Michael’s Music Service releases

Hailed as “a great organist” displaying “phenomenal technique and sheer musicality” (Bloomberg News), James Kennerley is a multifaceted musician, working as a conductor, organist, singer, and composer. He has established himself as a tireless ambassador for the organ and its music. James’s performances are known for their illustrious flair and thrilling virtuosity, demonstrating subtlety and finesse; his YouTube performances have enjoyed worldwide popularity and have received millions of views globally. Deeply committed to educating the next generation of organ fans, James served for 12 years on the NYC AGO Chapter (most recently as Dean), and now serves on the Boston AGO chapter’s Young Organist Initiative board. His concert engagements this season take him to Boston’s Symphony Hall, Montreal’s Maison Symphonique, Portland’s Merrill Auditorium, churches of Washington D.C., a concert tour to Rome, Florence, and Venice, and even Fenway Park!

James was appointed the Municipal Organist of Portland, Maine, in 2017. One of only two such positions in the U.S. (the other being in San Diego), James presides over the landmark 1912/1928 Austin Kotzschmar Memorial Organ that was most recently renovated by Foley-Baker in 2012. The organ forms the centerpiece of the City Hall Auditorium (now known as Merrill Auditorium), and is featured in solo concerts, silent movies, performances with the Portland Symphony Orchestra, and frequent Backstage Pipes tours and educational events. Now under the auspices of the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (FOKO), the Municipal Organists have included legendary recitalist and transcription artist, Edwin Lemare, and former Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue/Temple Emanu-El organist Will C. Macfarlane, and most recently before James was appointed, Ray Cornils.

Deeply committed to the art of liturgical organ music and education, James was named Director of Music at Saint Paul’s Church and Choir School in Harvard Square in 2019, presiding over the Billboard Classical chart-topping Choir of Men and Boys. The Choir School, one of only two of its kind in the country, trains young singers to make liturgical music at the highest levels. Many graduates have gone on to become leaders in the field of sacred music. A recording by the choir on the Sophia/DeMontfort label of James’s new chamber orchestration of Gabriel Fauré’s beloved Requiem was released in 2023 to great acclaim. The release also features some of James’s original compositions, including the a cappella Missa Sanctae Mariae Virginis, a sumptuous yet practical setting of the Mass Ordinary based on Marian plainsong melodies. The recording may be previewed and purchased here, and the sheet music is also available here. A second recording with the choir is planned for the spring of 2023.

James’s repertoire is rich and diverse, including canonical works such as the Duruflé Suite, Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm, Florence Price’s Suite for Organ, Franck’s Troisième Chorale, Dupré’s Deuxieme Symphonie, Seth Bingham’s Roulade, Howells’ Third Rhapsody, and Elgar’s Organ Sonata. Inspired by his illustrious predecessors in Portland, as well as a stunning instrument with supreme orchestral capabilities, organ transcriptions form the backbone of James’s programs. Seamless crescendos and diminuendos can be witnessed in this performance of William Strickland’s transcription of Barber’s Adagio. James creates many of his own transcriptions, adapting them to the particular sounds of the Kotzschmar Organ. This recent version of Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever demonstrates the virtues of “thumbing down” in the extreme, in addition to frequent use of the pedal divide function (and some virtuosic double-pedaling). James adapts Lemare’s well-hewn transcription of Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre in this video; and he presents a new transcription of Berlioz’ Hungarian March here.

Renowned for his improvisations, some examples of James’s extemporization on liturgical themes can be seen and heard here and here. In 2021, James improvised a symphony on Americana themes as part of an Independence Day organ concert in Portland, Maine. James is in demand as a silent movie accompanist, drawing primarily on the rich, late Romantic sound palette as inspiration for many of his live scores (though humor and quotations are never far away!). Allan Kozinn (New York Times/Wall Street Journal) noted James’ “serious skill” during his 2018 improvised score to Nosferatu: “Kennerley’s playing during the film was masterly.” Click here to watch a scene from Nosferatu.

James’s lighter side (including frequent use of the percussion and toy stops!) can be seen in these videos, featuring Strauss’s Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka, Leon Jessel’s Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, Sousa’s Liberty Bell March, and Nevin’s Will-o'-the-Wisp.

Bach’s birthday is celebrated in Portland with an annual concert (the #BachBirthdayBash), during which James presents original works and transcriptions by the king of composers. The Kotzschmar organ allows for a great many differing styles of interpretations, including those cast in an historically informed manner (including the Prelude and Fugue in Eb and the Passacaglia in C minor). Transcriptions of orchestral works allow for further exploitation of the instrument’s colors, including the Sinfonia to Cantata 29 (Wir danken Dir) in a new arrangement that accentuates the punchy trumpets of the original, classic cantata arias such as Sheep may safely graze, and an arrangement of the Bach/Gounod “Ave Maria” that draws on the multiple string ranks of the Kotzschmar. James is also not afraid of “transcribing” Bach’s original works (albeit without changing any of the notes!) in a similarly orchestral manner, as shown by the performance of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor, and this of the Prelude and Fugue in E minor. Perhaps the best-suited piece for the Kotzschmar is the stunning arrangement by Max Reger of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, which invites exploration of the entire range of colors that the instrument has to offer.

Mr. Kennerley made his Carnegie Hall solo début in 2016 with the celebrated ensemble the Sejong Soloists. Performances in recent seasons include concerts at Alice Tully Hall, the Frick Collection, the Metropolitan Museum’s MetLiveArts series, and in the Lincoln Center White Light Festival. He has also given concerts at Washington National Cathedral, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue, Princeton University, the Royal Albert Hall, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Trinity Wall Street, and other major venues throughout the United States and Europe. He was a featured artist on recordings with the Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Wall Street including Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt, and Monteverdi Vespers, as well as a recording of Julian Wachner’s carol collection, The Snow Lay on the Ground. Mr. Kennerley was a prizewinner at the 2008 Albert Schweitzer International Organ Competition, and a semifinalist at the inaugural Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition.

A native of the United Kingdom, he has held positions at Christ Church, Greenwich, CT, Saint Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church, New York City, and the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Times Square. He is also part of a team of musicians at Park Avenue Synagogue in New York City, one of the foremost centers of Jewish Music and Liturgy in the world. A recognized specialist in the realm of early music, Mr. Kennerley has collaborated with William Christie, Richard Egarr, Nicholas McGegan, Christopher Hogwood, Monica Huggett, Julian Wachner, Gary Thor Wedow, and has given solo harpsichord concerts throughout the United States. A longtime member of NYC-based early music ensemble, Sonnambula, Mr. Kennerley has recorded virtuosic works for harpsichord by sixteenth-century English composer John Bull, released on Centaur Records.

Mr. Kennerley holds degrees from Cambridge University (Jesus College) and The Juilliard School. He has studied the organ with David Sanger, Thomas Trotter, and McNeil Robinson, and harpsichord with Kenneth Weiss, Peter Sykes, and Richard Egarr. He holds the prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists diploma.

More information: 
www.jameskennerley.com 
www.foko.org 
Booking enquiries: [email protected]

David Herman

It was the only paying job I’d ever had.

So said Ralph Vaughan Williams, speaking on the biographical DVD, O Thou Transcendent, as he talked about his first—and only—church organist position.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), arguably the most imaginative, prolific, and engaging British composer of the first half of the twentieth century, wrote so relatively few works for solo organ.¹ Why was this? Other twentieth-century British composers (such as Matthias, Leighton, Wills, Jackson, and, especially, Howells) contributed to the organ’s literature in major ways. Some say Vaughan Williams did not like the organ. It is more accurate, I believe, to suggest he did not enjoy playing the organ. It might have been difficult for him; he was, after all, a large man and had (as noted by relatives speaking on the DVD) long fingers and “enormous” feet! Others suggest his personal brand of Christian agnosticism got in the way of composing solo organ music.² But there are, of course, British organs in not only churches and cathedrals but also in many town halls and other non-religious concert venues. There was even an organ set up in his childhood home in Surrey so that he could practice.

Perhaps Vaughan Williams could not quite sort out how to translate some musical thoughts into organistic musical thoughts. In one of his many profoundly important observations on playing the organ, the late Erik Routley once wrote, “The organist must translate the [hymn] score into organ language [author’s emphasis] when he or she plays.”³

It is true that while many places in Vaughan Williams’s organ works have the ingredients for great musical expression, they are not entirely easy to bring off at the organ, due to matters of fingering, pedaling, and especially of texture. The same could be said of organ music by some other composers (Jehan Alain comes to mind), for which the player’s creative imagination must be called upon to combine with the composer’s notes.

It is the goal of this short work to consider Vaughan Williams’s views about and experiences with the organ and to examine the organ works that he left us. In so doing we will note some of the important influences on his compositional life, including his friendship with Gustav Holst, and especially his long and admiring relationship with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. And, we will see that the organ had an important role in Vaughan Williams’s life from his early teens through his funeral in Westminster Abbey in August 1958.

A final theory offered by some in explaining Vaughan Williams’s relatively small output for the organ is that he simply couldn’t play the organ well.

I cannot tell that I think he is justified in going in for an organist’s career which is his pet idea. He seems to me so hopelessly ‘unhandy’ . . . . I can never trust him to play a simple service for me without some dread at what he may do.

So wrote Alan Gray, Vaughan Williams’s organ teacher at Trinity College.⁴ Vaughan Williams himself, likely with a degree of false modesty, was critical of his own playing. We should take care, however, in believing that he was not a competent organist, as many factors suggest otherwise. To begin with a significant milestone, he studied for and passed (in 1898) the demanding Fellowship exams for the Royal College of Organists (only to resign his membership a few years later). John Francis, Vaughan Williams scholar, author, and vice president/treasurer of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, suggests that the situation above that Alan Gray complained of was due to the fact that Vaughan Williams was “unpredictable rather than technically incompetent.”⁵ Francis continues:

Self-deprecatory remarks by Vaughan Williams in later years have perhaps been taken too often at face value. We have no account of his [organ] playing by anybody who heard him play.

Further, Gray himself followed his lament by adding,

And this he combines with considerable knowledge & taste on organ and musical matters generally.⁶

This essay is not a biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams; fortunately, there are many excellent volumes available, some issued quite recently. Nevertheless, many events in his childhood, youth, and university days are intertwined with a study of his organ music. The reader will note at the end a list of some twenty-four sources consulted. Also particularly useful is the Timeline found on the website of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society: www.rvwsociety.com.

Vaughan Williams’s father was the vicar of Down Ampney (which Vaughan Williams pronounced “Amney”)⁷ in Gloucestershire. He died when his son was only two years old. His mother came from families of means: she was the daughter of Josiah Wedgwood (of pottery fame) and the niece of Charles Darwin.⁸ Let Vaughan Williams’s own words summarize the next few years, as spoken in Tony Palmer’s video, O Thou Transcendent:⁹

At age 11 [1883] I was sent to a horrid school at Rottingdean. Three years later I arrived at Charterhouse [1887]. They still sing my hymns there to this day. From Charterhouse I was sent off to the RCM [1890], and there I met a fellow pupil called Gustav Holst.

In his youth Holst had also secured a church position involving considerable responsibility. Vaughan Williams’s niece, recalling these early days with Vaughan Williams, remarked,

We used to laugh about Uncle Ralph but he wasn’t very good at the organ, and yet he was always playing for funerals or weddings or things.¹⁰

While at Charterhouse he was once greatly impressed by a schoolmate’s playing of Bach’s “St. Anne” fugue—a work that would remain a favorite throughout his life and which he himself designated as the postlude for his memorial service in Westminster Abbey.¹¹

During school holidays he practiced diligently, and the family even arranged for an organ to be installed at Leith Hill Place near Dorking, the seventeenth-century house in Surrey, wherein lived Wedgwoods and Darwins and which had become Vaughan Williams’s childhood home. (He later remarked that Dorking was “my home for nearly 40 years.”¹²) He inherited the house from his brother in 1944, whereupon he gave it to Britain’s National Trust.¹³ Breakfast at Leith Hill was at 7:30, and “Mr. Ralph” normally practiced beforehand. “The trouble about the early morning was finding a blower for the organ.”¹⁴ The butler, housemaids, groom, and gardener all avoided him!¹⁵ On Sundays he would practice long after the rest of the household had started to walk the two miles to church, usually arriving just as the service was starting. While a student at Charterhouse he was allowed to practice on the chapel organ. (One wonders what pieces he was working on!) In any case, from an early age Vaughan Williams seemed committed to the organ.

Throughout his childhood Vaughan Williams was steadfast in declaring his desire to be a professional musician. His family agreed, with the provision that he became an organist. (Thoughts were different in the late nineteenth century!) He later wrote:

I believe I should have made quite a decent fiddler but the authorities [!] decided that if I was to take up music at all the violin was too ‘doubtful’ a career and I must seek the safety of the organ stool, a trade for which I was entirely unsuited.¹⁶

It should be noted that when he subsequently left his only church position after only four or so years, it would seem that, although he disliked being an organist, there is no evidence that he disliked the organ.

The Royal College of Music

Vaughan Williams entered the Royal College of Music in 1890, just prior to his eighteenth birthday, and there became a pupil of Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. His family wanted him to commute, which he usually did by rail but occasionally on foot! (Really? London to Leith Hill in Surrey—some thirty miles! Far from the 200 miles Bach supposedly walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, but . . . ). He often announced his arrival at Leith Hill Place by first having a go at the organ.¹⁷

While studying at the Royal College of Music he also entered Trinity College, Cambridge (1892), and there experienced a “spiritual awakening.”

As my mother insisted that I had a ‘proper’ education, I was sent to Cambridge . . .
what an awakening that was! You might almost say a spiritual awakening. The sense that even if you didn’t believe in God, there was something beyond. Something mysterious.¹⁸

Vaughan Williams would have heard many organ recitals and services at Cambridge and in nearby Ely Cathedral (whose organist then was T. Tertius Nobel, later to become organist at Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York City). Undergraduates at Trinity College were obliged to attend chapel services, and Vaughan Williams sometimes avoided this duty by retreating to the organ loft. At Cambridge he studied the organ with Alan Gray¹⁹ (organist of Trinity College) and left the university with a B.Mus degree in 1894, returning to the Royal College of Music in 1895. There Vaughan Williams began composition study with Charles Villiers Stanford, with whom he had a famously difficult relationship; Stanford’s comment on Vaughan Williams’s music often consisted only of “All rot, me boy.” Vaughan Williams, however, was in later years to speak warmly of him.

