In the Wind

At arm’s length
In recent months I’ve read three books about the violin, violinists, and luthiers: Stradivari’s Genius by Toby Faber (Random House, 2004), Violin Dreams by Arnold Steinhardt (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), and The Violin Maker by John Marchese (Harper Collins, 2007). Faber is a publisher; he traces the history of six instruments made by Antonio Stradivari. Steinhardt is the first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet, writing about his lifelong quest for the perfect instrument. Marchese is a journalist and amateur musician writing about Sam Zygmuntowicz who is a revered luthier in Brooklyn, New York, and Eugene Drucker, a violinist in the Emerson Quartet, chronicling the process of the commissioning, creation, and delivery of a splendid instrument. I recommend any and all of these as excellent reads for anyone interested in musical instruments.
There is much overlap between the three books. Each includes a pilgrimage to Cremona, the Italian city where the world’s best violins were built by generations of Guarneris, one of whom taught Stradivari, the local boy who eclipsed all others by building close to 2,000 instruments in a 70-year career, some 600 of which are still in use. Each discusses and compares theories about what makes Stradivari’s instruments stand out. Each poignantly describes the intimate relationships between the player and his instrument with rich use of sexual and romantic metaphors.
Arnold Steinhardt gets right to the point. Five pages into his book he writes,

    When I hold the violin, my left arm stretches lovingly around its neck, my right hand draws the bow across the strings like a caress, and the violin itself is tucked under my chin, a place halfway between by my brain and my beating heart.

Lovely images, aren’t they? You can daydream about how the human musician and mechanical instrument become one. The organist and organbuilder in me delves into the possibilities. But wait! Steinhardt’s next sentence puts me in exile:

    Instruments that are played at arm’s length—the piano, the bassoon, the tympani—have a certain reserve built into the relationship. Touch me, hold me if you must, but don’t get too close, they seem to say.

He completes the exclusion:

    To play the violin, however, I must stroke its strings and embrace a delicate body with ample curves and a scroll like a perfect hairdo fresh from the beauty salon. This creature sings ardently to me day after day, year after year, as I embrace it.

My envy of Steinhardt’s relationship with his instrument is at least a little assuaged by the beauty-salon simile—I can picture a sticky, brittle, slightly singed concoction that smells of chemicals, or Madeleine Kahn as Lili von Shtupp in Mel Brooks’s riotous film, Blazing Saddles, rebuffing an advance saying, “not the lips.” Some intimacy. Harumph. And what about the risk of simply being jilted?
In The Violin Maker, Eugene Drucker speaks of his instrument “under my ear.” He uses the phrase a number of times, his reference to the immediacy of what the violinist hears. After all, the instrument is barely an inch from the player’s ear. I reflect on how powerful a violin’s sound can be, and wonder what long-term effect that has on the player’s hearing, but Drucker clearly considers it an advantage. In contrast, it’s common to hear an organist complain about the instrument being “in my face, the Zimbel in the Brustwerk is unbearable.” That Zimbel is intended to be heard from 50 feet away—not 30 inches; how we sacrifice for our art! A tuner will tell you that sitting inside a heavy-duty expression box tuning a high-pressure Tuba is not an experience of intimacy with music “under your ear.” Tuners, identify with me—it’s the worst when you stand up to tune the bass in octaves. When you get to bottom G, the three-foot tall tenor G is necessarily right in your ear. At least when you’re tuning a powerful reed en chamade, you can duck!
Come to think of it, the fact that the tuner climbs ladders inside the instrument somehow separates the organ from the violin!
An intimate friend
My violin trilogy refers continually to the intimacy between the builder and the player of a violin. They spend hours together discussing the ideal, and as the craftsman works on the new instrument, the client’s recordings are playing in his workshop. Given the business of organbuilding—committees, contracts, deadlines, and delays (Christmas of what year?), how often do organbuilders and organists truly work together to create exactly the work of art that will be the true vehicle for the player? If I had a nickel for each time I’ve told an organ committee that the organ should be built for the coming generations and not for the current organist, I’d have a lot of nickels.
How many organists tell of their relationships with their instruments in such colorful loving terms? Because organists cannot take their favored instruments along to distant gigs, they must make peace, love, war, or at least a truce with whatever organ they encounter.
As a church organist I have had two long-term relationships with single instruments. One was a 10-year stint with a terrible organ that seemed to want to stop me from everything I tried to do. I could hardly bear it. The other was more like 20 years with an adequate instrument, comprehensive stoplist, good reliability, and a few truly beautiful voices. It didn’t stand in the way of what I played, but neither did it offer much help. I have been fortunate enough to have several extra-organic affairs with instruments I love. These experiences have allowed me the knowledge of what it’s like to play often on an organ that’s truly wonderful. I’m willing to indulge in expanding Steinhardt’s metaphor to a monumental scale. Rather than tucking a loved one under my chin, I or my fellow organists can become one with a 10-ton instrument and with the room in which it stands.
Steeple chase
Ours is a picturesque seacoast town with 19th-century brick storefronts and several distinctive steeples. One of those, the white one on the top of the hill that can be seen from miles away, is leaning to the left (allowing jabs of political humor) and threatening to fall. Because the cost of rebuilding the steeple far outstrips the resources of the parish, townspeople have mounted a public save-the-steeple effort. We’d hate to have to see all those postcards reprinted. Last Sunday I participated in a benefit recital that featured the church’s lovely little William B. D. Simmons organ (1865?) played by six different organists. It was fascinating to hear how different the organ sounded as the occupant of the bench changed. Each player offered a favorite piece, each player placed different emphasis on different voices, and each had a different approach to the attack and release of notes. And by the way, the steeple fund was satisfactorily increased.
In a simple rural setting, it was clear to me that even though Steinhardt refers to arm’s-length relationships with instruments other than violins (and I suppose violas, though he doesn’t mention them), an organist can in fact have an artistic tryst with an instrument. But with the violin trilogy in mind, a comment made that day by one of my colleagues set me to thinking. Noting that only a few stops on the Swell have complete ranks (most start at eº), that the keydesk is a little awkward, and that there is very little bass tone, she commented that the organ is limiting. And she’s right—it is, but it’s perfect for the music its builder had in mind. If you meet the organ on its own terms, you’ll get along much better. We cannot and should not expect to be able to play the same music on every organ, and when we try, the results are less than artistic.
A place for everything, and everything in its place
In the weeks after Easter I participated in several events that involved different groups of organists. Holy Day post mortems dominated the conversations, and a common thread was how many of them had played “The Widor” for the postlude. I knew that most of these musicians play for churches that have 10- or 20-stop organs, and I reflected that playing the “The Widor” on any one of them would be a little like entering a Volkswagen in a Formula One race. Widor wrote his famous Toccata for his lifelong partner, the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Sulpice in Paris, a magnificent instrument with five manuals and a hundred stops—but more to the point, a huge instrument in a perfectly enormous building rife with arches, niches, and statues. (By the way, Widor’s was a common-law relationship with his instrument. According to Marcel Dupré’s memoir, he was appointed temporary organist at St. Sulpice in 1869 and was simply reappointed each year until his retirement in 1933. He served as temporary organist for 64 years!) The sound of the organ rolls around in that building like thunder in the mountains. In such a grand acoustic, the famous arpeggios of “The Widor” that cost organists’ forearm tendons 128 notes per measure are rolled into the grand and stately half-note rhythm that is in fact the motion of the piece. Eight half notes in two measures make a phrase of the melody. If you play it on a 15-stop organ in a church with 125 seats, your listeners hear 256 notes per musical phrase—an effect achieved by pouring buckets of marbles on a tin roof.
Proportion is an essential element to all art. Classic architecture follows classic proportions. A great painting or a great photograph is celebrated for the balance and proportion of its composition. A great piece of music is an architectural triumph with carefully balanced proportions. The best sculptors knew how to stretch the proportions of the human form so a monumental statue would seem in correct proportion when viewed from ground level. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous sketch Vitruvian Man is a vivid illustration of how an artist/scientist worked to understand natural proportion, and we print it on neckties and lunch boxes to prove how dedicated we are to correct proportions.
In modern suburban life we grow used to seeing McMansions—houses that belong on 40-acre estates—crammed together on cul-de-sacs. It’s really not the houses that are out of scale, it’s the fact that they are twice as wide as the distance between them that bothers us.
In my opinion, playing “The Widor” on ten stops is simply a violation of proportions and can hardly be a rich musical experience—and I have to admit that I’ve done it myself many times. Note my use of quotes. We refer to this chestnut as though dear Charles-Marie only wrote one piece, just as “Toccata and Fugue” means only one thing to many people—you don’t even have to name the key or the composer before your mind’s ear flashes a mordent on high A.
Trivializing the monumental
Recently one of my second cousins died in an auto accident. It’s a very large family, Nick was an extremely popular guy, and at his funeral my parents and I wound up in the last row of a long narrow sanctuary with a low ceiling. (Okay, I admit that my father and I were planning a quick escape to get to the Boston Red Sox Opening Day game—the Red Sox won!) The three-manual organ was in chancel chambers a very long way from us. But the organbuilders in all their wisdom had foreseen the difficulty and included a small exposed Antiphonal division at the rear of the church. I glanced at it and guessed the stoplist: Gedeckt 8', Octave 4', Mixture III. Logical enough—I’ve suggested the inclusion of just such a thing in many situations. A little organ sound from behind adds a lot to the support of congregational singing. During the prelude the organist used that Antiphonal Gedeckt as a solo voice accompanied by enclosed strings in the chancel. Trouble was, from where we were sitting, you couldn’t hear the strings—they were too far away. And when he launched “The Widor” as the postlude, the effect was downright silly. What we heard from our seat was that huge piece being played on three low-pressure chiffy stops with a subtle hint of a bass melody from far away. (By the way, the organist was a friend. He and I shared a wink when I went forward with my parents to receive Communion and we had a fun phone conversation a few days later, so I expect he’ll chuckle when he reads this!)
Arnold Steinhardt sees a bassoon “at arm’s length,” but think about it—one end of the bassoon is in the player’s mouth. You don’t have that kind of a relationship with a violin. I wonder what he thinks of the organ. I’d love to have that conversation with him. I’ve heard of orchestral conductors who claim the organ is expressionless because you can’t change the volume of a single note, but I’ve heard organ playing so expressive as to take your breath away. I look forward to hearing lots more organ music played with expression, chosen in proportion to the instrument and surroundings of the day. Join me, dear colleagues, in promoting the organ as the expressive instrument that envelops you and moves the masses with its powerful breath.

