The Organ Works of Pamela Decker

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. 

The University of Michigan 52nd Conference on Organ Music presented works ranging from the 16th-century organ Mass Missa Kyrie fons bonitatis, to the world premiere of Three Pieces for Organ by Czech composer Jirí Teml, along with a new event—an improvisation competition

Marijim Thoene received a D.M.A. in organ performance/church music from the University of Michigan in 1984. She is an active recitalist and director of music at St. John Lutheran Church in Dundee, Michigan. Her two CDs, Mystics and Spirits and Wind Song are available through Raven Recordings. She is a frequent presenter at medieval conferences on the topic of the image of the pipe organ in medieval manuscripts. 

Gale Kramer, DMA, is organist emeritus of Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Detroit, Michigan, and a former assistant professor of organ at Wayne State University. As a student and graduate of the University of Michigan he has attended no fewer than 44 of the annual conferences on organ music. He is a regular reviewer and occasional contributor to The Diapason. His article, “Food References in the Short Chorales of Clavierübung III,” appeared in the April 1984 issue of The Diapason.

The University of Michigan 52nd Conference on Organ Music took place September 30–October 3. The annual conference is organized by Marilyn Mason, who has brought world-class performers and scholars to Ann Arbor for some 51 years. The conference offered a feast of sounds, from the 16th-century organ Mass Missa Kyrie fons bonitatis, to the world premiere of Three Pieces for Organ by Czech composer Jirí Teml; performers ranged in age from “twenty-somethings” to seasoned veterans. This year’s conference inaugurated a new event—an improvisation competition. The five contestants dazzled the audience with their ingenuity, creativity, and ability to transform a simple melody into new music. As Michael Barone commented, “The organ is a magnificent creation, but it only comes alive when people play it.” 

Sunday, September 30

4 pm, Hill Auditorium

The opening event, Kipp Cortez’s master’s degree recital, signaled the excellence and vitality that were to mark the entire conference. His formidable technique was apparent in his program: Carillon by Leo Sowerby; Prelude, adagio et choral varié sur le thème du ‘Veni Creator’, op. 4, by Maurice Duruflé (the performance was enhanced by the singing of the Gregorian hymn by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church compline ensemble, directed by Deborah Friauff); Les Corps Glorieux (Le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, VII) by Olivier Messiaen; Rhapsody in D-flat Major, op. 17, no. 1, by Herbert Howells; and Variations sur un vieux Noël by Marcel Dupré. The latter was a tour de force. The crowd stood and cheered his playing. 

8 pm, Hill Auditorium

Almut Roessler, the renowned interpreter of Messiaen’s organ works, was scheduled to perform; however, due to circumstances beyond her control, she had to cancel her U.S. tour only two weeks before the conference. David Wagner was chosen to play the concert in her place. He was a great choice: a native Michigander, born and raised in Detroit, a sought-after recitalist, a well-known radio personality, and professor of music and university organist at Madonna University in Livonia, Michigan. He is the program director and music host of the classical music station WRCJ-FM in Detroit. He opened and closed his recital with William Mathias’s Processional (1964) and Recessional—pieces that exploited the instrument’s broad and rich spectrum of colors. Dr. Dave “the artist” and Dr. Dave “the raconteur” delighted the crowd with four centuries of organ music and commentary, explaining the connection between these disparate works: Versets on Veni Creator Spiritus by Nicolas de Grigny; Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582, by J. S. Bach; and Sonata No. 1, op. 42, by Alexandre Guilmant. These composers are linked together by fortuitous events. Wagner pointed out that while no autograph copies from de Grigny exist, we have J. S. Bach’s hand-copied manuscript of de Grigny. He also related that in 1908 Guilmant directed the first publication of de Grigny’s organ works and that Guilmant played the basis of his Symphony No. 1 on the organ built by the Farrand & Votey Company in 1893 for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, which was purchased by the University of Michigan in 1894 and has since been named the Frieze Memorial Organ. It was rebuilt and reconditioned by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company of Boston and resides in Hill Auditorium. 

Tuesday, October 2

Michael Barone, host of Pipedreams, presented a fascinating pastiche of recordings culled from his vast library in his lecture, “Imagining the Future, Celebrating the Past.” He presented organ music by contemporary composers who are stretching the boundaries of old forms, combining other instruments with the organ, and implementing Danish and Norwegian folk songs, jazz, and blues in new ways. Barone played numerous examples of intriguing new music for the organ that finds inspiration in J. S. Bach and old hymn tunes.

The first composer on his list of “cutting edge” composers was Henry Martin, who teaches composition at Rutgers University; he received the 1991 National Composers Competition and the Barlow International Composition Competition in 1998 for his Preludes and Fugues for Piano. Barone commissioned him to compose organ preludes and fugues in G major and E minor for the 25th anniversary concert of Pipedreams that took place at the 2008 AGO convention in Minneapolis; Ken Cowan premiered the works. Since then Barone has commissioned preludes and fugues in D major and B minor, which Cowan premiered in 2009; Prelude and Fugue in E Major, premiered by Isabelle Demers in 2012; and Stephen Tharp has agreed to premiere the next set of preludes and fugues. 

Henry Martin’s “new music” interjects jazz, burly elements of dissonance, kaleidoscopic colors, and shifting textures into the constructs of the preludes and fugues of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier. In his Prelude and Fugue in G Major the virtuosic demands are apparent in the perpetual motion of the prelude and the driving intensity of the fugue.  

To illustrate the pulsing life of organ music today, Barone played many recordings of live improvisations as well as new music. This list includes only a few of the recordings presented: Gunnar Idenstam, Folkjule: A Swedish Folk Song Christmas and Songs for Jukksjarvi: Swedish Folk Songs; Matt Curlee/Neos Ensemble of jazz-styled arrangements for organ, violin, vibraphone, and drums; Barbara Dennerlein playing jazz on the pipe organ; and Monte Mason, Psalm 139 for choir, organ and electronics.

