Wilhelm Middelschulte's Kontrapunktische Symphonie and the Chicago Gothic Tradition

Warren Apple holds a high school diploma and undergraduate degree from the North Carolina School of the Arts. His graduate degrees in organ performance are from the Eastman School of Music. Further studies have been with Anton Heiller and Arthur Poister. Dr. Apple is currently organist and choir director at Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Charleston, SC, and is associate professor of music at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, where he holds the Pauline F. O'Connell Chair in Fine Arts.

Arthur Homer Bird was born in Belmont, Massachusetts on July 23, 1856. He exhibited precocious musical abilities which were fostered by his father and uncle, both of whom were professional musicians, noted as hymn compilers and writers. When only fifteen years old, Bird succeeded his sister, Helen, as organist at the First Baptist Church in Brookline, Massachusetts.

When he was nineteen years old, Bird went to Berlin for musical studies at the Musikhochschule, where he studied piano with Albert Loeschorn, organ with Karl August Haupt, and composition with E. Rohde. At the St. Georgen-Kirchen in Berlin on April 21, 1876, he gave an organ recital that was particularly noted by critics for his improvisational skills.  In 1877 he accepted positions in Halifax, Nova Scotia as organist at St. Matthew's Church and as a faculty member at the Young Ladies' Academy and the Mount St. Vincent Academy; he also founded the first chorus in Nova Scotia, the all-male Arion Club. During a second period of study in Germany (1881-1886), he was a composition pupil of Heinrich Urban at the Kullak School of Music and a close friend and compositional disciple of Franz Liszt, who admired Bird's orchestral Carnival Scene enough to conduct several performances.

Bird's initial major success as a composer occurred on February 4, 1886, when he conducted a program of his own works, including his Symphony in A Major (1885), First Little Suite (1884) and Concert Overture (1885), at the Singakademie in Berlin. Successful American performances later that year included his Symphony in A Major by the New York Philharmonic under Walter Damrosch on June 3 and his Carnival Scene by the Chicago Symphony under Theodore Thomas on July 26.

Bird returned to the United States during the summer of 1886 at the invitation of the North American Saengerbund to become director of the Milwaukee Music Festival for one year.  During this period he was active as a piano and organ recitalist and received favorable reviews for performances of his own pieces.

After his return to Berlin in 1887, Bird remained there, with the exception of brief visits to the United States in 1897 for a production of his operetta The Highlanders, in 1907 for medical consultations, and in 1911 to investigate the possibilities of a commission for an opera.  All of these visits included organ recitals, and he developed professional friendships in the United States with such organists as Gerrit Smith in New York and Clarence Eddy in Boston.

 After he was married to Wilhemine Waldman in Petersboro, England on February 29, 1888, Bird was able to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle due to his wife's considerable means; however, the lack of financial necessity greatly diminished Bird's activities as both performer and composer. The Birds maintained opulent mansions in Berlin and in its Grunenwald suburb. The Grunenwald residence was equipped with a house organ. Although their financial holdings were affected detrimentally by the inflationary spiral after World War I, the Birds continued to live comfortably in an apartment on the Kurfuestendamm in Berlin. Bird died suddenly of a heart attack on December 22, 1923 during a suburban train ride.

 Bird received the Paderewski Prize in 1901 and was named to the National Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1898. He has the distinction of being the first American composer of a major full-length ballet, Ruebezahl (1886), and of being the first American-born composer to receive commissions from Germany and France.

Because Bird's compositions were almost exclusively performed and published in Europe, especially in Germany and France, his reputation was never great in the United States; however, contemporary critics, such as Louis Elson and A. Lasser, acknowledged him to be America's foremost living composer, rivaled only by Edward MacDowell. Conductor Arthur Nikisch rated him as America's finest composer. He was especially noted for his melodious, late Romantic style, his colorful orchestration and his facile counterpoint. Bird considered himself a conservative or "conditional modernist" and was especially critical of both Debussy and Richard Strauss.1

Bird published three organ pieces during his lifetime; Three Oriental Sketches, op. 41 (1898, published 1903); Marcia (published 1902); and Concert Fantasia (published 1904). A fourth organ publication, Theme with Variations in d minor, op. 27, was transcribed by W. H. Dayas from the piano two-hand version and published in 1908. Unpublished organ works by Bird include Fugue on August Haupt (1881); three fugues in a minor, c minor and C major (1881); three sonatas in g minor, A-flat major and c minor (1876); and Toccatina (1905).2 An additional unpublished organ piece, Introduction and Fugue in d minor, op. 16, was transcribed from the piano four-hand version in 1891 by W. H. Dayas. The manuscripts for four unpublished pieces, fugues in a minor and g minor of 1891, a canon trio of 1891, and Concert Variations in C Major of 1880, have been lost.3

The earliest of these pieces, the three sonatas from Bird's first German sojourn, were never revised or edited by Bird for publication. In spite of their occasional awkwardness and lack of refinement, these sonatas are fully on the level of Rheinberger's sonatas and are noteworthy for their lyric slow movements and fugal concluding movements. The overall sequence of movements is fantasia/andante/ fugue in the Sonata in g minor, andante/allegretto/fugue in the Sonata in A-flat major, and fantasia/adagio/introduction and fugue in the Sonata in c minor. A fourth sonata in D major is  substantially incomplete. (See Example 1.)

Bird's Fugue in a minor on August Haupt of October 1881 and fugues in C major and c minor of December 1881 are also student works from  his second Berlin trip. They rival Mendelssohn's op. 37 fugues in craftsmanship and reveal Bird to be an extremely skilled contrapuntist. These works amply support the admiration of contemporary critics for Bird's contrapuntal skills. Although Bird generally avoids such devices as stretto, augmentation, diminution and inversion, rhythmically animated subjects are given rigorously contrapuntal treatment that never dissolves to homophonically dominated episodes.

The Theme with Variations for piano two-hand, op. 27 of 1889 was transcribed for organ by W. H. Dayas and published by G. Schirmer in 1891. The variations, in order, include an eighth-note poco allegro; a staccato eighth-note poco più allegro; a moto perpetuo sixteenth-note allegro; a triplet più moderato; sixteenth-note arpeggiations marked allegro moderato; a chorale-like andante ma non troppo; thirty-second note arpeggiations; and a moderato fugue of one hundred measures. The style of  the music is quite reminiscent of Mendelssohn's Variations Serieuse for piano, and the transcription is quite organistic, although one may occasionally wish for fewer octave doublings and a transfer of less of the left hand bass line to the pedal. (See Example 2.)

The Introduction and Fugue in d minor, op. 16 is unquestionably Bird's finest organ work. Bird himself must have held the piece in high regard, because it exists in several versions. It appeared in print for piano four-hands in 1887, in an unpublished manuscript for orchestra, in an unpublished manuscript for organ and orchestra, and in an unpublished transcription for solo organ (dated 1891) by W. H. Dayas with corrections by Bird.4

The introduction is in free form and must be indicative of Bird's improvisational style. The substantial fugue is reminiscent of the fugues that conclude Liszt's "Ad Nos" fantasy and Reubke's organ sonata, with a second section that introduces rapid passagework against the principal fugue subject. Also similar to the Liszt fantasia is the final peroration which includes a recall of the initial thematic material of the fantasie. (See Example 3.)

Written in 1898, the Three Oriental Sketches were copyrighted in 1902 and published in 1903. They are extremely attractive pieces that easily evoke a Middle-Eastern atmosphere through drones, ostinato bass patterns, open fourths and fifths, chromaticism, and grace note figuration.

The Marcia in A-flat of 1902 is a ternary-form piece that retains much of the charm and character of Bird's many piano salon pieces. It is well written and  falls easily under fingers, but does not show an overabundance of inspiration.

The Concert Fantasia in f minor is clearly the best written and most exciting of Bird's printed organ opuses. It  is a large ternary structure of 235 measures in which unbroken sixteenth note figuration in the outer sections gives the same propulsive rhythmic energy as a French toccata or organ symphony finale. The central section also shows the influence of Dubois' toccata and the finale to Guilmant's first sonata with its alternation between a chorale-like theme and sixteenth-note figuration from the outer sections. (See Example 4.)

The Toccatina of 1906, dedicated to Clarence Eddy, maintains a moto perpetuo repeated chord figuration throughout, but seems to be closer akin to a Mendelssohnian scherzo than the élan of a French toccata. Its relatively limited amount of thematic material does not maintain interest readily during the piece's 235 measures.

When considered as a group, one is impressed with the compositional quality and musical attractiveness of Bird's organ works. Although none of the pieces are currently in print and manuscript sources are relatively inaccessible, they certainly merit further research and performance.                

Notes

                        1.                  The two most extensive sources of biographical  information in this article are W.C. Loring, Jr.: "Arthur Bird, American," Musical Quarterly, xxix (1943), 78 and W.C. Loring, Jr.: The Music of Arthur Bird (Atlanta, rev. 2/1974). Other sources for  biographical information  are D. Ewen: American Composers: a  Biographical Dictionary (New York, 1982); L.C. Elson: The History of American Music (New York, 1904, enlarged 2/1915); W.T. Upton: "Bird, Arthur," Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1928-36; 7 suppls., 1944-81); and Walter Lueckhoff: "Arthur Bird. Einiges ueber sein Leben und Schaffen," Das Harmonium, vii (1901/02), 74-75.

                        2.                  The only known manuscript copies of the Fugue on August Haupt, Fugue in a minor, Fugue in c minor, Sonata in g minor, Sonata in A-flat major, Sonata in g minor, Introduction and Fugue in d minor, op. 16, Theme and Variations in d minor, op. 27 and Toccatina are all currently housed at the Library of Congress. LOC also has copies of the published versions by G. Schirmer of the Concert Fantasia, Three Oriental Sketches, Marcia and the Theme with Variations in d minor, op. 27. Additional copies of the printed edition of Theme with Variations, Three Oriental Sketches, Marcia, and Concert Fantasia are in the collections at Music Library, Harvard University and Music Room, British Museum. The author especially wishes to thank William Parsons of the Music Division of the Library of Congress for his assistance in preparation of this article.

                        3.                  The four sonatas are in a single manuscript sheaf, which contains the fragmentary Sonata III in D major. The cover of the manuscript sheaf which contains Fugue in a minor, Fugue in c minor, and Fugue in C major also lists Fugue in a minor, Fugue in g minor and Canon Trio, which are either missing or were never composed. The Concert Variations in C major were performed at concerts in Boston and Halifax in 1880 and have since been lost.

                        4.                  These manuscripts are housed in the collection at the Library of Congress.

Jan Overduin is Professor of Music at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, where he teaches organ and church music. He began studies in The Netherlands, where he was born, and continued in Canada at the University of Western Ontario, where he received the Masters degree in performance. The list of his teachers includes Marie-Claire Alain, Peter Hurford, and Jean Langlais. He has directed many choirs including the Wilfrid Laurier University Choir and Chapel Choir, the Niagara Chamber Choir (which he founded), the Menno Singers, the Mennonite Mass Choir. He has been actively involved in church music for over 40 years, most recently as director of music at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in Kitchener, Ontario from 1985 to 1997. As organ soloist, he has recorded numerous broadcasts for radio and has played concerts in Europe, North America, and the Far East. His discography includes nine CDs with trumpeter Eric Schultz (on the German labels 'ebs' and 'Arte Nova Classics'), a solo album recorded at Ottobeuren, Germany (on 'ebs'), and a recent CD with recorder virtuoso Matthew Jones. Forthcoming is a book on improvisation for organists, published by Oxford University Press, and a new organ edition of the Art of Fugue. Jan Overduin may be contacted at [email protected] and welcomes visitors at his website http://info.wlu.ca/ ~wwwmusic/overduin/index.htm

The Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080, a work consisting of 14 fugues and 4 canons all on one theme, is Bach's farewell, his testament. It is a very solemn and personal work, and ends with Bach's only fugue on his name, the notes B-flat, A, C, and B-natural (B, A, C, and H in German). Never before did he use this chromatic theme on such a grand scale or with such clarity as here at the end of Contrapunctus XIV. It is as if he puts his signature not only to the KdF, but also to his life's work. In fact it is uncanny, this very clear reference to his own name. The aural effect is almost dizzying, as is the visual appearance of the last page, with C.P.E. Bach's handwritten note about his father's death: "In this fugue, where the name BACH appears as a countersubject, the composer died." Like Shakespeare in the character of Prospero in The Tempest, Bach himself appears on stage, but it is to say "good-bye."

