In the wind...

John Bishop takes on Facebook and wonders how it applies to organists

Facebooking the music

Fifty years ago when television was a fledgling technology, it was touted as a great educational tool. That has proven true to some extent, but I wonder how many of us think that education is the primary function of television. If you took away all the sports, movies, crime dramas, sitcoms, reality shows, and talk shows, you’d be left with the Home Shopping Network and children’s television. Children’s television, carefully filtered, is not far from the only programming that’s specifically intended as educational. Even PBS nature programming has evolved into “blood and guts” television. What used to be beautifully photographed documentaries about tree frogs has become action-terror shows about sharks, crocodiles, and volcanoes with that macho-tension-danger tone of narration. What if some future inter-stellar traveler used a week of television programming to sum up modern American civilization? He would miss the pipe organ altogether.

The origins of Facebook are pretty fuzzy, especially because there are ongoing disputes about who actually came up with the idea and who stole what from whom. But it’s clear enough that one of the early iterations called Facesmash included a trick where photos of two Harvard students showed on your screen and you would vote for which was more attractive. I think I read that Facesmash founder Mark Zuckerberg set this up because he was annoyed when a girl jilted him. This did not fly well at politically correct Harvard University and Zuckerberg was called up in front of the disciplinary board. 

All this implies that Facebook wasn’t founded on high moral principles, but it sure is a medium that is missing its potential by a wide margin. When Facebook started getting popular, I was aware that members of my family were making posts about having the sniffles, or changing brands of toothpaste, and I was easily able to stay clear. But once while I was out of town sharing a nice dinner with a colleague, he talked at some length about how much he enjoyed keeping in touch with what’s going on in the organ business by “Facebooking” with his friends. He showed me how friends were sharing ideas, posting photos of organ installations, and generally carrying on the kind of trade chatter that I love.

I joined. I made it clear to family members that I intended to keep my presence on Facebook professional, and now I have about eight hundred friends, most of whom are organ professionals. Even so, you’ll not be surprised to hear that plenty of my professional friends make unprofessional posts. One guy who posts frequently seems to have nothing to say other than, “Good morning. Got my coffee.” Another friend posts photos of his cats virtually every day. Nice cats, but I get it already. And really, friends, photos of fancy cocktails and beautiful restaurant meals have a way of looking alike. I wonder how long it will take Internet engineers to develop the ability to transmit smells?

Here’s a little lecture, for what it’s worth. When you post something on Facebook, remember that anyone can read it. So choir directors, never post yourself whining about volunteer choir members. Your success as a church musician depends on your ability to recruit, nurture, and maintain volunteer singers. Imagine how dear Mabel, who sings so loud and so flat, is going to feel if she reads you complaining about having to work with her. You’re being paid to do that work. She is giving of her discretionary time for the privilege of singing under your direction as part of her worship experience. Accept that as flattery and work it out.

And organbuilders, never post yourself whining about your clients. If you care at all about your professional future, remind yourself how precious is the client that chooses a pipe organ when so many alternatives are available. We used to take them granted—there would always be organs to build. That’s not the case anymore, and we must recruit, nurture, and maintain our clients. If you feel you have to complain, do it in private.

Why are we doing this, anyway?

Several of my (Facebook) friends stand out because their posts are so constructive, informative, and celebratory. Neal Campbell is director of music and organist at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Darien, Connecticut, and is editor of the newsletter of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. He is a wonderful historian, especially regarding church music in New York. He posts frequently on Facebook, sharing photos and information about those organists whose names we all know, and about whom we know nothing. He also sets a standard for how to post about a volunteer choir—sharing his pleasure with the choristers he works with. Neal’s posts are thoughtful, charming, informative, and encouraging. If I were a parishioner at St. Luke’s, Neal’s tone on Facebook might just inspire me to join the choir. It’s obviously the place to be.

Walden Moore is another Connecticut Episcopal organist who uses Facebook wonderfully. He has served Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven for nearly thirty years. He has a long history of mentoring distinguished assistant organists and organ scholars (I suppose I would too if my neighbor were the Yale Institute of Sacred Music—quite a talent pool!), and he leads three wonderful choirs in a beautiful building with a marvelous organ. Walden is a regular on my Facebook page, and his posts reflect the joy of playing the organ, working with choirs, and working with a raft of brilliant musicians. Plenty of the photos he posts show restaurant tables, but it’s not primarily about the food. What stands out is that everyone in each photo is smiling or laughing. Now that’s church music!

Yesterday I saw this post from the mother of boys who sing under Walden’s direction: 

‘Believe in yourself. Believe in yourself as much as I believe in you.’—Mr. Moore to his choirboys at rehearsal tonight as they wrestled with a rhythmically thorny passage in a Distler piece. This is why my boys sing in choirs; would that every child could have this opportunity.

You go, Walden. More of that kind of thinking, and choir practice will take precedence over soccer. If everyone used Facebook like that, the world would be a better place.

It’s not just any wind

Recently, Walden posted photos of the two organ blowers in Marquand Chapel at Yale—one for the Skinner organ, the other for Taylor & Boody. Here’s what he said to accompany those photos:

Looking forward to the first class meeting of Liturgical Keyboard Skills tomorrow. Here are two almost never-seen views of the blowers for Marquand’s two equally fine and beautiful organs, built by Ernest M. Skinner and Taylor & Boody. The two blowers pictured, just like the organs, are as different as they could be, but the difference in the wind provided is not reflected by the impact of the two organs in the chapel space. Both lead in the way in which they were designed, and each is a fine representation of the builder’s art.

A tidbit like this is food for thought. Look at these two photos and note the differences between the two machines. One is modern, sleek, and compact, and ironically enough, provides the wind for a new organ based on ancient principles. The other is a “Spencer Orgoblo,” the workhorse of the twentieth-century electro-pneumatic organ. You can easily find the specifications of the two organs online. They are similar in size, at least in number of stops. The Taylor & Boody organ has more pipes, but I bet the Skinner weighs more!

One organ has sub-semitones on all three keyboards. One has two separate expression enclosures. One has lots of pistons, one has three big wedge-shaped reservoirs that can be pumped by foot power. One is in a chamber with curtains and a discreet façade, the other is in a free-standing case built of hardwood, opulently decorated with carvings and gold leaf. In tonal structure, philosophy, intent, and mechanical systems, the two instruments could hardly be more different, but they are both pipe organs, and they share the same air space. And that same air runs through the two blowers into the wildly different mechanical entities, producing as wide a variety of tone colors as you’ll ever hear on six keyboards. (Curt Mangel and Peter Conte, you stay out of it!)

I love wind. I’ve written about it frequently in these pages. I chose the title of this column because of the organ’s dependency on wind, and because, as Bob Dylan told us in his 1962 song, “The answer is blowing in the wind” is an enigmatic phrase that means either the answer is so obvious that you’re a fool if you don’t get it, or it’s as free-flowing and omni-directional as the wind. “In the wind” is the equivalent of “the grapevine”—a vehicle for the exchange of ideas and/or the proliferation of gossip.

By the way, “Blowin’ in the Wind” is number 14, and “Heard It through the Grapevine” is number 80 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Funny, I looked up the list and didn’t find a single one of Schubert’s 600. Surely “Der Erlkönig” should have made it. And what about “I Got Rhythm?” All time greatest? How are we defining a song? Dylan gets all the way through his song singing only eight different notes. And I could name that tune in one note.