Barone continued by pointing out that Paul Winter in his Winter Solstice concerts at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine uses the organ as the bedrock of his composition, and that Cameron Carpenter, playing in the Royal Albert Hall in London at end of the Olympics, stretched the boundaries of organ composition and made us feel as uncomfortable as Bach’s contemporaries were with him. Barone admonished us to find new audiences for the organ, to go beyond all the wonderful pieces we know, and explore the huge amount of repertoire that’s not played and can be adapted “if you push the right crescendo pedal.”

One of the most enlightening and entertaining events of the conference was Steven Ball’s lecture/recital, “Introduction to the Theater Organ,” given at the Michigan Theater, which proudly houses a 1927 Barton theater organ, the oldest unaltered organ in Ann Arbor. Steven Ball wears several hats—organist at the Michigan Theater, University of Michigan carillonneur, and manager of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, as well as director of music at the Catholic Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit. 

Ball began his presentation with a quiz. We were given the specifications of four pipe organs and asked to identify the country of origin, location, builder, date, and whether it was a theater organ. The last question was difficult: how can you tell from the specifications if the organ is a theater organ? The answer is, you can’t! Dr. Ball’s lecture was fueled by the criteria applied to the selection of each of the 2,500 instruments in the Stearns Collection: i.e., each piece was chosen to show how instruments evolve, aid in the study of organology, and promote the understanding of world cultures and music.

Ball explained what happens when a musical instrument evolves, and pointed out there is a cultural relevance and progression accompanying this evolution. (1) There is a dialogue between builders and composers. When the Barker Lever was introduced in 1837 to the organ at St. Denis, an envelope was being pushed, facilitating the composition of new organ music. (2) Change is marked by acoustical evolution: sound gets louder and the compass expands. He noted that the theater organ was specifically voiced and designed to duplicate the sounds of an orchestra, and using analog technology first produced what we know as “surround sound.” (3) As instruments evolve, they become more vocal in nature—organ students are constantly told to let the music “breathe.”

Steven Ball offered a brief history of the theater organ, commenting that Robert Hope-Jones created more patents for the theater organ than anyone. He invented the Tibia Clausa, stoptabs instead of drawknobs, increased the wind pressures (ranging from 10 to 50 inches), and enclosed the pipes behind walls and thick swell shades for greater expression. The merger of his company with Wurlitzer in 1914 ended in disappointment and led to his suicide in 1915. In 1927 Wurlitzer cranked out an organ a day for a demanding market, and organists were paid for playing in the theater.

The Michigan Theater organ, opus 245, was built in 1927 by the Barton Company, which employed 150 people, taught students to play, and placed them in theaters throughout the Midwest. The instrument is only one of 40 that exists in its original home with its original operating system intact, which includes combination action and console lift. 

Steven Ball also proved to be the consummate entertainer. For 30 minutes we watched “One Week,” a silent film starring Buster Keaton, while he improvised on the Barton organ. What fun to watch and hear the misadventures of Buster Keaton in high style. 

Improvisation competition

For the first time in the conference’s long history, an improvisation competition was included. One could feel the excitement as the audience filed into the sanctuary of St. Francis of Assisi Church for the final round. The sacred space, with its live acoustic and three-manual, 1994 Létourneau Opus 38, provided a perfect venue for the competition. The five finalists were chosen from a preliminary round based on submitted recordings. Judges of the preliminary round included Joanne Vollendorf Clark, Gale Kramer, and Darlene Kuperus. The judges for the final round were Karel Paukert, William Jean Randall, and Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra. 

The five finalists were given 30 minutes without an instrument to plan their improvisation, which was to combine a prelude, a toccata, or a fantasia with a fugue on the tune Picardy, and also include a free improvisation on a given theme. Their complete performance time was to last no more that 15 minutes.  

It was intriguing to listen to each competitor’s treatment of the themes, to hear music composed before us with marvelous fluidity and agility. We heard borrowings from the medieval ages to the present. No one envied the judges.  

Bálint Karosi was awarded the Earl Moore first prize of $3,000; Timothy Tikker was awarded the Palmer Christian second prize of $2,000; Naki Sung Kripfgans the Robert G. Glasgow third prize of $1,000; and Steven Hoffman and Matthew Samelak the runner-up prizes of $500.

The behind-the-scenes organizer, Michele Johns, and her committee of Gale Kramer, Darlene Kuperus, and Marcia Van Oyen did a superb job in planning this remarkable event.

8 pm, Hill Auditorium

It was a privilege to hear Karel Paukert perform Czech organ music as well as pieces that embody the spirit of improvisation. His program gave ample evidence that the repertoire for organ is crossing new boundaries, using colors and timbres in new ways. His playing of Frammenti by Karel Husa (b. 1921), Toccata and Fugue in F Minor by Bedrich Antonín Wiedermann (1884–1951), and Adagio and Postludium from Glagolitic Mass by Leos Janácek (1854–1951) was infused with rare sensitivity and energy. He played cutting edge music by Jirí Teml (b. 1963) and Greg D’Alessio (b. 1963) with the same intensity. We were honored to hear Paukert play the world premiere of Jirí Teml’s Three Pieces for Organ.  

Paukert’s choice of “Albion II” from Albion by Greg D’Alessio was a shining example of what can emerge in organ repertoire when tapping into the resources made available in the digital age. Paukert played a score for organ and electronic tape with sounds, he explained, “derived from the electronically processed tonal palette of the McMyler Organ by Holtkamp at the Cleveland Museum of Art.” This piece for organ and electronic accompaniment is definitely New Age music; spellbinding magic resulted by combining digitally manipulated with acoustic sounds of the pipe organ. He concluded his concert with two well-known works, both of which are improvisatory in character and spirit: Jehan Alain’s Deuxième Fantaisie and Franz Liszt’s Prelude and Fugue on the Name of B.A.C.H.

