In the Wind

In last month’s issue of The Diapason we started to recount the fictional story of one church’s experience with the process of purchasing and installing a new pipe organ. We pick up the tale this month as the new organ actually arrives at the church. 

Note: All fiction is based on reality. While many of the episodes are derived from past experience, this narrative can be described as a reflection on an actual project that is nearing completion at this writing. Christ Church in New Haven, Connecticut is installing an important new organ built by Lively-Fulcher Organbuilders of Rocky Mount, Virginia. The Organ Clearing House arranged for the sale of the previous organ and prepared the striking building (designed by Henry Vaughan) for the new instrument with the renovation of the organ chamber and other related projects. These thoughts are not offered as an actual account of the project but those who participated will recognize vignettes . . .

Here it comes!

The organ committee worked hard to plan the day. The organ would arrive in a huge truck at one o’clock on Sunday afternoon. The pastor’s sermon recalled the words of the Besançon Carol of the Advent:

People look East, the time is near

of the crowning of the year.

Make your house fair as you are able,

Trim the hearth and set the table.

People look East and sing today,

Love the Guest is on the way.

He reminded us how hard we work to dress up our houses, both domestic and spiritual, for the coming of the Lord and suggested that the huge effort to purchase this new organ is an expression of that preparation. 

After worship we had a pot-luck meal. The organ committee showed us videos that had been taken at the organbuilder’s workshop during the open house last month. It was fun to see our fellow parishioners in that different setting. They showed slides of the people who work at the shop so we’d know them a little when they arrived, and they showed photos of the organ as it stood in the workshop. 

When the meal was finished we went outside and sat on the steps and the truck came around the corner right on time. What a special moment. Our church has been working toward this for years. The organ committee spent almost two years studying before making a recommendation to the parish. The organbuilder had to finish a couple of instruments before building ours, and once they started it took most of a year to finish it. And now this new instrument, a work of art created just for us, was sitting outside our church.

The truck driver opened the doors and we could see myriad fascinating shapes wrapped in blankets. Here and there a few pieces were exposed--we could see immediately that they were built with great care by skillful people. A ramp was set up from the truck to the church’s porch. Ropes and straps were untied and the first few pieces came off the truck. They let us carry some of them. As the parts were carried into the church, the blankets were draped across the backs of the pews. Four hours later, the church was full of the most extraordinary collection of crates, finished lumber, and mysterious gizmos. We wandered around looking at it amazed that anyone could possibly make sense out of it all. The organbuilders seemed confident enough. They walked around with us saying this is the Great windchest . . . this is the back panel of the Swell Box . . . here are the slider motors of the Swell and Choir . . . the façade pipes are in these crates--never touch them with your fingers . . .

Hoist away

The next week was an energetic flurry. Scaffolding was erected, hoisting equipment was hung in the organ loft. The workers opened crates and sorted out piles of structural parts. They took measurements and made marks on the floor and started sorting and lining up the organ parts. The floor frame was put in place in the chamber--they explained that the frame positioned the organ in the church and provided the locations for the organ’s legs and the various other parts that would be located on the floor of the organ. The biggest pipes of the pedal division would be against the walls of the chamber. Their windchests were put in place and the racks that would support the pipes were assembled and screwed to the walls. The biggest pipe would be first. It was rolled across the floor on dollies, tied to the hoist with canvas slings, and guided up through the opening into the chamber. It took eight workers to stand it up and hook it to the rack above the windchest. Imagine, all that bulk for one note! Someone said, “it’s a very special note.”

It’s alive

Heavy pieces of framework followed and in no time we could see the outline and bulk of the instrument. The windchests were hoisted into place, positioned by dowels. They were obviously very heavy, but it was amazing to see how carefully the workers handled them. Some of the workers carried the organ blower down the stairs to the basement. The electricians arrived and starting running wires to the blower, the organ console, and the organ chamber. The blower was turned on for the first time. The bellows came up, a few machines moved--like they were coming to attention. Someone from the church remembered scenes in the movies when the mad scientist throws a big switch, there’s a lot of noise, lightning, and smoke, and the monster strapped to the table opens its eyes. The organ came to life. 

The organbuilders crawled around inside the organ adjusting things, and pretty soon it was quiet in the organ. They tested notes and we could hear air blowing from holes in the windchests. And those big bass pipes were played for the first time. You could feel the sound from the floor through your feet. If you sat in a pew you could feel the sound through your back and backside. The organ came to life.

A few days later they were opening crates, unpacking pipes, and handing them up into the organ. There were thousands of them. Everyone was wearing gloves. Row after row of gleaming pipes stood in the organ looking like a choir waiting for its conductor. They tested notes. We could tell that it was rough and unfinished sounding. One of the workers joked, tuned at the factory. Another asked, where’s that can of Perma-tune? They rough-tuned a couple of ranks and we could hear how wonderful it would be. The organ came to life.

Two weeks after the organ arrived, the nave was cleaned up, the crates were gone, the blankets were folded and stacked (there were hundreds of them), the scaffolding was down, and everything looked great. All but two of the organbuilders went home. Those two settled in to a couple months of careful methodical work. One was up in the organ manipulating the pipes, the other sitting at the console.

Thousands of pipes. Each pipe got special individual attention. Each time they both listened. Sometimes they weren’t satisfied with the sound of a pipe and agreed to come back to it. The one at the console kept a list. Watching and listening to them was a lesson in concentration. Sometimes we could hardly tell the differences they were listening for--but they sure could. Someone from the organ committee remembered the meeting in which they were told how different organs could be. This kind of careful attention must really set an instrument apart from “the usual.”

Each pipe was made to sound right, one at a time. Each pipe was made to sound right in the church and with the other pipes in the stop; and each stop was made to sound right with the other stops. When a two-foot stop sounded good with the chorus but was too loud to use without the Mixture, they voiced it again. Gradually the organ was transformed. It had sounded like a street fair at first--now it was becoming refined. The organ’s voicers are just like coaches of diction, of manners, of refinement, and of excitement. Remember Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, “She’s got it. By George, she’s got it!” 

It’s finished

We’ve heard little bits and pieces of organ music coming from the sanctuary. We’ve heard just enough that we’re sure it’s going to be terrific, but we can hardly wait to really hear it. We can hardly wait to sing with it. The organbuilder was very clear--we wouldn’t use the organ until it was ready. He wanted our first impression to be based on something he was satisfied with--anything as complicated as this has thousands of things that could go wrong. That confirmed our knowledge that we were working with an artist who really cared about his work. And besides, we already know what a cipher sounds like! 

So we waited. The organ committee kept us up to date about the progress. We knew that our organist was spending time with the organbuilder and we could sense that she was excited. Finally, one Sunday during worship one of the members of the organ committee announced that the organ was finished and we would use it in worship for the first time next week.

The church was packed. The new organ looked great. We had all seen the drawings and models of the design, but we were not prepared for the effect of the real thing. The effect was increased because we had gotten used to seeing tools, boxes, and other gear in the church, and for the first time since the organ was delivered everything was neat and clean. We started with a hymn. The organ’s sound was clear and natural. When we started to sing we felt as if our voices were part of the organ--or that the organ was part of our voices. It was like drafting behind a truck on the highway--the sound came from our mouths without effort. We knew right away . . . 

It’s part of the family

It’s been two years since the new organ arrived. Two Christmases, two Easters, two summers full of weddings. But it’s not just back to normal. First of all, we haven’t seen the organist run across the front of the church to try to fix a cipher. There was one Sunday when something went wrong and they had to call in the organbuilder, but it was fixed right away and no one seemed worried about it. But more important, our worship is really different. The music is alive and that makes the services alive. Our singing gets better and better--there’s nothing like a good leader. Our organist is practicing a lot and often letting us know how exciting this is for her. And when she plays we can tell. 

We’ve started a concert series. It didn’t take long for our community to realize that our church was a good place to go to hear music. It’s not that we think we’re running a concert hall but it’s great to have so many visitors. Someone once said that there’s no such thing as bad publicity--but there really is nothing like good publicity. 

The purchase of a new pipe organ is a gift that one generation gives to those that will follow. How many venerable organs do we celebrate today that represent a story like this experienced by those who came before us? A new organ is a symbol of strength, of vision, and of faith. A new organ is an expression of excellence--a manifestation of human skills and workmanship. A new organ is the introduction of a new chapter in the life of any church--a lifetime experience for those who participate in it, and an opportunity to combine a parish’s identity with both its past and its future. 

“The Past Becomes the Future”--a double meaning. Every moment of our lives we are moving between the past and the future. The future of a community of worship must be both informed and unfettered by its past. A tricky balance to be sure, but when you get it right you know it.

But, what if your church has a fine organ that’s falling apart? Not every old organ needs to be replaced. Some churches own older instruments that are just as good or better than new--you simply can’t tell because they don’t work. And an organ is not necessarily a poor instrument just because it doesn’t happen to work. There are countless modern examples of organ committees whose study has led to the restoration of their existing organ, and there are many outstanding organbuilders who specialize in shepherding a venerable organ through a rebirth or renaissance. Our narrative is just as appropriate for the rebirth of an old organ as for the commissioning of a new instrument.

Whichever choice is right for your church, the decision will take plenty of time, effort, advice, and money. The result of committing all that treasure of human and financial resources will be the gift your parish leaves to your children.

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? 

What are the questions?