The Church of Saint Barnabas, South Lambeth

Vaughan Williams was appointed organist here in 1895. Since this was to be his first and only church position it seems appropriate to include here some details of the place and his duties. It seems that he held this post until 1899. Vaughan Williams describes his work there, again with some false modesty:

I was appointed to my first and last organ post, at St. Barnabas, South Lambeth. As I already said, I never could play the organ, but this appointment gave me an insight into good and bad church music which stood me in good stead later on. I also had to train the choir and give organ recitals and accompany the services, which gave me some knowledge of music from the performer’s point of view.²¹

This was a large church (originally seating 1,500 people) on Guildford Road in South Lambeth. The parish, as confirmed by the Diocese of Southwark office, exists no more.

The building, however, is still there, having been gutted and refitted as a series of “council flats” (low-income housing). Interestingly, when I visited there, the building manager was astonished to learn that a very famous composer had once served as organist of the church! Vaughan Williams presided over a largish instrument built by Hill and rebuilt by Bishop.²² At the time of his tenure the church supported an ambitious music program with a sizeable budget. The duties, for which Vaughan Williams was paid a salary of £50 per year, were demanding and time consuming.²³ His wife Adeline reported that he worked very hard and practiced on the organ up to five hours per day. For Vaughan Williams the salary was probably incidental to the experience.

He did not need to earn a living, having a healthy but not excessive private income. His work as an organist was for his continuing education, not to keep body and soul together.²⁴

His time at Saint Barnabas was not easy. He told his friend Holst that his choristers were “louts” and the vicar “quite mad.” The vicar insisted on the organist’s taking communion; Vaughan Williams felt that he, as a principled atheist, could not. So he resigned, without any apparent regret.²⁵ First, however, resolving to go abroad to study (with Max Bruch), he requested from the church, and was granted, a leave of absence. It is here that his friend Gustav Holst enters the picture.

Vaughan Williams and Holst

Vaughan Williams met Holst (1874–1934) at the Royal College of Music in 1895, and they remained fast friends for forty years until Holst’s death, going for extended hikes in the countryside and critiquing each other’s compositions. These “field days,” when they played and dissected their respective works were to prove invaluable to them both. Although in his youth Holst also had various tries at being a church organist, he was instead to become a professional trombonist (recommended as a treatment for his asthma).

He [Holst] left the College of Music to abandon the eminently respectable career of an organist . . . and to get at music from the inside as a trombonist in an orchestra. The very worst that a trombonist has to put up with is as nothing compared to what a church organist has to endure.²⁶

In taking leave of the organ bench at Saint Barnabas it was natural for Vaughan Williams to think of his friend Holst. There are somewhat differing accounts of the manner in which he broached the subject with Holst. Heirs and Rebels,²⁷ the collection of letters exchanged between the two composers, establishes some clarity. First, in a letter from Vaughan Williams to Holst, probably July 1897:

I am leaving this damned place [Saint Barnabas] in October and going abroad.

And then, contrary to some accounts in which he offered Holst the job, he in fact inquired about the latter’s interest:

Suppose you were offered it would you consider the matter? The screw [sic!] is £50 [per annum] and the minimum duties . . .

And here he lays out what sounds like a demanding list of tasks, working on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays, as well as running the choral society and giving occasional organ recitals. Vaughan Williams later states:

Mind I AM NOT OFFERING IT YOU [VW’s caps] only [sic] if you would like it I will do my best to Back you.

He concludes by asking Holst to deputize for him while he is gone and provides many specific instructions on getting through the service (pitches, cues, etc.). He suggests beginning the morning service with a “short and easy voluntary” and concluding with a “long and difficult voluntary.” He notes about the choir:

Those louts of men will slope in about 8.45 and make you mad—the only ones who can sing will be away.

As a postscript VW adds, “The vicar is quite mad.” (Does any of this sound familiar to us today?) In any event, the position was not taken by Holst but probably by William H. Harris (later a faculty member at the Royal College of Music and organist at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor).²⁸

Vaughan Williams and Bach

Vaughan Williams showed nearly life-long fondness and admiration for the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, whom he placed above all musicians. He regarded the Saint Matthew Passion, a work that he would conduct many times, to be Bach’s greatest achievement. Vaughan Williams had clear and strongly held thoughts on performing Bach’s music. First, he insisted that, for his audiences, the choral works, including the Matthew Passion, be sung in English (a preference shared by the late David Willcocks when he was director of the Bach Choir). He did not have patience with so-called “authentic performance practices” of early music.

Bach, though superficially he may speak the eighteenth-century language, belongs to no school or period.²⁹

Vaughan Williams had a clear and oft-stated aversion to the harpsichord! He used the grand piano as the continuo instrument in his many Bach performances.

The harpsichord, however it may sound in a small room—and to my mind it never [author’s emphasis] has a pleasant sound—in a large concert room sounds just like the ticking of a sewing machine.³⁰

He had similar thoughts about the so-called Baroque organ, which in the 1950s put him distinctly at odds with those planning the new organ for London’s Royal Festival Hall.

By the way, I see there is a movement afoot to substitute the bubble-and-squeak type of instrument for the noble diapason and soft mixtures of our cathedral organs.³¹

It is interesting to note that the opening recital on the Royal Festival Hall organ included Vaughan Williams’s Three Preludes Founded on Welsh Hymn Tunes.

These views on instruments and performing practices may now be considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. They are, nonetheless, the beliefs of a great musician whose musical thoughts and ideas, planted in the mid-Victorian era, grew through more than a half-century of music making. “Vaughan Williams paid tribute to Bach practically, in his non-authentic but deeply moving performances of the major choral works at Dorking.”³² [For the Leith Hill Festivals, founded in 1905, which he conducted from 1905 to 1953.]

The Great War

The effect of war on musicians has been a topic of lengthy and interesting studies. In addition to the English composers who did not return from the First World War, the Second World War took the lives of many composers, including Jehan Alain and Hugo Distler, and affected the lives of countless others. Although space does not permit an excursion on this topic, it seems relative to touch on Vaughan Williams’s army service, which relates to his work as organist and church musician.

Vaughan Williams volunteered for military service in the Royal Army Medical Corps (in 1914, at age 42!) and from May 1915 was stationed at Saffron Walden where he spent considerable time at the organ of the parish church,³³ finding refuge from the horrors of war through playing Bach. At the outbreak of war he was for a time stationed with his unit in Dorking. When there was a death in the company and no organist could be found for the service at Saint Martin’s Church, Vaughan Williams offered to play, providing he could have some volunteers to form a choir. In the same year he was posted to a field ambulance brigade. The following year he was sent to France (at the rank of lieutenant) and was involved in the Battle of the Somme.

Vaughan Williams’s patriotic spirit was evident during the Second World War through his composing of film music to aid the war effort and in many types of volunteer work. For example, he regularly gathered scrap metal. His Thanksgiving for Victory was written and performed in 1945 in celebration of the war’s end.

Vaughan Williams and church music

We have seen that, with the one exception of four or so years at the end of the nineteenth century, Vaughan Williams never functioned as a parish musician. Nonetheless, his many choral works, large (Hodie) and small (O Taste and See), enrich the repertory of all manner of choral organizations, ranging from parish singers to concert choirs. His choral music was written not so much for places (as with Howells’s many settings of the services for various cathedrals and collegiate chapels) but for occasions (coronations, victories, and more).

One of Vaughan Williams’s most monumentally important works in the field of church music was as editor of The English Hymnal. In 1904 a committee headed by the Reverend Percy Dearmer³⁴ set about creating a new hymnbook, in succession to the venerable Hymns Ancient and Modern.³⁵ Vaughan Williams was invited to be the musical editor and, by his own testimony, in the process learned a great deal about music—the good and the bad. He introduced several new tunes of his own creation as well as folk melodies, making it a thoroughly “English” book. He succeeded in purging the new hymnal of many poor Victorian hymn tunes (while retaining the better ones), and those which he was forced to keep he banned to the back of the book in a section he called “The Chamber of Horrors.”

Songs of Praise followed in 1925, once more with Dearmer as general editor and Vaughan Williams, assisted by Martin Shaw, the musical editor. It is said that Vaughan Williams was thrilled by the sound of an enthusiastic congregation singing a great hymn. The same trio of Dearmer, Vaughan Williams, and Martin Shaw worked together again to produce The Oxford Book of Carols in 1928.

Organist friends of Vaughan Williams

Vaughan Williams loved the typical cathedral organs of the first half of the twentieth century and liked hearing them played. In return, many cathedral organists enjoyed playing for him—often at night when the building was closed, often playing works of Bach. Such special playings took place often—by Walter Alcock at Salisbury; Herbert Sumsion in Gloucester; William McKie in Westminster Abbey, as they worked together preparing for the 1953 coronation. After Vaughan Williams’s death in 1958, it was decided to place his ashes next to those of Stanford and Purcell in the Abbey.

Other prominent organists who were friends and colleagues, and from whom he no doubt learned much about the instrument: Thomas Armstrong, Ivor Atkins, Harold Darke, Walford Davies, John Dykes Bower, Alan Gray, Herbert Howells, John Ireland, Henry Ley, Christopher Morris, Boris Ord, Cyril Rootham, Martin Shaw, R. R. Terry, and George Thalban-Ball.³⁶

In considering Vaughan Williams and the organ, Relf Clark suggests an interesting comparison with Elgar:³⁷

Early in their careers, both were briefly the organist of a parish church. Neither of them appears to have enjoyed the experience very much. Both wrote for the instrument a handful of not entirely characteristic works. Both made notable use of the organ in a few orchestral scores. And both enjoyed the friendship and support of professional organists.

In a famous letter to The Daily Telegraph, January 14, 1951, Vaughan Williams makes some views clear, beginning with his thoughts on the “bubble and squeak” tones of continental organs.

Is it really proposed that we should abandon in favour of this unpleasant sound the noble diapasons and rich soft ‘mixtures’ of our best church organs?

He particularly admired the organ at Saint Michael’s Church, Cornhill (Hill; Rushworth & Dreaper), presided over by his friend Harold Darke, and believed it possessed the ideal English organ tone.

The works for organ

This essay offers not so much analyses but comments on Vaughan Williams’s music. For structural and thematic analyses of the organ works see the excellent articles by Hugh Benham [See “Sources and further reading,” B/2] and Relf Clark [See “Sources and further reading,” C]. It would seem that Vaughan Williams’s major organ works were conceived or written at Saint Mary’s Church, Saffron Walden, where he spent a great deal of time practicing while stationed there in 1915. The late Michael Kennedy, the chief authority on the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams, cites the following as “The Organ Works:”

• Three Preludes Founded On Welsh Hymn Tunes, published in 1920 by Stainer & Bell. The second prelude of the set, Rhosymedre, was played at Vaughan Williams’s funeral in 1958. Clark observes that the registrations in the score likely reflected the organ at Trinity College. He further suggests that Vaughan Williams first encountered these tunes when editing The English Hymnal (1906). The preludes are likely among the first works completed after his leaving the army in 1919.³⁸

Bryn Calfaria is at once the most interesting musically and, although fun to play, nonetheless the most challenging to bring off at the organ. It is dramatic and improvisatory; fragments of the tune are given out through a thick and tangled texture. Like many other fine organ works (some of Alain’s come to mind) the piece involves the player as interpreter: adding musical imagination to the text.

Rhosymedre is the most well liked and often played of the three. Simple, quiet, and gently dance-like, it states the tune twice, in a straightforward manner.

Hyfrydol makes a bit of an odd conclusion to the set: a very thick-textured setting of the tune (difficult to play, especially for those with small hands) above a constantly moving pedal part that romps over two octaves (get out your Gleason book to help your feet prepare).

• Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, composed in 1921 for orchestra and first performed in that year at the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford. The orchestral version was performed first (conducted by the composer). The piece was then arranged for organ between 1921 and 1930 (completed in 1921, revised in 1923, published in 1930). Vaughan Williams told the dedicatee Henry Ley that the work was modeled on Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546.³⁹ Ley (pronounced “Lee”), then organist at Christ Church, Oxford, commented on the piece’s difficulty. According to Ley, Vaughan Williams said that the work was written in 1915 while he was stationed at Saffron Walden using the organ at Saint Mary’s Church.⁴⁰ The prelude and fugue together occupy some ten minutes.

The Prelude is very well written for the organ. Vaughan Williams was attentive to details of registration (including frequent use of manual 16′s) and manual divisions. The piece has quite a lot of bitonal dissonance. Ley was right: it is not easy play, due to the constantly changing chord colors, large amount of chromaticism, and fast contrapuntal passages. Vaughan Williams employed chords in parallel sweeping lines, often in contrary motion. Thick homophonic passages alternate with longer sections of thinner, busy counterpoint, generating an ABABA design. The quick B sections are terrifically fast at the specified tempo of quarter = 120 beats per minute. Thinking I could not play it that fast, I initially suspected a case of “composer tempo overreach.” David Briggs, however, manages these brilliantly on the two-CD set of the complete organ music (original and transcriptions) of Vaughan Williams, Bursts of Acclamation. (Albion ALBCD021/2, available from the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, https://
rvwsociety.com).

The prelude is somewhat impressionistic in sound, using parallelism, tonal vagueness (often resulting from mixed modes), the use of ninth and major-seventh chords, as well as tetra- and pentatonic scales. The result: the prelude clearly sounds like Vaughan Williams. It ends suddenly in C major, a somewhat astonishing tonality not really heard before in the piece.

For someone who was a master at contrapuntal writing and an ardent admirer of Bach, Vaughan Williams seems not to have written very many fugues. This fugue is a good one, a double fugue in fact, whose two subjects are first treated separately and then combined at the climax. It begins not so much in C minor but C Aeolian. The omnipresent triplets against duplets, which get a bit wearing (to this player, at least), is an element in both fugue subjects. Parallel chords in contrary motion, drawn from the prelude, occasionally interrupt the rather dissonant fugal entries.

• Two Organ Preludes, founded on Welsh Folk Songs, published in 1956. These are Romanza (“The White Rock”) and Toccata (“St. David’s Day”). These works are generally regarded as being less than indicative of the composer’s skill and imagination and not very “organistic.”

• In 1964 Oxford University Press published A Vaughan Williams Organ Album (still in print) consisting of transcriptions as well as the two organ preludes of 1956. Various composers, including Henry Ley, have made organ transcriptions of several of Vaughan Williams’s orchestral works.⁴¹

• Kennedy mentions an Organ Overture, from 1890 (the manuscript of which is in the British Library).⁴²

• A Wedding Tune for Anne, 1943 (contained in A Vaughan Williams Organ Album).