Wednesday, October 3 

9:30 am, Blanche Anderson Moore Hall

The 16th-century organ Mass, Missa Kyrie fons bonitatis, was performed by students of Professor James Kibbie: Andrew Earhart and Colin Knapp, with chants sung by Joseph Balistreri. The score will be published by Wayne Leupold in 2013 and is the culmination of ten years of research by Scott Hyslop.   

The performance was followed by Scott Hyslop’s lecture, “Pierre Attaingnant: The Royal Printer and the Organ Masses of 1531.” Hyslop’s interest in classical French music was the basis for his doctoral thesis. His continued work on the topic is about to see its fruition in his publication of the performance edition of Attaingnant’s Missa Kyrie fons bonitatis. Hyslop explained that it was a unique accomplishment for Attaingnant to be able to print three items (staff lines, notes, and text) simultaneously and that in 1537 Attaingnant became the official printer and book seller to King Francis I of France. Unlike the popular Missa Cunctipotens, the Missa Kyrie fons bonitatis contains the Credo, which agrees with Paris usage. The new edition will include an accessible essay on musica ficta written by Kimberly Marshall. 

2 pm, Hill Auditorium, 

lower lobby

Renate McLaughlin, a graduate student of Marilyn Mason, lectured on “Karg-Elert: a musician at the wrong place and the wrong time.” She documented events in the life of the composer that had a negative influence in keeping him from enjoying the recognition he deserved during his lifetime. She presented interesting biographical details that showed him to be out of touch with reality and a man lacking in common sense. Her question of why his dreams of fame and glory were never realized was answered in her lecture topic. 

3 pm, Hill Auditorium 

The students of James Kibbie played Symphonie No. 6 in G Minor, op. 42, no. 2, by Charles-Marie Widor. His students gave polished performances. The performers and the movements they played were: Colin Knapp (Allegro), Matthew Kim (Adagio), Matthew Dempsey (Intermezzo), Stephanie Yu (Cantabile), and Andrew Lang (Finale). 

8 pm, Hill Auditorium

Timothy Tikker, a doctoral candidate studying with Professor Marilyn Mason, programmed an interesting mix of well-known and lesser-known repertoire. Well-known pieces included Mendelssohn’s Sonata in B-flat Major, op. 65, no. 4; J. S. Bach’s Partite diverse sopra il Corale Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig, BWV 768; Max Reger’s Toccata and Fugue in d/D, op. 59, nos. 5 and 6; and Messiaen’s Dieu Parmi Nous from La Nativité du Seigneur. It was in the lesser-known pieces that Tikker communicated what seemed to be the essence and soul of the music. He captured the intensity and drama of Ross Lee Finney’s The Leaves on the Trees Spoke. Tikker set the stage of Vincent Persichetti’s Do Not Go Gentle for organ pedals alone, op. 132, by playing a recording of Dylan Thomas reading his poem. Likewise, he seemed to revel in the lyricism and quiet loveliness of Herbert Howells’ Quasi lento, tranquillo from Sonata for Organ. 

Conclusion

We thank Marilyn Mason and all who participated in the 52nd Conference on Organ Music. You offered us a sip of the elixir of life and we left refreshed. 

—Marijim Thoene

Marijim Thoene received a D.M.A. in organ performance/church music from the University of Michigan in 1984. She is an active recitalist and director of music at St. John Lutheran Church in Dundee, Michigan. Her two CDs, Mystics and Spirits and Wind Song are available through Raven Recordings. She is a frequent presenter at medieval conferences on the topic of the image of the pipe organ in medieval manuscripts. 

Monday events

Guest lecturer Susanne Diedrich of Wupperthal, Germany described rhetorical/musical devices used in Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, such as circulatio, suspiratio, katabasis, anabasis, and exclamatio, which were illustrated in performances by U of M students Timothy Tikker, Renate McLaughlin, Josh Boyd, and Kipp Cortez.  

Speaking on the history of organ improvisation, Devon Howard of Chattanooga, a graduate of the University of Arizona, outlined possible reasons for the decline of improvisation in this country, as well as for its resurgence. He urged students to learn improvisation as a way to understand composed works more thoroughly. Howard’s model of imitation, assimilation, and innovation presaged the method described by the next speaker.

Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra proposed a model of construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction, by which one might create an improvisation by imitating extant compositions. In illustration of her book Bach and the Art of Improvisation, she performed a recital of five works by Bach, Pachelbel, and others, following each with an improvisation derived from some aspect of its model. She also highlighted some of the pedagogical resources available for teaching improvisation, distinguishing three different approaches and three levels of proficiency.

Seven high school students from the Interlochen Arts Academy, prepared by their teacher Thomas Bara, performed a stunning program in the afternoon slot. Joseph Russell, Garrett Law, Hannah Loeffler, Michael Caraher, Emily Blandon, David Heinze, and Bryan Dunnewald played with poise, spirit, maturity, and musicality.

Professor James Kibbie and his colleague Professor David Jackson and the University of Michigan Trombone Ensemble (19 players) brought the evening to a high point. Kibbie and Jackson presented works for organ and trombone by Koetsier, Schiffmann, and Eben. The trombones (senza organo) made an impact in a canzona by Gabrieli and a transcription from Morten Lauridsen. Kibbie’s solo performance of “Moto ostinato” and “Finale” from Eben’s Sunday Music crowned the evening.