An old adage says that the more experience you have in a field, the more you realize how little you know. This thought lurks at the back of my mind, ready to spring forth without notice. You hear a teenager say, “that’s the best movie ever made,” and you wonder how someone so young can be so sure. Then, pain of pains, you are reminded of similar cocksure statements you made when you were young. I knew so much when I was 18, 20, 22 years old that it was hard to imagine there would be more to know. Thank goodness for the inexorable professors who really did know more than I, and for the mentors who encouraged me in what I did know and never failed to point out those that were still mysteries to me. Whispered aside: A colorful and I think underused word in the English language is moil. The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000) gives “intr.v. 1. To toil, slave. 2. To churn about continuously. n. 1. Toil, drudgery. 2. Confusion, turmoil. (Note that moil is part of turmoil—what do you suppose tur means?) With that definition in your minds: I’ve been toiling and moiling (churning, drudgery, confusion) in the organ business since my first lessons as a young teenager and my first experiences in a workshop. There are completed projects and past performances of which I am very proud, and at least as many (God help us there are not more) that I’d like to forget. But that brings us to another most valuable adage: we learn from our mistakes. So as much as we’d like to forget them, we owe it to ourselves to keep their memory fresh lest they be classified as wasted pain. As I work in my shop I hear little voices saying, “if you do that . . . ” When I fail to listen to those voices I cut my finger or break the piece I’m working on. My friends might chuckle and say, “of course he’s hearing little voices—we’ve known that for years.” But the fact is, I think those little voices are the younger me seeing the scar on my hand caused twenty years ago by exactly the same obtuse motion. Those little voices are not signs of going over the edge, but are pearls of wisdom—that elusive and unquantifiable commodity that comes only from experience. And aren’t some of our best learned lessons those that rise from the smoldering coals of our mistakes? The master watches the motions of the apprentice and reaches for the Band-Aids® minutes before they are needed. The parent wishes to be able to spare the child inevitable pain, realizes that advice will not be heard, and has the Kleenex® on the kitchen table an hour before the school bus arrives.
I started by noting that the more you know, the less you know. A cubist view of that statement says that experience in a field reveals more questions than answers. If you really understand the questions, then you are getting somewhere. Often as I write I suppose I’m giving answers, or at least relating my experiences and observations as actualities. This time, I thought I’d give some questions, try to put them in context, and invite you to cogitate and moil over them. As always, I invite your comments: .

1. Which is better, tracker or electric action?

I grew up in the heart of the famed Revival, immersed in both new and antique pipe organs, believing tracker action to be the root of all that is good. As a young adult I had wonderful opportunities to work on massive electro-pneumatic instruments and was exposed to brilliant players doing magical things with them. I was startled when I realized that I was preferring the flexibility of fancy registration gizmos and the orchestral possibilities of these wonderful organs. Now I know I’m interested in good organs. As long as an instrument is well-conceived and well-built, it doesn’t make a whit of difference what kind of action it has. What do you think?

2. Why do some historical styles of organs have developed pedalboards and pedal divisions while others don’t?

The organs of 17th- and 18th-century France have simple and awkward pedalboards in comparison to those of northern Europe, and the music written for them reflects that. François Couperin le Grand (1668–1733) and J. S. Bach (1685–1750) were contemporaries—a quick glance shows the difference—most of Couperin’s music is notated on two staves. I’ve written before about the reproduced engraving that hangs over my desk (from l’Art du Facteur d’Orgues, Dom Bedos de Celles, 1766). It depicts a large 18th-century French organ shown in cross-section, with an organist playing. He is wearing a powdered wig (good thing it was tracker action, think of that powder clogging up the keyboard contacts), a heavy formal coat with long tails and buttoned cuffs, an equally heavy vest under the coat, and a sword whose tip was right next to his feet on that primitive pedalboard. A sword? No wonder they didn’t use the pedals. One fast flourish and your feet would be bleeding. Imagine the teacher saying, “Go ahead, take a stab at it.” And, to protect himself from injury he was wearing heavy boots. No Capezios here.

3. How do historical styles evolve?

It’s relatively easy to identify and study the differences between, for example, 18th-century French and German organs, but what caused the development of those differences? Was it the wine? Was it the spätzel?

4. Where did the different pitches of organ stops come from?

There is a simple answer—8' is the fundamental tone, 4' is first pitch of the overtone series, 22?3' is the second, and so on through 2', 13?5', 11?3', 11?7'. 102?3' is two octaves below 22?3' so 102?3' is the second overtone of 32' pitch—that series continues with 8', 62?5', 51?3'etc. The overtone series was perhaps first heard clearly in the tone of a big bell. The experienced listener can hear fifths and thirds clearly in the tone of such organ stops as an Oboe, Clarinet, Krummhorn, or Trumpet—in fact, those stops get their color from those strong overtones. That’s why you can hear the pitch of a Tierce so much more clearly against a reed than against warm and fuzzy Gedackt. (When I’m tuning those stops I have the habit of humming and singing parallel intervals and arpeggios inspired by the overtones —another example of the little voices in my head.) But the real question is how the perception of those overtones in the sound of an organ pipe led the early builders to experiment with creating individual stops that doubled overtones.

5. Is chiff a good thing?

During the aforementioned Revival many organbuilders experimented with “chiff, ” that characteristic chiffy consonant that starts the speech of an organ pipe. Every musical tone has some sort of attack that precedes the vowel of the note, and an organ pipe can be voiced to have lots of chiff or virtually no audible chiff. It’s a matter of personal preference, but if some people like it can it be all bad?

6. How does a modern church justify the cost of purchasing and maintaining a pipe organ?

Hardly an organ committee comes and goes without grappling with this one. A committee member asks, “with all the hunger and suffering in our community, why shouldn’t we use the money for a food pantry?” Our church buildings with their fancy windows, silver chalices, statuary, paintings, and pipe organs are expressions of our faith. Our culture is loaded with examples of historical expressions of faith through art—think of the liturgical music of Mozart and Bach, the sculptures of Michelangelo, the buildings designed by Bernini and Henry Vaughan. Are we better able to fund a soup kitchen from a building that makes obvious to our neighbors the strength of the bonds that tie us together as a community of faith?

7. How does a chestnut become a chestnut?

Given the production cycle of this publication, I am writing in mid-December, these few hours sequestered, escaping the tyranny of commercialized versions of our favorite Christmas carols.
Otherwise, I’m racing around the countryside tuning organs (plenty of opportunity to be humming arpeggios next to Krummhorns). Several of the churches I visit are presenting “Messiah Sings.” Handel’s masterpiece is a fantastic artwork. It’s easy to understand how it would filter down through generations as a perennial international favorite. But it’s very difficult music. The choir members in these churches have no idea how difficult it is. I’m sure they wouldn’t dream of tackling Handel’s Israel in Egypt, another masterwork that’s equally majestic and equally difficult to perform. Why is that?
Many parish organists will agree with my assertion that you could successfully plan and play a thousand weddings, fully pleasing all the families involved, with a repertory of ten pieces. We could all name the same list: Wagner, Mendelssohn, Schubert’s Ave, Jesu Joy, Clarke, Purcell, Stookey (“there is love . . . ”). You play through ten unfamiliar pieces for a bride and groom with no response, and they light up with the first six notes of Jesu Joy (boom-da-da dee-da-da . . . ). It doesn’t matter if you’re in Boston, Seattle, San Antonio, Milwaukee, or London. Why is that?
How many of us look forward to playing those wonderful sassy French noël variations—the ones with the non-existent pedal parts? I see volumes of Daquin and Balbastre on organ consoles all across New England. How many congregants recognize them as seasonal music? We erudite organists associate them with Christmas as readily as reindeer and O, Holy Night. Why is that?

8. Why did it take so long to develop equal temperament?

(Please do not interpret this as an indication of personal preference!)
Equal temperament is the most common system of tuning keyboard instruments and was not commonly used until at least the late nineteenth century. Pythagoras (6th century, BC) is credited with the development of the concept of tempering, of dividing the circle of fifths into the octave, a feat that is technically impossible. If you start on a single note and tune pure fifths around the circle of fifths, when you complete circle returning to C from F, you have nothing like a fifth. So over the centuries, various musicians, mathematicians, and theorists toiled and moiled developing systems that would divide that discrepancy over more and more of the intervals, allowing more of the twelve possible keys to be useful—or usable. The advent of Pythagorean tuning was natural, but I wonder why he or one of his contemporaries didn’t solve the problem by dividing the difference over all the intervals from the very beginning. That would have changed the development of music dramatically.
Some of these questions have real answers. Some of these questions have different answers, depending on whom you ask. I’ve given comments to introduce each of the questions that may lead a reader to deduce that I have an opinion. And those of you that know me personally may be able to read what you know to be my opinions, whether I know them or not. Why is that?
The questions frame the debate. If there’s a debate over a specific question, does it follow that there is no right or wrong answer?
Here’s an exercise that illustrates the elusiveness of correct answers. Take a well-known church building: St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York. Consider two well-known and successful organbuilders, respected for the toil and moil of their respective careers: Ernest Skinner and Taylor & Boody. Imagine what each would consider the ideal organ for the space. Now tell me, who’s right?

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of THE DIAPASON.

James and Marilyn Biery are two very active composers, performers, and church musicians. Husband and wife, they share leadership of the music program at the Cathedral of St. Paul in St. Paul, Minnesota. They met at Northwestern University, where both studied organ (that organ department, as most know, no longer exists).
Marilyn Biery, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ and church music from Northwestern, and a DMA from the University of Minnesota, served as director of music at First Church of Christ in Hartford from 1986–96; she is now associate director of music at the Cathedral of St. Paul. James Biery, who also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in organ and church music from Northwestern, served as director of music at Holy Trinity Church in Wallingford, Connecticut from 1982–89, and from 1989 until 1996 as organist and director of music at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Hartford, assuming the position of director of music at the Cathedral of St. Paul in 1996.
Both Bierys are prolific composers (see the complete list of their works on their website, <http://home.att.net/~jrbiery/&gt;. Their works are published by MorningStar, GIA, Oregon Catholic Press, Boosey & Hawkes, Alliance, and Augsburg Fortress. Marilyn has also been a contributor to The Diapason (see “The Organ in Concert,” January 2005). We visited with the Bierys in St. Paul in July 2007.