John Bishop is a regular contributor to THE DIAPASON and heads the Organ Clearing House.

Why is there air?

Forty years have passed since Bill Cosby raised this
question in his recording by the same name. The record (remember those black
vinyl discs?) was released in 1965 and the title cut referred to his days as a
physical education major at Temple University. With tongue in cheek he teased
philosophy majors, observing that they wandered around campus mulling over such
fundamental questions. I no longer own a turntable and couldn’t refresh
my memory so I paraphrase his response: 

Any Phys-Ed major knows that. There’s air to blow up
basketballs, air to blow up footballs . . .

I was in elementary school at the time, and my friends and I
thought that was the funniest thing ever, but forty years later the Wyman
School has been converted to condominiums and I think I have a more
sophisticated reading of what Mr. Cosby was getting at. As our lives and
society grow ever more complex we often lose track of the fundamental questions
that drive what we do.

What are the questions?

Ours is a field rich with people who “caught the
bug”--who were excited, even enchanted by the pipe organ early in
life. I’ve heard plenty of those personal stories. One colleague told me
how when he was very young his family traveled clear across the country to
attend a wedding. The trip itself was a huge experience for him, but he had
never seen such a large and ornate church building, and when the organ started
to play he knew what he wanted to do with his life. Another friend told that
when he was shown inside a large organ as a child the concept of the apparently
contradictory relationship between the organ’s industrial interior and
its glorious sound led to his important career as an organbuilder. My own
introduction to the instrument was a natural succession--the organist of
the church I grew up in (my father was the rector) was a harpsichord maker and
the community of instrument builders was well represented in the choir. My
childhood piano lessons led to organ lessons and why wouldn’t I have a
summer job in an organbuilder’s workshop? Was there in fact anything else
one might do?

A wonderful world has grown up around the pipe organ, a
world full of talented people dedicated to both the study of what has preceded
us and to innovation. It’s a complicated subject with a very deep
history, myriad technical issues, and elusive artistic concepts that drive the
whole thing. The instrument itself is tangible--you can build it, touch
it, feel it, play it, care for it. But the basic concept is more difficult to
explain. This is not like the admiration directed toward the first person to
eat an artichoke or lobster, rather it is the understanding of the collective
contributions of countless people through the ages. The intertwined
relationship of the instrument, its music, its builders, and its players brings
to mind those quirky philosophical questions about trees in the forest, smoke
and fire, chickens and eggs--or Bill Cosby’s why is there air? Any
organbuilder knows the answer to that question: There’s air to blow organ
pipes, air to leak through worn gaskets, air to cause ciphers. We are the heirs
of erring air. (Remember E. Power Biggs talking about pumping the bellows of an
18th-century British organ--”handling the handle that Händel
handled.”)

However lofty our introduction to the pipe organ, once we
are engaged in our careers we often move from one deadline to another somehow
forgetting that original inspiration. We may know the thrilling sensation of a
huge Swell box opening, allowing the sound of powerful reeds to gradually join
the choir procession during a festival service. (If the procession is slow and
in the middle of the service, we could use the Swell box to gradually join a
gradual Gradual!) But what do we have in mind if we are in an organ chamber
struggling to get a Swell motor to work properly--technical issues,
skinned knuckles, and holed leather, or that spectacular procession, banners
a’flying? Try whistling a hymn tune as you work--I recommend
Westminster Abbey!

The struggle between art and commerce is well defined and
frequently written about. A friend who loves to paint put it succinctly
recently when she said she simply doesn’t have the time for it. Who was
it that said, “time is money?” At what point does the thrill of
creating a monumental pipe organ become a battle between time and money?
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I recently stumbled across a quotation from Daniel
Barenboim: “Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own
time and one toward the future, toward eternity.” Did Mr. Barenboim
forget the past as a third face? Aren’t great works of art at least
informed by the past? Certainly pipe organs are.

There’s a debate in the world of pleasure boats
between the merits of wood and fiberglass hulls. A purist might say
there’s nothing like the sound of water slapping against a wooden hull.
But there are many arguments in favor of fiberglass boats. Does this debate
actually confuse questions of personal preference or convenience with whether
or not it’s a good boat?

The debate between the merits of mechanical and electric
keyboard actions has been raging for more than fifty years. It seems to me that
one can argue that the debate couldn’t really get started until electric
and pneumatic actions were well-developed and prevalent so there was strong
basis for comparison. I’ve said many times that the result of the debate
is that our organbuilders are producing excellent instruments using all kinds
of actions. The questions surrounding the construction of organ cases, the
design of wind systems, or the deployment of stops in divisions are just as
fundamental as those concerning keyboard action. Let’s debate the
relative merits of balanced or suspended tracker key actions, or whether the
keyboards of electric action instruments should be pivoted in the middle or at
the end. My point is I want to play and listen to good organs, well conceived
and beautifully made. Just as I’ve had great days sailing in both wooden
and fiberglass boats, I’ve been thrilled by both tracker and electric
action pipe organs.