—Gale Kramer

Gale Kramer, DMA, is organist emeritus of Metropolitan United Methodist Church in Detroit, Michigan, and a former assistant professor of organ at Wayne State University. As a student and graduate of the University of Michigan he has attended no fewer than 44 of the annual conferences on organ music. He is a regular reviewer and occasional contributor to The Diapason. His article, “Food References in the Short Chorales of Clavierübung III,” appeared in the April 1984 issue of The Diapason.

Photo credit: Marijim Thoene

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.

The tiento can be many things--the title tells the performer nearly everything one needs to know in terms of tempo, registrations, and ornaments

During my many years of playing and specializing in Iberian repertoire, the most frequently asked question was always: “What IS a tiento?” According to various textbooks, tiento (Portuguese: tento) is a musical genre originating in Spain in the mid-15th century. It is formally analogous to the fantasia (fantasy), found in England, Germany, and the Low Countries, and also the ricercare, first found in Italy. The word derives from the Spanish verb tentar (meaning either to touch, to tempt, or to attempt), and was originally applied to music for various instruments. By the end of the 16th century, the tiento was exclusively a keyboard form, especially organ music. It continued to be the predominant form in the Spanish organ tradition through the time of Cabanilles, and developed many variants. Additionally, many 20th- century composers have written works entitled “tiento.”

So, “What is a tiento?” It is many things: it can be a fast- or slow-moving work; it can be a work with the cantus in the left or right hand; sometimes it is a structured form and sometimes it is very improvisatory in nature. So the real answer is: a tiento is many things!

As an undergraduate, I remember during our organ literature class each student was assigned a genre to present to the class. Having a double major in Spanish, of course I was given the Iberian portion to present. We were using two texts for this course: Corliss Arnold’s Organ Literature: A Comprehensive Survey (The Scarecrow Press, Second Edition, 1984) and Marilou Kratzenstein’s Survey of Organ Literature and Editions (Iowa State University Press, 1980). The two books had a total of 11–14 pages devoted to this repertoire as compared to English repertoire, which had nearly 40 pages! It was clear that Iberian repertoire was very under-represented.  

During my investigation I quickly discovered that the term tiento was a very generic label applied by many composers of the period and that many of these works had no common variables. So the word “tiento” was a broad term.

Keeping that in mind, it was obvious that the full title of the tiento was important. There are many types of tientos and the full title gives the player every bit of information that is required to fully interpret, register, and realize the performance of the work in question—much like French Classical titles tell the organist what registration is required for the particular piece.

The title tells all!

Indeed, the title tells the performer nearly everything one needs to know in terms of tempo, registrations, and ornaments (or lack thereof). Let’s learn a few basic terms first. Tiple, mano derecha: both terms refer to the fact that the melody is in the right hand. Bajo, baixo, and mano izquierda all refer to the melody being in the left hand. Tientos de falsas are generally always played on one manual. Some tientos are contrapuntal in nature and will be played on one manual; this must be determined by studying the texture of the selection: is there an obvious melody line, an obvious accompanying line, and so forth. One other notable point: the use of pedals is generally only at cadences or where a pedalpoint is sustained and at 16′ pitch on a Bourdon or other flute.

The title will often have a reference to the eight church modes. This ordering of the modes tells the performer many important factors as regards the registrations required for the particular work in question. (See performance guildelines chart.)

The 8 Gregorian modes 

The basis for interpretation of any tiento lies in two major observations: the mode in which it is written and the title of the work.In determining the mode or tone the performer must refer to the authentic church modes as defined by Cicero, who codified the modes and attributed their astrological meanings in musical terms such as tempo, dynamics, registrations and especially tonal effects or qualities. The title will further provide the given information as to specific or implied registrations.¹

Each mode has particular implications regarding the use of registrations as well as moods. The early modes played a very important role and had a very strong connection to daily life. The classical education consisted of literature, poetry, science, astronomy/astrology, mathematics, and music. The modes indicate the nature or spirit of the work: tempo, tonal colorings, and registrations. This is very similar to the early French Classical school, in which the title dictates the possible registrations and mood of the work. 

The most common types of tientos

Tiento de falsas de 2º tono. The name looks daunting, but in fact is relatively easy to understand. Falsas indicates that this work consists of many suspensions: conflict and resolution—simple enough. 2º tono tells us that this work is based upon the second mode (attributed to the moon)—the Hypodorian mode; it is associated with somberness, sadness, and elicits tension. Knowing that, one would use registrations that reflect a somber mood: string tones and celestes at 8′ pitch, along with a soft 8′ flute, which creates an uneasy feeling of a somber or sad quality. Mystery solved. Tientos de falsas are generally played on one manual for the most part due to the intricate use of suspensions and close harmonies. Pedal is not used, except to emphasize cadences.

Tiento de mano derecha de 3º tono. Again, the title tells all. The mano derecha indicates that the melody is in the right hand, leaving the left hand to accompany with 8′ pitches. 3º tono is attributed to Mars and based upon the Phrygian mode, which incites force, energy, and fiery overtones. The registrations possible are: a Cornet in the right hand, or a fiery reed stop such as an 8′ Trumpet, or possibly a cluster of trumpets 16′, 8′, 4′ or even a pleno if good reeds are unavailable.

Tiento de bajo de 1º tono tells one that the work is for melody in the left hand (bajo meaning lower voice) and the accompaniment is in the right hand. 1º tono is the Dorian mode, which is associated with the sun. The registration qualities are grave and solemn happiness. The left hand would use a Cornet or wide-scaled reed (Trumpet 8′ or possibly a Krummhorn 8′).  

So, one can see that the title really does tell a great deal about the registrations. The Spanish seemed to be very specific about their registrations. However, one must also keep in mind that the Spanish favored the “divided” keyboard, which means that one could play the solo (melody) and accompaniment on the same manual.