It is fitting that Bach reserved the 14th fugue for the use of the plain theme in clearest form, because of the relationship between the number 14 and his name. By allowing each letter of the alphabet a number (a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4 and so on), Bach's name adds up to 14 (2 + 1 + 3 + 8). Moreover, the name J.S. Bach adds up to its retrograde 41 (9 + 18 + 14). Though Bach's familiarity with numbers is not documented, the cabalistic numerical ideas were common knowledge.1 The work may have been intended as his third and final offering to the Mizler Society, which he had joined in June 1747, waiting until he was the 14th member to join. He also had his portrait painted for this society with 14 buttons on his jacket. Perhaps his aim was to finish the KdF by June 1749, as his third and final offering, since a condition of membership obliged him to submit a published "scientific" work every year until the age of 65.2

The more I play this work, the more aware I become of how saturated it is with personal references or "signatures." The B-A-C-H theme in the obvious four-note form or more subtly through the use of themes that contain 14 or 41 notes permeates the entire KdF. A casual listener or player is not likely to be conscious of some of these allusions, but the fact that they are there in such abundance imbues the work with a personal intensity and warmth that can easily be felt. While some or even many of the "B-A-C-H's" may occur spontaneously as a result of Bach's use of chromatic language, there are reasons to suspect that their incorporation is part of the overall design of the work and intention of the composer. Bach is not merely scribbling his name all over the score or playing numerological games. The chromatic language itself, the use of the key of D minor, the shape of theme and its inversion with its hymn-tunes analogies, the dramatic use of silence, various other motifs--it is all these and more, together with the "signatures," that give the work its deeply personal flavor.

The following examples include only appearances of the B-A-C-H theme that use the four actual notes B-flat, A, C, and B-natural. Excluded are all transpositions of the motif, e.g. E-flat, D, F, E etc., of which there are numerous examples. All examples have the four notes in the same octave.  Again, by relaxing this restriction, the list could be greatly expanded. Included however are those statements of the motif that are decorated with unessential notes, especially between the second and third notes; the unessential notes may serve to hide the visual but usually do not obscure the aural impact of the motif. These observations do not pretend to be profound, but are merely the result of a growing familiarity with and fondness for this stupendous work. If they have any validity, it is in underlining the deeply personal nature of the KdF.

Immediately in Contrapunctus I, in the most obvious voice, i.e. the soprano, in measures 10-12 Bach features the four-note name theme. Bach "hides" the eighth-note E by having it dip below the alto note G, so that even though the soprano part by itself really spells B-E-A-C-H (not a word in German), the ear perceives it as B-A-C-H. (Example 1)

The B-A-C-H motif is more hidden in Contrapunctus II, though increasing chromaticism causes it to occur more frequently. It appears twice in measures 35 to 37, both times in the dotted note motif that dominates this fugue. Though the first two notes are separated from the third and fourth by a complete measure, they occur in adjacent statements of the dotted note motif, and therefore appear related and connected. (Example 2)

Measures 22-23 of Contrapunctus III contain a very clear statement of B-A-C-H, shared between the upper two voices (B-A in the soprano, C-H in the alto).  While this sharing serves on the one hand to hide the motif, it also underlines it, since the effect is that of an ornamented version: the B-A-C-H motif beautified in a flowery way. (Example 3)

One of the most poignant of all references to the name of Bach occurs in Contrapunctus IV. The shape of the regular inverted theme is such that there is a noticeable high point on the notes B-flat and its "resolution" to the semitone below. There is also a marked similarity to the hymn-tune "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir," a hymn paraphrase of Psalm 130 (De profundis). The resemblance in fact is too obvious to ignore.3 In Contrapunctus IV, and only here, Bach transposes the second half of the theme up a whole tone, so that the high point of the theme now is C-H (C and B-natural) instead of B-A (B-flat and A). This causes a sudden modulation to another key, the dominant of the dominant, a rather wrenching and quite dramatic shift of key. It happens first in bar 61, and thereafter four more times (in other words, not every time the theme is heard). The change from the expected high point B-A to C-H may not be exactly an obvious reference to Bach's name, but certainly for the player, the alteration of the climax of the theme is all the more dramatic and personal, especially when the personal nature of the hymn "Aus tiefer Noth schrei ich zu dir" is taken into consideration as well. Not only the personal pronoun is emphasized by this veiled reference to B-A-C-H, but also the idea of "calling" (schreien).   (Examples 4a and 4b) 

"Calling" is also happening constantly throughout this fugue through the use of the pervading "call-motif" of the descending minor third. Towards the end of Contrapunctus IV occurs another and much more traditional example of the use of the B-A-C-H motif: in bars 135-136 it is slipped in once into the tenor voice, like a hardly noticeable signature. (Example 4c)

In Contrapunctus V, the KdF theme appears consistently in 14-note form, as it will continue to do in much of the rest of the KdF, with the two descending thirds smoothed out with passing notes. Thus the theme itself is being identified with the name of Bach. Moreover, it is especially interesting that the B-A-C-H motif is heard quite plainly and in the most obvious voice (soprano) exactly in bar 41. (Examples 5a and 5b)

Contrapunctus VI states the B-A-C-H motif near the beginning, in measures 4 and 5 in the soprano. Again the first two notes are separated by a measure from the third and fourth, but they are perceived to be related to each other through their rhythmic emphasis. (Example 6)

Contrapunctus VII features the B-A-C-H motif in much the same way, for example in the tenor part of measures 17-19. Within the context of a statement of the KdF theme in 14-note form (and in diminution), the notes B-A are again separated from C-H by a measure, but each pair of notes comes at a similar point, i.e. the end of two parallel phrases. (Example 7)

With the introduction of a new theme that is rather chromatic, numerous instances of B-A-C-H occur in Contrapunctus VIII. In measure 11 a very clear statement of B-A-C-H is shared between the two lower voices (Example 8a). In measures 85-86, the motif is featured in the soprano and in measure 112 in the bass (Examples 8b and 8c). The main KdF theme (inverted), which occurs as theme III in this fugue (beginning in measure 95, in the alto), consists always of exactly 14 notes. More noticeably, each measure begins with a quarter rest (Example 8d). The use of silence on the downbeat is a technique often used by Bach to symbolize eternity and/or death.4 Thus the form of the theme in this fugue forms associations not only with the name "Bach" (14 notes), but also with "death" (silence on the downbeats). A convincing example of this technique to express longing for death is often encountered in Bach's chorales, such as at the end of Cantata #56 (Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen). (Example 8e)

In Contrapunctus IX, in bars 84-85, the B-A-C-H motif is shared between the soprano (B-flat, A) and alto (C, B-natural), but because the voices cross, the motif appears to remain in the same voice, the alto. (Example 9)

In Contrapunctus X, again exactly in bar 40-41, the B-A-C-H motif makes an appearance in the two upper voices. (Example 10)

The 14-note version of the main KdF theme, with rests on every downbeat, now  "rectus," boldly opens Contrapunctus XI (Example 11a). The inversion of the second theme of Contrapunctus VIII, which in this fugue appears as theme III, very clearly spells B-A-C-H. Donald Tovey rejects this allusion to the name of Bach, since strictly speaking the theme misspells his name as B-A-C-C-C-H, yet to a listener (as opposed to a mere score-reader) this is almost as obvious an allusion to the name of Bach as in the final fugue.  (Example 11b) The B-A-C-H motif occurs frequently, not only in connection with the third theme, but elsewhere as well. An example is found in measure 144, with the motif shared between the alto (B-flat, A) and the soprano (C, B-natural).  (Example 11c)     

Contrapunctus XII and XIII, the two completely invertible "mirror" fugues, leave the composer with very little room to maneuver.  The listener has no idea of the strict rules behind these wonderful pieces, especially the playful Contrapunctus XIII. Even here the B-A-C-H motif pervades everything, though not as overtly as elsewhere in the KdF. The descending semitones B-A and C-H permeate the texture, but the four notes never occur together, and seldom within the same octave. One reason that Bach chose D minor as the key for this work may well have been that it allowed him to "season" fugues like Contrapunctus XII and XIII with these notes.  For example, C-H (the more unusual of the two pairs of notes) is used six times in measures 25-26 of Contrapunctus XIIb, just after several highly exposed B-A's. Appearances of the motif within one voice and within the compass of a minor third also occur (though somewhat more separated than usual) in measures 14-16 of Contrapunctus XIIa (bass) and measures 46-47 of Contrapunctus XIIb (bass). Similar concentrations of B-A and C-H occur in Contrapunctus XIII, imbuing the whole with the flavor of the BACH motif (e.g. in Contrapunctus XIIIa: eight times B-A in measures 32-35, followed by eight times C-H in measures 37-41).

Theme II of Contrapunctus XIV consists of exactly 41 notes, as if in direct preparation for the next theme, that of B-A-C-H itself (Example 12). There are also numerous examples of the B-A-C-H motif in the earlier part(s) of this fugue, again as if to prepare us for the plain statement of Theme III in measure 183. To list just three examples: measures 16-17 (tenor), 59-60 (alto/soprano), and 133-134 (alto).  (Examples 13, 14, and 15)

The evolution of the B-A-C-H motif is but one of many marvels of the KdF.  A constant companion in the background, like a quietly-flowing underground stream,5 in Contrapunctus XIV it finally appears quite alone and "naked," like a new-born babe. It is a paradoxical moment of loneliness and pity, sadness and comfort, weakness and strength. Almost immediately it is used in stretto and inversion, and "with the boldest and most mysterious harmonies"6 that are wrenching in their effect on us. It is at this point that this great composer, for whom nothing seemed impossible, especially in this work, leaves us forever. But the unfinished ending in which the composer is "called by name" also contains the promise of what "eye has not seen, nor ear heard." (I Cor. 2:9)

Notes

                        1.                  William Wright, The Organ--The Instrument and Its Literature (University of Toronto: private publ., 1994) 96.

                        2.                  J.S. Bach, Die Kunst der Fuge, ed. Davitt Moroney (Muenchen: G. Henle, 1989) vii.

                        3.                  The main theme in "rectus" form vaguely hints at "Vater unser" (Lord's Prayer). The descending thirds in Contrapunctus IV are also striking characteristics in some chorales, e.g., "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern" (How lovely shines the morning star) and "Wer weiss, wie nahe mir mein Ende" (Who knows how near is my life's end). The most ornamented of all versions of the theme, as found in the Canon per Augmentationem in contrario Motu shows a striking resemblance to the "Agnus Dei" from the Mass in B minor.

                        4.                  Many of the more ornate chorale settings such as those in Schemelli's Gesangbuch illustrate this, e.g., "Lasset uns mit Jesu ziehen," "Es ist vollbracht," and "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben?"  Examples in Das Orgelbüchlein include "Alle Menschen müssen sterben," and "Wir danken dir, Herr Jesu Christ, dass du für uns gestorben bist" (BWV 623 and 643).

                        5.                  In other words, like a Bach (German: brook).

                        6.                  Donald Francis Tovey, Essays in Musical Analysis: Chamber Music (first published in 1944; London: O.U.P., 1972) 88.

The Development of Musica Poetica

Since the rediscovery of Quintilian's texts in the early Renaissance, many humanist writers have suggested a link between oratory and musical composition. With his treatise Musica poetica, Joachim Burmeister coined the term musica poetica for study of rhetorical relationships in music. This discipline, musica poetica, rationally explained the creative process of a composer, the structure of compositions, and the mechanism through which music moved the listener. Thereby a composer's craft could prompt a predictable emotional response from the listener--a principal goal of early Baroque composers. Although writers throughout Europe attested to the affective nature of music, German theorists cultivated musica poetica.

Influenced by Lutheran theology, humanists in Germany borrowed rhetorical techniques from the classical authors including Cicero and his successor Quintilian in order to deliver the Holy Word more effectively. (See Diagram 1, left-hand column.) Philipp Melanchthon emphasized this area of the trivium in the Lateinschulen curriculum and applied the traditional pedagogical method: (1)  praeceptum or the study of rules which required exact definitions and well-articulated concepts, (2) exemplus or the study of examples which encouraged analysis of well constructed works, and (3) imitatio or the imitation of examples which emphasized craft, not genius and inspiration typically associated with the Enlightenment or Romantic periods. In this way, the rhetorical concepts became not only a way of thinking about pre-existing works but also became prescriptive.

Martin Luther emphasized the power of music to secure faith: "after theology I accord to music the highest place and the greatest honor."1  (See Diagram 1, middle column.)  As the handmaiden to the Word, music can be understood as a "sermon in sound." Influenced by Boethius's cosmological conception of music, many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writers justified music's holy power by explaining how ratios representing God's perfection resonated in the listener's soul.

