literary, symbolist, surrealist, mystical, and theological forces that inspired his compositions. In many of Messiaen’s biographies and his own writings, the writers Paul Éluard, Dom Columba Marmion, and Ernest Hello are mentioned, but Schloesser goes farther with extensive quotations from these authors, showing their influence on Messiaen’s music. For example, in the discussion of Messiaen’s Nativity of the Lord (1935), Messiaen frequently quotes Marmion’s book Christ in His Mysteries:

 

But the main reason for keeping alive such feelings within us is our status as children of God. The Divine Sonship of the Father’s only-begotten is of the essence and eternal. But, in an infinitely free act of love, the Father has willed to add a sonship, a childship, of grace.¹⁷ 

Schloesser divides the book into four sections. The first, dealing with Messiaen’s parents, Pierre Messiaen and Cécile Sauvage, covers 1883–1930. This section can be read by itself without reference to Messiaen’s compositions as an introduction to the psychological underpinnings of his personality. Part two, “Budding Rhythmician, Surrealist Composer, Mystical Commentator: 1927–1932,” continues this psychological approach and discusses in some detail his earliest works. The third part, “Theological Order, Glorified Bodies, Apocalyptic Epoch, 1932–1943,” delves into a detailed description and analysis of Visions of Amen. For musicians, a study of Messiaen’s score is helpful, but even without the score, Schloesser gives a detailed analysis of each movement, with timings from the recording in an appendix. Part four, “Legacy, 1943–1992,” includes a discussion of Messiaen’s last work: Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum. Throughout the book, Schloesser’s use of extensive footnotes on the same page as the text is helpful. The appendix of scriptural references is logical and welcomed.

The recording by pianists Kim and Lemelin is of high quality, with a wide range of dynamics and tessituras. This is a work that Messiaen and his second wife Yvonne Loriod played together frequently, and it is dedicated to her. Much of Messiaen’s piano music is extremely difficult technically and demands the utmost in coordination between the two performers here on two pianos. One could wish that a compact disc had been included with the book, so that one could listen to the performance without using a computer.

But even if the reader has no interest in this difficult piano work, composed during the darkest period of World War II when Paris was occupied by the Nazis, there is more than enough material about Messiaen’s personal life and that of his parents to engage the reader. It is well known that Messiaen’s mother was a poetesse; the drama of her life and the struggles she endured with her husband Pierre is explained in great detail. In the introduction, Schloesser explains his approach as a “history of emotion.” In this age of a “confessional” approach to biography, it is impressive how Schloesser combines very personal material with scholarly writing.

Visions of Amen can be read on two levels: first, theological—the birth of creation, the passion of Christ, angels, saints, birdsong, judgment; and second, as a personal statement of Messiaen’s love for Yvonne Loriod. In general, “Amen” signifies “So be it,” but for Messiaen and other French composers, it was also a code name for an expression of love. This code reference using his second mode of limited transposition is also found frequently in Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphony and throughout Messiaen’s oeuvre. 

 

Notes

1. Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 281.

2. Ruth Sisson, “The Symphonic Organ Works of Charles Arnould Tournemire” (Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University, 1984). Ianco Pascal, Charles Tournemire ou le mythe de Tristan (Geneva, Editions Papillon, 2001). Pascal knew Madame Odile Weber, the niece of Tournemire’s second wife Alice Tournemire, who shared many of her photographs with him. Joël Marie Fauquet, Catalogue de l’œuvre de Charles Tournemire (Geneva, Minkoff, 1979).

3. Edward Schaefer, “The Relationship Between the Liturgy of the Roman Rite and the Italian Organ Literature of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” (Ph.D. dissertation, Catholic University of America, 1985).

4. Charles Tournemire, Précis d’exécution, de registration et d’improvisation à l’orgue (Paris, LeMoine, 1936).

5. Tikker, in Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, edited by Jennifer Donelson and Stephen Schloesser (Church Music Association of America, 2014), 131. 

6. Lord, in Mystic Modern, 137.

7. Raba, in Mystic Modern, 186.

8. Rone, in Mystic Modern, 230.

9. Schloesser, in Mystic Modern, 266.

10. Ibid., 267.

11. Ibid., 257.

12. Stove, in Mystic Modern, 312.

13. Donelson, in Mystic Modern, 317.

14. Ibid., 318.

15. Hans Urs von Balthasar, “Some Points of Eschatology” in Explorations in Theology, Vol. I: The Word Made Flesh (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1964), p. 255, translated by Bannister. 

16. Bannister, in Mystic Modern, p. 352.

17. Stephen Schloesser, Visions of Amen: The Early Life and Music of Olivier Messiaen (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014), p. 230.

 

Ann Labounsky earned a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Pittsburgh, an M.Mus. from the University of Michigan studying with Marilyn Mason, and a B.Mus. from the Eastman School of Music, studying with David Craighead. She studied in Paris with André Marchal and Jean Langlais on a Fulbright Grant and holds diplomas from the Schola Cantorum and Ecole Normale. Author of the biography Jean Langlais: the Man and His Music (Amadeus Press, 2000), she recorded the complete organ works of Jean Langlais for the Musical Heritage Society (reissued on the Voix du Vent label) and narrated and performed in a DVD of his life based on this biography, a project sponsored by the Los Angeles AGO Chapter. Labounsky is chair of organ and sacred music at Duquesne University, active in the American Guild of Organists, the National Pastoral Musicians, and the Church Music Association of America, and serves as organ artist in residence at First Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh. 

Artis Wodehouse

Pianist and harmoniumist Artis Wodehouse has a BM from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from Yale, and a DMA from Stanford. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant led to her producing CDs and publishing transcriptions of recorded performances and piano rolls made by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Zez Confrey. In 2000, Wodehouse began performing on antique reed organs and harmoniums that she had painstakingly restored and brought to concert condition. She founded the chamber group MELODEON in 2010 to present little-known but valuable music from 19th- and early 20th-century America, using her antique instrument collection as the basis for repertoire choice. 

During its prime in the nineteenth-century, the reed organ was the preferred instrument in American homes and also deemed a fit substitute for the more expensive pipe organ. Large reed organs became common in civic gathering halls and smaller churches. Despite the popularity of reed organs in America,¹ music for them consisted primarily of simplified arrangements of European art music, easy-to-play popular and sentimental ditties, polkas, marches, and waltzes, or hymns and other service music associated with worship or civic gatherings.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century it became apparent that design variation from company to company and from organ to organ, even within a given company’s fleet of models, was preventing composers from writing idiomatic original music for the American reed organ. The limited market for music crafted for one or another of the competing designs was too small to sustain widespread printing and marketing of scores.²

Without its own literature, such as had been created during the nineteenth century for its European counterpart, the harmonium, the American reed organ had an uncertain future. It would continue to be regarded at best as “a sort of weak substitute for the church organ.”³ Then, in the mid-1890s, at essentially the beginning of the end of the reed organ era, Mason & Hamlin⁴ began to address the problem by introducing an action design⁵ whose capabilities would “insure the greatest advantages to the composers, at the same time enable the manufacturer to place his instruments on the market at as low a price as possible.” The new action design was called the “Normal-Harmonium.” This was the action design for which the American composer Arthur Bird (1856–1923) wrote his compelling body of reed organ music. Figure 1 shows the Mason & Hamlin American reed organ, with Normal-Harmonium action design. Two knee levers are above the foot pedals. The right lever controls the internal swell shades; the left lever activates the Grand Jeu.

Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium action design and Arthur Bird’s creation of a substantial, idiomatic music for the American reed organ came too late. Piano sales that had roared ahead after the Civil War rapidly displaced the reed organ. In the 1880s, reed organ sales slipped below that of pianos. By World War I, the glory days of the reed organ were over.⁶

 

Two competing
19th-century instruments: 

The American reed organ
and the European harmonium 

In the 1840s, United States inventors and businessmen founded companies that offered distinctive fleets of reed organ models. Reed organs were built in a bewildering variety of brands, sizes, and stoplist configurations. They ranged from diminutive four-octave home models that traveled to the West in covered wagons, to large, expensive instruments with powerful tone, full pedalboards, and many stops. 

The American reed organ used one or more sets of brass “free reeds” in order to generate tone. The performer’s foot pumping activated suction bellows that generated a stream of moving air, much like a vacuum cleaner. When the performer depressed a key, this moving air passed through a small chamber in which the reed was affixed at one end, but free to vibrate on the other end (hence the designation, “free reed”). The reeds varied in length, and the longer the reed, the lower the tone. Air rushing through the chamber caused the reed to vibrate, and tone to be produced. When a reed organ had more than one set of reeds, a set could be brought into play or silenced by allowing or blocking the moving air via stop pulls. As with the pipe organ, a set of shutters or swell shades located within the action facilitated dynamic contrasts. The performer opened or shut them on a gradient via a knee paddle. 

The largest and most prominent reed organ companies were Mason & Hamlin in Boston and Estey in Brattleboro, Vermont, but scores of others proved successful. As the nineteenth century progressed, American reed organs became increasingly complex. Inventors developed voicing techniques that produced a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres, named using terms derived from pipe organ nomenclature.⁷ Instruments built with multiple sets of differently voiced reeds featured multiple stops and a divided keyboard⁸ so that the player could choose contrasting timbres in the treble and bass of a single keyboard. Large reed organs were sometimes built with multiple keyboards, like pipe organs. The more reeds in an instrument, the more expensive it would be. 

Another keyboard instrument employing differently voiced sets of free reeds in airtight chambers arose in Europe during the nineteenth century. A Frenchman, Alexandre Debain, patented this instrument in 1842, naming it a “harmonium.” (See Figure 2.) 

Like the American reed organ, the European harmonium came to offer a broad range of distinctive and contrasting timbres controlled by stop pulls, and a divided keyboard that enabled the choice of different timbres in the treble and bass. (See Figure 3.)

Despite some similarity in design to the American reed organ, the European harmonium did not employ the American-style bellows system (suction) that pulled moving air in and through the reed chamber. Instead, in the European system, air was pushed through and out via pressure, producing sound like a trumpet or an oboe. The different airflow systems require different technical skills of the performer and produce distinctly different tonal characteristics. (See Figure 4.)

Foot pumping on the harmonium manages two important functions because of the way harmonium bellows were designed to work: the performer maintains constant airflow while simultaneously adjusting the relative airflow speed responsible for dynamic contrasts.⁹ Manipulating airflow velocity to effect dynamic changes was called “expression,” and this function had its own specially assigned stop pull. An additional European innovation for facilitating dynamic contrast was the invention of the so-called “double expression.” It was installed in the more costly European harmoniums. Double expression, a capability arising no doubt from a desire to mimic the piano’s ability to balance melody and accompaniment, allowed the performer to control not only the overall loudness but also the relative volume of the treble and bass on a gradient. Double expression is controlled by two knee levers installed under the keyboard and above the two foot-pump pedals. The skill required to play smoothly and expressively on the harmonium demands much practice.  

