Thoughts on Service Playing Part II: Transposition

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

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

I. Sight-reading

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sight-reading resources 

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

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

Other resources include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

II. Learning new music

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

—Charles-Marie Widor

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

—Gustav Holst

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional suggestions

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

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

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

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

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

Happy practicing! And play the right notes.

References

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

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

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

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

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

David Herman, DMA, MusD, is Trustees Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Music and University Organist at the University of Delaware. The author of numerous reviews for The Diapason, David has enjoyed playing hymns in churches of various denominations for more than 50 years. His recent CD, Ein neues Lied+A New Song, includes choral and organ music by his teacher Jan Bender and by Bender’s teacher, Hugo Distler. The disc is available from the author ([email protected]).

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

Accompanying choral music and solos

The good accompanist always plays the text.

—Austin Lovelace¹

In hymn playing, the emphasis is on leading; with accompaniment, the organist’s role is different. When accompanying, we are followers, sometimes supporters; and at other times merely in the background; occasionally, equal partners. In any case, as accompanists we make a very important contribution to the music. Just listen to recordings of choral music and note the deft playing that “makes” an anthem, a Howells canticle, or an Anglican psalm. As with hymn playing, on some occasions the accompanist joins with the singers in making magic happen! 

Accompanying is an art, of course, and, as with any aspect of our work, the more we practice it, the better we become. It is a worthy calling and good accompanists are highly to be prized—“More to be desired are they than gold,” to borrow from the Psalmist. Engaging in such collaborative work enhances our overall musicianship and usefulness and makes us better listeners. I regret that some advanced piano students, particularly at universities, ignore or turn away from opportunities to accompany, preferring instead to focus only on learning repertoire. That seems pretty short-sighted to me. Do they really think they are going to have careers only as soloists? Accompanying is not necessarily easier than solo performance; it merely calls upon some different skills. Following are a few thoughts on technical and musical aspects of effective accompanying, particularly as applied to working with choirs. 

Technical matters

Rhythmic playing is especially important in choral accompaniment. With all due respect to conductors, the stability of the choir is often in the hands (literally) of the accompanist, who helps keep the singers on track rhythmically, gives them confidence for their entrances, and generally contributes to the solidity of the ensemble.

We accompanists have an extra challenge. In addition to reading the map (music) and piloting the organ, we also have to keep an eye on the conductor. (Unless the conductor is you!) For those of us in middle age or beyond, the ocular challenges can be significant. We’ll leave that matter to you and your optical professional, but do remember that appropriate eyeglasses are among organists’ essential tools. Reading what’s on the music rack through bifocals is likely to give you a pain in the neck! If you require reading glasses, consider “half glasses,” so that you can look over them at the conductor. In addition to the visual aspects, careful listening to the combined sounds of organ and choir is musically very important. Constant monitoring is needed to ensure good balance between choir and organ. Relying on the Swell division can be useful in allowing immediate modifications in volume. (But see also the final paragraph below.)

Transcription-type 

accompaniment

Some accompaniments are written specifically for the organ, using two or three staves. These should be learned in the same way as organ literature and played as written. Other accompaniments are composed more generically, for “keyboard.” Those are sometimes a challenge to play on the organ. A growing number have tricky pianistic textures with lots of arpeggios and/or “oom-pah” left-hand parts—not natural to the organ. Arpeggios, really “unfolded” harmony, can often be played vertically, as chords. Although such accompaniments often have no pedal parts, using the organ pedals occasionally can make them a bit easier to play, helping out the hands and compensating somewhat for the lack of a damper pedal.

Many accompaniments are transcriptions, having begun their lives as orchestral music. Some are even twice removed from the original: think of Handel’s Messiah, for which we must take music written for orchestra, subsequently arranged for piano, and now play it on the organ—all at no extra pay! In these cases it is important to keep in mind that our job is making organ music, and thus we must often make some adjustments in the music’s texture in order not only to make it playable on our instrument but also to make it sound effective and convincing as organ music. This is an important concept, running as a common thread through both hymn and anthem playing: organists often are called upon to play something that did not originate as organ music. The late Erik Routley wrote convincingly of this in his book, Church Music and the Christian Faith: 

Service playing demands a great deal of imagination on the player’s part, and has very little to do with the fundamentalist obedience to a score that recital playing . . . requires. An organist must constantly edit a score. When accompanying anthems and service settings the organist gets no instructions about registration, and sometimes indeed has to play from a piano reduction of what was originally an orchestral score. The point here is that the organist must translate the . . . score into organ language [my emphasis] as he or she plays. This will be not a distraction but a reassurance for the congregation, especially if the organist’s chief attention is to rhythm and touch [again, those two magic words].²

Here are some specific suggestions for playing transcriptions:

• I often find it easier to first work out a transcription at the piano and then move to the organ. This helps in developing an initial understanding of the musical texture and expression, which then transfers to the organ.

• As with hymns, here the novice organist faces the question of “to pedal or not to pedal.” Try taking busy eighth-note bass lines with your left hand (instead of the pedals), or leave them out entirely. Consider the possibility of “pedal points”—the concept originates in organ music. Replacing a busy bass line with a long-held note often results in more convincing organ music. 

• Pedal long notes, not fast ones, and add pedal at major cadences (musical punctuations—see example above).

• Simplify the texture when possible. Thinner is usually better than thicker. Remember that, especially in seventeenth- or eighteenth-century music, the outer voices of the texture usually tell all. Playing only these is very often enough; the organ’s registration fills in with other pitches and doublings.

• Consider using only a manual-to-pedal coupler instead of heavy pedal stops. This helps to keep rhythm and tempo from bogging down, and taking the occasional left-hand note with a foot helps with page turning.

These suggestions also apply when playing solo organ works that are transcriptions.

Registration

• Avoid string and flute celestes in most instances unless specifically called for in the music. Although they can make an ethereal “wash” of sound, their pitch is vague by design, and their articulation is too imprecise for detail work. Keep in mind that the articulation in organ playing is equivalent to consonants in speech—enunciation. The goal is the same: clarity, so as to make the music understandable.

• Light and clear registrations (8′ and 2′ flutes, for example) enhance early (pre-nineteenth-century) music, when accompaniments are often instrumental in origin. Rhythmic energy and pulse are essential ingredients in early music; a light registration makes this easier to provide. Save colorful registrations for nineteenth- and twentieth-century music, where they’re often called for.

• Use the swell box judiciously. In anthem accompanying, especially of early music, try setting the swell box and leaving it alone. This will simplify things and be more faithful to the music’s intentions. Although it is sometimes appropriate to close the box partially in order to achieve a good balance between organ and singers, it is generally better to leave the box open to allow easy egress of the sound. In pre-nineteenth-century music, one or two clear stops on the Great or Positiv are better than three or more on the Swell with the box shut.

Accompanying Psalmody

All Christian churches are impoverished if the psalms are withdrawn from their worship.

—Erik Routley³

The Book of Psalms is a sweet and delightful song because it sings of and proclaims the Messiah.

—Martin Luther⁴

The skills necessary in accompanying psalms effectively are essentially those needed for leading hymn singing (see September 2016 issue) or accompanying in general. Nonetheless, it may be helpful to offer suggestions specific to psalmody.