• Various incomplete sketches left at the time of his death.

Returning to the opening question

There are two Vaughan Williams organ works of relatively major stature, dating from during and just after the time of the First World War: the preludes on Welsh hymns and the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor. A generation later would come Benjamin Britten’s comparable opus, Prelude and Fugue on a Theme of Vittoria (1946). They have not much in common, save being one of few examples of their masters’ contributions to the canon of organ music. Both composers wrote for situations or performances: Vaughan Williams for the Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, for example; Britten’s was a commission from Saint Matthew’s, Northampton (for which he had earlier written the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb, containing some of the most original and dramatic writing for organ in any choral work). These preludes and fugues, valued for their singular stature, are nonetheless not entirely representative of their composers’ genius, language, invention, and musical imaginations.

Douglas Fairhurst suggests that Vaughan Williams, as a great artist, was more at ease and naturally expressive having a larger canvass for his music. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams commented that, while it was unorthodox to consider canonization for a non-believer, the Christian church owed a great deal to him for his contributions.⁴³ In any case, after his death in 1958 Vaughan Williams’s ashes were buried in Westminster Abbey, appropriately near those of Stanford and Purcell. Of special note: his was the first funeral service held in the Abbey for a commoner since that of Purcell, nearly 300 years earlier.⁴⁴

Supplement I: some other works in which the organ is prominent

The organ has played a central role in many centuries of choral music. Vaughan Williams realized the expressive and dramatic powers of the organ and used them to good effect in some of his orchestral works as well.

• Job, A Masque for Dancing. In Scene VI (the Dance of Job’s Comforters) we see/hear a vivid representation of Satan and his retinue in Hell. Included is a part for “Full Organ with Solo Reeds Coupled,” supplementing the full orchestra.

• A Vision of Aeroplanes⁴⁵ is a substantial late work (1956) for chorus and organ, setting familiar words from the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. It opens with a dramatic, dissonant organ solo that, as with subsequent organ interludes, reminds one of the organ’s use in Howells’s A Sequence for St. Michael, to be written some five years later.

• A Sea Symphony includes passages for organ, more for support, as a member of the orchestra, than for effect.

• However, the dramatic blast of chords occurring about 3/4th through the “Landscape” (Lento) movement in Sinfonia Antarctica, shows the organ as hair-raising, important, and soloistic.

Supplement II: selected choral works in which the organ has a prominent role

[These lists extracted from Neil Butterworth: Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Guide To Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1990.]

Vexilla Regis (for the Cambridge B.Mus), 1894

Mass (for the Cambridge D.Mus), 1899

Toward the Unknown Region, 1907

Fantasia on Christmas Carols, 1912

Sancta Civitas, 1923–1925

Three Choral Hymns, 1929

Flourish for a Coronation, 1937

Six Choral Songs: To be sung in time of war, 1940

England, My England, 1941

Thanksgiving for Victory (later A Song of Thanksgiving), 1945

Folk Songs of the Four Seasons, 1949

Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the “Old 104th Psalm Tune,” 1949

Hodie, 1953–1954

Supplement III: some choral music for the church

O Clap Your Hands, 1920

Lord, Thou Hast Been Our Refuge, 1921

Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis (The Village Service), 1925

The Pilgrim Pavement, 1934

O How Amiable, 1934

Festival Te Deum in F, 1937

All Hail the Power (Miles Lane), 1938

Services in D Minor, 1939

Hymn for St. Margaret, 1948

The Old Hundredth Psalm, 1953

Te Deum and Benedictus, 1954

A Vision of Aeroplanes, 1956

Notes

1. In this he does not stand alone, of course. The same could be said of RVW’s best friend, Gustav Holst (who around 1930 started what he hoped would be an organ concerto). We wish Alain and Distler could have had longer lives in which to continue their composing for organ. And, although the organ parts in many of Benjamin Britten’s choral works are tour de forces of rhythm, texture, and organ color, Britten, too, left us a regrettably small number of organ works (which reveal relatively little of his musical genius).

2. Many have pondered this seeming contradiction between belief and the creative settings of sacred texts. One factor: he had, of course, a life-long love affair with Elizabethan English.

3. Church Music and the Christian Faith, by Erik Routley. Carol Stream, Illinois: Agape, 1978, p. 105.

4. Quoted in Aldritt, p. 55.

5. Francis/2. [The booklet pages are not numbered.]

6. RVW/3, p. 42.

7. Palmer.

8. Reference to the famous remark about Darwin is irresistible. As a child, VW asked his mother what was all the fuss about Great-Uncle Charles? She replied that the Bible says the earth was created in six days; Great-Uncle Charles believes it took somewhat longer.

9. Palmer.

10. Ibid.

11. Aldritt, p.30.

12. Palmer.

13. VW/3, p.258.

14. Ibid., p. 28.

15. As stated by J. Ellis Cook, son of the gardener at Leith Hill Place; quoted in Tributes, p. 25.

16. VW1, p. 134.

17. Aldritt, p. 37.

18. Palmer.

19. “Our friendship survived his despair at my playing and I became quite expert at managing the stops at his voluntaries and organ recitals.” And then wrote Alan Gray: “I cannot tell him that I think he is justified in going in for an organist’s career which is his pet idea. He seems to me so hopelessly ‘unhandy.’ I can never trust him to play a simple service for me without some dread as to what he may do.” Aldritt, p. 55. VW clearly achieved significant improvement by 1898, when he passed the F.R.C.O. exams!

20. The British title “organist” usually implies “organist and choirmaster.”

21. VW/1, p. 146.

22. Clark, p. 9.

23. In addition to services, these included four choral rehearsals each week as well as giving occasional organ recitals. Kennedy, p. 41.

24. Heffer, p. 18.

25. Ibid., p. 19.

26. VW/1, p. 71.

27. VW/4, pp. 5–6.

28. F/5, p. 9.

29. VW/1, p. 122.

30. Ibid., p. 123.

31. Ibid.

32. Mellers, p. 158.

33. F/2 (pages unnumbered).

34. Vicar of Saint Mary’s, Primrose Hill, where his organist was Martin Shaw.

35. Hymns Ancient & Modern, first published in 1861, continues to be found, in subsequent editions, in some British church pews today, often next to The English Hymnal.

36. All listed in B/3, Personalia, pp. 315–345.

37. Clark, p. 7.

38. Ibid., p. 10.

39. F/4, p. 8.

40. F/3. p. 16.

41. For details of these, see Randy L. Neighbarger’s, “Organ Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Descriptive List of Original Works and Transcriptions,” The Diapason, October 1991, p. 10.

42. K/2, p. 3.

43. Palmer.

44. Ibid.

33. Written for RVW’s good friend Harold Drake, organist at the Church of Saint Michael’s, Cornhill, the work sets the dramatic account of the whirlwind, cloud, and fire from the book of Ezekiel.

Sources and further reading

A: Aldritt, Keith. Vaughan Williams: Composer, Radical, Patriot—A Biography. Ramsbury, Wiltshire: Robert Hale Books, 2015.

B/1: Barber, Robin. “Vaughan Williams in Hamburg, 1938: A Brush with Nazi Germany.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 66, June 2016.

B/2: Benham, Hugh. “Music for Solo Organ by Ralph Vaughan Williams.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 55, October 2012, 3–8.

B/3: Butterworth, Neil. Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Guide to Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990.

C: Clark, Relf. “Vaughan Williams and the Organ: An Anniversary Review.” Organists’ Review, August 2008, 7-15.

F/1: Francis, John. Vice-Chairman of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society (UK) in correspondence with the author.

F/2: Francis, John. Notes in the booklet accompanying Bursts of Acclamation, two CD recordings of organ works by RVW published by Albion Records.

F/3: Francis, John. “Composers of the Great War Revisited.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 65, February 2016, 15–16.

F/4: Francis, John. “Ralph Vaughan Williams and the Organ.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue 63, June 2015, 3–11.

F/5: Francis, John. “A Question of Chronology.” Ralph Vaughan Williams Society Journal, Issue No. 74, February 2019, 9.

H/1: Heffer, Simon. Vaughan Williams. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2000.

H/2: Holmes, Paul. Holst; Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers. London: Omnibus Press, 1997.

K/1: Kennedy, Michael. The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964; 2nd edition,1996.

K/2: Kennedy, Michael. A Catalogue of the Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

M/3: Manning, David, ed. Vaughan Williams on Music. Oxford University Press, 2008.

M: Marshall, Em. Music in the Landscape. London: Robert Hale, 2011.

M/2: Mellers, Wilfrid. Vaughan Williams and the Vision of Albion. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1989.

N: Neighbarger, Randy L. “Organ Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams: A Descriptive List of Original Works and Transcriptions,” The Diapason, October 1991, 10–11.

T: Tributes to Vaughan Williams: 50 Years On. A reprint of The RCM Magazine, Vol. LV, No. 1, Easter Term 1959.

P: Palmer, Tony. O Thou Transcendent (a video commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of Vaughan Williams’s death). Isolde Films, 2007.

VW/1: Some Thoughts on Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, With Writings on Other Musical Subjects. London: Oxford University Press, 1953.

VW/2: National Music and Other Essays. London: Oxford University Press, 1987.

VW/3: Vaughan Williams, Ursula. R. V. W.: A Biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964.

VW/4: Heirs and Rebels: Letters written to each other and occasional writings on music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst. Edited by Ursula Vaughan Williams and Imogen Holst. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Photograph of Ralph Vaughan Williams by Frank Chappelow (used with permission)

The Clavier-Übung Third Part

Michael Radulescu

Michael Radulescu, born in Bucharest, Romania, studied organ and conducting in Vienna at the Academy (now University) of Music and Performing Arts where he taught as professor of organ from 1968 to 2008. His career encompasses work as a composer, organist, and conductor. Since his debut in 1959 he has presented concerts throughout Europe, North America, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. He regularly gives guest lectures and masterclasses in Europe and overseas, focusing mainly on the interpretation and elucidation of Bach’s organ and major choral works.

As a composer, Radulescu has written sacred music, works for organ, voice and organ, choral and chamber music, and orchestral works. He is also in demand as a jury member in international organ and composition competitions and as an editor of early and ancient organ music. Radulescu conducts international vocal and instrumental ensembles in performances of major vocal works. As an organist, he has recorded among other things Bach’s complete works for organ, without any technical manipulation.

For his musical and pedagogical contributions Radulescu was awarded the Goldene Verdienstzeichen des Landes Wien in 2005. In 2007 he received Würdigungspreis für Musik from the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art. In December 2013 Michael Radulescu’s book on J. S. Bach’s spiritual musical language, Bey einer andächtig Musiq . . .,
focusing on the two Passions and the B Minor Mass was published.

When approaching Baroque music in general and spiritual music in particular, it is of greatest importance to take into consideration the fundamental difference between the function and the aims of music in the Roman Catholic rite and the Lutheran conception of music. While Roman Catholic music mainly embellishes and adorns the liturgy, Lutheran music wants to preach, to impress, to move, to convince every single listener. Whereas the mystery of the Canon is at the center of the Roman Catholic Mass, the announcing and the elucidation of the Word of God, spoken by the minister and sung or performed by the church musician, stand at the core of the Lutheran Divine Service.

From this dichotomy results the overwhelming importance of rhetoric, of the musical speech (Klangrede) in Lutheran music. Both the ancient rules of rhetoric and the use of the rhetorical-musical figures determine respectively the overall formal concept of a work as well as the invention of characteristic “speaking motifs.”

In the case of J. S. Bach’s music, however, there also seems to be a more subtle, profound, and hidden means of communicating a message, an interpretation of a text. This happens through the ample use of symbols such as allegories, certain characteristic motifs and specific numerical ratios between different sections of the overall formal concept of a piece, and also, most controversial of all, as numerological entities. The latter aspect has been both heartily emphasized and strongly questioned and even ruled out by scholars and practical performers in recent decades. Nevertheless, a surprising hint at the possibility of Bach’s interest in the use of the “numeric alphabet” seems to be, among others, the theoretical work called Cabbalologia by Johannes Henningius (Johann Henning), published in Leipzig in 1683. This publication is said to have been found also in the famous private library of Bach’s neighbor and colleague Johann Heinrich Ernesti, former rector of Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig.

I

Bach published the Third Part of his Clavier-Übung for the feast of Saint Michael at the end of September 1739 on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Lutheran Reformation in Leipzig. This collection of keyboard compositions is generally known under the titles “The Organ Mass” or “The Dogma Chorales,” neither of which can suggest the complex meaning and the message of the entire opus.

It should be remembered that when Luther introduced his Reformation in Leipzig in 1539 he preached on Pentecost Monday in the Leipzig Pleissenburg Castle on two most crucial themes: the Mystery of the Trinity in the Lutheran Mass and the Lutheran Catechism. Most significantly, Bach takes both these theological categories into consideration and, obviously referring to Luther’s sermon of 1539, treats them consistently in his Third Part of the Clavier-Übung. Of the total of twenty-one chorale settings in the collection, the first nine deal with the Lutheran Missa brevis (which includes only the “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” and the “Gloria”), while the remaining twelve chorales follow exactly, chapter by chapter, Luther’s Catechism of 1529.

Seen as a whole, the entire Clavier-Übung III seems to suggest a most striking resemblance to Bach’s own organ improvisations as described by his first biographer, J. N. Forkel, in 1802:

a) a great prelude and fugue in Organo Pleno as an opening;

b) a long series of different kinds of chorale settings with a varying number of parts;

c) a great fugue in Organo Pleno at the end.

In Bach’s Clavier-Übung III, these correspond to the following sections:

a) the E-flat Preludium in Organo Pleno also containing the two fugal sections;

b) the 21 chorale settings in 3, 4, 5, or 6 parts, as well as four duettos;

c) the E-flat Fugue in Organo Pleno.

Two further allusions to the Trinity are most interesting in the overall plan of the entire collection. These are manifest already in the title, “Third Part of the Clavier-Übung,” and also in the use of the majestic key of E-flat major, with its three flats in the signature, for both the opening Prelude and the closing Fugue. Also striking is the fact that both the Prelude and the Fugue appear to be determined by the number 3 (three main musical ideas in the prelude and three themes in the triple fugue).