The ancient Doctrine of Ethos convinced Luther of the didactic power of music. (See Diagram 1, right column.)  With the rise of the Doctrine of Affections during the seventeenth century as codified by Descartes, writers in Germany could then explain the mechanism through which music affected  listeners' passions. (See center of Diagram 1.)  Kircher, Bernhard, and Mattheson suggested that music no longer simply reflected the meaning of texts but actually moved listeners to predicable emotional states called affections. Cantors, such as Buxtehude and Bach, drew upon elements of musica poetica which served as a code for various affections in their compositions. With the rise of the Enlightenment, however, philosophers encouraged "natural" expression in music, which reflected a composer's personal sentiment and inspiration. With this emerging viewpoint, both the Doctrine of Affections and the cosmological conception of music became less tenable, and musical rhetoric declined with them. By the end of the eighteenth century, musica poetica had become a historical curiosity cataloged in Forkel's Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik (1788).

An Overview of Musica Poetica

Consider the rhetorical model of the composer's creative process presented in Table 1. Following Cicero's ideas that directly applied to music, Bernhard prescribes three compositional stages while Mattheson retains five stages somewhat analogous to rhetoric. In his first stage, inventio, the composer determines what his/her piece will be about, the loci topici. Mattheson suggests fundamental musical elements such as meter, key, and theme. This stage could also involve the working out of invertible counterpoint and other devices.   In the second stage, dispositio, the composer places this pre-compositional material in a logical succession and in appropriate keys. Later, in the elaboratio stage,  episodes connect the contrapuntal complexes or theme entrances determined in the dispositio. The composer also adds musical-rhetorical figures intended to persuade or move the listener to particular affections. In the decoratio, the composer ornaments themes and may incorporate further figures. Embellishments reinforce the work's style and can further alter the affect. The fifth stage, executio, involves performance of the work, frequently with additional improvised ornaments.

The disposition of any artwork in the rhetorical model can be described in two ways: (1) the Aristotelian model, beginning-middle-end, or (2) the more complicated Cicerone model. (See Table 2.) Burmeister subscribes to the first and Mattheson to the later. Consider the purpose of each section in the Cicerone model. The exordium of a speech arouses the listener's attention.  (Buxtehude praeludia invariably start with an opening toccata for this purpose.) The narratio establishes the composition's subject matter, but in musical discourse, Mattheson states that one may omit the narratio. The propositio presents the actual content of a speech or musical composition, i.e., the theme. In the body of the speech, the orator can alternate between arguments supporting his proposition, the confirmatio, and those refuting possible objections to the orator's proposition, the confutatio.  In music, confutatio sections frequently contain  contrasting themes and characters, heightened by increased dissonance. At the end, compositions conclude with the peroratio. This section often recalls the opening material with a ritornello or closes with pedal points and melodic repetition.

Many scholars question whether a singular Doctrine of Affections exists. Nonetheless, Table 3 presents an overview of the various viewpoints as codified by Descartes. According to this doctrine, people can have four different temperaments or a combination thereof: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Specific body parts and humors participate in producing a variety of distinct emotional states, called affections. These fundamental affections can blend in various ways to create other affections. This rational system explains why and how listeners of different temperaments react to music. A year following Descartes' treatise, Kircher published an influential compendium of knowledge that connected various affections to specific musical elements. (See Table 4. Amour is especially provoking.)

Composers could choose a variety of musical figures to summon listeners' affections. In classical oratory according to Quintilian, figures are simply deviations from normal speech intended to make one's oration more effective. By the seventeenth century, composers not only employed figures to express the text but also to move listeners to particular passions according to the Doctrine of Affections. To avoid problems of marking every musical event as a figure and trivializing the procedure, let us employ a working definition for our purpose: a figure is any departure from established musical syntax that arouses the affections.5 Not every dissonance is really a figure, but only those that express a particular emotion or inflect the music in a noticeable way. Now we can briefly examine three influential theorists of the musica poetica tradition and identify a few of their figures in three Buxtehude praeludia, BuxWV 142, 146, and 149.

Joachim Burmeister

And if we examine music more closely, we will surely find very little difference between its nature and that of oratory.  For just as the art of oratory derives its power not from a simple collection of simple words, or from a proper yet rather plain construction of periods, or from their meticulous yet bare and uniform connection, but rather from those elements where there is an underlying grace and elegance due to arrangement and to weighty words of wit, and where periods are rounded with emphatic words so, this art of music . . .6

Joachim Burmeister (1564-1529) served as cantor to St. Marien in Rostock and taught at the Gymnasium there. He developed a relatively systematic approach to identifying figures which aided his teaching of composition and reflected the Lutheran tradition of praeceptum, exemplus, et imitatio. He cites numerous late sixteenth-century vocal works and demonstrates how specific musical figures in the Lassus motet In me transierunt contribute to an effect much like that of successful oration. Elias Walther's dissertation of 1664 leans heavily on Burmeister's treatise and even analyzes the same Lassus motet, thereby revealing Burmeister's continuing influence in Lutheran Germany. By this point, Walther does not even define musical figures suggesting that their use had become commonplace.

For the most part, Burmeister's treatise Musica poetica (1606) transmits Zarlino's theories, and thus, Burmeister's ideas are strongly linked to late sixteenth-century styles. Burmeister's explicit development of a rhetorical theory, however, distinguishes him from his sixteenth-century predecessors.  Burmeister's figures focus on imitation and repetition. (See Diagram 2.)  Burmeister derived most figurative names from rhetorical sources. Thus, many terms maintain a strong association with the original rhetorical meanings, though some are uniquely musical. To reflect the traditional rhetorical division of figures into those applied to words and those applied to sentences, Burmeister placed musical figures in three categories: (1) Figurae harmoniae, figures involving more than one voice; (2) Figurae melodiae, figures involving one voice, and (3) Figurae tam harmoniae quam melodiae. (See Diagram 2.) Let us consider a couple examples:

Noëma--This figure strikes the listener when the texture changes to a homophonic passage. Most later writers imply that these passages are composed of consonant sonorities. Burmeister describes its effect: "When introduced at the right time, it sweetly affects and wondrously soothes the ears, or indeed the heart."7 For the performer, this suggests not only a sensitive touch but also a sweet registration and calm tempo. In the Praeludium in f#, mm. 14-27, Buxtehude places such a passage between the foreboding exordium and the brooding fugue. (See Example 1.) In this case, suspensions and chromaticism further modify the figure's effect within this dark piece.

Pathopoeia--Throughout the final fugue of the Praeludium in g, chromatic pitches contribute a heightened emotional affect; the pathopoeia is "suited to arousing the affections."8 Consider m. 126, where Buxtehude temporarily introduces Bb minor with half-steps outside the reigning mode.  (See Example 2.)

Aposiopesis--Returning to the Praeludium in f#, mm. 20-27, we find that the musical texture breaks off with a notated silence in m. 24. (See Example 3.) This figure, the aposiopesis, foreshadows motives that seem to lead only to silence throughout the praeludium. Burmeister suggests the topic of pieces employing this figure: "The aposiopesis is frequently encountered in compositions whose texts deal with death or eternity."9 Burmeister borrowed this term from rhetoric: "What is aposiopesis? It is when, because of an affection, some part of a sentence is cut off."10 Performers should consider exaggerating the stop for this effect.

Christoph Bernhard

Stylus Luxurians is the type consisting in part of rather quick notes and strange leaps--so that it is well suited for stirring the affects--and of more kinds of dissonance treatment . . . than the foregoing. Its melodies agree with the text as much as possible, unlike those of the preceding type . . . It [Stylus Theatralis] was devised to represent speech in music . . .  And since language is the absolute master of music in this genre . . . one should represent speech in the most natural way possible.11

Christoph Bernhard (1627-1692) was cantor for Johanneum in Hamburg from 1664-74 and co-director of the famous Collegium Musicum there with Matthias Weckmann. Later, Bernhard returned to Dresden where he had studied and worked with Schütz for many years. In the Tractatus (c. 1660), Bernhard describes three main seventeenth-century compositional styles: Stylus Gravis, Stylus Luxurians Communis, and Stylus Theatralis. Bernard not only distinguishes these styles by their venue, but more importantly, by their use of specific figures. These figures primarily depend upon dissonance treatment and modern styles which employ more sophisticated, implicit voice leading. While Bernhard emphasizes smaller details of dissonance treatment, the earlier Burmeister basically describes texture and a larger scope. Bernhard does emphasize proper reflection of the text in music, but he does not associate specific figures with affects nor does he explicitly show how to do this. Rather, Bernhard instructs his students to study works of respected composers in each of the styles. One may assume that composers use particular figures for different affects depending on context. In any case, Bernhard's brevity and prose suggest that the application of these figures is relatively obvious to the reader.

Please consider the following figures from Diagram 3 in Buxtehude's praeludia:

Passus duriusculus--This Latin term literarily means a "harsh passage" or "difficult passage." The subject of the second fugue in the Praeludium in e, mm. 47-49, contains a descending chromatic passage. (See Example 4.) The difficulty of this short span in the subject is heightened by on-beat chromaticism, and suggests a "difficult" touch and a slower tempo.

Saltus duriusculus--In this same passage, we also find a "harsh leap" or "difficult leap" called the saltus duriusculus between C and G-sharp, and between G and D-sharp. A more striking example can be found in the first fugue of the Praeludium in f# entitled "Grave," mm. 29-31. (See the leap down from D to E-sharp in Example 5.) Here we find a striking example of compound melody which Bernhard calls Heterolepsis, an element of the theatrical style. Buxtehude's fugues normally do not venture into this highly dissonant style, and these figures contribute to a morose affect.

Inchoatio imperfecta--Although Bernhard defines this term in strictly musical language, the figure carries not only structural value but also affective meaning to a German Baroque listener. (Remember that dissonances utilize ratios far from perfection, and thus, elicit darker affects in the listener.) The opening of the Praeludium in g begins with an inchoatio imperfecta: the first note, F#5, forms a dissonance with the  implied g minor chord of the first measure. (See Example 6.) The opening toccata also surprises the listener when he/she discovers that it is not a toccata, but instead a ground bass variation where variations precede the bass ostinato. Strangely, the ground bass continues alone at the end of the section in abbreviated form.

Abruptio--Bernhard discusses how this figure ruptures a melodic line by the unexpected insertion of a rest. Once again, returning to the homophonic noëma of the Praeludium in f#, mm. 14-23, the passage resumes after the aposiopesis (the breaking off), but quickly disperses into a brief stylus fantasticus section where the melodic lines are interrupted with rests (mm. 27-28), reflecting the distress that Buxtehude mollifies with the Noëma. (See Example 3.)

In his discussion of melodic composition within Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) divides figures into embellishments added by the performer, Figurae cantionis, and rhetorical figures incorporated by the composer, Figurae cantus. Mattheson deemphasizes the mathematical derivations and instead encourages a natural expression concentrated on melody, not counterpoint. The rise of the Empfindsamerstil led to the decline of the musica poetica tradition because expressivity of the performer and ornamentation surpassed the concern for a rationally trained composer to evoke categorized affections.

In summary, these writers seem to address different aspects of musica poetica. Burmeister initiated serious inquiry of the rhetorical model in musical analysis and composition. He described a method of formally dividing compositions by use of figures. Most of his figures deal with musical textures. Bernhard provided a vocabulary of figures based on dissonance treatment. He also demonstrated how these small-scope figures define various seventeenth-century styles. Mattheson was concerned with the structural relationships between composition and oratory, i.e., how composers distribute musical ideas to impart the best rhetorical effect.

Dietrich Buxtehude and Musica Poetica

Now we ask: was Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) aware of these theories? As I have shown, musical figures and basic knowledge of rhetoric were taken for granted. Furthermore, many cantors taught rhetoric and Latin while fulfilling their musical duties. Buxtehude served as organist at Marienkirche in Lübeck. Because only sixty kilometers separate Hamburg and Lübeck, Buxtehude traveled to Hamburg where Bernhard worked. Kerala Snyder has even demonstrated that Buxtehude modeled a piece after an obscure work by Bernhard. Furthermore, Snyder states "Buxtehude would certainly have been familiar with the system that Christoph Bernhard expounded in his treatise 'Tractatus compositionis augmentatus.'"12 Other treatises were also readily available. For instance, George Buelow states that Kircher's "Musurgia universalis, one of the really influential works of music theory, was drawn upon by almost every later German music theorist until well into the 18th century. Its popularity was greatly aided by a German translation of a major part of it in 1662."13 Early in Buxtehude's career, this compendium certainly would have been available in Hamburg and probably in Lübeck as well.

So far, we have studied a few figures that contribute to the affect of three Buxtehude praeludia in minor keys.  But how closely do his preludes follow the organizational precepts of oratory? Let us briefly examine the typical disposition of Buxtehude's praeludia.