I think of wind in two different ways. There is the wind I know I cannot control, and the wind I think I can control. We live on a tidal shore and the “sea breeze” is a favorite of mine. This is not just a wind that blows by the sea. It’s a specific phenomenon caused by the warm afternoon sun heating up the land mass faster than the ocean’s surface. The warm air rises off the land, and the cooler air rushes in off the ocean to take its place. It blows up the river and right through our house, and it’s the most refreshing atmosphere ever. The only way I can control that wind is by opening and closing certain doors, causing it to turn at the end of the back hall and blow into the garage, which is my workshop. Wonderful.

In that workshop, I do all kinds of things that make me think I can control wind. I build windlines, releather windchests, and replace gaskets. I releather reservoirs—those ingenious devices that receive and store air pressure generated by the organ blower, regulate it to a specific intentional level of pressure, and then distribute it to the organ’s pipes as the player demands air by playing notes that open valves. I can claim to be in control of that wind, but it’s pretty crafty, always trying to escape and rejoin the rest of its free-spinning family. We call that “wind leaks.”

Here’s a tiny organ blower that’s been on a shelf in my workshop for several years. In the trade, we call this a “pancake” blower because of its horizontal orientation. It’s what you might find in a portable continuo organ, and it would be adequate for a gentle Positiv organ of six stops or less. But it would not provide enough pressure and volume of air for even one Skinner Diapason.

And here is the huge blowing plant for the mighty organ at Woolsey Hall at Yale University, training ground for all those organ scholars at Trinity Church on the Green. These beautiful specialized machines provide all the wind pressure for nearly two hundred ranks of heavy-duty Skinner pipes, including a fleet of thirty-twos. These two machines are redundant—if one quits, the other takes up the charge. They are each 20-horsepower motors that run on 440 volts of direct current. They have two pressure outputs regulated to 12 inches and 27 inches of wind pressure. Joe Dzeda, one of the curators of this wonderful organ, tells me that they run at 900 rpm, were built in 1915 and 1916, and are among the oldest electric motors in the State of Connecticut. Anyone who has been around the students at Yale knows this is a workhorse organ—the blowers are running between 40 and 50 hours each week!

The look of the sound

Look across a modern symphony orchestra and see how many different ways moving pressurized air can be turned into musical tone. The trumpet and the bass tuba are similar in tone production even though their physical sizes are so different. Because the tone is produced by physical “mechanical” vibration (the players’ bi-labial fricative), they are roughly analogous to the reed voices in a pipe organ. The double reeds (oboe, bassoon, English horn) all act the same way, as do the single reeds (clarinet, basset horn, and saxophone). In the orchestra, the only wind instruments that do not have a physical moving part to create the tone are the flutes and piccolos. There, the player directs a carefully produced and aimed column of air across a tiny hole.

Over centuries of experimentation and development, organ builders have created a wide range of tonal colors by manipulating wind through vessels of different sizes, shapes, and construction. Assume an open organ pipe two feet long, which is middle C of an eight-foot stop. It might be the diameter of my thumb (a narrow-scale string like Viole d’Orchestre) or the diameter of a thistle-seed birdfeeder (a broad diapason). It might be made of wood or metal. It might have a narrow mouth (2/9 of the circumference)—imagine the embouchure of the flautist—or it might have a wide mouth. Years ago, a mentor gave me the clear image of air as fuel. In your car, stepping on the throttle (gas pedal) sends more fuel to the engine’s cylinders. In an organ, a wider mouth, a deeper windway, a larger toe-hole all send more fuel to the pipe’s “engine”—the upper lip of the mouth that splits the windsheet creating the vibration that generates the tone. Choosing which of these functions should send more air is at the discretion of the tonal designer or the voicer.

An organ pipe can be tapered, wider at the mouth, narrow at the top (Spitz Flute, Gemshorn) or tapered the other way, wider at the top (Dolcan—an unusual stop). And then—put a stopper in the pipe, cut its length in half, and you have the wide world of Gedeckts, Stopped Diapasons, and Bourdons. In these, a one-foot pipe gives you middle C of that eight-foot stop, and they can be either metal or wood. Drill a hole in the cap of a metal Gedeckt, solder a little tube to it and you have a Chimney Flute or Rohrflöte. I like to think that drilling that hole sets the quint free (22⁄3′ harmonic)—that’s what gives the lyrical brightness to a Chimney Flute.

I think an important test of the tonal content of an organ is to compare eight-foot flutes. A big organ might have five or six of them. Sort out which are stopped flutes and which are open, and play the same passage on each. If they are all different, individual voices, the tonal designer and voicer have done their jobs. It’s surprising how all the flutes sound alike in some large, and otherwise good organs. The wonderful Hook & Hastings organ at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Boston, now dismantled and stored because the church closed, stood out for me as an instrument with a wide—even wild—variety of flute tone.

Let’s go back to those two blowers at Marquand Chapel. Any organbuilder would be able to tell which blower belongs to which organ by listening to a couple measures played on each instrument, or simply by looking at photos of the organs and the blowers. The type and style of the blower is analogous to the type and style of the organ. And any organbuilder could compare photos of ranks of pipes with their sounds. If you look at a Gedeckt pipe and choose the sound of a Diapason, you’re
no organbuilder!

The wide variety of shapes and types of organ pipes means that one blower can draw air from its surroundings, blow it into the organ, and allow the organist to blend sounds like the old-master painter chose and blended colors. I suppose when you were starting out with organ lessons your teacher may have given you rules about how to choose stops. Here’s one I remember, don’t put a four-foot Flute above an eight-foot Principal. Almost fifty years later I ask, why not? If it sounds good to me, maybe the listeners will like it too.

Or will I read a Facebook whine that says, “I heard Bishop play last night and wouldn’t you know, he used a four-foot Flute above an eight-foot Principal.”

By the way, if you’re lurking about on Facebook, take a look at Andrew Gingery’s page. Andrew is a longtime member of the staff at C. B. Fisk, Inc. They’re installing a new blue organ in Japan. And while you’re at it, visit John Pike Mander of Mander Organs in the UK—he’s installing a new organ at the Anglican Cathedral in Kobe, Japan. Take their cues about what Facebook can be, and stop whining. Wonderful. 

Siedle Organ Company, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Queen of the World Church, St. Marys, Pennsylvania

On Preserving a Dream

When Lois Knell called, she enquired whether I might be interested in a home organ. She planned to move from her home in Mt. Washington, a neighborhood overlooking downtown Pittsburgh, having lived there with her husband of 46 years. Her husband Herman (“Herky”) Knell had owned a bakery there, and had spent his days providing for his family as a baker. He had spent his spare time on a home organ, and now that he had passed on, his wife hoped to find a new home for his labor of love.

Siedle Organ Company, a family-owned business passed from father to son, has built, restored, and serviced pipe organs in Pittsburgh and the surrounding tri-state area for the past 70 years. Many of the family are involved, including Mom (age 85), sisters, and nephews.