Late-speaking reeds, i.e., those with a time lag between the act of depressing a key and the sounding of its corresponding tone, hampered performers on both the American reed organ and the European harmonium.¹⁰ Although quick airflow delivery to the reeds was a design priority for both reed organ and harmonium builders, the Americans felt that beyond a certain point, slight lags were an acceptable characteristic of the instrument for which the performer was expected to make appropriate adjustments. The Europeans, however, took a different approach. To mitigate the problem of late speech (and to provide an additional tonal effect) they positioned small felt-covered hammers next to each of the reeds of the set most frequently used in performance. These little hammers were controlled by a stop pull, referred to as “percussion.” When the percussion stop is pulled and a key is depressed, the little hammers simultaneously strike the sounding reed, causing it to speak more quickly and incisively, like a crisp piano attack. The harmonium’s percussion makes performance of rapid passagework more predictable when compared to the American reed organ.

The most far-reaching advantage the harmonium held over the American reed organ was the standardization of stops generally agreed upon by the European companies. Standardization had two benefits: it made it possible to print in music scores commonly understood registration that could be used across instruments built by different companies. Secondly, performers could move from one harmonium to another with a minimum of adjustment.¹¹

It should be noted that the terms “harmonium” and “reed organ” were and continue to be used interchangeably. Lack of a clear and consistent terminology must be laid at the door of the overlapping and competing terms originally used. In their heyday, American reed organs were most frequently referred to as simply “organs,” but other names were used as well. These included Organ-Harmonium and Cabinet Organ, two different terms used by the same company, Mason & Hamlin. There were also fanciful names such as Phonorium, used by Estey.¹²

 

Harmonium and American reed organ repertoire

The capabilities of the European harmonium and the move towards standardization¹³ attracted several important nineteenth-century European composers. Elgar, Strauss, Schoenberg, Webern, Mahler, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Rossini made good use of the harmonium in some of their orchestral and/or choral works. Berlioz, Franck, Saint-Saëns, Guilmant, Widor, and many others wrote high quality solo and chamber music for it. Finally, the German composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) made it his mission to develop a body of repertoire that would exploit the unique sonic and expressive capabilities of the Art Harmonium. During the early twentieth century Karg-Elert wrote what has proved to be the single most significant body of solo and chamber music for the instrument. The popularity of the European harmonium peaked about 1900, slightly later than the American reed organ’s peak of popularity.

Relatively few harmoniums made it across the Atlantic during the nineteenth century. On the other hand, American reed organs were exported and sold in fair numbers throughout Europe, particularly those built by Mason & Hamlin.¹⁴ Also, several European manufacturers such as Lindholm, Mannborg, and Shiedmayer adopted the American suction bellows system for their instruments.¹⁵ Nevertheless, despite significant cross-Atlantic distribution of the American reed organ and the availability of native European instruments with some shared characteristics, the American reed organ never established an artistic foothold through a representative body of high-quality music comparable to that written for the harmonium. This cannot be fully explained by the technical differences between the two as outlined above. Although the American instrument may have lacked the harmonium’s more refined control of dynamics and its useful percussion stop, the best American instruments, such as the Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ, have a distinctive tonal beauty and a multiplicity of sounds equal to those of their European counterparts. 

The promotional prominence and enlarged, relatively standardized capabilities of Mason & Hamlin’s flagship Liszt Organ may therefore have been the impetus behind Boston-based American publisher Arthur Schmidt to print a few works for it during the 1890s. Schmidt’s publications for the Liszt Organ included both original compositions as well as arrangements of famous European works for organ solo, duets with piano, and chamber pieces. But apart from Eugene Gigout’s excellent Romanza for the Liszt Organ, unfortunately none of the rest rose to a similarly high quality.

 

Arthur Bird, American expatriate composer (1856–1923) 

Around 1896, Mason & Hamlin likely encouraged and may have actually commissioned the American composer Arthur Bird to write idiomatic art music for the standardized action they introduced during the 1890s, called the Normal-Harmonium. 

No documentation has yet surfaced indicating payment to Bird for his work by the firm. Nevertheless, key musical and personal circumstances link Arthur Bird to the most significant people associated with the Mason & Hamlin Company. Central to the connection between Arthur Bird and Mason & Hamlin was Franz Liszt. A canny seer, Liszt bet correctly on the ability of eager young American pianists and composers to hold high the torch of pianism and to carry forward the music of the future. Liszt welcomed them, offering his inspired pedagogy and worldly professional connections free of charge. Liszt’s generosity forged a well-documented bond among his pupils. Liszt’s first American student was the pianist William Mason (1829–1908). Mason studied with Liszt beginning in 1849, and brought back to the United States Liszt’s pedagogic principles through an extensive career of teaching, performing, and publishing. William Mason also happened to be the brother of Henry Mason, who in 1854 co-founded the Mason & Hamlin Company. Henry and William Mason were in turn sons of Lowell Mason, an important American hymn composer and musical educator during the first half of the nineteenth century. 

Liszt owned and wrote music for numerous keyboard instruments provided for him by both European and American companies.¹⁶ Among such instruments in his sizable collection was a Mason & Hamlin cabinet organ that he acquired in the 1870s. Later, Mason & Hamlin’s flagship high-end model came to be named the “Liszt Organ,” a likely outcome of the close connection between Liszt, his pupil William Mason, and the Mason & Hamlin Company.¹⁷ The Mason & Hamlin Liszt Organ was introduced about 1880. Complex, colorful, powerful, and versatile, the Liszt Organ was designed to compete with the best European harmoniums. While the Liszt Organ shared many tonal and functional features with the Normal-Harmonium design, it had a different tessitura (five octaves, C to C, versus the Normal-Harmonium’s F to F) and a different split point (E–F versus B–C for the Normal-Harmonium).

Arthur Bird was also one of Liszt’s American pupils, coming to him during Liszt’s later years.¹⁸ Bird’s musical and personal background strikingly resembled that of William Mason. Born in Belmont, Massachusetts in 1856, Bird’s early musical training came from his father and uncle, who were born-and-bred American church musicians. Arthur’s father, Horace Bird, and his uncle, Joseph Bird, were active in the New England of the 1840s and 1850s as voice teachers, composers of hymns and songs, and editors of singing books written to develop score-reading literacy. Upon the advice of William Mason’s father, Lowell Mason, young Arthur Bird was sent in 1875 to study in Germany at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Returning to North America two years later, he took a church music position in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he began to compose. He returned to Berlin in 1881 to study composition and orchestration. It was during this time that Bird came into the Liszt orbit.  

By his early 30s (in the mid-1880s), Bird had become well established as an organist and pianist. His compositions were published and performed widely in Europe. Bird spent most of his life abroad, mainly in Berlin, where he married a wealthy German widow and apparently lived lavishly. In 1897 Bird returned for some time to the United States in what proved to be a failed attempt to have his comic operetta, Daphne, performed in America. Reading between the lines of William Loring’s biographical work on Arthur Bird, is it possible that Bird wished to forge a closer connection to his native country? Certainly a major production of an opera by a United States-born composer within the United States would be an excellent vehicle for that scenario. During the late 1890s, when the quest for “genuine” American composers was in full swing, Bird may have sensed an opportunity. In any event, in that same year (1897), the first of Bird’s pieces for the Mason & Hamlin “American Harmonium” (op. 37) were published by Breitkopf and Härtel, an important German firm still operating that publishes high-art European music.¹⁹

 

Characteristics of Arthur Bird’s “American Harmonium”

The historic trajectory mating Arthur Bird with the Normal-Harmonium came just at the point when the piano had overtaken reed organ sales. Mason & Hamlin realized that in order to survive in the long term, the reed organ needed some good original music. The publication of Arthur Bird’s music for the “American Harmonium” came at a historic crossroad for the American reed organ, largely due to the rise of the American piano. From the 1850s, pianos, and particularly American pianos, started to benefit from standardization and mechanical manufacturing methods of the industrial revolution. Prior to this time, pianos were mainly handcrafted items. Likewise around 1850, the design of the piano, particularly the American piano, moved rapidly toward increased durability and a greater dynamic and pitch range. Piano types coalesced into three categories: square, grand, and finally, upright. Each of these types served a clear purpose. As a result, consumers began to turn to the piano as a viable keyboard alternative to the reed organ, particularly in the home market, where the reed organ had ruled uncontested.²⁰ Sales of pianos grew steadily through the nineteenth century.

In contrast to the piano industry, American reed organ manufacturers from the 1850s to the 1900s offered consumers instruments of a wide variety of sizes, competing capabilities, nomenclature, and above all, case styles.²¹ After the Civil War, American manufacturers also developed complex instruments of considerable beauty, sophistication, and expense. These large instruments with enhanced performance capabilities were aimed at a smaller “niche” market, for placement in the homes of the wealthy, civic or religious meeting halls, and small churches. But after a sustained growth period lasting about 40 years, sales of the American reed organ began to decline in the 1880s.

The Normal-Harmonium action design of the 1890s for which Bird wrote was conceived to meet these market challenges. Mason & Hamlin worked with and adopted the Normal-Harmonium design in collaboration with two entities associated with the company: their German representative Paul Koeppen and the Bender firm in Leiden, Holland.²² Mason & Hamlin’s goal was to provide a standardized instrument that could compete with the piano and its plentiful repertoire. Their instrument had to be sophisticated enough to attract composers to write good music for it and be of a reasonable cost. 

Mason & Hamlin met both of its goals. First, the cost of an instrument with Normal-Harmonium specifications was indeed lower by half or more than that of the top of the Mason & Hamlin line, the Liszt Organ. The price of the Liszt came in at $700, but instruments with Normal-Harmonium capabilities could be had between $260 and $300.²³ Second, the Normal-Harmonium action provided attractive and useful performance capabilities. These included a pitch range of five octaves from F to F and multiple sets of reeds offering an elaborate stoplist. American reed organs with the Normal-Harmonium action design began to be manufactured in the 1890s and continued to be built until the company ceased reed organ production in the early 1920s.

As mentioned previously, inconsistent nomenclature and lack of a simple explanation for actual performance capability plagued the field. Although Mason & Hamlin offered a standardized action design in the Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s music itself was identified on the score as being intended for the “American Harmonium” and/or the “Normal-Harmonium.” Nomenclature had still not jelled. Therefore it must be stressed that the terms “American Harmonium” and Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium” do not refer to any one specific instrument, but rather to an action design embodying certain specific capabilities. 

Figure 5 shows the overhead view of interior of the Mason & Hamlin American organ with Normal-Harmonium specs. To the upper right is the paddle that is activated to rotate by the Vox Humana stop. The upper left box houses the very large Sub Bass reeds. The specific capabilities of the Normal-Harmonium are as follows. 