There are various methods of singing the psalms, of course: psalm tones; harmonized (Anglican) chant; metrical paraphrases (which would be played as a hymn); and “newer” methods, such as formulary tones and Gelineau psalmody. A keyword in hymn playing is “leading.” Its correspondent in playing psalms is “support,” and, for the most part, is in the background. A partial exception: there are responsorial psalm settings in which the choir or soloists sing the verses while the congregation responds with a refrain or antiphon. In this instance the organist is alternately leader and accompanist. It is helpful in such cases if the organist can give a clear signal to the people each time they sing, with an increased registration; by playing the antiphon’s melody as a solo voice; or by providing a firm “downbeat” in the pedal to serve as a springboard to the congregation’s response.

However, in most psalm settings of the “formula” type—various types of psalm tones, for example—the goal is to be quietly supportive but not “in the way” of the voice part, whose text-inspired rhythm must float in a free and flexible way. Harmonized (Anglican) chant, normally played as written, must be similarly supple in rhythm. In addition, organists who are experienced and comfortable with this medium have opportunities for discrete “colorings” by way of appropriate registration changes and/or melodic descants (but without changes in harmony).

In all chant-based accompanying, the organist must play the music from memory in order to follow and play the words of each psalm verse. In playing the psalmody of Joseph Gelineau, which employs a temporal system quite different from that in psalm tones, the organist again provides quiet support to the sung text, but within the framework of its regularly recurring rhythm. 

Following are some specific suggestions for accompanying psalm tones, Gregorian psalmody, or other “monodic” chant:

• Keep in mind that, in fact, no accompaniment may be needed at all. Historically these chants would have been sung without accompaniment. Or, instead of the organ try a few handbells, used to punctuate the phrases.

• Use a discrete, quiet registration, preferably in a swell box to allow for subtle and immediate gradations in dynamics.

• Don’t pedal, or use a light pedal registration.

• It is not necessary to double the melody; providing slow-moving and somewhat thin accompaniment (alternately, a “wash” of sound, hardly moving at all) helps to encourage the requisite flexibility in singing.

• In generating your accompaniment, think modally, not harmonically. No V7 chords or other traditional harmonic motion.

A final thought

The initial learning process of accompanying different types of psalm tones is not unlike mastering a spoken language; playing fluidly and supportively requires having the authentic “accent” in the ears. As with mastering a language, accomplishing the appropriate “sound” of, say, Anglican chant is enhanced by listening to examples. There are fine recordings available (on such labels as EMI, Hyperion, and Priory, among others), especially from English college chapels and cathedrals. Some British recording companies have committed to issuing the entire Psalter in Anglican chant, such as the recordings by the choir of St. Paul’s London, when it was under the direction of the late John Scott. ν

Notes

1. Austin Lovelace, The Organist and Hymn Playing (rev.) (Carol Stream, Illinois: Agape, 1981), 26.

2. Erik Routley, Church Music and the Christian Faith (Carol Stream, Illinois: Agape, 1978), 102 and 105–6.

3. Routley, p. 117.

4. Luther’s Works, Vol. 15; ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan (Concordia Pub. House, 1971), p. 273.

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

Through the diverse work of nearly every organist runs a common thread: We are called upon to play the organ for religious services. This is the first in a series of articles that will offer ideas for enriching service playing; these articles were originally written for Crescendo, the newsletter of the Philadelphia AGO chapter and are used with their permission. Mention is occasionally made of the “young organist”—this is not a reference to age, but of skills and experience. Many “young” organists of all ages have keyboard skills and have been pressed to move from the piano bench to the organ bench. In this first installment, we will turn our attention to hymn playing.

Hymns must dance, even when they

“slow dance.”—Bruce Neswick

Hymn playing is a large topic—and the most important of them all, as it is the heart of what we do as church organists. A comprehensive treatment of hymn playing would include topics such as touch, breathing/phrasing, repeated notes, pedaling, registration, tempo, and, especially, attention to the text. You have probably recognized these as the same skills necessary in playing organ literature convincingly.

The service player, moreover, must consider many additional aspects. These include the different “personalities” of hymn texts and tunes; musical leadership; variety—in registration, texture, and harmonization; and, most importantly, bringing the words of the hymn to life. “Present the ancient truth as a present truth,” as Erik Routley once wrote, referring to hymns from previous centuries.¹

In short, hymn playing deserves a book and course of its own. What follows here are merely a few thoughts, with the hope they may be of some use and interest.

The organist as leader

First, some technical aspects. It is worth mentioning just what we’re about as organists during congregational singing. We are not the peoples’ accompanist; to accompany is to support, and, ultimately, to follow. That’s what we do, for example, when accompanying a vocal or instrumental soloist. When the people are singing they depend upon the organist for leadership—a significant, if subtle, difference.

The organist has a number of important decisions to make on behalf of the people. These include interpreting the “character” of the hymn, perhaps even determining the key; and setting the tempo. Having established these essential musical ingredients, the organist then invites the people to sing by way of an intonation: an introduction that is both music and signal. As the hymn unfolds, the organist maintains the tempo and sees to other musical ingredients—including phrasing and appropriate changes in texture and registration—with polite, but firm, insistence. Through all this, the organist encourages the faithful (nearly all of whom are musical amateurs) to sing and helps to interpret the texts of the hymns.

How is all this accomplished? What to do, for example, when the tempo (or spirit) sags? The answer: Of most importance in effective musical communication is the organist’s strong sense of rhythm, accomplished through touch. In other words, the same technical skills needed for a compelling performance of a Bach fugue or a French organ symphony are those we draw upon in leading congregational song. The late Robert Glasgow, one of my teachers and a man who didn’t waste words, was once asked at a masterclass to “say a few words about rhythm in organ playing.” “Well,” he replied, a bit bewildered by the question, “I’m very much for it.”

Playing the text

All this reinforces the fact that hymn playing is technically demanding. It requires a strong sense of rhythm, confidence in touch, and at least the beginnings of a dependable pedal technique. Hymn playing is especially challenging for the less-experienced organist, who is understandably concerned about playing notes; but ultimately, this really is about playing words!

Hymns are poetry, as we know; it is the hymn’s tune that we play. It is the wedding of hymn and tune that we sing. Out of respect for the hymn text, many British hymnbooks display it, separated from the music, at the bottom of the page so that the poetry can be seen and appreciated. Young organists (of all ages) often find it necessary to fix their attention on the music of the hymn, and become anxious when told they must also follow the text. If the words of each stanza are not considered, the result is playing the first stanza again four or five times. Indeed, there can be significant changes in mood and even in rhythm from one stanza to the next. (Think of the rhythmic variables among the stanzas of “For All the Saints.”)

Some of us have played hymns for a very long while and, as a result, we need not spend quite so much time working out the notes each week. My pre-Sunday preparation focuses on reviewing the hymns’ words: the phrases and stanzas. Realizing that the congregation will breathe when they need to, I nevertheless mark places in my hymnbook where the choir and I will not breathe, to help make clear the poet’s thoughts.