The important aspect of registrations in regard to this repertoire is found at the core of the associations between astrology and the early modes of the church. The chart shown above outlines, in very basic terms, possible registration solutions. Of course, these are merely suggestions; ultimately the final selection will be determined by the stops available on any given organ. Additionally, one must remember that on most American organs one must use two manuals, as divided manuals are rare in this country. 

The author hopes that readers will take time to investigate this vast and interesting repertoire, which is so seldom heard or explored in this country. I have included a listing of works that will prove of interest, which is by no means comprehensive; however, it is recommended as a starting point to begin your exploration of this vast and vibrant school of organ design and composition.

Notes

1. Maria A. Ester Sala, La Ornamentacion en la Música de Tecla Iberica Del Siglo XVI, Sociedad Española de Musicologia, Madrid, 1980.

Gail Archer is an international concert organist, recording artist, choral conductor, and lecturer who draws attention to composer anniversaries or musical themes with her annual recital series. She was the first American woman to play the complete works of Olivier Messiaen for the centennial of the composer’s birth in 2008; Time Out New York recognized the Messiaen cycle as “Best of 2008” of classical music and opera. Her recordings include her September 2017 CD, A Russian Journey and The Muse’s Voice. Archer’s 2017 European tour took her to Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Russia, Ukraine, and Poland. She is the founder of Musforum, an international network for women organists, college organist at Vassar College, and director of the music program at Barnard College, Columbia University, where she conducts the Barnard-Columbia Chorus. Archer serves as director of the artist and young organ artist recitals at historic Central Synagogue, New York, New York.

Musforum (www.musforum.org), a network for women organists, held its second conference, Prairie Voices, in Omaha, Nebraska, June 8 and 9, 2017. Omaha was the conference site because it is the only American city in which a woman serves as music director at both the Catholic and Episcopal cathedrals, Marie Rubis Bauer (at St. Cecilia Catholic Cathedral) and Marty Wheeler Burnett (at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral), respectively. Women organists, composers, and conductors from across the United States were the featured artists­­—from age 12, Gianna Manhart, the youngest student at the St. Cecilia Institute, Omaha, to age 88, the remarkable Wilma Jensen, who was our keynote speaker. The events took place at St. Cecilia Catholic Cathedral, Dundee Presbyterian Church, and First United Methodist Church in Omaha. The conference was made possible, in part, by a generous grant from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.

Thursday, June 8

The events began on Thursday morning, June 8, with a program of early Dutch and German music combined with contemporary music by women composers played by Rhonda Sider Edgington from Holland, Michigan. Edgington is the organist and assistant music director at Hope Church and a staff accompanist at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. The Pasi organ at St. Cecilia Cathedral is really two organs, a mean-tone instrument and a well-tempered instrument on which it is possible to play a program in ancient and modern temperaments. The program opened with the variation set by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Est-ce Mars, followed by Intabulation on Alleluja, laudem dicte Deo nostro by Heinrich Scheidemann and Praeludium in G Minor, BuxWV 150, by Dieterich Buxtehude. Edgington made these works come alive with her precise articulation and colorful registrations, which were heightened by the meantone tuning.

She then turned to living women composers for the remainder of the hour: Patricia Van Ness, Cecilia McDowall, Rachel Laurin, and Margaret Sandresky. The Laurin pieces, “Fugue on a Bird’s Song” and “Scherzetto,” were taken from the Twelve Short Pieces, op. 64 (2012). The light, vivacious gestures in both pieces reached to the highest range of the keyboard and delighted the audience with their humor and rhythmic verve. Sandresky’s “And David danced before the ark of the Lord,” from Five Sacred Dances (1998), drew a fiery and powerful performance from the recitalist.

Chamber music played by the women’s ensemble, I, the Siren—Darci Gamerl, oboe, and Stacie Haneline, piano—was featured in the late morning performance in the nave of St. Cecilia Cathedral. The musicians presented works by Bach, Mahler, Clara Schumann, Amy Beach, and Alyssa Morris. The splendid ensemble playing, sparkling dialogue, and nuanced phrasing were such a pleasure for the audience, as these Omaha-based musicians have collaborated for many years.

Our keynote address was provided by Wilma Jensen from Nashville, Tennessee. Jensen was the music director at St. George Episcopal Church in Nashville and taught organ at Oklahoma City University, Vanderbilt University, and Indiana University. Her lively and amusing address focused upon healthy keyboard technique. She emphasized, “Each finger swings freely from the knuckle to the key, while the thumb rotates to the key to play. The thumb does not lift to play. Separating the action of the thumb from that of the fingers is often one of the most difficult tasks for keyboardists.” She demonstrated at both the organ and the piano, as we were in a classroom at the St. Cecilia Institute adjacent to the cathedral, which has a fine small pipe organ and a piano. The organ was built in 2000 by Darron Wissinger of New Hampshire and revoiced by Hal Gober in 2009 for its installation at St. Cecilia. 

Jensen encouraged organists to practice wisely using a gradual method for tempo. “Once I know a passage thoroughly at a slow tempo, I take it a little faster, generally only two metronome numbers, so that the mind and hands hardly notice the change. At each playing I increase the speed by two metronome numbers until I reach a limit where I can still deliver the passage accurately but can’t exceed the speed. There I stop.” Jensen also drew attention to resources for ordinary touch of Baroque keyboard music and cited texts by Quentin Faulkner, J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Technique: A Historical Introduction, and Organ Technique Modern and Early by George Ritchie and George Stauffer, as well as texts by Jon Laukvik, John Brock, and Sandra Soderlund.