Joyce Robinson: How did you get into this? Marilyn, you were a pastor’s kid, so you had that early exposure. James, how about you?
James Biery: I was a kid of parents who went to church! (laughter) Actually, my grandfather on my mother’s side was a minister, so that’s in my blood. We went to church, a fairly little church in Plattsmouth, Nebraska, but it was fortunate enough to have a pipe organ, a five-rank Reuter. It could shake the pews, in its own way, and it made an impression.

JR: How old were you when you got on the bench?
JB: Eleven, maybe ten.
Marilyn Biery: I was eleven. I looked through my diaries and I had the date of my first organ lesson! Isn’t that cool.
JB: It’s a funny thing, but you get the bug somehow. And it was pretty strong. After I’d seen a real music program in Omaha, and started studying with a real organ teacher, then I really got hooked.

JR: I find it interesting that you, Marilyn, have a doctorate in organ, and James, you went the route of getting a master’s and then the AGO’s Fellow and Choirmaster certificates.
JB: I went through a little period when I thought it was fun to do that. Schooling is not my cup of tea.
MB: But I like school. James reads books and does all these things on his own—like the [AGO] Fellow and the Choirmaster; he did that all on his own.
JB: That’s not really true. We had gone to New York at that point, to study with Walter Hilse, improvisation and various things. I enjoyed that.
MB: But he still reads books. I only do if I’m taking a class.
JB: Everyone has their motivators.
MB: So I needed a class—a regimen and a schedule. Actually, I started my doctorate in conducting; I didn’t want another degree in organ. I started it in Connecticut; then we moved, and I thought that I was going to finish it in conducting, but at that time they didn’t have a doctorate in conducting in Minnesota, believe it or not. The state with St. Olaf and such places, yet a conducting doctorate just didn’t exist! So when I moved here, I was for one very short semester looking at the orchestral program, but decided pretty quickly that I wasn’t interested in being an orchestral conductor. I switched back to organ. It was a good thing. It was fun.

JR: You’d both been in Connecticut in separate positions. When you came to Minnesota, was it just you, James, taking this job?
JB: Yes.
MB: He was nice. I said I’d be happy to move if I could just go and not have to work, because I was in the middle of the degree, and at that point I had decided that I was going to be a director of choral activities in a college. That was my career goal. I wasn’t thinking “church job.” We agreed that we would move and figure out if we could live here on his salary, and I’d go to school and find something else. There was a budget for an assistant position, which they had before, so he started interviewing people as soon as he got here; and along about November, said, “let’s just hire Marilyn.” So it was a temporary thing and I just never left.
JB: It worked out nicely because we went through the process—we advertised the position, we were interviewing and auditioning, and I had a committee. We reached a certain point where one of the people on the committee said “Why aren’t we just hiring your wife?” But it was better that it didn’t come from me; rather, it came from the parish.
MB: So I did that part-time for three years; when I finished the degree in ’99, the pastor said, “please put in a proposal to increase your hours to 20 hours a week.” At that point it was perfect to just keep it at 20, because our daughter was ten. It was so nice to work in the same place. We knew we could work together, and in fact we’ve done things together almost our whole married life. The building needs two people; in fact, more than two people.

JR: But you knew that working together would succeed.
MB: Oh, yes. We’ve done it for years. When we were students together, we’d do things together, and then before I finished my degree we were in one church and we used to do some things together. We’ve been together for 30 years. I’ve always helped out at his churches, and he’s always helped out at mine. I always knew we’d enjoy working together. I just like being in the same room with him all the time! (laughs) I like to hear him play the organ and we like to do things together.

JR: James, you are director of music at the cathedral, and Marilyn, you are associate director. Are you the entire music staff?
JB: Well, yes and no. We have music staff at the diocesan level too. Michael Silhavy is in charge of diocesan events. We are also fortunate to have Lawrence Lawyer as our assistant in music, helping with a multitude of musical and administrative duties.

JR: Who does what?
JB: In order to cover everything that happens in the building, there really are four of us who are regularly employed here.
MB: Who are actual musicians and not administrative.
JB: We’re talking about organists and directors.
MB: For diocesan events, where the bishop comes, we have Michael, who’s next door, who does those, with our help. But he can ask anybody in the diocese, so if he knows that it’s a really busy time for us, he can ask someone at the seminary to come in and play for an ordination Mass. Michael doesn’t get involved with anything on a parish level. There is a separate choir he conducts, which is mostly volunteers, about 60 or 80 people. We do the day-to-day work, but we get involved when he asks us. Michael used to work at GIA years ago, then he moved to the cathedral in Duluth, then moved down here as the worship center director. We’ve known him for almost twenty years.
We do four weekend masses with organ; there is another one with cantor only, just a sung Mass. Right now all three of us are going to be at the choir Mass, which is our high Mass. We both play the organ, we both direct; Lawrence Lawyer, our music assistant, at this point doesn’t do any directing, but we’re hoping he will. We have the Cathedral Choir at the 10 am Mass and we both switch off and do everything—if we’re not playing, we sing. I do another weekend Mass, and we rotate, and he’ll do two Masses a weekend and Lawrence does one. The St. Cecilia Choir is the kids’ choir, and all three of us do that. You can listen to sound bites of that on the web. (See <www.cathedralsaintpaul.org/calendars/sounds.asp&gt;.)

JR: What’s the size of your main adult choir?
JB: 30–35.
MB: It fluctuates. There are nine section leaders, and then we have 20 or 25 really good volunteers. The main core is 30.

JR: How many children’s choirs are there?
JB: One.
MB: We started branching off by using the older girls for some things, so we’ve developed a group of six or eight older girls that we call the Schola. We also invented something new for the boys, because a lot of them are home-schooled kids. So they come with their families.
JB: We just really didn’t have the heart to turn them loose when their voices changed. One family, just the sweetest people, asked if there was something we could do. My first answer was no, I’m sorry, it’s a treble choir. Then I thought about it for a week or two, and talked to the person who was then running it with me, and we decided to figure out a way to deal with this. We’re doing the Voice for Life program, the RSCM program, which is very nice. So at first we occasionally had them sing on some things, but it’s gone even beyond that now. We had three of these boys with changed voices last year, and they were doing some things on their own, too.
MB: We had them ring handbells—if you listen to one of our pieces that’s on the website, his O Come Divine Messiah—that’s everybody. That’s our daughter playing the oboe, and the main chorus singing the whole thing; the Schola sings the middle section, and the boys are ringing the bells. We’re doing two pieces this year where we taught them the bass line—I’m sure one of them’s going to be a tenor—but James taught them how to read the bass line.
JB: Another wonderful thing as you know with Voice for Life—they have some musical skills, rudimentary, but in some ways, better than some of our adult singers.
MB: They learned the bass part of an Ave Verum of Byrd, and then of the Tallis If Ye Love Me, and With a Voice of Singing. The girls who were trebles sang the soprano part with the adult choir, and the boys—I put them in with the basses, and the basses loved it. Some day, some choir director in some church somewhere is going to thank us because she’ll have these three boys who then, grown-up, will still have it in them.
As cathedrals go, and I could be wrong about this, we have one of the more active parishes in the United States. But it’s just like any kind of city church—the parish, for the children and for the parish choir in a building like this, is usually smaller than in suburban churches. We have 30 kids in the choir, which we think is really good. I’d love to have 50!
JB: The parish tends to be more singles and folks who move in and out—a large turnover; some families too.
MB: For a while, our biggest parishioner group was the 29 to 39 single female. We had a lot of young professional women in the choir.

JR: How do you divide the conducting and accompanying tasks?
JB: One thing that we discovered along the way is that for the most part it doesn’t work to switch off conducting and organ playing in the middle of a concert. (chuckling) We used to do that, and it just makes things harder. There’s something about the continuity and how to budget time and that sort of thing. So we did stop doing that a few years ago. Working backwards from that, the one concert that we do every year is around Advent/Christmas. It will work out that whoever is conducting that concert will do a lot of the rehearsal through November–December. But that’s the exception. During most of the year, we just split things up—sometimes it’s back and forth in a rehearsal, sometimes she’ll take half of the rehearsal and I’ll take the second half—it depends what we’re doing.
MB: He sings baritone, and I sing soprano. You know the Allegri Miserere, the one with the high Cs—right now we only have one person in the choir who can sing the high Cs. So it means that he has to conduct, because I have to sing those. My voice tends to be better for the Renaissance things; I don’t have much vibrato, and it’s a small, light tone. During Lent I do more singing with the choir, because we do more Renaissance works then, and he’ll do most of the conducting, whereas we need him more for pieces of other periods, so then I’ll conduct more of the things we need him to sing on; if we have brass and such and it’s a big celebration that needs improvisation, we’re more comfortable having him at the organ and me conducting. The things needing a lot of filling in or improvisation—he tends to get those. The last deciding factor is whoever’s not sick of something. Sometimes I’ll say, “I conducted that last time, you do it”— it’s more a matter of what would be most fun to do next time.
JB: One thing that sets us apart from 99% of the rest of the world is that neither of us likes to have an anthem marked—with all the breathing, and the interpretation. And then everybody has it marked, we sing it the way we did last time, and the time before that, and the ten times before that! That just drives us both nutty—because every time we bring out a piece, you have different singers, things are always a little different, you have a little different idea of how the piece should go, or maybe you’ve actually even learned something about it! Part of it sometimes is boredom—you know, “I’ve done this piece five times in a row, it’s time for you to do it.” It drives our singers nutty, because most of them come from other choirs where you have markings in your part, and you can expect that the conductor will do it that way. And people who have sung with us for 11 years will say, “But I have marked a breath there”—well, we don’t want a breath there this time! (laughter)