We receive many calls like this one. I expected to find an old-fashioned reed organ, a small electronic, or even a small self-contained organ of several ranks. So I was shocked to see Mrs. Knell’s home, lovingly filled with music from end to end. A Steinway concert grand was along the length of the long living room, and sheaves of music were spread across the music rack. Capping the other end of the room was an alcove built to house the console of their “home organ”—a threemanual Hillgreen, Lane console. Behind it was the first chamber, housing seven Choir ranks; below this floorless room was a second chamber containing eight Great ranks, and beyond that, extending into the basement, was the Swell chamber—another eight ranks. The Pedal stops and blower room extended out into the garage.

Mr. Knell had taken this project very seriously, and built his house on the Mount with the intent of having a pipe organ of this size. Mrs. Knell had been the organist at First Baptist Church in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and Mr. Knell had been the choir director. Their mutual love of the organ, and its influence in their lives, made their home the natural place for an undertaking of this scope.

The bulk of the organ was Hillgreen, Lane, circa 1942. Much of the organ came from Mount Pisgah Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, and was removed and re-installed by Mr. Knell. Other parts were accumulated from various organs that fell into disuse, and had crossed the path of this dedicated collector. This instrument was a true labor of love, and Mrs. Knell now wanted to see it find a new home. Could we help her?

As do so many other small builders, we have an extensive inventory of used parts, and could easily have passed on a removal of this size. But this seemed to be too sad an end to another organ man’s dream. Yes, we would help.

At nearly the same time, a second request came from Trinity Lutheran Church in DuBois, Pennsylvania. The church had closed and the building was for sale; a prospective buyer asked that the pipe organ be removed before closing on the property. We replied that, given a little time, a home might be found for the whole instrument, a two-manual Möller with 14 ranks, built in 1926. It had been re-leathered and had held up very well in DuBois.

A local musician, Steven Paul Toney, whom we had helped to do extensive work on the Hook & Hastings organ in his own church, St. Catherine of Siena in DuBois, had taken the position of music minister at Queen of the World Church in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. He had played the organ at Trinity Lutheran and hoped that Father Ferrick, his pastor at Queen of the World, would consider a pipe organ fitted to the empty balcony above the sanctuary. This Möller seemed to be an ideal start; but the potential space on the balcony would allow for much more variety and color. With the help of the finance committee, directed by business manager Joe Kim, the church approved the project.

And so Mr. and Mrs. Knell’s pipe organ found a home. The instrument’s console was expertly rehabilitated by Joe Humpe, of Richmond, Ohio, and was fitted with Peterson ICS 4000 solid-state system and Peterson drawknobs. He suggested a 16′ wooden Principal, and helped us to find one that fit in the center of the balcony; he built a Zimbelstern for the organ as well.

Chambers were built, without blocking view of the central crucifix and two circular stained glass windows. Ranks that supplemented the original Möller ranks came from among the Knells’ pipes. Mixture III, 22⁄3′ Twelfth, Open Diapason, and 2′ Fifteenth were added to the Great. An 8′ Trumpet was added to the Swell, and the additions to the Choir included the Sesquialtera, 8′ Viol, 8′ Voix Celeste, and 8′ Trompette. The finished project comprised twenty-eight ranks, and was dedicated on November 11, 2012. 

The organ that came to be at Queen of the World Church in St. Marys, Pennylvania, honors our dad, William R. Siedle, who spent his years as a small builder devoted to designing, building, and maintaining instruments in many small churches throughout western Pennsylvania. It honors the people of Queen the World Parish, with an instrument of power and lasting beauty, and the people of Trinity Lutheran, who so wished their organ not to be discarded. It also honors the Knells, whose labor of love lives on in music, and it honors us to have been able to participate in such a collaboration. We thank every one of those mentioned here for their help.

—Bill Siedle and Ruth Siedle Gentile

A church musician’s perspective on the Boston Marathon bombings

On April 15th, tragedy marred the famed Boston Marathon when two bombs went off at the finish line. Three people were killed and 260 persons injured. Over the next week the nation was transfixed by news of the investigation and manhunt that culminated in the unprecedented lock-down of a major metropolitan area. Many still struggle to make sense of these terrible events. Richard Webster, director of music and organist of Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, ran the Boston Marathon, completing the race moments before the blasts. His story provides a compelling context for how church musicians can respond to disaster with hope. 

Jason Overall: What is your background as a runner?

Richard Webster: I started running around 1980 when I quit smoking. At first I couldn’t run around the block without collapsing in a heap, but I found running to be a cleansing distraction from nicotine craving. Eventually, regular running became a habit. I completed my first marathon in 1995 at age 43. I had read a book on marathon training and followed its instructions. As race day approached, I was not overly confident that I could run 26 miles, but I did it. Crossing the finish line was like walking through the gates of heaven. I was hooked. The race I ran this year in Boston was my 25th marathon. With adequate training, anyone can run a marathon. Runners come in all shapes and sizes. 

How often do you run marathons?

Usually two a year—Chicago in October and Boston in April. I run Chicago in order to qualify for Boston, an elite race open to those who have run a previous marathon under a certain time, based on your age. I turned 60 just prior to the 2012 Chicago race, which meant that my qualifying time for Boston went up by 10 minutes. As my husband says, “you don’t have to get faster, just older.” 

Have you found a spiritual dimension to running?

Absolutely. I empathize with those who call the great outdoors their “church.” Being in the glory of nature, even on a bad day, doing what God designed your body to do, is hard to top. If your body is the “temple of the Holy Spirit,” then exercise of any kind is basic housekeeping. There is a deep spiritual component to running. As Eric Liddel said in his Chariots of Fire sermon, “When I run, I feel God’s pleasure.” For me, running is meditation. As a composer, some of my best ideas result from a long run when the mind is receptive, empty. I never run with music, earbuds, or paraphernalia. I love the silence. My footfalls and the wind in my ears are music enough. 

What is a typical weekly schedule for your running?

I would love to run daily, but a church musician’s schedule is so wonky that some days it just doesn’t happen. If I put it in my calendar, like a rehearsal, then I’m more likely to do it. I try to run four to six times a week. A day or two off each week is good. Your body needs to rest, repair and restore itself. In the months leading up to a marathon, one long run a week (8 to 20 miles) is key.

Are there parallels between running and musicianship? Has your musicianship benefitted from running?

Exercise, especially the aerobic kind, increases blood flow. More blood through the brain improves concentration, something vital to musicians. Running has increased my stamina in general. This week I’ve been directing the Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys in recording sessions for a new CD. I stand for hours, waving my arms, doing all I can to help this fine choir achieve its best. I don’t tire. Being a distance runner steels you. It gives you endurance.

What were your expectations before this year’s Boston Marathon?

The best day of the entire year in Boston is Patriots’ Day, the third Monday in April, commemorating Boston’s role as the cradle of the Revolution. It’s the day of the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most prestigious marathon, something our city is rightly proud of. As a state holiday, businesses and schools are closed. Everyone has the day off. From the starting line in Hopkinton to the finish line in Copley Square, throngs turns out to cheer the runners and enjoy the race. It’s a 26-mile long party. On Patriots’ Day Boston truly becomes that “city on a hill” for all the world to see. The energy, enthusiasm and electricity flowing back and forth between the runners and the fans is hard to describe. It’s like really good church. I find it to be incredibly spiritual.

