Charles Dodsley Walker dead at 94

Charles Dodsley Walker, 94, died in New York City on January 17. At the time of his death he was the conductor of the Canterbury Choral Society, organist and choirmaster emeritus of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, and the artist-in-residence of St. Luke’s Parish, Darien, Connecticut. 

For most of the 20th century—continuing into the 21st—Charles Dodsley Walker was active and prominent in New York City cultural life, directing musical activities for churches, schools, and secular organizations. He was also a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists and was president of the AGO from 1971–75.

Born on March 16, 1920, in New York City, his family soon moved to Glen Ridge, New Jersey. There, at Christ Church of Bloomfield and Glen Ridge, he first sang in a choir and played the organ. In 1930 he was admitted to the Choir School of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, where he sang in the cathedral choir directed first by Miles Farrow, and shortly after by Norman Coke-Jephcott who was young Charles’ first teacher, with whom he studied organ, harmony, and counterpoint in weekly lessons. Upon graduation Charles went to Trinity School in New York, while continuing his study with Coke-Jephcott. He soon assumed the duties of school organist at Trinity, playing for daily chapel services. As he told The Diapason in a 90th birthday interview in the March 2010 issue, “They then brought in a French teacher to play the organ who simply couldn’t play, so I went up to the headmaster and said ‘I can play’ and so I became the school organist.”

Upon the advice of Channing Lefebvre, organist of Trinity Church Wall Street, CDW went to Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. It was his desire to receive a liberal arts degree while still studying music seriously, as his goal was to have a classroom teaching career in addition to being a church musician and organist. So it was that he pursued a major in modern languages with concentration in French, while also studying organ with the college’s organist and music professor, who just happened to be the leading proponent of the French school of organ playing in America at that time: Clarence Watters, a protégé and friend of Marcel Dupré. While at Trinity College, CDW held his first church appointment at Stafford Springs Congregational Church in Stafford Springs, Connecticut, about halfway between Hartford and Worcester, Massachusetts.

After graduating from Trinity College, he enrolled in graduate school at Harvard University, studying musicology, choral conducting, theory, and composition with Walter Piston, Archibald T. Davison, and Tillman Merritt. While at Harvard he was assistant organist of Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working under W. Judson Rand. 

His studies were interrupted by service in the Navy, where he served in a number of non-combat capacities. Following military service he completed his master’s degree at Harvard in 1947 and was appointed simultaneously to his first two New York City jobs: organist and choirmaster of St. Thomas Chapel (a chapel of St. Thomas Church, now All Saints Church) and director of music at Trinity School, his alma mater. He was all set to embark upon a secure career as a church musician and teacher in New York when a thoroughly unplanned and felicitous (his word) event occurred: he learned of the opening for organist and choirmaster of the American Cathedral in Paris. The dean of the cathedral was a New Yorker who just happened to be in town, so Charlie called on him and was offered the job on the spot! He took a modest cut in salary to move to Paris, but did so gladly to immerse himself in the French culture and music he had grown to appreciate during his undergraduate study. At the cathedral he succeeded Robert Owen, who was in France studying on the GI Bill. While in Paris he made the acquaintance of and collaborated with the leading French organists and musicians of the day, including Pierre Duvauchelle, Nadia Boulanger, Francis Poulenc, a young Ned Rorem, Maurice Duruflé, Andre Marchal, Marcel Dupré, Olivier Messiaen, and Jean Langlais, with whom he and his family remained particularly close. In Paris he also met Janet Hayes, an American soprano studying with Boulanger in France and performing throughout Europe. After a brief courtship they were married in the American Cathedral. 

While in Paris CDW was also the director of the American Students’ and Artists’ Center, a comprehensive educational and social organization with nearly a thousand members, which was administered under the auspices of the cathedral and its dean. He held this full-time, non-musical job concurrently with his position at the American Cathedral, and it provided a secure living including an apartment. But the demands of this entirely administrative job soon left him looking for a change and, when he heard of the vacancy, he applied for the opening at the Church of the Heavenly Rest on Fifth Avenue and 90th Street in New York. Armed with letters of recommendation from Canon Edward West from St. John the Divine, the Rev. C. Leslie Glenn, and the Rev. Francis Bowes Sayre (later dean of Washington Cathedral), his clergy colleagues from Christ Church in Cambridge, he was offered the position. One of the unsuccessful candidates, from whom CDW unknowingly had asked a reference, was his old teacher, Clarence Watters! Donald Wilkins succeeded CDW at the American Cathedral.

CDW began his duties at the Church of the Heavenly Rest in January 1951, and he founded the Canterbury Choral Society in Advent of the following year. Initially conceived as an adjunct Evensong choir for the church’s music program, the choral society soon adopted the pattern of inviting members of the community to join the church choir by audition for presentations of oratorios with full orchestra at three concerts each year in the Church of the Heavenly Rest. The group continued to operate under the aegis of the church until 1988 when CDW left the church, at which time the choral society became an independent organization, even though they maintain a close relationship with the church and still present most of their concerts there. On special occasions the Canterbury Choral Society did present concerts in other venues such as the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, Avery Fisher Hall, and Carnegie Hall, including several performances of the Mahler Eighth Symphony assisted by various choirs of children from area schools and churches.

Concurrent with his position at Heavenly Rest and Canterbury, CDW at various times taught at Kew Forest School, Chapin School—where he was head of the music department for twenty-four years—New York University, Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, Manhattan School of Music, and SUNY Queens College. In 1969 he co-founded, with his wife Janet Hayes Walker, the York Theatre Company. He directed the Blue Hill Troupe, performing all of the Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in fully staged productions several times during his thirty-five-year tenure. He was a founder of the Berkshire Choral Festival in 1982 and was the organist of Lake Delaware Boys Camp for fifty years in the summers from 1940–1990. Given the number of organizations he led and the length of his tenures, it is not an exaggeration to say that Charlie Walker’s sphere of influence reached thousands of persons, young and old.

In what others would call their retirement years, Charlie Walker never lessened his professional activity. From 1988 until 2007, he was the organist and choirmaster of Trinity Church, Southport, Connecticut, directing the church choir and a community chorale, sometimes in joint concerts with the Canterbury Choral Society in New York and Southport. From 2007 until his death, he was artist-in-residence at St. Luke’s Parish in Darien, Connecticut, where he assisted in playing and directing weekly rehearsals and services and taught young choristers in the RSCM Voice for Life curriculum. During all this time he continued his vigorous leadership of the Canterbury Choral Society, never missing a concert until close to the end of his life. 

Janet Hayes Walker died in 1997, and in 2001 Charles Dodsley Walker married Elizabeth Phillips, who survives him, as do his children Susan Starr Walker and Peter Hayes Walker, and three grandchildren.

A memorial service for CDW took place Saturday, March 21, in the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, with  interment in the family plot in Niles, Michigan.

In a follow-up to his 90th birthday interview in the June 2010 issue of The Diapason, when asked how he would like to be remembered, CDW said: 

“Well, I feel that to be a good church musician, doing your job from Sunday to Sunday, is a very worthy thing to be doing, and if you have the good fortune to be able to develop more elaborate musical programs—that’s good, too. But our job as church musicians is to provide, with the resources available, the best possible music for our church, week by week. I like that.”

John Hubert Corina, 86, of Athens, Georgia, died December 13, 2014. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he studied piano and organ with his father. As a young oboist, he taught in the Cleveland Music Settlement, performed with the Cleveland Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a bandsman in the Army at Fort Meade and West Point. Corina earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University and a doctoral degree in composition from Florida State University. He taught composition, oboe, and theory at the University of Georgia, where he performed with the UGA Baroque Ensemble and the Georgia Woodwind Quintet and established the New Music Center and the Electronic Music Studio. In 1985, he was awarded the university’s teaching excellence professorship; he was named Professor Emeritus of Music and retired in 1991.

As composer of over 130 works, Corina received 14 awards from ASCAP and other organizations. He was an organist/choirmaster for 50 years, serving at Young Harris Memorial UMC and Emmanuel Episcopal Church. He also conducted the University of Georgia Symphony Orchestra and the Athens Choral Society, among other choruses, orchestras, and bands, and became the founding board chairman of the Athens Civic Ballet and founding director of the Classic City Band.  

John Hubert Corina is survived by his wife of 54 years, Carol; son and daughter-in-law, Robert and Sandra Corina; son, Donald Corina; daughter and son-in-law, Susan and Michael Mears; daughters and son, Mary Ellen Gurbacs, Gail Brant, and John L. Corina; granddaughter and grandson, Laura and Michael Johnson; granddaughters and grandson, Jordan, Sydney, and Brendan Corina; brother and sister-in-law, Lawrence and Jacqueline Corina, and other family members.

Myles J. Criss died on January 12 of melanoma, his cat Gracie at his side. He was born on April 7, 1933, in Winterset, Iowa. He attended Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, and the Kansas City Conservatory. In 1952 he joined the U.S. Navy; his naval career included service on the hospital ship USS Haven, where he worked for the chaplain, played the ship’s organ, and had his first choir. The USS Haven sailed throughout the Pacific during the Korean War. He also served aboard the supply ship USS Alludra and the destroyer USS Dixie.

Honorably discharged from the Navy in 1956, Criss returned to Kansas where he enrolled at Washburn University in Topeka, studying organ with Jerald Hamilton. He transferred to Kansas University, studying organ with Laurel Everette Anderson and conducting with Clayton Krehbiel. He earned his bachelor’s degree in 1960 and master’s degree in 1963. 

Criss served in organist and choirmaster positions at many churches, including at All Souls’ Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City, where he subsequently designed the organ, developed choir programs, and founded the Canterbury Choral Society, at Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Topeka, Kansas, where he established a full choir program, and at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in Corvallis, Oregon. Semi-retiring from Good Samaritan in 2002, he accepted the position of organist at the Congregational Church of Corvallis. 

He founded the Topeka Festival Singers in 1984 and conducted them until 1987. He was made an honorary Canon and retired from Grace Cathedral in 1997. In December of 2013, Canon Criss moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he assisted with the music program at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.

Criss was a member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and the American Guild of Organists, which he served as dean three different times. He traveled extensively and knew by heart the stop lists of pipe organs around the world, many of which he played. He also played concerts and recitals throughout the U.S. Myles J. Criss is survived by nieces and nephews Sandra Bentley, Linda Mosteller, Marjorie Ross, Larry Kuhn, Anita Luce, Lynn Ellen Morman, David Morman, Debi Foster, and Steve Criss, and by a stepsister, Sharon Boatwright.

Bertram Schoenstein, 97 years old, died January 8, 2015, in San Rafael, California. Born September 11, 1917, Bert was the eldest remaining third-generation member of the pioneer San Francisco organbuilding family. As a youngster he helped his father, Louis, in the organ business, but coming of age in the depth of the Great Depression when there was little prospect for the organ business, he began a 40-year career as a master painter and decorator. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps. After retiring, he achieved his dream of a second career in organbuilding with Schoenstein & Co. from 1978 to 1995. Bert was a natural mechanic and practical problem solver. In addition to running the paint and finish department, he devised many clever fixtures and tools for the other departments and maintained plant equipment. Also a natural musician, as was the family tradition, he played the violin in several orchestras and ensembles including the Deutscher Musik Verein. Among his many mechanical interests was antique car restoration, specializing in Model T Fords. Bertram Schoenstein is survived by children Karl and Heidi, five grandchildren, and three great grandchildren.

Charles Dodsley Walker, 94, died in New York City on January 17. At the time of his death he was the conductor of the Canterbury Choral Society and organist and choirmaster emeritus of the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, and the artist-in-residence of St. Luke’s Parish, Darien, Connecticut. During his career Walker held numerous positions, including at the American Cathedral in Paris, St. Thomas Chapel, and the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York City, the Berkshire Choral Institute, Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, Manhattan School of Music, and New York University. A Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, he also served as president of the AGO from 1971–75.

An article in memoriam will follow in the April issue of The Diapason.

Harry Wilkinson, 92, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died January 15 of congestive heart failure. Born in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1922, he spent most of his life in the Philadelphia area. He began his study of the organ at the age of twelve with Harry C. Banks of Girard College. The Girard College organ remained his favorite throughout his life. He studied organ with Harold Gleason and David Craighead at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York, earning a doctorate degree in music theory there in 1958. In 1995, Wilkinson was named honorary college organist and honorary lifetime member of the Girard College Alumni Association. A lifelong member of the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, he was a Fellow of the AGO and served on a national level as councilor for conventions. Wilkinson was professor emeritus of music theory and composition and taught organ students at West Chester University, serving there for over 35 years. He also served on the faculties of Chestnut Hill College, Beaver College, and Arcadia University. As a church musician, he served as director of music and organist for St. Martin-in-the Fields Episcopal Church, Chestnut Hill. Wilkinson recorded several discs with the Pro Organo label. Memorial gifts may be made to the Organ Restoration Fund, St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church, 4625 Springfield Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19143. 