Another obvious hint at the Trinity is the fact that the first 9 chorales dealing with the Lutheran Mass are organized in 3 groups of 3 each: 3 “great” settings for Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie, 3 “small” alio modo settings for the same cantus firmi Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie, and 3 settings for the German Gloria, “Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr.”

The remaining 12 chorales, which follow Luther’s Catechism, are arranged by 3 + 3 groups of 2 each, the first group dealing with the 3 main chapters of the Catechism (The Law of the Lord = The Ten Commandments, The Creed, and The Prayer of the Lord = The “Our Father”), and the second with the 3 chapters concerning the Sacraments and the Penitence respectively (Baptism, Penitence as continual renewal of Baptism, and the Communion). Each of these cantus firmi is treated twice, in a “great” version with pedal and in a “small” version without pedal, mostly in another key.

It has often been suggested that these two contrasting versions may allude to Luther’s “Great Catechism” versus its reduced form, the “Small Catechism” for younger and “more modest people.” This double treatment of the “catechism settings,” however, seems also to allude to the double form of liturgy: as the great, official one “in churches,” versus its “small,” intimate, personal form “at home,” within each Christian family. Interestingly enough, this dualism appears also in the original subtitle of the Clavier-Übung III dedicated to both amateurs (Liebhaber) and connoisseurs (Kenner).

II

The opening Praeludium pro Organo pleno, Bach’s largest organ prelude, suggests, in spite of the original slurring of the dotted rhythms of its beginning, the pattern of a French overture:

a) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 1 to 70;

b) Fugato section, measures 71 to 97;

c) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 98 to 129;

d) Fugato section, measures 130 to 173;

e) majestic homophonic section with dotted rhythm, measures 174 to the end.

The three different musical ideas used by Bach seem to illustrate in a marvelous way the three Persons of the Trinity:

1. majestic five-part homophonic section for God the Father (Example 1);

2. transition passage with staccato notes suggesting drops of tears (as in the Passions and in several cantatas) and a plaintive theme in the right hand, full of suspensions and chromaticisms and going to the “extreme” keys B-flat minor and E-flat minor, respectively (musical-rhetorical figure of parrhesia), suggesting the human sufferings, the Passion and Death of God, the Son (Examples 2 and 3);

3. The fugal sections using the most spiritual writing, the fugue, and a theme which by its shape (musical-rhetorical figure of hypotyposis) suggests the movement and the shape of the flames, the fire of God, the Holy Spirit (Example 4).

III

Considering the 9 chorale settings of the Missa brevis, the great “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie,” the small “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie,” and the 3 “Allein Gott” settings, one notes the following characteristics:

• The first three settings of the great “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” are written in the ancient vocal, a cappella style, the stylus gravis, using the so called white notation (breves, whole notes, half notes, quarter and, more rarely, eighth notes as note values). According to Bach’s cousin
J. G. Walther the stylus gravis is “majestic, serious . . . and best appropriate to elevate the human soul to God.”

• The respective cantus firmus descends within this first triad from the soprano in Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit (highest part ~ God Father as the Highest) into the tenor in Christe aller Welt Trost (middle part ~ God the Son as the Mediator) and finally into the pedal-bass in Kyrie, Gott, heiliger Geist (bass part ~ God, the Holy Spirit as the universal Basis). This katabasis, i.e., “descending movement,” suggests the descending of God’s mercy upon us and depicts the “eleison” (“have mercy”).

• The tenor cantus firmus in Christe aller Welt Trost stresses the idea of Christ as the Mediator between God and Man, as strongly emphasized by Luther.

• The bass cantus firmus in Kyrie, Gott, heiliger Geist, on the other hand, represents the fundamental Lutheran idea of Justification through the power of Faith; the text of the chorale also prays for “the reinforcement of our Faith.” The final section of this setting, “eleison,” is excruciatingly dissonant, once again stressing human misery awaiting God’s mercy.

• The total number of measures of all three large chorale-settings is a primary, indivisible number:

Kyrie (42 measures) + Christe (61 measures) + Kyrie (60 measures) = 163 ~ indivisibility of the Holy Trinity!

• The three small settings of “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” strongly contrast with the preceding three works. The cantus firmus is only hinted at by quotation of its first phrase. Their writing is manualiter, without pedal, and in a soft “cantabile clavier style.” This might suggest love and the soft breath of the Holy Spirit by its “cantability.”

• All three small settings end modally on an E-major chord.

• The time signatures of all these 3 chorales also allude to the Trinity, being “progressions” of the number 3: 3/4; 6/8; 9/8 (= 1 x 3/4; 2 x 3/8; 3 x 3/8).

• The three Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr settings fulfill a wonderful anabasis (ascending movement) by the sequence of their keys: following the small “Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie” settings ending all on E major, they rise up to F major, G major, and finally to A major, thus obviously alluding to Gloria in excelsis (Allein Gott in der Höh’/“Glory to the Lord in the Highest”).

• All three settings are trios and written in an “instrumental keyboard style,” the first and the last in a brilliant, light style, the second à 2 Claviers et Pedale imitating violins or flutes accompanied by a basso continuo in the pedal.

• The G-major trio on “Allein Gott” seems to stress Jesus’s role as Lamb of God, alluding to the third stanza of the chorale, “Lamb of God, holy Lord and God, accept the prayer of our misery,” by citing these two verses in canon, a most simple symbol for “one part following another part:” first between the right hand and pedal in measures 78 to 83, and in measures 87 to 92 between the left hand and pedal, and thus alluding to the Gospel of John, 1:29–30: “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. / This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me” (Example 5).

IV

The density and complexity of Bach’s dealing with the theological message through music is most impressively revealed in the settings of chorales treating the main chapters of Luther’s Catechism: the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer.

The large setting of Dies sind die heil’gen zehn Gebot is written in five parts distributed on two manuals and pedal. The cantus firmus is carried out as a canon between the two tenor parts played by the left hand while the right hand plays the two free upper parts. Surprisingly, these free parts never imitate or cite the cantus firmus.

Most interesting is the fact that in Bach’s treatments of this cantus firmus (Orgelbüchlein, the cantata BWV 77 Du sollst Gott, deinen Herrn, lieben, and the two settings in the Clavier-Übung), he uses the same key, Mixolydian on G, the “pure” key without accidentals in its signature. Never does this cantus firmus appear transposed: this obviously suggests the “immutability of the Divine Law.” Most consistently, the treatment of the cantus firmus as a canon also evokes the “severity of God’s Law.”

A further symbolic meaning of the musical texture is the setting of the canonic cantus firmus in the two middle parts, which clearly refers to Luther’s commentary in his Catechism, regarding the way to keep the Divine Law through “Christ’s the Mediator’s Intercession.”

The beginning of the chorale is most serene, diatonic, and calm, and takes place over an organ point in the pedal. After four measures of “complete harmony” the character changes in the fifth measure: the alto plays a “harsh” descending chromatic figure (the figure of parrhaesia) while the soprano plays three times a “sighing figure” consisting of a sixteenth rest followed by three sixteenth notes, and followed by two groups of stepwise descending eighth notes (Example 6).

This seems to be a strong allusion to the Book of Genesis describing the Garden of Eden (= full harmony~4 measures) and Adam’s Fall in the fifth measure (Adam in Hebrew meaning man and being symbolized, according to Andreas Werckmeister, by the number 5 for man’s 5 senses, 5 fingers and toes, and also hinting at Jesus’s 5 wounds on the Cross).

Interestingly enough, this “sighing” figura suspirans is played by the two upper parts during the whole piece exactly 33 times, reminding of the 33 years of Jesus’s earthly life.

From measure 6 on this figure appears also “transformed” into another figure called kyklosis or circulatio and suggesting a “turning around,” an “insecurity” or, as in our case, a great joy.

This “transformation” of suffering (“sighing figure”) into joy (“turning around in joy”) perfectly matches Luther’s commentary about the Commandments, stressing that those who keep the Law apparently suffer in this earthly world, but that through Christ they shall live in joy.

Luther also considers the First Commandment as being the most important of the Decalogue. It is this very commandment that is cited in the second stanza of the cantus firmus, the stanza to which the great chorale setting seems to allude the most: “I alone am your God and Lord. Thou shalt not have other gods; thou shalt love me from the bottom of your heart. Kyrieleis.”

It is when the cantus firmus expounds the phrase “Thou shalt not have other gods” that the pedal plays a “huge” and “exaggerated” interval of two octaves,
C – c′ (the figure of hyperbole = exaggeration) and obviously referring to God’s immensity (Example 7).

Astonishing is the fact that the motif of measures 47 and 48 appears altered in measures 51 and 52, transformed insofar as it is now divided between the two upper parts: one part continuing the other, and thus suggesting the idea of “two parts becoming one” (the figure called heterolepsis = meaning this continuity, the unification of two parts, i.e., love, as described by J. G. Walther). It is striking to note how often Bach makes use of this figure when alluding to love, to unification in and through love. Not surprisingly, this figure appears in our chorale setting only two times, exactly where each of the two canonic cantus firmus parts play the notes for lieben mich (love me); as one can easily see in the “transformed” version, the motive is played by two “unified” parts according to the text line “Thou shall love me” (Example 8).

If we take a look at the pedal part we note that it is divided into several sections either by rests or by the recurring long organ point on A in measure 29. A most intriguing and striking speculation presents itself in this context when considering the number of notes of each of these sections:

a) measure 1 to 10 = 37 notes

b) measure 10 to 20 = 60 notes

c) measure 21 to 28 = 47 notes

d) measure 29 to 55 = 147 notes

e) measure 56 = 5 notes

f) measure 57 = 5 notes

g) measure 58 to 60 = 14 notes

 

a) Could 37 represent the monogram JCHR for Jesus Christ? (the number alphabet with the correspondence between the letters of the alphabet and the natural numerical order: A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, . . ., Z = 24, with I = J and U = V as in old Latin: J (9) + C (3) + H (8) + R (17) = 37);

b) Could 60 allude to the Old Testament, to the 6 Days of God’s Creation, and also to the 10 Commandments = 60?

NB! Bach occasionally uses the number 6 as allegory for the Creation, for the Entire World (also Orgelbüchlein: Christum wir sollen loben schon, measure 6, where the whole range of the organ is encompassed by the lowest C in the pedal and the highest C in the treble part).

NB! Luther always sees and treats the Old Testament considering the New Testament and vice versa.

c) Could 47 recall the 47th Psalm, mentioned by Luther in his Great Catechism: “O, clap your hands, all ye people; shout unto God with the voice of triumph. / For the Lord most high is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth”?

NB! This third section of the pedal starts in measure 21 where the cantus firmus plays the phrase “Thou shalt not have other gods.” Also, it is here where the pedal plays the enormous, exaggerated interval of the double octave, which also perfectly matches the second verse of Psalm 47.

d) Could 147 recall the 11th verse of the 147th Psalm: “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy”?

NB! Luther himself quotes Ps. 147, 11 in his Catechism, in the chapter dedicated to the Ten Commandments. This could make the assumption mentioned above quite plausible!

e) & f) Could the number 5 possibly allude in this context to mankind (five senses; the five wounds on Jesus’s crucified body) as “the Old” vs. “the New Man”?

g) 14 might well suggest Bach’s own name (B [2] + A [1] + C [3] + H [8] = 14) as his personal commitment as a believer, as the pro me (= “for me”), a central point in Luther’s theology.

Another interesting symbolic connotation is suggested by the general form of the chorale setting. The total of 60 measures is clearly divided into two unequal sections considering the sort of “recapitulation” of the beginning, in measure 29:

28 measures (= 7 x 4) + 32 measures (= 8 x 4) = 60 measures, or 28 : 32 = 7 : 8.

Could 7 allude to the seven days of the week, of the 6 + 1 days of the Creation of the earthly world and 8 to the eighth day (the day of Messiah)? Could this overall form and its “articulation” transmit the message of Redemption?

The “small,” manualiter version of Dies sind die heiligen zehn Gebot seems to have a more obvious, more straightforward approach to the text. It is a fughetta using the theme in both normal and inverted position. The gigue-like theme is characterized by the strongly repeated notes at its beginning and by strong leaps followed by stepwise passages. It is most interesting to note some aspects of this piece:

1) the title in the original print from 1739 is Dies sind die heiligen zehen Gebot consisting of exactly 10 syllables (Ten Commandments?)

2) the repeated G in the theme appears 14 times (BACH’s commitment? See above).

3) the theme appears 4 times in normal, 4 times in inverted, and again 2 times in its normal forms, i.e., 4 + 4 + 2 = 10 times (see above).

4) there is quite a long interlude without the theme between measures 18 and 31, lasting 14 measures (see above).

V

The large chorale setting dealing with the Creed, Wir gläuben all’an einen Gott (Schöpfer) is striking because of its dynamism, abundant syncopations, “modern” 2/4 time signature, constant movement in sixteenth notes, and lack of organ points in the pedal, by the six times of the pedal ostinato, and the flamboyant movement of the manual parts. The theme treated in the manual is rooted in the first phrase of the cantus firmus, and it is this very phrase that appears literally quoted in the tenor in the last 12 measures of the piece. The overall flamboyant, dynamic character of this setting might be surprising, but it seems in perfect coherence with Luther’s idea of a willful, powerful, and passionate personal commitment of each believer aiming to attain personal justification.

Some characteristics of this composition might elucidate its possible further message:

a) the total of exactly 100 measures of the piece might suggest the idea of the totality of the Creation (Gott Schöpfer = God, the Creator);

b) the 6-fold appearance of the pedal ostinato might hint at the 6 “working” days of God’s Creation (see above);

c) the quotation of the first cantus firmus phrase in the tenor, starting in measure 89 might allude to Christ as the Mediator;

d) the last pedal entry is longer than its other entries and has exactly 43 notes; this may well mean: (C [3] + R [17] + E [5] + D [4] + O [14] = 43: CREDO) “I believe.”

NB! Interestingly enough, the score of the first Credo chorus in the B Minor Mass shows the word “Credo” written 43 times and heard 41 times, i.e., J-S-B-A-C-H’s creed.

The small version of the same chorale is written as a short manualiter fughetta in the style of a brilliant French overture. This surprising setting can be seen as an introduction to the large version of The Lord’s Prayer, Vater unser im Himmelreich, written in the same key of E Dorian. More likely, however, it also seems to have the function of dividing the whole set of 21 chorales into 12 + 9. One should remember that, on the other hand, the 21 chorales are also divided into 9, dealing with the Lutheran Mass, and 12, treating Luther’s Catechism and the Sacraments. A very beautiful parallel, indeed!