 

Stoplist:

Diapason Dolce 8′—the Diapason, mechanically softened. 

Sub Bass 16′—consists of 13 notes, the chromatic octave upward from low C. This stop uses the largest, longest reeds, producing a deep, rich, and powerful sound.

Eolian Harp 2′—two detuned sets of reeds producing a shimmering, ethereal vibrato.

Diapason 8′—pure, organ-like tone. 

Viola 4′—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Viola Dolce 4′—the Viola, mechanically softened.

Vox Humana—adds a vibrato or tremolo. Can be used in combination with any of the other drawn stops in the treble. Activated by the turning of a windmill-like paddle located inside the action.

Seraphone 8′—differs from the Diapason in timbre. Focused and slightly nasal.

Flute 4′—resembles the sound of the orchestral instrument for which it is named.

Melodia 8′—continuation in the treble of the Diapason reeds.

Vox Celeste 8′—another stop combining two sets of detuned reeds that creates a vibrato effect. 

Octave Coupler—when pulled, mechanically connects a note to that of one an octave higher.

Melodia Dolce 8′—mechanically softened Melodia. 

 

The split point on the keyboard is between B and middle C. Stops from Seraphone 8′ up activate the treble, the stops from Viola Dolce, down, the bass.

 

Mechanical devices:

Grand Jeu—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the left foot pump pedal. The Grand Jeu causes all the reeds to sound at once, producing the instrument’s fullest and loudest sound.

Swell—activated by a knee paddle located under the keys above the right foot pump pedal. This device controls the internal shutters responsible for dynamic contrasts. (See Figure 6.)

 

Arthur Bird as composer

During his lifetime, Arthur Bird was recognized as an active, widely published, and well-received composer of some stature, particularly in Europe. Incidentally, his successful European career was launched in no small part because of the positive public and private endorsements Bird received from the influential Franz Liszt. 

Bird’s oeuvre is extensive, including opera and theatre works, orchestral music, songs, piano materials, chamber works (particularly those for wind instruments, for which he is best-remembered today), organ, and many other forms. Bird wrote a sizeable number of short solo piano pieces in well-established standard dance forms and topical styles—march, waltz, minuet, gavotte, lullaby, and mazurka. His extensive experience composing in this genre prepared Bird well to write for the American reed organ. Bird’s music is available in score at the Library of Congress through the generous donation of his widow and has been amply documented through the International Music Score Library Project.²⁴

Relatively little of Bird’s music has been recorded.²⁵ What is available tends to confirm the critical reception his work received during his lifetime. Reviewing a performance of [Bird’s] Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, the Berliner Borsen Courier said: “It is distinguished for the freshness and spontaneity of its invention, as well as the clever craftsmanship and the clear and compact disposition of its different parts . . .” Another critic comments: “Characteristically his music is pleasing and melodious in composition. It is coherent and well developed in form. It lies easily within the range of the instruments, and displays no little knowledge of their resources.” Of him, [Arthur] Farwell wrote: “Arthur Bird is known as the possessor of a fertile and truly musical imagination and a thorough technique . . .
Bird is a musician of German training and French sympathies and calls himself a conditional modernist.” Mentioning that Bird composed in almost all forms, [Louis] Elson says of him: “He is an excellent contrapuntist, yet uses his skill in this direction as a means rather than as an end, seldom making a display of his knowledge. It is a pleasure to find an American composer who is not anxious to out-Wagner and who goes along the peaceful tenor of recognized and classical ways.”26 Bird was even described as “the most promising American composer of the middle and late Eighties” by no less than the important conductor,
Arthur Nikisch.²⁷ 

The amount and dating of Bird’s production seem to confirm Loring’s supposition²⁸ that after 1900, Bird’s work dwindled, though his reed organ works of 1905 (op. 45) maintain his previously held high standard. On the other hand, his simplified arrangements, American Melodies Specially Adapted and Arranged for Normal-Harmonium of 1907, appear to have been written simply for profit and lack the artistic value of his earlier work for the American Harmonium.

 

Arthur Bird’s music for the American Harmonium

Those who either possessed or might  have considered purchasing an instrument with the Normal-Harmonium action design would likely be individuals of some performance ability and/or a level of musical sophistication high enough to appreciate the artistic features of the instrument. They would also likely appreciate piano music of the better salon variety, up to and including Schumann’s, Chopin’s, or Grieg’s short works for solo piano. Finally, they would most likely be of the social class that would appreciate hearing this music, most likely in the home setting. 

Bird’s conservatism—informed by fine craftsmanship, deft handling of instrumental color, and fluency in miniature forms—may not have been enough to place him into the compositional pantheon of his trailblazing European contemporaries (Mahler, Debussy, etc.), but his abilities ideally suited him for writing salon-oriented character pieces of the type popularized by Mason & Hamlin’s Normal-Harmonium. An already accomplished American composer, Bird’s impeccable, media-worthy credentials and network of connections to Mason & Hamlin were a further plus. Bird was a perfect fit.

Bird published six opus numbers for the Normal-Harmonium.²⁹ All contain interesting and beautiful music, but the best of these was his first, the ten pieces of op. 37.³⁰ In the first printing, the op. 37 pieces were identified directly on the score’s front pages as being intended for the “American Harmonium”³¹ or for the Mason & Hamlin “Normal-Harmonium.” A page is devoted to an explanation of the stops required and their manner of notation in the score. Bird used circled letters derived from the stop name. For instance, Diapason is D; Viola, V; Voix Celeste, VC; and so forth. Later print runs of op. 37 contain the same explanatory page, but also indicate standard stop numbers, i.e., 1 for Diapason, 3 for Viola, 5 for Eolian Harp, etc., that would correspond to numbers appearing on European suction instruments of equivalent capability.³²

While no piece in the op. 37 set lasts more than three minutes, each exhibits a mastery of craft: beautifully spun-out melodies, masterful counterpoint, subtly personalized inflections of nineteenth-century harmonic practice, and traditional formal structures handled with deft assurance. Bird’s forms are not unusual (ABA, sonata, rondo). But because the Normal-Harmonium’s unique instrumental colors are an integral component of Bird’s structural designs, the listener experiences an additional dimension of thematic transformation. In his music for Normal-Harmonium, Bird’s assimilation of instrumental color as a component of structural rhetoric relates his music to that of the nascent French impressionists at the turn-of-the-century. The following briefly describes salient features of each of the pieces in Bird’s op. 37:

1. Meditation—a sarabande. In this mini-Wagnerian contrapuntal ramble, Bird employs kaleidoscopic stop changes that underscore the evolving melodic twists and turns.

2. Preludium—brooding and dramatic four-part writing in an ABA structure. Registration is simple, but Bird uses the octave coupler at the recapitulation, reinforcing and underscoring the harmonic excursions introduced as the piece moves toward an impassioned final cadence.

3. Adagio—elegiac four-part mini-sonata. Development section comprises a series of recitative-like meandering arpeggios over sustained chords. Recapitulation re-registers the opening material over low pedal points. With more recitative-like arpeggios at the coda, the piece concludes with a simple fadeout on the ethereal Eolian Harp stop.

4. Reverie—features a long-breathed, haunting, and tentative treble melody on the flute stop set against slithering countermelodies registered on the atmospheric Eolian Harp stop. In ABA form, the melody’s return is entirely recast in a fuller texture with the foundation 8′ and 4′ stops. In partnership with a walking bass line, the melody’s tentative first appearance is thereby transformed into an affirmative point of arrival. The coda brings the listener back to the ethereal Eeolian Harp, rounding the piece off as it began.³³

5. Postlude—hearkens back to Bird’s American past, a spirited march that suggests a full wind band.³⁴ Bird’s registration indicates that the piece must be played in its entirety using only one setting, the circled G indicating “Grand Jeu.” Because Grand Jeu causes all the stops to sound at once, finger strength and vigorous foot pumping are required throughout. 

6. Improvisato—a fierce, somewhat virtuosic piece. Registration involving the basic 8′ and 4′ stops is augmented at the recapitulation by use of the Grand Jeu. Rapid, conjunct passagework in the wild coda comes off surprisingly well, despite the lack of a percussion stop. Bird was a hands-on composer and knew what the Mason & Hamlin organ could do.³⁵ 

7. Offertoire—This piece would be suitable for use in a church setting. It is an atmospheric sweet/sour composition with change of mode. 

8. Scherzo—This is the most technically demanding of the set, an extended rondo. Rapid sixteenth notes scattered throughout the piece when the octave-coupler is drawn or the Grand Jeu is activated require finger strength and precise articulation. Not only the performer’s skill is tested: Bird takes the instrument itself to the edge of its mechanical ability to sound quick notes on the fly. Registration is extraordinarily full and rich, suggesting an orchestra. 

9. Auf dem Lande—a melancholy, minor “folksong” melody is transformed to a grand, affirmative conclusion in major mode.

10. Pastoral—perhaps the most inventive and idiomatic of the entire set. Bird’s motivic ideas have a symbiotic relationship with the instrumental colors he brings to bear. Set above continuously sustained low pedal points, a flowing conjunct melody in the treble twines about an ostinato pattern in the mid range. In order to keep the pedal points depressed while so much action is occurring that requires two hands, lead weights must be used to hold down the pedal-point notes.

 

The American reed organ, Arthur Bird, and the future

The composition of high-quality, original repertoire for the European harmonium during the nineteenth century has proved to have far-reaching consequences. Once thought lost to history, beginning in the 1980s the harmonium has been going through a steady revival, centering in the Netherlands. It seems likely the harmonium will continue to reestablish the place it once held in the classical repertoire. While there continues to be a small but passionate interest in the American reed organ,³⁶ a revival similar in scope and momentum has not yet begun.

As the rise and fall of the American reed organ demonstrates, the key to an instrument’s survival is not its mechanical capabilities, but rather the repertoire written for it. Not just any music will do. What is needed is music that will continue to offer listeners an aesthetic experience independent from the era in which it was created.

In the case of the European harmonium, the point where form and function met occurred when distribution was growing and the instrument’s capability achieved sufficient standardization. This favorable environment attracted a fair number of composers to write significant music for it. Unfortunately for the American reed organ, standardization arrived at the very point when distribution was falling. 

Nevertheless, we are grateful that one composer, Arthur Bird, stepped in during a brief moment of opportunity in the history of the American reed organ. With his ideal combination of skills, commitment, and inspiration, he provided us with music that stands poised to move into the future. ν

 

Special thanks to Carson Cooman and Whitney Slaten

 

Notes

1. American publishers also churned out a deluge of reed organ method books intended for the large market of rank amateurs in the United States. 