Neal Campbell holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Manhattan School of Music, is a former member of the AGO National Council, and is the Director of Music and Organist of St. Luke’s Parish, Darien, Connecticut.

Charles Dodsley Walker turns 90 years old on March 16. In his long and varied career, he has collaborated with many of the legendary figures in the organ and choral music world and is himself one of the key players in the golden era of New York church music. His career began when he entered the Choir School at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine at age ten. His education continued at Trinity School in New York, Trinity College in Hartford, and—following service in the United States Navy—at Harvard University.
He held positions at the American Cathedral in Paris, St. Thomas Chapel and the Church of the Heavenly Rest in New York, Lake Delaware Boys Camp, the Berkshire Choral Institute, Trinity School and the Chapin School in New York, Union Theological Seminary School of Sacred Music, Manhattan School of Music, and New York University. He is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists and is the founding director of the Canterbury Choral Society, which he began in 1952 at the Church of Heavenly Rest—a position he still holds, preparing and conducting three concerts per season.
In what others would call their retirement years, Charlie Walker has served at Trinity Church in Southport, Connecticut, and since 2007 he has worked alongside me at St. Luke’s Parish in Darien, Connecticut. In the summer of 2009, Charlie and I sat down in my office over several days and began a series of conversations, not unlike those that are typical between us on any given day—only this time the digital recorder was on. They were conversations between friendly colleagues, and I have tried to keep the conversational tone in the edited transcript that follows.

Neal Campbell: I first knew your name as president of the American Guild of Organists; when were you president of the AGO?
Charles Dodsley Walker: 1971–75.

NC: And you were active in the Guild before that?
CDW: I joined the Guild [Hartford Chapter, 1937] in order to take the Associateship exam while I was at Trinity College. I was pleased when the Headquarters Chapter had a dinner in 1939 honoring the recipients of the certificates, and they sat me next to Ernest M. Skinner, who proceeded to regale me with limericks. He used to come around the Cathedral quite often when I was a little boy chorister just to see how his organ was doing.

NC: What other offices did you hold in the Guild?
CDW: When I came back from France in January 1951 to be the organist at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, I immediately connected up with the Headquarters Chapter of the Guild, and that’s where S. Lewis Elmer comes into the picture. He lived near the church and he was most interested in me as the new 31-year-old organist of the church. He was very friendly and seemed to want to get me into the leadership of the Guild. When the national librarian, Harold Fitter, resigned, there was a vacancy, so he appointed me National Librarian. And then another vacancy occurred, and I was appointed National Registrar. The next thing I knew I was National Secretary—for ten years.

NC: What were the biggest things you had to work on immediately when you were elected, do you recall?
CDW: At the time I was elected, there were two important groups in the Guild wanting to secede. One was a tri-cities chapter in California. They had been so upset about the perceived (and actual) running of the Guild from New York City, that they had managed to get a Californian, Gene Driskill, elected to the council—this was during Alec [Wyton]’s regime—and his chapter paid his travel expenses so he could come and be a member of the council.

NC: Up to that time the council was all New York organists, wasn’t it?
CDW: Almost, yes. And then the Twin Cities Chapter wanted to secede too. So I felt that it was our job to address this issue by really revolutionizing the setup of the whole organization as regards the board of directors, which is the National Council. At the time there were fifteen regional chairmen who were simply appointed by S. Lewis Elmer. We reduced that to nine regions, which it still is, and figured out a way for each region to elect its own representatives. That’s been amended and changed since then, of course, but it’s basically the same system we have in place now.

NC: You’re a native New Yorker, aren’t you?
CDW: Yes. Born right in the city . . .

NC: But your folks moved to New Jersey shortly after that?
CDW: Yes, Glen Ridge.

NC: And you and I share that connection with Christ Church in Glen Ridge, where you were baptized.
CDW: Right. I also have a musical connection with it, because as a child I sang for a couple of summers in the choir there. And, just last night I came across two 3 x 5 cards signed by the organist at the time, Herbert Kellner.

NC: This is before Buck Coursen, my predecessor? [The Rev. Wallace M. Coursen, Jr., F.A.G.O., organist of the church 1936–80]
CDW: Yes. Anyway, it was Mr. Kellner authorizing this Master Charles Walker to play the organ on Fridays for one hour and a half . . . and the other 3 x 5 card allowed me to play there for one hour on Tuesday and one hour on Friday . . . or something like that, during the summer. That was around 1934 or 1935.

NC: Was this likely the first organ you heard, at Christ Church?
CDW: Yes, it was. My first memory of it is that the swell shades were visible to the entire congregation. They were sort of dark brown, but you could see them opening and closing, and Mr. Kellner liked to use them, and they were opening and closing a lot. So I was quite fascinated with that. [Laughing]

NC: What was the organ, do you remember? The present organ is a Möller from about 1953.
CDW: I have no idea, but by 1934, when I had practice privileges, they had obviously bought a used four-manual console—they didn’t have anywhere near a four-manual organ there, but I just loved it! It had the reed stops lettered in red, and I thought that was very impressive, and it did have a Tuba! [More laughter]

NC: What led you to seek application to the Cathedral Choir School?
CDW: My next elder brother, Marriott . . .

NC: You were the youngest of three brothers?
CDW: Yes. Marriott liked music a lot and played the trumpet. We had friends in Montclair who had a boy in the school. So Marriott went over to see about entering the school, but he was already twelve or thirteen, and they just said, “you’re too old.” So then along came Charles, and I was very interested in going to that school. It’s hard to answer exactly why my parents were interested in sending me to the school, except they thought I was musical and that I would enjoy it.

NC: It was a boarding school?
CDW: Yes. People did ask “why do you want to send your boy to boarding school?” I suppose they still ask that today, for example at St. Thomas. You have to take a boy away from his Mama!

NC: At the Choir School, it was Miles Farrow who admitted you. What sort of musician was he?
CDW: I don’t know. I was only ten, and I admired him very much. I can still distinctly remember the way he harmonized the descending major scale when we warmed up. There are different ways of harmonizing it—or not harmonizing it! He did a I chord, then a V chord, then a vi chord, then a iii chord, then a ii-6 chord, and a I-6/4, then a V and then a I. That’s the way he did it, every time! I happen to like to do it different ways rather than always the same way, but that’s the way he did it.

NC: So it wasn’t too long after that that Norman Coke-Jephcott came along?
CDW: Right. But then there was an interim when, among others, Channing Lefebvre was the chief substitute. He was at Trinity Wall Street, but I seem to remember him coming up for Evensong.

NC: When you look back on your career as a choirboy, do you think of Coke-Jephcott as your teacher?
CDW: Oh, yes! Cokey came in 1932, and almost immediately I started lessons with him.

NC: Organ lessons?
CDW: Yes, organ, and harmony and counterpoint. He required that you have a weekly lesson in harmony and counterpoint as well as an organ lesson. John Baldwin was his student about this time.

NC: What were the daily rehearsals like? Were they just learning music?
CDW: Yes, but with quite a bit of emphasis on tone quality.

NC: Did they sing Evensong everyday, or most days?
CDW: Not all 40 boys—maybe half a dozen or so would sing in St. James Chapel as I recall, and I’m not sure it was everyday.

NC: On Sunday mornings, was it Eucharist or Morning Prayer?
CDW: I think they did Morning Prayer followed by the Eucharist. I remember that they intoned the entire prayer of consecration and the pitch would go up and down. And I had extremely good sense of pitch in those days and could tell if the celebrant was flatting or sharping.

NC: But the choir sang morning and evening service on Sundays?
CDW: Oh, yeah!

NC: Did you ever join with any of the other boy choirs in New York?
CDW: Aside from our basketball league with St. Thomas and Grace Church, the only other time we were on the same program was Wednesdays in Holy Week for the Bach St. Matthew Passion with the choir of St. Bartholomew’s Church and the boys of St. Thomas Choir. The Cathedral Choir—the whole choir—sang second chorus. As you know, there are double choruses. And that was the first time I ever saw T. Tertius Noble in action.

NC: What was he like in those days?
CDW: I would say “avuncular” would be the word. He seemed (at least on those occasions) a nice fatherly presence.

NC: And these were at the cathedral?
CDW: Oh, no—at St. Bartholomew’s, played by David McK. Williams, astonishingly! I was bowled over by his accompaniment. The thing I remember most vividly is the movement toward the end of Part I—where you have the soprano and alto duet and the chorus interjects fortissimo “Leave him, leave him, bind him not” and he socked the crescendo pedal and then, boom, he would close it. It just seemed to me to be flawless. He was amazing.

NC: They did this every year, didn’t they?
CDW: Every single year. In fact, after my voice changed I did it a couple of times as an alto, just because I wanted to participate in it.

NC: Did Dr. Williams direct you all? What was his personality like?
CDW: He was magisterial, he was definitely in command. Everybody paid close attention.

NC: Was the idea of doing all these organ accompaniments what inspired you to start the Canterbury Choral Society?
CDW: Well, when I was only 15 or 16, I thought that’s just the way it is in church—you do it with the organ. I realized what I had been missing (it must have been in 1939 or 1940) when I heard the Boston Symphony Orchestra do Brahms’ Requiem not in a church, but in a concert hall. With all due respect for the organ, that music as orchestrated by Brahms was a wonderful musical experience! I thought to myself “boy, I would like to have a big chorus and do that kind of stuff!”

NC: So after the cathedral you went to Trinity School. Did they have an organ there?
CDW: They had one of Ernest Skinner’s early organs. It was built, I believe, before 1910, a two-manual. [Opus 141, 1907]

NC: In the school auditorium or in the chapel?
CDW: The chapel. I also went to the Cathedral Choir School and to Trinity College—all of these were Episcopal schools! They all had compulsory chapel services, which none of them have any more.

NC: Your parents were obviously Episcopalians.
CDW: Both my parents were cradle Episcopalians. In fact, my grandmother taught Sunday School in Dakota Territory before North and South Dakota were separated. And I have the melodeon that she played when she was teaching Sunday School.

NC: Did you continue to study organ through high school at Trinity?
CDW: Yes. When I went to Trinity School, I continued organ and I practiced all the time after school. Trinity is exactly one mile south of the cathedral, in the same block. I would go to school and then I’d practice at the cathedral, and then go and do my homework.

NC: Did Cokey prepare you for the AGO exams specifically?
CDW: No, [Clarence] Watters did. You see, I had four years with Cokey and four years with Watters. That’s what my organ instruction was—two years in the choir school and two years at Trinity School. Then I went to college. It was Channing Lefebvre who sent me to Trinity College in Hartford. My father said, “You know the organist at Trinity Church. Let’s go ask for his advice.” And I’m glad he did. We wanted a liberal arts college with strong organ, not a conservatory, and Trinity was perfect.

NC: You must have seen the cathedral nave being built.
CDW: Yes, we sang for the dedication of the Pilgrim Pavement—the great slabs of stone with the medallions in it. We also sang at the dedication of the great bronze doors, which are very impressive portals for the cathedral.
The nave was being constructed when I was a choirboy. There were elevators outside going up and down the scaffolding. The nave actually opened several years later—around 1940, I believe.

NC: Did you have a church job at this time?
CDW: No, just Trinity School with its daily chapel.

NC: Did you list preludes and postludes?
CDW: Just preludes, I think. Still, a lot of repertoire for a high school kid.

NC: So when was your first church job, in college?
CDW: Yes. That was a wonderful thing. In my freshman year, the adjunct professor of German at Trinity College, named Kendrick Grobel, who also had a doctorate in theology from Marburg, asked Clarence Watters to recommend someone to be organist of the church of which he was the pastor. He also had a bachelor of music degree, and was a tenor—and Clarence recommended me. I went out there and played a recital in the spring of 1937 at the age of 17 for this church—Stafford Springs Congregational Church, Stafford Springs, Connecticut—halfway between Hartford and Worcester. This was the first time I ever played for money. They took up a collection and I got $14—quite a lot of money! So they offered me the job at $10 a Sunday, and that, too, was a lot of money. That was the most felicitous thing that could happen to a 17-year-old. I also made some money in a dance band on Saturday night, so I was doing OK. And I was able without any trouble at all to convince my father to buy me a car. As soon as I was 17, I had a Ford convertible, a seven-year-old Model A.