VI

The large version of Vater unser im Himmelreich is possibly Bach’s most difficult and intricate organ work. It is written in 5 parts distributed once again among the two manuals and the pedal, with the cantus firmus in canon. Unlike the Ten Commandments however, each hand here plays a free voice and a canonic cantus firmus part.

Some characteristics may help understand and elucidate the enormous complexity of this composition:

a) the slow, majestic tempo in the 3/4 time signature suggests the austere character of a slow sarabande;

b) the pedal is treated as a basso continuo without quoting the cantus firmus;

c) the cantus firmus is treated in canon suggesting our intimately repeating the prayer spoken by Jesus according to Saint Mark and Saint Matthew;

d) the alternating order of the canonic parts at each new entry seems to suggest a still dialogue between the believer and Jesus;

e) the free manual parts are based on a theme quoting the richly embellished first phrase of the cantus firmus (Example 9);

f) each hand expounds this theme 3 times, alluding probably once more to the Trinity;

g) the two free manual parts display an enormous rhythmical richness with frequent use of the “plaintive” Lombard rhythms and the staccato triplets (Example 10);

h) this “plaintive” Lombardian rhythm and the overall rhythmical complexity seem to depict Luther’s comment on The Lord’s Prayer expressing the “multitude of human miseries;”

i) the staccato triplets obviously describe Saint Matthew 7:7: “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.” As a matter of fact, this very verse appears quoted in practically all older Lutheran hymn books on the page where the chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich is printed. The staccato triplets may also allude to drops of tears;

j) there is only one spot where the pedal quotes the “plaintive” Lombardian rhythm and this happens in measure 41 (J [9] + S [18] + B [2] + A [1] + C [3] + H [8] = J. S. BACH), alluding to the composer’s personal commitment.

After this extraordinary piece, the alio modo manualiter version of the same cantus firmus is a simple, quiet meditation on the Prayer, devoid of all further speculative symbols.

VII

Following Luther’s Large Catechism exactly, Bach now treats the Sacraments of Baptism in Christ, unser Herr zum Jordan kam, Penitence in Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, the latter considered by Luther as the continuation and constant renewal of baptism, and finally the Sacrament of Communion in Jesus Christus, unser Heiland.

The large version of Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam treats Jesus’s baptism as described in Saint John, Chapter 1. The piece is set for two manuals and pedal with the cantus firmus in the latter, the bass in the left hand and the two upper parts in the right hand. This setting is quite full of important symbolic meanings:

a) the tenor cantus firmus in the pedal suggests, as the middle part of the setting, Christ’s role as Mediator between God Father and mankind;

b) the almost constant movement in sixteenth notes in the left hand bass part seems to allude to the flow of the waters of the Jordan River;

c) the two upper parts of the right hand can be seen as a symbol for the Holy Spirit floating above the scene of Christ’s Baptism by Saint John the Baptist. The beginning four notes in each of the two upper parts seem to depict, as a hypotyposis, a cross motif. Also, the most intricate imitations between the small motives of the two upper parts can be seen as a hint to the Holy Spirit proceeding from the consubstantiality of God Father and God Son, as mentioned in the Nicene Creed (Example 11).

d) NB: the final note of the fifth chorale phrase in the pedal d° seems to generate a “wrong” 6/4-chord d° - g° - b′: This is to be seen as a hint to avoid the wrong harmony by the use of a 4′ reed in the pedal if the left hand were based on 8′, or a 16′ basis for the left hand, should the pedal be played only on an 8′ basis!

e) The total number of measures, 81, equals 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 as a most impressive symbol for the Trinity.

The small manualiter version of the same chorale is quite a short fughetta based on the first phrase of the chorale, combined with an “obbligato” counter-subject, both treated in normal and inverted position. Could the theme itself represent Christ and its inverted form Christ’s descent on Earth? Could the countersubject stand for Saint John the Baptist? Interesting enough is the fact that this fughetta consists of 27 measures (3 x 3 x 3) with exactly 81 quarter notes (see above).

The large version of Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, the German version of Psalm 130, “De profundis,” is an exceptional work, as it is written in the old, solemn, majestic vocal stylus gravis or motet style, which, according to Johann Gottfried Walther’s Musicalisches Lexicon of 1732, is able to “elevate the soul to God.” This setting marks a pinnacle in Bach’s entire organ music insofar as it is written in six parts, four in the manual and two in the pedal, with the augmented cantus firmus of Luther’s chorale melody in the right foot’s part. This obviously seems to be an allusion to the significance of the upper bass part as the voice of the Old Testament psalmist. Most impressive is also the fact that at the beginning of the last verse of the chorale Wer kann, Herr, vor dir bleiben? (Who can, Lord, stand before Thee?) in the seventh to last measure, the upper bass part playing the cantus firmus is the highest part in the whole texture (Example 12).

• The registration should be the Organo pleno, i.e., an 8′ based Plenum  in the (coupled) manual(s) and 16′ Plenum in the pedal, without mixtures but with reeds 16′, 8′, and 4′.

• This setting is obviously inspired by the great pleno settings in five parts, with double pedal, in Matthias Weckmann’s great chorale settings with the cantus firmus in the upper pedal part.

NB! In one of the Lüneburg tablatures containing Weckmann’s majestic hymn on O lux, beata Trinitas the opening first movement in five parts with double pedal and the cantus firmus in the upper bass bears the indication that the cantus firmus of the upper bass could be played in the pedal by the right foot, or on the manual by the left hand, or also by both the pedal and the left hand together. This comment seems to confirm the registration mentioned above, with the result that the left foot bass is playing in the reeds-pleno, the manual parts in the mixture-pleno and the cantus firmus in both the reeds- and the mixture-pleno, and thus strengthening the cantus firmus.

The following alio modo manualiter version of the same chorale is written in four parts. Learned contrapuntal imitations in the three lower parts—in normal and inverted form—of each phrase of the chorale, anticipate each phrase of the augmented cantus firmus expounded each time by the treble part.

• Each section of the piece begins with five contrapuntal measures in intricate counterpoint between the three lower parts, followed by eight bars expounding the respective phrase of the chorale in the treble and one supplementary bar concluding each section.

• The overall organization of the piece is quite extraordinary:

Sections a), b), c) & d): 5 + 8 + 1 bars; section e): 5 + 8 + 5

• But 5 + 8 + 1 = 14  [= B-A-C-H = 2 + 1 + 3 + 8] and 8 : 5 stands for the golden ratio.

The large version of Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der von uns den Zorn Gottes wandt is a trio for the two manuals and pedal with the cantus firmus in the latter. It seems quite interesting that the pedal oscillates between playing the tenor and bass parts. Could this hint at Jesus’s double nature, as God and Man?

• The two manual parts seem to actually symbolize the “Wrath of God” by their extremely virtuosic, agitated, and aggressive movements in sixteenth notes and eighth notes.

• The main theme in the manuals starting with big and then diminishing intervals (tenth-octave-sixth) could possibly hint at Man’s approach to God, whereas, on the other hand, these leaps sometimes occur also in the opposite direction, from smaller to larger (sixth-octave-tenth). The message of these patterns seems to be the “struggle” between God and sinful mankind expecting redemption through communion, Luther’s second sacrament.

The following alio modo version of the same chorale is a very complex fugue in F minor, using as a main theme the first phrase of the cantus firmus. The extremely rich counterpoint and the surprisingly daring new motives seem to recall the big, learned fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II.

• The augmented entry of the main-theme in the tenor part in measure 57 might be another symbol for the praise of Christ the Lord, as the mediator between God and Man.

• NB! In order to emphasize this augmented theme in the tenor it should be helpful to use a registration of foundations (principals) 8′ and 4′ and a trumpet 8′.

VIII

Most intriguing and surprising part of the work are the following four duettos preceding the final Fugue in E-flat Major. Some speculations might help justify their presence:

a) Luther adds a “Short Admonition of Confession” after the chapter about Communion. In this short appendix he quotes the various ways of confessing: 1. to the priest/pastor; 2. as an open and common confession in front of the congregation; 3. to the neighbor; and 4. to God;

b) in the first part of his Large Catechism Luther quotes the four elements of the world: 1. Fire; 2. Air; 3. Water; 4. Earth;

c) in his Neu vermehrtes Hamburgisches Gesangbuch (New Hymn Book) from 1739, Vopelius inserts after the Catechism Hymns other hymns for: 1. the morning; 2. the evening; 3. before meals; 4. after meals;

d) taking into consideration the Baroque Theory of Affects one can easily imagine a certain parallel with the four temperaments: 1. choleric; 2. sanguine; 3. phlegmatic; and 4. melancholic temperament;

e) the duettos form a tight unity: their tonal progression ascending from E to F, to G, and finally to A corresponds strikingly to the sequence of keys in the “Trinity chorales” 4 to 9, and thus leading to the first note, B-flat, starting the following fugue;

f) two of the duettos are in a major (II and III) and two in a minor key (I and IV);

g) two are in a ternary (I: 3/8 and III: 12/8) and two in a binary (II: 2/4 and IV: 2/2) time signature.

h) two start with the right hand (I and II) and two with the left hand (II and IV).

It also seems quite remarkable how well the duettos match—by their astonishing variety and by their individual character—both the conception of the four elements (mentioned by Luther in his Great Catechism) and that of the four temperaments and even maybe of the four archangels (Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel) as well as the four Evangelists (?).

Duetto I: E-minor key; 3/8 time signature; right hand starts, left hand follows; 73 measures; perfectly symmetrical form based upon the golden ratio (28 measures + 17 measures + 28 measures = 73 measures // 28:17 = ~ 1.64; 45 (= 28 + 17) : 28 = ~ 1.7; 73 (= 28 + 17 + 28) : 45 = ~ 1.62); flamboyant themes and countersubjects suggesting flames of fire; Archangel Michael (with attributes: fire, sword, perfect balance); choleric temperament (?); element Fire (?).

Duetto II: F-major key; 2/4 time signature; right hand starts, left hand follows; 149 measures; perfectly symmetrical form of: 37 + 31 + 13 + 31 + 37 measures. NB! 37 could stand for Christ’s monogram in the Greek alphabet [ChRistos]: X ~ CH (= 20) + P ~ R (= 17); 31 may stand for the Latin “In Nomine Jesu” (In Jesus’s Name): [I (= 9) + N (= 13) + I (= 9) = 31]; 13 could allude to Jesus and his Twelve Apostles at the Last Supper. NB! This section of 13 measures from measures 69 to 78 is the center, the middle of the whole piece in which the measures 74 to 78 are the exact “inversion” of measures 69 to 73; could that maybe hint to Jesus’s death?; element Air (?) (Example 13).

The overall form of the piece is quite complex, insofar as the first section and its da capo recapitulation (both 37 measures) are in major and in a serene, joyous mood, whereas the second and penultimate sections (both 31 measures) are in minor and written as canons; might this “discrepancy” remind one of the sanguine temperament (?); Air; could the three references to Jesus Christ (see above) suggest a link to the Archangel Gabriel, Jesus’s messenger (with the attributes: lily and fish); could the perfect formal symmetry represent the symmetrical beauty of a lily?; could the inversion, the crossing of the parts in measures 69–78 hint at a symbol for Christ’s Cross and Death?

Duetto III: G-major key; 12/8 time signature; left hand starts, right hand follows; 39 measures:

15 + 8 + 15 + 1 = 39 measures; 15 (= 3 x 5) + 24 (= 3 x 8) = 39 (= 3 x 13) = golden ratio (cf. Fibonacci); melancholic temperament (?); could the very serene character of the piece remind of the Archangel Raphael (with attribute: fish)? element Water?

Duetto IV: A-minor key; 2/2 (Alla breve) time signature; left hand starts, right hand follows; two themes are used (a and b); 108 measures arranged as 8 (a) + 8 (a) + 16 (b) + 8 (a) + 8 (a) + 8 (b) + 13 (b) + 8 (a) + 8 (b) + 10 (b) + 13(a); NB! The grouping of measures and themes reveals the scheme of: 9 x 8 (= 72 measures) + 2 x 13 (= 26 measures) + 2 x 5 (= 10 measures), an order once more based upon the progression 5, 8, and 13 as quantities of the Fibonacci progression hinting at the “golden ratio;” the quite robust character of the music seems to allude to the strong phlegmatic temperament, while the very intricate formal scheme of the piece might possibly be a hint to the archangel Uriel (with attribute: fire); element Earth?

IX

The concluding Fuga à 5 Pro Organo pleno in E-flat major perfectly continues the ascending keys movement of the duettos (E-F-G-A) by its starting with a B-flat in the tenor.

The main theme suggests by its shape the form of a cross: connecting on paper the first note with the fourth and the second with the third, respectively the second with the fifth and the third with the fourth, respectively the third with the sixth and the fourth with the fifth, respectively the fourth with the seventh and the fifth with the sixth, one obtains three times (Trinity again!) the Greek letter X = Chi used as a symbol of the Cross, for crossing: cf. also Bach’s original title Da Jesus an dem X stund’ and the English No X-ing or Merry X-mas (Example 14).

This majestic theme dominates the whole first section of the fugue written in the ancient stylus gravis (see above, chorales 1 to 3). The second section of the fugue is in 6/4 meter and based on a strongly contrasting theme characterized by its constant movement representing a lengthy kyklosis (“turning around-figure”), with the main notes E-flat—F—G and thus quoting the first phrase of the first large chorale Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit (Example 15).

Exactly in the middle of this second section, the majestic first theme reappears, rhythmically strengthened by its syncopations, and dividing the whole fugue into two equal parts of 36 + 22½ : 22½ + 36 (Example 16).

Finally, the third and last section of the fugue written in 12/8 time signature, expounds a third theme that will later be combined with the first and with a varied form of the second theme. This third theme seems to use a bass cadence formula of C–F, and B-flat–E-flat (Example 17).

Most impressive is the perfect formal symmetry of the whole fugue organized in: (20 + 16 =) 36 measures + (22½ + 22½ =) 45 measures + (16 + 20 =) 36 measures.