After an opening flourish comparable to an exordium in a speech, Buxtehude's preludes generally alternate between free sections and imitative sections, analogous to confutatio and confirmatio sections. A variable number of confutatio/confirmatio sections probably would lead Burmeister to simply lump these together into the "body." The final free section, or  peroratio, provides a successful conclusion through repetition (to recapitulate an argument) and the strictly musical devices of pedal points and tonal closure.

Snyder compares the opposition of free sections and fugues to that of prelude and aria. This apt analogy captures fugal entries as an amplification technique of confirmatio sections that conveys a single affection in agreement with the pieces' mode and overall affect.14 Free sections often use stylus theatralis while fugues tend to employ less dissonant styles. Although Buxtehude's works follow a definition of stylus phantasicus somewhere between that of Mattheson and his predecessor Kircher, Mattheson's directions guide performers particularly well on the performance of the free sections: these pieces follow "all kinds of otherwise unusual progressions, hidden ornaments, ingenious turns and embellishments . . . without actual observation of the measure and the key, regardless of what is placed on the page . . . now swift, now hesitating, now in one voice, now in many voices, . . . but not without the intent to please, to overtake and to astonish."15 In other words, these free sections display an improvisatory and unpredictable character, often with the purpose to astonish the listener. Certainly opening sections fulfill Mattheson's description while interior free sections tend toward more melancholy moods, especially in the three minor key pieces this article examines.

The Disposition of the Praeludia in g, e, and f#

The fully worked-out fugues and other hallmarks of Buxtehude's mature style lead Snyder to date the Praeludium in g before 1675. (See Table 5.)  Lawrence Archbold uses these same characteristics to support a later dating.16 Despite differences among scholars here, all agree this praeludium displays Buxtehude's best work.17 The canonic voices in the manuals opening the exordium make the delayed ground bass entrance surprising. Transformations of this theme pervade the entire work, perhaps a legacy of the composer's inventio stage. This flashy start precedes a ricercar fugue that takes its theme from the previous ostinato to create a sort of textural modulation into the first confirmatio. (See Example 7.) As usual in Buxtehude's praeludia, the first fugue disintegrates after significant development. The following free section contains the only example of strict continuo style in Buxtehude's organ works.  This confutatio leads back to the tonic while subtly reintroducing the main theme, like an orator who skillfully employs opposing points-of-view to his advantage during a rebuttal. Marked Largo and with dotted rhythms, the last fugue then boldly announces yet another version of the piece's theme with a variety of stylus theatricus figures to emphasize its dark character. Even Archbold cannot resist calling the last fugue "the most stately, even elegaic of Buxtehude's fugues." The peroratio concludes with figurative repetition via a free ciacona and appropriate pedal points.

Like many other scholars, Philipp Spitta described the Praeludium in e as "one of his [Buxtehude's] greatest organ compositions. . . ."18 (See Table 6.) This work was probably composed in 1684 because of tuning considerations. According to Snyder, the heavy emphasis on counterpoint links it with early works of the 1670s when Buxtehude assimilated the writings of Bernhard, Theile, and Reinken. The Praeludium in e opens with a free, figural exordium, but three fugues dominate the work. The well-developed first fugue displays a canzona-like subject with three distinct motives, and it concludes with a brief noëma derived from the subject's eighth notes. The second fugue is "the most contrapuntally elegant, and at the same time one of the most expressive fugues in all the praeludia. Brossard . . . would undoubtedly have called it a fuga pathetica [with its leaps, chromaticism, meter, and strict contrapuntal procedures]."19 The following free section is imaginative and quite rhapsodic with highly ornamented passage-work often juxtaposed against slow, unadorned notes. Characteristic of Kircher's affection amour, the harmonies here seem to wander (between the dominant and subdominant areas). The contrapuntally "lax" but vigorous fugue that constitutes the fifth section is a gigue that quickly dissolves into a concertato texture and ends with a short flourish. The capricious character of the Lombard rhythms at the very end may harken back to the canzona-like first fugue.

Probably written in the 1690s, the Preludium in f#  emphasizes free sections. (See Table 7.) After a brief flourish, the exordium presents an unadorned passus duriusculus in quarter notes accompanied by right hand arpeggios. This figure and the dissonant key of f# minor in unequal temperaments present a particularly gloomy and somewhat inward character.20 The following noëma provides brief but limited relief because of dissonances and an aposiopesis. The first fugue, marked Grave, continues the dissonant discourse with its figures and dotted rhythms. When the fugal texture dissolves, a second fugue marked vivace interjects into the final cadence with a variant of the subject from the first fugue. Although of a livelier nature, the saltus duriusculus in the second fugue subject still reminds the listener of the principal affect. This faster fugue quickly dissolves into motivic interplay, temporarily escaping to the parallel major. The following free section is the most adventuresome harmonically of Buxtehude's praeludia: it explores g-sharp minor--an especially remote and dissonant key; the melodic material seems to trail off, rhapsodically speeding up and then slowing unpredictably; and melodies suggest thoughts that lead nowhere. But Buxtehude fuses this final confutatio to the succeeding peroratio with a pedal note. The peroratio repeats an extremely loose ostinato, presenting motives from previous sections, in a virtuosic display of stylus phantasticus.

Summary

 We must conclude that Buxtehude must have been familiar with Bernhard's ideas. He may have also known Burmeister's groundbreaking treatise Musica poetica. Especially in Buxtehude's praeludia, the rhetorical figures of Burmeister suggest various touches and large-scale effects while the small rhetorical figures identified by Bernhard accumulate, fashioning affects with various types of dissonances. Buxtehude cast the three praeludia above into minor keys to project darker affects than his rhetorical figures suggest. The contrast of thematic material and figures seems to divide internal sections into alternations similar to supporting arguments and rebuttals found in rhetoric. Outer sections introduce and conclude pieces magnificently. The strong correlation between so-called Toccata Form and rhetorical organization may even explain why this form flourished in the Lutheran stronghold of northern Germany during the seventeenth century.  n

David Pickering currently teaches at Salt Lake Community College, Deseret Academy, the Waterford School, and the Day Murray Organ School. Dr. Pickering received the doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance and a master's degree in organ performance and musicology from the University of Kansas as a student of James Higdon. He received his bachelor of music degree in organ performance from Brigham Young University as a student of Parley Belnap and J. J. Keeler.

Introduction

The 1930s was a creative era in organ composition, both in Europe and the United States. Frenchman Louis Vierne composed his tonally adventuresome, cyclic Sixième Symphonie in 1930. Fellow compatriot Marcel Dupré's Le Chemin de la Croix (1931) portrayed musically Christ's crucifixion. The innovative Olivier Messiaen used his modes of limited transposition to form the harmonic vocabulary of L'Ascension in 1933-34. German Sigfrid Karg-Elert composed his lengthy and tonally-taxing Passacaglia und Fuge an B-A-C-H in 1932. American Leo Sowerby composed his Symphony in G Major in 1930, which has remained a landmark of American organ composition to the present day.

Many other organ works written by American composers during the 1930s have largely disappeared from the known organ repertory. Leroy Robertson's three organ works--Organ Sonata in B Minor, Fantasia in F Minor, and Intermezzo--join the ranks of those works that never enjoyed wide acclaim. This unpopularity does not prove that Robertson's music is not well written. Like the aforementioned compositions, Robertson's music also employs new ideas. His Organ Sonata was one of few composed during the first part of the twentieth century.1 He also incorporated a Native American melody into the Organ Sonata. This was a revolutionary idea for organ composition during the first part of the twentieth century, showing Robertson's interest in the varied styles of earlier compositions.

The famous French organist and composer Marcel Dupré came into contact with Robertson's organ music on a recital tour in 1939. Dupré wrote to Robertson, "It is a pleasure for me to tell you that I have been very interested by your organ compositions . . . They are very musical and well written for the instrument. I wish to you the success that you deserve with them."2 The success never came, and Robertson's Organ Sonata and Fantasia have never been published,3 while the Intermezzo has been published in a book containing other works by American composers.4 The ignominious state of Robertson's organ music is unfortunate, since his compositional ability and idiomatic writing for the organ have produced solid, musical organ works that deserve wider circulation and recognition.

Biographical Sketch

Leroy J. Robertson (1896-1971) was born and raised in Fountain Green, Utah, a small community about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City. He received his first formal musical training on the violin from E. G. Edmunds.5 Ben Williams, his second violin teacher, was a railroad worker who taught himself how to play the violin from a Sears Roebuck catalogue.6 Robertson attended high school in Pleasant Grove and Provo, Utah, where he played in the orchestra and took courses in music theory. He was allowed to take classes in harmony, music history, and solfeggio at Brigham Young University during his last two years of high school. He also played in the university orchestra and studied violin privately with a Brigham Young University faculty member. Robertson helped support himself in high school by giving violin lessons.

Upon graduation from high school, Robertson met George Fitzroy, a private music teacher in Provo. Fitzroy had just graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he had studied composition with George Chadwick, an acclaimed composer and teacher of the time. Fitzroy gave young Robertson training in analysis and counterpoint and lent him the first orchestral scores that he had ever seen: Mendelssohn's Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream and the Dvorák New World Symphony.7 Fitzroy eventually persuaded Robertson to go to the New England Conservatory and study composition with Chadwick. Robertson went on to earn diplomas in violin, piano, composition, and public school music from the New England Conservatory in 1923. He then returned to Utah and taught high school music for two years. He began teaching at Brigham Young University in September 1925, where he conducted the university orchestra and taught music theory and violin.

In 1925 Robertson learned that the famous Swiss composer Ernest Bloch was coming to San Francisco to head the San Francisco Conservatory. Five years later, Robertson obtained a leave of absence from his university teaching and studied privately with Bloch in San Francisco from March to June 1930. Robertson also studied privately with Bloch in Switzerland from June to September 1932, soon after receiving his BA and MA degrees from Brigham Young University. Robertson and Bloch developed a close friendship that lasted many years.

After his studies with Bloch, Robertson traveled to Leipzig and Berlin. In Berlin he studied the music of Renaissance composers with the famous musicologist Hugo Leichtentritt from October 1932 to the spring of 1933. Robertson began receiving prizes and awards for his compositions after this period of European study. His Quintet in A Minor for Piano and Strings (1933) received First Prize from among two hundred other submitted manuscripts in a competition sponsored by the Society for the Publication of American Music in 1936.

Robertson began work on his doctorate at the University of Southern California in the summer of 1936, studying first with Arnold Schoenberg and later with Ernest Toch. Robertson continued to build up the music program at Brigham Young University by expanding the theory program and the symphony orchestra. He was catapulted to international fame in 1947 when his Symphony No. 2, subtitled Trilogy, won the Symphony of the Americas Contest sponsored by Henry H. Reichhold in Detroit. Robertson was awarded $25,000 and a premiere of his symphony by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on 11 December 1947. More than four hundred musicians from seventeen countries entered this contest, including major composers from North and South America.

Robertson became the head of the Music Department of the University of Utah in 1948. He continued working on his doctorate during the summer months, finally receiving the degree in 1953. Robertson's accomplishments as a music department chair included "adapt[ing] the curriculum of study [in the music department] so as to meet national standards."8 He also introduced the bachelor's and master's degrees in music to the university's curriculum. In addition, the University of Utah became the first university in the area to offer the Ph.D. in music. Robertson taught at the University of Utah until 1962, when he retired and served as composer-in-residence until July 1965.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked Robertson to head its Church General Music Committee in the spring of 1962, three months before he retired from the University of Utah. He had served as a member of this committee since 1938 and was involved in the compilation and editing of the church's 1948 hymnal. He headed the music committee until 1969. Robertson died of heart failure, a complication of diabetes, on 25 July 1971. Other compositions for which Robertson was well known include: String Quartet No. 1 (1940), Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1944), American Serenade (String Quartet No. 2) (1944), Overture to Punch and Judy (1945), Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1948), Oratorio from the Book of Mormon (1953), Passacaglia for Orchestra (1955), Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1956), and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1966).

Leroy Robertson and the Organ

Leroy Robertson's preparation for writing organ music began several years before its actual composition. Around 1926-27, Robertson met a young teenager, J. J. Keeler, a Provo, Utah native who was just beginning organ lessons. Robertson knew of Keeler's interest in the organ and always encouraged him in his organ studies. During Keeler's student years in Provo, Robertson had Keeler play many well-known organ works for him.9 These experiences no doubt allowed Robertson to examine how to write effectively for the organ.

Robertson and Keeler traveled to Europe together in 1932 as Robertson was preparing to study with Ernest Bloch in Switzerland. Keeler went to the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany to study with the famous organist Karl Straube, one of Germany's foremost organ virtuosi of the time who premiered many of Max Reger's organ works. Straube was also the organist at the famous Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian Bach had served previously. After Robertson's studies with Bloch, he traveled to Leipzig to see how Keeler was faring.