NC: What kind of background did you already have under your belt when you went to Trinity College?
CDW: Well, Cokey was very thorough; I was really lucky. First of all, he was on the exam committee of the AGO forever. He was a Fellow of the AGO and of the Royal College of Organists, and all that. He played accurately and well, but I was also lucky to study with Clarence Watters—which was very different. Clarence was really a brilliant virtuoso. And this is not to play down Coke-Jephcott, who was a wonderful improviser, very fine. And he played Bach very accurately—he just didn’t have the sort of brilliance that Clarence had. Cokey was a very colorful service player and used the organ wonderfully.

NC: Did he do most of the playing, or did he have an assistant?
CDW: Soon after Coke-Jephcott came to the cathedral, Thomas Matthews came to be his assistant. Cokey had been organist at Grace Church in Utica, taught Tom there, and brought Tom to the cathedral when I was 12 and he was 17. He was a very good organist, and I admired him and I loved to turn pages for him—we were really close considering I was 12 and he was 17.

NC: How did they divide up the service? With the vast spaces, did one play and the other conduct as is the style now, or did Cokey play and conduct from the console?
CDW: There was a little of each. Cokey probably played about half the time. I do remember distinctly Tommy playing Brahms’s How lovely, so I guess Coke wanted to get out front and conduct that. I have a funny feeling they used the vox and strings liberally! He had been a bandmaster in the army in England, so I guess he knew how to conduct, although I never saw him conduct an orchestra.

NC: Did they ever use brass in the cathedral services?
CDW: I don’t recall that they did. They used the Tuba Mirabilis though, by golly! You don’t need brass instruments with that! [Hearty laughter]
Anyway . . . getting back to Coke’s teaching . . . he wasn’t a stolid Englishman, but he was solid and he was punctilious about fingering Bach correctly and not allowing me to get away with anything. I remember playing the Bach Toccata in C for Paul Callaway when I was 15 and I had that well under my fingers. Paul was at St. Mark’s in Grand Rapids about that time, and my uncle was in his choir in Grand Rapids. My father was from Grand Rapids.

NC: Had you known of Clarence Watters prior to your study with him?
CDW: I hadn’t known of him until my father and I visited Channing Lefebvre to consult about college.
They had a wonderful Skinner organ in the chapel at Trinity College, one of the first on which Donald Harrison and Ernest Skinner collaborated. It might amuse you to know that at this time I didn’t know what a mixture stop was! There was one on the cathedral organ—it was there on the stop knob, along with Stentorphone and some other interesting stop names! But it wasn’t until I got up to Hartford and worked with Watters that I learned what mixtures were all about. It was a whole different experience.
It was a fine organ. It had a wonderful 32′ Open Wood, the low twelve pipes of which were lined up in a straight row against the back wall of the chapel. I was in heaven there; I was one of the assistant chapel organists, along with two others. At the cathedral, it had been a very rare privilege to play the big organ, as I had my lessons on one of the chapel organs. But here at Trinity College, I could just go in and play the big four-manual organ whenever I wanted to.

NC: What possessed Watters to get the present organ?
CDW: I’m not sure, but Don Harrison had died and Clarence admired Dick Piper, the tonal director of the Austin firm, which was right there in Hartford. I think he got a donor and was able to create the exact organ he wanted. It is very French, and wonderful!

NC: Did you keep up with Clarence over the years?
CDW: Oh, yes! Very much so. In fact I had him play at Heavenly Rest a lot.

NC: Didn’t you say that he was also a candidate at Heavenly Rest when you got it?
CDW: Yes. [Laughing] I had written him from Paris asking him to write a letter of recommendation for me when I applied for the position. You see, I had some pretty good connections by then, like Frank Sayre [the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr.] from my Cambridge days and Canon West at the cathedral, and Clarence, too. So I asked him to write, and he wrote back saying “Charlie, I’d be glad to, except that I, too, have applied for the position.” That’s absolutely true.

NC: Tell me more about Watters as a teacher.
CDW: Ah, yes. Well, first of all, it was a revelation to find out about the whole idea of mixtures and mutations. Somehow or another I had not learned this from Cokey. Cokey was absolutely wonderful, but . . . I didn’t learn anything about French Trompettes and that sort of sound. I was used to Cornopeans, and so on. Watters, a pupil of Marcel Dupré, acquainted me with the French tonal qualities of an organ. In a word, Clarence was like a French organist as a teacher.

NC: He was already recognized as a master organist by that time wasn’t he, and he was pretty young?
CDW: Yes. He was in his 30s . . . [pausing to calculate] . . . and of course he had studied with Dupré and lived in Paris. Repertoire: again, very French oriented. And I think this is good. I am glad to have had the English orientation of Coke-Jephcott. And his improvisations reeked of Elgar! You know, the pomp and circumstance aspect of cathedral improvisation was his specialty. Whereas, of course, Watters reeked of the French school.

NC: Was Clarence a good improviser?
CDW: Yes, very! I remember once Dr. Ogilby [the Trinity College president] put a sign up on the bulletin board in his own hand saying that “this Sunday there will be an improvisation for three organs: CW, RBO, CW”—meaning Clarence Watters, Remsen B. Ogilby, and the other CW referring to me. Dr. Ogilby had been a chaplain in World War II and he had a portable organ—you know one of those things that unfold, a harmonium—and he set that up in the middle of the chapel. There is a small two-manual practice organ in the crypt that was for me to play, and Clarence of course played the big organ. Ogilby played a hymn, which he could manage—he actually played the organ and carillon pretty well—and I would do a little improvisation on it from the chapel, which would come rolling up the stone staircase from the crypt, and then Clarence would play something more elaborate on the Aeolian-Skinner organ. Then, we repeated the sequence, and finally Clarence would play an improvisation on both of the hymns together! It was really very clever.
The thing about that story is that this was Ogilby’s idea! He said “let’s do it” and he wrote the notice about it. Not many college presidents I know of would have that kind of imagination!

NC: Did Clarence improvise in the formal style?
CDW: Yes, he could improvise a fugue. And he played all the extant works of Dupré including the preludes and fugues, the Variations sur un Noël, and the Symphonie-Passion; the Stations of the Cross was a specialty of his. He played them extraordinarily well. He played everything from memory, and he insisted that I play from memory. I wasn’t disciplined enough to apply that to everything I learned, but what I played for him I played from memory.

NC: Did Cokey play from memory?
CDW: I don’t believe so. But Clarence had a huge and amazing memorized repertoire.

NC: Who had he studied with? We associate him with Dupré, but he must have started somewhere else.
CDW: He grew up in East Orange, part of that New Jersey tradition we were talking about. [Looking up Watters biography1] He was born in 1902 and studied with Mark Andrews. He was also the organist of Christ’s Church in Rye, New York, and Church of the Ascension in Pittsburgh. And from 1952–76 he was at St. John’s in West Hartford, while he was at Trinity College 1932–67 as head of the music department.

NC: You told me that he was the whole music department at Trinity, and he directed the Glee Club?
CDW: Yes. And this was good, because prior to that I just knew what we had done at the cathedral, but Clarence taught a lot of the choral and orchestral repertoire, which I didn’t know at all before that. In the Glee Club, he did very good repertoire. I knew for the first time Monteverdi—something from Orfeo, which we sang in Italian. And good folk-song arrangements, and Brahms songs. The college was all men at the time, so we did TTBB arrangements.
When I went there at age 16, he immediately appointed me accompanist of the Glee Club: this was good for me musically and socially. At Trinity, the Glee Club went off to all the girls’ schools and did joint concerts so we could do SATB music—and we had dances—that sort of thing, which I liked. And after I got my car for the Stafford Springs job, I had a friend who was adept at chasing girls, so he took me on as an apprentice. [Much laughter] That was also something I gave thanks for . . . all the way through high school I was so busy learning to be an organist that I was sheltered.

NC: Were there any other organ students in your class at Trinity?
CDW: Yes, my fellow assistant organist at the college was Ralph Grover, and he had been in the choir at St. Paul’s in Flatbush, Brooklyn, under Ralph Harris, who was a well-known and respected organist of that era.

NC: What did you study during your first year with Clarence? Did he give you Dupré to begin with?
CDW: Well, the first thing he did, which sort of annoyed me to be honest with you—and I don’t advise this—he decided to re-teach me some Bach works I had learned with Cokey, such as the Toccata in C and trio sonatas.
That reminds me of an interesting story. There was a Miss Kostikyan, who taught piano to boys in the Cathedral Choir School. (This was during the Depression, and I didn’t think to ask my father for lessons, and it wasn’t until Cokey suggested it to my father that he sprang for organ lessons.) One day I was practicing on the two-manual organ in St. Ansgarius’ Chapel, and Miss Kostikyan came in with this young man, and she said, “Charles, I want you to meet Virgil Fox,” and I said, “Oh, glad to meet you, Virgil.” He was maybe 20 or 21. I got off the bench (Miss Kostikyan had told me he was an organist) and asked if he wanted to play. And he said “I want to play the big organ.” I told him I couldn’t authorize him to play the big organ, so he deigned to play the chapel organ saying “you can’t make music on a little thing like this.” But he played very well and that was my introduction to Virgil Fox.
Of course I met him many times later. After he left Riverside, I allowed him to give lessons at Heavenly Rest. And he was on the AGO national council during part of the time I was—he was not notable for his regularity of attendance at meetings! Nor was Biggs. I also have a letter from Biggs apologizing for having problems attending council meetings!
When the Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall organ was dedicated, Biggs, Fox, and Crozier played the opening. And Biggs, I swear, he played like an automaton. There was no feeling, or brilliance, or anything else. Virgil . . . well he played it damn well, or course, but tastelessly. Crozier, to me, was perfection, and far beyond these other two in musicianship, and technique, too. I just thought she was wonderful. This was in the early 60s.

NC: Anything else about Watters before we go on? He was really instrumental in introducing the music of Dupré to this country.
CDW: Well he would talk for hours about Dupré, not only music, but about marvelous dinners with seven different kinds of wine, and that sort of thing. He and his wife Midge socialized with Marcel and Jeanette Dupré and were really good friends.
He was also a bug on fingering—my impression is that Dupré taught Clarence his approach, and then Watters taught me Dupré’s approach. During lessons, Clarence would write out for me, in detail, all of the fingerings of the complicated stuff.

NC: Did he insist that you play things his way?
CDW: I don’t know—I just didn’t have any reason to challenge anything he taught. He was very confident of his gifts. There is a picture of him sitting at the organ in one of the college yearbooks, with the caption Optimus Sum, so everyone got the idea! [Huge amounts of laughter]
You know he played the dedicatory recital on the big Skinner at the Memorial Church at Harvard. That gives you an idea of his renown at the time.

NC: Well, that’s a nice introduction into your Harvard years. You must have known that organ?
CDW: I only know it because I remember Archibald T. Davison. He was the organist and choirmaster as well as the director of the famous Harvard Glee Club. I had met him previously, so I went up to him at the chapel and he was playing this big organ, but I never played it. I wasn’t an organ student at Harvard.

NC: It’s while you were at Harvard that you were assistant organist at Christ Church in Harvard Square?
CDW: Yes, under Bill Rand [W. Judson Rand] whose first name was actually Wilberforce, and I occasionally called him that! Incidentally, E. Power Biggs had previously been organist of the church.

NC: What was Frank Sayre’s connection in the chronology?
CDW: He had just graduated from Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge and was an assistant at Christ Church, was learning to chant the service, and our paths just crossed. His brother Woodrow Wilson Sayre was also around. They were each grandsons of Woodrow Wilson. Frank and I corresponded throughout the war when he was a Navy chaplain. He later invited me to play at Washington Cathedral after he became dean.
The organ in Christ Church was a new four-manual Aeolian-Skinner [Opus 1007], although the fourth manual was prepared for. The church had terrible acoustics, but the organ was good and was used as the first of Aeolian-Skinner’s demonstration recordings, before the King of Instruments series.

NC: Yes, it’s recently been re-released by JAV, I think. That’s where you met G. Donald Harrison?
CDW: Yes. Don seemed sort of lonely—his wife lived in New York—and he and Bill Rand were great friends and I tagged along, all the time. They each loved to drink and talk, and I was just a kid, but he was so nice to me. There were all these bawdy limericks! And I’ve got lots of letters from him.
After the war, I got appointed to St. Thomas Chapel (during the war my father bought a nice piece of land on Ridgewood Avenue in Glen Ridge), and I conceived the idea that I would like to have an organ studio and be a big fat organ teacher in Glen Ridge together with my New York job. And I talked to Don about this—how to get an organ for this studio. Gosh, I learned a lot about organs from hanging out with Bill and Don putting the organ in Christ Church.
I invited Don to dinner to show him my ideas, with the idea of building an organ along the lines of his specification in the Harvard Dictionary.2 I suggested a couple of changes and he was always willing to consider my ideas.

NC: What was Don like in these social settings?
CDW: It was mostly he and Bill, who was a real extrovert, bantering back and forth. What I remember most was that it was limerick after limerick, and usually pretty bawdy!