When I say I’ve been thrilled by both tracker and
electric action pipe organs I have also to say that I’ve equally been
disappointed by both.

One thing that sets the pipe organ apart from other
instruments in my opinion is the extraordinary variety from one example to
another. I know that a clarinetist recognizes countless differences between
clarinets, but how can one compare a three-rank continuo organ with a mighty
200-rank job in a huge church? The experiences they produce are worlds apart as
is the music that can be played on them. (I’ve noticed that we often talk
about what music an organ can play--as if there would not be an organist
involved.) What’s really funny is how we try to mix those experiences.
Widor’s famous Toccata is a staple of the modern organ repertory and
it’s played as often on ten-stop organs as on those of the scale for
which it was conceived--many, many more than ten stops. And it’s not
just about the number of stops but more important, the acoustics of the room. I
remember vividly the first time I played that piece in an appropriate
acoustical setting. It was in Lakewood, Ohio in a cavernous church building
with a marble floor. It was a Wicks organ of only moderate size but the way the
harmonies rolled around the place helped me understand the piece more fully. Of
course, this was after I had played the same piece in perhaps dozens of small,
dry rooms on dozens of small, dry organs.

It seems to me that our love affair with pieces like that
has led us toward an artificial world. We know that 32-foot stops add a lot to
large-scale organ music, so we add artificial 32¢s to organs in churches
that do not have space for them. Ideally, we design organs using mathematical
formulas that have been proven through the ages. The Golden Section, for
example, is a classic system of ratios that defines the proportions of
countless structures built over thousands of years. There’s a pleasing
naturalness when an instrument is conceived well in relationship to the room it
graces. Hearing 32-foot tone in a building with a 15-foot ceiling leaves one
somehow confused.

An organist’s work is often defined by the struggle
between tradition and innovation. Christmas is coming. Are you preparing for
the tenth, fifteenth, twentieth Christmas in the same church? How do you
program innovative, exciting music without disappointing the expectations of
tradition? Think of the congregation that was first to sing O Come, All Ye
Faithful (there must have been one). Did anyone go home that day grumbling that
the organist didn’t understand the value of tradition? One piece that struck
me at first hearing as a future chestnut is John Rutter’s Candlelight
Carol. Easily singable, absolutely beautiful, text full of meaning--I
wonder if that’s what people experienced when they first heard In dulci
jubilo some seven hundred years ago. 

I had a parallel musing the first time I visited St. Sulpice
in Paris. I wondered how many of the older people in the congregation would
remember Marcel Dupré as their parish organist. It’s a stretch,
but it’s at least possible that a few of them remembered Widor--it
was fewer than sixty-five years after his retirement. Think what those people
must have experienced in the way of musical tradition when so much of what they
heard from the organ was improvised!

One of my greatest professional struggles has involved wedding
music. It’s the privilege of the parish organist to be a part of so many
celebrations. I played for more than four hundred weddings at one church.
It’s a thrill to be able to share one’s skills to enhance such an
occasion. I didn’t keep proper records but I would be fascinated to see a
spreadsheet that showed a statistical analysis of the music I played at all
those weddings. At what percentage of weddings did I play Mendelssohn, Wagner,
or Schubert? How often did a couple listen to eight or ten choices before
lighting up when I offered Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring the evening they
were choosing music? It’s very likely that the only time a couple
actually chooses what will be played live on a pipe organ will be their
wedding. How does an organist introduce creative and meaningful music into a
wedding service without disappointing the expectations of families and their
friends? When I was first an independent organbuilder I had as an employee a
young woman who worked for me for nearly ten years. She was both a terrific
worker and a close friend. She had many opportunities to hear my reports of
“last Saturday’s wedding” when I would regale her with the
trials of the wedding organist. (Maybe there’s a movie title in that
sentence.) It is a great regret of mine that she formed such an impression of
my feelings about weddings that when she got married she asked someone else to
play the organ.

Is the future of the pipe organ better assured if we sustain
tradition or if we find exciting new ways to use it? How do we strike a balance
between those concepts? Are consumers of organ music always going to be happy
with old favorites? How do we find, write, create those pieces that will become
tomorrow’s chestnuts or are today’s chestnuts good enough to last?
And if we find such a piece, how do we introduce it in the place of something
else? 

What is the future form of the pipe organ? Can its builders
stay faithful to ancient forms while continuing to be innovative?

What is the future of the economics of organbuilding? Will
churches, schools, concert halls always be willing to commit to such enormous
expenditures? Does our society value artistic expression enough to justify
that? How do we share our passion and enthusiasm in the interest of the future
of our art? Do we assume that a strong future for our art will add to the
cultural wealth of society? How can we sustain the wealth of the heritage of
our instrument in the world of the sound-bite, the megabyte, the Big Gulp®,
the Big Mac®, the Playstation®, VCR, DVD, or PCD. With music education
in public schools in decline, who will be the next generation of organists and
who will be the next generation of music lovers?

We are stewards of a glorious heritage. It’s essential
that we find new ways to communicate that wealth. We must be informed by the
past, but we shouldn’t dwell on it. As we are informed by the past, we
are better able to inform the future. How many ways can we read the phrase, The
Past Becomes the Future? 

Abetted by Satan

On August 5, 2014, the New York Times published a review of two concerts performed on the same evening as part of Lincoln Center’s “Mostly Mozart Festival.” Both featured Swedish clarinetist Martin Frost, about whom critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote, “In earlier times, the talent of Martin Frost would have attracted suspicion. Like that of Paganini, whom contemporaries suspected to be in cahoots with the Devil…” Ms. Fonseca-Wollheim gushed on: “… something approaching the supernatural … sounds he drew from his clarinet were so extraordinary that they produced incredulous laughter and head-shaking …” The headline read, “Languid, Meandering, and Clearly Abetted by Satan.”

In the second half of the first program, Frost joined the Emerson String Quartet to play Mozart’s glorious clarinet quintet. Ms. Fonseca-Wollheim reported that his artistry pulled the Emerson’s players back together after a lackluster first half. Of that, she wrote, “Without him … the Emersons were having a bad evening … visibly struggled to hit their stride … uncharacteristic intonation problems … It felt as if the players were fiddling with the radio dial in search of a frequency on which to broadcast the music clearly.” Ouch! She went on, “It was an entirely different string quartet that returned for the performance of the Mozart…”

It’s unusual for a critic to carry on with such abandon. It was as if the fair Corinna was smitten and couldn’t help herself.

Last week, there was another article about Martin Frost in the New York Times. This time the writer was George Loomis, and he was commenting on another facet of Frost’s apparent genius. He opened the piece reporting that Frost was to start his season of appearances by playing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, adding that he had played the same piece thirty-seven times last season. But the point of the article was Martin Frost’s “urge to move beyond the traditional concert format to create a new kind of experience.”

In an interview following his appearances at the “Mostly Mozart Festival,” the forty-three-year-old Frost said, “I’ve started to look back at my career from a point in the future. When I’m 85, what will I think I’ve done with my life? I wouldn’t be proud that I’d done 1200 Weber concertos. I need to shake myself around and be brave enough to develop new ideas.”

In that interest, Martin Frost has created a program that includes music taken from Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, Dukas’s Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and other well-known works, in which he appears as soloist, conductor, dancer, actor, and master of ceremonies. Two other clarinetists appear (Bless their hearts!) along with other orchestra players, the whole enhanced by lighting and choreography.