JR: Since both of you are composers, how do you handle pieces you’ve written? If you wrote an anthem, do you play it, do you conduct it?
JB: That’s a great question, because sometimes if you’ve written a piece, you learn more if you’re not the one who conducts it. I think frequently we might do it that way. If it’s a piece that I’ve written, that I want to try out, I will have her conduct it, because then I’ll find out how clear I have been in the notation—there are written indications that somebody else will interpret totally differently from the way I think it should be.
MB: He tends to write more choral things right now, and I tend to do a few more organ pieces. So he tends to play my organ pieces, more than I do.
JB: Another thing I like is if it’s a piece that we’re trying out, I would prefer to just listen, or if it’s accompanied, just sit at the piano or organ, and not be in charge.
MB: I generally tend to do more of the conducting in his pieces, too. When we celebrated our tenth anniversary at the cathedral, we had decided that I would do all the conducting. In fact, the program says that I did all the conducting. But then there were two pieces, which aren’t marked in your program, that at the last minute we decided Jim should do, partly because of the makeup of our sopranos—he always conducts the Ubi Caritas—and they’re more used to him.
JB: It kind of breaks the rule of what I was just saying. In that case, they’re kind of used to doing it in a certain way. We had to do all these things in a short rehearsal time, so—
MB: It was easier. The other piece was Ave Maria, and the sopranos needed me, so at the last minute we decided to switch, and he conducted those two pieces, and I did the rest of the conducting. We have a recording of that. We also have done hymn festivals, with Michael, where we put our two choirs together.
JB: Michael is very interested in hymnology. He has a gift for being able to put things together in interesting ways, and he can also write a really nice script for a program like that.
MB: For one of our Christmas programs, we had a set of poetry commissioned, Near Breath, which is really wonderful, from Anna George Meek, one of our section leaders. The whole program was based around that, and she intertwined the music we were doing.

JR: The cathedral is quite a presence—for instance, you’ve had the Minnesota Orchestra playing here, doing the Bruckner symphonies, and those were conceived for a cathedral-type ambiance.
JB: We are really excited about that. Osmo Vänskä, that’s his baby.

JR: Is that something you originated?
JB: No, he was behind the whole thing. He came to us with his proposal to do this. The performance is done two or three times, only once in the cathedral, but the cathedral one is the “main” performance—it’s the one that gets broadcast, and so forth.
MB: There are organizations that use the building a lot—Philip Brunelle uses it a lot for VocalEssence. Every time they bring over a boy choir group, they use the cathedral; I’m not sure why not the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis, except that probably we seat more people.
JB: I think also he has sort of a Minneapolis group, so it’s an outreach to come over to “this” side.
MB: It’s just too much of a cavern for a small sixteen-voice group. We’ve had other groups like the National Lutheran Choir try it, and they ended up over at the Basilica of St. Mary too, because the room’s too wide, too big. You can have too much acoustic.

JR: Did either of you formally study composition? James, you reportedly taught yourself—studying organ literature and orchestral scores.
JB: Marilyn thinks that’s how it started out, and I think she’s right!
MB: We used to play duets. When we started out as players, we wanted to play organ duets and we still do—we do two-organ things now too—but there isn’t much repertoire out there that’s really very interesting.
JB: We got bored in a hurry. So I just started looking around for different things to do, and the transcription idea was appealing, and it ended up being intensive score study.
MB: I’ll never forget his very first piece—his parents had died and he was in a situation where the church was full-time but it didn’t take up his whole day. And we lived nearby and I was gone most of the day.
JB: At times it was very, very busy, but then there were other times when, frankly, there wasn’t that much to do.
MB: I remember coming home, and he had said to me earlier, you know the famous Make Me a Channel of Your Peace—he said, kind of on a dare to himself, “I think I could write something on that text and I think I could get it published.” He’d never written anything before except little choral sentences or whatever. I came home from Hartford one day, and he said, “I wrote a piece today.” And that kept happening for a while. I’d come home and say, “What did you do today, dear?” “Oh, I wrote a piece.” (laughter)
JB: One day, she came home, and I said, “I wrote a Christmas piece, only it needs words. No hurry!”
MB: “—but I want it for my rehearsal next week.” (laughter) He said “I want to do it for our Christmas program,” and could I do some text? He showed me the tune, and I sat right down and wrote something, and we got that published pretty fast. He always says “I don’t need it right away—but could you do it tomorrow?”

JR: Do you have any compositional process, or do you just hear a tune going through your head and take it from there?
JB: Grief.
MB: Grief and angst and paranoia—both of us. He’s just as bad.
JB: Everything’s a little different. So I don’t know if there really is any “process.” Choral music is different from organ music.
MB: We do things without the keyboard, sometimes. But I always use it, as I need to.
JB: I have found that the things that I’m most proud of and happiest about are pieces where the bulk of the whole thing has been done at one session—like in one day. It takes weeks or months to finish it and flesh out all the details, but I do find that the best things are done at one sitting.

JR: Do you have a keyboard hooked up to “Finale” at home?
JB: We do.
MB: He just built us a “virtual organ.” He ordered the pedalboard and the keyboards, and he has it hooked up—which organ are we playing right now, whose is it?
JB: It’s a Casavant organ, from Champaign, Illinois.
MB: It’s a great little practice instrument. Our basement’s small. It beats an electronic. It sounds just like a real organ.
JB: I can play that thing for hours on end and not get sick of it, which is saying a lot. I never have run into any electronic where I could do that. It has the advantage of being connected to the computer.
MB: We can compose on it. I’ve just started using it. I’m not as computer-happy as he is; I love to use it once it’s all set up, but he has to show me and then I’m fine.
JB: It has been interesting to grow with this technology, because I always used to write things out, paper and pencil, first, and then gradually move to the computer program. I found as the years have gone by that the computer portion of that has crept in earlier and earlier in the process. In fact, it’s right at the beginning now; even if I do write things on pencil and paper, generally there’s a computer file to start with.
MB: It looks nice, and my handwriting’s terrible, and for me I just put everything in after I plunk away, and then I can fiddle with it.
JB: We have our laptops, and once you get a piece to a certain point, you can just sit there and listen to it, and change things around, and you don’t have to be anywhere near a keyboard.
MB: I’ve been doing more words lately—organ music and more texts. The one I’m happiest with is my setting of the Beatitudes—everybody wants to sing them, and there just are not many choral settings that don’t get pretty redundant.
JB: It’s a hard text to set. The form doesn’t really lend itself too well. She did a strophic hymn that’s inspired by the text, to get around that problem. And I think it’s really very nice.
MB: That took a year. But anyway, Jim has a piece based on it, too, with descant, and middle stanza parts.

JR: Tell me about Stir Up Thy Power, O Lord, which is a nice anthem for a small choir.
JB: That anthem is almost entirely in unison. In fact, it could be done in unison. It’s kind of surprising. We have a composer friend who heard the premiere of that, and he has a very sophisticated ear, and one of his comments at the end was that he wasn’t really quite aware that it was almost all unison! I thought that was a very nice compliment.

JR: Congratulations, you got ASCAPLUS awards in 2006 and 2007.
JB: Yes. It is really a nice little program, because it recognizes composers who have pieces that are actually being performed, but in places that don’t generate performance fees, namely in churches. I fill in an application, then I Google my name and try to find all these places where things are being done, and it’s amazing! But they’re all at church services, or occasionally recitals and things.
MB: College choirs do his O Sacrum Convivium a lot, and O Holy Night.