NC: Did you get to any of the Boston churches?
CDW: Oh yes, Carl McKinley, Everett Titcomb, Francis Snow . . . and I was active in the Guild.

NC: Was George Faxon around in those days?
CDW: Yes. And Bill Zeuch,3 who had been one of the interim organists at St. John the Divine, along with Channing before Cokey. I’d known him as a choirboy, called him Mr. Zeuch, but had no idea he was involved with Aeolian-Skinner until I met him during these Harvard years.

NC: Biggs?
CDW: Yes. Bill Rand for some reason had a key to the Busch-Reisinger Museum, his choir sang there from time to time, and Bill and I went in one night. The organ was playing, and it was Biggs practicing for his CBS Sunday morning broadcast. (I later played a recital there, and Don Harrison praised my playing, which was a huge compliment.)
Anyway, we came in to use the organ late one night, and found Jimmy Biggs practicing, and his first wife, Colette—who was French and had a very fiery temperament—was yelling at him about his playing “non, non Jeemee, not like zeehs!” She was really letting him have it. As you know, that marriage did not last, and he later married this nice lady, Peggy.

NC: Daniel Pinkham must have been around then.
CDW: Yes, he was an undergraduate. We became friendly. He had a harpsichord in his room in Harvard yard. He pronounced it hopsycawd! We actually played a duet recital at Christ Church, including the Soler that you and I played recently. Anyway, later, when I lived in Paris, I found out that Janet [Janet Hayes, later Mrs. CDW] had been his soloist when she was at New England Conservatory.

NC: Let’s talk about the Lake Delaware Boys Camp, since they just celebrated their 100th anniversary, which was written up in the New York Times [Sunday, July 26, 2009]. You applied once and were turned down because you were too young?
CDW: That’s right. The director of the camp asked Channing [Lefebvre] if he knew of an organist, and he recommended me. I went and saw the director, and he said that I appeared to be qualified, but that they couldn’t possibly use someone who was the same age as the campers. At that time the campers’ age range went up to 17. So I tucked my tail between my legs and went off to college. After I graduated from college, I came back and proclaimed, “I am now twenty years old and how about putting me on your staff.” So they did and therein hangs the tale. That was 1940 and I played my last service there in 1990!

NC: You were there for 50 years!?
CDW: Not every year of the 50. I was in the war and in Europe, but I was there for most of it.

NC: That’s an unusual combination—camp and church.
CDW: The unique quality of the camp is that it’s designed as a military organization, and they have military drills and carry little fake rifles and do all sorts of military maneuvers. Then on top of that they have this very elaborate, Anglo-Catholic ritual. And the campers were taken from the strain of society that needs help, although the majority are born and brought up Episcopalian. My son and my nephew went there. Quite a few of them are clergy children. They all are taught to genuflect at the Incarnatus of the creed. Now they may be Baptist, or Pentecostal—God knows what, but boy, you genuflect at the Incarnatus! And they have the Angelus three times a day—whatever anyone is doing, the chapel bell starts going morning, noon and night and everything stops and everybody stands very quiet. Some of them recite the “Hail Mary.”

NC: They had chapel, or Mass everyday?
CDW: Mass everyday.

NC: What was the organ?
CDW: Well, that was one of the most interesting things about it. It was an 1877 two-manual tracker by Hilborne L. Roosevelt that had been ordered by Commodore Elbridge T. Gerry to be installed in his mansion on the estate. He also had a mansion on Fifth Avenue, the land of which is still owned by the Gerrys, on top of which stands the Pierre Hotel. It was Commodore Gerry’s son, Robert Livingston Gerry and his wife Cornelia Harriman Gerry, who founded the camp.
Gerry was the commodore of the New York Yacht Club and had the biggest yacht in the city—it was 190 feet long. Incidentally, I just found out an interesting thing about his yacht—it had a full set of Eucharistic vestments as part of its equipment. He was a very devoted high churchman!

NC: What parish did he attend?
CDW: They were closely connected with the Church of the Resurrection, and he actually built the Church of St. Edward the Martyr on East 109th Street, which is where the camp’s New York headquarters was for many decades. In fact that is where I was interviewed for the job.
In 1886 it was decided that the organ wasn’t big enough, so he had Roosevelt add a choir organ, which had among other things a 16-foot reed on it. It was a Bassoon (I think), a free reed. What is most notable about the organ is that it has never in the slightest way been electrified.

NC: Even to this day?
CDW: Yes, even to this day, oh yeah! It has three large bellows that are attached to a crankshaft with a very large wheel, the rim of which has a handle that is eighteen inches long. You could put two boys alongside it. The effort required depends on how loudly the organist is playing—if the organist is playing loudly, the thing has to be pumped quite vigorously; if it’s being played for meditative music during communion, the kids found that they could sit right on the window sill right by this big flywheel and put their feet on the handle and just rock it back and forth. There’s an air gauge, which has a green light at the end of it, and an amber light part way down, and a red one further down, and the bottom of it has a huge skull and bones!

NC: For when it’s empty?
CDW: That means the organist has no air at all and you are in trouble! Anyway, it’s a wonderful organ. I made a recording in 1960 that has a lot of solos in it . . . at least three or four different boys sang, one of whom was nine years old and later killed in Vietnam. Really sad.
And there have been a lot of good organists associated with the camp. Clement Campbell, who was also organist at Resurrection [in New York] back in the 20s and 30s, was organist and choir director at the camp. One of the things that pleases me about the camp was that—even though I did not usually give organ lessons up there—I in one case gave the first organ lessons to this young 16-year-old who was quite a good pianist who went on to become organist of Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago: Eddie Mondello. He was a marvelous soprano for me and was interested in the organ, and I started him off.
Back to my musical duties at the camp. I trained the kids and played. But I didn’t select the music, because they are still doing the music they did back in 1909: Caleb Simper’s Mass and Will C. McFarlane’s Magnificat.

NC: You were into your first year at Harvard when the war intervened. What about your Harvard years after the war,4 and your teachers there?
CDW: Walter Piston, whom I had for most of my courses—harmony, counterpoint, fugue, and orchestration—was great at all those things. And Archibald T. Davidson, with whom I studied choral conducting, and choral composition. My other teacher was Tillman Merritt, who is not terribly well known now. He taught 16th-century harmony, as well as a course on Stravinsky and Hindemith, who were the latest things at that time—really cutting edge.

NC: What was Piston like? He’s probably the most famous.
CDW: He was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. He had a very quiet way about him and he would come up with funny things. When a student would be up at the blackboard writing something, he would use some phrase like “that’s a somewhat infelicitous situation there, we have a parallel octaves between the alto and the bass in that progression.” He was very quiet about it. We all loved him. He was a very fine teacher. When I went there before the war, I don’t believe his book was out, which is now a standard textbook at colleges all over the place.5 But, we learned harmony according to that.
And in fugue, he was always quoting André Gedalge. I believe Gedalge’s book is now available.6 In those days, I think he was the only one in the country who knew about Gedalge. I remember what little fugal study I had previous to Piston was with Coke-Jephcott, using a textbook by James Higg.

NC: Any memorable fellow students with whom you went to Harvard?
CDW: Yes, Robert Middleton, who later taught at Vassar. Dan Pinkham was way behind me because he was a freshman when I was a graduate student.

NC: Then you went to the war and came back and finished your Harvard master’s degree; did you then go back to New York for a couple of years?
CDW: Yes, the same month I got my master’s from Harvard I got the F.A.G.O. too! Boy, what a sigh of relief I had!

NC: Did you continue to coach with Clarence Watters on the organ tests as part of the scheme?
CDW: Yes, I think the main piece was the Dupré G-minor Prelude and Fugue, so I went down to Hartford and took a few lessons with Clarence.

NC: Do you recall where the F.A.G.O. exam was held, what organ you played?
CDW: Yes, I came down and took it in New York. It was on the old Synod Hall organ at St. John the Divine. [Skinner Opus 204, 1913]

NC: Who were the examiners?
CDW: Harold Friedell, who was chairman of the examination committee, Seth Bingham, J. Lawrence Erb from Connecticut College, Philip James, and Norman Coke-Jephcott.

NC: So you got your master’s degree and F.A.G.O., and then you took the job in New York. Where was this?
CDW: St. Thomas Chapel. The vicar at St. Thomas Chapel had gone to Trinity College and he knew Watters. He came up to Cambridge and auditioned the service I played unbeknownst to me.

NC: Was it a boys’ choir at St. Thomas Chapel in those days?
CDW: Yes, it was. But it had a few women helping them out. I think I increased the size of the boys’ choir at least 300%, maybe more. I was an eager beaver back then. I would chauffeur the kids around town. Thomas Beveridge and Charles Wuorinen were each choirboys of mine, and they were both very bright and very good musicians.
They had an E. M. Skinner organ [Opus 598, 1926], and the console was in the chancel and the organ was up in the rear balcony, with a small accompaniment division up front. It was still a chapel of St. Thomas Church in those days. Now it’s All Saints Church on East 60th Street.
Anyway, I was in the Harvard Club (I was single, just out of Harvard and the dues were then quite low), taking my ease one day, when a man walked in who had been a tenor in my choir at Christ Church in Cambridge when he was at Harvard. While I was off at the war, he was off at seminary.
He walked into the club, his collar was on backward . . . it was the Rev. Richard R. P. Coombs. He later became the dean at the cathedral in Spokane. We sat down and talked and he said, “I was just offered the job of Canon of the American Cathedral in Paris,” and I said “You took it, of course,” and he said, “No, I like it where I am, but the dean is looking for an organist.” He told me that the dean was in New York at the moment, and I went to see him that very night at his hotel. I told the dean I majored in French and was crazy about French organs and French organ music. And by golly, I got the job. What a piece of luck!

NC: Sounds like you were pretty well set in New York, with a church and the school, but this lured you away?
CDW: Yes, I was well set. I was making more than the vicar of the St. Thomas Chapel and he couldn’t stand it!

NC: How did that happen?
CDW: Well, as a matter of fact, this will be amusing to anybody living in 2010. When I landed this wonderful job at St. Thomas Chapel, the salary was $2,000 a year, and when I landed this wonderful job at Trinity School as the director of music, the salary was $2,500 a year. So I was getting $4,500 a year, and the vicar of the St. Thomas Chapel told me somewhat ruefully that he was getting $4,000 a year.

NC: So, your combined salary . . .
CDW: Yes, combined salary. That’s what we musicians do, you know—we take these teaching jobs . . .

NC: But even so, you wanted to go to Paris?
CDW: Oh, yes! And of course the salary there was less.

NC: So, you took a cut to go there.
CDW: Oh yes. I never regretted that, though.

NC: Tell the story of how you went to Paris traveling first class!
CDW: The dean, Dean Beekman, who was a large man and just a slight bit pompous, said after hiring me, “You know, you must come by boat and you must come on the United States Line. I have a friend who is important in that company. Just give him my name and he’ll take care of you.” So I called up this man whose name was Commander de Riesthal, and I said, “Dean Beekman told me to call you because I want to reserve passage on the SS America to leave New York on September 8.” And he asked, “What class do you want to travel?” And I answered, “What class does the dean travel?” “Why, first class, of course,” came the reply. And I said, “Well, I’ll go first class.”

NC: Did anybody question you about this? Was it okay with Dean Beekman?
CDW: I don’t know. But I thought to myself, gee, I don’t know how long I’m going to be away in Europe, and here I’ve got this wonderful cabin . . . I’ll just invite all my friends and have a party for my departure. So I did, and one of the people invited was Ellen Faull, a soprano, whose debut at the City Opera I had heard. Incidentally, since then she became the head voice teacher at Juilliard, a very good singer, and she sang a whole lot for me when I started the Canterbury Choral Society.
Anyway, she pranced into the party and said, “Oh Charlie, I just met the most wonderful girl whom I knew at Tanglewood this summer. I was walking down 57th Street and she was walking down 57th Street.” Ellen said, “I’m going to a party; a friend of mine is going off to Paris. You’re going to Paris, too, aren’t you, Janet? You should look this guy up because he’s going to be organist at the cathedral over there and you might get a job as soloist.” So when Ellen got to the party on the boat she gave me Janet’s number in Paris. I looked her up and the story is that I took her out, we went to Versailles in my new French Simca, and we got married a few months later in the American Cathedral.

To be continued.