Silk and goats

In the world of sports, “the greatest of all time” can be defined, at least in part, by numbers—the most home runs, the most goals, the most saves, the most strikeouts. It’s more difficult to define “the greatest” in the arts. Who was the greatest painter? Was it Rembrandt, Picasso, Monet, or Pollock? The work of those four can hardly be compared, so it seems impossible to know who was best.

The twentieth century knew three great cellists, Pablo Casals (1876–1973), Mstislav Rostropovich (1927–2007), and Yo-Yo Ma (born 1955). The twenty-first century has given us Facebook as a new vehicle for the dissemination of wisdom. A lovely quote from Casals appears regularly in those ubiquitous pages. Asked at the age of ninety-three why he still practiced three hours a day, Casals replied, “I’m beginning to notice some improvement.”

It’s easy to argue that those three masters set the standard for modern cello playing, if one fails to mention Jacqueline Du Pré, Janos Starker, or Lynn Harrell. But in the spirit of gushing, I’m willing to single out Yo-Yo Ma as an inspiration, a technical wizard, a magical interpreter, and an imaginative performer. Heaven knows how many times he has played The Elgar, The Barber, or The Dvorak (there are two Dvorak cello concertos), but it must be hundreds of repetitions for each.

Yo-Yo Ma has made more than seventy-five recordings and he has sixteen Grammy Awards to show for his trouble. A Grammy Award is a mighty special thing, and many performers are satisfied with just one. But think of this. He received those sixteen Grammys in just twenty-seven years, between 1986 and 2013. That’s an average of 1.7 Grammys each year! Give me a break.

But wait, there’s more. You might expect that Yo-Yo Ma’s Grammys would be in the usual categories: Best Chamber Music Performance, Best Instrumental Soloist Performance, Best Classical Album. Of course he’s all over those. But he’s also received four for Best Classical Crossover Album and one for Best Folk Music Album!

Instead of satisfying himself with the acknowledged glory of playing the great works for cello and orchestra on all the world’s greatest stages, the height of ambition for most performers, he has collaborated with the electrifying genius Bobby McFerrin, and founded the Silk Road Project, which has brought the world’s indigenous music together in the most energetic and meaningful way. Wendy and I attended a concert of the Silk Road Project at Tanglewood last summer, and were thrilled and mystified by the beauty of the collaboration. I was especially moved to witness Yo-Yo Ma (the world’s greatest cellist?) sitting as an equal between two younger brilliant cellists.

Remember that folk music Grammy? The Goat Rodeo Sessions is the collaboration of Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. It’s roughly described as a blend of classical and bluegrass music, and the term “goat rodeo” refers to a chaotic event that can succeed only if everything goes just right. One of the cuts on the album (my kids hate it when I use the old-fashioned word, album) is titled “13:8.” Students of music have pored over the piece analyzing the meter in attempts to make it conform to the time signature, 13:8. The mystery was revealed during a concert at Tanglewood in August of 2013, during which Stuart Duncan shared the story of an airline pilot with the audience. Each evening, when the flight attendant served his dinner, he replied, “Hebrews 13:8.” Her interest piqued, she finally looked up the New Testament verse: “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

By the way, The Goat Rodeo Sessions was awarded two Grammys: Best Folk Album, and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.

What should I play this year?

I served a Congregational church in suburban Boston as music director for almost twenty years. I was fortunate to have lots of resources to work with including enthusiastic volunteer singers, a professional quartet, a fine pipe organ and excellent piano, and funds sufficient to maintain a large library and to engage other musicians for festivals and concerts. I was proud of the programming, but as I look back on it, I know I wasn’t always as imaginative as I could have been. I could never resist the temptation to play Bach’s settings of Valet will ich dir geben on Palm Sunday. They are both smashing pieces, based on the tune we know colloquially as St. Theodulph (“All glory, laud, and honor”). Of course, I published the title in German, assuming that the parishioners would figure it out. I haven’t gone back through archives to prove it, but it’s a safe bet I played those pieces on each of those nineteen Palm Sundays.

What’s the formula for a classic organ recital? I can give you a couple. The simplest is the “All-Whomever” recital. Your choice. Bach, Buxtehude, Scheidt, the list goes on and on. Open with a  chaconne, then a set of chorale preludes, followed by a choral fantasy. Interval. Second half: minor prelude and fugue, trio sonata or set of variations, close with a major toccata and fugue.

Or for more variety: Classic French set (the usual Couperin, Corrette, De Grigny, or Clérambault), three German chorale preludes, then a Baroque prelude and fugue. Interval. Second half: Selections from a favorite collection (Vierne or Langlais 24, or Pierné 3), novelty (elves, nymphs, naiads, your choice), close with swashbuckling barnburner.

Similar formulas also apply to the programming of orchestral concerts: Opera overture, classical piano concerto (“Elvira Madigan”). Intermission. Second half: Major Romantic symphony with lots of recognizable tunes and French horn solos.

Catch–22

Joseph Heller’s novel published in 1961 is a brilliant, satirical telling of the experiences of a group of World War II airmen in a fictional squadron based on an Italian island. The common thread seems simple enough—they are all trying to hold it together until the end of the war or their discharge from the service, whichever comes first. Some are trying to maintain sanity, while others are trying to convince their superiors of their insanity. The telling is so complex that the title of the book has become a catchphrase in our language describing an enigma, a puzzle that cannot be solved. A simple example that happens to me: if you lose your glasses, you can’t see to find them.

The commercial demands of the symphony orchestra have never been more clear. The past few years have shown a spate of stories about strained labor relations between orchestral musicians and the institutions that pay them. The Minnesota Orchestra is a premier example. When the board of directors asked the musicians to accept reductions in salary and benefits, the musicians pointed out that the wildly expensive renovation of the concert hall was the cause of the orchestra’s financial difficulties. The dispute raged for years with the board of directors locking out the players, culminating in the resignation of music director Osmo Vänskä, who was credited with creating a dramatic increase in the quality and popularity of the orchestra. 

The musicians made a unanimous vote of no confidence in the board’s president, Michael Henson. Vänskä stated that Henson’s departure would be essential to the orchestra’s recovery. Henson resigned, and eight other board members resigned in protest. Now, Vänskä has been engaged in a new two-year contract to start rebuilding the fortunes of the orchestra. This dispute has been a classic example of the struggle between art and commerce. It costs a fortune to place an elite symphony orchestra on stage for a single concert. One might wish that excellence in performance and programming would be enough to assure funding.

§

James Levine was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 2004 until 2011. Levine, a musician’s musician, brought a host of terrific collaborators to the Boston stage. And as a tireless champion of new music, he programmed the most fascinating series of concerts. Wendy and I benefitted from this in three ways. One was simply the exposure to many brilliant performances of exciting and challenging new music. The second was when friends offered us their excellent subscription seats because they were tired of all the new music. The third—we lived for two years in an apartment on Massachusetts Avenue next door to Symphony Hall and as BSO audiences dwindled, the management of the apartment building received complimentary tickets from the BSO in their effort to put “butts in seats,” and we were only too happy to accept those offers.

It’s ironic that we who are interested in hearing new music benefit from the dismay of the many who don’t. It’s a safe bet that if Levine returned to the beloved formula, the hall would be filled.