2. Paul Hassenstein, “The Normal Harmonium And Its Literature,” The Music Trade Review 41:3, July 1905, 87. 

3. Ibid., 87.

4. Mason & Hamlin began as a reed organ manufacturer, but in 1883 started making pianos as well. About 1920 the company ceased making reed organs, but continued their piano line. 

5. “Action design” refers to a specific set of performance capabilities contained within the mechanism of an instrument. Action design was independent of case style. The same action could be enclosed in a variety of cases.

6. Robert F. Gellerman, The American Reed Organ (Vestal, New York: Vestal Press, 1973), 18.

7. Ibid., 97–99. Gellerman’s list of stop names gives some indication of the diversity and lack of standardization among the American reed organ manufacturers.

8. The point of division between bass and treble was called the “split point.”

9. The harmonium did not employ the swell shade of the American system for dynamic contrast because the pressure system made possible quick changes in air speed. Quick control of air speed permits the execution of sharper accents and faster dynamic changes than is typically possible on the American instrument. Simply put, the American instrument is easier to learn how to play, but lacks the degree of potential interpretive refinement offered by the harmonium.

10. The phenomenon is due to inertia. Lowest reeds speak quite slowly: they are the largest reeds, sometimes several inches in length.

11. Gellerman, American Reed Organ, 107.

12. I have consistently used “American Reed Organ” or simply “reed organ” to refer to the suction bellows action design, and “harmonium” to describe the European pressure instrument.

13. Standardized pitch range, split point, sets of stop pulls, shared nomenclature. Nevertheless, as the 19th century progressed, European harmonium manufacturers (like their American counterparts) succumbed to the lure of increased capability that culminated with the celebrated “Art Harmonium.” The Art Harmonium offered a whole new range of attractive colors and capabilities. Music written for the Art Harmonium could not be played on more basic harmonium models.

14. Casey Pratt, e-mail to the author, July 30, 2013. Casey Pratt is a United States reed organ restorer who specializes in the Mason & Hamlin. Exact numbers are not known to date.

15. Ibid. 

16. For instance, Liszt owned a piano-harmonium specially designed for him by Erard and Alexandre and a Chickering grand that was used in his piano master classes. He also collected then “antique” pianos that belonged to Mozart and Beethoven.

17. The Liszt Organ has a set of uniquely voiced, so-called “Liszt” reeds of great tonal beauty. 

18. The main biographical information to date regarding Arthur Bird was amassed by Dr. William Cushing Loring (1914–2002). Loring was a Harvard graduate and an urban sociologist. After retirement, he focused on American art and music, working with Scarecrow Press to develop a series of more than twenty books on various North American composers. 

19. Available at the International Music Score Library Project website: http://imslp.org.

20. Another likely reason piano sales surged ahead of the reed organ resulted from the installment purchase plans offered by piano companies. Once a luxury item of the upper classes, the piano then became affordable to the burgeoning middle class.

21. The flamboyant case styles of American reed organs clearly indicate a function beyond that of simply a musical instrument. In addition to ornate carvings, some reed organ cases featured a façade of non-functional organ “pipes,” mirrors, candle holders, and the like.

22. This information was communicated by Frans Vandergrijn, a Netherlands-based authority on reed organs and harmoniums in a posting on Yahoo’s Reed Organ Restoration newsgroup, August 9, 2013. 

23. Pratt, e-mail to the author, August 10, 2013. To put these prices in perspective, average United States yearly income in 1900 was $438.

24. http://imslp.org/wiki/10_Pieces_for_Harmonium,_Op.37_(Bird,_Arthur_H.)

25. Modern recordings include music for piano 4-hands, op. 23, Vladimir and Nadia Zaitsev, pianists; Introduction and Fugue, op. 16, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists; Serenade for Wind Instruments, op. 40, Suite for Double Wind Quintet, op. 29 (Naxos), and Carnival Scenes for Orchestra, op. 5 (Albany).

26. William C. Loring, Jr., “Arthur Bird, American,” The Musical Quarterly 29:1, January 1943, 87. 

27. Ibid., 88.

28. Ibid., 86.

29. Op. 37, 1897; op. 38, 1901; op. 39, 1903; op. 41, 1906; op. 42, 1905; op. 44, 1903; op. 45, 1905. All are available at the Library of Congress.

30. Not all of the op. 37 pieces scanned and available in IMSLP come from the original 1897 printing, several being from later editions. The only difference is that additional equivalent registration intended for European suction instruments was added. 

31. My supposition is that Breitkopf titled them for the “American Harmonium” in order to alert purchasers that the intended instrument would be one of American design. European suction instruments could have been more or less acceptable alternatives, but only the Mason & Hamlin Normal-Harmonium would have had the subtle specificity of timbres and tonal balances characteristic of the Mason & Hamlin sound.

32. On IMSLP: http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/2/2d/IMSLP65232-PMLP1327…

33. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIC9EwIjmks

34. And Percy Grainger’s later work for the reed organ.

35. See performance at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi6yjMzjKe.

36. The American Reed Organ Society has been in existence since 1981.

 

References

Archival Sources

Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D. C. Music of Arthur Bird. Includes all his published music for reed organ, plus some manuscript scores.

 

Books and Articles

Brown, Andrea Elizabeth. “A Descriptive Analysis of Arthur Bird’s Suite in D.” DMA diss., University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2010.

Elson, Louis C. American Music. New York, NY: MacMillan Co., 1904.

Gellerman, Robert F. The American Reed Organ. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1973.

———. The American Reed Organ and the Harmonium. Vestal, NY: The Vestal Press, 1996.

Good, Edwin M. Giraffes, Black Dragons, and Other Pianos. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001.

Hendron, Michael, ed. Manufacturers Music Album Reed Organ Society Anthology Series. Palmer, Massachusetts: The Reed Organ Society Publications Office, 2001.

Hiles, John. A Catechism for the Harmonium. London: Brewer and Company, 1877.

Loring, William C., Jr. “Arthur Bird, American.” Musical Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1943): 78–91.

———. Arthur Bird: His Life and Music. Newton Centre, MA: n.p., 1941.

———. The Music of Arthur Bird: An Explanation of American Composers of the Eighties and Nineties for Bicentenial Americana Programming. Atlanta: n.p., 1974.

Milne, H. F. The Reed Organ: Its Design and Construction. Chancery Lane, England: Office of Musical Opinion, 1930.

 

Recordings

Bird, Arthur. Suite in D. On Bird Songs: Romantic Chamber Music of Arthur Bird, North Texas Chamber Players. Eugene Corporon, conductor. CD (digital disc). Klavier, KCD-11071, 1995.

———. Suite in D. On Collage: A Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Peabody Institute, 1857–2007. Peabody Conservatory Wind Ensemble. Harlan Parker, conductor. CD (digital disc). Naxos, 8.570403, 2008.

———. Suite in D. University of Cincinnati Chamber Players. Rodney Winther, conductor. CD (digital disc). Mark Records, 7212, 2007.

———. Amerikanische Weisen, op. 23, Three Characteristic Marches, op. 11,  American Souvenirs Piano Music for Four Hands, Nadia and Vladimir Zaitsev, pianists, CD (digital disc), Gleur De Son-Qualiton/The Orchard, 57928, 2004.

Bird, Arthur; Dussek, Jan Ladislav; Liszt, Franz; Grieg, Edvard; and Onslow, George; Forgotten Piano Duets, Vol. 2, Tony and Mary Ann Lenti, pianists, CD (digital  disc), ACA Digital Recording, B004QEZC2, 2011.

Ennis Fruhauf

Ennis Fruhauf holds Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the University of Michigan (1967, 1968), and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Southern California (1973). He has held occasional church music positions, college and university teaching appointments, and is currently publisher, editor, music copyist, arranger, and composer for Fruhauf Music Publications (since 2004).

Ricercare (Ital.), “. . . ricercare is a verb, meaning to investigate, query, inquire, search out with diligence . . . testing the tuning, probing the key . . . .” (Johann Gottfried Walther, Musikalisches Lexikon, Leipzig, 1732);¹ and as a noun: “. . . Thus in Bach’s time it served almost exclusively for the title of a strict and, in its polyphonic texture, highly elaborate fugue.”²

 

Introduction

Ah, well, it is perhaps a tale to be retold yet once more, an instructive yarn well worth spinning anew, offered up here as an autumn fantasy, one with an exceedingly wry afterglow. The occasions and events in question took place some 300 years ago. And in spite of unexpected setbacks that overshadowed the final outcome, the adventure might after all be credited with having led to the creation of an unusual composition for organ, one that might otherwise have never come to light in the same context. 

The tale is of Johann Sebastian Bach’s trip to Dresden in the autumn of 1717, undertaken at the urging of the royal Saxon court chapel’s violinist-concertmaster, Jean-Baptiste Volumier. Bach was charged, in essence, with the mission of upholding the honor of his homeland’s keyboard music tradition against a figurative incursion launched by one of France’s eminent composers, Louis Marchand (1669–1732), Organiste du Roi. Marchand was on an extended leave from Paris at the time, touring Germany with a display of his keyboard and compositional talents, and currently seeking favor from the royal Dresden court. Bach also hoped to win favor and a remunerative purse, while at the same time pitting his skills against Marchand in an international venue. 

The composition in question is Bach’s legendary Pièce d’orgue (thus titled in more than one manuscript source), a three-section work, at the heart of which is a finely crafted extended fantasy for keyboard, presumably for pipe organ with pedals. It is a living time capsule—one of few words and many notes—that offers up a vibrant slice-of-life drawn from the travels of an adventurous composer in his early thirties, who was hard-pressed by circumstances on his home front, while also on a quest for recognition and honor abroad.

Bach’s arrival coincided with the day of Marchand’s tests, trials, and demonstrations. Concertmaster Volumier took the initiative of arranging for Bach to overhear portions of these recitals from a concealed vantage point. It has been recorded that by the end of his contest, Marchand had indeed won the day and would continue his sojourn victoriously, having received meritorious and remunerative recognitions.

What might have taken place in the course of the evening that followed is a subject for speculation, perhaps even for imagination. Is it possible that these two notable exemplars of Germanic and French keyboard artistry might have been able to escape the rigors of international diplomacy, that they might have found time to meet in one of the city’s spacious church sanctuaries, one where they might also find a pipe organ installation that would provide a viable proving ground for their dueling skills? Just imagine what could have been . . . .