The French organist and musicologist Jean Bonfils died on November 26, 2007 in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) at the age of 86. His funeral was celebrated on November 29 at the Notre-Dame Church in Vitré and a memorial mass was held in his honor at La Trinité Church in Paris on February 16, 2008.
Born in Saint-Etienne (Loire) on April 21, 1921, Jean Bonfils studied at the Paris Conservatory and received first prize in organ in 1949 in Marcel Dupré’s class, a second prize in composition in Jean Rivier’s class in 1948, and a first medal in analysis in Olivier Messiaen’s class in 1950.
Jean Bonfils substituted for Olivier Messiaen at La Trinité Church in Paris for over forty years (from 1950 to 1992), then for Naji Hakim. According to Denis Havard de la Montagne (http://www.musimem.com/BonfilsJean.htm), he also played the Merklin organ at the Grande Synagogue in Paris, rue de la Victoire, for over thirty years (succeeding Henriette Roger in 1953), and in 1964 he was also named titular of the Cavaillé-Coll/Mutin organ at Saint-Ignace (succeeding Paule Piédelièvre, remaining until 1975). After assisting Jean Langlais as organ professor at the Schola Cantorum, he taught organ there from 1973 to 1992.
He was editor of numerous liturgical journals and musical publications, including the collection he co-directed with Gaston Litaize, L’Organiste liturgique, Heinrich Schütz’s works for choir, and an organ method he wrote with Noëllie Pierront (Nouvelle méthode de Clavier, four volumes, 1960–68, and in 1962 a two-volume Nouvelle méthode d’orgue), which has formed an entire generation of organists, notably Olivier Latry. Seuil Editions published his reconstitutions of Goudimel’s psalms and motets. Jean Bonfils edited numerous 16th- and 17th-century French organ compositions, including Jacques Boyvin’s First and Second Organ Books as well as Deo Gloria, collections of liturgical organ music he prepared with Noëllie Pierront from 1962 to 1968.
A musicologist, Jean Bonfils wrote numerous articles, notably in L’Orgue: on the Christmas carols of Pierre and Jean-François Dandrieu (no. 83, pp. 48–54) and on Olivier Messiaen (1992, no. 224, pp. 12–14); in Recherches sur la musique française classique edited by Picard: on the instrumental fantasies of Eustache Du Caurroy (in 1961–62) and on Jehan Titelouze’s organ works (1965), as well as numerous biographical notices on French musicians for Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Bärenreiter) and for Corliss Arnold’s Organ Literature: A Comprehensive Survey (Scarecrow Press).
Jean Bonfils composed an organ piece, Communion on “Beata Viscera,” published in L’Organiste liturgique (Schola Cantorum). Jean Langlais dedicated to him his Trois Méditations sur la Sainte-Trinité, op. 129 (Philippo, 1962).
At La Trinité Church, I had the joy of working with him from 1989 to 1997. Like Olivier Messiaen, Jean Bonfils was very discreet, modest and cordial, and was an excellent musician. He played an eclectic repertory and carefully chose the pieces he played during the church services, strictly in keeping with their specific liturgical functions; an excellent musicologist as well, he was an immense inspiration to me and countless other musicians and students. In addition, he generously gave numerous manuscripts, musical scores and letters to the music department at the Bibliothèque nationale and to the library at the Conservatory in Boulogne-Billancourt.
—Carolyn Shuster Fournier
Titular of the A. Cavaillé-Coll Choir Organ at La Trinité Church in Paris

Robert N. Cavarra died February 8 in Denver, Colorado after complications from kidney failure. He was for many years professor of music at Colorado State University and a leading participant in the revival of the classical organ tradition in North America.
Under Cavarra’s leadership, three examples of this movement were realized in Fort Collins: the Casavant Frères organ at CSU (1969), the Lawrence Phelps opus 1 organ at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church (1973), and the Danish Marcussen and Son organ at First United Methodist Church (1987). He brought together artists from throughout the world for master classes and recitals on these instruments, including E. Power Biggs, Marie-Claire Alain, Luigi Tagliavini, Gillian Weir, Lionel Rogg, Bernard Lagacé, and Anton Heiller. He taught from 1963 until 2000 on the faculty of CSU’s Department of Music, Theater and Dance. At his death, he was Professor Emeritus of Music. As a student of both philosophy and music, Cavarra also served as organist for the North American College.
Robert Nicholas Cavarra was born on February 23, 1934, in Denver. His musical training began in childhood, and by age 12 he was performing publicly. As a recitalist, Cavarra toured widely, including concerts in Denmark, Sweden, France, England, Canada, Mexico and the United States. He and his wife Barbara founded an international non-profit foundation, “Pro Organo Pleno XXI.” As a recording artist, he released CDs through the Musical Heritage Society, and he was a major figure in the “Christmas at CSU” series of recordings. He was also a published composer and solo and ensemble harpsichordist.
In addition to the classical organ, Cavarra was responsible for the installation of a Wurlitzer theatre organ at CSU, and sponsored numerous workshops on theatre organ music. He was organist at St. Joseph and St. Pius X Roman Catholic Churches and St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Denver, and St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, and the First United Methodist Church in Fort Collins. He also taught music at Loretto Heights College and St. Thomas Theological Seminary in Denver, as well as at the University of Wyoming. Cavarra is survived by his wife Barbara, a daughter, three sons, and five grandchildren.

Jack Hennigan died November 11, 2007 in Pelham Manor, New York, at the age of 64. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, he earned a bachelor of music degree at Juilliard, having studied organ with Vernon deTar. Further studies were in Cologne, Germany, with Michael Schneider (organ) and Gunther Ludwig (organ). He earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale, studying organ with Charles Krigbaum and piano with Donald Currier. He won international organ competitions in Bruges, Belgium, and Worcester, Massachusetts. Hennigan served as organist-choirmaster at St. Matthews Church, Wilton, Connecticut, and the Church of Christ the Redeemer (Episcopal) in Pelham Manor, New York. He wrote a monthly column for The American Organist dealing with fingering, hand coordination, and performance anxiety, and lectured to AGO groups on these topics. He was also known as a gourmet cook, traveling and studying food preparation in France. Jack Hennigan is survived by his partner, Martin Nash, of Pelham Manor.

Winston A. Johnson died February 4. He was 92. Born in China in 1915 to Covenant missionaries, he first studied piano with his mother. His family returned to the U.S. in 1927, eventually settling in Illinois. Johnson began organ study at age 13 and by age 16 held his first church organist position. He earned bachelor and master of music degrees from the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and the master of sacred music from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. His teachers included Clarence Dickinson, Marcel Dupré, Hugh Porter, and Leo Sowerby. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942–46 as a chaplain’s assistant, playing for Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish services.
Winston Johnson served as organist and choir director for over 60 years, including at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle for 32 years. Active in the American Guild of Organists, he was one of twelve organists who studied with Sowerby in Chicago for the Associate certificate; he was the only candidate who passed the two-day examination that year. Johnson held several offices with the Seattle AGO chapter, including as dean. He also played for two AGO regional conventions, and had performed with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra and the Seattle Opera. He taught at North Park College and Trinity Bible Institute in Chicago, and at Simpson Bible Institute and Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, and taught privately. He gave his last piano lesson three days before his death. Winston Johnson is survived by Irma, his wife of nearly 50 years, his sister, two sisters-in-law and a brother-in-law, and nieces and nephews.

Robert V. McGuire died November 12, 2007, in Haines City, Florida, at the age of 79. Born and raised in Chicago, his doctoral dissertation from the University of Chicago dealt with the use of the augmented second in Bach’s Passions and other choral works. Dr. McGuire served as organist-choirmaster at churches in Illinois and in Florida; his last position was at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Haines City, retiring in 2002. He served on the boards of the Messiah Association of Polk County and the Bach Festival of Central Florida, for which he authored program notes for many years. A lifelong member of the AGO, he served as dean of the Lakeland Area (Florida) chapter. Robert McGuire is survived by many cousins, nieces, nephews, and his friend Jeanette Stokes.

Edward Lamond Nobles, age 72, died January 2 in Meridian, Mississippi. Born in Meridian, he first studied piano with an aunt; he earned a bachelor of music degree at Jackson State College (now Jackson State University) in 1958, and a master of music education degree from Columbia University in New York City in 1968. Nobles taught music for eight years in Mississippi and for 18 years in Michigan; he also served as organist-choir director in various churches in those two states. He returned to Mississippi in 1984 and served as organist at St. Patrick Catholic Church of Meridian for over 20 years. Nobles was a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Music Fraternity and the AGO, and was active in the Jackson, Mississippi chapter. He is survived by several cousins and many friends.

Glenn Edward Pride, 57, died suddenly February 26 at his residence on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, he graduated from Peabody Demonstration School in Nashville and from Hope College in Holland, Michigan, majoring in organ performance. His graduate degree in sacred music was completed at Southern Methodist University, Perkins School of Theology, in Dallas, Texas. Mr. Pride had served St. Simons Presbyterian Church as director of music and organist since 2000. During his 34-year music career, he also served First Presbyterian Church of Dalton, Georgia; First Presbyterian Church of Bartlesville, Oklahoma; First Presbyterian Church of Jonesboro, Georgia; and the First Presbyterian Church of Douglasville, Georgia. He was a member of Rotary International and the American Guild of Organists. He was also artistic director of the Island Concert Association of St. Simons Island.

Organist, choir director, composer, and teacher Roberta Bitgood died on April 15 at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital, New London, Connecticut, after a brief illness. She was 99. Dr. Bitgood, formerly of Quaker Hill, had been a resident of the Odd Fellows Home of Connecticut (Fairview) in Groton. She was also known locally as Roberta Wiersma, her married name.
During a long career in sacred music, Bitgood served as minister of music and organist in churches and synagogues throughout the United States. She worked first in New Jersey (Bloomfield), later in California (Riverside), and later still in Connecticut (Mystic and Waterford), as well as in upper New York state (Buffalo) and Michigan (Detroit, Bay City, and Battle Creek). She published more than 70 choral and organ compositions, including several pieces for organ and other instruments, and two choral cantatas based on biblical narratives. Her enthusiasm for making music accessible to all, and the broad scope of her musical activities, made her one of the most well-known 20th-century American music educators. She was known to organists worldwide as a committed yet down-to-earth professional leader, and to volunteer choir singers in many states as an inspiring and witty teacher.
Roberta Bitgood was born in New London on January 15, 1908, and began study of the violin at age 5. As a student at the Williams Memorial Institute (1920–24), she was already well known as a gifted performer on the violin and organ in local churches and school orchestras. Graduating with honors from Connecticut College for Women, she received postgraduate and conservatory training in New York, where she was awarded the William C. Carl Medal upon graduation from the Guilmant Organ School (1930), became a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists (also 1930), and earned a master’s degree in music education from Teacher’s College at Columbia University (1932), a master’s degree in sacred music from Union Theological Seminary (1935), and later the doctoral degree in sacred music (1945), also from Union.
Dr. Bitgood was honored for her achievements and service to her profession and maintained an active relationship with her alma mater through fundraising efforts and performances at annual college reunions. In 1974 she was awarded the Connecticut College Medal, and in 1975 was elected president of the American Guild of Organists, continuing until 1981. In 1976, upon retirement from full-time employment in Michigan, Dr. Bitgood returned to her family home in Connecticut, serving for another 18 years in local churches and synagogues.
In 1993, the New London AGO chapter established an annual scholarship competition for new organists in Dr. Bitgood’s honor, as part of a celebration of her contributions to sacred music and her 85th birthday. After retiring from professional life in 1999, Dr. Bitgood remained at home under the care of her family until 2003, when she moved to Groton. A memorial service took place April 21 at St. James Church, New London. Contributions may be made to the New London AGO-Bitgood Scholarship (P.O. Box 423, Quaker Hill, CT 06375), or to the Visiting Nurses Association of Southeastern Connecticut (Waterford).