Musforum provided luncheon each day and a wine and cheese gathering on Thursday afternoon. These social occasions are as important as the musical events, as they give everyone a chance to get to know each other and discuss our work in a relaxed and informal setting. One of the problems for women who are organists is that we are separated by great distances and do not have regular opportunity for the conversations that we enjoyed at the conference. The conference schedule is deliberately arranged so that we all attend every event and we all have sufficient time to meet our colleagues.

Organist Elisa Bickers and the Bach Aria Soloists from Kansas City performed on Thursday afternoon in St. Cecilia Cathedral. Soprano Sarah Tannehill Anderson joined the violinists and organist in arias by Claudio Monteverdi, Si dolce è’l tormento, and G. F. Handel, Da Tempeste il legno infrante from the cantata Giulio Cesare in Egitto, HWV 17. Bickers performed the Variations on John Dowland’s ‘The Prince of Denmark’s Galliard’ by Samuel Scheidt and Toccata in F Major, BuxWV 156, by Dieterich Buxehude. The varied program also included chorale preludes, Herzlich tut mich verlangen by Pamela Decker and Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns halt by Cecilia McDowall. The concert concluded with Prayer by Olufela Sowande and Nun danket alle Gott by Egil Hovland. The rich variety of the repertoire was the hallmark of the programming, and this factor drew many people from the general Omaha community to all of the performances. 

The afternoon session concluded with a reading session: “Women Composers for Lent” presented by Stacie Lightner. Lightner serves as director of music at St. Martin’s Lutheran Church in Annapolis, Maryland. During the workshop, we sang a number of the choral works listed in the extensive 12-page resource guide, which included both choral music and organ literature appropriate for the liturgical season of Lent, all composed by women.

The St. Cecilia Cathedral Choir under the direction of Marie Rubis Bauer presented an inspiring evening concert, which included choral music by Omaha composers J. Michael McCabe, Marty Wheeler Burnett, and Marie Rubis Bauer. Music arranged by Alice Parker, Hark, I Hear the Harps Eternal and Be Thou My Vision, as well as the Messe pour deux voix egales, op. 167, by Cécile Chaminade were featured in the program. Rubis Bauer played Ave Maris Stella by Girolamo Cavazzoni as the prelude and “Dialogue sur les grandes Jeux” from Ave Maris Stella by Nicolas De Grigny as the postlude. Certainly one of the most inspiring moments was provided by 12-year old Gianna Manhart playing Galleries ancient by Dennis Janzer. The beautiful music from the Latin Office, “O Caecilia felix! O felix Caecilia!” began the concert, and the audience sang Magnificat on the Fifth Tone by Kevin C. Vogt at the conclusion.

Friday, June 9

Our Friday morning session at Dundee Presbyterian Church began with a fine organ recital by Chelsea Vaught, music director and organist at First Presbyterian Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, followed by a lecture/recital by Catherine Rodland on the choir and organ traditions at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. The morning concluded with three young women organists currently enrolled in graduate study, playing a joint recital, with half hour segments for each performer: Sarah Johnson at Boston University, Yumiko Tatsuta at Indiana University, and Shayla Van Hal at the University of Kansas. The afternoon session began with a lively lecture on the more than 500 hymn texts written by Rae E. Whitney, presented by Marty Wheeler Burnett, who researched these texts for her doctoral dissertation. We learned about Whitney’s fascinating life story and sang a number of the hymn settings of her poetry together. There was also a professional quartet of singers who performed additional musical works set to Whitney poetry. Burnett emphasized the importance of including women’s voices when planning music for worship.

The afternoon concluded with a duo organ performance by Melody Steel and Ann Marie Rigler. Steel played Sanctuary by Gwyneth Walker as a solo selection, and Rigler performed Psalm 151 by Emma Lou Diemer as a soloist. The duo organist repertoire was powerful and very exciting: Variations on Veni Creator Spiritus by David Briggs, Martyrs: Dialogues on a Scottish Psalm-tune, op. 73, by Kenneth Leighton, and Rhapsody for Organ Duo by Naji Hakim. 

The gala final recital took place on Friday evening at St. Cecilia Cathedral featuring Lynne Davis, Crista Miller, and myself, Gail Archer. A well-known specialist in French repertoire, Davis began with “Offertoire sur les Grand Jeux” from the Mass of the Convents by François Couperin, followed with Choral II in Si mineur by César Franck, and concluded with Te Deum by Jeanne Demessieux. My own program featured Ceremonies Suite by Jennifer Higdon, Prelude and Fugue by Alexander Shaversaschvili, and Power Dance by Joan Tower. Tower and I worked together on this piece on the organ at Vassar College for nearly a year, and it was a great pleasure to play the work at this event. Crista Miller concluded the concert with works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Prelude in G Major, Pamela Decker, “Ubi Caritas” from Retablos, Brenda Portman, Trio on St. Helena, and Naji Hakim, “Rags” from Esquisses Persanes.

All women, no matter what age or point in their professional career, are welcome in the Musforum network. Women organists are cordially invited to join us by sending me an email: [email protected], and I will add your name to the free listserve. Women need to move forward in the field on the basis of merit: their education, skill, and accomplishment. The world will be enriched by our musical gifts, and we will lift up hearts and minds by the beauty and powerful inspiration of our song.

Color my world

Twenty years ago I was serving a New England Congregational church as music director, bringing the glories of the English cathedrals to the land of the Puritans. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it. The moderator of the parish council was a curmudgeonly attorney who lived in an attractive house sited prominently on a corner lot along my route to the church. The Sunday after contractors finished painting his house, I teased that he had his house painted pink. He responded in his usual gruff way, “It’s Chippendale Rose.” Ha! My point. It was pink.