 

A Fantasy  

(Extract from an anonymous personal diary, Journals, dated October/November, 1717)

. . . It was already past dusk when the two principal parties of the contest arrived at the door leading up to the organ loft. There were three of us surveying the scene from a distance, gathered together in a tight knot and hidden from view in the shadows of the front chapel. We recognized Concertmaster Wolumyer of Dresden as he entered, followed by Concertmaster Bach, who was accompanied by two of his Weimar students. The French King’s Organist-Composer, Louis Marchand, arrived soon after, in company with two attachés assigned to his visit. Apparently Bach was to launch the evening’s music-makings, and indeed, as we watched he turned to M. Marchand, greeted him cordially, withdrew a vellum music manuscript from his folio and held it out to his elder colleague. M. Marchand graciously received the score, opened it, and proceeded to peruse the contents. Although their conversing tones were lost in the acoustical ambiance of a lofty nave, it was apparent that Bach was to begin the evening’s music-making with his recrafted Pièce d’orgue, written and ornamented in the French manner. We would hear it now with the addition of two outer movements. 

As we watched, the trio from Weimar separated from the others, making their way up to the dimly candle-lit organ loft and taking their places at the console. Bach had been allowed time to familiarize himself with the instrument earlier in the day, and his two flanking assistants were well coached in advance. Soon enough the first notes of an arpeggiated tonic chord broke the silence, ever so light in touch and sounding out on clear stops: we heard a single line of dancing arpeggios and passaggios in a compound triple meter, falling and rising, rippling through the gamut of the keyboard. This was the newly added Très vitement, a sparkling warm-up exercise for the fingers, leading up to the five-voice Gravement. Contrary to the French tradition of a Grand plein jeu registration, tonight the Gravement began on one of the instrument’s gentlest registers. We heard a low tonic pedal note, then a G-major chord in the manuals, with the soprano tonic pitch suspended over to the first quarter-note of the next beat, and four descending scale notes in succession. This motivic pattern migrated from one voice to another, delicately ornamented internally, and at each successive cadential gesture. Also of note, at major cadences a new stop or set of stops would be added by the two flanking registrants. By shifting from one manual to another and progressively engaging manual and pedal couplers, a tightly imitative ricercar with a brief compound motif for a subject was being transformed into a majestic paean, echoing gloriously through the nave’s acoustical environment. This was Bach in his native setting, ‘testing the lungs’ of a church’s instrument as he had done from year to year in the course of his many investigative journeys. In the final line of the Gravement, we heard a new voice enter in the manuals, further intensifying the texture and leading up to an abruptly dramatic pause on an unresolved deceptive cadence. After a momentary silence, the Lentement resumed on foundation stops, beginning with arpeggiations of the Gravement’s closing chord, sounded over a bass line that descended step by chromatic step to an extended dominant pedalpoint and final closing cadence in G Major.

There was a stillness and silence that followed the last chords as they faded into the upper reaches of the nave. We sat quietly, awed and deeply moved by the music we had just heard and calmed by its lingering aura. Within moments it became evident that Bach was preparing registrations for his next selection. Even though we had been advised in advance that he would likely play one of his newest keyboard compositions, a single-movement fantasy in D minor for clavier, nothing could have prepared us for the intense drama that was to follow . . . . 

[End of Journals extract.]

Who could fathom what might or might not have transpired in the course of such an evening? If it had even taken place, who might possibly divine what Bach would have played, or what selections Marchand could have chosen from his repertoire. There is no indication that the two of them resorted to swordplay—whether improvising with epées, or instead on keyboards, each of them with assistants in alert attendance. Nor is there evidence to suggest that Marchand carried an inked copy of Bach’s Fantasy with him back to Paris and the royal library. And if fate had denied Bach an opportunity to perform his recently penned chromatic Fantasy in D Minor³ for Marchand at an organ console, it could well have been included in his harpsichord recitations on the following day.

Varied accounts of Bach’s letter of invitation addressed to Marchand in which he proposed a public contest indicate that the two of them were to meet at the private mansion of Count Joachim Friedrich Flemming for a public display of their musical prowess. Alas for Bach, his competitor—perhaps wisely—chose to bow out of the tentative commitment, traveling on to his next port of call in the early hours of the designated morning. In spite of Marchand’s unanticipated absence, the public hearing was to take place after all: Bach’s impressive solo performance on that day won him royal recognition as hoped, and his meeting with Count Flemming would prove invaluable in the coming years. Alas, his prize purse of 500 talers was waylaid in the course of its delivery. And in the event Bach had traveled to Dresden with a hand-copied score of the Fantasy in G in his possession, it rode back with its composer on the return trip. More importantly though, a doorway had been opened that would offer future return visits, valuable musical associations, activities, and honors.

 

Discussion

Could it be that the middle movement of the Fantasy, as we know it today, might have evolved from on-the-spot improvisations performed on some of the various church organs Bach visited in his many travels? Could the music of an earlier version of the mid-section have offered an idealized means of “testing the lungs of an instrument”—a ricercare, or a seeking-out—by starting with quiet stops and gradually adding registers at subsequent cadential breaks and convenient moments? It is easy enough to imagine that a far more sophisticated end product, impeccably written in five- and six-voice tightly imitative counterpoint in the manner of a classic ricercata, was eventually honed for solemn occasions and processionals and found its way to ink and paper. An earlier manuscript of the central movement, one with French markings and an abbreviated ending, is cited as a possible compositional byproduct of Bach’s exposure to French keyboard music studied and copied in Weimar’s music library.⁴ Could Bach have added the improvisatorial framing introduction and closing sections (with their French titles) at a later date, in anticipation of his supposed meeting with Marchand? 

The Gravement is written in common meter with alla breve note values (i.e., two half-notes per measure). The quasi-motivic subject that serves to generate 157 measures of tightly knit counterpoint is generically no more or less than a suspended quarter- or half-note, followed by four descending pitches, the two units serving interchangeably as a head and a tail. It is freely imitated in tight succession, as well as in multiple paired overlapping entries. A secondary structural event can be found in the fantasy’s numerous staircase-like scalar progressions of whole-note pitches in the pedal line, employed with dramatically telling effect.⁵ Overall, the Gravement is neither fugue nor fancy, rather it is a one-of-a-kind ricercar-like construction, albeit perhaps an imitative fantasy, but one that is uniquely imbued with un esprit français.

There are additional elements throughout all three movements that hint strongly at Bach’s emulation of a classical hexachord fantasy, a formalized contrapuntal structure emanating from sixteenth-century practices. Hexachordal elements are present freely in the six-note groupings of the Très vitement’s compound meter,⁶ in the six diatonically related keys traversed in the course of the Gravement’s tonal excursions, and finally in the hexachordal arpeggiations of the Lentement.⁷ It is worth noting that the title, Fantasy, would appear to have been applied by cataloguers of subsequent generations, but not by the composer. Above and beyond formalized or traditional concepts, and viewed as a single entity, Bach’s storied BWV 572 is in essence a grand tone poem, a broadly proportioned triptych of three contrasting sections—two linear outer panels framing an impeccably woven central tapestry. 

 

Coda

In support of a progressive registrational plan for the Gravement, there are numerous authentic and half cadences throughout the contrapuntally textured movement that facilitate the addition of stops and couplers, or shifts from one manual to another.⁸

There is the anomalous presence of a low pedal B-natural (measure 66), a note not normally found on Germanic pedalboards but occasionally present in French manual and/or pedal dispositions. While such an insignificant deviation could easily be glossed over, it is cited here in support of a Francophile leaning and interpretation, one that is already abundantly apparent in the French titles of the opus and its individual movements. 

There is also the matter of a quasi-legendary pedagogical lineage to be considered in the course of these closing words. A multi-generational succession of teachers—one of many that can be traced from Bach into the 20th century—extends from a late Leipzig organ student, Johann Christian Kittel (1732–1809, Erfurt), through Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770–1846, Darmstadt), to Adolph Friedrich Hesse (1809–1863, Breslau); and from Hesse continuing through Jacques Nicolas Lemmens (1823–1881, Belgium, Paris), to Alexandre Guilmant (1837–1911, Paris), and to Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937, Paris); passed on in turn by Guilmant and Widor to Marcel Dupré (1886–1971, Paris). Notable from Dupré—and relevant to this discussion—is his recorded version of the Fantasy, registered and performed in an accumulative and glorious manner on the Cavaillé-Coll instrument of St. Sulpice, Paris, during his tenure as titular organist.⁹

And now, to end this autumn reverie of what-ifs—much in the same manner as it began—on an inquisitive note: Is it possble that the tradition of a broadly romantic and accumulative interpretation could have been passed on and survived intact in its passage through such a fragile and tenuous teaching tradition, spanning over six generations from 1750 to the latter twentieth century, and onward?

 

Notes

1. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned Musician, Christoph Wolff (W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), p. 330. 

2. Ibid., p. 329.

3. Eventually Fantasy in D Minor, S. 903 (without Fugue).

4. Notably Nicolas de Grigny’s Livre d’orgue (1699, Paris, reissued 1711), Bach’s hand copy dating from ca. 1713.

5. See Example 2.

6. See Example 1.

7. See Example 5.

8. See  Examples 3 and 4.

9. See http://www.marceldupre.com/ CD: Mercury Living Presence recording of Marcel Dupré: Bach (Six Schübler Chorales, Fantasy in C Minor, Fantasy in G Major) Saint-Sulpice, 1959, available in CD reissues.

 

A Selected Bibliography

David, Hans T., and Arthur Mendel, ed. The Bach Reader, A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1945, 1966.

_____________. The New Bach Reader, A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, revised and expanded by Christoph Wolff. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998.

Gaines, James R. Evening in the Palace of Reason. New York: Fourth Estate, Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

Gardiner, John Eliot. Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013.

Geiringer, Karl. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Culmination of an Era. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Griepenkerl, Friedrich Conrad, and Ferdinand Roitzsch, ed. Johann Sebastian Bach, Orgelwerke, Vol. IV. New York: C. F. Peters Corporation, 1950.

Widor, Charles-Marie, and Albert Schweitzer, ed. Johann Sebastian Bach, Complete Organ Works, Vol. III. New York: G. Schirmer, Inc., 1913.

Wolff, Christoph. Bach, Essays on His Life and Music. Cambridge (MA) & London: Harvard University Press, 1993.

____________. Johann Sebastian Bach, The Learned Musician. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.

 

An apologia and acknowledgements

In order to provide a degree of continuity and to avoid undue interruptions in the flow of the text, end notes have been kept to a minimum. All details and factual accountings have been extracted from the sources cited above; they are often repeated in more than one source, sometimes with degrees of variation that have required editorial pruning. The Journal entry is a fictitious creation, a work of imagination. In his Evening in the Palace of Reason, James R. Gaines offers an exemplary format for overlapping multiple perspectives and layers of narration, and for combining recorded facts with speculative premises and intuitions to produce an animated account of historical events. His model has provided a structural guidepost for the essay featured here, offered informally as an example of speculative musicology. There are sure to be lacunae great and small in these words, for which all due apologies are offered.