Giuseppe G. Englert died of cancer on March 29 in Paris. He was 80. Born to Swiss parents in Fiesole, Italy, in 1927, he studied theory and composition with Willy Burkhard at the Zurich Conservatory (1945–48). From 1958 to 1963 he took part in the international summer courses at Darmstadt, attending seminars given by Leibowitz and Cage, among others. From 1970 to 1982 he taught at the University of Paris VIII–Vincennes, where he became a member of the computer department’s Art et Informatique group in 1973. From 1964 to 1969 he was a co-director of the Centre de Musique, an organization founded by Keith Humble that promoted performances of new music at the American Center for Students and Artists in Paris. He joined the Groupe Art et Informatique de Vincennes (GAIV) in the computer department of the same university in 1973. As a composer and performer he toured Europe, Israel, and the United States. Since 1986 he was associated with the Groupe d’Etude et Réalisation Musicales (GERM) founded by Pierre Mariétan in Paris.
In the 1950s Englert studied organ with André Marchal and substituted for him at the church of St. Eustache in Paris. He accompanied André Marchal on a number of his American tours and gave lectures on organbuilding at several American universities. In 1956 he attended the Organ Institute at Methuen Memorial Hall, where he was the translator for André Marchal. He assisted Peter Bartok in the Unicorn recordings of Marchal in 1957 at MIT in Cambridge. In 1961 in Oberlin, Ohio, he lectured on French organbuilding and at the 1963 Midwinter Conference on Church Music at Northwestern University, Evanston. He was married to Jacqueline Marchal in 1954. American organists familiar with Langlais’ Organ Book may remember that it was dedicated to Jacqueline Marchal as a wedding gift and the last piece, “Pasticcio,” contains the names of both Jacqueline and Giuseppe.
Englert’s works include orchestral pieces, chamber music, compositions for organ, cello, and works for ‘new music theatre’ and electronic music on tape for live performance using analog and digital means of production. In 1975 and 1976 he worked in the digital electronic music studio at SUNY/Albany, in 1977 at the New York Experimental Intermedia Foundation, and in 1978 in San Diego for the Ford Foundation at the Center for Music Experiment (CME).
Englert’s works for organ include: Palestra 64 (1959–64) and GZ50 Musica Barbara pro Organo (1979), the latter recorded by Gerd Zacher. In reference to his compositions for organ he stated:
The organ has always played a major role in my musical thinking. But it may be precisely because I know the instrument so well that I’ve written so little for it. The problem with the organ is that no two instruments are identical. Consequently the interpreter needs far more freedom because he or she has to play a piece differently depending on the instrument and the hall or church in which it stands. When I began working with a computer, I was thrilled by the possibility of programming the necessary freedom into an organ composition, in other words, of using a computer program to determine and define indeterminacy. That led to GZ50, the organ piece I wrote for Gerd Zacher’s fiftieth birthday. It gives Zacher enormous freedom of interpretation. Time values are notated proportionally, but the duration of each page is not fixed. That leaves tempo completely to the performer, and the same holds true for tone color.
Until his last days he was surrounded by his former students and his nurses who recalled that they took him to a piano where he improvised a fugue. A large number of friends, colleagues, and former students attended the graveside funeral held April 2 at Père-Lachaise Cemetery. During the interment, Marchal’s recordings of portions of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein were played, interspersed with readings and tributes. Englert is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Englert-Marchal, a nephew and a niece. Contributions may be made to the Académie André Marchal, c/o Ralph Tilden, “Longview,” P.O. Box 2254, Banner Elk, NC 28604.
—Ann Labounsky

Kenneth W. Matthews died January 19 in San Francisco at the age of 54. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, his first music lessons were with his father, who played organ in churches and in restaurants. Matthews earned a BA in music from Stetson University in 1976 and an MA in sacred music from Yale Divinity School in 1978. He then moved to San Francisco to study with Richard Purvis at Grace Cathedral. He also studied in Paris with Marie-Louise Langlais and played recitals in France.
Matthews was director of music at Old First Presbyterian Church in San Francisco from 1998 until his death. He had previously served All Saints Episcopal Church and the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in San Francisco, the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley, and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Belvedere. He also supervised the support staff at Boalt Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, 1990–96. He played recitals at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor and at national conventions of the Organ Historical Society. A memorial service took place at Old First Presbyterian Church on February 24.
Monsignor Richard J. Schuler, a major figure in sacred music in the 20th century and founder of the Church Music Association of America, died April 20 at the age of 87. Monsignor Schuler served as pastor at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, for 32 years, from 1969–2001, and was the founding director of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale in 1956.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, December 30, 1920, he attended DeLaSalle High School and the College of St. Thomas before entering the St. Paul Seminary. He was ordained a priest on August 18, 1945, and was assigned to Nazareth Hall Preparatory Seminary to teach Latin and music. He held music degrees from the Eastman School of Music (M.A.) and the University of Minnesota (Ph.D.), and in 1954 spent a year of study of Renaissance music manuscripts at the Vatican Library on a Fulbright scholarship from the United States government.
An excellent organist and overall musician, he was also a pioneer in the use of large-scale polyphony and symphonic sung Masses after the Second Vatican Council. He is the author of many articles and lengthy studies on music and the liturgy. A funeral mass took place on April 24 at St. Agnes Church in St. Paul. Members of the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale sang the Mozart Requiem with orchestral accompaniment.

Gordon T. Whitley died April 20 at Obici Hospital in Suffolk, Virginia, from congestive heart failure. He was 66. Born November 16, 1940, to Moses and Mary Whitley in Suffolk, he attended Peabody Conservatory. His business included ownership of a beauty salon located in his home. Churches he had served as organist and choirmaster included St. Bride’s Episcopal, Norfolk, Virginia, Faith Lutheran Church in Suffolk, and Murfreesboro (North Carolina) Baptist Church. At the time of his death he was a countertenor in the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in Portsmouth, Virginia.
Whitley was a member of St. Grace and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Baltimore. A former dean of AGO chapters in Maryland and Virginia, he was a member of Northeastern North Carolina AGO chapter, serving as dean from 1997–1999. He was a member of the Association of Anglican Musicians and the Friends of European Cathedrals. Survivors include a niece and a sister-in-law. A memorial service was held on April 22 at R. W. Baker Funeral Home Chapel in Suffolk.
—Rodney Trueblood

Alec Wyton died on March 18 at Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, at the age of 85. He had been a resident of Ridgefield, Connecticut, for the last 20 years. His career included two decades as organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. He was president of the American Guild of Organists 1964–69 and twice served as dean of the New York City chapter.
Born in London on August 3, 1921, he received his early musical training as a boy chorister and held his first job as organist at age 11. He earned the BA from the Royal Academy of Music and the MA from Oxford University and was awarded fellowships in five professional societies. In 1946 he was appointed organist-choirmaster at St. Matthew’s Church, Northampton, and also served as conductor of the Northampton Bach Choir and Orchestra. In 1950 he was appointed organist-choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1954 he was appointed to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, where he also served as headmaster of the cathedral choir school 1954–62.
Wyton left the cathedral in 1974 to become organist-choirmaster at St. James’ Church, Madison Avenue, in New York City. At that time he also became coordinator of the Standing Commission on Church Music that produced The Hymnal 1982 for the Episcopal Church. In 1987 he left St. James’ Church to become minister of music at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a position he held until his retirement in 1997.
Wyton’s published compositions number more than 100. In addition to his work on the Standing Commission on Church Music, he edited numerous publications, including Anglican Chant Psalter (Church Publishing, Inc.), and he was a member of the editorial team that produced Ecumenical Praise (Hope Publishing).
Wyton founded the church music department at the Manhattan School of Music in 1984, serving as chairman until 1990. He also taught at Union Theological Seminary in New York City and was chairman of the music department at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey. He was awarded honorary doctorates from Susquehanna University and Virginia Theological Seminary. Services were held at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Part 1 of this interview was published in the March 2010 issue of The Diapason. Charles Dodsley Walker celebrated his 90th birthday on March 16. He is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists and is the founding director of the Canterbury Choral Society, which he began in 1952 at the Church of Heavenly Rest—a position he still holds, preparing and conducting three concerts per season. Part I ended with Mr. Walker about to leave for France to serve as organist at the American Cathedral in Paris.

NC: So, you’re in Paris.
CDW: Yes, I’d longed to go to France; this was my first time there. I’d been to a French-speaking country during the war—Algeria, on the way to Sicily. At Trinity College, I had immersed myself in the study of the French language and culture, and this was a dream come true.
I lived in the deanery—a lovely three-story stone building separated from the cathedral by a garden. The church sexton was a man named Lucien; he was also a master chef, and he did a lot of things beside dust the church pews off, I’ll tell you that! I lived there on the top floor of the deanery, and he would come up and wake me up in the morning with a plate of what he called paingrillé, which was a word I hadn’t learned in my study in French, but it turns out it was actually two words, pain and grillé—toast.

NC: Quite a few well-known American organists have held that post, haven’t they?
CDW: Yes, Robert Owen preceded me and Donald Wilkins followed me. They were great years over there, especially if you were a Francophile.

NC: What were services like at the American Cathedral? They were in English, I assume?
CDW: Yes, they were just as if you were here in the States. Everything was in English, we chanted the canticles and so forth.
One of the things I tried to do was to get more Americans in the choir. I had a lot of French opera singers already in there. They’d sing [mimicking the French pronunciation of English] oly, oly, oly, looord Gott uf osts, aven ant urse are fuel of zei gloory, so I was trying to get more Americans, and Janet [Hayes, later Mrs. CDW] was part of that campaign after we married.
One day after service, a little man came up to talk to me and said, “I am Pierre Duvauchelle and I am the conductor of the Paris Chamber Orchestra. You have a beautiful acoustic here in the cathedral.” Well, he wanted to do a series of three or four concerts at the cathedral. And I thought quickly and said, “I will see to it that you may have the use of the cathedral, heated and lighted, for the first three concerts, and then for the fourth concert I want to conduct your orchestra and do a concert with my chorus and your orchestra.” All my life I’d wanted to do works for chorus and orchestra. Many of the orchestra players were members of Lamoreux Orchestra, which was an important orchestra in Paris. So we did the Palestrina Missa Brevis unaccompanied, of course, and then his orchestra joined us for the Bach Magnificat. It was recorded on acetate discs, which I still have, and it was broadcast over the Radiodiffusion Française.
I must have met Langlais by then, because I remember that he came to that concert and complimented me on the Palestrina. He also brought along a friend, a pupil I think, named Pierre Cochereau, whom I met for the first time.
Not too long after I arrived, the dean gave me a new job, in addition to the cathedral, as director of the American Students’ and Artists’ Center on the Left Bank—a beautiful building on what had been Chateaubriand’s estate. The place had been closed up because the Germans had taken it over during the war.

NC: So this was an umbrella of the cathedral or part of its ministry?
CDW: Yes, exactly, to students in Paris. On the first floor it had a theater with a balcony. It didn’t have a very big stage, more of a lecturers’ stage than a theater stage. And there was a big lounge, and a billiard room. On the second floor they had a library and on the opposite wing was the director’s apartment. I had administrative charge of the operations of the center.

NC: And that’s where you lived?
CDW: That’s where we lived—I was married by then. The apartment provided for the director was very comfortable. The building was designed by prize-winning architect Welles Bosworth, who had been J. D. Rockefeller’s architect in charge of restoring Reims Cathedral. He also designed all those buildings for MIT along the Charles River that have those rotundas. And several former Harvard students were over there—Robert Middleton, Noel Lee, Douglas Allanbrook. Leon Fleisher was there at the time, also.

NC: Those were pretty heady years to be in Paris; you must have met many well-known persons?
CDW: Yes, including Poulenc, and notably Nadia Boulanger, whom I had known from her time in Cambridge while I was at Harvard. A lot of people were studying with her in Paris in those days. Janet studied with her. She was Nadia’s favorite singer, and everyone said she sang French songs better than the French did.

NC: Boulanger didn’t teach voice, did she?
CDW: No, she had been a very close friend of Fauré, and coached singers working on his songs. She didn’t exactly teach vocal technique. She said some things I don’t agree with. For instance, she would say—I forget exactly how she put it, but something like “Oh, you don’t have to sing those songs in a sexy way.” Well, many of Fauré’s songs are incredibly sexy and you do need to bring that across. Her forte was teaching composition.
One thing that Nadia did that was influential was that every Wednesday she had a salon—a sort of open house—and young people who liked to trail on the footsteps of the stars would pop in on Wednesday afternoons.
Actually, you were supposed to know her to show up at these. Well, one of the times I was there, Robert Shaw, who I guess had heard of these, showed up, and apparently he didn’t know her. I was sitting there with several others, and the doorbell rang, and Nadia asked if I would answer the door, and when I did, it was Robert Shaw. I brought him in, introduced him, and Nadia was sitting there like a grand dame, which she was!
So, he sat down and the rest of that afternoon the conversation was all about how difficult it was to find a garage to park your car in Paris. There wasn’t a word about Fauré and his use of modality or anything musical like that! This is what was going on, and she was just being friendly, and I don’t recall her addressing a word to Bob Shaw. Nothing! It was funny.

NC: Poulenc?
CDW: For some reason, I remember having dinner with him at an outdoor restaurant on one of those avenues that lead up to the Opéra. He hadn’t even written his now-famous Gloria at this time. He gave quite a few small concerts with singers. There was this singer named Pierre Bernac, and Poulenc would accompany him. I’d run into them a couple of times and we were just friendly.