When placing organs in church buildings, we often leaf through the “swatch fans” provided by paint companies, and I always wonder who invents the names of paint colors. The website of the paint company Pratt & Lambert shows a cozy-looking room featuring the colors Pearl Tint, Toasted Wheat, Dusk Sky, and Gloaming. The P&L color experts deem this to be a winning combination. The first three names give clues as what the colors might be, but “gloaming?” What’s gloaming? Its root, glo-m, is an Old English word of Germanic origin that means “twilight,” and is related to “glow.” So gloaming refers to the glow of twilight. I would describe the color in the photo as a sort of dark ecru—“twilight” and “glow” mean something else to me than dark ecru.

The printer on my desk spoke to me the other day. A cute little chime rang and the screen informed me that I needed to replace the cyan cartridge. Cyan? It’s a sort of light blue. My printer has three color cartridges: cyan, magenta, and yellow. I think of primary colors as red, yellow, and blue, so I googled to learn that there are now at least three basic systems of blending colors, each based on three “primary” colors.  

The standard for photography, television, and video screens is an “additive” system that uses red, green, and blue. The standard for printing is a “subtractive” system that uses cyan, magenta, and yellow. (Combine those three colors and you get black.) The website I visited says artists still prefer the additive system that uses red, yellow, and blue.¹ That’s a relief! Seems to me that the world of art would be a different place if Rubens, Rembrandt, Monet, and Picasso had cyan, magenta, and yellow on their palettes as primary colors.

Colors in music

I’m a devoted fan of Captain John Aubrey, the principal character in Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels about the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars. In the first scene of the first novel, Jack meets Stephen Maturin (a physician, drug addict, and elite member of Naval Intelligence) at a concert by a string quartet. They are as different as two men can be, but after their introductory dispute they become firm and fast friends, and they share a love for music. Jack plays the violin (his “on land” violin is a Guarneri), Stephen plays the cello, and through the twenty-year span of the war, they spend thousands of evenings playing together in the captain’s cabin while enjoying their customary toasted cheese and Marsala.

In the second novel, Jack is promoted from the rank of Master and Commander (remember the Russell Crowe movie?) to Post Captain. That night, in his happiness, he dreamed about a painting owned by his old nanny, now wife of the First Lord of the Admiralty, the man who had promoted him: 

Some exquisite dreams: the Magdalene in Queenie’s picture saying, “Why do not you tune your fiddle to orange-tawny, yellow, green, and this blue, instead of those old common notes?” It was so obvious: he and Stephen set to their tuning, the cello brown and full crimson, and they dashed away in colour alone—such colour!²

When I first read that passage I immediately compared it to playing the organ. We accept the traditional system of notes, harmonies, and tuning as common with all other instruments, but the organ is unique because of its range of color. A pianist or flautist can conjure up contrasting tone colors by varying the physical forces involved in playing their instruments, but if you sit at an organ console and compare a Cromorne to a Diapason, a Trombone to a Rohrflute, or an Open Wood to a Tierce, you realize that the organ is a collection of instruments that contrast and complement each other, and like the painter’s palette of colors, the organ’s drawknobs allow the musician to blend a finite number of basic timbres into a seemingly infinite number of color combinations.  

Express yourself in color

I’ve heard that some symphony conductors consider the organ to be the least expressive musical instrument because the basic unit of musical tone—one organ pipe playing one note—cannot be altered in volume or timbre. That fact is true enough, but it’s like saying yellow is a boring color because all it can do is be yellow. Pratt & Lambert shows me Old Linen, Buttery, Golden Glimmer, Bay Rum, and Colorado Sand as complementary shades of yellow, and I haven’t touched the blues, reds, or greens. It’s ridiculous and ignorant to say that a pipe organ is not expressive.

Let’s consider an eight-foot flute stop, a simple enough subset of organ tone. But is it a Flauto Dolce, Gedeckt, Melodia, Harmonic Flute, Rohrflute, Spitzflute, Koppelflute, Hohlflute, or Flûte Triangulaire? Nine different flute stops, each with a unique tone color, and each comprising pipes of different shape and construction. Could you discern between them in a hearing test? Could you name each one if shown photographs of the various pipes? Or do you just draw an eight-foot flute because you always use an eight-foot flute in this piece as if you were painting a wall yellow instead of Golden Glimmer?

Pratt & Lambert says:

The color of the sun, yellow is associated with laughter, happiness and good times. It can cause the brain to release more serotonin, which makes people feel optimistic. It even has the power to speedup [sic} metabolism and drive creativity. However, yellow can be overpowering if it’s not used sparingly in just the right places. Use it to add zest to a cool palette of blues or grays. It can also work well with orange, red, olive green or brown.³

It would be easy to paraphrase this when discussing organ stops:

A Cornet can be overpowering if it’s not used sparingly in just the right places. Use it to add zest to an Oboe, Cromorne, or Trompette. It can also work well with Principals at eight and four-foot.

Is your imagination strong enough to find ways to use that Cornet that will make people feel optimistic?

Clashing or harmony?

You and your partner are getting dressed for a party. She comes out of the bathroom, takes one look, and says, “You’re not wearing that, are you?” We all think we know when colors clash, but while there are some basic rules, you have to judge each comparison separately. Otherwise, it would be impossible for two shades of red to clash. I have a pairing of red shirt and red tie that I think looks great, but there are also a couple doozies of possible combinations of red hanging in my closet that Wendy would question, rightly.

When we register a piece of music on a particular organ, we have to judge each combination separately. It’s not safe to assume that because it sounded good on one organ, that it will also sound good on another.