Considering the fugue as a whole and the most natural tempo relationship of its three time signatures (half note = dotted half note = dotted quarter note), one can conclude the following:

a) the first and the third sections of the fugue are equal in length lasting 36 measures each, divided into 20 + 16, respectively, into 16 + 20;

b) applying the tempo relationship “half note = dotted half note = dotted quarter note” and taking as a common unity of measurement the smaller quantity, i.e., the measure length of the second fugue (which has only two beats per measure vs. the four beats of the first and the third sections respectively), one obtains the following measurements for the three sections:

72 (= 36 x 2) half-measures; 45 measures and again 72 (= 36 x 2) half-measures

c) all these numbers being multiples of 9, these ratios can be reduced to:

72 (= 8 x 9); 45 (= 5 x 9); 72 (= 8 x 9), or just 8 + 5 (= 13) + 8 = 21

d) this series of numbers 8, 5, 13, 21 belongs to the famous “Fibonacci progression” starting by 1:1:2:3:5:8:13:21 and reaching the golden ratio or divine proportion (= “proportio divina”) in the infinite.

e) NB! according to the Italian Renaissance mathematician Luca Pacioli the golden ratio might symbolize the Holy Trinity:

A (the greater quantity/God Father) : B (the smaller quantity/God the consubstantial Son) = (A + B) : A, or, theologically speaking:

A (God Father) engenders B (the consubstantial Son) and, out of these two, proceeds A + B (the Holy Spirit);

f) could this majestic, astonishingly built fugue thus represent once more the ultimate Symbol of the Holy Trinity?

g) its perfectly symmetrical construction is most impressive:

First section (40 half measures—cadence—32 half measures),

Second section (22½—22½ measures)

Third section (32 half measures—cadence—40 half measures), or, more simply:

40 – 32 – 22½ – 22½ – 32 – 40 measure lengths of the second section.

X

Taking a more attentive, new look at the Third Part of Bach’s Clavier-Übung, one discovers some interesting facts concerning the overall compositional plan, a plan corresponding also to Bach’s work, the B Minor Mass:

a) both cycles contain a total of 27 movements each.

b) these 27 movements are divided into two groups of: 6 “free” works without a cantus firmus (prelude in E-flat, the four Duettos, and the final fugue) and the 21 chorales; NB! the “Missa” and the “Symbolum Nicenum” in the
B Minor Mass have together 12 + 9 = 21 movements and the last section of the B Minor Mass (“Sanctus,” “Osanna,” “Benedictus,” “Osanna,” “Agnus Dei,” and “Dona nobis pacem”) also contains 6 movements.

c) the 21 chorales in the Clavier-Übung are divided twice into: 9 for the Lutheran Mass (“Kyrie-Christe-Kyrie – Gloria:” Trinity) and 12 dealing with Luther’s Catechism plus Sacraments.

d) The 21 chorales are also divided (“musically”) into 12 and 9 chorales by the 13th chorale written as a French overture and thus opening the rest of 9 chorales.

[NB! All these numbers are multiples of 3 (Trinity again!).]

e) could the total number of 27 pieces possibly recall in both the Clavier-Übung and the B Minor Mass the 27 books of the New Testament?

f) could the number of 21 pieces allude to the “Teaching Books” of the New Testament, the 21 Epistles, and the 6 “free works” to the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the prophetic Apocalypse of John?

g) could one not consider the overall architecture of Bach’s most impressive cycles, Clavier-Übung III and the B Minor Mass, as huge symbols for the New Testament and thereby also for Martin Luther’s Theology?

Steven Young

Steven Young is a professor of music at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and directs the University’s choral ensembles. He is also organist at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Providence, Rhode Island. Young has presented papers and performances for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the American Choral Directors Association. He research interests focus on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French organist/composers, and he has written several feature articles and reviews for The Diapason. He also wrote the liner notes for Christine Kamp’s series of recordings of the organ works of Louis Vierne on the Festivo label. Young has recorded several of the works of Boston organist/composer Henry M. Dunham on the AFKA label.

In October 1926, just a month before his death, Aloÿs Claussmann chatted with an old friend, Claude Nievre, a writer for La Montagne, a newspaper whose office was directly below the apartment where Claussmann lay dying. Nievre had written an article titled “Un grand talent méconnu, Claussmann, musicien et compositeur” (An underestimated talent, Claussmann, musician and composer).¹ Among other things, Nievre made the point that Claussmann’s many years of service to his community of Clermont-Ferrand should be rewarded by naming him to the Legion d’honneur, the highest civilian award given by the country to celebrate accomplishments given in service to one’s country. Claussmann had spent fifty years selflessly serving the musical and religious community of Clermont-Ferrand with little or no thought to promoting his own career as performer, teacher, or composer. Sadly, the award was never granted to Claussmann, despite the efforts of all his friends and colleagues. However, his tireless efforts bore many wonderful fruits in terms of quality students, artistic performances, and respected compositions.

A native of the Alsace region of France, born in Uffholz on July 5, 1850, Claussmann began piano lessons at age 11 with his uncle, a local musician and teacher. Following those lessons, Claussmann studied at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-sous-Rougemont. Between 1868 and 1870, he studied with organ virtuoso Eugène Gigout at l’École Niedermeyer in Paris, during which time he was awarded the premier prix in both piano and organ.

Interrupting his studies, Claussmann returned to Uffholz to perform his military service in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871. When Alsace was lost to Germany at the end of the war, Claussmann opted to retain his French citizenship. He returned to Paris to complete his studies, where he distinguished himself as both performer and composer, earning the grand prix de composition in 1872 from l’École Niedermeyer.

In 1873, the position of maître de Chapelle at the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand became available. Claussmann applied and was offered the position. He accepted it, and remained in Clermont-Ferrand for the entirety of his career, possibly to his professional detriment. Nonetheless, according to one writer, Claussmann wasted no time in establishing himself as a first-rate musician.²

In 1877, shortly after his appointment, the cathedral acquired a new organ with three manuals and forty-eight ranks of pipes, built by the Merklin firm, one of the most respected in France. The dedication program featured Edmond Lemaigre, then titular organist of the cathedral, and Alexander Guilmant, renowned organist. Claussmann participated as well, conducting two motets, including a Salve Regina of his own, newly composed for the event, and performing two organ works, one by François Benoist and another new work, also written by Claussmann, Offertoire.³

Claussmann’s musical work was not limited to his position at the cathedral. In 1881, Claussmann established the short-lived Société Philharmonique. Though enjoying only a brief existence, this may have been the first orchestra to provide written critical program notes for its concerts, attesting to Claussmann’s scholarly inclinations.⁴ Shortly thereafter, in 1886, he assumed position as organist titulaire, following Edmond Lemaigre’s relocation to Paris. It was at this tribune that Claussmann remained until his death in 1926.

During his tenure he composed the majority of his works for the organ (approximately 350 pieces), nearly a hundred for the piano, a fair number of songs, and a few other works for chamber ensembles and orchestra.⁵ Claussmann’s next big success was the premiere performance of his commissioned drame lyrique, Pierre, l’Eremite, composed to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the First Crusade (the text of the work was by the Abbé Raynaud). Written in 1892, the work awaited its premiere for three years. According to the reports, it was a resounding success, performed at least two times (May 15 and 17, 1895). The reviewer, while admitting that one could not analyze such a large work on one hearing, admired its beauty in both composition and performance.⁶ The performance featured an orchestra of sixty, a chorus of 200, and soloists, all led by Claussmann. It must have been quite the tour de force!

In 1909, Claussmann was appointed director of L’École municipal de Musique, and he remained its director until 1918 when he suffered from a serious health crisis that disabled him for nearly three months, at which point he was named honorary director, and Louis Gémont assumed directorship.⁷ The formation of this school was fraught with difficulties. Prior to its founding, there were two competing institutes, the Petit Conservatoire, headed by Jean Soulacroup, and the École de musique, directed by Louis Gémont, both of whom were considered for the position of director of the École nationale de musique. After several years of contentious battles about the school, and once it was decided to move ahead with the formation of a national music school that would align itself with the Conservatoire nationale in Paris, a closed door meeting took place, and Claussmann was named as director to the pleasure of many community members, and the displeasure of others, including the mayor of the city.⁸ Claussmann accepted, but wrote, with apparent jocularity, that if the conservatory were to open as planned, the undertaking would be substantial, and it would force him to cut his annual vacation very short. He did exactly that, and served with distinction for many years.

Little is known of Claussmann’s personal life; there are few letters and no personal papers. In 1877, he married Marguerite Barthélémy, and they had a daughter, Madeleine, in 1878. It is presumed that his wife predeceased him, based on the eulogies given at his funeral.⁹ According to Joseph Desaymard, writer and critic, who was his pupil and friend, Claussmann possessed a gentle spirit, keen intellect, good sense of humor, and youthful attitude.¹⁰ He rode his bike to work every day, and until the final few years of his life, he appears to have possessed good health.

Unfortunately, little is known about the critical reception of his work, at least in France. The local newspaper of Clermont-Ferrand rarely commented on musical events. However, the Société nationale included his Sonate pour violon et piano on a concert in May 1906, and the composition and performance received an extensive review reprinted in the Revue pratique de Liturgie et de Musique sacrée. The reviewer praised Claussmann’s melodic gift, his interesting harmonies, and his well-crafted forms.¹¹ This seems to be the generally held view of Claussmann as a composer.

Claussmann’s vast output of organ works includes music for any number of occasions. The two large collections, Cent pieces pour orgue ou harmonium, opus 34, and Cent pieces pour grand orgue, opus 66, encompass smaller works designed for liturgical usage, such as Entrées, Communions, and Sorties.¹² Undoubtedly he used these pieces himself over his fifty-year career at the cathedral.¹³ Even in these smaller works, Claussmann demonstrates substantial contrapuntal skill. The Entrée in D Minor, which opens opus 66, is only 63 measures long, yet it displays Claussmann’s fascination with counterpoint and with Franck, as the theme appears twice, in related keys, and then, upon returning to the tonic, is subjected to canonic treatment throughout (Example 1). The ninth piece in this set provides further evidence of Claussmann’s meticulous craftsmanship. While only 29 measures long, it has a tripartite form in which the return of the opening A section receives a new accompaniment with the melody moved to the left hand. In terms of larger organ works, Claussmann penned two sonatas, a Suite pour orgue, and several Livraisons containing varying numbers of pieces likely intended for concert use. These include fantaisias, pastorales, marches, toccatas, and many others. In these works one sees Claussmann’s wide-ranging inventiveness with their well-developed themes and solidly crafted counterpoint.

While steeped in the style of the Romantic era, the organ music often displays surprising originality. From the earliest opera, Claussmann combines both French and German styles, which may be the result of his earliest influences in Uffholtz, an area of France that reflected a great deal of Germanic influence due to its shared border with Germany. For example, opus 16 is entitled Orgelstücke rather than Pièces pour orgue. In the music, one often finds well-crafted melodies, a staple of the French tradition, fused with the intricate counterpoint that is intrinsic to German composition, making Claussmann’s organ music unique for its time.¹⁴ Claussmann’s fusion of the aforementioned styles is evidenced in Scherzo in G Major, opus 33, no. 4. While making use of a rather extended model of the scherzo and trio form—ABA′CA′, which resembles more of a Rondo—the typical French scherzo would not make use of the extensive counterpoint found in the fugal exposition that comprises the B section (in B minor). The fourth section, which itself is a small three-part form in the key of E-flat major, has a very lyrical melody for the outer parts and, again, the composer briefly employs some imitative polyphony in the middle portion.

Though Claussmann’s music is influenced by the style of César Franck, as evidenced in the Allegro symphonique, opus 33, no. 2, whose opening recalls Franck’s Pièce heroïque (Example 2), Claussmann often moves into unusual areas of tonality through his inspired use of chromaticism, following on and expanding the chromatic harmonic language of Franck. One even finds an example of progressive harmonic movement in some of Claussmann’s works, such as Pastorale, opus 26, no. 3, which begins in E major and ends in A minor, delivering an unexpected conclusion.¹⁵

In the United States, as early as 1892, one finds references to performances of Claussmann’s music. A concert review in the Indianapolis Journal accorded the Scherzo in A Minor a favorable assessment.¹⁶ (One assumes that the reviewer had heard other Claussmann pieces.) Several of the pieces from opus 26 were dedicated to American organists, including Clarence Eddy and William C. Carl, both former students of Alexandre Guilmant. (It is possible that Guilmant helped make the connection by recommending the works to Carl. Guilmant participated in the dedication of the organ at the Clermont-Ferrand cathedral in 1887 where he would have heard Claussmann’s music. It is also possible that Gigout recommended his music to Carl.¹⁷) The first volume of opus 16 was reviewed favorably by Everett Truette in The Organ, 1893, who wrote, “Three extremely interesting pieces . . . which are written somewhat in the style of reveries, and contain many passages of striking originality.”¹⁸ (It was of this Fantaisie in C Minor that Gigout wrote his praise of Claussmann.¹⁹) It is likely because of the work of Carl and Truette, who published some of this music in The Organ and other collections, that Claussmann’s music achieved some measure of popularity in America. Early twentieth-century newspaper accounts indicate that several of Claussmann’s works were performed quite regularly, especially Easter Dawn and Grand Choeur for organ and his Magnificat for choir.

Among other comments on Claussmann’s works, Pierre Balme linked him to a progressive aesthetic:

In his day, Claussmann had difficulty with being a ‘pioneer,’ even in spite of the example of his co-disciple Fauré, who remained all through to the end of his time, as innovative as younger composers. But why not have others reported rather how much he (Claussmann) was, in his prime, so profoundly ahead of the taste and knowledge of audiences and even music professionals? Twenty years ago, he was not afraid of modifying his composing technique according to the latest developments of the impressionist school.²⁰

Connecting Claussmann to the Impressionist school seems to be a stretch, though examples of augmented triads and unexpected harmonic connections are evident, as is the use of non-functional harmony, as witnessed in the frequent use of the raised fourth and fifth scale degrees, creating the sensation of whole-tone harmony. If this is what Balme refers to, then it is possible to put Claussmann in that category. However, Claussmann’s music is thoroughly steeped in the chromatic harmony of the period, and he often makes unexpected harmonic connections, such as moving between C major and F-sharp major for the middle section of the Fantaisie in C Minor, opus 10. These unexpected relationships may also be seen in the transitional passages of Au Crépusucle from opus 33, where the dominant seventh chord of the tonic G-flat resolves to a D major sonority, which is then repeated whole step below, obscuring any sense of the tonic (Example 3). If this fluidity of key relationships is considered “impressionistic” by the writer, then the term applies.