JR: Marilyn, let me ask you about your new music championing. You wrote an article for The Diapason about MorningStar’s Concert Organ series, and last I looked it has three dozen titles in it. Is it doing well?
JB: The publisher is not pulling the plug on it, so I think that’s a good sign.
MB: I’ve been so disappointed all along in the way people are NOT interested in new music—we’ve noticed it in our own things, and I’ve noticed it a lot with organ music. I am disappointed in the lack of widespread interest in simply supporting these composers.
JB: My theory is that the problem is that there was a period where there was so much avant garde music and music that was just plain hard to listen to, and so many people got turned off to the idea of new music. It’s too bad, because many composers are writing very easy-to-listen-to music now. If anything, I’d say that’s the preponderance of what’s being written.
MB: I think it’s coming back.
JB: I don’t think the market has caught up with the new trend yet.
MB: And it’s hard to get things published.
JB: And organists—well, churches—tend to be on the conservative side, so that enters into the picture too.
MB: I think that the more original you are as a composer, the harder it is for your piece to get published. One composer I was working with for so long wrote this incredible organ duet and other pieces that were so amazing, and one response from a publisher was, “it’s a magnificent piece of music, but it simply won’t sell.”
JR: How did you get into writing texts?
MB: We took a hymnody class together at Northwestern. After that hymnody class, and feeling “gee, I’d like to do this,” I would do a few a couple times a year, and I had maybe a dozen, but in my mind I felt that I’d written a hundred in my life. All of a sudden I thought, “wait a minute, I’m in my forties, I write one a year—how am I going to get up to a hundred? This is not going to work.”
At that time my dad died. And—I think you have to have suffered a little before you can write any kind of hymnody. And I had quite a bit of suffering. My dad had Alzheimer’s, as his father did, and I was there at the end. His pastor said this wonderful prayer over him as he was dying, about how he knew that Al was in two wonderful places: he was very present on earth, that he can feel all his family’s love, and yet he’s one step into heaven and he can see the glory. It set off a hymn, which I knew was inspired from that. So I wrote a bunch of hymns; I must have written three, four, five dozen. I’m not quite up to a hundred, but I’m not dead yet!
JB: For a while, Marilyn was doing it as a daily discipline. You were going through the meters—sitting down and writing one every day.
MB: That was hard to keep up every day. It’s like practicing an etude every day, after a while you have a certain amount of technique. But I miss the discipline of it; I’ve gotten out of that habit. I did that for about a year or two. Now I do things on request, or if he has something and he wants help. And this year, do you know the Eric Whitacre piece that everyone sings—Lux aurumque—he had this piece that he’d written, which was in English verse that he had translated into Latin. I wrote a text, and then a woman in the choir translated it into Latin for us. That one will be published in a little bit. It’s a cool thing to have somebody in your choir who can translate something into Latin for you.
JB: So she did an English text, and then Maryann Corbett did a Latin translation, and then I wrote a piece on the Latin, Surge inluminare, for choir and harp. The next step was that the publisher wanted an English translation—an English text that could be sung. So then they had to go back and recreate another thing, so it was like going around in a circle back to the English. It was interesting!
MB: We like to do a lot of different things: we both like to sing, to play, to conduct, to write, and I like to do the hymn texts. It keeps us from getting burned out. So right at the moment, I’m writing general things.

JR: What about your duets? You sometimes perform as a duo, is this just occasionally?
JB: Not so much recently.
MB: We used to do two-organ things, and we got a little tired of that, because we’d done all the repertoire multiple times.
JB: Two-organ repertoire, you just can’t take it on the road. Every situation is totally different. We did do a two-organ program in Milwaukee last year. That was fun, but there are limits to what you can do with that.
MB: The registration time is immense. It takes a good five or six hours just to register pieces, and then if you’re lucky you’ve got four or five hours the next day to work all the bugs out. It takes a lot of time. So we tend to play duets here, simply because it’s easier—it’s our instrument, we can register them over a period of a couple months, or whenever we feel like it. We’ve given up on the touring because it takes so long. If we were going to do something, we would have to allow three full days of just practicing. We can do it in two, but it’s hard.

JR: One last question—how do you keep a general balance in life, physical health along with everything else?
JB: I bike ride. It helps.
MB: I’ve been riding a couple times a week. And the Y’s right down the street.We walk a lot—walk and talk. In winter it’s hard to get out, because the wind is so bad and it’s hard to walk. That’s when we’re better about going to the Y. But we eat as healthfully as we can, so we try to do as much as we can. The mental health—I have no clue!
JB: Neither of us has ever figured out how to be well rounded!
MB: Well, we’re two perfectionists, and we tend to be very precise, and it’s not easy to work with that. Our choir does really well with it, but in an office situation that can be hard for people who aren’t as interested in getting details done.

JR: Do you have any other hobbies?
MB: I’m the parent organizer for our daughter’s swim team, so other than that, no, just exercise and eating right, and wine! And keeping up with our daughter. When she leaves, I don’t know what we’ll do. Internet stuff.

JR: Thank you!

Joyce Johnson Robinson is associate editor of The Diapason.

Christopher Houlihan may very well be the youngest organist ever interviewed by The Diapason. A Connecticut native, Houlihan—sometimes known as “Houli”—made his debut album at 19 (a recording of the Vierne Second Symphony, made before he went to France in his junior year; see the review by David Wagner in The Diapaso, January 2009, pp. 19–20). His second recording (Joys, Mournings, and Battles, Towerhill Recordings) was recently released—a significant achievement for any artist, but all the more amazing given his youth. Houlihan, who placed first in the High School Division of the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition (see David Spicer, “Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition 2003,” The Diapason, November 2003, p. 17), is a graduate of Trinity College, where he studied with John Rose; during his senior year he made his orchestral debut with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, performing Barber’s Toccata Festiva. Rose had insisted that Houlihan pursue some study with a different teacher, so during his junior year Houlihan studied with Jean-Baptiste Robin at the conservatory in Versailles, where he earned the French equivalent of an artist’s diploma. He also served as assistant musician at the American Cathedral in Paris, under Edward Tipton, working as choral accompanist and directing two children’s choirs. One Sunday when Tipton was away and Houlihan was to serve as both organist and choir director, the cathedral received a few hours’ advance notice that the President and First Lady of the United States, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush, would attend.
Houlihan’s first teacher, John Rose, described meeting the youngster prior to playing a recital—the young man and other family members came an hour early to get a bird’s-eye-view seat, in order to see the console and player up close. This initial meeting led to lessons with Rose at Trinity College, and subsequently to Houlihan’s matriculating there. Rose notes that one of Houlihan’s qualities is the ability to generate excitement about the organ and its music, to be able to communicate the music and his passion for it to an audience, and credits some of this to Houlihan’s technical mastery of rhythm and accent in way that makes the music “electrifying.” Rose feels that Houlihan’s “thirst for knowledge and learning” lead him to be “well informed about various performance practices,” yet realizing “the importance of bringing his own ideas and a fresh outlook to his interpretations. He also understands (and enjoys) the need to adapt his ideas uniquely, as needed, from one organ to the next.”
Christopher Houlihan’s fans are of all ages and include an 85-year-old retired math teacher at Trinity, along with students at the college; they have formed a group known as the “Houli Fans,” and this has expanded into marketing: t-shirts, caps, and mugs are available. Most of these students had never experienced an organ recital before supporting their friend. When he performed with the symphony during his senior year, they chartered buses to take throngs of students to the orchestra hall, where they rained down loud cheers from the balcony. Christopher Houlihan currently studies with Paul Jacobs at the Juilliard School, and is represented by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists (www.concertartists.com). Houlihan can be found on Facebook and YouTube, and his website is www.christopherhoulihan.com.

Joyce Robinson: Do you come from a musical family?
Christopher Houlihan: My family isn’t musical, but my parents have always been incredibly supportive of my passion. I think my mother signed me up for piano lessons just so I would have something to do after school. At the beginning I liked it, I thought it was all right, but I kept practicing and eventually joined a church choir in my hometown of Somers, Connecticut when I was about 8, and discovered the organ. The organ in the church was an electronic organ, and the organist there always had the tremolos on, but she showed me everything she knew and encouraged me to explore. She let me practice on the instrument. I was immediately excited by it and drawn into it, and I started reading as much as I could about the organ and tried to talk to other organists, but at the same time, I had no idea how to take organ lessons. It was obvious you could take piano lessons or lessons on any other instrument, but the organ was kind of a mystery to both my parents and me. My mother loves telling the story of walking into my bedroom and seeing me at my digital keyboard, moving my feet around. She discovered I had put rows of masking tape on her hardwood floor, in the outline of the pedalboard, so that I could learn how to play the pedals. She was a bit horrified that I had put tape all over her floor, but at the same time, she thought it was pretty clever.
Then, in 1999, my mother read in the newspaper that there was an organ concert going on in Springfield, Massachusetts. We’d never been to an organ concert before, never really heard any classical organ music, but we went, and I got hooked. I still have the program from that recital, and, looking back on it, I can’t imagine having had a better introduction to concert organ music: I heard Franck’s Pièce Héroïque and Vierne’s Third Symphony for the first time that day. After the concert, we spoke with the organist, and I said, “I want to take organ lessons, what do I do?” And the man said, “Why don’t you come down to Hartford and play for me?” This was John Rose. We went to Trinity, and I played for him; I was twelve years old, and he took me on as a student. From there, it just took off—I kept studying with him throughout high school, and when it came time to look at colleges, Trinity turned out to be a very good fit for me. John never pushed for me to go to Trinity; he would have been supportive of any decision I made, but for a lot of reasons I chose Trinity, and I’m really glad I did.

JR: Is that where your interest in Vierne came from? John Rose is well known for his work on Vierne, and your first recording was mostly Vierne.
CH: Yes, it was. John has been a wonderful mentor, and he’s never forced any particular style of playing on me, and I’ve studied all sorts of repertoire with him. But I do suppose I’ve had more exposure to Vierne than many other people, certainly because of his love of Vierne. I remember working on the “Berceuse” from the 24 Pieces in Free Style; that was probably my first Vierne piece.

JR: How old were you then?
CH: I’m not sure! I was in middle school, probably 13. Then when I got to Trinity, he said “You should really learn the Vierne Second Symphony, I think it would be a good piece for you.” And I learned it, and I absolutely loved it. Vierne is very chromatic, it’s very different from most Widor . . . Some people say things like, “You should never play a complete French symphony, it’s too long, it’s trash, audiences don’t like it,” but I find it incredibly gratifying as a performer and as a listener to hear a complete symphony. You rarely go to an orchestral concert and hear the Finale from a Beethoven symphony—you hear the whole work. I think a Vierne symphony works much better as a complete piece . . . the individual movements speak much more profoundly when you hear them in the context of the whole symphony.

JR: You must have worked on quite a bit of French repertoire with John Rose before you went to France.
CH: I did.