In earlier times I recommended that the organist sing aloud with the people. I changed my mind, however, when in a workshop some thirty years ago, John Ferguson made a convincing case for the organist’s forming the words mentally but not actually producing a sound. He was right: This allows the organist to be both involved with the text and to monitor the peoples’ singing. I want to be certain that the congregation is “with me,” not only in tempo but in spirit. I also believe that, if I can hear the people singing, the organ is not too loud.

Pedaling

Playing the pedal (bass) part of a hymn can be as difficult as trio playing. Until an organist has developed the requisite pedal technique, it is better to not use pedals on hymns, even though this will likely increase the challenge for the hands. Example 1 shows an in-between solution: to pedal only occasionally—on long notes (pedal points) and at cadences, where the feet can prepare the primary scale degrees (tonic and dominant notes).

Q: How long may you hold on to a pedal point?

A: For as long as it sounds good!

Working out the pedal part is a challenge for all of us who like to write in pedaling marks, as hymnbooks typically have the settings notated in “choral” style, with insufficient room above the bass line for writing in pedaling.

Tempo

Tempo is a tricky and somewhat subjective matter, especially since the same hymn might call for different tempos depending upon such factors as hour of the day, age of the congregation, acoustics of the worship space, and the number of people singing. The organist sets the tempo, of course, which then must be maintained from beginning to end, through clear touch and rhythm.

Hymn introductions

Hymn introductions function as musical signals. They alert the congregation that it is time to sing, and provide essential information about the key, tempo and, perhaps, the nature of the hymn. What an introduction need not have to provide literally is the hymn tune, played all the way through (although this is typically what the British do).

In a hymn introduction, the organist can exercise some creativity in crafting a hymn “intonation,” by improvising or composing one, or using one of the many thousands in print by various composers. (See Example 2.)

Links

No, not golf or computer links. These refer to the precise amount of time inserted by the organist between the intonation and stanza 1, and between subsequent pairs of stanzas. This rhythmic silence is crucial in both giving the people time to breathe as well as signaling when they sing.

The link between stanzas is created by either adding a certain number of beats (if the last note of the tune is short, as in Example 3a), or subtracting beats (when the final note is long, say, a whole note, as in Example 3b). The great majority of people in our congregations are musical amateurs and we want to use all possible means to encourage them to sing energetically and with confidence.

Registration

“Flue” pipes on an organ are the strings, flutes, and principals. The first two are indispensible for accompaniment and in playing many organ pieces. Principals, on the other hand, excel at leading. A solid registration of principals 8′, 4′ and 2′ (crowned, perhaps, with a mixture) provides clear and encouraging leadership to the congregation. Normally, it is preferable to not overload the registration with 8′ stops; better to have stops of higher pitches, which sing out above the register of the congregation. Use manual 16′ stops carefully and sparingly and avoid celestes and the tremulant.

Above all: Listen to the congregation. If you can’t hear them, you may be playing too loudly!

Voice leading and texture

People often ask: “In passages with repeated notes, which do I tie and which should be repeated?” It’s not possible, I think, to declare an “always” rule for this (although some books do). Repeated notes in the melody of any hymn are always repeated—perhaps even overenunciated. Think of the opening notes of Rhosymedre. The best treatment of repeated notes is the use of “half-values” (that is, changing repeated quarter notes to eighth notes and eighth rests), shown in Example 4. As for the other voices, I suggest listening, to both the organ and the response of the congregation, making modifications in touch as needed.

Variety

A hymn may have four or five or— thank you, Martin Luther!—ten to fifteen stanzas. Why should all of them be played the same way? After all, the words change from one stanza to the next. Variety does not mean drastic or melodramatic musical gestures, unnecessary interludes, constant modulations, etc., but variety in response to the hymn text—musical interpretations that inspire the congregation to “sing ancient truths as present truths.” (See Routley’s comments below.) In the meantime, here are some easy ways to introduce variety in your hymn playing:

• Change registration (between stanzas, not within a stanza), reflecting upon aspects of the words.

• Solo the melody by using a trumpet or similar stop. Or better: Do you have young people in your congregation who play instruments? Most of us do. Recruit one or more to play the trumpet or other instrument on the melody of selected stanzas of a hymn. He/she can be thought of as a supplementary organ stop; and the young person will be thrilled to be a part of such an important activity.

• Drop out the pedals for a significant change (lightening) in overall sound.

• Occasionally, drop out the organ completely for a stanza. This requires preparation and the presence of a confident choir, who have been clued in as to what will happen. This can be very effective, even dramatic, on the right stanza and allows the people to find, and “center on,” their voices.

• Use alternation. Lutherans in 16th-century Germany continued the venerable process known as Alternatim Praxis—alternation. Carl Schalk described it this way: “The congregation, singing the unison chorales unaccompanied, alternated with (1) a unison . . . choir (the schola), (2) a choir singing polyphonic settings of the chorale (the choir), or (3) the organ, playing chorale settings.”²

Yes, that’s right: The organ can “play” a stanza of the hymn by itself. Other possibilities for alternation: men and trebles; right and left sides of the naves; choir and congregation. An example: Have the choir sing stanzas 5 and 6 of “For All the Saints” in parts. Perhaps from the aisle, before going on into the choir stalls. Alternation is meant to enhance, of course, not distract or annoy. So, the details of such a plan should be clearly laid out in the Sunday bulletin, especially when doing this for the first time.

• Sing in parts. None of these suggestions require the organist to depart from the harmony in the hymnbook. In many churches, the people wish to sing hymns in parts. This precludes, of course, the possibility of the organist’s occasional playing of alternate harmonizations (something many of us enjoy doing). Blessed is the church, then, that has the tradition of “unison on first and last stanzas, parts on the middle stanzas.” When the choir uses this plan, the people usually follow. This allows for the introduction (carefully) of varied harmonizations to enrich the hymn singing. These can be improvised (if thought out in advance), composed by the organist, or played from any number of fine publications written for this purpose.

Ultimately, hymn playing is about inspiration. For me, few musical experiences can top that of leading and encouraging a large congregation in singing a great hymn. The rewards and satisfaction can be tremendous. We’ve all been inspired by great service players, some of whom have been our own teachers.

Let’s allow Routley to have the last word:

It is your duty, your contribution to the service, to interpret as well as to play.

You are taking those words and notes out of the printed book and presenting them to the congregation as a new, fresh, contemporary thing.

Do nothing mechanically, by habit, or lightly, or casually.

Do all by decision. Do all after thought and prayer.

And may the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,

and may He prosper our handiwork.³

Additional resources

• The Association of Lutheran Church Musicians offers several hymn-based recordings, including a hymn festival by Paul Manz and Martin Marty. See www.alcm.org/marketplace/.

• David Cherwien provides many useful suggestions in his book on leading congregational song, Let the People Sing! A Keyboardist’s Creative and Practical Guide to Engaging God’s People in Meaningful Song (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1997).

• John Ferguson and others have created “Mini-Courses on Hymn Playing,” available from the publications section of the AGO website: http://ago.networkats.com/members_online/members/createorder.asp?action….

• Stuart Forster, Hymn Playing: A Modern Colloquium, offers contributions from eleven prominent organists (MorningStar Music Publishers, 2013).