John Bishop

Awareness in the wild

Cecil the Lion was a famous and favorite icon of Zimbabwe’s safari tourist industry. He was beloved by thousands who visited his home in Hwange National Park, and his photos were published around the world. He was thirteen years old and was central to a long-standing conservation study by biologists at Oxford University who had fitted him with a tracking device when he was six years old. He was huge and majestic, and he was easily recognizable because of big black streaks in his mane.

In the last days of July 2015, Cecil became an instant posthumous global celebrity when he was killed by Walter Palmer, a dentist and skilled trophy hunter from Minnesota. International news services and social media have been crackling with the story, Palmer is in hiding, the guide and landowner who had been paid to help with the hunt have appeared in court and been released on bail, and Cecil’s remains have been returned to the Zimbabwean government.

Palmer had paid for a license for such a hunt, but allegedly illegally lured Cecil outside the park, and as of this writing on August 1, the United States and Zimbabwean governments are discussing Palmer’s extradition. Thanks to social media, donations are pouring into wildlife conservation funds in six-figure clumps. Jane Goodall, who famously has spent more than fifty-five years studying chimpanzees at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, released a statement lamenting Cecil’s death that concludes, “Only one good thing comes out of this—thousands of people have read the story and have also been shocked. Their eyes opened to the dark side of human nature. Surely they will now be more prepared to fight for the protection of wild animals and the wild places where they live. Therein lies the hope.”

You can read the full statement on Dr. Goodall’s blog at www.janegoodall.org. And by now, her “thousands of people” must be many millions.

The timing of Cecil’s death was exquisite. Just a few days earlier, on July 25, while traveling in Kenya, President Obama released a statement that would effectively ban commercial trade in African elephant ivory in the United States. That announcement follows Obama’s executive order of July of 2013, in which he declared that the United States should “lead by example,” encouraging other nations to step up their active participation in the preservation of that majestic species. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) followed on February 25, 2014, by proposing a new rule affecting the trade and movement of ivory. You can see a simple summary of the specifics of the 2014 rule at www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answ…. For more background, I recommend you refer to the excellent article written by harpsichord specialist Anne Acker and published in the September 2014 issue of The Diapason. Ms. Acker did a great deal of excellent research and was generous with her time talking with me.

 

The specifics are presented in a chart. They include exemptions for any ivory more than one hundred years old (difficult to prove in many cases) and light exemptions for the domestic transportation of privately owned ivory. If you want to bring your grandmother’s harmonium home, there are no federal restrictions, unless your grandmother lived outside the United States.¹ No importing of ivory is permitted, period—except sports-hunted trophies. There is no restriction on importing sports-hunted trophies. Hang that on your wall.

 

Citing CITES

On July 1, 1975, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES, pronounced sight–eze) was implemented, the culmination of nearly fifteen years of international negotiation. The text of the treaty had been finalized two years earlier by eighty nations. Today, more than 180 nations enforce the terms of CITES, which oversees the protection of more than 30,000 species of animals and plants. You can see a list of protected species at www.fws.gov/
endangered/species/us-species.html. They are categorized as “E” (endangered), “T” (threatened), “SAT” (threatened because they’re similar in appearance to an endangered species), etc.²

Loxodonta africana (the African elephant) is the source of the most highly prized ivory, and that species was added to Appendix I of CITES on January 18, 1990. USFWS regulations currently in effect allow trade in ivory that was legally removed from the wild before that date.

With Obama’s Kenyan announcement, the clock started ticking. The USFWS released the latest version of the new ban on trade and movement of ivory. The agency is receiving comments from the public until September 28, 2015, after which the regulation will be amended once more and put into force. The version now open to comment includes revisions of that published in Feburary 2014 (that you’ve already read). You can read the latest proposed revisions at www.fws.gov/international/pdf/african-elephant-4d-proposed-changes.pdf…;

Again, it’s a neat summary, comparing the present proposal with that of 2014, and it’s easy to read. While commercial imports are entirely prohibited, sports-hunted trophies would now be limited to two per hunter per year, a big improvement over no limit at all, but if you maxed out the limit year after year, you’d need a mighty big house in which to hang them.

 

The Times Square Crush

Anyone who has navigated the sidewalks and pedestrian walkways in New York’s Times Square knows about the crush of humanity that throbs twenty-four hours a day. On June 19, 2015, the USFWS staged a different Times Square Crush. A huge industrial rock-crushing machine, the hulking behemoth that crushes boulders into gravel at highway-construction sites, was driven into the center of the square, and a ton of ivory artifacts that had been seized in an undercover operation was sent up into the machine on a conveyor belt and crushed to powder. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell presided over the event.

Two years earlier, the USFWS staged an ivory crush in Denver, Colorado, at which six tons of artifacts were destroyed. A statement published on the website of the USFWS reads, “Since that crush, several governments throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, have also destroyed ivory, joining with us to highlight this worldwide crisis and emphasizing that only a worldwide solution will stop wildlife poaching.” You can read the full statement and view videos of the Times Square Crush at www.fws.gov/le/elephant-ivory-crush.html.

These events were controversial—cheered by conservationists who believe that eliminating the commercial value of ivory is the strongest tool for the elimination of illegal poaching, and decried by others who claim that such destruction will not bring back dead elephants, and that diminishing the value of the ivory will diminish the care of the animals in the wild and drive the ivory market underground, likely leading to higher prices for illegal ivory. Still others feel that destruction of beautiful artifacts may make an emotional or political point, but would never have any impact on illegal poaching in Africa.

 

Who uses elephant ivory?

Readers of The Diapason will naturally think of musical instruments. Piano, organ, harpsichord, and harmonium keyboards were most typically made of ivory. Ivory veneers on natural keys are prized because as a natural grained material, ivory absorbs moisture, so the perspiration from the performers’ fingers doesn’t build up into slick pools on the keys. Ivory is also the most durable natural substance used on keyboards and arguably one of the most beautiful. And many organ consoles have engraved ivory knob faces, knob heads, and coupler tablets. 

Many guitars, violins, and other stringed instruments have small ivory parts such as the bridges and nuts that bear the strings, where it is prized for its acoustical properties. Ivory is also used for decorative elements on many musical instruments, and some wind instruments, both western and non-western, are made entirely of ivory.

Artisans who fashion high-quality pool cues are the largest consumers of new ivory (except in China, where carving remains prevalent), which is used in the tip (where the cue meets the ball) and the ferrules that join sections of the cue. Master players feel that those ivory parts give the ideal strike of cue to ball. No pianos and only a very few pipe organs are built with new ivory on the keyboards.

Builders of custom firearms use large pieces of ivory for rifle stocks, pistol grips, and many forms of ornamentation. And there is an active community of carvers and sculptors who specialize in working with ivory.

 

What does it have to do with me?

The proposed ban on trade and movement of ivory would have a big effect on the manufacture, restoration, sales and purchases of musical instruments. The American Institute of Organbuilders (AIO) has engaged a lobbyist, and the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America (APOBA) is participating in a larger lobbying effort spearheaded by the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM).

There is a revision aimed at musical instruments. In the “Proposed Changes” PDF that you’ve just read, the section of the chart devoted to “Sales across state lines” includes an exemption for certain manufactured items that include a small (de minimis) amount of ivory. Here’s the section from that PDF that defines de minimis:³ 

 

“What is the de minimis exemption? 

The proposed rule provides an exemption from prohibitions on selling or offering for sale in interstate and foreign commerce certain manufactured items that contain a small (de minimis) amount of ivory that meet the following conditions: 

 

A. If the item is located in the United States, the ivory must have been imported prior to January 18, 1990, or imported under a CITES pre-Convention certificate with no limitation on its commercial use. 

B. If the item is located outside of the United States, the ivory must have been removed from the wild prior to February 26, 1976. 

C. The ivory is a fixed component or components of a larger manufactured item and not the primary source of the value of the item. 

D. The ivory is not raw. 

E. The manufactured item is not made wholly or primarily of ivory. 

F. The total weight of the ivory component or components is less than 200 grams.

G. The item must have been manufactured before the effective date of the final rule.”

 

Item “F” in that list is directed at musical instruments. The USFWS acknowledges that 200 grams is the typical weight of the ivory veneers on a piano keyboard, and as that would allow the usual amounts of ivory found in stringed and wind instruments, it seems a fair number.

But let’s talk about the organ. A standard 88-note piano keyboard has 52 natural keys—the average weight of ivory for each natural key is about 3.8 grams. A standard 61-note organ keyboard has 36 naturals, which at 3.8 grams each would total about 137 grams for each keyboard. And here’s where the math fails for the pipe organ:

 

• Most organs have at least two keyboards—ivories on a two-manual organ would weigh a total of 272 grams, well over the limit.

• Many finer organ keyboards have special thick-cut ivory, at least twice as thick as that found on a piano.

• Many organ consoles have ivory knobs and tablets. The elegant 1¼″ ivory faces found on older E.M. Skinner organs weigh about 10 grams each.

• Using those facts, a four-manual console with a hundred knobs would contain nearly 1400 grams of ivory, which is almost 3¼ pounds!

 

That may seem like a lot of ivory. But let’s go back to the sports-hunting exception. According to the website www.fieldtripearth.org, the average weight of an African elephant’s tusk is around 135 pounds. A trophy hunter could legally bring home four tusks a year—that’s 540 pounds hanging over someone’s fireplace.

Under the proposed restrictions, it would be illegal to buy, sell, or transport organ consoles, it would be illegal to file or sand existing ivory during restoration of a console, and it would be illegal to use replacement ivories salvaged from other keyboards to replace those chipped or cracked. “Working” ivory, altering existing and otherwise legal artifacts, would be completely prohibited. If your church hired an organbuilder from another state to restore the Skinner organ, they would be prohibited from transporting the console back to their workshop. They’d have to leave the keyboards and stop jambs behind.

 

What’s the solution?

Earlier, I mentioned that the clock is ticking while the USFWS receives comments from the public. The USFWS website has clear instructions about how to submit your opinion:

 

We have published a proposal to revise the African elephant rule under section 4(d) of the ESA [50 CFR 17.40 (e)]. This proposed rule is open for public comment until September 28, 2015. To view a PDF of the proposed rule, go to http://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/african-elephant-4d-proposed-rule-….

To read the proposal and provide comments upon publication, please go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. In the search box, enter FWS-HQ-IA-2013-0091 (the docket number for this proposed rule). You may submit a comment by clicking on “Comment Now!” The Service will review and consider all comments received by September 28, 2015 before publishing a final rule.

 

While preparing this essay, I’ve spoken with the presidents of the American Institute of Organbuilders and the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America, the attorney engaged by the National Association of Music Merchants, a supplier of ivory, and an environmental journalist, and I’ve heard conflicting opinions. 