JR: And when you got to France, did you find the approach to French music to be different?
CH: That’s a complicated question to answer, but yes, the approach was very different. I went to France because I had a strong affinity for French romantic music, but I also wanted to learn more about French classical music, as well as study modern French music. Certainly one of the most beneficial aspects of studying organ music in France is hearing and playing on French organs. But having grown up on American organs, playing primarily in drier American acoustics, and approaching music from an American perspective in general, I really had to learn a new style of playing, one that was more effective for those instruments and rooms. My teacher, Jean-Baptiste Robin, often talked to me about “taste,” which is, of course, completely subjective, but I became more aware of the fact that taste is also cultural, and people from two different backgrounds (musical and otherwise) will have very different opinions about what they consider to be “in good or bad taste.” For example, sometimes I would phrase something a certain way, or accent something a certain way, and Jean-Baptiste would remark that it sounded “American.” Well, I am American, after all!
What is true, though, is that French music sounds most “at home” on French organs. One of the most incredible experiences I had was going to Poitiers Cathedral, where Jean-Baptiste Robin is titulaire, and hearing the 1791 Clicquot organ there. When I heard French classical music on that instrument I was almost in tears, it was so beautiful. That music came alive and worked in a way I had never heard it before. The same can be said of romantic music, but to a less extreme degree, when hearing it on French romantic organs. But what I’ve come to believe through those experiences is that what is far more important than choosing the historically correct stops, or playing in a historically correct way, is the type of musical effect that comes across to a listener. If hearing Widor played at St. Sulpice brings you to your knees, then that music should have the same effect wherever you’re playing it, and, typically, in my opinion, to get that kind of effect on American organs, you have to play the music in a very different way than you might in France.

JR: So are you saying that one must register more with one’s ears than just looking at labels on the knobs?
CH: Yes, absolutely. And at the same time, you don’t have to travel all the way to France to register that way. I think you have to go with your gut—you have to look for what’s the most musical solution when you’re registering anything. It’s not what the book says is the correct registration, but what has an effect—what makes the music come alive.

JR: Was there any particular aspect of registration that you had to make adjustments for when you returned to the U.S.?
CH: There are all sorts of things one can do. One basic idea that is important to know about is the upward voicing that a lot of the French organs have, where things really sing in the treble in a way they don’t on most of our organs. There’s not an easy solution to this, but it’s something to keep in mind and listen for. The other thing is that our Swell boxes are, generally, much more expressive even on smaller organs, and you can use them in a different way for the kinds of musical effects that naturally occur without moving the box on a French organ. The reason Franck used the Hautbois with his 8′ foundations was to make the Swell more expressive . . . if the oboe isn’t needed, I leave it off. Many American organs have the only chorus reeds in the Swell, and they might be quite loud; therefore, you don’t always have to play with the full Swell on where Vierne or Widor says “full Swell.” If you’ve only got a full Swell and one more reed on the Great, you don’t get a crescendo effect; you go from loud to louder. You’ve got to allow more liberty for these things, because in the end you’re being truer to the composer’s intentions . . .

JR: Tell us a little more about your time in France. Life in Europe is usually different than it is here, so what was it like for you—your schedule, your study, your practicing? Did you spend time learning the language?
CH: I was there through the Trinity College Paris program. They have about 20 to 30 students there each semester, and through that program I took French language classes, a class on French culture, a course on art history and architecture—they offer all sorts of courses, ranging from history of the European Union, to independent studies on anything you want to learn about. I did part of my coursework through them, and Trinity gave me credit for my organ lessons at the conservatory in Versailles, and my private harmony lessons with Jean-Baptiste.
I was also lucky enough to have an incredible job at the American Cathedral in Paris, working with Ned Tipton. I was the assistant musician, which meant that I accompanied the choir on Sunday mornings, and I directed two children’s choirs—the children’s group, and a teenager group—and along with all this I had an apartment in the cathedral tower, which was really incredible! You could climb to the top of the tower, and you had one of the most spectacular views of Paris. You could see all of the major monuments, really stunning. The cathedral is on the Avenue Georges V, which is right off the Champs Elysees . . . the whole experience was very surreal and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity. And the people at the cathedral are so wonderful. There are a lot of Americans, of course, and people from England, from Australia, and French people too!

JR: During your time in France, you performed for George and Laura Bush at the American Cathedral in Paris. Can you recall that day?
CH: I’ll certainly never forget it. It actually began on a Saturday afternoon when I got a knock at the door of my apartment. Now, my apartment was 83 steps up a cement spiral staircase, so I didn’t get very many knocks on the door . . . I was fairly surprised to discover the dean of the cathedral and two French police officers with enormous rifles standing in front of me. They explained who would be coming for a visit the following morning. To complicate things, Ned was away, the adult choir hadn’t had a rehearsal the previous Thursday, and we had the children’s choir scheduled to sing that morning too. Unfortunately, we had to keep the news completely secret for security reasons, so I couldn’t let the choirs know what would be happening. Sunday morning was a little hectic . . . security came and set up metal detectors, dogs sniffed through the whole building, and of course, they didn’t care that I had a choir to rehearse! We wound up with about 15 minutes to run through the anthems, but we pulled it off pretty well.

JR: What were your studies like with Jean-Baptiste Robin?
CH: Robin was an excellent teacher and I learned a great deal from him. At his recommendation, we spent the year working almost exclusively on French music, and nothing could have made me happier. Each week I would prepare a different piece, by de Grigny, Marchand, Couperin, or one of the other French Baroque composers. We worked a great deal on Franck, of course, on Alain’s Trois Danses, as well as one of Robin’s own pieces, Trois Éléments d’un Songe.

JR: What made you choose Juilliard for graduate study? For that matter, why even bother with graduate study, because you had already made a recording, you were signed to professional management before you even got a bachelor’s degree, if my calculations were correct?
CH: True. I chose Juilliard because I really wanted to work with Paul Jacobs and I have had a wonderful time studying with him. I’ve been lucky at this point to have studied both at Trinity and at Juilliard, and have had vastly different experiences at both schools. At Trinity, the focus was on studying music in a broader context—a liberal arts school; I took classes in all sorts of things: science, math, philosophy—it was wonderful, and I made friends with all sorts of people studying all different subjects, and I can’t say enough positive things about how that can affect one’s perspective on making music. But I really felt I was ready to study music in a much more intense environment, and Juilliard was a great choice for that. I love being in New York City, being at Juilliard, and working with Paul. It’s been very rewarding.

JR: Has it been an opportunity to learn a lot of new repertoire, or just refine what you already know?
CH: One of the unique things about the Juilliard program is that we’re required to perform a new piece each Thursday morning in our organ studio class, which is open to the public. And that was definitely a big draw to go there, to learn a lot of repertoire. It can sometimes be difficult to learn a piece very deeply when you’re going through so much music so quickly, but you can always bring things back to Paul and work on them more, and of course work on them more on your own, which is where the real music happens, spending time getting to know the music very intimately. To touch on the last question again, even though I’ve been lucky to have these opportunities to record a CD and study in France and work under management, which I’m incredibly grateful for and excited by, I believe one never really stops learning. Juilliard has been a wonderful place for me to grow more as a musician, and I hope to continue to do that for the rest of my life.

JR: You have a website, and a presence on Facebook—do you find that these media help build your audiences?
CH: I’m not sure, but I do think they’re incredibly important tools. How many people are on Facebook now? I have no idea, but there’s no reason not to take advantage of it and to be communicating in the world where most people are interacting today. I don’t know if my online presence necessarily helps build my audience, but it certainly doesn’t hurt it. It certainly helps attract younger people.

JR: Do you notice that your audience has a younger demographic than that of other organists?
CH: I don’t think so, not yet at least, but attracting younger people to classical music is something I feel very strongly about. And one of the greatest things I experienced at Trinity was bringing my friends who weren’t musicians to my organ concerts, and getting them excited about it. They responded very positively.

JR: Would that be the Houli Fans?
CH: The Houli Fans grew out of that, from friends of mine who weren’t musicians, but who came to my organ concerts and got excited by the music and discovered something far more fantastic than they ever expected to. I would have never guessed some of my college friends would greet me by humming the opening bars of Vierne’s Second Symphony—or talk to me about how fascinating a Bach fugue was. Houli Fans has caught on in a very organic way, and audiences everywhere I go are interested to hear more about it. At Trinity, students came to the concerts and saw that I loved performing, thought the music was exciting, and they responded by getting more people to come! This is such a good sign for organ music, to see people, of any age, who don’t know anything about organ music responding to it. I think in a way the organ may stand in a better place now than it ever has, I suppose you could say—it has been so dismissed and ignored for so many years, that now it stands to be rediscovered. We’ve all been in situations where people ask about being an organist. They really don’t know what that is, they don’t know what that means, what we actually do. When they hear exciting classical organ music, they’re so wowed by it—it’s true. I’ve played recitals this year and people come up to me and say, “This was my first organ concert and it was way better than I ever expected!” I tell them, “Now go tell somebody else. And come back again and bring them!” Once people discover what’s going on, they’re excited by it. And that’s a really good sign.

JR: Do you see any special role for technology such as iPods or YouTube to advance organ music, or are those just tools like a CD would be?
CH: I think what’s important is reaching as many people as you possibly can. And people are on Facebook, on YouTube—a lot of people are using these things, and if we ignore them (and I’m not suggesting we necessarily are), you’re ignoring a big part of your audience. So I think it can absolutely help. YouTube is a fantastic resource for hearing and seeing performances—it’s an incredible archive of music and musicians and organs and all kinds of music, not just organ music, and quite a tool for marketing and advertising. Everything links to something else, and people can see you and discover other organ music and other performances.