Overall, Claussmann retains a consistent style throughout his other music; one finds equally challenging tonal relationships in most pieces. Additionally, his treatment of form does not necessarily conform to expectations of his era, but a clear structure is always evident and logical. One might apply musicologist Carlo Caballero’s argument about Fauré, who he claims maintained the consistency of style throughout his works, which Fauré believes was “a crucial property of any music that is truly original,”²¹ and apply that to Claussmann as well. Hervé Desarbre would agree, according to the liner notes to his recording of selected organ works, as he claims that Claussmann’s style did not change much over the years.²² Claussmann retained remarkable consistency in his technical style and tonal language beginning with the major organ works from opus 10 and continuing through the late opera.

Many of Claussmann’s works have been recently republished, some with needed editorial emendations, as the printed editions contain numerous errors (especially clef change indications).²³ As there appear to be no extant manuscripts, it is difficult to know Claussmann’s intentions. Both B-note Musikverlag and FitzJohn Publishing have reproduced many of his works. IMSLP (www.imslp.org) has a reasonable collection available, and France’s Bibliothèque Nationale Gallica site had started to digitize many other works.

Whether Claussmann would have enjoyed the success his contemporaries did had he remained in Paris is a question that can never be answered. He made his choice, apparently without regrets, and enjoyed the respect of the community he served for nearly fifty years. The music of this underestimated talent attests to the mastery of his craft and the fertility of his imagination, and deserves to be re-examined and given a place in the concert repertoire.

Notes

1. Claude Nievre, La Montagne, October 12, 1926, p. 2.

2. Th. Mourgue, “Profil d’artistes: M. Claussmann,” Le Moniteur, June 29, 1892, p. 2.
“. . .il vient s’etabilir chez nous où on ne tarde pas à reconnaitra en lui un musician de premiere ordre.”

3. J. Merklin, Le cathédrale de Clermont-Ferrand et ses orgues, Lyon: Impr. de A.-L. Perrin et Marinet (1878), p. 28. As with others, Offertoire served as a common title for works; Claussmann wrote several.

4. Joseph Desaymard, Avenir du Plateau Central, November 8, 1926, writing Claussmann’s obituary (No page citation as this comes from the Bibliothèque de la Patrimoine of Clermont-Ferrand collection MS 1654). Present research has yet to find concert announcements or programs presented. In 1885, another community orchestra was formed which enjoyed much success, directed by Jean Soulacroup.

5. Cataloguing the works of Claussmann has presented a challenge. Pierre Desaymard made an attempt at this in the 1980s but seems to have missed some pieces. Four of the works from opus 33 do not appear in any listing of his, possibly because they were published by the English firm J. Laudy and Co. See Desaymard, Bibliographie des oeuvres d’Aloys Claussman, Bulletin historique et scientifique de l’Auvergne, vol. 1.90, pp. 305–321 (1981).

6. Le Moniteur, May 16, 1895, p. 2, and May 18, 1895, p. 2. According to Louis Gémont, the work was performed again in 1925 (Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2).

7. In a letter to Paul Dukas, Claussmann thought that he was close to death at that time (Bibliothêque Nationale, Paris, W-48).

8. Jean-Louis Jam, “Aux origins d’une succursale provinciale du Conservatoire de Paris,” Bulletin historique et artistique de l’Auvergne, vol. XCIX (1998), pp. 127–156. An excellent and somewhat entertaining chronicle of the events.

9. Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2.

10. Joseph Desaymard, “Le Mort de Claussmann,” L’Avenir, Nov. 9, 1926, p. 2.

11. Alexandre Georges on “Aloys Claussmann,” Revue pratique de liturgie at de la musique sacrée, nos. 103–104 (1926), p. 169.

12. These sets appear to be based upon Franck’s L’Organiste, but Claussmann’s pieces are more technically advanced.

13. In one edition of Le Courrier Musical, opus 64 was listed among the pieces that an organist should play.

14. While the fugue was certainly not an uncommon form in French organ music of this period, it was used relatively infrequently. Franck composed one fugue for the organ; he relied on canon and melodic juxtapositioning as his preferred contrapuntal devices. In examining the Widor organ symphonies, with their numerous and varied movements, one finds only two fugues, and those appear in the earliest of the symphonies.

15. This work is dedicated to R. Huntington Woodman, an American organist who studied with César Franck in 1888.

16. Indianapolis Journal, March 11, 1894, p. 8, featured a review of an organ recital by
W. H. Donley. I believe this refers to the Scherzo in B Minor from the Deuxième livre de la première collection, opus 10.

17. Gigout wrote glowingly of Claussmann’s work and was pleased to be the dedicatee of one of his pieces. See Mourgue, op. cit.

18. Everett E. Truette, The Organ, vol. 1, no. 4 (August 1892), p. 95, reviewing the Fantasia in C Minor, First Meditation in B Major, and Andante in D Major.

19. See Morgue, op. cit.

20. Pierre Balme, “Aloÿs Claussmann,” L’Auvergne littéraire, artistique, et historique, January 1926 (vol. 85), p. 15–17.

21. Peter Cirka, A profound identity: evidence of homogeneity in Gabriel Fauré’s thirteen piano Nocturnes. Unpublished DMA paper, Boston University, p. 9, and p. 26 (2015).

22. Hervé Desarbre, Aloys Claussmann Organ Works, Disque Mandala MAN 4927, 1997.

23. An example of the need for good editing appears in the Sérénade for Cello and Piano, opus 49. The cello part and the piano score have completely different notes and keys in places.

Hereford Cathedral, UK

Lorraine S. Brugh

Lorraine Brugh is currently resident director of Valparaiso University’s Study Centre in Cambridge, England. She is professor of music and the Frederick J. Kruse Organ Fellow at Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, Indiana.

This festival existed before America was even invented,” exclaimed Roy Massey, organist emeritus of Hereford Cathedral and nine times conductor-in-chief of the Three Choirs Festival. We were standing beside the statue of Edward Elgar, in a corner of the cathedral gardens. For each festival at Hereford, Ruth Massey places a wreath of flowers around Elgar’s neck, and then stops by every day to water it. The Three Choirs Festival is an annual summer event shared between the Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester cathedrals. Much like an American Guild of Organists national convention, it is a combination of choral and orchestral concerts, cathedral services, solo and chamber music recitals, masterclasses, talks, theatre, exhibitions, and walks, rotating each summer between the three beautiful English cathedral cities. It is the oldest non-competitive classical music festival in the world, having celebrated its 300th anniversary in 2015.

At the heart of the modern festival are the large-scale evening concerts featuring the Three Choirs Festival Chorus and the Philharmonia Orchestra, which has been resident at the festival since 2012. The Philharmonia is directed by Andrew Davis, who is also currently the music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. The festival’s packed schedule of daytime events is augmented by a community program that varies slightly in style in each city. This year there were seventy-six events: a combination of recitals, concerts, worship, family events, theater, and late-night jazz.

The origins of the annual music meetings of the three choirs of Gloucester, Worcester, and Hereford were outlined in 1729 in a sermon preached by Thomas Bisse, Chancellor of Hereford Cathedral. His three-centuries-old words still serve to describe the festival today. It sprang from:

. . . a very small and accidental origin. It was . . . a fortuitous and friendly proposal, between a few lovers of harmony and brethren of the correspondent choirs, to commence an anniversary visit, to be kept in turn; which voluntary instance of friendship and fraternity was quickly strengthened by social compact; and afterwards, being blessed and sanctioned by a charity collection, with the word of exhortation added to confirm the whole, it is arrived to the figure and estimation as ye see this day . . . .
Though the members of that communion we have entered into, being voluntary, may go off as their wills vary or as their affairs require, yet, by the accession of others, the Society may subsist unto many years, yea, generations, tendering to the furtherance of God’s glory, in the exaltation of His holy worship, to the improvement of our choirs, the credit of our foundations; to the benefit of our cities, the comfort of the fatherless; to the delight of mankind, of ourselves, and all that come nigh us. Upon these grounds it commenced, and upon these let our brotherly love continue.¹

No one can attend all events, as there is some overlap of the schedule. There are varieties of interest, ranging from organbuilding to children’s crafts. All events are ticketed; some require purchase and others are free. One purchases tickets for the events one chooses over the eight-day period. While I attended only a small number of events, I found remarkably high professional quality throughout. Following is a listing of this year’s events I was able to attend.

Monday, July 30, 2018:

Elgar Society Lecture

The lecture room was filled to capacity with over a hundred people for this lecture by Roger Judd, “George Sinclair: A Man and His Dog.” Judd is the former assistant organist of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. He investigated the friendship between Sir Edward Elgar and George Robertson Sinclair, Hereford Cathedral organist and music director during Elgar’s later years.

Mr. Judd began by imagining meeting George Sinclair and learning of his relation to Elgar and his history with the Three Choirs Festival. Born in 1863 in Croyden, Sinclair entered the Royal Academy of Music in Dublin at the age of eight. Sinclair spent six years at St. Michael’s College and Cathedral in Tenbury under the instruction of Arthur Frederick Ouseley. Ouseley was a composer, organist, musicologist, and priest and founded the cathedral school after visiting Leipzig and Dresden. He hoped the higher standards of those choirs would transfer to England. With John Stainer and Walter Parratt as well as George Sinclair as students there at the same time, the standards of church music were certainly raised.

At age sixteen Sinclair became assistant organist to Gloucester Cathedral, then became organist at the newly created Truro Cathedral at age eighteen. He was the mastermind in the design and acquisition of the 1887 Father Willis organ there. The organ at St. Michael’s in Tenbury had been rebuilt by Willis, so Sinclair was familiar with his work. Sinclair arranged all the musical celebrations of the dedication of the cathedral in 1887. He expected he would stay there his whole career.

However, just nine years after he arrived, he won the appointment as director of music at Hereford Cathedral in 1889. The appointment brought together the roles of performer, choirmaster, and orchestral conductor in one person. Curiously, no mention is made of involvement in the Three Choirs Festival in the position’s description.

Sinclair went about improving the quality of the music at Hereford, adding nine carols to the Christmas Eve services his first year. In 1891 he wrote to the cathedral chapter noting that the organ was below acceptable standards. With no financial assistance, he raised the entire amount of the renovation cost by playing a series of organ recitals. He commissioned Father Willis to carry out the restoration. The cathedral organ today is still very much the organ Willis had restored.

In 1887 Elgar made his first appearance as an audience member at the Three Choirs Festival. In 1889 Percy Hull became assistant to Sinclair. The three met and selected Elgar’s newly composed Te Deum to premiere at the 1889 festival. This, along with the appointment of young organists at both Gloucester and Worcester cathedrals, led to a revival of the Three Choirs Festival. The festival’s music changed greatly with Sinclair, adding orchestral music of Wagner, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms.

From then on, Elgar was a frequent visitor to the Sinclair home. Sinclair was single his whole life and lived at the edge of the cathedral garden with his canine companion, Dan. In 1904 Elgar moved to Hereford and wrote some of his largest works. Sinclair received more single dedications from Elgar than anyone, including Pomp and Circumstance No. 4 and Enigma Variations. In 1904 Sinclair arranged a transcription of Pomp and Circumstance for organ.

Sinclair and Elgar became close friends, often cycling easily forty miles a day together. For Sinclair, work was sheer joy, whether at the festival or at the cathedral. On February 7, 1917, he was in Birmingham for a choral rehearsal. At his hotel that evening he died of heart failure.

His last festival was in 1912, as the festival was suspended during World War I, returning in 1920. At his funeral, the bishop remarked, “How he loved this church, his work, and his sympathy for the choir boys.”

Tenebrae

This eighteen-member professional London choir, directed by Nigel Short, a former King’s Singer, performed a program that challenged the choir and listeners alike. Following the festival’s World War I centenary theme, Short brought from the singers the widest array of sounds and emotions imaginable. From the relentless droning bass of John Tavener’s Song for Athene to the sound clusters of Judith Bingham’s A Walk with Ivor Gurney, the choir showed great precision, vocal maturity, and overall endurance. The two-hour program closed with Arnold Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden/Peace on Earth, leaving the audience to ponder the challenge to “forge weapons that are harmless, flaming swords for righteousness.” It is certainly as much a challenge today as when he wrote it in 1907. The remainder of the program included music of Elgar, Ivor Gurney, Howells, and Parry. The choir handled the music of each composer as if it were their specialty, to enthusiastic acclaim.

Choral Evensong

The three cathedral choirs join forces each year in leading worship for the festival. This Evensong was a commemoration for three abolitionists, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and Ottobah Cugoano, who championed the cause until the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was enacted.

Adrian Partington, director of music at Gloucester Cathedral, directed the combined choir, and Peter Dyke, assistant director of music at Hereford Cathedral, was organist. The choir sang responses by Hubert Sumsion, a psalm chant by Charles Stanford, canticles by Alan Gray, and an anthem by William Harris. It was a thoroughly British Evensong!

Tuesday, July 31: Olivier Latry
Celebrity Organ Recital

Olivier Latry’s recital was formidable in every way. From opening with J. S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E-flat (the “St. Anne”) to closing with an improvisation on a submitted theme, Latry exuded technique and artistry at every turn. His clear, nearly flawless performance was aided by a light and versatile touch, clean articulation, and able rhythmic control. What mattered more to this listener was the expressive content he brought out of each piece, moving easily from one style to another. Clarity and rhythmic pulse organized Bach, while great rubato and overlapping legato enhanced Franck’s Choral in B Minor.

Latry exploited the colors of the organ in a transcription of Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The softest stops made the piece shimmer in the cathedral’s morning light. Dupre’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor followed, filled with beautiful expression at breakneck speed. Latry rounded out the French repertoire with Alain’s subtle Postlude pour l’office des Complies and Thierry Escaich’s Evocation II. Latry then took the submitted theme and wound the program to a grand conclusion. After two bows and a cheering crowd, he returned to the organ to play a transcription of a Bach Brandenburg Concerto movement.

The only disaster of the morning came when Latry jumped up on to the orchestral stage for a final bow, missed a bit, and turned his ankle. One hoped for a speedy recovery as he was on deck that weekend at his home base at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

Notes

1. Three Choirs Festival website: https://3choirs.org/about-us/history-of-the-three-choirs-festival/long-….

 

Photo credit: Michael Whitefoot

Shelby Fisher

Shelby Fisher earned Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in organ performance and pedagogy from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, where she studied under Kenneth Udy. She is organist and director of music at Christ United Methodist Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Jean Langlais (1907–1991) composed his organ Mass Suite médiévale in 1947, drawing on a rich tradition of French organ suites composed for use during the “low” Mass. Changes to the liturgy after the Second Vatican Council (“Vatican II”) in 1962 drastically reduced the role of the organ during the Mass, thereby eliminating the need for the French organ Mass. Suite médiévale is one example of a body of small-scale liturgical organ compositions that no longer carry their intended relevance due to changes to the liturgy. These works are often neglected in both concert and liturgical settings, yet they can be appropriate for both. Exploring the musical and liturgical heritage that influenced Langlais, as well as the changes resulting from the Second Vatican Council, provides today’s organists with a frame of reference to interpret and understand his organ compositions.