NC: Ned Rorem must have been around in those days.
CDW: Yes, Janet did a concert with him at the American Embassy; he accompanied her. One of the things Boulanger did was to act as a resource to the American ambassador in Paris in providing Franco-American musicians for concerts of the Cultural Relations of the American Embassy. And on this concert Janet sang some of Ned’s songs.
Janet had gone to the New England Conservatory on the recommendation of Eleanor Steber, and she won the Frank Huntington Beebe award for study abroad, which is what brought her to Paris. She knew Ned at the New England Conservatory and he dedicated a piece to her—A Sermon on Miracles, which we performed in his presence at the Church of the Heavenly Rest many years later, in 1973.
We also toured throughout Germany during the summers of 1950, ’51, and ’52 under the auspices of the United States Department of State as part of a cultural exchange program established after the war. The state department wanted to present our musicians so the German people wouldn’t think we were all barbarians. That was the whole point. There were American artists, poets, authors, and musicians presenting their work all over Germany. We performed in forty different cities in West Germany during those summers, playing a lot of American music, including works by Sowerby, Piston, Bingham, Pinkham, Lukas Foss, and Rorem—that was part of the propaganda to show the Germans that we had composers and performers, and that we cared about these things.
While we were there we crossed paths with Daniel Pinkham and a young violinist named Robert Brink, who were touring doing the same thing.

NC: There must have been many Americans with whom you rendezvoused in Paris?
CDW: Yes. Clarence Dickinson and Seth Bingham paid courtesy calls at the cathedral. Thornton Wilder was a member of the bridal party for a wedding I was playing, and I was introduced to him as if I were being introduced to the next-door neighbor. A lot of people found their way to the American Cathedral.

NC: Edouard Nies-Berger?
CDW: Yes, he visited at the cathedral and at the Students’ and Artists’ Center. He was a very friendly man. I also met Hugh Giles over there. I’d only spent a year in New York before coming to Paris, so I hadn’t met many of the big name organists until they came through Paris.

NC: Tell me about the organ recital series you organized at the American Cathedral.
CDW: When I got there I found out what a wonderful organ it was. It had been a big three-manual Cavaillé-Coll. In 1930 it was enlarged, and a fourth manual added. It was one of the very few organs in France at that time with capture combination action. Leaving all that aside, it was a real Cavaillé-Coll, with wonderful reeds and an abundance of everything you wanted. The Solo division was not so big. It was built by Maison Pleyel, successors to Cavaillé-Coll, and they had been sent to Ernest Skinner in America in order to learn from him. The result was that it was a rather typical E. M. Skinner Solo division. It had nice strings, a French Horn, one of the few in France, a Tuba Mirabilis, and a Philomela which was huge! No chorus reeds, but, of course, there were 16, 8, and 4 reeds on the Great.
Anyway, I saw this organ and thought it would be nice to have a recital series. So I told the dean I’d like to invite a bunch of famous French organists to play on this organ, and he said “Fine, go ahead.” I wish I could remember the fee we paid them, but it was ridiculously small. I think it was 10,000 francs, which was about $30.
So, I picked up the phone—believe it or not—and called Marcel Dupré, whom I had met through Clarence Watters in this country. He was the only one I knew, and I didn’t call him Marcel, either! It was “Maître, would you be willing to play on a series on this organ? I want to help raise the reputation of the American Cathedral as an artistic center in Paris.” He agreed and I thanked him, and put the phone down. Then I called André Marchal, and repeated my story, saying that Dupré had agreed to play, and would you do it, and he said yes. Of course, if Dupré hadn’t agreed to do it, it might have been a different story. I didn’t know Marchal from a hole in the ground! It was the same with Langlais, Messiaen, and Duruflé. These names were legend, even back then.
Then I called up Mlle. Boulanger, telling her that I had asked each of these eminent organists to conclude with an improvisation, and asked her to submit the themes for each of these players. I must have caught her at a weak moment and she agreed. As it turns out, I had to chase her up each week to get the themes in time for the recital. It wasn’t that she gave me all five at once in advance.

NC: Was that part of the promotional packaging of the series, that she would be supplying the themes?
CDW: It wasn’t on the advertising, but on the program I inserted a little slip sheet stating that the themes for each of the improvisations had been kindly submitted by Nadia Boulanger. The recitals were a week apart in Lent, and there were big crowds and wide newspaper coverage.

NC: How did the organ in the American Cathedral stack up in comparison with the famous Paris organs?
CDW: Well, for one thing, it was in better tune than any of the others, and that was because of the Germans. They had taken over the cathedral and used it as their army church. Say what you will about their politics, but by golly if they were going to have a Wehrmachtskirche, it was going to have an organ that was in tune. So the organ was in great shape when I got there. It was amazing.

NC: Did you have an opportunity to hear any of these organists in their own churches?
CDW: Very little. Duruflé, for example, at St.-Etienne-du-Mont didn’t have the organ; it was down. I don’t think he had any organ to play. With all my duties, I didn’t get to other churches very often. In retrospect, I certainly wish I could have heard more. I did go to Ste. Clotilde from time to time, because I was very close to Langlais.
One thing that might be of interest is my impressions of these great men as they came to the cathedral to practice. For one thing, I was . . . skeptical is too strong a word, but I was not convinced that every note that Messiaen wrote down was for real, or whether he was trying for effect in one way or the other. But of all those organists, Messiaen was the one who practiced the longest; he actually got me in there and asked me to play some passages (and I’d never even played any of his music, but he wanted to hear what it sounded like out in the church). And before he came to practice he said, “you know, I want to have some time there pour choisir mes couleurs, to choose my colors.” And he went way up in my estimation. But he was the most concerned that it be a good recital.
The main thing I remember about Duruflé was that he arrived at the appointed time outside the cathedral riding a bicycle.

NC: How did you happen to go back to New York?
CDW: One of the real reasons I wanted to come back was, as you can imagine, that I was so busy being the director of the Center—I think we had five or six hundred members. It wasn’t a musical job at all, but it was my full-time job, and the cathedral position was secondary.
So when I found out that Heavenly Rest had an opening, I made every effort to look into it. It was the Rev. Richard R. P. Coombs, who had been a tenor in my choir in Cambridge and who had gone to seminary during the war, and who had told me of the opening at the Paris Cathedral—he was now the curate at Heavenly Rest and told me of the vacancy there.

NC: So he had a hand in your going to Paris and in your coming back to New York?
CDW: He did!

NC: What sort of process did you have to go through when you applied for the job?
CDW: I simply wrote to anybody who was anybody who knew my work—Frank Sayre [the Very Rev. Francis B. Sayre, Jr.], Eddie West at the Cathedral [Canon Edward N. West, later Sub-Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York]—I mean personal friends who were in a position to be helpful and who knew my work.

NC: What was the musical tradition at Heavenly Rest as you found it?
CDW: For one thing, there was an assistant organist I inherited, so that made a smooth transition. I had never heard a service there previously, but my impression was that it was pretty run of the mill. They did have a men and boys choir, but with some female ringers in it. One of my so-called claims to being a candidate was that I was considered experienced at dealing with boys. And I built up that choir a lot, until, one fine day when every one of the best boys I had, every one of them—let’s say there were thirty kids, and the eight best ones either went off to prep school or their voices changed. And with what I had left, I felt I really couldn’t do the repertoire, so I wrote the vestry saying I thought we needed to strengthen the women’s sections, and from that time you really couldn’t say it was a boy choir.
Still, we continued to have a boy choir as a separate choir, and we did lots of things, including several television performances: one with Victor Borge, on a program at Christmas time—just because it was Christmas time and I had a boys’ choir.
Talk about TV—I did later do a program with CCS with Robert Merrill on “I’ve Got a Secret,” and the secret was the star, it was his birthday. So, in the course of the show, they had a barbershop quartet sing “Happy Birthday” to him. Then they laughed and scratched for a while, then a larger group came in and they sang “Happy Birthday” to him. And they laughed and scratched and did some more things. Meanwhile, there was a stage at the other end of the studio with the curtains closed, and at the given point, the curtains were opened and there were one hundred members of the Canterbury Choral Society and Robert Merrill in the middle of them to put the finishing touches of “Happy Birthday” in a paraphrase of a Mozart opera chorus, as I recall. That was a lot of fun.

NC: What was the organ like at Heavenly Rest as you found it?
CDW: It was a 1929 Austin, and it had either three or four 8-foot diapasons on the Great and they were all leather lipped. It was a big four-manual organ, with a typical complement of stops on each division, except it only had about four ranks in the Pedal! It did have a drawknob console. Anyway, it was like a whole set of foghorns.

NC: It must have been quite a difference from the Cavaillé-Coll at the Paris Cathedral?
CDW: It sure was! I had correspondence with G. Donald Harrison about ways to improve the organ, and he suggested ways to brighten up the Great reeds, which Austin revoiced to have a little more overtone interest, a little more French sound. Of course I later had Austin completely renovate the organ.

NC: I’m eager to hear you talk about the beginnings of the Canterbury Choral Society.
CDW: Well, one day the rector came to me and said, “Charlie, all the big churches have Evensong on Sunday afternoons at 4:00. The Cathedral has Evensong, St. Thomas has Evensong, St. Bartholomew’s has Evensong. What’s the matter with us? Let’s have some Evensong services.” So I said, “Well, you know we have a paid choir, you’re talking about some serious changes in the budget.” He said, “Just get a bunch of volunteers.” [Huge laughter from each of us.] And so I said, “Yes, sir.” So I talked to some of the paid singers and asked if they would volunteer to start this Evensong choir and they said they would.

NC: Did he have in mind doing this every Sunday?
CDW: I think he did, but we started out doing them just in Advent.

NC: Did he have any idea what he was asking for, do you think?
CDW: No!

NC: Was this typical of his approach to work?
CDW: No, he was really a fine man and smart, but he just had this idea and hadn’t really thought it out. I can imagine that from other clergy I’ve known! [More laughter.] Anyway, some of the members in the choir were personal friends by this time and said that they would try it for a while, and so forth. And one of the vestrymen was a former member of the Harvard Glee Club, and he said he would be glad to volunteer to sing bass. He had a daughter who taught at the Chapin School, and he talked her into getting friends of hers from Chapin to come sing in this volunteer Evensong choir.
So, I said we were going to do a chorus from Messiah on each of the first three Sundays in Advent, and on the fourth Sunday we would get some instruments and do the entire first part of Messiah. It was quite successful; we had between thirty and forty singers, and the soloists were professionals from the church choir. In every case, the choir outnumbered the congregation. So the rector said, “OK, we’re not the Cathedral, we’re not St. Bartholomew’s, we’re not St. Thomas, nobody’s coming to our Evensongs, so let’s forget it.”
Then, when I told the chorus that they were no longer needed, they said “We like singing here and want to keep coming.” This was Advent of 1951, after I arrived in January.
So, I asked, “How would you like to sing Brahms’ Requiem?” And they said, “Wonderful.” And more people joined. So we put on the Brahms in the spring of 1952. We billed ourselves as the Oratorio Choir of the Church of the Heavenly Rest.
The concert was a success. We had harp and timpani in addition to the organ accompaniment, which was played by my assistant, Marion Engle. Anyway, after we did this successfully, we had a meeting and everyone wanted this organization to be permanent. So I said, “Well, we’ve got to have a name for ourselves, how about the Carnegie Hill Choral Society?” You know that part of Manhattan is called Carnegie Hill, the Carnegie mansion is across the street from the church. They felt that it sounded too much like Carnegie Hall Choral Society, and so forth, and someone suggested Canterbury Choral Society. We were Anglican, after all, even though this was to be a community chorus, and so the name chosen was Canterbury Choral Society.
At this time it was rare to have an orchestra in church. I think Trinity Church may have had one on Ascension Day, and St. Mary the Virgin from time to time. But the norm was to do oratorios with organ accompaniment, and there were organists who did it very well—I’ve mentioned David McK. Williams. But performing these works with the instrumentation as envisioned by the composer was something I really wanted to do. Of course this took money, so we set up a system of membership—friends, sponsors, and so forth. For the first season of this new plan, we had two sponsors at $25 each, and one was my father!

NC: Was this under the aegis of the church?
CDW: It was a choir of the church, but membership was open to anyone who could pass the audition. I handled it as a choir of the church, in that the professional singers of the church choir were required to sing in it, and the assistant organist was the accompanist. But a big part of my time in those days was spent raising money for this new organization.