I usually run marathons in costume. It’s more fun and it jazzes up the fans. Kids particularly love it. I’ve run as the Easter Bunny, Paul Revere, Abraham Lincoln (in 2009 for his 200th birthday), Robin, J. S. Bach (to raise funds for the Bach Week Festival in Chicago), Robin Hood, Cat in the Hat, and a bumble bee. This year, to raise funds for the Trinity Boston Foundation, we held a costume contest. “See Richard run . . . as an Angry Bird, the Pope, or Prince William.” Votes were cast by making contributions to the Foundation. Prince William won handily. The costume was handsome—a red military jacket and sash, à la Prince William on his wedding day. I had a framed photo of Kate Middleton dangling from my neck and wore a big crown so fans could see me coming. All in all, it was a heady mix of fun, adrenaline, and enthusiasm, and for a worthy cause.

Did you have any goals?

No. Unlike Chicago, which is a flat course, Boston is notoriously hilly. Heartbreak Hill is only one of many “ups and downs” in this race. A “personal best” in Boston is as elusive as the Holy Grail. I’m always happy just to finish. Last year’s race, when it was 88 degrees, I ran in 4:30. This year I lopped off nearly a half hour, finishing in 4:03. 

Runners, especially marathoners, rely on their fans to help get them through the race. I knew I’d see one of my choir members at Mile 11 in Natick. She was there with a banana, a swig of water and a hug. Mile 13 is the “Wellesley gauntlet,” with thousands of Wellesley College women hanging over the police barricade screaming and begging for kisses from runners. So inspiring. So fun. At Mile 19 a group of Trinity choir folks awaited me, near the beginning of Heartbreak Hill. One of my tenors jumped into the race. For the next two miles, he ran with me, sticking by my side until we had crested Heartbreak Hill. Thanks to Mark, I forgot about the agony of those two relentlessly uphill miles. A gaggle of friends had gathered at Coolidge Corner, Mile 23.5, cameras and iPhones poised. Their wild cheering jazzed me up so much that I ran the rest of the race. Usually the agony of the last 3–4 miles is so acute that I can’t run continuously. It’s more a mix of running, walking, and hobbling. Lots of runners resort to this toward the end. For me, this time was different. My Mile 26 was the second fastest mile of the entire race. Inexplicably, I just kept running and crossed the finish line several minutes before I should have. Was it the Holy Spirit? Coincidence? The fans? The costume? I don’t know. 

Did you have friends waiting for you at the finish line?

I did, but I didn’t know it. Just after finishing, I spotted one of my choristers and her father in the crowd in front of Old South Church. I went over to the barricade for a quick hug and chat. Soon after leaving them, the first explosion went off a half block away. I will never forget how loud it was. It doesn’t surprise me that some who were close to the blast suffered hearing damage. At this point you think, “Is this a stunt? Fireworks? Something electrical?” Utter bewilderment. When the second blast struck, further down Boylston Street, you knew something was terribly wrong. Suddenly, chaos was everywhere. Sirens. Medical personnel careening toward the scene with stretchers. Emergency vehicles appearing out of nowhere. Choirs of sirens. Race volunteers moving the finishers away from the scene. A cluster of us were standing around trying to figure out what was going on when another runner who had just crossed the finish line, his forehead bloody, staggered up to us. Choking on his words, he said, “I can’t believe I saw limbs lying in the street.” We began to cry. How could this be happening? As this group of strangers wept, race volunteers surrounded us, asking, “How can we help? Can we call a relative for you?” That was futile, of course. Cell phone service was completely down. In the face of evil, the impulse is to overwhelm it with kindness and compassion. People were desperate to find a way to help, to bring relief to the suffering. In the weeks following, this response did not abate. Boston has felt like the Kingdom of God. Goodness, gentleness, and generosity are everywhere. Traffic is less aggressive; crowding onto a rush hour subway more deferential. Our city responded by saying, “The last word will not be evil, but kindness and mercy.” 

Some days later, the same chorister and her father with whom I had spoken at the finish line on race day said to me, “You saved our lives. We had been standing where the first bomb went off, waiting to see you finish. When you crossed the finish line, we left to go find you. Had you not finished when you did, we would have still been standing at that spot.”

How do you make sense of that? Maybe God gave me what it took to run faster than usual in order to spare their lives. But what about those who were not spared? These are hard spiritual questions with no facile answers.

What elements of your spirituality or musicality have nourished you during this time?

It has been a difficult time at Trinity. Our church is near the finish line. For ten days, the Copley Square area was closed as a crime scene. No one could get near the church. We were in exile. Where would we worship the following Sunday? The Church of the Advent graciously invited us to join them. Liturgically, our two churches are famously different. The two congregations worshipping together would have been something to behold. Temple Israel also reached out to us, offering their beautiful, modern building in the Longwood Medical area. “Come and hold your services here,” they invited. Not only did these kind people open up their building, they demonstrated radical hospitality, laying on coffee hour, serving as ushers, directing us to the restrooms. The chief Rabbi publicly welcomed us. We celebrated the Eucharist before the Torah ark in the Jewish temple. Who would ever have thought? Their only request was that we not bring crosses into the building. Roughly 900 people worshipped in a space as un-Richardsonian Romanesque as one could imagine. With a choir of eighty, a grand piano and flute, we were good to go. There was a lightness, grace, and holiness to it all. The congregation belted the hymns as never before, much to the amazement of the Jews, who blogged about “how those Christians really sing!” No one there will ever forget that service. The psalm appointed for Good Shepherd Sunday was Psalm 23. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.” What more needs to be said?

The Trinity choirs have been a unifying thread through these trials. The day after the attacks, a choir dad e-mailed, “My daughter insists that the Choristers go ahead with rehearsal today. She is adamant that they be together. If they can’t go to Trinity, then why not rehearse at Mr. Webster’s house?” A 10-year old gets it. When you’re the choir, you come together to do your job. You have a mission. Two days after the bombings, with the church still closed, our Wednesday Evensong morphed into an open-air service at the police barricade two blocks from the church. Colin Lynch led the choir, and clergy offered prayers for the healing of our city. Though our church building was closed, the community of faith carried on. Trinity finally reopened the following Wednesday. The first public service was Evensong with the Choristers. TV cameras rolled. It was another step in a painful, uncharted, redemptive journey that no one could have foreseen. 

At a time like this clichés are helpful because they convey truth. Life is precious. Life is a gift. It can be taken away or altered in an instant. Thank God for it every day, and tell those you love that you love them. Tell them often.

You express yourself so eloquently through your compositions. Can you envision responding to these events through your music?

I don’t know yet. Here’s another irony. The day before the race was a Sunday, known in Boston as Marathon Sunday. It’s a big day in the city churches, with scores of out-of-town runners on hand. At Trinity we bless the athletes during the services. I had composed a new anthem, Have you not known? Have you not heard? based on Isaiah 40, to be premiered that day. The text includes, “They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.” It had been commissioned by Stephen J. Hendrickson, a parishioner whose partner, David McCord, was about to run his first marathon. The energetic music weaves in the famous theme from Chariots of Fire. The Trinity Choir gave it a rousing first performance. Given the following day’s events, the piece has acquired a particular poignancy.

Are there other aspects of this that you would like to share?