In his wonderfully researched book, The Language of the Classical French Organ (Yale University Press, 1969), Fenner Douglass presents detailed information about the various “standard” registrations in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French organ music. He opens Chapter 5 (Registration in the Classical Period) by citing the prefaces to various famous “books” of organ music, the Livres d’orgue of Corrette, Nivers, Lebègue, Boyvin, and many others. He boils all that data down into charts that compare the registrations for Le Grand Jeu, Fugue, Le Duo, etc. by all these composers. It’s terrific material for informing our playing today, but does it have any real meaning if we don’t hear those registrations on the specific organs? One chart shows that in 1676, Nicolas Lebègue uses Grand Jeu de Tierce for the left hand of Le Duo, while Dom Bedos suggests sixteen-foot foundations. Who is right? And what organs were they using?

Assuming the Möller organ in your church has all the correct names and pitches on the knobs as cited by Fenner Douglass, does the historically correctly drawn Grand Plein Jeu sound anything like what Lebègue was hearing? Simply and definitively, no. Douglass has given us a great gift by collecting this information, but you still need to use your ears.

Shutter bugs

Besides choices of colors, many modern organs have an additional dimension of expression. Enclosing a group of stops, usually all the stops of one keyboard, in a tightly and heavily constructed “box” with movable shutters on one or more of the faces, allows the organist to simulate control over the volume of a single organ pipe. This does not literally answer the conductor’s ignorant criticism because the pipe is still only speaking one pitch at one timbre at one volume level.
But it increases the organist’s palette of
colors exponentially.

When I was a teenager, a mentor listening to my preparations for a recital commented that if everyone used the Swell Pedal like I was, they’d have called it a crush. I was closing the box at the end of a phrase, and popping it open before starting the next phrase, using only half of the device’s possibilities—but I was still too green to realize that the expression is about more than volume. It’s also an important tool for the creation and manipulation of tone color.  

When two or more manuals are coupled together, moving the expression pedals changes the emphasis from one tone color to another, taking the organ’s color spectrum from the finite number of possible combinations of stops to the infinite. Here’s a simple example. You might play the opening verse of a hymn on Great Principals with a Swell Trumpet coupled in, saving the more powerful Great Trumpet for later. Add to that registration the dimension of starting the verse with the Swell Box closed, and open it gradually as the choir comes down the aisle. The sound of the Trumpet is subtle at first, and blooms into being the principal ingredient of the aggregate color.  

Think of an “Old Master” painting. When Meindert Hobbema takes your eyes from the green of a tree canopy to the blue of the sky, he takes you through an infinite spectrum of colors. Compare that to the results of a color-by-number kit in which the boundary between one color and another is defined by a stark black line. And think of the artist making a drawing with charcoal or pastel, using her fingers to smudge the lines to create shading. Smudge is no better a description for the use of the expression pedals than crush, but the creative colorist at the organ can use the expression pedals to enhance the transitions from one color to another. That’s painting with sound, like Captain Aubrey’s colorful violin strings.

Stop, look, and listen

In these pages, I’ve often mentioned formulaic organ registration. You play the opening of a baroque Prelude and Fugue on Organo Pleno—Principals eight, four, and two, plus Mixture. You’ve always done it that way. Fair enough. That implies that the opening of Bach’s B-Minor Prelude (a high and screechy B) should be registered the same as his Dorian Toccata (middle of the keyboard canonic counterpoint). We are free to choose registrations that reflect the response of the specific instrument playing the specific notes in the specific acoustic. 

I think of my own performances of Bach’s B-Minor, how in the boop-da-da-da-da-da, boop-boop-da-da-da-da-da, boop-boop episode of the fugue I always reduced the registration to flutes at eight and two. Always.

As I think about the opening of that great piece, I wince at the high B. What about starting on a smaller registration (that hymn registration I described earlier?) so the opening high B is less jarring. And here’s a radical thought. I know organs that simply don’t have stops that can be combined to give an impressive and dignified sound on that high B, so maybe I won’t play that piece on one of those organs—the ultimate registration discretion. There are other pieces.

Have you ever heard an organist play the opening pedal solo of Buxtehude’s Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne on anything other than pretty-much full organ, including reeds and mixtures, and manuals coupled to the pedals? Me neither. Why doesn’t someone play it on a four-foot flute? One of my favorite organ tones is a good clear Koppelflute, especially in a spacious acoustic. Would the Buxtehude cops storm into the church if I played that opening pedal solo on a four-foot Koppelflute? Would the first-time listener be disappointed?

If you, as an educated and experienced organist, went to an organ recital and the performer had the nerve to do that, would you be offended or disappointed? Are you just as happy to hear the same piece played with the same registration by every organist on every organ? Or are you excited when someone offers a fresh approach to an old warhorse? If we’re not listening as we register pieces, why should we expect the audience to listen?

Once when a colleague was demonstrating the organ in his church to me, he drew a huge combination of stops and told me that was his typical registration for postludes. Yikes. Easter I? Advent I? Pentecost XVIII? Bach? Widor? Stanley?

You go to a restaurant and order a chicken breast with lemon, butter, capers, and parsley. Delicious. Next week you go a different restaurant and order chicken breast with lemon, butter, capers, and parsley. And the next week, and the next. Different chef, different cooking temperature, different weather, but same ingredients. Can we think of a different way to cook a chicken breast?

How many different colors can you paint a front door and still be correct?

If we say Swell instead of crush, why do we call them stops? That seems limiting. Why don’t we start calling them Go’s? No matter how many of you agree with me, we’re probably stuck with stops. It would sound ridiculous for a politician to say, “We’re pulling out all the go’s.” But in your mind’s eye—and ear—think of them as opportunities, possibilities, or ingredients. If you’re listening when you draw stops, there aren’t many wrong answers. You’ll know if the tie clashes with the shirt. Have a blast. Put it on my tab. But hold the capers. They’re not my favorite.

Notes

1. http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/pricol2.html

2. Patrick O’Brian, Post Captain. William Collins Sons & Co., Ltd, London, 1972, page 421.

3. http://www.prattandlambert.com/color-and-inspiration/learn-about-color/…