NC: From a practical point of view, this must have doubled your work load: a big additional choir and fundraising duties. Did the church recognize this in any way, such as a salary raise?
CDW: It was more work, but not more compensation. I was making $4,000 a year, and I don’t think they raised that in my first decade at the church. But I loved what I was doing, and I had a nice school job. From 1952–61 I was director of music at Kew-Forest School out on Long Island in Forest Hills. Up until then, I really had been living from hand to mouth. The school had a Hammond organ, and the headmaster loved organ music and was thrilled to have someone on his staff who knew about the organ. I was involved in the Guild more and more at that time, and he would excuse me from staff meetings and classes when Guild duties conflicted. His name was Dr. James L. Dixon, and he was a lovely person to work for. I distinctly remember the job paid $3,400. Well, to jump from $4,000 to $7,400—it was just wonderful! Of course, it was hard working two jobs.
By the way, it so happens that one of my students there was Donald Trump. He was one of these kids who needed personal attention. There would be twenty kids in the room and you’d have to focus on him. He could sing all right, but he was difficult.
The next big thing that happened is that Eleanor Steber came into the picture. She was a big star at the Met by this time, but we had known her previously and we were together at a dinner party one night. After dinner and much of our host’s fine Perrier Jouet champagne, I went up to her and said, “Eleanor, my choral society is going to be singing the Brahms Requiem with orchestra in about a month and a half and I don’t have a soprano soloist yet; will you do it?” And she said, “Brahms Requiem, I love that work—sure, I’ll do it.” For $100, by the way! [Laughing.] She sang for me once again and I paid her $100, and she sent it back! She wasn’t interested in the money, she was a good friend. I mean, she was a big star at the Met by this time, singing all the Mozart operas, Rosenkavalier, and so forth. She also had a radio program. This was in 1955 and she was really famous.
So, having secured Eleanor Steber to sing the soprano solo, I pulled out the same technique I had used in Paris! I picked up the phone and called John Brownlee, one of the leading baritones at the Met who worked with Eleanor all the time, especially in Mozart operas. And I said, “Mr. Brownlee, I’m doing the Brahms Requiem, isn’t it a wonderful work?” “Oh, yes it’s a wonderful work,” he replied in his deep voice. And I continued, “Eleanor Steber is going to be my soprano and I need a really good baritone. Would you do it?” [Laughing] He was an Australian, did you know that?

NC: I did not know that.
CDW: So he said [Imitating an Australian accent] “Well, if Eleanor is going to do it, of course I’ll do it. Count me in.” So, that really packed the house. This was our third season, March 1955. I was just lucky to have an “in” with a couple of these prominent people.
And then, I’d call up people I didn’t know who were at the Met, and just asked them. I had Jean Kraft as my alto, and Shirley Love, Ara Berberian—he was an old friend. I gave him his first paid date in New York.

NC: In a nutshell, it sounds like the Canterbury Choral Society took off right from the start.
CDW: Yes, it really did. The next thing we had Eleanor for was the Mozart C-minor Mass. She was soprano I and Phyllis Curtin was soprano II. Mack Harrell was the bass, and David Lloyd was the tenor.

NC: I sense that the social aspect of CCS is important now. Was it always?
CDW: I think it was. And I think that perhaps is the thing that differentiates it from many other choral groups. They love to party. And they love to sing.

NC: I know that you later presented the Mahler Eighth Symphony at regular intervals, but prior to that, what were some of the early high points?
CDW: We did the Berlioz Te Deum at the Cathedral [of St. John the Divine] and that was tremendous. I struck up a friendship with Hugh Ross, who was a leading musician of the city for years. He was the director of the Schola Cantorum, which did all of the choral work with the New York Philharmonic; he taught at Spence School and Hewitt School, and his kids, David and Grace, sang in my choir. It was he who put the idea in my head that there are lots of important choral works that feature children’s choirs, and encouraged me to do that. So, for this Berlioz we had scores and scores of children in the chorus, from Brearley School chorus—this was in 1968 and I was already teaching at the Chapin School, so we had the Chapin Chorus, and others . . . lots of children.

NC: What prompted you to have the concert at the cathedral, as opposed to Heavenly Rest? Space?
CDW: In addition to that, we were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, and I took the position that we ought to observe the occasion at the cathedral church.

NC: Was this the first time CCS had held a concert off the campus of Heavenly Rest?
CDW: [Thinking for a while.] No. Nineteen fifty-nine was the 200th anniversary of Handel’s death, so all the musicians of New York collaborated in a citywide Handel festival. I decided to do Handel’s Samson. We did that at St. Thomas Church, since it was in Mid-town nearer where the other concerts were held. Ara Berberian sang the bass lead. We also had a choir of girls, because in Samson, Delilah has an entourage that in the score is called “Delilah’s Virgins,” but I called them, to be discreet, “Delilah’s Handmaidens.” [Much laughter.] Anyway, it was broadcast by the Voice of America all over the world. I got a tape of it later. So that was a big event, in 1959.
And then our appearances on television . . . I guess it was in the 1950s that we did the most TV dates.

NC: Was there someone at the church in broadcasting who facilitated these appearances?
CDW: As a matter of fact, yes. The father of two of my choirboys—one of whom was Philip Morehead, who later became the director of the Chicago Lyric Opera Chorus—was related to the director of the CBS studio orchestra, so I did have an entree through him. And some good-looking gal in CCS was the casting director of “I’ve Got a Secret.” That’s how we got on that show with Robert Merrill.

NC: You worked with a lot of well-known soloists over the years. At the risk of appearing to be name dropping, who among them stands out?
CDW: Well, in addition to Eleanor Steber and John Brownlee whom I mentioned . . . Adele Addison who sang a lot; people like Robert Shaw used her.
Donald Gramm was a star at the Met, and he sang a lot for us, particularly the Vaughan Williams Five Mystical Songs, I remember. He was just one of those people I was fortunate enough to be able to call and ask, “Are you available on May 14?,” and he would if he could.
Louise Natale was the soloist at Riverside Church for Richard Weagley, and she was really wonderful. I remember particularly a Haydn Creation she did—a very good, really top-notch singer, and very funny and down to earth. I think her husband was a firefighter in Nutley, New Jersey, or someplace like that.
And I’ve mentioned Ara Berberian. He had been a lawyer, and he was in the Army Chorus in Washington. He sang in the Heavenly Rest choir for a while when he first came to New York,
The first time I did the Verdi Requiem, I had Ellen Faull as the soprano. The mezzo was Rosalind Elias, who was a big star at the Met and a friend of Janet’s from New England Conservatory. I then found out that these two were part of a road company that would travel around the country giving concerts. And the other two were Gabor Corelli, another Met singer, and Louis Sgarro, whom I remember particularly as being mentioned by the announcers at the Met broadcasts. So I thought it was really something to have four well-known Metropolitan Opera stars to sing my Verdi Requiem! And we packed them in.
We did the Bloch Sacred Service, and Arthur Wolfson, the cantor of Temple Emanu-El, sang the part of the cantor. We did it again with Howard Nevison, who was an excellent cantor at Emanu-El after Wolfson.
Seth McCoy . . . he sang with us several times . . .

NC: Was that ever an issue at Heavenly Rest in those days? The racial thing?
CDW: Yes . . . yes it was. You know there’s a kook in every crowd, and . . . you remember Richard Neel who sings in CCS?

NC: Yes.
CDW: He went to some advanced-type school, his mother was quite a liberal thinker for that era . . .

NC: She was the famous artist, Alice Neel?
CDW: Yes. Richard and his brother sang in my boy choir, and we encouraged the boys to bring in friends. The choir up to that point was lily white, and Richard brought in this African-American boy; I auditioned him, and he was good! So I took him into the choir. I later got a phone call—I remember the unpleasant tone of the voice—from the mother of one of the other boys in the choir saying, “you took a black boy into the choir without consulting with us.” And I said, “Yes, I did!”

NC: Did it ever go further than that? To the rector or vestry?
CDW: No, but can you imagine the nerve of that woman? I think I did tell the rector about it and he said that I should ignore that telephone call.

NC: You talked once about Thomas Beveridge; can you tell me a little more about him?
CDW: Tom was in my choir at the age of nine, and he was an ideal chorister in every way, bright and talented. I was honored that his father, Lowell Beveridge—one of the most distinguished members of our profession—was encouraging his boy to be in my choir. For many years I didn’t see Tom, but he later became a singer, and I hired him for a performance. His father, Lowell Beveridge, was the director of music at St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University, which used to be a big job. Searle Wright was his successor. Lowell went from there to Virginia Theological Seminary.

NC: We haven’t talked a lot about church life at Heavenly Rest. What were services like?
CDW: They were sort of middle-to-low church—Morning Prayer and all that. And they had lots of extremely fancy weddings, sometimes in questionable taste. The one I remember most clearly was a bride who came up to me and said, “I’ve been to some of your concerts and I know you know how to conduct an orchestra.” I said, “Sure.” She said, “I’d like to have an orchestra at my wedding,” and requested that we do the Siegfried Idyll—you know, the piece that Wagner composed for his wife on Christmas morning. So I had to have a pretty big orchestra.

NC: Talk about the Blue Hill Troupe that you directed for a long time.
CDW: This is a wonderful organization that does Gilbert and Sullivan operas. During my time, we did every one of the thirteen operas at least twice, with full pit orchestra and staging, which I liked a lot. I became the director in 1955 and stayed for thirty-five years.

NC: When you left Heavenly Rest, did that alter the life of CCS?
CDW: Musically it didn’t affect it at all. We had to go through all the legalities of making it an independent non-profit organization, separate from the church. We still had most of our concerts at the church, where I now had the title of Organist and Choirmaster Emeritus. The church gave us an office and storage space for music. But we did have to find the money to pay the professional singers and the accompanist, and we paid the church for using the facilities.

NC: So as a result you had to have some fundraisers.
CDW: Yes, you’re leading up to the Mahler! I first became aware of the Mahler Eighth Symphony when I was AGO president. I went into the office one day (this was back when the offices were at 630 Fifth Avenue across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral) and picked up a copy of Cathedral Age [magazine of Washington National Cathedral] and read about Paul Callaway doing the Mahler at Washington Cathedral; I salivated at the idea of this huge choral work, and just wondered if we could pull this off.
So, first we programmed Part I, which is only 25 minutes long, and paired it with Jean Kraft singing the Kindertotenlieder. I arranged for hundreds of kids from various schools and churches to sing the Knabenchor and we put this on at Heavenly Rest. By then we had the tradition of doing a concert every five years at either Philharmonic Hall [later named Avery Fisher Hall] or Carnegie Hall. So the next fifth-year anniversary was in 1977. We already had Part I under our belts, so we took the bit in our teeth and hired Philharmonic Hall, and I got hold of hundreds of kids, eight soloists, and the huge orchestra. I went into it with fear and trepidation, but we pulled it off. We packed the place and did it again in ’82. Then I decided to do it in Carnegie Hall in ’87, then in ’92, ’97, ’02, and of course in ’07 when St. Luke’s participated with us.
And we made enough money on those concerts to cover the annual deficits for the next five years. We’re in a little downturn right now in this economy and need to do a bit more fundraising, but that has been the pattern. But it’s remarkable—it actually makes money! Everybody loses money on a big production like that, but we charge the market price for tickets, and have good, loyal financial backing from our friends and patrons.

NC: After Heavenly Rest, you took up a new job, didn’t you?
CDW: Yes, for almost twenty years I was at Trinity Church in Southport, Connecticut, where there already existed the Trinity Chorale, a choral society. We did concerts there, and they joined with CCS on occasions, as well.
Incidentally, Lise and I were married there in the context of the regular Sunday morning service, which is sort of unusual. [Janet Hayes Walker died in 1997.] We had a full choir, and it was really wonderful. That was on January 14, 2001. I had met Lise Phillips as a singer in CCS. The wedding was a big community affair. Everyone in the church was invited to the wedding and to the reception, which was arranged by CCS. And quite a few members of Canterbury came out to Connecticut, sat up in the gallery and sang along with the church choir.

NC: What do you admire about church music or church life in general these days—what’s changed for the better since the early days of your career?
CDW: [Longer pause than usual.]

NC: Maybe nothing! [Both laughing.]
CDW: No, that’s a good question, one that makes you think. I think of my first teacher as being an exemplary practitioner of the art of church music, as an organist, as a choirmaster, and as a teacher—Coke-Jephcott. He was a hard-working, dedicated musician in the service of the church. He was a real inspiration.

NC: I know that by nature you are an optimistic person not inclined to the negative, but from your perspective, what could be better these days?
CDW: I do think it is regrettable—this tendency on the part of some, to make musical choices reflecting the tastes of people with no musical background at all, with the result that music of inferior quality has, in many places, risen into such prominence in church life; whereas music of good quality could be lifting up the noble and worthy aspects of worship to their rightful place.

NC: You’ve never really retired, have you?
CDW: No! I just love doing what I do, playing, conducting, teaching. I would feel strange not doing it, but guess you can’t do it forever. I’m just very glad to be here.

NC: As you reflect on your long career, for what would you like most to be remembered?
CDW: I feel that being a good church musician, doing your job from Sunday to Sunday, is a very worthy thing, and if you have the good fortune to be able to develop more elaborate musical programs—that’s good, too. But our job as church musicians is to provide, with the resources available, the best possible music for our church, week by week. I like that.