Robertson stayed in Leipzig for about six weeks, visiting frequently the large churches in Leipzig, the Thomaskirche being his favorite. It was here that Robertson heard Karl Straube, assistant organist Günther Ramin, and Straube's students play the organ works of the great German masters. The church's acoustics, its heroic 1889 Wilhelm Sauer organ, and Keeler's interest in organ music inspired Robertson to compose organ music of his own. He sketched his first organ works, Organ Sonata in B Minor and Fantasia in F Minor, in Leipzig in 1932.10 These works were later completed in Berlin and Provo, Utah during the years 1933-1934.11 The registration indications for Robertson's organ music were prepared with J. J. Keeler's assistance on the 1907 Austin organ in the Provo Tabernacle.12

Organ Sonata in B Minor

The Organ Sonata is composed in three movements entitled Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare. Robertson dedicated this work to his wife Naomi. J. J. Keeler premiered the Prelude and Ricercare movements of the Organ Sonata on 1 February 1943 in the Provo Tabernacle.13 The Brigham Young University student newspaper, The Y News, wrote that "one of the most delightful numbers [of the concert] was a[n organ] sonata composed by Professor Robertson, which, according to critics, is virile with energy of the new west."14 Alexander Schreiner, Salt Lake Tabernacle Organist and faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, later played the complete Organ Sonata on his fifty-first noon organ recital, which took place on 3 May 1935, in Royce Hall at UCLA.15

Robertson entered the Organ Sonata in B Minor in the Helen Sheets Composition Contest sponsored by the McCune School of Music and Art in Salt Lake City. The work won a prize of $50 and was hailed as the best composition by a Utah composer. The judge for the contest, a prominent California musician, wrote that Robertson's Organ Sonata "was far superior to any other entered . . . and that Mr. Robertson is a serious, splendid musician . . . who should by all means have the prize."16

At Arthur Shepherd's special request, Robertson orchestrated the Organ Sonata in B Minor for strings, woodwinds, percussion, brass, and organ and retitled the work Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes.17 This work was first performed for the convention of the Music Teachers National Association held in 1941 at Minneapolis. The Utah Symphony, conducted by Maurice Abravanel, recorded this work in 1948.18 Abravanel thought that this transcription was particularly successful, especially since it was not like other "very popular organ transcriptions of the day that were always very thick and loud, the Robertson score was like chamber music, very delicate and lean."19 Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, was also interested in having his orchestra perform the Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes, but was never able to program it.20

Robertson wrote that the first movement of the Organ Sonata is "in the style of the choral prelude announc[ing] the two chief themes at the outset--the first alone in the pedal and the second in a higher register with a simple alto supplying an obligato [sic]."21 He composed this first melody in B harmonic minor, imbuing it with a brooding, melancholy air (see Example 1).

The second theme is based on a Ute Indian melody in the Phrygian mode.22 Robertson thought very highly of the Native American people and traveled to the Ute and Ouray Indian Reservation several times in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This reservation covers a large area of land next to the Colorado border in eastern Utah. During these visits Robertson transcribed some of their melodies, most of which were associated with the Bear Dance. Robertson had to obtain permission to transcribe these melodies, since the bears and the melodies associated with them were sacred to the Native Americans (see Example 2).23

Robertson's inclusion of indigenous or folk melodies was a common practice among composers in the first half of the twentieth century. Aaron Copland used Mexican folksong in his orchestral work El Salón Mexico (1936), and cowboy songs in his ballets Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942), all of which were composed within ten years of Robertson's Organ Sonata.24 Roy Harris, another American composer who was active at this time, used modal melodies to "impart a sense of expansiveness reminiscent of the American West."25 Since Robertson was raised in a small Utah community, it is very probable that his inclusion of the Native American melody was a reflection on his youthful days in Fountain Green, Utah.

Robertson composed the Scherzo in a standard three-section form typical of works in this genre. He opens the movement with an embellished version of the Ute Indian melody accompanied by chords sounding on the offbeat. This theme, combined with the offbeat accompanimental pattern, gives a swing, freedom, and expansiveness of the western United States that Robertson knew from his youth (see Example 3). Robertson presents three additional embellished statements of the Ute Indian melody in the remaining part of the Scherzo's first section.

Robertson presents a major-mode version of the Prelude's first theme in canon at the third between the right hand and pedal at the beginning of the Scherzo's second section. A busy eighth-note accompaniment that begins incessantly on the offbeat is a recurrent motive in this section. Robertson states this theme two other times before reintroducing the Ute Indian melody in the pedal. The third section, marked scherzando, hearkens back to the beginning, with the embellished Ute Indian melody presented in canon.

Robertson's desire to compose a ricercare reflects the neoclassical trend that permeated American music in the first half of the twentieth century. Composers became more interested in musical forms and other elements of composition from the eighteenth century and earlier. Robertson had also studied the music of Renaissance composers during his time in Berlin with Hugo Leichtentritt, and he copied many works of Renaissance composers by hand. The ricercare, an early precursor of the fugue, consisted of several themes that were developed imitatively one by one. The ricercare was used in Renaissance music, so it is likely that Robertson would have studied the ricercares of Renaissance composers as he copied and studied their music in Berlin.

Robertson employs the opening pedal theme from the Prelude and the Ute Indian melody imitatively during the first part of the Ricercare. He proceeds to introduce three thematic ideas successively. Robertson alternates these themes between various voices and often combines one of them with the opening pedal theme from the Prelude or the Ute Indian melody. He concludes the Ricercare with a short Epilogue. He uses the opening theme from the Prelude and the Ute Indian melody as the thematic material for this section.

Fantasia in F Minor

The Fantasia in F Minor was the second of Robertson's organ works to be heard by the public. J. J. Keeler, to whom the Fantasia is dedicated, gave the premiere on 26 November 1934 in the Provo Tabernacle. Robert Cundick, who was later to become an organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, recorded the Fantasia in 1955.

Robertson employs a broad tempo, thick chords and flourishes in the first half of the Fantasia that show Max Reger's influence.26 Robertson most certainly heard much of Reger's organ music played while he was in Leipzig, and this could explain why he chose to write in this style (see Example 4).27 After this commanding introduction, Robertson introduces a fugato section containing a four-voice exposition employing real answers (mm. 21-32). This demonstrates his ability to infuse counterpoint with neo-romantic harmonic language. Robertson also states the fugue subject in inversion (m. 34), as well as in the original form. He builds up the fugato to a coda (beginning in m. 53) employing dramatic harmonies. Robertson brings the coda to a tremendous climax that resolves triumphantly on an F-major chord.

Intermezzo

Robertson composed the Intermezzo, his third and final organ work in 1934, dedicating it to Salt Lake Tabernacle organist Alexander Schreiner. The date, venue, and performing artist of the Intermezzo's first performance remain uncertain.28 This work employs a lyrical melody, is composed in a three-part form, and contains a rich harmonic vocabulary. These aspects could lead one to view Robertson's Intermezzo as a small-scale version of the other keyboard intermezzi such as those composed by Johannes Brahms. Robertson draws the Intermezzo to a close in a short coda. Concerning this work's ending, Robertson mused, "all my life I've abhorred the conventional ending."29 He avoids a "conventional ending" by cleverly employing chromaticism to good effect (see Example 5).

Conclusion

Leroy Robertson's three organ works--Organ Sonata in B Minor, Fantasia in F Minor, and Intermezzo--have never enjoyed even limited circulation among organists. This is partly because most of his works have never been published, while some might attribute their lack of renown to the fact that Utah was quite isolated from main American music scene in the 1930s. Whatever the reason, Robertson has composed three fine works for organ that deserve to be better known. His exposure to great organs and organ music in Germany moved him to write serious concert organ music that has enriched the organ repertory.

Robertson was unfortunately not able to write more of this high-caliber organ music. The pressures of university teaching, other commissions, his responsibilities as a father and husband, and his ever-increasing interests in orchestral music provide possible explanations why Robertson did not have time to compose other solo organ works, but the real answer remains unknown.30 It is the author's hope that this study of Robertson's organ music will inspire others to study, perform, research, and write more about it, so that his music will one day merit the acclaim and popularity that it rightly deserves.                

Notes

                  1.              Other American composers who wrote organ sonatas during the first part of the twentieth century include James Rogers, Horatio Parker, Felix Borowski, and Philip James.

                  2.              Marian Robertson Wilson, "Leroy Robertson: Music Giant from the Rockies," TMS (photocopy), 251, footnote 17, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  3.              The original manuscripts of Robertson's organ works are located in the Manuscript Division of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the author's hope to have Robertson's organ music published and recorded in the near future.

                  4.              Leroy Robertson, "Intermezzo" in Lyric Pieces by American Composers, ed. Darwin Wolford (Delaware Gap, Pennsylvania: Harold Flammer), 1982.

                  5.              Marian Robertson Wilson, Leroy Robertson, Music Giant from the Rockies (Salt Lake City: Freethinker Press, 1996), 23.

                  6.              Ibid.

                  7.              Ibid., 35.

                  8.              Ibid., 169.

                  9.              J. J. Keeler, interview by author, 21 February 1996, Payson, Utah.

                  10.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 98.

                  11.           Ibid., 103. See also Kenneth Udy, Alexander Schreiner, The California Years (Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1999), 173, footnote 151 for the Organ Sonata's revision date, and J. J. Keeler's verbal program notes (contained on a cassette in possession of the author) 7 September 1988, Salt Lake City, Utah for the Fantasia in F Minor's revision date.

                  12.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, February 2001. In determining the registration for a section, Robertson would have Keeler play it with several different registrations. Robertson would choose which registration he wanted. All of the stop names listed in Robertson's organ works are stops found on the 1907 Austin organ in the Provo Tabernacle. For a specification of this organ as it appeared when Robertson's organ works were premiered, please see Appendix 1.

                  13.           Leroy Robertson, program notes from 1 February 1934 concert. Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. The program notes from the concert simply state, "due to the very recent completion of the Scherzo it has been deemed advisable to defer its performance to a later date."

                  14.           The Y News (Brigham Young University), 8 February 1934.

                  15.           Alexander Schreiner, program from 3 May 1935 concert. Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  16.           Tracy Y. Cannon, Salt Lake City, to Leroy Robertson, Provo, 10 January 1936, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  17.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 135.

                  18.           Leroy Robertson, Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes, recorded by the Utah Symphony on 20 November 1948. This recording was never released commercially. A copy of this recording is found in the Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  19.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 195.

                  20.           Ibid., 209.

                  21.           Leroy Robertson, Program notes, 1 February 1936.

                  22.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, February 2001.

                  23.           Ibid.

                  24.           Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 5th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 778.

                  25.           Ibid.

                  26.           Leroy Robertson, Fantasia in F Minor, verbal program notes given by J. J. Keeler, September 1988, cassette in possession of author.

                  27.           Ibid.

                  28.           Marian Robertson Wilson feels that Alexander Schreiner played the first performance, while Robert Cundick feels that J. J. Keeler did. Keeler worked out the registration of the Intermezzo with Robertson and later played it on recitals, but documentation is lacking as to whether he played the first performance.

                  29.           The Y News (6 November 1936).

                  30.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, July 2001.

I read with very great interest and pleasure the recent contribution by Jan Overduin to The Diapason1, "Bach and Die Kunst der Fuge." Therein, the author presented about two dozen typical examples, illustrating how the composer has interwoven the musical texture of the oeuvre with the notes of his name b, a, c, h, within the various counterpoints. (In English nomenclature, the German b is designated b-flat.) By this procedure BACH has inscribed--so to speak--in many places his signature to his compositions. Beyond this most simple form, a variety of permutations of these four basic letters can also be found, or else, transpositions to other pitches, as shown by R. Kreft,2 a comprehensive special study printed in multicolor.

For the present article, three examples from Prof. Overduin's article will be extracted and discussed. Beyond the occurrence of the name BACH in these particular musical passages, possible simultaneous allusions by the composer to his mathematical system of unequal well-tempered tuning3 will be identified. This musical temperament--due to its intrinsic mathematical nature--is necessarily based on a certain set of numbers. The rationale for the present approach to study Die Kunst der Fuge is the fact that Bach has frequently structured the form of his compositions via numbers of a set belonging to the  wohltemperirt system. From this observation originated my "Vienna manifesto" of the Bach-year 1985: to analyze Bach's works with particular attention to the aspect of numbers pertaining to well-tempering.4 Utilizing this artifice, Bach attains an elaborate unity between features of the musical form and structuring in the widest sense and the harmony of tuning--initially and nominally the harpsichord. The most specific composition for this system was, of course, Das Wohltemperirte Clavier. A harpsichord can be well-tempered in not more than 19 elementary tuning-steps.5 This is the number for the closure of the circle, and the 19 intervals are 12 fifths followed by 7 octaves in the opposite direction.