§

In September of 2013, the stagehands at Carnegie Hall went on strike, demanding that they should have control over the movement of musical furniture in the hall’s new educational wing, due to open the following month. The turmoil was well documented in the New York Times and other august publications. Forbes Magazine documented that the hall’s executive director Clive Gillinson was paid $1,113,000 in 2012. The next highest-paid employee was stagehand Dennis O’Connell ($465,000), followed by carpenter James Csollany ($441,000). Fourth on the list was the Hall’s chief financial officer. Fifth and sixth were an electrician and another stagehand. How in the world can we afford to make music if we have to pay someone $465,000 a year to move music stands? Many of us sweated through this dispute because the opening of the Carnegie Hall season was in doubt, and our friend and colleague Stephen Tharp was to appear with the American Symphony Orchestra in Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony. Happily, that concert was presented as scheduled, but the season opener, ironically an important fundraising event for the (recovering from a bitter labor dispute) Philadelphia Orchestra, celebrating its new music director, was cancelled because of the strike. By the way, because the new wing is specifically dedicated to educational activities and is not a performance space, the stagehands lost that round.

On August 22, the New York Times published an article about the opera house Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy. The story opened with snide comments about how Italian opera houses are typically known for poor management and finances, singling out Teatro Regio as one company that’s making waves with wonderful performances, and ambitious tours and recording projects. But once again we run into that struggle. Music director Gianandrea Noseda is threatening to resign, accusing the company’s general manager Walter Vergnano of reigning in the finances unnecessarily. Noseda is quoted as saying, “Now we have the engine of a fantastic car, like a Ferrari, but you cannot drive a Ferrari and win the Gran Prix if you leave the brake down all the time.”

The mother of them all

All of these stories pale in comparison to the recent wild machinations at the Metropolitan Opera. The Met’s general manager Peter Gelb has been heralded as a genius in the field of arts administration, especially through his introduction of live HD simulcasts of Met performances, showing in some 700 movie theaters around the world, and attended by nearly a million viewers. But when the Met faced growing and serious deficits in its colossal budget, which exceeds $330,000,000, the salaried employees accused Gelb of placing too much of the burden of economy on them. According to the Met’s website, there are some 3400 employees, including 300 solo artists, 100 orchestra players, and 80 chorus members. These most visible workers are supported by legions of carpenters, tailors, directors, make-up and hair artists, painters, electricians, and—you guessed it—stagehands. All of these workers are represented by powerful unions, and the dirty details were published in the Times in a long series of complex articles. 

We learned that members of the orchestra and chorus are paid over $200,000 a year—nice compensation, but it doesn’t seem like that much when you realize that the 2012–2013 season included 209 performances of 28 operas. Add the requisite rehearsal time, and you have a mighty busy year! We learned that the highest fee paid to solo artists is about $16,000 a performance. Nice compensation, but given the depth of education and preparation compared to an evening’s take for a hip-hop artist, it doesn’t seem like that much.

The dispute put the musicians into the awkward position of arguing for fewer new productions of old favorites, and less new music in the interest of saving money. The recent new production of Wagner’s Ring Cycle cost nearly $20,000,000. Why not just trot out the old one? There was an excruciating series of articles as the company threatened to lock out the employees and cancel the season. A special national arbitrator was engaged to direct the negotiations. Several deadlines passed or were extended, and finally a settlement was announced. The show must go on.

And our survey says…

In many markets, the most banal of classical music programming is the most successful. Radio stations run audience surveys whose results are predictable. The audience wants to hear the “greatest hits.” Brilliant and innovative programming, such as Levine’s in Boston, reduces the audience, but we need programming like that to sustain the arts, to encourage creativity, and to be sure there always is new music.

But the enigma continues. While I am strongly supportive of bold programming in concert venues, and am disappointed when programming seems weak when bending to popular demand, I realize that the future of the organ world, performers and audiences alike, depends on the discovery of bold new ways to use our venerated and ancient instrument. “Dead White Men” is a phrase that implies the kiss of death in the world of the arts. I interpret that to mean that we shouldn’t depend on the work of those from centuries before us for the completeness of our artistic expression. And with its huge heritage of ancient music, its correct and unswerving connection with the church, and its often arcane voice among the clamor of the modern world, the pipe organ can be the ultimate example of the Dead White Man. 

I got interested in the organ as a kid simply because I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I have many friends and colleagues who share that experience. Ours is a world in which you can easily spend $250,000 on a fine piano. When I was a student at Oberlin in the 1970s, that was the price of a new 45-stop Flentrop (Warner Concert Hall). We’re more than a tenth of the way through the twenty-first century. Let’s give ’em their money’s worth. 

Is there really no such thing as bad publicity?

I had my first real job in an organbuilder’s workshop during the summer after my freshman year in college. I’ve often told the story of my first day--I was stationed outside in the parking lot by myself with the façade pipes of an old organ, sawhorses, a garden hose, and a gallon of Zipstrip®. I can imagine the previous week’s production meeting: “save it for the new kid!” It was a tough start, but it quickly got better. I remember that summer as a series of adventures as we worked on projects throughout New England, and I’m still at it.

Along with many other firsts I experienced that summer was my first exposure to media coverage of the pipe organ business. We were working in a church building installing a rebuilt instrument and a reporter from the local newspaper came to do a story that was published under a front-page photo that showed a colleague “voicing” a large organ pipe. I knew that what he had in his hands was a dummy façade pipe (one of those I had stripped)--it was both amazing and amusing to see how serious and erudite an organ builder can look while raising a virtual languid. (Remember “The Emperor’s New Clothes”?)

Five minutes of fame

Since then I have read many such stories in local newspapers. They often get some important technicality wrong, giving us a chance for a knowing snicker, but they have great value in raising public consciousness about the instrument. Many an organbuilder has been made a local celebrity by a photo and story published in a home-town newspaper. Alan Laufman, my predecessor at the Organ Clearing House, was notorious for seeking out the press whenever he went to work in a new town. He wasn’t looking for personal notoriety, he was spreading the word. 

On a wider stage, Craig Whitney, veteran foreign correspondent and assistant managing editor of the New York Times as well as organist and organ-enthusiast, has published a number of excellent and informative articles in the Times in recent memory. In his articles, Mr. Whitney’s compelling writing focuses the interest of the layperson, and his reporting skills produce content profound enough to educate the professional. His contribution to our field is immeasurable. I have had countless conversations with people who respond to hearing what I do for a living by saying, “Pipe organ builder! I didn’t know there were any of you left.” But whenever one of Whitney’s articles is published in the Times, friends and family from around the country call to be sure I know about it, and for the following couple weeks, daily conversations with new acquaintances invariably lead to, “I just read a story in the Times about that.” It’s a special pleasure to be able to respond by saying that I agree it was a good story and he really got it right. For those few days, people seem to be aware of the organ business.

This subject is on my mind these days because of a story broadcast recently on WBUR, “Boston’s NPR News Station.” On January 18, 2005, the First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts was destroyed by fire. The church’s organ was lost that night, robbing the neighborhood of the distinction of being home to two pre-Civil War three-manual organs built by E. & G. G. Hook. A month or so ago, I was approached by Keith O’Brien, a local freelance writer who was preparing a story for The Boston Globe about the loss of that organ. In the course of his conversations with church officials and members, he had learned about the work of The Organ Clearing House and asked me for an interview during which we discussed the preservation of nineteenth-century instruments, their artistic and historical value, and their relevance to modern music making. 

Working on that story Mr. O’Brien became aware of the Organ Historical Society convention about to begin in southeastern Massachusetts, and began preparing a subsequent story for NPR. He asked me for another interview and I looked forward to hearing what seemed to be a well-conceived story. It was to be broadcast on NPR’s Morning Edition so I knew I’d hear it first thing in the morning on the bedroom radio. There it was, the pleasure of hearing organ music on the radio news. But there was that familiar theme: “I didn’t know there were any of you left.” 