JR: Well, back to the Houli Fans. What are they up to these days?
CH: We have shirts and hats and coffee mugs, and people are really responding well to it. Everywhere I’ve been this year I hear “Oh, I’m going to join the Houli Fans” and “I’m your newest Houli Fan” and things like that. And I find that both musicians and non-musicians want a very fun way to connect with the performer and somehow be involved in the performance. It’s fun!
And there’s nothing wrong with having a little bit of fun, or with classical music being fun. It’s been fun for centuries!

JR: You also have an interest in musical theater. Do you have much time for that any more?
CH: No, not right now, in graduate school, and with a busy performance schedule. But I did a lot of it in high school—I was music director of several shows. That was a lot of fun, and actually a really great learning experience. And I did a lot of it in college, too—music directing, performing on stage, singing, dancing, and all of that. I really enjoy it. At the moment I don’t have plans to do it professionally, but it’s a small passion of mine. I particularly love the music of Stephen Sondheim, and, coincidentally, I’m going to be inaugurating the organ at the Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield, Iowa.
I think there’s a lot that musicians can learn from theater, both from straight drama and musical theater, about how to approach a musical score, similar to the way an actor takes a script and analyzes everything that’s going on to create a character, and perform that character night after night. I try to approach music the same way—take the score and truly consider how to create a musical experience—in a way . . . a whole play. Not necessarily a story, but create the kind of experience I’d like to have as a listener. I think there’s a lot we can learn from theater and the other arts.

JR: Of what you’ve worked on so far, is there any particular repertoire you found a difficult nut to crack—you mentioned finding the character and learning how to bring that out; is there any music that’s been, say, a little more opaque for you?
CH: One of the most incredible things about the organ literature, and one of the most daunting, is the centuries that it spans. All this repertoire and all these different styles—personally, I think it’s impossible to be fluent in and to perform all these styles in a convincing way. Maybe it’s possible; I’d like to be wrong. When I’m learning a piece in a different style that I haven’t studied before, I try to approach it with respect for the scholarship that’s been done on it and its performance practice, but also perform it in a way that feels honest to me, so that I can perform it and convince the audience of the music. I don’t think there is much value in performing something just because you think you should—that you should play so-and-so’s music. Well, what if you don’t like so-and-so’s music? A lot of people may like so-and-so’s music, and a lot of scholars may say it’s important . . . But I don’t have to perform everything under the sun.

JR: In one of Gavin Black’s regular columns in The Diapason, one of his points was that if you don’t really like something, why waste your time learning it? Life’s too short—unless you’re in a competition and it’s required.
CH: At the same time, I’ve learned some pieces—I’m not sure I can name a specific one—where I’m not sure about it at the beginning, or I think I’m not going to like the piece. But then after I learn it I think, “Wow, now that I’ve studied it, and learned more about what the composer was trying to do, and found ways to make it come alive for my own performance, it really is a good piece.” And sometimes I decide to learn a piece, starting off by thinking it’s a great piece, and then after becoming more familiar with it, decide “This isn’t right for me.” It works both ways.

JR: You’ve already recorded two CDs—are you preparing any other recordings? What are your other plans for the future?
CH: I hope to be able to keep recording, and I hope to be able to continue performing. I really enjoy traveling and meeting new people, but most importantly, I love performing and bringing music to an audience. I believe it’s more like making music with an audience. Sometimes I even tell that to the audience too—I thank them for making music with me, since I can’t do it by myself, and since I get so much joy from performing. Eventually, I’d love to be teaching and sharing my love of organ music with others in any way I can.

A conversation with Steven Egler

Steven Egler is Professor of Music at Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1976. He was a student of Robert Glasgow from 1969 to 1981, during which time he completed the B.M., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees at The University of Michigan. Egler is also Councillor for Region V of the AGO.

SE: Please comment about the Gleasons, their teaching, and working with both of them.

RG: They’re both gone now. Harold way back [1980] and Catharine more recently [2003].

SE: How did they compare as teachers?

RG: Quite different from one another. She was very exacting. He was, too, but he was older--a generation older. I didn’t study with her except for some special repertoire. He would suggest that I take a particular piece to Mrs. Gleason that she’d been playing, so I could see what she had to say about it. That was interesting. I studied with Catharine for the whole summer after I had already finished the degree.

But Harold was somebody with a certain presence, because there was a wonderful human mind, sense of humor, and many, many years of experience--and not just in organ. In fact, some of his instructions would be to listen to some orchestral piece because it had something to do with what I was working on; so I did exactly as he told me to do. He had studio class every week--small class, five students.

Catharine’s main influence was in her playing. She played through her recitals before every time that she went on a tour, which was three or four times a year. She would play the tour programs for us up there in [Organ Studio] 427. We could watch everything that she did. Technique was all there. Everything was PERFECT. It was a wonderful example. No frothing at the mouth. Very elegant. THAT was most instructive.

SE: And it was always from memory, right.

RG: Yes.

SE: That’s interesting to me, about memorizing. What about extemporization?

RG: I wouldn’t give you a dime for an organist who couldn’t extemporize a little bit, who has to have every note written down on a piece of paper before he can play anything, who can’t even touch the manuals without having the notes down on the page. I-IV-V-I, if nothing more than that.

But they don’t seem to stress that enough everywhere. I don’t see why they can’t do it. Just scared to death. Make music, as it were. You know what I mean? If you leave your scores at home, on Sunday, go make music. Maybe find a hymn tune and just play on your own. But you know, we’re afraid of it, even though we’ve got music in us and enough technique in our fingers--but of course that takes daily practice.

SE: You’re absolutely right!

RG: It’s partly about your early experiences as a child. There was nothing wrong with sitting down and playing on the keyboard without having anything on the music rack.

SE: Your first teaching position was as professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois, from 1951-1962. It must have been very exciting to get a teaching position right after receiving your graduate degree from the Eastman School. Please describe how this appointment came about.

RG: The appointment was in May of that year, and I started teaching in September [1951]. I knew about the place because I knew of at least one student at Eastman from Jacksonville who had been a student of Ruth Melville Bellatti who was the teacher there before I was. There had been Eastman teachers there in the department of music.

The school was about to get a new four-manual Aeolian-Skinner organ in the chapel. It was a beautiful organ, and I was lucky to have it while I was there--the last 10 years that I was there.

I went back to play there, and they gave me an honorary doctorate [Doctor of Music]. [The recital and conferring of the degree took place on October 3, 1975.] It was a high point for me. That concert was the first concert on the Jacksonville/MacMurray Civic Music Series. They had all kinds of things, you know: orchestra, pianists, from all over--not just one area. They had a full house, as I recall. Do you remember Ruth Melville Bellatti?

SE: No. I only recall hearing the name.

RG: She was my predecessor there once removed. She was a classmate of Catharine [Crozier]. She was a superb player, and she was the one that really got the ball rolling on that new organ.

SE: Didn’t Harold Gleason design that organ?

RG: He had a lot to do with it. He made some suggestions.

SE: That would explain the connection to Eastman. 

RG: Many of the teachers had been from Eastman way back into the 1930s. Joe Clelland went there back in the 1930s and brought Ruth to the faculty. That was one of the best things they ever did. Then she got married to Walt Bellatti and started raising a family. That’s when they got Wilbur Sheridan for four years, and then just the time before the organ was to arrive, he left--went to a college in Washington state, and that’s how I got the position. I saw the new organ specification on paper and thought, “You’re leaving this?” Those were wonderful years. Catharine Crozier played the opening recital.

SE: Didn’t you direct the orchestra at MacMurray?

RG: That was the first year that I was there. The director/chairman called me in and asked, “Wouldn’t you like to conduct the orchestra?” “Sure, I can’t wait.” “Well, you’re the only one around here with any orchestral experience.” I said, “What, I haven’t had any orchestral experience.” “Yes, but you’ve PLAYED in one.” That means you are a conductor if you’ve played in an orchestra.

Well, such as it was. They had five violins, clarinet, bassoon, that was it. String bass, cello, and PIANO--fill in, you see. It was kind of pitiful there for a while, but I was game--I had no choice! They had to grab players anywhere you could find them--faculty, local residents, students--and nobody was any good. It was pretty bad, and I wasn’t much better.

We had a concert coming up right away--Christmas Vespers--and we had to get together right away. In the first place, I had to find something that I thought they could play amongst this VAST repertoire in their library. At the first rehearsal, about half of the instruments were there. The next week, it was just be another arrangement of people, sort of like pick-up. I thought that this was hopeless, so I told the pianist to play loud! We’ll have to have something to carry us through. That was my experience with that orchestra. 

I also taught counterpoint, which I wasn’t planning to do, but this other teacher had left. He was the string teacher and taught counterpoint.

SE: How were your organ students there that first year?

RG: The first year, I think that I had six, and I was lucky to have that many. They didn’t know me, and the organ was coming next year. Then I started playing over the radio every Sunday afternoon, and that got a lot of attention for that area. Then the students began piling in, and there were some very good ones.

One of the prides of that school was the chapel building, which is a handsome building, and the organ. In the meantime, they have acquired a new music and arts building.

SE: How did your appointment to The University of Michigan come about?

RG: It was late in the year and I had been out in Los Angeles to play for my first national convention of the AGO. Then I played for Clarence Mader at his church in Los Angeles that summer, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, Wilshire Boulevard.

Marilyn Mason had played in Springfield, Illinois that spring, and I went over to hear her, and I met her afterwards. Then, in a few days’ time, she called and asked if I would like to be considered for a job at The University of Michigan. There were no vacancies then, but that summer--June--it opened up. So they called me up, flew me back. I met with the dean and the executive board, and was offered the position. Just like that!