There is no doubt that evil exists. We saw it in twelve horrifying seconds in Boston. But evil is everywhere, every day. Though there was injury and death on Patriots’ Day, there is violence in the streets of Boston, Chicago, Baghdad, and Damascus every day. We who claim the faith of Jesus are called to respond to the world’s brokenness passionately, with courage, mercy, and healing. 

Richard Webster, FRSCM, is director of music and organist at Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston. He is also music director of Chicago’s Bach Week Festival, and president of Advent Press (www.advent-press.com).

The high cost of beauty

When the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922, the world went agog over the dazzling beauty of the artifacts that had been hidden since his death some 3,300 years earlier. There were large pieces of gilded furniture, ornate masks, jewelry, and lots of hieroglyphics and paintings. The level of craftsmanship was bewildering, given the degree of antiquity. Other members of Egyptian royalty were buried in similarly grand circumstances, in tombs located under the great pyramids. And who built the pyramids? Slaves.

Big-time personal money always has and always will be part of the arts world. If there had been no Medici dynasty, we wouldn’t have had Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, and Donatello, to name just a few. How did the Medici make their money? They were bankers, the wealthiest family in Europe. They parlayed their wealth into political influence, and many family members became important politicians. The family even produced four popes in the sixteenth century. If that implies it was possible to purchase a papacy, I’m surprised that Silvio Berlusconi didn’t try it. A family tree I found online shows more than twenty generations of Medici between 1360 and about 1725. 

We’ve learned a lot about the ethics of banking and investment in recent years, where executives use their clients’ money to leverage their own fortunes, bring down institutions, and go home with bonuses that equal the annual wages of hundreds of normal workers. I’m not setting about a researched dissertation on the source of the Medici’s money, but I’m willing to bet that much of it came at the expense of others.

Heavy metal

The Carnegie Steel Company was one of the country’s first major producers of steel, and in the late 1880s and early 1890s, it developed important improvements in the manufacturing process, including open-hearth smelting and installation of advanced material handling systems like overhead cranes and hoists. The result was higher production levels using increasingly less skilled labor, and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers struck against the Homestead Steel Works. There were various waves of strikes, and at first the union prevailed. 

Henry Clay Frick ran the Carnegie Steel Company for his eponymous partner. He announced on April 30, 1892, that he would keep negotiations open with the union for thirty days, and on June 29, he locked down the plant and the union announced a strike. Frick engaged the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to provide security, and more than three hundred armed Pinkerton agents were involved in bloody battles with striking workers. The Pinkerton force surrendered, and the governor sent in the State Militia and declared martial law. There was a failed assassination attempt against Frick. The union was broken and collapsed about ten years later. 

It was important to Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick to beat down the union because they had their lifestyles to maintain. Carnegie built a majestic home on Fifth Avenue at 91st Street in New York (now the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum) in which he installed a large Aeolian pipe organ. He paid about $65,000 for the organ at the time when workers in the Aeolian factory earned about $600 a year. Hmmm. The organ cost as much as the annual wages of more than a hundred workers. Not as bad as King Tut, but sounds about right.

Henry Clay Frick installed a large Aeolian in his gracious home on Fifth Avenue at 70th Street (now housing the Frick Collection, commonly known as “The Frick”). These guys really knew how to build houses. Hank and Andy must have warmed each other’s hearts living just twenty blocks apart—an easy twenty-minute walk, just long enough to smoke a hundred-dollar cigar (six weeks for that Aeolian worker). Frick also built a tremendous Aeolian in his summer home at Manchester-by-the-Sea in Massachusetts and gave a four-manual job to Princeton University. That’s four big pipe organs built on the backs of striking steel workers.

Three years before the Homestead Strike, Andrew Carnegie paid about $1,000,000 to buy the land and construct the venerable Manhattan concert hall that bears his name. The place was owned by the Carnegie family until 1925 when they sold it to a real estate developer.

I’m giving Mr. Carnegie a hard time, because at least some of his business practices were mighty ruthless, and the mind-boggling wealth that he accumulated was not a reflection on his largess. But it’s important to remember that he was also an important philanthropist and the foundation that was founded on his fortune is still a major source of grants for all sorts of educational programs, scientific research, and artistic endeavors. Visit the website at www.carnegie.org.

I served a church in Cleveland as music director for about ten years, where a four-manual Austin was installed as a gift from the Carnegie Foundation in 1917. The Bach scholar Albert Riemenschneider of Baldwin-Wallace College was organist there when the instrument was installed—the perfect organ for a performance of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein.

Among many other projects, Andrew Carnegie and the Carnegie Foundation installed more than 8,800 pipe organs in America’s churches and founded more than 2,500 public libraries. That’s important.

Moving musical chairs.

On Thursday, October 3, 2013, Wendy and I attended a concert of the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall to hear Stephen Tharp play the Symphony for Organ and Orchestra of Aaron Copland. Until about three o’clock that afternoon it was doubtful that the concert would happen because Carnegie Hall’s stagehands had struck the night before, causing the cancellation of the concert on October 2. They were striking over the rules for soon-to-be-opened educational spaces above the hall, claiming that they should have the same jurisdiction as in the great hall itself. Carnegie Hall’s management took the position that as it would be an educational venue, Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees should not have such control. It’s probably not this simple, but should Theatrical Stage people control educational spaces?

The New York Times reported that Carnegie Hall employs five full-time stagehands with average annual compensations of more than $400,000 a year, with additional part-time union members brought in as needed. I know a lot of organbuilders who would make great stagehands, and Wendy was quick to say that I missed my calling.

The strike was settled in time for us to hear Stephen play with the American Symphony Orchestra. The New York Times reported that the union backed off, as it seemed ridiculous to almost anyone that a teenaged music student would not be allowed to move a music stand. You can read about that strike in the New York Times at: www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/arts/music/carnegie-hall-and-stagehands-sett….

It’s an exquisite irony that the October 2 concert cancelled because of the strike was to be a gala celebratory fundraiser for the Philadelphia Orchestra, recently revitalized after years of labor disputes. Yannick Nézet-Séguin was to open his second season as music director in what was billed as the triumphant return of that great orchestra to its role as a national leader.

Vänskä-daddle

On October 3, 2013, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Osmo Vänskä had resigned from his position as music director of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. His action was anticipated. The musicians had been locked out by the Board of Directors for more than a year in a dispute that pitted the player’s requests for salary increases against the board’s decision to spend $52,000,000 renovating the concert hall while claiming there were no funds to increase salaries.

The orchestra had long planned to play a series of concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York during the fall of 2013. Ironically, Vänskä was widely celebrated for having brought the MSO into new prominence with several seasons of brilliant performances and celebrated recordings, and the Carnegie Hall concerts were to celebrate the MSO’s bursting into the upper echelons of American symphony orchestras. Vänskä had announced that the dispute must be settled so rehearsals for those concerts could begin on September 30. If not, he would resign. It wasn’t, and he did. Former Senator George Mitchell, famous for negotiating settlements of disputes in Northern Ireland and steroid use in Major League Baseball, had been enlisted to help with the MSO negotiations—turned out that Northern Ireland had nothing on the MSO.

In the past several years, a number of important orchestras have suffered serious financial stress leading to labor disputes, including the orchestras in Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Indianapolis, St. Louis, and Chicago. 