Most organs don’t burn up

On the surface, the story was just fine. It was nice that the Organ Historical Society’s convention was noticed and mentioned so prominently in the press. The center of the story was the “resurrection” of an organ built in 1876 for Trinity Church in Boston by Hilborne Roosevelt, now installed in Our Lady of Guadalupe in New Bedford. The organ had been little used, seriously damaged by water due to leaks in the church’s roof and tower, completely silent for decades, and made playable again by heroic volunteer efforts on the part of OHS members. I’m certain that those listening to the story were compelled by the idea of a group of enthusiasts working hard to preserve a slice of antiquity. But I doubt that a listener would understand that there is any good reason for preserving antique organs. Following several comments that included phrases like “fumbling with the keys . . . “ that did little to impress the listener about the skills of an organbuilder, the clincher for me was when O’Brien said with reference to the Jamaica Plain fire, “most organs don’t burn up--they just fade away.” Yikes! I hope I’m never inside an organ when it fades away.

Who am I, and why am I here?

The story missed the point. Or as I reflected after hearing the story, I should have made a point of making the point: We are not a small sect of aficionados preserving antique organs to satisfy our own interests. Rather, we recognize the beauty and historicity of these instruments for their relevance to modern worship and modern music-making as well as for their antiquity. It’s special to realize that a century-old instrument is durable enough for regular use. But we must be sure to point out that it’s amazing that the instrument keeps its place in our modern society on its artistic merits as well. The pipe organ is not a relic from an earlier age--and neither are we who devote our lives to it.

The website of the Organ Historical Society, <www.organsociety.org&gt;, is worth a visit. It will keep you current with the Society’s activities, and it’s a terrific place to shop for music and books. As I thought about the story on WBUR, I remembered that the Society’s bylaws are published on the website and I took a look to refresh my memory. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

2. PURPOSE. The Society is an international organization for friends of the organ. The purpose of the Society is:

(a) To encourage, promote, and further an active interest in the organ and its builders, particularly those in North America . . .

I think some words are missing--or perhaps a better way to put it, I think some missing words are implied. I doubt that the bylaws’ authors intended that the active interest we are to further should be limited to the “friends of the organ.” I believe that it is our responsibility to our art to broadcast its relevance, its beauty, its majesty whenever and wherever we can. If the organ world is considered arcane, mysterious, or worse irrelevant, how can we assure its future?

The cost of building a new pipe organ has increased dramatically since my introduction to Zipstrip®. When I was first in the organ business a new twelve-stop organ built by a premier builder was installed in my home town for about $36,000. Today, that sum will purchase somewhere between one and two stops. Imagine a hypothetical random survey of modern organists, asking them to write down an “ideal” stoplist. I bet most of them would show more than 50 stops. That hypothetical 50-stop “ideal” organ certainly costs more than a million dollars today. Put enough of those pesky 32s in the stoplist and you will exceed $1.5 million. That’s the equivalent of at least fifty or sixty years of the salary of many of the organists I know.

Any monumental public art work is the product of vision and ambition. It’s easy to underestimate the appropriate scope of the vision. The newly hired organist of a church can play on a tired old instrument for a few weeks and mention casually during coffee hour that the church needs a new organ. That’s an observation, not a vision. The vision--the credible, mature, thrilling vision that involves a new organ necessarily includes an understanding of the capabilities and priorities of the community. Does this mean that a vision has to be realistic? Perhaps a vision is realistic only to the visionary. Everyone else sees it as a fantasy until they are persuaded that it’s possible--until they can share the vision.

Seers have everything!

Cyrus Curtis (1850-1933) was a visionary. He founded the Curtis Publishing Company which brought him fame and fortune principally through the success of The Ladies Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post. Our culture would still be the richer if Curtis’ contribution was measured only by Norman Rockwell’s nearly half-century (1916-1963) of cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post. (Now that’s an important patronage!) Curtis grew up in Portland, Maine where Hermann Kotzschmar, organist of the family’s church, was one of his father’s closest friends, a friendship that was close enough that the son’s full name was Cyrus Hermann Kotzschmar Curtis. The young C.H.K. Curtis was so fascinated and inspired by Kotzschmar’s playing that he taught himself to play the organ well enough to master four-part hymns. As he achieved fantastic financial success, he installed instruments built by the Aeolian Organ Company in his home in Wyncote, Pennsylvania. Aeolian’s Opus 784 was built for Curtis in 1896 and enlarged by five ranks in 1903 as Opus 943. Opus 1374 was installed in the house in 1916, incorporating Opus 943 as the Antiphonal Organ.1 But the lasting proof of Cyrus H.K. Curtis’ devotion to the pipe organ is the grand instrument he gave to the City of Portland, built by the Austin Organ Company, dedicated to his father’s friend, and known to this day as The Kotzschmar Organ. Today the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (www.FOKO.org) oversees the maintenance of the instrument and presents a popular series of concerts each year.

Was it Cyrus Curtis’s vision that the organ he named for his father’s friend would still be in prominent public use, a beloved fixture of a small city nearly a century later? (It’s a safe bet that without the municipal organ, we would not remember that Hermann Kotzschmar was the organist of the First Parish Unitarian Church in Portland for 47 years.) Was he challenging people he would never meet--those people who formed The Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ when a fiscal crisis ended the city’s financial support for the organ? How often do we take such grand public fixtures for granted? And let’s take a step back. Was it Cyrus Curtis’s idea to place the organ in City Hall, or did some enterprising bureaucrat approach the wealthy native son?  

Portland is the largest city in Maine with a population of only 64,000 people. The population of the metropolitan area is about 230,000.2 If five percent of American cities that size had hundred-rank municipal organs, there would be a lot more people subscribing to The Diapason. And why not? It’s simply a matter of public relations. Is there a visionary in your town? I know where to find the organs!                        n

Art by committee

I have recently joined the board of a non-profit
organization that supports the work of a professional string quartet in our
town in Maine. Last week, with the help of a facilitator, the board met for a
daylong retreat to discuss long-term plans and goals. At the beginning of the
day, the facilitator asked us to create a short list of ground rules for the
meeting to enhance a constructive atmosphere. These rules simply stated the
obvious: no side conversations and no interrupting, to name a couple. But one
sparked my interest: no member of the group should speak for another. I
recalled occasions in other forums where a clever committee member was able to
push a conversation one way or another by recalling things that others in the
group had said previously. Repeating comments out of context that were made at
last month’s meeting can have strong and sometimes diabolical effect.

But I know that I’m safe when I say I speak for many
if not all of my colleagues in stating that the life of the modern organbuilder
is governed by the pace of committee work. Doing simple business with a church
or educational institution can progress at glacial speed. You submit an invoice
and find that it must be approved by a committee that met yesterday and will not
meet again for six weeks. You wait the six weeks and hear that three of the
members were traveling so the committee could not do any official business.
They promise to get the committee’s approval by phone then call back
saying that the treasurer is out of the country. He’ll cut a check when
he gets back in three weeks. 

Doing business by committee is one thing, but creating art
by committee is another. Remember the adage a camel is a horse that was
designed by a committee. There are countless examples of successful
collaborations--there would hardly be any operettas or musicals if there
were no hyphens--but what about a larger group? The fact is many wonderful
pipe organs are the products of collaborations between many different forces.

Can we describe an artwork as the expression of the
artist’s vision or ideas? We have fascinating records of the creative
process--an exhibition of sketches by Rubens or Rembrandt gives us a
chance to see that process in action. The artist tries several versions of
facial expressions or the position of a hand, and it’s fascinating to
compare the sketches to the final work. 

I remember a funny episode involving sketches and design.
Nearly thirty years ago (I was still a teenager) the organbuilder I was working
for was finishing an instrument that had a white painted case in the Colonial
style. A late decision had been made to add pipe shades to the case, and during
an installation trip he bought a stack of white poster board, sketched and cut
out a number of prototypes for pipe shade design, and we hung them on the case
one after another. All the versions made it back to the workshop, and as a joke
I hung the worst of them in the doorway to the voicing room encouraged by many
jocular comments. 