SE: Who was the dean of the School of Music then?

RG: James Wallace--a grand guy. Just first rate. He was an ideal dean. The door was always open to students and faculty alike. He was not impressed with himself. His trump card: he was very humane. He would never miss a faculty recital. If there were two on the same night, he would go to the first half of one and the second half of the other. It was the same with some of the older students. He’d show up! 

SE: What have been any highlights of your years at Michigan?

RG: There have been many, such as receiving the Harold Haugh Award for Excellence in Teaching; I appreciated getting that award. And the Eastman School of Music Alumni Achievement Award.

In February 2002, Eastman and the Rochester Chapter of the American Guild of Organists (organized by Tom Trenney) invited me back to do a masterclass for their students. They wanted me to do a roundtable discussion with David Craighead (“Conversation with the Masters”), talking about the “old days.”

Right at the end of that, the Director of the School of Music, James Undercofler, surprised me and presented me with [that year’s] award for Distinguished Alumni Achievement. It was like a diploma, and he read off the citation. This was a surprise, a big surprise.

SE: How have organ teaching and playing evolved over the course of your 50-plus years of teaching? Compare your current students to former students.

RG: Students have changed in the 40 years I’ve been here. They’re not as open and natural. They’re more guarded--not all--more so than they used to be. They had more fun then. It’s all very serious now.

SE: How has the Organ Reform Movement affected organ building and performance?

RG: Well, the level of organ building and tonal design has improved somewhat; but I still enjoy a good E. M. Skinner with certain repertoire, and I have some students who feel that way. They are really fascinated with E. M. Skinner’s philosophy (if you want to use that word). I don’t find anything very charming in the neo-Baroque ideal. Cavaillé-Coll built organs according to his own ideal. He didn’t copy something from before. We wouldn’t have the great 19th-century heritage in France if he hadn’t followed his own creative urge.

SE: What advice would you give to young organists entering the profession today?

RG: Try to think of yourself as a musician first and don’t worry about what’s the latest thing. Follow your own musical instincts. I grew up playing on a flat, straight pedalboard in Oklahoma City, on the only mechanical action organ in town at that time, and I think that it’s still there. It never wore out. It was one of those Hinners--workhorse of an organ--and they just didn’t wear out. Like Austin--it doesn’t wear out.

SE: Can you say anything about your long-standing friendship/collegial relationship with Orpha Ochse?

RG: I first met Orpha when she was new at Eastman, as I was. I was sitting there (fourth floor), and she came up and asked me, “Does it make any difference which of these organs we can practice on?” I said, “No, as far as I know.” We just became friends. The organ department had a lot of new students that fall (1949), but of course, I’d been there since late June--taking lessons, practicing, working--and that’s when I got my church job, which was why I was there so early.

Her personality, sense of humor--very droll sense of humor--you’d think that she was dead serious about something, but she wasn’t. And she had this incredible ability to see into things--the phony side of things, which I appreciated very much, at that time especially.

SE: That must be an incredible thing to have a friend like Orpha over such a long period of time.

RG: Well she’s a rare bird, that’s one thing for sure, and she is also an extremely intelligent bird. She has an unbelievably sharp mind, and therefore it is fun, but you don’t fool her for a minute.

And her books are universally regarded and essential in any organist’s libary: The History of the Organ in the United States; Organists and Organ Playing in 19th-Century France and Belgium, a great resource; and more recently her books about the Austin and Murray Harris companies.

SE: What were some of your favorite organs to play throughout your career?

RG: The 1911 Austin at First Presbyterian Church, Oklahoma City.

The 1920 Kimball organ at the Shrine Auditorium, Masonic Temple, Oklahoma City.

The 1918 Kimball at First Church of Christ, Scientist, Oklahoma City.

At the Eastman School of Music, the 1936 G. Donald Harrison Aeolian-Skinner in Strong Auditorium. This was a totally different idea of organ design. I hear they’re going to restore it.

Church of the Advent, Boston, Massachusetts, 1936 Aeolian-Skinner. It has some of the loveliest sounds that you will hear anywhere. It, along with the Groton School instrument (1935), represented Harrison’s new “American Classic” design.

High on this list would be Merner Chapel, MacMurray College, Jacksonville, Illlinois: 4-manual Aeolian-Skinner (1952).

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1934 Aeolian-Skinner. It has been through many transformations/revisions but is now restored (under the supervision of current organist and former student, Peter Stoltzfus).

Bridges Hall, Pomona College, Claremont, California, 2002 C.B. Fisk. I just heard this a few weeks ago, demonstrated beautifully by college organist Bill Peterson--such an organ and such playing!

SE: What various influences led you to devote your efforts to the romantic repertoire?

RG: I like the music! I loved the Franck D-minor Symphony and heard it performed before I actually played it in the high-school orchestra. The Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3--a recording that I had on 78 record--the reeds of that organ were compelling. I identified with the sounds of those instruments right away. I did not know much about Cavaillé-Coll, but I knew that I liked those sounds.

SE: Do you want to say anything about your performing career, Bob?

RG: Well, I enjoyed it while it lasted. I’m not performing any more. I have what is called atrial fibrillation. Have you heard of that? My heart doesn’t have any rhythm: it doesn’t know where the beat is. It goes crazy because you can’t get enough oxygen for it to operate correctly, so I’m taking all of this medication--I have been now for a couple or three years. It keeps me sort of on an even keel.

The last performance that I did, I almost couldn’t play. I’d been out to West Texas. What a trip--nightmare of a trip! Flying out there, changing in Houston, missing the connection, galloping through the terminal, then missing the connection, then pain all over every inch of my body. It was heart failure. The heart was trying to do the best that it could, but it couldn’t keep up. I didn’t know that at that time. 

I got to the church the next morning. The organ man was there and the organ wasn’t ready to play. He said that I’d have to come back later on in a couple of hours and that they needed more time. I never got to the organ until the night before the performance. It didn’t go very well. I was too tired, by the time I got to second half, I thought that the other pieces were ho-hum, ordinary. Then I thought that maybe this was the right time to “turn the corner.”

I then went to North Texas State University, Denton, Texas, which was presenting a conference on Cavaillé-Coll. I did a recital of that repertoire on that organ in the main hall, and that was hard to do, too. I was just exhausted, and I couldn’t get rested. I thought then, “Just cool it. You don’t need to do this the rest of your life.” The more that I thought that way, the more comfortable I felt.

I played Widor Seventh, complete, on the last part of the program. I got into the next-to-last movement (slow movement) and the organ ciphered, so I had to stop, of course. By this time, I was so dizzy that I didn’t know which way was up, so they came up to see about me. I told Jesse Eschbach, my former student, that I couldn’t go on and that he would have to help me out and that I couldn’t finish the recital. Meanwhile, the audience was wondering what was happening since I didn’t return. I was supposed to teach a performance class the next morning. I did get up and do that.

Then I went to Memphis. I got things worked out, but there was trouble with the organ and one of these impossible situations where the console is where you can’t get to it--you needed to be an acrobat! Nice acoustics, though. Nice organ--Schantz. So I didn’t go. I didn’t play. I cancelled out about an hour before curtain time--too dizzy!

They all seemed to understand when I told them what had happened. But that was the last time I attempted to play anywhere, and I thought then, “That’s it. I’ve done this now since I was that high, so that’s fine.” Having made that decision, I felt as if there was a big weight lifted off of my shoulders. But I’m sorry that I didn’t know more about it (my situation) before that performance because people were down there and waiting. So I got on the plane the next morning and flew back here, and that was it.

SE: So, what about retirement and the whole concept of retirement?

RG: The concept of retirement? Well, at The University of Michigan we have what they call a retirement furlough. It’s a nice deal. You have another year to do things that you want to do and get paid full salary. You teach as much as you want to or not at all. And they’ll furnish you with a studio or office.

SE: So, will you do that then?

RG: I’m going to stay right here for the time being--and then, we’ll see. I have no idea what I’m going to do after that. I think I’m going to get together all of my annotated copies of all the scores of Franck, some Widor, and some Sowerby, and get those out. That’ll take me the next 10 years!

SE: What about recording?

RG: The only thing that I regret is that I didn’t go on and record more than I did. I wish I had gone ahead and done all the Franck. I had that in mind, but I didn’t get to it soon enough. And I’m not too happy with what I did, although I’ve been told over and over again how wonderful it is, so I thought, “OK, if you think it’s so wonderful, I’ll shut up.”

That was a wonderful organ (All Saints’ Episcopal, Worcester, Massachusetts) for Franck, rather than packing up and going abroad. I didn’t want to do that. There’s a lot more to a “telling” performance than a particular organ. The particular organ does help, but I don’t think you have to have only THIS organ. If you do, you’re kind of stuck.

SE: Your legacy as a teacher and a performer are legendary, and you have been an inspiration to countless numbers of organists, myself included. What do you feel has been your greatest contribution to the organ world?

RG: Students (without hesitation), and I don’t hesitate a minute to say that, in spite of a few huge disappointments; yet some times I can’t stand them! But that’s more lasting. And maybe, to a certain extent, my performance, because you demonstrate what you’ve been teaching. One should be able to do that: put up or shut up. But I’ve done that over a period of how many years, so I didn’t feel too badly about realizing I couldn’t do it anymore or shouldn’t do it anymore.

RB: It’s like a chain of succession.

RG: Well, we now have the next generation of mine. I’ve been blessed the past 54 years with some extraordinarily talented students--almost too numerous to list here.