Eerily, on September 30, 2013, the same drop-dead-date for Väskä’s resignation, Norman Ebrecht of ArtsJournalBlogs reported that players in one hundred German orchestras struck simultaneously to draw attention to the increasing number of orchestras closing because of dwindling government support. There were 168 orchestras in Germany at the time of reunification in 1991, and there are 131 today. It’s a big deal to lose nearly forty orchestras in twenty years.

Do the numbers.

I love to do goofy math. In the 1970s when I lived on a farm outside Oberlin, Ohio, I wondered how much corn might grow in a day. I measured a couple dozen plants in the morning, then again in the evening, and came up with an average amount of growth. I measured and multiplied to get the number of plants in an acre, then again by the number of acres on the farm. Of course I can’t remember the numbers, but I know it added up to many miles of growth in a day. You could almost hear it while lying in bed at night.

I did that recently with the economics of a symphony orchestra. I found a list online of American orchestras with the largest operating budgets. Los Angeles tops that list at $97,000,000. Boston is second at $84,000,000. I stuck with Boston because it’s home, and I got the rest of the information I needed. The BSO plays about a hundred concerts a year—that’s $840,000 each. Symphony Hall seats about 2,600 people. The average ticket price is around $75, so ticket revenue for a full house is about $195,000. That’s a shortfall of $645,000 per concert that must be made up by private and corporate donations, campaigns, bar and restaurant revenues, and heaven knows what else—if they sell out each concert. Read the program booklet of the BSO and you’ll be surprised how many of the orchestra’s chairs are “fully funded in perpetuity,” named for their donors. Three cheers for them.

I know very well that this is bogus math. There are many variables that I’ve overlooked, and doubtless many of which I am not aware—but I think it’s a reasonable off-the-cuff illustration of the challenges of large-scale music-making in modern society. You can buy a pretty snazzy new pipe organ for the $645,000 that’s missing for each BSO concert after ticket sales.

While I was surfing about looking for those numbers, I learned that the starting salary for a musician in the Boston Symphony Orchestra is about $135,000. That’s pretty good when compared to the Alabama Symphony Orchestra where the starting salary is more like $48,000. I suppose that senior members of the BSO must earn over $200,000. In the business world, concertmaster Malcolm Lowe would qualify as an Executive Vice President and head of a department—worth $250,000 or $300,000, I’d say. But not as much as a stagehand. 

I guess I’m laboring under an old-fashioned concept that the artistic content should be worth more than the support staff. Big-time stagehands are hardworking people with important jobs. It’s not just anyone who can be trusted to fling high-end harps around a stage. But how many church choir directors would like to have someone else available to set up the chairs?

If the cost of operating a symphony orchestra seems high, get a load of the Metropolitan Opera. I found an article in the New York Times published on October 1, 2011, that put the Met’s annual budget at $325,000,000, of which $182,000,000 is from private donations. The Met had just passed New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art as the arts organization with the largest budget. (Counting baseball, New York City has three Mets.)

I found a page on the Met (opera) website that listed the administrative staff, which includes the General Manager (Peter Gelb), Musical Director (James Levine), and Principal Conductor (Fabio Luisi), along with twenty-five assistant general managers, artistic management, design, production, finance, development, human resources, house management, stage directors, stage management, carpenters, electricians—a total of more than three hundred administrative employees. Add a symphony orchestra, costumes, make-up, custodians, ticket sellers, and—oh yes—singers, and you wind up with a whopping payroll.

Since I’m not a stagehand, I pretended I was going to buy one ticket online. I chose a performance of La Bohème on Saturday, March 22, 2014, at 8:00 p.m. I couldn’t choose between a seat in Row B of the Orchestra (down front, near the stage) for $300, or one in Orchestra Row U for $250. And nearly half of the operating budget is funded by donations. If you take a date and have a nice dinner and a glass of wine at intermission, that’s pretty much a thousand-dollar night, something stagehands could afford if they could get the night off.

§

The source of much of the money that has funded the arts over many centuries is questionable, and it’s especially difficult to accept how much of has been the product of slavery. But scary as that is, I’m sure glad we had the Medicis and hundreds of others like them. It would be a barren world without the art and architecture that they funded. I have to admit that when I’m standing in a museum looking at a work of art, I’m not fretting about the suffering involved in its production.

Today’s system seems more just—concert-goers buy tickets, and corporate and individual sponsors theoretically make up the rest. That works as long as costs are reasonably controlled, and donors can be kept happy. The problem with that is how it can affect programming. 

If you listen regularly to a commercial classical radio station anywhere in the country, you would be able to list society’s favorite pieces of music: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Beethoven’s 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 9th, Mozart’s 40th Symphony and 23rd Piano Concerto, Respighi’s Ancient Airs and Dances—you get the idea. Organists know how hard it is to get a bride to choose something other than the Taco-Bell Canon, or Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

Lots of serious classical music ensembles, from local choruses to major symphony orchestras, adjust their programming to please their patrons. The box office at Boston Symphony Hall has a long-standing tradition allowing people to pass on their subscription seats to friends. When James Levine came to town as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he increased dramatically the amount of contemporary music on the programs, and friends of ours who had long held great seats on the balcony above the stage asked if we wanted to take them over because they couldn’t take all the modern music. We did.

And, in a related matter, the players of the BSO made public the extra workload brought on by Levine’s energetic and imaginative programming. On March 17, 2005, the Boston Globe reported that orchestra players were concerned about longer concerts, extra rehearsals, and programming of exceptionally difficult music. You can read it online at www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/03/17/levines_pace_prove…. They cited aggravation of injuries and increased stress and negotiated with Levine to alter some of the planned programs. And the BSO Trustees created a special fund to support the cost of the extra rehearsal time. But smaller institutions with limited resources would not be able to do the same. So it’s back to the crowd-pleasing favorites at the cost of innovation.

I’ve often repeated a story about an experience Wendy and I had with artistic patronage. An exceptionally wealthy friend, now deceased, was well known in his community as a generous supporter of the arts. He lived in a city that is home to a nationally prominent repertory theater company that was mounting the premiere production of Paula Vogel’s The Long Christmas Ride Home. The play tells the story of a family’s gay son contracting AIDS, with the main dialogue happening in the family car driving home from a holiday celebration. The production was to include larger-than-life bunraku puppets that would provide the action less suited for the stage, conceived by the playwright, to be constructed by a New York-based puppeteer. Our friend was asked to fund the puppets, which were to cost nearly a hundred thousand dollars. He told us the story over dinner, saying that he hated the idea, was uncomfortable with the subject, but thought he should provide the funds because he knew it was important.

§

Recently organist David Enlow and harpist Grace Cloutier performed a recital at David’s home church, Church of the Resurrection in Manhattan, where the Organ Clearing House installed an instrument a couple years ago. At dinner after the concert, we were discussing the instruments we play, and I noted that with the exception of pianos and high-end violins, the harp is probably one of the most expensive instruments that musicians typically own privately. Organists have to rely on the institutions for which they work to provide them with an instrument to play. And they sure have gotten expensive.

I’ve always felt that a three-manual organ with forty or fifty stops is just about right for a prominent suburban church with a sanctuary seating five hundred people or more. But a first quality organ of that size will push, and easily exceed, $1,000,000. It’s pretty hard for many parishes to justify such a whopping expenditure. I grew up in the era when it was all the rage for churches to replace fifty-year-old electro-pneumatic organs with new trackers, and many organists fell into the habit of getting what they asked for. Those days are largely over, because now that we really know how to build good organs of any description, we also know what they cost! We have to remember what a big deal it is for a church to order a new instrument.