Some conservationists hold an extreme position that all trade in ivory should be banned without any exceptions. Others feel that some kind of middle ground is reasonable, and the USFWS seems to be receptive to such input. The 200-gram exception shows that. Still others feel that the proposed restrictions are counter-productive and could actually result in harming the stability of the elephant population while encouraging illegal trade. 

 

What’s the answer?

I will go to www.regulations.gov, enter FWS-HQ-IA-2013-0091 into the search field, and submit these suggestions:

 

• On January 18, 1990, the African elephant was added to Appendix I of CITES. The current regulation allows trade of de minimis amounts of ivory that was legally removed from the wild before that date.

The spirit of the 200-gram exception is to exempt ivory as found in musical instruments.

Pipe organs require more natural keys than pianos. Because the use of ivory as found in organ consoles is identical to that in pianos, any amount of ivory found in pipe organ consoles, legally removed from the wild before January 18, 1990, should be exempted.

• Much of the impetus behind the bans and the staged crush events is the possibility of new ivory being disguised as antique and slipped into the market. (Anyone who has spilled coffee or tea on a keyboard knows it can be done!) But I doubt such disguise is possible with older organ keyboards.

I wonder if the USFWS can suggest ways that legitimate craftsmen could help watch for disguised illegal material.

• There’s an exception in the proposed rules for museums, allowing the display of ivory artifacts in their galleries, or as part of traveling exhibitions.

Religious, educational, and other not-for-profit institutions could be granted similar exemptions for the preservation of their existing musical instruments.

• If the regulation allows even one self-indulgent trophy hunter to bring home a carcass or part of one, it shouldn’t restrict the sale of an historic organ console.

 

My several conversations have made it clear that whatever revisions are made, no new use of ivory and no importation will be permitted. That’s off the table. This will devastate some businesses, and severely limit others. It’s likely that no new “working” of ivory that’s less than a hundred years old will be permitted, including material dating from before 1990. While it’s possible that a subsequent presidential administration would weaken or reverse these rules, there’s less than a month left as you read this to comment before they take effect.

While I believe that ivory is the premium material for use on keyboards, I know very well that there are other suitable, even desirable materials. Cow bone has natural grain and therefore similar absorbing properties, though quality varies, and I know of bone keyboards that haven’t held up well. Many tropical hardwoods (some of them endangered species) work well, though they don’t wear as well as either ivory or bone. Fruitwoods are great, and you can throw the scraps in your barbeque grill to flavor the meat. And pretty much every modern concert piano has plastic keys. Scores of great musicians play on plastic before huge audiences every day. It would be hard to maintain that it’s impossible to build pipe organs without new working of ivory.

The 1990 rule works for me. If musical instruments built since then included ivory harvested earlier, they should be exempted. But from now on, no new cutting of any ivory.

Notes

1. I’m discussing only federal restrictions. It’s important to note that some states are enacting more restrictive rules, possible criminalizing possession of ivory, including mammoth ivory, which is not an endangered species. 

2. Go to www.fws.gov/endangered/species/us-species.html, and click on “mammals.” You’ll see that the African elephant is listed as threatened, not endangered. 

3. According to the dictionary imbedded in my laptop, de minimis is an adjective defined as “an amount too trivial or minor to merit consideration, especially in law.”

Myron B. Patterson

Myron Patterson is associate librarian and adjunct associate professor of organ at the University of Utah and organist and director of music at Holy Family Catholic Church, Ogden, Utah. He holds a doctorate in sacred music from the Graduate Theological Foundation and degrees in music and library science from the University of British Columbia, Northwestern University, and Trinity College of Music, London, England. Patterson has performed recitals in the United States, Canada, England, and Germany. He has served as an examiner for the American Guild of Organists and is a former dean of the Salt Lake City AGO chapter. He has served on the board of directors of the Association of Anglican Musicians and the Anglican Musicians Foundation. 

No doubt exists about the pedagogical value of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Das Orgelbüchlein. Perhaps the clearest statement of its importance can be found in George B. Stauffer’s notes in the preface to Russell Stinson’s Bach: The Orgelbüchlein (Monuments of Western Music) [New York: Schirmer Books, 1996; reprint, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], xi:

 

No other volume of music is so well known to organists as the Orgelbüchlein of Johann Sebastian Bach. For generations of players it has stood as the first resource for honing manual and pedal skills . . . It is central to the educational process, a pedagogical vade mecum that no student or instructor can be without. 

 

The purpose of the Orgelbüchlein can be viewed as a multifaceted fabric woven together from the following interconnected areas: compositional treatise, liturgical organ music, organ teaching method, and a theological statement.

Although the chronology of the Orgelbüchlein has been a point of question, as Ulrich Leisinger suggests, watermarks and handwriting on the original autograph show that the work was conceived at Weimar, where Bach was primarily court organist, and that these pieces were for the professional organist. This contradicts the title page indication of the collection’s pedagogical nature. Leisinger states that the handwriting on the title page is from about 1720 but that most of the musical content is from a later period. He suggests that Bach may have emphasized the pedagogical nature of the collection around the time of his application to St. Thomas, Leipzig. 

The pedagogical nature of the Orgelbüchlein is certainly substantiated by the number of copies made and used by Bach in his lifetime.¹ However, Russell Stinson gives a much fuller and comprehensive assessment of the chronology by citing multiple scholars who have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to authenticate the timeline of this work.² Stinson himself proposes and gives clear reasons for what may be the most plausible timeline: an early phase from about 1708–12, followed by a second or middle phase from 1712–13, and a late stage from 1715–16.³

 

Pedagogy

By the time he arrived in Weimar, Bach was established as a teacher and no doubt used the Orgelbüchlein as part of his teaching resources. Although the title was added later, it does state the following about the Orgelbüchlein: “guidance is given to a beginning organist . . . and become practiced in the study of pedaling. . . [and] for my neighbor, that he may instruct himself from it.”⁴ However, it should be noted that the work was not designed as a teaching tool in a graded sense, as most organ method books are today. It does ensure proficiency in the use of the pedals and the coordination connected with that skill, while the individual chorale settings serve as compositional models. The facsimiles of the Orgelbüchlein do not have the pedal line on a separate staff; all of the notation is on two staves. Further evidence for this work having been used as a pedagogical tool is shown by the number of copies made by Johann Tobias Krebs, Bach’s pupil in Weimar.

Because of its pedagogical value, clearly suggested by Bach himself in the title and through his use of it with his own pupils, it is not surprising that numerous teaching editions of the Orgelbüchlein have appeared in the twentieth century. The purpose of this article is to explore several twentieth-century editions of Das Orgelbüchlein as pedagogical and practical editions. The choice of editions is purely my own; the choices are drawn from my experience and perspective as a teacher and a performer. Omission of the Neue Bach Ausgabe volume of Das Orgelbüchlein is deliberate, since the Neue Bach Ausgabe is a scholarly edition and does not contain the added educational materials that are found in the editions I have included in this article. 

 

The Editions

The Liturgical Year: Forty-Five Organ Choral[e]s = Orgelbüchlein. Johann Sebastian Bach; edited by Albert Riemenschneider. Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania: Oliver Ditson, distributed by Theodore Presser, c. 1933. 1 score (xvi, 138 p.); 31 cm. Includes bibliographical references.

The title of this edition, which is based on the Bachgesellschaft edition as stated in the preface, is “The Liturgical Year.” While accurate, this differs from Bach’s original title, more accurately translated as “The Little Organ Book.” Riemenschneider explains his choice of title this way: “The whole was to cover the needs of the Church Year, and it is because of this that the set is known in America as ‘The Liturgical Year.’⁵ Riemenschneider goes on to explain the interpretation of the organ chorals [sic], which leads to his comments on performance tempo, phrasing, and dynamics coupled with expression. He gives a chart explaining how embellishments are to be interpreted, along with abbreviations and sources consulted. In “Some General Rules for Playing Bach,” Riemenscheider advocates fingering that allows for “perfect legato.” He states that “singing legato is the natural element of the organ. . . [and] remains paramount.”⁶ Precise attack and release of notes is essential. Repeated notes are addressed, as is the interpretation of voices being played on different keyboards. The organist is cautioned to avoid “buzz” by taking care when playing from white key to white key; black key to black key; white key to black key; and black key to white key. How to play octave leaps is also explained.

A clear outline of the whole plan of the Orgelbüchlein is given, along with an indication of which pieces were actually completed. Each individual chorale prelude is preceded by a four-part harmonization of the chorale melody along with German and English texts of one verse. There is one exception to this model and that is Vom Himmel kam der Engel Schaar, which lacks the usual four-part harmonization. Instead, a realization of the figured bass is given, along with a lengthy explanation regarding the difficulty finding a suitable choral harmonization. Alternate editions and references are also listed, along with “suggestions for interpretation.” 

Spacing and layout is clear and easy for the player to read at the organ console. Fingering and pedaling suggestions reflect the common practice of Riemenschneider’s time, which was based on a rather Romantic conception of Baroque performance practice. That this edition is still in print reflects the scholarship value of its contents and Riemenschneider’s stature within the organ teaching community, even though the points of view are now dated.

 

Orgelbüchlein: The Little Organ Book. The Organ Works of J. S. Bach, Book XV. Edited by Ivor Atkins, with an introduction by Ernest Newman; revised by Walter Emery. London: Novello, 1957. 

This edition of the Orgelbüchlein reflects numerous editorial hands, all of whom are respected twentieth-century scholars. Under Atkins’ editorship the edition is based on that of the Bachgesellschaft, while Emery’s revision is based on the Berlin autograph. Unlike the Riemenschneider edition, this edition’s educational or pedagogical value (aside from being extremely physically well laid-out, with chorale harmonizations designed for singing and ornamentation interpretations being included in the musical text) lies in the prefatory material dealing with stylistic observations regarding composition. 

Newman’s introduction is thorough. In it, he covers many aspects of the compositional style of the Orgelbüchlein—for example, stating that for “a great number of preludes [in the collection] polyphony is the life and soul; and this polyphony assumes various forms.”⁷ Newman points out other examples that are more harmonically intense and have some melodic decoration, such as Liebster Jesu wir sind hier, and Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ. A third style Newman refers to is arabesque treatment of the chorale melody. In the third part of the introduction, Newman discusses poeticism, pictorialism, and symbolism as found in the Orgelbüchlein chorales. 

As editor of the original edition, Ivor Atkins presents commentary regarding phrasing, registration, and classification of the preludes. One specification of a Bach organ at the Weimar Castle is given, but registration considerations are minimal and general. Walter Emery, as reviser of this edition, gives more up-to-date insights than Newman and Atkins. However, Emery’s notes are representative of scholarship in 1957. While valuable as a student edition, the Novello edition does not represent later twentieth-century scholarship; its value is in its layout, ease of use, and editorial comments with each of the preludes, including interpretation of ornaments and notes about the chorale. 