• Gerre Hancock’s book on improvisation, Improvising: How to Master the Art (Oxford University Press, 1994) remains one of the standards in the field. 

• David Heller’s Manual on Hymn Playing: A Handbook for Organists offers techniques at all levels (GIA Publications, Inc., G3642, 2001).

• Noel Jones, A Catholic Organist’s Guide to Playing Hymns. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015 (available from Amazon).

Notes

1. Erik Routley, The Organist’s Guide to Congregational Praise (London: Independent Press, 1947), 12, quoted in Austin Lovelace, The Organist and Hymn Playing (rev.) (Carol Stream, Illinois: Agape, 1981), 26.

2. Carl Schalk, ed., Key Words in Church Music, rev. and enlarged (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2004), 26–27.

3. Routley, The Organist’s Guide, 12–13, quoted in Lovelace, The Organist and Hymn Playing, 26.

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey, teaching harpsichord, organ, and clavichord. He can be reached by email at [email protected].

Helping Students Choose Fingerings

After two months spent on something interesting and useful yet rather tangential to organ teaching (the clavichord), I have decided to tackle something probably the most direct and nitty-gritty of anything in the whole field: how to help students choose fingerings for their pieces. This topic is tricky and subject to different approaches.

I have certainly alluded to this from time to time while writing about other things. But I have yet to write about it directly and systematically, or in a sustained way. It is fundamentally important. To start with, there is no such thing as a student’s playing a piece, even playing through it first time slowly, or playing one hand or a brief passage, without there being a fingering. (The fingering on an initial play-through might be largely random, and that might be a problem or might be fine. That is part of this discussion.) There is also a way of talking about what it takes to learn a piece that though laughably formulaic is also not untrue: namely, if you have a fingering and then practice efficiently you will learn the piece. I have written a lot about efficient practicing. I now focus on the first part of that formula.

All of the above also applies to pedaling. I focus on fingering here because I think that the technical issues involved in making fingering choices and those involved in making pedaling choices are different enough that juggling a discussion of both would just be confusing. (Confusing for the writer!) Fingering choices are more multifaceted and the questions more complex, though similar in some principles. I hope that the process of thinking about not teaching fingerings but teaching how to devise fingerings will suggest a useful framework for thinking about the same thing with respect to pedaling. I will write about that in the future, separately.   

It was a premise of the way that this column was originally established nearly ten years ago, fairly short, but appearing every month, that I could afford to write in a leisurely way about an important topic, and that I wouldn’t have to try to get any subject sorted in any one column. I take full advantage of that now. We will probably spend the whole summer analyzing and musing about fingering. If you have a fruitful approach to guiding your students towards making good fingering choices for themselves and also can help them learn how to practice well (and can cajole them into wanting to practice well, at least much of the time), then you have done by far the largest part of what you can or should do as to the practical core of the teaching process. The more soundly and smoothly this can unfold, the easier it then is to delve into interpretive, artistic, historical, philosophical, matters, and to issues arising out of the particular musician-like personality of each student and his or her goals and aspirations.

This month I write about fingering and some of the issues involved in choosing fingerings. Along the way I will mention a few somewhat random ideas, thoughts, or images that I think are interesting.

Let’s start with one of those. I have always found it hard to grasp the notion that the “fingering” used by legendary great composers or performers of the past was the very same kind of thing that we do when we come up with fingerings and apply them. Did Bach or Franck or Sweelinck or Widor really just push keys down with the fingers of perfectly normal hands, and in so doing choose from among the same kind of patterns that we work with? Yes, of course they did. But as with every aspect of the notion that the great figures of old were people just like the rest of us, this is something that I find it hard to comprehend. (This is especially true as to Bach, but otherwise it tends to feel more difficult the farther back I go in time. Did Cabezón or Schlick have hands much like mine and sometimes sit there wondering whether to reach for that note with 4 or 5? Yes!) One point of musing about this is to try to demystify fingering itself a little bit. Everyone who has ever played a keyboard instrument has had to think about fingering and has faced the same broad constraints about how fingers can or cannot grapple with keys.

Not everyone has always been grappling with the physical act of fingering, its logistic limitations as well as its possibilities, towards the same ends. This is true along the various axes of performance style. Some player/composers and their musical cultures were looking to create a lot of legato, others were not. Some were frequently required to deal with thick chords, other much less so, or nearly not at all. And so on. One of the big questions about fingering and about the challenge of guiding students toward being able to choose fingerings is how to integrate our awareness of how any composer might have approached fingering with other (logistic, musical, practical) considerations.  

But there are also two distinctions related to each other that are perhaps even more interesting. First, most players of the past were mostly improvising. This is probably truer the farther back you go. The relationship between fingering-planning (which is pretty much what we mean when we talk about fingering as an act) and the music must be different if you don’t know what the music will be before you sit down to play. That suggests a concept of the act of fingering that must include some blend of real planning and maintaining habits that permit fingering on the fly. Fingering on the fly is something that we mostly discourage when helping students to learn repertoire. What does the ubiquity of that practice over many centuries tell us about possible approaches to planned fingering?

The second point about old-time performing circumstances is that for the first many centuries in the history of organ playing, it was not the norm for players to play much old music or to be concerned at all with playing old music in the way that the creators of that music would have played it. That is not to say that no one prior to, say, the early nineteenth century ever paid attention to music of earlier eras. Some musicians studied such music. We know that Bach studied Frescobaldi and de Grigny, for example, as well as composers who were more recent or more directly part of his own musical lineage, such as Buxtehude and Pachelbel. But there is no reason to believe either that he engaged in public performance of their music or that when he looked through their pieces he was thinking about their fingering or other performance practice issues. He may have done so, and other composer/performers who paid some attention to older music may have done so, but if so it was under the radar screen of history.

The first issue that we have to think about in teaching fingering to students is what students. And the answer is a usual one: that the more of a beginner a student is the more systematically we need to address things that are practical and basic. This is both an obligation and an opportunity. If someone is studying with a teacher as a beginner, then that teacher can do things “right” from the beginning, whatever that means. A student who has already accomplished some playing or who is already quite advanced will already have an approach to fingering. That approach may be fully worked out and successful, or may be deeply problematic, or somewhere in between. It may be intuitive and successful, but still benefit from being made more analytical. It may be intuitive and insufficiently efficient or fit any number of different patterns. Then with organ (and harpsichord or clavichord), unlike with piano, we have the situation that seems like a special case but is in fact the most common—namely, that a student comes to us as an established player of the piano with established piano fingering habits. In this situation, work on fingering necessarily keeps coming back to questions of the differences in fingering considerations between piano and organ. 

I want to sketch out my thoughts about all of this with an eye mainly on the student who is at least near the beginning of studying. It seems like the best way to teach myself or to invite any other teacher to think about how to teach fingering is to start with a conceptually complete picture. How can we teach a student good fingering habits from scratch? What is the overall framework or concept involved in that work? But the notion of re-shaping, steering, helping someone who already has well-established relevant skills, but also possible problematic habits, always must be kept in mind.