§

I’m troubled by the striking stagehands. I believe in the concept of the labor union. They were formed to confront real injustice, and in the strange and shaky state of our economy, injustices are still firmly in place. But this is a time when they’ve gone too far. That kind of labor organizing can threaten the future of live music in concert halls.

The Organ Clearing House uses Bank of America because we work all across the country, and it’s convenient to be able to get to a bank pretty much anywhere we go. But we were not bursting with pride when Time magazine reported on November 9, 2013, that the bank was to be fined $865,000,000 for mortgage fraud related to the Countrywide Financial scandal. At the same time, our bank is a Global Sponsor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Alvin Ailey Dancers, and the Metropolitan Opera HD Broadcasts in public schools. We thank them for all that.

Bank of America is also a “Season Sponsor” for Carnegie Hall, supporting the Hall’s mission “to present extraordinary music and musicians on the three stages of the legendary hall, to bring the transformative power of music to the widest possible audience, to provide visionary education programs, and to foster the future of music through the cultivation of new works, artists, and audiences,” as stated on Carnegie Hall’s website.

So the concert hall that was built on the backs of striking steel workers, whose schedule was recently interrupted by striking six-figure stagehands, is now supported largely by a bank guilty of major mortgage fraud. 

May the music keep playing. Sure hope it does. The stakes are high. 

British Organ Music Seminar

July 25–29, 2013

The ninth British Organ Music Seminar was held for four days in London, beginning on July 25. The seminar began with a train ride to Cambridge to visit the chapel of Emmanuel College, with its three-manual 1988 Kenneth Jones tracker instrument, which used the case and some of the pipework of the original Father Smith instrument of 1688. Colin Walsh, organist laureate of Lincoln Cathedral and a visiting organ teacher at the University of Cambridge, was our host. He conducted a workshop on liturgical improvisation with several reluctant volunteers followed by a session of various British organ works, performed by members of the group.

On July 26, we visited the French Church of Notre Dame de France, where we attended classes all day. The church, which serves a large French population in London, is located near Leicester Square and dates back to 1861. The organ was originally built by August Gern, who had worked with Cavaillé-Coll. It has undergone several rebuilds, most recently by B. C. Shepherd & Son in 1986. Duncan Middleton, the organiste titulaire at the church since 1989, had studied liturgical and concert improvisation in Bordeaux and Lourdes; he led us in the opening session on improvisation. In the next masterclass, participants played British organ works with John Hosking, assistant organist of St. Asaph Cathedral in Wales. In the afternoon session, Dame Gillian Weir conducted an exciting masterclass on French and German works, played by members of our group. Later in the day we attended Evensong at Westminster Abbey, which was sung by a visiting choir from Breda Cathedral in the Netherlands. Following the service, Peter Holder, organ scholar of the Abbey, talked to the group about the history of the organ and gave a demonstration of the stops. The organ was originally built in 1727 by Schrider & Jordan, with several rebuilds by William Hill in the 19th century and most recently by Harrison & Harrison. Afterwards, participants were given the chance to play the instrument. 

We then went across the street to Central Methodist Hall. The organ, with its imposing 32-foot façade, was built by Hill & Son in 1912 and was later rebuilt by Rushworth & Dreaper in 1970. A major rebuild by Harrison & Harrison in 2011 was based on the original Hill scheme. Gerard Brooks, the director of music, is associated with French repertoire and has recorded the complete works of Gigout. His class for the evening was on the organ works of Gigout (other than the well-known Dix Pièces), along with works of Saint-Saëns.

On July 27, we traveled to Peterborough Cathedral to play one of the finest William Hill organs in the country. Built in 1894, Hill, one of the two most celebrated organ builders of the nineteenth century, incorporated the existing pipework in his four-manual organ masterpiece of 86 stops. Its last restoration took place after a fire in 2001. Like other Hill instruments of this period, the organ is set considerably sharper than modern concert pitch. David Humphreys, assistant director of music of the cathedral, gave a brilliant demonstration, after which participants had ample playing time on the instrument. In the afternoon, we traveled to Cambridge for some free time, shopping in the local music store, and having afternoon tea. In the evening we attended Evensong at Ely Cathedral, followed by a demonstration of the organ by assistant organist Jonathan Lilley. The organ was first built in 1685 by Renatus Harris. Elliot and Hill installed a new organ with existing pipework in 1831, with William Hill doing restoration work in 1850. In 1908, Harrison & Harrison built a mostly new organ, using pipework from the previous instruments, with a restoration in 1974–1975 supervised by Arthur Wills, who was then the cathedral organist.

The final day of the seminar was Sunday, so participants attended services at various churches, including St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the afternoon we visited All Soul’s Langham Place, which is a familiar landmark at the end of Regent Street. In 1913, Alfred Hunter installed a new instrument in this church, replacing the original organ built by Bishop in 1824. This Hunter instrument was rebuilt and enlarged by Henry Willis III in 1951, with the most recent restoration by Harrison & Harrison in 1976. Gerard Brooks conducted a masterclass, played by the members of our group. Later in the afternoon, participants could attend recitals at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, or Westminster Cathedral. The seminar ended with a visit to Westminster Cathedral, just down the street from the abbey. It contains the Apse Organ built by T. C. Lewis prior to World War I and the Grand Organ, which is one of the two heroic instruments built by Henry Willis III, the other being the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. Peter Stevens, the assistant master of music, talked about the history of the instrument, gave a fine demonstration of the organ, and assisted participants as they played this magnificent instrument, which made a spectacular end to an eventful seminar.

—Cliff Varnon

French Organ Music Seminar

July 29–August 7, 2013

“If you listen, you will learn.” 

—Thomas LaCôte, La Trinité, Paris

Organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll listened to the sounds in his head before he started building the romantic organ. Louis Robilliard of Lyon told us that if there had been no Cavaillé-Coll, there would be no romantic organ music.

When Widor sat at the Cavaillé-Coll, he listened, and came up with ideas for his symphonies. Vierne and Guilmant listened and did the same. A stunning reminder to the organist: the dream organ came before the compositions. Here’s a dream: to travel back in time, attend a concert at the Palais du Trocadéro, and listen to the now-extinct Cavaillé-Coll as Widor conducts his Third Symphony with Vierne at the organ!

Thanks and appreciation are due to Christina Harmon, Dallas organist, teacher, and composer who led this group of American organists. Through her well-established FOMS program, we are privileged to experience the French tradition. Additional indispensable co-directors this year were Cliff Varnon and Masako Gaskin. All three worked hard to keep this group of organists, organ students, and organ lovers happy and informed. For more information and notice of future events, see www.bfoms.com. 

Participants varied from virtuosos with ever-expanding organ repertoire to lifelong students who treasure their favorite pieces and still look for interpretation ideas from close connections to the source. In addition to masterclasses, there were classes in improvisation and ample opportunities for private lessons. Our youngest organist was 15 and the oldest 83!

How fortunate for this group that there are still essentially unaltered romantic organs in existence that we are able to touch and play. The first on this trip was the Cavaillé-Coll in Lyon at St. Francois de Sales, the Widor family parish, where Charles-Marie was baptized and later first performed Symphony V.