 

Orgelbüchlein, Johann Sebastian Bach. With introduction, figured–bass chorales, texts and commentary, edited and prepared by Robert Clark and John David Peterson. St. Louis: Concordia, 1984. 

In their prefatory material, Robert Clark and John David Peterson clearly state that their edition is based on the Berlin manuscript referred to in endnote 7. The educational value of the introduction in this edition is multifaceted. It contains a brief history of the chorale and states that the organ was used minimally in sixteenth-century Lutheran services. Because of the organ’s minimal use, there was a lack of organ chorale collections; these came at a later time, as did more elaborate organ settings of chorale melodies. The pedagogical use of the Orgelbüchlein is clearly explained, indicating that its goal is to teach how to work out a chorale and provide studies in pedaling, while its liturgical use within the Lutheran liturgy is unclear. The editors speculated upon where the organ chorales might have been placed within the liturgy, since Bach gave no indication of this.

The types of organ known to Bach are discussed in general terms, but the specifications of organs at Weimar, Erfurt, Mühlhausen, and Grosshartmannsdorf are given and can help students to understand how to register these chorale settings. Broad guidelines regarding the registration of the individual chorale settings are given. These guidelines include: 1) the expressive character of a piece, in other words, the use of Affekt; 2) historical possibilities for registering a piece based on Bach’s eclectic view of organs; 3) the purely musical possibilities of registration. Examples are provideddemonstrating these concepts.

Ornamentation common to Bach’s time is discussed, noting that the trill and mordent are the primary ornaments used in the Orgelbüchlein. Examples from the chorales are given to illustrate their execution.

Articulation is thoroughly, yet briefly explained. Rhetorical figures are explained in detail, with specific examples from the chorales provided. Discussion of rhetoric is unique to this collection and has great pedagogical value regarding interpretation and performance. Understanding rhetorical figures can prove useful in interpreting other Baroque organ works, especially, but not limited to, those of Bach. A complete list of the chorales in liturgical order, including those that were never composed, is given. Some rather poor facsimiles are included. While not stellar reproductions, they do have some teaching value.

Each of the chorale preludes within the collection is preceded by comments regarding compositional style, possible performance approaches, registration suggestions, and where each setting fits into the church year. A four-part harmonization of the chorale melody, including figured bass, is given. The layout of the music is clear, making the music easy to read. All of these characteristics make it an excellent teaching and learning edition. 

 

J. S. Bach, 1685–1750, Basic Organ Works: Orgelbüchlein, Three Free Works. Edited by Quentin Faulkner. Wayne Leupold Editions WL 500006, 1997.

In 1997 Wayne Leupold Editions published J. S. Bach, Basic Organ Works edited by Quentin Faulkner. Three freely composed works are included in the volume containing the Orgelbüchlein. This edition, which is based on the Berlin autograph and other sources, is an exemplary pedagogical tool in many ways. 

Quentin Faulkner discusses the Orgelbüchlein’s history and the “Bach Organ,” particularly those at Altenburg Court Chapel and St. Wenceslaus Church, Naumburg. Knowing something of the Bach Organ leads to a better understanding of how to register the Orgelbüchlein chorales. Faulkner’s discussion of organ registration includes reference to Agricola’s writings on this topic, since this is the most complete resource coming from the Baroque period. Reflecting on Agricola’s writing, “plenum” and “combinations of the flute stops” are explained, along with reed stops and Bach’s own registrational practices. Two observational statements are made by Faulkner regarding registration: 1) organ registration is a matter of taste as discerned by the ear of the performer; and 2) greater familiarity with the organs of Bach’s time results in more informed performances. 

Detailed discussion of articulation is given, particularly dealing with the areas of touch, musical phrases, and the doctrine of figures. Meter and tempo are considered and, unlike the Riemenschneider edition, which views meter and tempo in a subjective and emotional context, Faulkner refers to Johann Kirnberger’s theory of musical meter and tempo being comparable to speech. Only three tempo indications are found in the Orgelbüchlein: Largo, Adagio, and Adagio assai.

Posture, hand position and fingerings, pedaling, and ornamention are explained and a rationale for the fingerings used in this edition is given. The enigmatic corona (fermata) is addressed. Hymn tunes and their texts are explained. A very useful teaching and learning aid is the listing of the chorales in order of difficulty, along with the criteria used for creating this list. Also provided are a systematic learning guide and a bibliography of sources in English for further reading. All topics in this preface are illustrated clearly with musical examples, which give clarity to the written text. Black and white illustrations of places, organs, and music facsimiles appear throughout the edition.

The completeness, reference to historical documents, clarity of writing, comprehensiveness of written text illustrated by equally comprehensive musical examples, learning aids, historical fingerings in the musical text, and reference to additional sources make this perhaps the most valuable pedagogical edition of the Orgelbüchlein.

Both of these editions, first that by Clark and Peterson edition and then that by Faulkner, became popular teaching editions and both have much to offer. The Clark edition is clearly printed in oversize format with an excellent preface. As in the other editions covered in this article, a complete list of chorales as Bach planned them is given along with several black and white facsimiles of chorales. A bibliography of articles dealing with the Orgelbüchlein is given at the end of the edition. By contrast the Leupold-Faulkner edition has extensive prefatory material, and fingering representing what is believed to have been the performance practice of Bach’s time. Both of these editions have strengths and value as pedagogical volumes. 

 

An American Bach Edition

Johann Sebastian Bach, The Complete Organ Works. Edited by George B. Stauffer. Series 1A and 1B. Colfax, North Carolina: Wayne Leupold Editions WL 500020 and WL 500021, 2012.

Wayne Leupold has taken on an even more intense project, which Barbara Owen’s review refers to as “an American Bach Edition.” The editorial team used American evaluation techniques that include the testing of each volume by pedagogues and students. The Leupold Edition is in two parts: Series I comprises fifteen volumes that include the music and pedagogical works. Series II comprises monographs dealing with sources of Bach’s organ works; Bach’s organ chorales, that is, tunes, texts and translations; and performance issues. 

Within the first series the Orgelbüchlein appears as both a “Practical Urtext” and a “Standard Urtext.” In the commentary, Stauffer discusses the historical progression or development of the Orgelbüchlein, which he divides into early, middle, and late periods during Bach’s time in Weimar and later revisions linked to Bach’s students Krebs and Kittel in Leipzig. These musical variants are given within the musical text as ossias. Although not from Bach himself, the edition suggests eighteenth-century registrational possibilities based on Kirnberger’s Berlin Circle. New readings and performance suggestions along with detailed historical background are given, along with a generous inclusion of facsimiles, some of them in color. Problematic passages are discussed.

A unique feature of the Orgelbüchlein, in this edition, is its appearance in two urtext versions with the repertoire being almost the same in both. However, there are differences. The standard edition has nine variant readings while only one variant (BWV 634) is included in the practical edition. The chorales appear in both versions; the chorale melodies are harmonized in the practical version. The Orgelbüchlein content from Bach’s autograph is included in the standard edition only, while the practical edition contains two tables of ornaments. A detailed editorial report is given in both versions.

There is a rationale for having two versions of the Orgelbüchlein. In his review of the new Leupold Bach Edition, Lawrence Archbold suggests that with some modification, the standard edition could serve as an organ tutor while the practical edition may be more useful to students because of the explanation of ornaments and the inclusion of fully harmonized chorales. In fact, Archbold asserts that the practical edition most likely will be the choice of students because of the way it draws them to the music. 

Archbold’s final statement is: “one regrets the empty pages in J. S. Bach’s copy of the Orgelbüchlein.” This makes a wonderful segue to an innovative project currently underway and connected to the Orgelbüchlein.

 

The OrgelbЯchlein Project 

Noted British organist William Whitehead has set about a thrilling and imaginative project in which he plans the completion of the Orgelbüchlein. Bach wrote the titles of 164 chorales in the Orgelbüchlein and finished only 46, leaving 118 “ghost” compositions—gaps that Whitehead wants to fill with compositions that will bring to completion Bach’s initial vision. The rules for submission are simple. First, the chorale melody must be one of those inscribed by Bach but never started or finished. Second, the length of each composition should be between one and two-and-a-half minutes, but should not exceed five minutes. Third, any style is encouraged, but the pieces must be for organ solo and have a pedal obbligato as Bach indicated in the full title of the Orgelbüchlein. 

The project was launched in 2009 at the London Festival of Contemporary Church Music with six compositions being played by organ students from Trinity College of Music. The stylistic palette varied in style from jazzy to astringent. A second phase of the project took place in Cambridge, where the whole of Bach’s original Orgelbüchlein compositions and new pieces by British composers Thomas Neal, Jeremy Thurlow, Cecilia McDowall, Robin Holloway, Jeremy Coleman, and Iain Farrington were performed. A web page dedicated to this imaginative project can be accessed at www.orgelbuechlein.co.uk. Here can be found links to various aspects of this project including recordings, composition rules, commissioned chorales, and the Orgelbüchlein community.

 

Conclusion

Bach’s Orgelbüchlein continues to fascinate the creative mind and has proven to be a lasting source of pedagogical interest while serving as a foundational tool in developing the technique and skills of organ students. Because of this ongoing fascination and interest, there have been numerous editions edited by eminent scholars and equally eminent publishers. In this overview, I have shown the strengths of several of these editions and, hopefully, have introduced new insights regarding lesser-known or  infrequently used editions. ν

 

Acknowledgements

Images of pages from Bach’s autograph of the Orgelbüchlein, from the Bärenreiter Faksimile, are courtesy
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin—Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Musikabteilung mit Mendelssohn-Archiv (Mus.ms. Bach P 283).

 

Notes

1. J. S. Bach, Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), Ulrich Leisinger, editor, with notes on interpretation by Ewald Kooiman. Vienna: Universal Edition, ix.

2. Stinson, 12–17.

3. Stinson, 14–17.

4. Peter Williams, Playing the Organ Works of J. S. Bach (Cambridge Studies in Music). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quoted in Stinson, 31.

5. Riemenschneider. p. v.

6. Ibid., x.

7. Atkins, v.

 

Bibliography

Archbold, Lawrence. “Johann Sebastian Bach: the Complete Organ Works,” The American Organist 45, no. 11 (November 2012): 53–54.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. Orgelbüchlein, BWV 599–644: Faksimile der autographen Partitur. Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1981

Owen, Barbara. “An American Bach Edition At Last,” The Tracker 55, no. 3 (2011): 24–26.

Roberts, W. Peter. “The Orgelbüchlein Project—Blessing and Curse.” The Organ 91 (2012): 58.

Stauffer, George B. “The Complete Organ Works of J. S. Bach: The Leupold Edition,” The American Organist 44, no .9 (September 2010): 41–43. 

Stinson, Russell. Bach: The Orgelbüchlein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.