In view of the essential occurrence of the name b, a, c, h for carrying out this study, the number alphabet and its gematrial correspondences needs first of all to be introduced. Thus, the letters are numbered along the Latin alphabet from A=1, B=2, C=3,  . . . I=9, J=9 [sic],  . . . K=10,  . . . U=20, V=20 [sic],  . . . X=22, Y=23, Z=24. Expressed via that numbering, B, A, C, H will appear as 2, 1, 3, 8. The adding-procedure as prescribed by the gematria, 2+1+3+8, yields the correspondence BACH=14. Likewise, J.S. BACH will be 41, the crab or inversion of the number 14.

Now the well-tempered system will be concisely laid out, putting special emphasis on the way it will be ultimately reflected here in Die Kunst der Fuge. This temperament comprises 7 perfect fifths and 5 well-tempered ones. It derives from the central key of tonality, C-major.6 In its triad C-E-G, the enlarged third beats at the same rate as the reduced fifth--an ideal mutual adaptation. To complete the description, four well-tempered fifths ascend from c and reach the second octave of the initial third e closing this chain of fifths c-g-d-a-e. From c downwards extends a chain of six perfect fifths, reaching g-flat (f-sharp). Of course, octave-transpositions must be applied in practical harpsichord tuning wherever necessary. The last tempered fifth of the system results as B-f-sharp, closing the circle. From the third e upwards ascends the seventh and last perfect fifth e-b.

The unique and distinguishing feature of wohltemperirt is its musico-theological foundation; no other tuning has anything similar to offer. Due to the beat-rates in the triad at the perfection of the unitas,7 the system is founded upon a tri-unitarian basis. The nucleus of baroque thoroughbass is the triad, itself a symbol of the Holy Trinity. Just hearing a triad, its three components merge suavely and smoothly into an agreeable, pleasant unity.8 Furthermore, the beat ratio of 1:1 of the constituent intervals can be considered as a profound symbol of the monotheistic principle--it is here where Werckmeister's ideas on the perfection of the baroque unitas are rooted.

Returning now from theological spiritualities and mathematical ratios to the music itself, by what means could Bach reflect in a composition the numbered alphabet and the gematria? A few such examples will follow now. As concerns the numbered alphabet, for the onset of its table A=1, one may refer to the well known A-major fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier I. Its theme starts with an isolated note a, followed by three 8th-rests. Such an incipit is highly unusual, if not bizarre, and correlating with the table's A=1 appears natural and not far fetched. For the correspondence BACH=14, the C-major fugue's theme--as well as that of B-major--starts with 14 keystrokes.9 Within Die Kunst der Fuge itself, following the first four pieces, already the theme of contrapunctus 5 (and others) count 14 keystrokes. For the gematrial correspondence J. S. BACH=41, not later than the initial two keystrokes d, a, of Die Kunst der Fuge--set in d-minor--show 41 if juxtaposed.

Now it will be indicated how musical structures can convey hints or allusions to the well-tempered system. It is based upon the ratio of the unitas between the beats of the tempered third and fifth, 3 and 5 in thoroughbass. Therefore, immediately the number 135--in juxtaposition--may be used, for instance, within the bar numbered by 135. Other possibilities may be derived from the two sorts of fifths, 5 well-tempered, 7 perfect, such as in juxtaposition 57, 75 (75 could be made up via the tri-unity as 31+13+3110), or even 577. Finally, in terms of musical notation, 5 relates  to e, 7 to g, and 3 to c. As to the number 19 and concomitant abstract structuring, looking now as an example at the B-major prelude of WTC I, it counts 19 bars, starts at bar 1913 and ends at bar 1931.11

The first extract from Prof. Overduin's article is contrapunctus 4 (BWV 1080, 4), measures 135 to 138, page 15 in Davitt Moroney's edition from G. Henle.12 Starting from bar 135 (unitas-third-fifth) the tenor sounds BACH, rhythmically comparable to a sigh. The fugue terminates at 138, which incidentally corresponds to ACH, the final letters of the composer's name; in German a sighing exclamation. Perhaps the terminating pedal on d (D=4) through the last four bars may be related to the four letters of BACH. (See Example 1.)

The second example, page 46 in the Moroney/Henle edition (BWV 1080, 11), concerns contrapunctus 11, bars 90 and 91. (See Example 2.) As Prof. Overduin points out, the alto introduces by theme three the notes B, A, C, H, but he mentions that Tovey rejected this as an allusion to BACH because in fact, it is B-A-C-C-C-H sounding here. However, Tovey could at his time not be aware of Bach's tri-unitarian temperament and thus, necessarily failed to understand the significance of A,C,C,C: 1,3,3,3 in numbers. As much as within B-AC-H, 2-13-8, the number 28, secundus numerus perfectus is centered upon 13, unitas-trinitas, the present extended theme 2-1333-8 includes three times the number 3. The frame still remains B and H. An essential factorization holds, 1333=31*43: the prime numbers 31, trinitas-unitas and 43 = CREDO (3+17+5+4+14)--a tri-unitarian Credo! Starting with the second half of this bar and counting from the bass fundament upwards, presents the notes e, a, c, thus 513, nothing else than a permutation of 135. This is interpreted as fifth 5, unitas and third 3 in thoroughbass. The crucial bar in this example is 91--the crab or inversion of 19--by which number of elementary steps the circle of fifths will close. Working backward in this bar to the second quaver shows a, a, c, thus 113: a numerical triptych of unitas and trinitas. This measure 91 not only sounds BACH in the alto, but its onset reads d, g, b, converted to numbers 4,7,2.

As concerns 472, Bach was certainly intimately familiar with the notion of permutations, thinking for example, of his choral fugues or certain three-part inventions. Thus, just from a cyclical permutation of 472 results the number 247 (=13*19). According to the baroque gematria, 247=MUSICALISCHE TEMPERATUR which is the title of Werckmeister's classical treatise, 1691. Furthermore, 247=112+135 holds additively, but the implications of such observations cannot be detailed here and these results were published elsewhere already some time ago.13

The third example still deals with contrapunctus 11, bars 144 to 145, page 48 in the Moroney/Henle edition. (See Example 3.) There the alto and treble sound BA-CH and the bass and tenor in the second quaver of 144 present G, E, converting to 7 and 5, the numbers of perfect and well-tempered fifths. The bass, in fact, now sounds G,G,G,E, in numbers 7775. It may also be mentioned that contrapunctus 11 starts in a Trinitarian fashion by three bars identically structured, with eighth-note rests on the downbeat and 3 subsequent eighth notes; one has 3+3+3=9, trias trinitatis per additionem.

Finally, a typical manifestation of the unitas, a determining and crucial element in Bach's structuring of his compositions can be pointed out at this occasion. The contrapunctus 11 extends over 184 bars, an even number. The midpoint therefore falls upon the bars 92 and 93, see the preceding example. The bar 93 (=3*31, tri-unitary factorization!) sounds, from the fundament of the bass upwards, a, c, e; in numbers 1,3,5: unitas, third and fifth in thoroughbass--on  the dominant of d-minor. In the central triad of C-major of wohltemperirt, third and fifth beat at the unison! Hence, this piece is obviously pivoted symmetrically upon the very nucleus of the well-tempered musico-mathematical system.

The considerations above represent a corollary to the examples of the underlying article in The Diapason. As to the aspects described and analyzed, there is no pretension whatsoever to be exhaustive. Rather, the purpose is, hopefully, to be thought provoking, to stimulate and encourage further, more systematic and complete investigations into the direction outlined here--as much as the article published by Prof. Overduin has led to the present study.

After having reconstituted the well-tempered system Werckmeister/Bach initially in 1975,14 it was gratifying for me to see how organ builders have taken up and followed the ideas, appreciating the technological and musical qualities of this baroque temperament. These builders include Rudolf von Beckerath, John Brombaugh & Associates Inc., T. S. Buhr, Paul Fritts & Co., Gerhard Grenzing, Otto Hoffmann Organs, Claude Jaccard, Yves Koenig, Michael Korchonnoff, Dominique Lalmand, Gebr. Oberlinger, Martin Pasi, Richards, Fowkes & Co., Charles M. Ruggles, Taylor & Boody, George Westenfelder, Karl Wilhelm, Hellmuth Wolff and Munetaka Yokota.

On these organs, tuned accordingly, many distinguished musicians have performed and recorded, including Martin Balz, Luc Beauséjour, Jonathan Biggers, Gavin Black, Robert Clark, David Dahl, George Edward Damp, François Espinasse, Bernard Foccroulle, Martin Gester, André Isoir, Calvert Johnson, Donald Joyce, George Ritchie, David Rothe, Wolfgang Rübsam, Yasuko Uyama-Bouvard and others.

A discography as at that time I have published in The Tracker.15 Further references to analyses of Bach's compositions are contained--together with a heuristic derivation of the well-tempered system--in the Blankenburg-Michaelstein symposium proceedings.16 For those interested in more musicological details, a bibliography is also contained within my lecture publication on historical temperaments, held at the symposium in the Vienna Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst.17.

July 1-6, 2002

Larry Palmer is a contributing editor of The Diapason.

Despite heat and humidity this convention proved to be a stellar presentation of high-quality events. Indeed, throughout the week's major recitals there were probably more drops of sweat than dropped notes! Careful thought had gone into programming: each day began with recitals (or a recital followed by a repertoire session). Worship (preceded by a short concert) began the afternoon, followed by educational workshops. Each evening featured an 8 p.m. concert. Artists and instruments were well matched. Disruptions and problems were minimal, especially considering the large number of registrants. Chartered bus transportation was efficient (and cool). In a well-planned and executed first, public transport schedules and directions were provided for those who wished to take charge of their own itineraries, and guides aided these intrepid adventurers.  A large number of center-city events took place within a reasonable walking distance.

This was the fourth convening of an American Guild of Organists national gathering in Philadelphia, previous conventions having occurred in 1930, 1939, and 1964. Many still recall, as well, the 1977 International Congress of Organists in this unique city of major symphonic and retail-store pipe organs, the Ben Franklin Busybody mirror, cheese steaks, and assorted historic charms.

This report will, of necessity, represent only one person's schedule. I attended all the major concerts, save one. As for workshops, the elegant (though heavy) 278-page program book listed 80 (of which one was cancelled); I was able to sample four. Daily worship offerings, in addition to the early morning ecumenical services held at the convention hotel, numbered fourteen. I got to two of them. A chronological report seems pointless; the convention was divided into four color-coded groups, each assigned to attend many of the events at different times.

Two orchestral programs at Girard College

The Philadelphia Orchestra's new concert venue, Verizon Hall in the downtown Kimmel Center for the Arts, presently contains only the façade of a large Dobson pipe organ scheduled for completion in 2006. Thus concerts with orchestra were scheduled on Tuesday and Saturday evenings in the Chapel of Girard College, home to a magnificent four-manual E. M. Skinner organ. That Tuesday's offering happened at all was a tribute to professionalism and sheer determination! Because of the stifling heat, the orchestral musicians would have been justified in refusing to play; indeed, union rules allow them to refuse to perform in such adverse conditions. The performances, however, ranged from heroic to outstanding. James David Christie opened the program as soloist in the first modern performance of the just-published Widor Symphonie in G minor, opus 42 bis--an arrangement of the first and last movements from the composer's Sixth Organ Symphonie with a middle movement arranged from the Andante of the Second Organ Symphonie. Almost immediately, during the second statement of the opening theme the stand lights for half the orchestra and the conductor suddenly went out; so the performers overcame not only heat and humidity but relative obscurity, in addition to constant distraction as technicians tried to rectify the lighting problem.

The fun of hearing familiar music in a new and attractive guise coupled with the drama surrounding its performance led to shouts of "Bravo" and sustained applause from the overflow audience, which, no matter how uncomfortable it might have been, seemed to realize that the players were even less comfortable!

With full lighting restored, Craig Phillips was the deft soloist in his own Concertino for Organ and Chamber Orchestra (1995), a three-sectioned work of great melodic and rhythmic appeal, played without pause.

Although four overheated players exercised their option of leaving the orchestra at intermission, there was an immediate new sense of purpose as Diane Meredith Belcher made her entrance to play the Jongen Symphonie Concertante, opus 81! The organ console's central placement high above the stage allowed favorable sight lines for observing Ms. Belcher's energetic, musical, and poetic performance of Jongen's impressionistic tour-de-force, arguably the most successful coupling of organ and orchestra in the repertoire. The performance of this intricate work was a marvel of synchronization, made more so since the pipes of the 1933 organ are installed in the ceiling, at considerable distance from the console. The assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Bulgarian-born Rossen Milanov, proved himself an able collaborator.