July 29–30: Lyon and Chambéry

The perfect warm-up act to the frenzied pace of Paris was the time spent in Lyon and the Alps, organized by the organist of Chambéry Cathedral, Thibaut Duret, with the help of François Espinasse, professor of organ at the National Conservatory of Lyon. Françoise Webb, the charming French native who spent her youth in Reims, assisted with the preparations and organization. Our first day was spent with Louis Robilliard at the great Cavaillé-Coll organ of Saint-François-de-Sales. Built in 1880, it was restored in 1964 and is still in its original and unaltered state.

Time spent with François Espinasse and Thibaut Duret and two concerts on the marvelous 1847 Augustin Zeiger organ at Chambéry Cathedral allowed each of us a performance turn, followed by a third inspiring performance by our regional host Thibaut Duret. Duret is a brilliant young organist and improviser who studied with François Henry Houbart at Rueil Malmaison and with François Espinasse and Loïc Mallié at the Lyon Conservatoire, where he received a master’s degree in organ. With the Alps as backdrop, we spent Wednesday and Thursday playing the organs in St. Pierre d’Albigny, Manigod, Thônes, Grand Bornand, and Annecy. Each organ had a particular charm, and more information is available about each of them on the FOMS website (www.bfoms.com).

August 2: Dole and Dijon

On Thursday, after a 2½-hour bus ride, we arrived in Dijon. While there we played the much-restored Daublaine-Callinet organ at the Cathèdrale St. Bénigne in Dole and the particular highlight: the untouched, undusted, very much in tune 1754 Karl Riepp organ at the Collégiale Notre Dame de Dole. With a Louis XV oak case, this was the largest organ in provincial France, with 45 stops over four manuals and pedal and a 32′ Montre in the Grand-Orgue. In 1860 the 32′ Montre was moved to the pedal and in a 20th-century renovation it made its way back to the Grand-Orgue, the organ now being five manuals with 73 stops. One room on the way to the organ gallery housed a museum that traced its fascinating history.

August 3: Reims

By Saturday, August 3, we were in Reims, where we played the Cathédral Notre-Dame de Reims organ. Unfortunately, on our way that morning we received a call from Benjamin Steens, our excellent host in Reims, who told us a fire had broken out in the organ of St-Remi (Cattiaux, 2000), where we were to spend the afternoon. A visit to the famous champagne caves helped us to cope with our disappointment at not being able to play at the basilica.

August 4–7: Paris

In Paris we visited the always-amazing organ at St. Sulpice (suffering from the unusual heat of Paris in August), as well as the Cavaillé-Coll of Notre-Dame des Champs, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll’s own parish, built in 1877. This organ was extensively altered by Schwenkedel, although, fortunately, the Barker action was retained. Thanks to Cavaillé-Coll, who was on the building committee for the church, also built in 1877, the acoustics for the organ are some of the best in Paris. 

At Notre-Dame des Champs, we had stimulating masterclasses with Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin, Beatrice Piertot, and Yannick Merlin. In the masterclass with Dupré expert Cauchefer-Choplin, three participants enabled us to delve into segments of the Symphonie-Passion, the composer’s Wanamaker improvisation that he later wrote down after returning to France. Cauchefer-Choplin said Dupré loved the sound of the gambe alone because it was mysterious.

Stimulating duo-organ performances and masterclasses by upcoming organists Beatrice Piertot and Yannick Merlin also took place at this church during the week in Paris. These two brilliant young organists also helped in this year’s planning and gave classes at the beautiful, unaltered Merklin organ at the church of St. Laurent.

Daniel Roth entertained and enlightened us at St-Sulpice with historical anecdotes about the organ and stories of Franck, Widor, and Dupré that organists never tire of hearing. Cavaillé-Coll kept more than 40% of the 1781 Clicquot organ pipework, never intending to make an exclusive change to a romantic organ. In fact, Widor’s colleague Albert Schweitzer said the organ was great for baroque music. Roth clarified that the transition from Baroque to Romantic was abrupt in Germany, whereas in France, it was gradual. To see more of Roth’s mesmerizing history of French organ music and organs, you can find numerous DVDs of Roth’s St-Sulpice lectures and performances on YouTube, all produced by Christina Harmon. Better still, break down and buy the DVDs from the Organ Historical Society! 

It still takes my breath away to sit in the loft with Olivier Latry at Notre Dame during Mass. His playing for four Sunday services allowed all 29 organists and students a chance to be at the organ, complete with a console containing the latest organ technology and design.

Classes and playing time were offered by Thomas LaCôte at La Trinité (the organ of Messiaen), at Sainte-Clotilde with Nicolas Pichon, La Madeleine, with Andy Dewar at the American Cathedral, and at Notre Dame d’Auteil with Frédéric Blanc (living conduit to the music of Duruflé). LaCôte told us Messiaen liked the sound of ice and crystal, 16′ & 2′ (Messe de la Pentecôte). 

Blanc told us that Duruflé was not a man for big chords, but rather the musical line. He favored flutes and celestes. He also told us that the famous story of Duruflé not liking his Toccata was not necessarily true, but that at the time he was very tired and had composed this piece during a very stressful period in his life.

Our last day was spent with Jean-Baptiste Robin in Versailles and included a concert by him on the Clicquot organ (modified by Cavaillé-Coll) at the Versailles Cathedral, a masterclass at the church of Notre Dame des Armées of Versailles, and playing at the Royal Chapel organ of Versailles Palace. The palace organ was originally built by Robert Clicquot in 1710. After severe damage during the French Revolution it was rebuilt as a two-manual organ by Cavaillé-Coll in 1873. In 1936 it was sold to the seminary in Châteaugiron and later to St. Martin Church in Rennes, where a reconstruction was attempted by Victor Gonzalez. In 1995 a completely new instrument was made by the firms of Boisseau and Cattiaux, which not only reconstructed Robert Clicquot’s creation but also reconstructed the additions of Louis-Alexander and Francois-Henry Clicquot as well. This result was amazingly successful and stands today in the Royal Versailles Chapel as a proud tribute to Clicquot’s genius. 

As a protégé of Marie-Claire Alain, Jean-Baptiste Robin gave an intense class on Jehan Alain. Robin told us that after the trauma of World War I, artists turned to the past, and Alain was the first to go to early music, layering it with orientalism and with jazz that had been brought by Americans during the war. Alain was fascinated by the cornet, a sonority he explored extensively. Tutti, or massive sound, is seldom found in Alain’s music. Our day ended with palace organist Robin demonstrating French Classical music on the beautiful chapel organ of the palace. Participants were actually able to play the chapel organ! Robin is one of four titular organists. The others are Michel Bouvard, François Espinasse, and Frédéric Desenclos, with Michel Chapuis serving as honorary titulaire.

To be in France and therefore in the center of the vital and enduring influence of the world’s greatest organ tradition is as fascinating and transforming as ever. The spirits of Widor, Vierne, Messiaen, et al. continue to permeate the sensibilities and ethos of this beautiful part of the world through the brilliant French artists of the present. There is no more amazing experience, or better pilgrimage, for an organist. Teach us to listen, and learn…

—Helen VanAbbema Rodgers