One of my professors in college led the class through the
manuscript of a Beethoven symphony, playing various passages on the piano,
comparing the early versions with the final work that Beethoven chose to let us
hear. A study of Beethoven’s sketchbooks shows a great artist arguing,
even battling with himself as he walked in the woods. Imagine the unkempt,
nearly deaf genius walking alone, shouting at trees, waving his fists, singing
or whistling passages, unaware of those around him. I saw exactly this scene in
Central Park last week--I wonder if we’re about to be treated to a
new symphony!

We understand that Mozart worked differently. Apparently he
was able to work out entire compositions in his head, and write them down in
finished, polished form. Was he conducting the whole process of revision,
editing, and experimentation in his head, or did it come to him as finished
music? Was Beethoven consciously breaking down barriers, understanding the
risks of rejection, and working hard to be sure he was convinced by what he was
putting before the public? Was Mozart simply confident that what flowed from
his mind would please others? I imagine that this debate would make a great
topic for the thesis of a student of psychology.

Pope Urban VIII commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)
to build the bronze, marble, and gilt baldacchino over the high altar at St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome. Sketches
of several different designs have been preserved. Were these the products of
Bernini’s personal process, or did Urban VIII reject the first few,
sending the artist “back to the drawing board?”

In 1509 Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo
(1475-1564) to paint the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel.
This is surely one of the most important commissions in the history of art but
it was part of a long, complicated, often difficult relationship between the
patron and artist. One twist to the story is the legend that the Pope gave the
commission to Michelangelo (who considered himself a master sculptor and a
lesser painter) in order to embarrass him in the eyes of his rival Raphael
(1483-1520). Can we imagine Michelangelo submitting drawings to the Pope
only to hear, “He should be pointing two fingers, not just one.” It
may well have happened--there is a long history of disagreements between
those two figures. By the way, Pope Julius II was known as “The Warrior
Pope.” Though the Pope was the absolute monarch of the Papal States,
Perugia and Bologna declared their independence and refused to pay taxes. The
cash crisis that resulted from that tax revolt was the reason that the Pope
cancelled the lavish commission he had given Michelangelo for his own tomb. The
Pope responded by forming the now famous Swiss Guards and crushing the
rebellion.1

How do we compare the design process of a painting with that
of a pipe organ? Is it safe to say that most paintings are the work of an
individual, not subject to external control of the design or layout? If so,
then it is the prerogative of the viewer to interpret, judge, accept or reject
it.

A pipe organ certainly can be the result of the vision and
expression of an individual, though it typically takes a group to actually
construct it. (Michelangelo engaged six painters to help him with the Sistine
ceiling frescos, but was so disappointed with their work that he destroyed it
all and locked them out of the chapel, finishing the work himself.) But a pipe
organ as a work of art is very different from a painting or sculpture. It not
only needs to be seen and judged by others, but also used by others for specific
purposes. The organbuilder can and should provide a vehicle allowing new forms
of expression for the buyer, and it is his prerogative to refuse a contract if
he disagrees with the input of the client. But it is also reasonable and often
productive for the people who will be using an organ to participate in its
planning. It is very important to add that while an incumbent organist should
contribute to the planning of an instrument, it is the responsibility of all
involved to ensure that the instrument not be tailored to peculiar individual
tastes so as to prevent future organists from understanding or appreciating its
qualities. It is almost always the case that the organ to be built will outlast
the incumbent musician.

I recently spent a weekend with the people of a church
planning to purchase an organ through the Organ Clearing House. We had
discussed in detail the characteristics of the instrument they chose, and were
working to find the best way to make it fit in their building. Of course there
was much talk about logistics, contractual relationships, and schedule. But
more than half the weekend was spent with the organist of the church alone,
discussing the use of the instrument, the particular needs of the parish, and
his philosophies as they compare to mine. We referred to specific pieces of
music to substantiate various points and we found new ways that the instrument
might be used in their sophisticated and complicated liturgy. We disagreed
several times, but the result of the conversation was the concept of an
instrument that neither of us could have produced alone. In my opinion, our art
is advanced by the active, functional, informed exchange between the organist
and the organbuilder. I know that I have learned as much in conversations with
the organists of churches where I have placed organs as I have anywhere else.

The questions surrounding the design of an organ are
expanded by those surrounding the possible alteration of an existing
instrument. When should the original design of an instrument be preserved? This
question comes up often in differing circumstances. I alluded to one
earlier--imagine the new organist arriving on the scene ten years after a
new organ is completed? Those who served on the organ committee are still
around (some of them might have been on the committee that chose the new
organist!), as are those who contributed toward the cost of the organ. It may
be one thing for the new organist to suggest adding a stop or two, but consider
the story (let’s call it hypothetical) of the parish that sold a
twenty-year-old tracker-action organ, replacing it with an electronic
instrument at the behest of a subsequent organist.

There are several factors involved in considering
alterations to an organ. Will altering the organ diminish or enhance its
artistic or historical value? Will the proposed alterations add to the concept
of the organ? Will they change the organ’s personality? If so, is that
intentional? Have styles changed enough since the organ was built so that the
instrument is obsolete, not useful, difficult to play, unattractive to a wide
range of organists? Or simply put, will the alterations contribute to or
detract from the concept of the builder and the intentions of the purchaser?

Michelangelo’s ceiling is one of our most important
works of art--it is also the subject of one of the most notorious artistic
alterations. In 1559, during the Counter-Reformation, Pope Paul IV commissioned
Daniele de Volterra to alter the Sistine Chapel fresco of the Last Judgement by
painting draperies on male figures, earning Daniele the sobriquet il
Brachettone, translated roughly as
“the trouser-maker.”2 (The additions were later removed.) This
calls to mind the modern-day controversies over the use of government funding
such as the National Endowment for the Arts to support controversial art.
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Should art be beautiful or controversial? The American
Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Co.
2000) offers several definitions of the word art, the first of which is:
“Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of
nature.” That covers just about anything!

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

Monumental intimacy
In the July 2007 issue of The Diapason, this column commented on a book by Arnold Steinhardt, first violinist of the Guarneri Quartet. Violin Dreams (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006) is a sort of musical memoir—a great artist sharing his experiences as a child, a student, and an increasingly successful performer. He’s articulate, humorous, and just humble enough. He shares many wonderful reflections, and I’ve commented on the book several times subsequently. Early on he writes about his relationship with his instrument:

When I hold the violin, my left arm stretches lovingly around its neck, my right hand draws the bow across the strings like a caress, and the violin itself is tucked under my chin, a place halfway between my brain and my beating heart.
A beautiful metaphor—makes you want to run down to the church and fire up the organ. But as I commented in 2007, he’s leaving us out. He goes on:

Instruments that are played at arm’s length—the piano, the bassoon, the tympani—have a certain reserve built into the relationship. Touch me, hold me if you must, but don’t get too close, they seem to say. To play the violin, however, I must stroke its strings and embrace a delicate body with ample curves and a scroll like a perfect hairdo fresh from the beauty salon. This creature sings ardently to me day after day, year after year, as I embrace it.