Factors in choosing fingerings

What considerations shape fingering choices? There are quite a few, and they sometimes complement one another but also sometimes seem to push in different directions. Some of them are: 

1) What would the composer have done? I mention this first not because I think that it is most important, but because it ties in with some of what I have already discussed above. What do we know about how a composer would have fingered his or her music? Do we know that from the composer directly or from students or contemporaries of that composer? How much detail do we have? How much are we filling in or extrapolating? Whatever we know, or reasonably believe, that a composer did, do we know why? Can we make plausible deductions about why? What were the musical goals if there were any? Or were the goals more practical or logistic?

2) What about physical logistics or comfort? Are there ways of executing passages that are easier than others? The answer to this is sometimes yes. Also, quite often the answer is a modified yes: there isn’t one fingering that is the easiest or most comfortable, but there are some that are more so and some that are less so. The comfort or ease of fingerings may well differ between one player and another. When it seems to differ, the question is whether that results from some legitimate difference that should be respected or just of habit, which perhaps should be respected or perhaps challenged.

3) Habit. This is worthy of its own category. Anyone who has ever played at all has certainly become more accustomed to some patterns and approaches than to others. Some of these habits are limiting. For example, it is common to observe players avoiding the fifth finger as a general rule. That can be a very bad idea: endless problems can cascade from this. Many players have habits when it comes to trill fingerings, usually using fingers 2 and 3 as a default and avoiding 4 and 5, or sometimes orienting trills around the thumb just by habit when that is actually physically awkward. It is crucial, especially when working with established players, to think about what habits can be relied on for ease and comfort and which ones should be questioned. (Come to think of it, this is most important and most difficult working with oneself!) 

4) Hand position. I have written about this in passing quite a bit. In this series of columns I want to explore the relationship between hand position and fingering directly, and with an eye on how it shapes choices. There are ways of holding the hand in relation to the wrist and arm that are physiologically sound and other ways that produce tension and possibly pain, and that can even lead to injury. Since the keyboard is fixed and the player’s sitting position is more or less fixed, addressing keys with particular fingers ties in very closely with hand position. It is interesting to think about the causality going both ways: “this is the fingering I want, so let’s see what it implies about hand position,” but also “this is the hand position I want, so let’s see what it implies about fingering.”

5) Repetition. If the exact same passage is repeated, it probably makes sense to use the same fingering. Sometimes there maybe a reason that it does not, but it’s always worth thinking about.

6) Patterns. Passages that are similar in shape to one another might well suggest similar fingerings. Sometimes patterns that are musically very similar or identical are not the same physically, usually because of something different about sharps and flats. Patterns are useful but should not tie us in to doing things that are actually not the best. 

7) Memorability. Repetitions and other patterns are useful for fingering planning in that they increase our ability to remember fingerings without extra effort. If it is possible to take ease of remembering into account in planning fingerings, that can be useful. 

8) Interpretive considerations. The most common and straightforward of these is articulation. If two successive notes need to be really legato, then the first one must be played in such a way that it can be held through the beginning of the second one. This usually means that the two notes must be played by two different fingers. If two notes don’t have to be legato, or if the choice interpretively is for them not to be, then that fingering restriction is lifted. 

9) The instrument. Are there some instruments that suggest different fingerings? Are there situations in which working out a fingering in the abstract, however conscientiously, will not help produce the best fingerings when it comes time to play on a particular instrument? This could be about feel and keyboard logistics, or about intrinsic instrument sound, or about room acoustics. It can also be about controlling pipe speech or winding in instruments that are sensitive to such things.

These are some considerations about the content of fingering choices. That is a separate thing from how we help students learn to think about these choices, a necessary precursor. The main fork in the road about working with students about fingering is this: how much should I as a teacher give my students fingerings directly, and how much should I talk to them about principles but ask them to concoct their own fingerings? I will discuss that next month.

People’s hands are more different physically than you might think. This has to do with overall size and with the relative long/thin or short/stubby aspect of the fingers. But it also has to do with specifics that affect keyboard fingering directly, like the length and position of the thumb with respect to the second finger, the length of the fifth finger, the question of which is longer as between the fourth and second fingers, and how they both relate to the third finger. The accompanying scan is of my hands: short thumbs, long fifth fingers, fourth and second fingers very close to each other in length.

Take a look at your own!

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. Gavin can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Clavichord II

Last month’s column ended with a description of the fretted clavichord, a clavichord in which for at least part of the compass some adjacent pitches are grouped onto the same strings as one another. This practice has some musical implications. The most important compositional implication of fretting on clavichords is that certain groups of notes cannot be expected to sound together. On a very early clavichord that has some notes grouped in fours, there are even minor thirds that cannot be used as harmonic intervals. Designers of instruments have always worked with an awareness of what was going on in the musical culture as a whole, and the choices about what notes to group together were made, like tuning choices, in sync with what composers and performers needed or wanted. If the four notes grouped together were B-flat, B, C, C-sharp, then the minor third that was lost would be B-flat to C-sharp (D-flat). This interval was not likely to be used anyway in the era of meantone tuning: composers had already accepted that limitation because of the various perceived advantages of that tuning. Over the years, composers began to wish to use more intervals and to use them more freely and flexibly. That led both to the development of more flexible tuning systems and to the evolution of clavichord fretting towards, at first, smaller groupings, and then no fretting at all. On a fully unfretted clavichord, common in the mid- to late-18th and early 19th centuries, you can play any or all of the notes together you may wish, as on any harpsichord, piano, or organ. 

A fretted clavichord has the following features, some of which may be considered advantages—ones that were lost, as time went on, in exchange for the flexibility of the unfretted instrument. It has fewer strings than an unfretted clavichord with the same compass, and therefore needs less work to tune it. Since the fretting—in particular, how far apart the tangents playing different notes on the same strings are placed— determines some of the details of the tuning, the amount of judgment about temperament that a tuner must make is reduced. However, the possibility of tuning the same instrument in different temperaments from one time to another is also reduced.

There is an interesting tie-in there with the organ. Any harpsichord or piano can be retuned to any temperament whatsoever quite easily as part of a normal tuning. In fact, with a harpsichord, changing temperament is not an added bit of work at all in the grand scheme of things, since you have to retune the whole instrument frequently anyway. Re-tempering an organ is, like re-tempering a fretted clavichord, a long, involved, difficult project, not often undertaken.

Because they have fewer strings, fretted clavichords are smaller and lighter than unfretted ones. This was, and still can be, an advantage wherever space was limited and an advantage for travel. Smaller instruments tend to be louder than larger ones, and also to have a more pungent, intense sound that is often perceived as having more “character.” That concept is subjective and also subject to considerable variation in individual cases. 

The existence of this kind of fretting had a particular limited but important influence on keyboard-playing technique that can be used in teaching. We have seen that on a fretted instrument some notes cannot be played together. However, it is entirely possible to play those notes in quick succession, in either direction or in any order. Practicing playing two notes that are bound together on one string both promptly one after the other and cleanly is good training for clean, accurate, precisely timed playing in general. If you have access to a fretted clavichord, find two adjacent notes that use the same strings and try a few things with those notes. First play them back and forth in succession with one finger. The effect will be generously detached. Then switch to a non-disjunct fingering, but still play them detached. Then try making them closer and closer to legato, and also faster and faster in alternation. This will converge on being a trill. You will hear clearly if you violate the autonomy of the two notes by trying to play one before you have released the other.