The Saturday closing concert, an evening of inspired choral singing from the 38-member Voices of Ascension, with orchestra and Mark Kruczek, organist, conducted by Dennis Keene, found us back at Girard College. Relief from the punishing heat had arrived on Friday and a significant number of conventioners departed on Saturday, so the Chapel was not as overwhelmed with audience as it had been for the opening concert. Carlyle Sharpe's short AGO/ECS Publishing award-winning choral work Laudate Nomen served as an upbeat, rhythmically-pungent "curtain-raiser" to the premiere of Ruth Watson Henderson's 24-minute cantata From Darkness to Light. From the quiet opening tympani notes to the hushed and yearning setting of the final words, "Darkness sang to the light and the kiss of love was peace," this lovely work, alternating Biblical texts (sung by baritone soloist Charles Robert Stephens) and choral settings of poems by the 20th-century Canadian writer Wilfred Watson, spoke in a communicative but individual tonal language. Impressionistic harmonies, a constant sense of forward motion, and deft handling of the orchestral voices all combined to make this the most immediately appealing of the large-scale commissions for Philadelphia 2002. It is definitely a work worthy of repeated hearings.

As an unscheduled addition to the program we were given a polished performance of C. Hubert H. Parry's coronation anthem I Was Glad, complete with the often-omitted cries of "Vivat Regina Elisabetta," an appropriate gesture in this, the British Queen's Golden Jubilee year. It was especially gratifying to have one final opportunity to revel in the grandiose full sound of the Girard Chapel organ, one of the finest surviving examples of E. M. Skinner's late work.

A major theme of this gathering was the celebration of the centenary of the birth of French composer Maurice Duruflé. All of his organ works were programmed during this week, as were the unaccompanied Four Motets on Gregorian Themes. For the culminating final offering of this remembrance, Keene and his superb Voices of Ascension performed Duruflé's Requiem, opus 9, with mezzo-soprano Zehava Gal. One of the most beloved settings of these ancient texts, Duruflé's masterpiece received a sublime reading, with every subtle nuance aptly and carefully observed. It was obvious that all involved knew the work intimately. I have never heard a better realization of this haunting, gentle score which I first experienced in 1959 in Holland, with the composer himself at the organ.

Three top-notch organ recitals: Parker-Smith, Morrison, Miura

A third memorable event at Girard College was the spectacular July 4 organ recital by Jane Parker-Smith. Noting that 226 years ago to the very day a group of gentlemen in Philadelphia had declared independence from Great Britain, convention general chair Dennis Elwell remarked that "the convention committee had invited two British organists to play at this gathering to demonstrate that we were gracious winners." Indeed we were all winners to enjoy such artistry! Flanked by two registrants, Ms. Parker-Smith put the organ through its paces in a program of virtuoso works that, in her hands (and feet), never seemed to overwhelm or tire the listener: Impetuoso (Wiedermann), Passacaglia in D minor (Middelschulte--a major work of 62 variations incorporating both the BACH motive and the chorale Ein' feste Burg), Toccata, opus 12 (Germani). Duruflé's opus 4, Prelude, Adagio, and Chorale Variations on the Veni Creator, has rarely sounded better. Especially compelling was Parker-Smith's playing of the beautiful Adagio, her pavane-like statement of the Chorale, and her attention to some surprising manual counterpoint in the accompaniment to the 4-foot pedal flute solo of the third variation. Scherzo Symphonique, transcribed by Jeremy Filsell from a 1974 improvisation by Pierre Cochereau, brought this outstanding recital to a quicksilver conclusion.

Alan Morrison in Princeton

For this listener the new organ work making the most lasting impression during the week was William Bolcom's Borborygm (a Latin/Greek word meaning "a rumbling of the bowels"), based on sketches by the late William Albright and dedicated to his memory by his long-time University of Michigan colleague. Beginning with the eponymous quiet low rumblings in the pedal, the 9-minute work reached its climax in a repeated, drum-like ostinato passage, and then subsided into quietness. Constantly arresting and interesting, this skillful work by the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning composer suggested Albright's style without sounding like an imitation. Morrison's performance was riveting, as was his entire recital (heard in the first of its four repetitions).

Another reconstructed Cochereau improvisation, Berceuse in Memory of Louis Vierne, utilized the melody of Vierne's own Berceuse (from 24 Pieces in Free Style)--a tune with startling similarity to the opening phrase of the Rodgers and Hart song There's a Small Hotel. At the climax of this piece Morrison utilized the brilliant Gallery Trumpet stop for the first time in his program.

Masterful command of registration and a deep understanding of the work characterized Morrison's playing of Duruflé's Suite, opus 5. The somber E-flat minor Prelude, perhaps the composer's most elegiac work, waxed and waned with powerful force; the daunting cross rhythms of the Sicilienne were expertly limned, and the thrilling, if over-exposed, Toccata (with the composer's revised ending) was tossed off with virtuoso aplomb.

A week largely devoted to organ music reminded one most pointedly of the absolute need for a sympathetic acoustical space if the organ is to be a successful musical medium. The Princeton University Chapel provided such an enjoyable partnership of noble Gothic-revival edifice with noble four-manual E. M. Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner/N. P. Mander organ (1928/1954-56/1991) installed on both sides of the chancel, plus additional divisions in the nave and west gallery.

Hatsumi Miura in Chestnut Hill

A breath of the past was just the needed antidote to three days of large electric-action organs, orchestral transcriptions, and mostly 20th-century repertoire; a more effective aural cleanser than Hatsumi Miura's elegant playing of the three-manual 45-stop Mander tracker organ (2000) of suburban Chestnut Hill's Presbyterian Church would have been difficult to imagine! The gentle tonal variety offered by the organ's slightly-unequal Kellner temperament, the player's artistic range of touches, and her beautifully-developed program in which works of Frescobaldi, Cabezón, and Cabanilles set off the novelty of Jehan Alain's medieval estampie-like Fantasmagorie and, as emotional high point, his Première Fantasie, led us to the satisfaction of stylistically-played Bach (the double-pedal An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653b and Prelude and Fugue in C, BWV 545). Brava Miura for this musical high point, and bravo Mander for an eloquently voiced instrument consisting of an encased Great, Swell, and Pedal, with separately encased Choir on the gallery rail, all with full 61-note manuals and 32-note pedal, thank you very much!

The organ as fun

For a group of professionals who take themselves very seriously far too much of the time, it was salutary to experience the organ as entertainment, lighter fare, yes . . . even fun! Among multiple opportunities to do this: the effervescent Hector Olivera amazed with his astounding musicianship at the Roland Atelier AT 90S digital keyboard instrument, especially with an expertly-nuanced and accurately-colored transcription of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite. With faux-castanets clicking from his keyboard-orchestra he brought down the house with a Foxian rendition of Bach's Gigue Fugue. Introducing the concert, Olivera's duo partner Richard Morris quipped "You've heard music you're supposed to hear this week; now here's what you want to hear!" Best of their collaborative efforts (prefaced by Morris' comic proffering of a tuning note and Olivera's "tuning" of his electronic-keyboard tympani) was their performance of the Poulenc Concerto in G minor. A two-keyboard version of Guilmant's Symphony Number 1  for Organ and Orchestra, opus 42, allowed a comparison of this composer's adaptation from a solo organ work with that of Widor heard at the opening concert. Of the two, Guilmant's seemed to be a more idiomatic, better balanced essay for organ and orchestra.

To lighten the procedings at the complimentary breakfast and annual AGO business meeting on Saturday morning, the Philadelphia Organ Quartet (Michael Stairs, Colin Howland, Rudolph Lucente, and Peter Richard Conte) provided their own brand of zaniness at four electronic instruments. Popular favorites included a rip-roaring Light Cavalry Overture thundering forth from twelve keyboards and four pedalboards, Tiptoe Through the Tulips for "petals" alone, and a relentlessly funny spoof of authentic performing practice, a "newly-discovered Sonata in C by the classical Swiss composer 'Monk Mueller'," for which Conte's instrument was tuned to a decidedly earlier (mis)temperament and a lower pitch than that employed by his accomplices.

Speaking of Peter Richard Conte, the Grand Court organist of the Wanamaker Organ at Lord and Taylor's department store displayed his considerable artistry on the world-famous six-manual instrument of more than 28,000 pipes. A twice-performed concert on the evening of July 4 featured his own transcriptions of Overture to Candide (Bernstein), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Dukas), Edwin H. Lemare's arrangement of Wotan's Farewell and Magic Fire Music from Die Walküre (Wagner), and the truly unique opportunity to hear Dupré's Passion Symphony in its first complete performance on this organ since the composer first improvised it here in December, 1921. Historical performance practice of the first order! Conte's playing of the entire program was of the highest musicality, with an unimpeachable sense of timing and registration and absolute technical control. Both organ and building appeared to be in tip-top shape as were most of the convention venues. And what could have been more fitting than his encore, Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever, complete with alternating red, white, and blue lights and an unfurling monster flag? No additional fireworks were needed for this patriotic celebration!

More organ recitals

Martin Baker, the "other" British recitalist, was saddled with a smaller instrument (38 ranks of 1921 Austin spread over four manuals and pedal) in a padded room (the visually attractive Congregation Rodeph Shalom). Baker made what he could of his assignment, playing particularly well in Duruflé's Scherzo, opus 2 and in his improvisation on a Jewish psalm melody, for which he utilized rapid repeated notes in an effective and telling manner. Organ and space did not abet his flawless playing of Mendelssohn (Sonata in A), Liszt (Orpheus), or Reger (Chorale Fantasia on Ein' feste Burg).

Similarly disadvantaged, Ann Elise Smoot's recital preceding afternoon worship at St. Mark's Episcopal Church died on the "hothouse" vine of a packed church, afflicted by high humidity and a program that sandwiched the potentially-exciting Reger Chorale Fantasia on Hallelujah! Gott zu loben between two dutiful works by Stanford. In this setting Ms. Smoot was unable to churn up much excitement. At the succeeding worship service the much-discussed, usually-deplored new nave division appended to the historic Aeolian-Skinner organ managed to prove its mettle by ciphering.

For Cherry Rhodes' recital on the Martin Ott organ of Trinity Lutheran Church in suburban Lansdale the only piece that seemed at home was the opener, Bach's lovely mostly-manualiter Pastorale in F. This very Germanic instrument did not do much for Ms. Rhodes' otherwise masterful performances of French and French-leaning works: Scènes d'Enfant d'après "The Turn of the Screw" (Jean Guillou), Meditations on Salve Festa Dies (Fr. Marius Walter), and Variations on Victimae Paschali Laudes (Jiri Ropek), the latter performed in memory of University of Alabama organ professor Warren Hutton, whose sudden death at the pre-convention pedagogy conference had both shocked and saddened the assemblage.

Organist Robert Plimpton capitalized on the Austro-German accents of the 1974 Rieger organ in Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church for assured performances of Bach (Chorale Partita on Sei gegrüsset) and Buxtehude (Toccata in F, BuxWV 157). The organ failed to be as sympathetic to the French vocabulary of  Franck's Grande Pièce Symphonique. Plimpton performed his teacher Robert Elmore's Holiday for Organ as if it were his own, and he seemed to revel in this return to the 98-rank organ installed during his tenure at the church.*

Repertoire enrichment sessions

Two beloved organists, both master teachers, gave organ-related recent-repertoire "mini-recitals" at featured morning time slots: Marilyn Keiser (organ and instruments) and David Higgs (solo repertoire). A third session surveying some recent choral works was offered by Clifford Hill.

Keiser devoted her program to works by living American composers, concentrating on appealing performances of two from the four Psalms for Flute and Organ by Moonyeen Albrecht, Dan Locklair's Sonata da chiesa for flute and organ (both with the elegant collaboration of flutist Mimi Stillman), Robert Powell's Carols of Christmas (which charmed, but failed to cool the room), and, with the Fairmount Brass Quintet plus tympani and cymbals, Craig Phillips' Suite. It was fortunate that the artist chose this format, for open windows admitted as much street noise as air, and her several remarks were totally obliterated by the beeping of backward-intentioned trucks.

David Higgs presented first performances of two works from the commissioned Philadelphia Organ Book (consisting of six pieces). Especially attractive was Star Rising by first-time composer for the organ Erik Santos, who was present. Also in attendance was Emma Lou Diemer, composer of the second work premiered, Prepare the Royal Highway. Because of excessive heat in the non-air-conditioned First Presbyterian Church, Higgs shortened his program; on Thursday, he mentioned that, having dispensed with a jacket, he was "playing in his shirtsleeves for the first time ever in public performance."