Coincidentally, a friend who is violist of the DaPonte String Quartet (resident musicians in our town in Maine) recently asked me how organists relate to their instruments. She spoke of gigs she’s played in churches where she saw organists at work, wondering how you play an instrument that’s so far away from you. Of course I jumped in with these Steinhardt quotes, offering the opposite point of view. The organ is a monumental instrument. Your relationship with the instrument is as a vehicle with which you can fill a huge room with a kaleidoscope of tone colors.
I’ve always found it thrilling to hear my music come back as reverberation in a large room. I love the sensation of having a congregation barreling along with me as I lead a hymn. And I love the feeling that huge air-driven bass pipes can cause in a rich acoustic environment. So it was a gift when my wife shared this passage from I am a Conductor, the autobiography of Charles Munch (Oxford University Press, 1955):

The organ was my first orchestra. If you have never played the organ, you have never known the joy of feeling yourself music’s master, sovereign of all the gamut of sounds and sonorities. Before those keyboards and pedals and the palette of stops, I felt almost like a demigod, holding in my hands the reins that controlled the musical universe. Walking [to work], opening the little door to the organ with a big old key, looking over the day’s hymns lest I forget the repeats, finding a prelude in a good key in order to avoid a difficult modulation, choosing a gay piece for a wedding or a sad one for a funeral, not falling asleep during the sermon, sometimes improvising a little in the pastor’s favorite style, not playing a long recessional because it would annoy the sexton—all this filled me with pride.

“ . . . a certain reserve built into the relationship . . .” Funny, I think some of my best moments on an organ bench have been when I was free of reserve.

Anything you can do, I can do better
What’s really going on between Arnold Steinhardt and Charles Munch? Is it like a playground spat that winds up with did-not, did-too? Or is it the childish idea that one instrument is more difficult to play than another? I’ve certainly heard people admire the complexity of playing the organ—all that dexterity with hands and feet. But can’t you also argue that the organist is only pushing buttons?
The violinist has to create an even and convincing tone through the manipulation of the bow against the strings while making the notes happen at the same time. And, while the organ produces notes that are in tune or not in tune no matter what the organist does (as long as he’s hitting the right notes), the violinist has to put the finger on the fingerboard in exactly the right place. (No worries. They leave the fretting to the guitarist.)
The flautist adds breath control to all the complexities of manual dexterity. The trumpeter has a finicky relationship with a mouthpiece. A trumpeter with a cold sore is like Roger Clemens with a hangnail. Neither can go to work that day. And singers? Let’s not even get started with singers!
No matter what instrument you’re playing, once you’ve mastered the physical technique you can get down to making music. As I get older, I notice that on the printed page I can track the development of my technique. I still play some of my favorite pieces from the same scores I had when I was a student, hopelessly marked up with teachers’ comments and registrations for dozens of different organs. Each time I get reminded of the physical crises of 30 or 35 years ago as I play past those passages that I just couldn’t get at 20 years old. You might say it’s the reward of a lifetime to be able to breeze past those danger zones—a lifetime of practice, that is.
Learning to drive a musical instrument is a barrier between you and artistic expression. Whether you’re learning the “pat your head and rub your tummy” thing about playing the organ, developing the finger strength and control to pluck harp strings, or the incredible muscle control of the mouth of the oboist, all you’re doing is teaching your body the physical tricks necessary for it to become a conductor between your mind and the sonorities of the music.
It’s the actual music that’s so difficult to do right. Shaping notes and phrases, placing the notes in time and tempo, and following your instincts to express the architecture of the music form the essence of the art of music. And you get a whiff of that essence when the physical act of operating the machine that is your instrument doesn’t distract you.
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There is an aspect of the art of organ playing that most other musicians don’t necessarily experience. A clarinetist might own the same instrument for most of his career, seldom playing on another. That is a very personal relationship that like any intimacy includes inherent danger. Imagine the master player who discovers a crack in his instrument moments before an important performance. Or worse yet, what if the treasured instrument is lost or destroyed in a fire? I suppose more than one musical career has ended simply because the musician couldn’t face starting over with a new instrument. Yo-Yo Ma famously left a treasure of a cello in a New York taxicab. It was later recovered because he had bothered to save his receipt and the cab could be tracked down. When you get into a New York cab you hear a gimmicky automatic recording—the voice of a celebrity giving safety tips. Along with Jessye Norman reminding you to fasten your seat belt, there’s one with Yo-Yo Ma advising you to keep your receipts!
The organist is at the mercy of whoever hires him. How many of us have arrived in town to prepare a recital, only to sit down at a mediocre instrument in terrible condition? You can refuse to play, or you can recognize that it’s the only instrument the local audience knows and accept the challenge of doing something special with it. “I’ve never heard this organ sound like that!”
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Busy organists might be playing on dozens of instruments each year, but there are also many examples of life-long relationships between players and their “home base” organs. Marcel Dupré played hundreds of recitals all over the world, but he was Organiste Titulaire at Saint-Sulpice in Paris from 1934 until 1971. He succeeded Charles-Marie Widor, who had held the position since 1870. So for more than a century that great Cavaillé-Coll organ was played principally by only two brilliant musicians. What a glorious heritage. Daniel Roth has been on that same well-worn bench since 1985. I first attended worship in that church in 1998 and vividly remember noticing elderly members of the congregation who would remember the days when Dupré was their parish organist. I suppose there still may be a few. I wonder if any of them cornered Dupré after church to complain that the organ was too loud!
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It’s the real thing, baby
My work with the Organ Clearing House often takes me to big cities where I get the thrill of hearing important organists playing on mighty instruments. Both the organist and the organ have a relationship with the church building—the sound rings and rolls around the place, the organist has the knack of timing the echo, and the effect is dazzling.
But most of our organists are playing on instruments of modest size in “normal” church buildings. The effect of the beautiful pipe organ in a small country church is just as dazzling as that of the 200-rank job roaring away in a room with a 150-foot ceiling. There’s such magic to the combination of the sound of wind-blown organ pipes and human voices, even in the setting of a small country church. The sounds meld together, exciting the collective air that is the room’s atmosphere. The organ has a physical presence in the room, letting us know before a note is played that there’s something special coming. We decorate church buildings with symbols of our faith. The organ joins pictorial windows, banners, and steeples as one of those symbols.
We plan a dinner party. On the way home from the supermarket we stop at the florist to get something pretty to put on the table. Likewise, we place flower arrangements on the altar on Sunday morning. In church, do we do that simply for decoration, or are those flowers a celebration of God’s creation—of the beauty of nature? Are there candles on the altar for atmosphere like that dining room table, or is there another loftier reason? Does a choir sing an anthem to cover the shuffling of the ushers as they take up the offering, or is the anthem a true part of the experience of worship? (If so, why don’t they take up the collection during a scripture reading, or during the sermon? Why all this tramping around while the music is playing? But that’s a rant for another month!)
The organ, that instrument that makes us “music’s master, sovereign of all the gamut of sounds and sonorities,” stands in our churches declaring our devotion. The pipe organ is testament to the wide range of the skills with which we humans have been blessed. We’ve been given the earth’s materials and learned to make beautiful things from them. And for centuries the pipe organ has been part of our worship, monument to our faith, and symbol of the power of the Church.
But with the advance of technology we are deluded by dilution. We settle for plastic flowers. We buy cheap production hardware for the doors of our worship spaces. We substitute artificial sound enhancement for real acoustics. And we substitute arrays of circuits for those majestic organ pipes.
Walk through a museum and look at sculpture made of gold, jade, or ivory. Don’t tell me you can’t tell it’s special. When we experience something special, we know it’s special. Walk through a jewelry store and try to tell the difference between the expensive stuff and the fake costume stuff without looking at price tags. You will never be wrong. Of course we know the difference. If your fiancée is not a jeweler, don’t bother with a real diamond. She won’t know the difference. (Oh boy, are you in trouble.)
And buy a digital instrument to replace the pipe organ. “After all, I’m not a musician. I can’t tell the difference.” Baloney. Of course we can tell the difference. And our churches and we deserve the best.