But in sketching out that exercise I am getting a little bit ahead of myself. That is because of one feature that distinguishes the clavichord from all other keyboard instruments. At any other sort of keyboard instrument, the act of moving a key down from its resting position will always and inevitably cause the instrument to produce its sound. On harpsichord and organ, the pressing of a key will give the full normal sonority, regardless of anything whatsoever about how that pressing is done or who is doing it. It need not even be a human: ask Scarlatti’s cat. On the piano, a deliberate effort to push the key down slowly will give very little volume, perhaps even none. But no particular skill, technique, or experience is necessary to push a key down and make a note sound. On the clavichord, it is entirely possible to press a key down and get, not a musical note, but rather a sort of funny clicking or spitting noise. As with string or wind instruments, there is a particular technical requirement that underlies the basic act of getting the instrument to produce musical sound. A description of that technique can be elusive, partly because it seems to feel and act rather differently from one clavichord to another. The gist of it is that since the key—really, the tangent—remains in contact with the string while the string is sounding, the finger pressure on the key has to start out right and remain right. If it wavers, the tangent is likely to rebound briefly from the string and then damp the sound or fail to make the sonority happen in various other ways.    

There are five clavichords on which I have done a lot of practicing over the last several years. On one of them, a modern-built instrument that deviates a fair amount from historical practice, it is fairly easy to produce real tone. Only by violating in a pretty extreme way some of the technical imperatives that I will mention below can you make the instrument not give a legitimate basic sound. On at least two of the others, including an instrument built in the eighteenth century, I have to focus very intensely and do everything right that I possibly know how to do right in order to get consistent basic sound. As I mentioned briefly in a recent column about the fifth finger, even then I have recurrent trouble making a beautiful, full sound with the fifth finger of either hand. (And I am a pretty adept keyboard player with a tremendous amount of experience with clavichord in general and with these particular instruments.)  

Most of the time, the more firmly you play, the easier it is to get legitimate tone out of a clavichord. However the sound that you get by playing hard enough to be certain of a real and sustained tone is not often the most beautiful sound that the instrument can make. Furthermore, needing to play firmly all of the time restricts the expressive use of dynamics. (It might also tend to throw the pitch of notes off.) More useful is this: the farther out on the keys you play, the more likely you are to produce real sound. Playing at the outer edge of the key also increases rather than limits control over every aspect of the sound, including dynamic nuance. Tone production is also aided by keeping the hand relaxed and by using hand positions that permit playing the keys from above, not from the side. All of these things are good and useful in organ and harpsichord playing as well. But in those contexts they only increase control over the subtleties of attack and release sounds. On the clavichord they are necessary for basic tone production. This is probably the essence of why the clavichord has always been considered a good practice and preparation instrument. It requires you to do, and therefore reinforces your awareness of doing or not doing, things that are very good but not as obvious in playing other instruments.

Acquiring my first clavichord

I had never actually played a clavichord, not even individual notes, before the day when I took delivery nearly 35 years ago of the first clavichord I ever owned. The instrument was a small late-Renaissance style fretted clavichord with a wonderful dry resonant sound. I still have it, and it is still a favorite of mine. Not surprisingly, as I tried to play it that day I had no idea what I was doing. And that lack of any idea manifested itself in my not being able to get a real musical sound or, on some notes, a recognizable pitch from the instrument. As best I remember, I panicked a bit about whether there was something wrong with the instrument, which I had bought used based on a description and a recommendation, not on having heard, seen, or played it. Then I also panicked about whether I was or wasn’t someone who could ever learn to control something like this. But I kept playing, and as I did so, I found myself reinventing that which we call “early fingering.” 

In an initially desperate effort to get sound out of the instrument, I started playing out near the edges of the keys. Then I realized that I had to keep my hand in a comfortable position, not twisted appreciably, especially not twisted outward, which locks the wrist. I also realized that it was difficult to get the fifth finger to make a good sound. Meanwhile, the combination of playing out on the keys and the necessary hand position made it awkward or sometimes impossible to use the thumbs. This began to add up to an unsystematic but pretty close version of the sorts of fingering that we see in 16th and 17th century manuscripts and treatises. This in turn suggested to me that perhaps those fingerings were at least as much about instrument and technique, that is, technique for creating sound, as they were about music and interpretation, though they deeply influence the latter.

This is how I came to acquire that clavichord. In the early spring of 1982 I visited Buffalo, New York, in order to attend as an auditor a series of master classes given by the pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski. He was and still is a musical hero of mine. I believe I had traveled significantly farther than anyone else who came to the week of events, and the staff members at SUNY Buffalo were sort of impressed and pleased by that. They were friendly and welcoming to me, helping me find a room and so on. In fact, I was asked if I wanted to ride along to the motel on the first day that I was there to pick up Mr. Horszowski and his wife, Bice Costa. Of course I went along, scared, shy, and nervous. In the car I explained who I was: a student of harpsichord and organ, hoping to make a career as a player and teacher. Horszowski, almost ninety years old and one of the great late-Romantic pianists with a career beginning in the 19th century, frowned a bit and said, “there is one beautiful keyboard instrument that you do not play.” I sunk as deep as I could into my seat in the car and began to figure out how to respond to the inevitable chiding about not playing the piano. After all, that was the late 19th-century perspective. It was also pretty much the late 20th-century perspective, and I had fielded that question many times, though never from such an august source. 

He then emphatically and joyfully exclaimed the word “clavichord!” 

I mumbled something about how I was planning to learn clavichord, but hadn’t found exactly the right instrument yet, etc., trying not to feel like too much of an early music fraud. The immediate and most important lesson for me was not to make assumptions about what other people’s perspectives were. The longer lesson was that perhaps I ought to get involved with the clavichord. I believe that it was actually during that week that I started making phone calls looking for a good used clavichord that I could afford to buy. That brought me to the day I acquired my first such instrument.

Playing the clavichord   

In playing the clavichord, it is possible to introduce a sort of vibrato to the sound. This is unique among keyboard instruments, and it is another consequence of the tangent’s remaining in contact with the string for as long as you hold a note. If you change the pressure on the key and thus the pressure that the tangent puts on the string, you will change the amount that the string is stretched and thus change its pitch. You can change this pressure by pushing a bit farther down after you have played a note and then relaxing that extra push, doing this back and forth at the speed that you want for your vibrato, for as long as you wish your vibrato to last. You can also do it by keeping your ostensible finger pressure steady, but sliding the finger back and forth along the length of the key. This latter technique seems to be less common, certainly in practice today, perhaps historically. It usually results in a gentler vibrato. That is, it produces a gentle vibrato, whereas the up-and-down technique can produce a stronger one. There is certainly a risk of the vibrato’s being strong enough to come across as out-of-tune, and it is up to the performer to control this appropriately. The historical record leaves it unclear how widely this vibrato was applied at different times and in different places. However, it was an important and well-documented part of the expressive technique of the clavichord in the late 18th century, as the piano was gaining importance and the harpsichord and clavichord were waning. 