The immediate "hit" of Higgs' program was Recollection (Soliloquy No. 2) by David Conte. ECS Publishing head Robert Schuneman reported that all thirty copies brought to the convention sold out immediately after Higgs' first presentation on Tuesday, and more than 200 orders for it were placed during the week. In celebration of the national holiday, Higgs ended his program with 19th-century Harvard Professor of Music John Knowles Paine's sturdy Double Fugue on My Country, 'tis of Thee for the Full Organ.

Competitions

Once again a distinguished panel of judges (Margaret Kemper, Mary Preston, and George Ritchie) confounded those listeners who sat through the complete final round of the National Young Artists Competition in Organ Playing by choosing a safe, middle-of-the-road winner, Timothy Olsen. As has been increasingly the case in recent competitions I have attended, the audience prize winner (selected by votes from those who "stick it out" for the complete program), second-ranked Kola Owalabi, provided more interesting and exciting music-making. If the goal of this competition is to launch a young artist's concert career, it would seem that, once again, the audience made a more "judicious" choice than did the judges.

Not one of these players succeeded equally in all four required pieces ("Great" Praeludium in E minor, Bruhns; Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr, BWV 663, Bach; Etude in A-flat, Schumann; Allegro maestoso [Symphonie III], Vierne). If pressed for my own choice it would have been third place winner Christian Schmitt, whose Vierne seemed to my ears the one performance conveying the menace inherent in this work. His Bruhns was stylistic, if less fanciful than Owalabi's, whose delightful playing of the Schumann was the only one to capture its fantasy and to translate the composer's pianistic idiom to the organ with reasonable success. As is often the case, flexibly-articulated, stylish Bach-playing eluded all three players.

Winners of the National Competition in Organ Improvisation (which I did not hear) were Peter Krasincki (first prize), Neil Weston (second), and David Macfarlane (third). All three improvised on themes submitted by Harry Wilkinson. Judges for this event were Mary Beth Bennett, Lynn Trapp, and John Vandertuin.

A few workshops

While only four in number, my workshop choices included a wide range of topics offered by presenters at various stages of their careers. Nevertheless, each was successful, and each workshop held my interest. On Tuesday, as preparation for the evening concert, I went to hear veteran Widor-scholar John Near discuss the composition and reception histories of the work we were to hear. I am a longtime admirer of Near's exemplary editions of the Widor organ symphonies; he has added further to his luster by preparing Widor's opus 42 bis for performance! Much of what he said had been printed in the extensive notes so generously provided in the convention program book. It was particularly gratifying to hear Near's reference to our own venerable journal as he quoted The Diapason report (April 1919) of the American premiere of Widor's Symphonie in G minor featuring organist Charles Courboin with the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski. (The journal's correspondent reported 10,000 auditors in Wanamaker's Grand Court; other sources suggested the tally might be as high as 12 or 15,000.)

At Tuesday evening's performance I was seated in the balcony, close to Dr. Near, and was therefore privy to his delight as he held in his hands, for the first time, printed copies of his new edition (published by A-R Editions, Madison Wisconsin).

On Wednesday I attended "Thomas Jefferson's 'Favorite Passion'," a workshop by younger scholar Nancy Cooper from the University of Montana at Missoula. She kept us engaged in Jeffersonian biography and Cooperian wit (beginning as she quoted the musical 1776, "It's hot as hell in Philadelphia"), doled out to an overflowing roomful of interested folk. Musical examples from Jefferson's music collection were played on a lovely three-stop continuo positive organ, opus one, by Michael Rathke, now of Fort Worth, Texas (formerly employed by Fisk of Gloucester).

For the Friday time slot, I chose to sample a session on the music of my Oberlin Conservatory classmate Calvin Hampton, presented by Shelly Moorman-Stahlman from Lebanon Valley College. Some unforeseen glitches in her PowerPoint presentation and some non-sequentially copied musical examples notwithstanding, Ms. Moorman-Stahlman gave a well-organized overview of Hampton's organ music and highlighted his expertise in hymn-writing. Her performance, from memory, of The Primitives and Everyone Dance from the composer's Five Dances (1982) served as aural "bookends" to her presentation, and reminded us anew of the terrible loss Calvin's death represents to the organ world. Almost too poignant in this context was a notice posted on the bulletin board beneath the organ gallery of Arch Street Methodist Church: "Because of AIDS we remember . . ."

Finally, on Saturday, I learned again from the redoubtable Marilyn Mason, who presented a workshop, "A Lifetime of New Music," highlighting some of her 78 commissions of organ music. Beginning with prayer, continuing with focused wit, dropping nuggets of wisdom as she proceeded, Professor Mason charmed her audience. She was joined by Jean Randall, who shared the playing of several pieces by Gregory Hamilton, Gordon Young and Jean Langlais from the just-published first volume of the Mason Music Library Collection of Commissioned Works for Organ (MorningStar Music Publishers). In addition, Ms. Mason played Toccata from Suite for Organ (1947) by Edmund Haines, her very first commissioned work.

As for memorable humor, Mason shared a story from her recent trip to Spain during which an old acquaintance, a priest, told her "Madame Professor, you are looking so well preserved." She also recounted her classic tale of an encounter with a Boston matron during a recital visit to Symphony Hall.  Queried by the dowager about her Mason family pedigree, the artist replied that she was "Just Miss Mason from Michigan." To this the Bostonian commented, "Here we think breeding is everything." Without missing a beat Mason responded, "In Michigan we think breeding is fun, but not everything . . ." Of equal value in the good advice department, Prof. Mason left us with the observation, "The amateur practices to get it right; the professional practices so it can't be played wrong."

Choral components

Fine choral singing graced the convention, starting with the Monday evening Gathering Celebration at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. Gerre Hancock led his marvelous Saint Thomas (New York) Choir of Men and Boys in Duruflé's Four Motets; The Twelve by William Walton (whose centenary also occurs in 2002), and the first performance of a new work, Jacob's Prayer by Owen Burdick (to a text by Gian Carlo Menotti). Expecially lovely was Burdick's chordal setting of the words "O God, let me not die in darkness," and timely, too, for we were informed during priestly welcoming words that a power failure at 4 p.m. had rendered the building untenable for the evening service: "Only God's love (and the quick response of the electric company) restored organ, lights, and air conditioning in the nick of time." This was a relief on several fronts, since the weather deities historically seem to have had little regard for organ conventions. (I think of recent AGO gatherings in Boston, New York, Dallas, Denver; only Seattle was vouchsafed a pleasantly cool week!) It was good to know that, at least for the opening event, God appeared to be siding with organists!

The athletic, intricate accompaniment to Walton's joyous setting of master poet Wystan Auden's memorable text was handled skillfully by Judith Hancock. Stirring improvisations to open and close the service were created by Gerre Hancock and John Weaver. Another new work, Ceremonies for Organ and Brass Quintet by Jennifer Higdon, commissioned to mark the 100th anniversary of the Philadelphia Chapter of the AGO (the first "national" chapter outside New York City), clocked in at more than 30 minutes. This was simply  too much of a good thing. In future hearings, for which individual sections could be selected, the work might prove more effective. (I would suggest Opening Ceremony, Celebration [organ solo], and the last movement, Celebration.)

At the other end of the week, a Saturday concert by the Toronto Children's Chorus introduced the convention to Philadelphia's new concert venue in the Kimmel Center. Verizon Hall is cello-shaped, with four tiers of seats; the upper balconies actually surround the stage area. A dark wood interior, somewhat dry acoustically, has seats upholstered in vibrant red. This color was repeated in robes worn by 55 girl singers; the 13 boys were garbed in white shirts and black pants.

What a superb ensemble! Founder and conductor Jean Ashworth Bartle conducted the long and difficult program, drawing impeccable tuning, clear articulation, and satisfying musical results from her young charges. Their unified diction of Latin, German, and English texts was remarkable and easily understood, gratifying since there were several unannounced changes to the printed program. Pure sounds, plus added appoggiaturas, marked the stylish opening Stabat Mater (Pergolesi). An unaccompanied Ave Maria (Holst) and Eleanor Daley's delicate setting of Hilaire Belloc's The Birds (with piano) gave some welcome relief from the incessant brightness of the accompanying large electronic instrument by the Walker Technical Company.

Composer Ben Steinberg, urbane and succinct in his pre-premiere remarks, was given an exemplary first performance of his Psalms of Thanksgiving. Skillful writing for harp and cello (when not overbalanced by the organ) and flowing, singable choral lines resulted in 20 minutes of easy listening. Impressive poise and projection characterized the Chorus member who served as narrator. However, the work as a whole lacked sufficient variety to sustain interest. Like Jennifer Higdon's, this composition should fare better in excerpted form. Not for the first time during the week's new music I thought of the late Igor Kipnis' quotable quip about an interminable John Cage happening, "It reminded me of the New York Subway, but at least the Subway goes somewhere."

Some closing thoughts

Featuring "Rising Stars," winners of the 2001 AGO/Quimby Regional Competitions for Young Organists, as pre-service recitalists for the worship services proved an effective way to showcase emerging talent. I heard an adroit program of Vierne works played by Brett Maguire at Old St. Peter's Church on Tuesday. Previously I had sampled a Dallas presentation of her convention recital by Lucinda Meredith from Houston, also an assured and able player. The other "stars" in this constellation, still to be heard at some future occasions, included Tim Pyper, Christian Lane, Charles Burks, Thomas Schuster, Martin Grajeda, Jr., and Rico Contenti.

Following Maguire's recital a service of "Worship Through the Day" was offered by the 29-member choir from the Royal School of Church Music Training Course for Teenage Boys and Girls (10th grade through second-year college students), directed by Murray Forbes Somerville, with Eric Plutz, organist. Among a wide range of musical offerings was the first hearing of Douglas Major's anthem Love Poem to God (text by Rainer Maria Rilke) for choir, organ and synthesizer, featuring a congregational refrain ("What will you do, God, when I die?") signaled at each return by the haunting sounds of wind chimes. The young singers rose splendidly to the not-inconsiderable challenges of this work.

It was general cause for celebration to note a goodly contingent of younger AGO members, truly the future of the organization. Frequently manning the Exhibit Hall information booth for Oberlin Conservatory, organ majors Owen Cannon (entering freshman) and David Mislin (junior) were representative of these fresh faces. It was fun to recall the past, too, as I visited with Marjorie Jackson Rasche, FAGO, whom I met in 1957 as an Oberlin sophomore at my own very first AGO convention, a regional gathering in Akron, Ohio. Here she was in Philadelphia, seated next to me at the dinner-reception given by the Guild for members holding certification (FAGO, AAGO, ChM, CAGO, SPC). And, as unlikely as it might seem after reading that collection of letters, the ample Italian menu consisted of more than alphabet soup!

Diversity! It should be apparent to those reading this report that the program offered a wide range of offerings geared to many differing tastes. As a respite from continual organ music during the morning spent in Princeton, the seven-member New England Spiritual Ensemble sang a program of African-American music, their selections chosen to illustrate James Weldon Johnson's descriptive poem O Black and Unknown Bards. (And later, in Philadelphia, on a recreative walk, I discovered the historic marker dedicated to Francis Johnson [1792-1844], "America's first native-born master of music, African-American . . . .")

Another program "sorbet," though not on my schedule, was a concert by the Renaissance band Piffaro, early ensemble music sandwiched between carillon selections played by Lisa Lonie at St. Thomas Church, Whitemarsh, in Fort Washington.

The many Philadelphia connections between artists, pieces, and instruments (some of them noted in the remarks above) were appreciated. (Chairman Elwell and performance chair David Furniss are to be commended for this further felicity!) The plethora of faculty, students, and former students from the Curtis Institute of Music, in particular, made it apparent how very important this place of higher learning has been to the musical scene in Philadelphia and throughout the nation.

Another appreciated "first" at this meeting was the program book mention of the maintenance persons or firm responsible for upkeep and tuning of each convention organ.

Now that the 46th national convention of the American Guild of Organists has passed into history, might I suggest that, in order to secure the continued blessings of posterity, some of the expected profits generated by such a large attendance be set aside to endow an air conditioning assistance fund, with generous grants to the next east coast venue selected as host for a mid-summer convention? After all, who knows? There might not be any free paper fans, the next time around!

                  *Thanks to Dallas colleague Annette Albrecht, who served as my surrogate ears for Robert Plimpton’s recital.

                  Photographs by William Leazer (of the Dallas AGO Chapter).