The photograph on the preceding page shows the keyboard of an 18th-century clavichord that I was lucky to acquire a few years ago. It is unsigned and undated. The fairly wide compass, four and a half octaves, from CC to f′′′, suggests that it is not from too early in the century. It is double-fretted, which suggests a date that is not too late. It is probably from the second quarter of the 18th century from somewhere in the German-speaking regions of Europe. This instrument was once owned by the American instrument dealer and collector Morris Steinert, who exhibited it at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The instrument is normally housed at the Princeton Early Keyboard Center studio.

These two columns are just a very brief introduction to the clavichord. I strongly recommend sitting at an instrument, whenever you can track one down, and just playing, bearing in mind the few technical matters that I mentioned above. Like me years ago, at first, you (and your students) may think that it is impossible. But that will melt away rather naturally with patient experience.

I direct your attention to a few further resources about the clavichord. There is a book by Bernard Brauchli called The Clavichord, which is a thorough and well  laid-out introduction to the history of the instrument, including iconography and written mentions. It is heavily illustrated and a magnificent reference. There is a publication called De Clavicordio, which is the proceedings of the International Clavichord Symposium. It has been published every two years or so since 1994 and is full of interesting material. The website of the Boston Clavichord Society (http://www.bostonclavichord.org) has information about the instrument and about activities in that region. A highlight of that website is a series of videos featuring performer and teacher Peter Sykes. One of those videos is a concise demonstration of two instruments, one fretted and one unfretted. It covers some of what I have written about here, with the advantage of allowing you to see and hear what is going on. The website also has an impressively thorough clavichord discography.

The Australian instrument maker Carey Beebe has a website that is a cornucopia of information about harpsichords, clavichords, and related matters. It is well written and organized; see www.hpschd.nu/clav.html. From there you can navigate to anything else on the site. The website of instrument builder Keith Hill has an interesting essay about clavichords: keithhillharpsichords.com/clavichords/. I was struck by a comment that I found there, and I quote it to close for this month:

At their very best, clavichords should have the sound of thought. If this idea is new to you, focus for a while on your own thoughts and calculate how “loud” they are. Thought sounds extremely intense when empassioned with meaning.

Performing Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony

A conversation with conductor Andrew Grams and organist Jonathan Rudy

Joyce Johnson Robinson is consulting editor of The Diapason.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921)—

 pianist, organist, poet, dramatist, writer, music editor, and composer—is popularly known for his orchestral works Danse Macabre and Carnival of the Animals. He studied organ and composition at the Paris Conservatoire and served as organist of the church of Saint-Merry (1853–57) and subsequently at the church of La Madeleine in Paris. His music for organ comprised a small portion of his works: some collections of preludes and fugues, improvisations, rhapsodies on Breton themes, and a few single works.

Saint-Saëns’ compositional output includes five symphonies, two of which—youthful works—he withheld from publication, so the fifth symphony, in C minor, written in 1886, was designated No. 3. This symphony was dedicated to the memory of his friend Franz Liszt, who died ten weeks after the work’s London premiere, without having heard the work.

Symphony No. 3 has the nickname “Organ,” which instrument, with the piano, is part of the orchestral ensemble. The organ does not feature as a soloist, but it is strongly present in the finale. Symphony No. 3 is structured in two large sections, although it could be presented in a more typical four-movement design.

The Elgin Symphony Orchestra (ESO) of Elgin, Illinois, presented this symphony in February, the concluding work on a program that also included Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake, Respighi’s Fountains of Rome, and Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. The program was conducted by music director Andrew Grams and featured organist Jonathan Rudy (of The Diapason’s 20 under 30 Class of 2016). Prior to the orchestral rehearsals and performances, we explored some of the performance issues of this symphony with conductor and organist. [NB: The Illinois Council of Orchestras named the Elgin Symphony Orchestra Illinois’ Professional Orchestra of the Year in 2016; the council had also named Andrew Grams the 2015 Conductor of the Year in the professional orchestra category.]

About the organ

As the performance venue, the Hemmens Cultural Center in Elgin, lacks a pipe organ, a Rodgers Infinity 361 digital instrument was supplied by Triune Music of Elmhurst, Illinois. Triune Music first partnered with the ESO around 20 years ago, when then music director Robert Hanson wished to rent a digital organ; he sought an instrument with clarity, and both Swell and Choir division 16′ and 4′ couplers, so that organists would have a specification available as would be found on any major concert hall pipe organ. According to Steven Smith of Triune Music, who installed the organ in the Hemmens auditorium, the challenge at a site like the Hemmens auditorium is to provide enough sound for the organ to be a solo instrument without making the orchestra unable to hear themselves, since speakers are positioned only a few feet above or behind the orchestra, rather than higher up, as they would be with pipe organ chambers. Triune made use of a special speaker system that throws the higher frequencies of the organ sound upwards so it would not interfere with the ability of the musicians to hear each other on stage; they also employed four large sub-woofers that were “floor-loaded,” that is, aimed into the hardwood floor of the stage, increasing the decibel level of the low frequencies to a point where the audience could feel them.  (Interesting fact: Steven Smith had also been the organist for a previous ESO performance of Saint-Saëns’ Symphony No. 3 in 2008.)

Most digital organs today permit the selection of a “genre” of voices  (French-style sounds, or German). The Infinity 361 organ has a “Voice Palette” feature that permits more than one sampled rank to be available on any of its speaking stops. For instance, one could draw the 8′ Principal, but by turning a knob, change to another related voice, such as Open Diapason, Octave, or Montre, and save the chosen voice to a piston. As such, the organist can choose a broad English Diapason, an American Classic Mixture, and a French Chorus Reed simultaneously, depending on the colors desired.

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Joyce Johnson Robinson: Maestro Grams, why did you want to program the Saint-Saëns Third Symphony?

Andrew Grams: Because I like doing it! It’s a great, great symphony. I played it the first time, as a violinist, at school.

JJR: How many times have you presented it?

AG: At least four. Once was even down in Adelaide, Australia.

JJR: Were these all with pipe organs?

AG: Not all. Adelaide was, North Carolina Symphony was not. I don’t remember all of them.

JJR: In the score, are there certain passages that you’re already thinking you need to check?

AG: For me, it’s just let’s go through it and see what it’s like and see what the issues are, and make adjustments as needed. And adjustments can be done very quickly.

Jonathan D. Rudy: That’s right! Very quickly. And I know for me, one of the biggest questions is just hearing it together for the first time, to know if there is such a thing as too much on this organ—

AG: There is. There’s going to be. I think you’ve got a lot of juice available to you.

JDR: I’m looking forward to see where we strike that, and then adjusting registrations from there. Right now I’ve just got every possibility and then some registered, so we’ll make some quick adjustments.

JJR: Jonathan, how are you preparing for this since you have limited time to familiarize yourself with the organ?

JDR: Of course, regular and patient practice is the ticket for truly mastering a piece. But in an ensemble setting like this, it is extremely important to take time and understand how one fits and functions with the group as a whole. This involves careful (full) score study, listening, analysis, and thought. For example, knowing that the organ’s first entry in the piece functions as the harmonic foundation for the string’s unison melody influences my registration choices here. In such cases, I’d choose to utilize the full 8′ chorus for a lush and harmonically foundational sound. Regarding the instrument, I’ve had some practice over the last few years adapting to instruments a few days in advance of performances. What I typically do is study the stoplist, and as far as I’m able, consider registration choices in advance. I also try to prepare the works on similar organs (especially where mechanical action is involved) in my local area.

JJR: How long did it take you to acclimate yourself to this instrument, especially since it has features that aren’t on pipe organs?

JDR: That was the fun part about it. In practice it’s a pretty standard layout—the pedal and the manual layout is AGO standard, so that wasn’t really an issue. The touch was very friendly, I thought, for being an electronic instrument, and it had a nice resistance to the key—that wasn’t an issue. But, knowing that for every stop, there’s often one, two, or three alternate stops that you can choose—that was rather interesting. It did allow for some more flexibility in the tone I was looking for and the color—for example, Saint-Saëns is a French composer, and probably composed with Cavaillé-Coll in mind. He certainly wrote his organ music that way. So being able to choose, say, a Montre, over a Principal, over other styles, was helpful in this case. But it did take a little longer to come up with that general crescendo, which I have purposed for this. Lots of options!

JJR: This symphony is such a wonderful piece, with its thematic interweaving, especially in its latter half. Maestro, are you performing it as two or as four movements?

AG: I think of it as two, but I think you can make an argument to do it as one big movement, and not have such a big gap between part one and part two. I think in practice it’s probably a good idea to relax and shake it out before we launch into the Scherzo proper, but I agree with you. I can’t remember the first time I ever heard the piece; but I know that I always loved it. And as I went through the university years and started to learn more about composition, about how things are built, my appreciation for the piece grew and grew, because not only is it exciting and grand but it’s so well put together. There’s that passage just before the long transitional passage into the Finale, where he’s got this nice fugato and then he just adds all the previous touches on top of each other. Every time I get to that passage I think, “This is the best stuff in the world!”

JDR: He takes that transformation from some of his peers at the time—definitely Franz Liszt, definitely Brahms, they were both known for their motivic transformation like that. But I love how he works that style into his well-constructed traditionalist compositions. There’s so much emotion, but everything is restrained; everything is brought into the form. I think that’s really exciting—as you said, the construction builds up the piece.

AG: Pristine. It’s like one of those really intricate stained glass windows that portrays something not terribly complicated but it’s made up of these tiny little pieces of glass that have been put together in such an amazingly well-fit, well-constructed way that you know exactly what you’re looking at.

JDR: It’s really cool how the organ and orchestra play off each other. They’re very much equal partners in the music; it’s not meant to put the organ on display; the organ is meant to be—

AG: It’s a complement. First and foremost, it’s Saint-Saens’s Third Symphony. “Which one is that one?” “It’s the one with the organ.”

JR: Maestro Grams, how do you approach a piece for the orchestra? Is it in terms of tempos or lines?

AG: For me, I think it’s balancing all of the variables that you get—but this applies to any sort of orchestral performance. (to Jonathan) Your variable is you don’t know necessarily what instrument you’re going to play. My variable is whatever orchestra I’m working with—even if it’s my orchestra—I’m not playing it, so I’m not really in control of what’s happening, so I need to figure out, as we work on things, how do I make everything sound the best that I can? And it might not necessarily be exactly what I have in my head, but it’s really truly how do I get everybody to sound their very, very best, for whatever that group is going to be, at that time.

JJR: The organ appears in two movements, first as a quiet accompanist, later as a stronger support and even with some solo passages. How difficult is it to gain the proper balance? 

JDR: As an organist and an ensemble player, I will need to bring out the best of my accompanimental skills. In many ways, playing with an orchestra is akin to accompanying choral and anthem music, and requires sensitive listening and careful registration choices to balance with the colors of the orchestra. This symphony really isn’t an organ “solo,” but a true ensemble piece. The organist must carefully make choices that bring the color of the instrument to the table, but doesn’t overpower the orchestra at times.

JJR: Of the movements or sections in which the organ appears, is any one more challenging than another?

JDR: They have their challenges in different aspects, particularly in terms of registration. It’s hard to say one movement is more challenging, because the slow movement presents a different set of difficulties and choices (registration, balance) than the finale (slightly more technical, more registration choices, etc.). 

I know I’m going to be changing everything today. I’ve already about changed every single piston in some small minute form because I’m still experimenting and getting to know this organ, and getting to know what registrations I’m really starting to like in which sections. So I think that’s one of the challenges, especially in the soft section. You just want to find the most delicate and beautiful of sounds to begin that movement, the second half of that movement. So I’m experimenting with that.

One of the musical challenges for me, I think, is in the last movement, and that’s the metric displacements a little bit. If you listen to the piece, which I’ve done for a long time, you may hear the meter happening at a different spot than what’s written. So I’m still working a little bit to make sure I’m counting clearly through those measures—and I’m going to be watching like a hawk, by the way, for those spots where the organ comes in on the off beats. It’s written as a downbeat. That’s going to be a fun part as well—definitely challenging.

JJR: How about when the organ and the piano are together? Is that any potential problem, because there’s a lot going on there?

AG: I don’t think so. The important piano textures are usually all in the passages without the organ. There is so much loud activity everywhere that it’s “everybody have at it.”

JDR: Right. You’re thinking after the first solid chords and then the piano comes in. And then the organ has some quieter solid chords in the background, and I think those can come slightly out of the texture a little bit.

AG: A little bit—but not much. It’s commentary.

JDR: Exactly. You want less volume and more color at that point. And I’d like to give a shout out to Triune Music—Steve and Mark [Mackeben] and everyone else that brought this organ into place. When they installed it they actually spent some time before they brought it and worked on the registrations and came with some suggestions, which I thought were very helpful. They know this instrument very well. 

JJR: Gentlemen, thank you. I’m very much looking forward to the performance.

AG: Well, I hope that we knock your socks off.

JDR: This instrument sure has that capability, and I know the orchestra does.

Thanks to Diane Handler of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra and Steven Smith of Triune Music for their assistance.

Andrew Grams is music director of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra. The 2015 Conductor of the Year from the Illinois Council of Orchestras, Grams has led orchestras throughout the United States, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, and National Symphony Orchestra. In Canada he has led orchestras in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver; on other continents, he has led orchestras in France, Italy, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. Born in Severn, Maryland, Grams began violin study at age eight; he received a bachelor of music in violin performance from the Juilliard School in 1999, and a conducting degree from the Curtis Institute of Music in 2003. His website is andrewgrams.com.

Jonathan Rudy is a candidate for the doctor of music degree in organ and sacred music from the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where he earned his master of music degree, studying organ with Janette Fishell and choral conducting with William Gray and Richard Tangyuk, and where he has served as associate instructor of music theory and aural skills. His undergraduate work was at Valparaiso University, studying organ and sacred music with Lorraine Brugh and Karel Paukert. He is a member of The Diapason’s “20 under 30” Class of 2016 and is under the management of Karen McFarlane Artists.

Joyce Johnson Robinson is consulting editor of The Diapason.