Organ music and the liturgy in twentieth-century France

During the four centuries between the Council of Trent in 1563 and the Second Vatican Council between 1962 and 1965, liturgical organ playing in France became highly developed in large part due to the autonomy afforded French bishops to govern the liturgy within each diocese.

The most widely known liturgy used in France was the Parisian Rite, which was used until the middle of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, most French liturgical organ music from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries was written for the Parisian Rite.¹ Eventually the Parisian Rite was supplanted by the more universally recognized Roman Rite. This affected the evolution of the French organ Mass in at least two ways. First was the retention of the “low Mass,” during which the organist played for virtually the entire service, pausing only for the reading and homily as described by Gaston Litaize:

During this era, the organist at the main organ normally played two Sunday Masses:

1) The “Grand Messe,” which involved a processional, an offertory, often an elevation, a communion, and a postlude; in addition, he alternated with the choir for verses of plainchant for the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei); they sang a verse and the organ commented on in, changing registrations for each verset.

2) The “Messe Basse,” where the organist could virtually play a recital. With everything spoken in a low voice [“à voix basse,” hence “Messe basse”], this is what happened: the priest left the sacristy, the organist played a procession, which lasted until the Gospel reading, then came the sermon. The organ then resumed and didn’t stop until there was no one left in the church. So, one could easily play a complete Choral by Franck.²

Second, with the introduction of the Roman Rite, French organists largely moved away from chant-based organ music, favoring all-purpose Offertoires or Grand Choeurs.

A chant revival movement soon made its mark on French liturgical organ music. In 1889, the Benedictine Abbey of Solesmes published a new chantbook based on extensive research of early manuscripts that sought to restore chant to its medieval form.³ Interest in chant revival trickled into Parisian music circles, where in 1894, organist-composers Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent D’Indy founded the Schola Cantorum de Paris. The school’s founding manifesto called for the “performance of plainchant according to the Gregorian tradition; restoration of polyphonic music in the Catholic Reformation style of Palestrina; the creation of ‘new modern Catholic music;’ and improvement of the repertory for organists.”⁴ Guilmant in particular championed a return to organ compositions that used chant, writing that, “The German organists have composed some pieces based on the melody of chorales, forming a literature for the organ that is particularly rich; why should we not do the same with our Catholic melodies?”⁵

No French organist-composer produced more of this literature than Charles Tournemire. He studied at the Paris Conservatory with César Franck and Charles-Marie Widor, eventually succeeding Franck as titular organist of Sainte Clotilde in 1898. His largest organ work was L’Orgue mystique, a cycle of 51 organ Masses, one for nearly every Sunday of the liturgical year. Each Mass comprises five movements: Prélude à l’Introït, Offertoire, Élévation, Communion, and Pièce terminale, all drawing motivic material from the proper chants for the given day.6

Jean Langlais and Suite médiévale

Charles Tournemire mentored only a few private students who showed the greatest promise. One of these students was Jean Langlais. Earlier Langlais had studied organ with André Marchal at the National Institute for Blind Students, then with Marcel Dupré at the Paris Conservatory. Upon graduation from the conservatory, Langlais continued improvisation studies with Tournemire and served as his assistant at Sainte Clotilde. Langlais chose Tournemire as his instructor specifically for Tournemire’s fluency with improvisation on plainchant.⁷

Langlais eventually succeeded Tournemire as organist at Sainte Clotilde in 1945. The Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte Clotilde had been enlarged and slightly modified at the end of Tournemire’s tenure, and Langlais was eager to compose for the new instrument. Langlais composed four organ Masses between 1947 and 1951.⁸ His Masses are important not only because they demonstrate both the pervasiveness of the plainchant revival movement and the development of the French School of improvisation and composition, but they are also significant because they are some of the last French organ Masses to be published.⁹

In 1947, Langlais completed Suite médiévale: en forme de messe basse.¹⁰ As indicated by the subtitle, the suite was intended for use at the “low” Mass. Langlais not only followed the same five-part structure as Tournemire, but also used chant as inspiration. However, unlike Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique, Langlais chose chants appropriate for use throughout the liturgical year rather than those tied to a specific day.

The first movement of the suite is titled “Prélude: Entrée” and can be divided into two parts. The first half opens on full organ with a succession of parallel fourths and fifths suggestive of Notre-Dame organum followed briefly by the incipit to the chant “Asperges me, Domine,” or “Thou shalt sprinkle me, oh Lord,” before returning to the fortissimo parallel fourths and fifths. The antiphon, taken from Psalm 51, typically accompanied the Asperges, or ritual sprinkling of the congregation with holy water at the principal Mass on Sunday. The first half ends with the rubric, “If not needed, do not play further,” suggesting the flexibility of the suite to be adjusted to fit requirements of the Mass at the moment of performance. The second half further develops the chant, first in parallel fifths, and then in parallel fifths doubled at the octave in the manuals. In a nod to the Solesmes style of chant singing with its unpredictable pulse, the time signature throughout the “Prélude” changes frequently.

The second movement, “Tiento: Offertoire,” was intended for use during the offertory of the Mass, hence its longer performance length of four minutes. Here Langlais honors Spanish keyboard music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, constructing a loosely imitative four-voice fugato, punctuated three times in the pedal by the Kyrie trope “Fons bonitatis” from Mass II. The Medieval practice of chant troping, or the insertion of additional texts and/or melodies within the standard chant, had long been abandoned. Langlais’ inclusion of the Kyrie trope is a clever acknowledgment of this historical practice rather than a modern application of chant. The movement ends with a final appearance of the chant accompanied by soft, homophonic chords. In order to keep rhythmic freedom without frequently changing the time signature, Langlais indicated “0” as the beginning time signature, explaining, “The sign 0 signifies free measures as for their length but regular as for their note value.” Langlais continued to employ this practice in later compositions.¹¹

“Improvisation: Élévation” is the calm and meditative third movement, utilizing a simple registration of only a single stop for each manual. It begins in A major, then moves to E-flat Mixolydian just before the introduction of the well-known and ancient Eucharistic hymn “Adoro te.” The final four measures are in E major, a key favored by Frescobaldi and other sixteenth-century composers for use during elevation toccatas.¹² The key of E and its cousin, the Phrygian mode, were traditionally used to express the mystical. The elevation represents the high point of the Mass at which time the celebrant elevates the host and chalice, having been transformed into the body and blood of Christ, so they may be adored by the congregation.¹³

The fourth movement, “Méditation: Communion,” was intended to be played as the congregation receives communion. It is based on two chants: “Ubi caritas,” an antiphon traditionally sung during the washing of the feet on Holy Thursday, but also appropriate as a Eucharistic hymn; and a second Eucharistic hymn, “Jesu dulcis memoria.” Langlais unifies the emergence of these themes with a sixteenth-note motive in multiple keys.

“Acclamations: Sur le texte des acclamations Carolingiennes” is the dramatic postlude of the suite. Langlais uses fragments of the ancient Roman chant “Laudes Regiae” from the Carolingian Acclamations, a hymn historically sung at solemn occasions and adopted by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne. The melody for the words “Christus vincit” repeats six times in the pedal in alternation with the phrase “Exaudi Christi” from the same chant. Langlais adds two more chant fragments, “Christus regnat” and “Christus imperat,” and repeats them employing an ascending harmonic pattern he often used to create tension. Similarly, the manuals play the “Christus vincit” theme first in F, then in G, and finally in A, to which the pedal responds with “Christus imperat” first in F, then F-sharp and then G. Langlais concludes by introducing a pedal carillon of C–F–G–D played in long notes against the “Christus vincit” theme stated in manual octaves. Marie-Louise Langlais notes that these final measures are reminiscent of the bells of Reims Cathedral, where French kings were crowned during the Medieval period.¹⁴

Langlais’ reaction to the Second Vatican Council

As early as 1900, French clergy began holding grassroots meetings to study the Church’s handling of religious expression, particularly with regard to participation of the congregation at Mass.¹⁵ By 1945 this populist movement became known as Catholic Action, and its followers known as the “new liturgists.”¹⁶ At the heart of the new liturgists’ agenda was the democratization of the liturgy brought about partly through changing the musical context of the Mass. Other clergy and most professional musicians saw the new liturgists as a threat to the traditional practice of church music. The new liturgists championed simple, approachable music that favored congregational singing and the use of the vernacular rather than Latin. Furthermore, many in favor of liturgical reform sought to also diminish the role of both the organ and chant.

Langlais was distraught by the changes the new liturgists brought to the Mass. He regarded these changes as a departure from the artistic mission of the Church and wrote:¹⁷

All religious composers, of which I am one, are deeply discouraged by this movement, which is the negation of art. In my opinion nothing is beautiful enough for God. Our forebears knew this and held that to pray surrounded by beauty was central to worship.

The new liturgist movement reached its peak during the Second Vatican Council. In December 1963, the council issued the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Initially the constitution alleviated the concerns of the professional musicians by declaring the musical tradition of the Church as “a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art.”¹⁸ While the council supported the use of Gregorian chant and polyphony, it also seemed to support the new liturgists by stating that “to promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalms, antiphons, hymns as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper time a reverent silence should be observed.”¹⁹ In the practical application of the constitution, it was the new liturgists that seemed to gain the upper hand.

In 1962, Langlais and other organists served on the French Episcopal Commission on Sacred Music, tasked with interpreting the Second Vatican Council’s new guidelines on liturgical music. A second group, the Commission of Expert Musicians, was formed in 1964 to supply new music to accompany the Propers that had been newly translated into French.

The role of the organ was a troublesome point in the new liturgy. Monsignor Maurice Rigaud, who acted as president of both the French Episcopal Commission on Sacred Music and the Commission of Expert Musicians, indicated that silence was to replace the use of the organ after the collect, at the offertory, at the elevation, and at communion; and in addition, that sung chant rather than the organ was the preferred method of balancing music with silence. The organists serving on both commissions lamented to Rigaud that there was nothing left for the organists to do during the Mass:²⁰

If the role of the organist is so reduced to this sort of humming in the background, in this role of “hole-filling” between two verses of songs in French and to serve as accompaniment for eventual new songs, one wonders . . . if it is now necessary to train young organists and to place them in careers that are reduced to such a farce, a career that is so long in its preparation, so costly, so laborious and difficult. One no longer even sees the necessity to maintain organ classes in our Conservatories and Schools of Music.

Musically, Langlais was slow to respond to Vatican II. Though initially supportive of attempts to write music for the new liturgy, Langlais became discouraged not only with the Commission of Expert Musicians’ tendency to favor the opinions of clergy over those of professional musicians but also with the low quality of new music that was admitted. In an interview with L’Est Républicain, Langlais was bold in his opinion of this new music, saying, “The goal of those who are currently writing religious songs is good, but the quality of the music is mediocre.”²¹

Langlais’ shameless musical response to Vatican II was his Trois Implorations, commissioned as the final organ exam piece at the Paris Conservatory in the spring of 1970. The third movement of the set, “Imploration pour la croyance,” expresses Langlais’ continued frustration with the Catholic Church. In his program notes Langlais writes, “The composer has tried to translate the state of the soul of a Christian in revolt against the current desacralizing atmosphere.”²² Langlais uses the chant intonation of the Credo from Masses I, II, and IV “Credo in unum Deum,” answered by staccato chord clusters with full organ as if in protest. The juxtaposition of chant and chord clusters continues until the piece finally ends with five staccato chords that use all twelve tones of the scale simultaneously. Marie-Louise Langlais writes that “Imploration pour la croyance” is Langlais’ way of shouting to the world, “I believe with all my strength, but with all my strength I also suffer from what I hear in the Church.”²³

Conclusion

Langlais represents the culmination of the Sainte Clotilde organist-composer tradition, which began with César Franck and continued with Charles Tournemire. His style represents a unique synthesis of twentieth-century compositional techniques, traditional influences, and theological commentary. His close personal and professional ties to the Catholic Church at a time when it was experiencing major changes significantly influenced his work.

One cannot understand Langlais’ music without considering his Catholicism. To appreciate Langlais’ “other-worldly” harmonies and diverse colors, it is important to understand the religious context that inspired his compositions. Langlais saw himself not just as a composer, but also as a theologian, whose role was to connect the faithful to God. Although Vatican II reforms have erased its original context, Suite médiévale remains an excellent representation of Langlais’ compositional style and techniques; with short movements, contrasting tone colors, and recognizable chant fragments, it is an exciting and convincing work that merits continued recognition in the organ repertory.

Notes

1. Orhpa Ochse, Organists and Organ Playing in Nineteenth-Century France and Belgium (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1994), 127.

2. Marie-Louise Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered (New York: American Guild of Organists, 2016), 136–137.

3. Stephen Schloesser, Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919–1933 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 284.

4. Ibid.

5. Edward Zimmerman and Lawrence Archbold, “Why Should We Not Do the Same with Our Catholic Melodies?: Guilmant’s L’Organiste liturgiste, Op. 65,” in French Organ Music from the Revolution to Franck and Widor, ed. Lawrence Archbold and Willliam J. Peterson (New York: University of Rochester Press, 1995), 203.

6. Edward Schaefer, “Tournemire’s L’Orgue mystique and Its Place in the Legacy of the Organ Mass,” in Mystic Modern: The Music, Thought, and Legacy of Charles Tournemire, ed. Jennifer Donalsen and Stephen Schloesser (Richmond, Virginia: Church Music Association of America, 2014), 40.

7. Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered, 41.

8. Langlais published Suite brève and Suite médiévale in 1947, Suite française in 1948, and Hommage à Frescobaldi in 1951.

9. Schaefer, 31.

10. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 133.

11. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 145.

12. Willi Appel, The History of Keyboard Music to 1700 (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972), 478.

13. John Caldwell and Bonnie J. Blackburn, “Elevation,” In Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001).

14. Langlais, Langlais Remembered, 138.

15. Ann Labounsky, Jean Langlais: The Man and his Music (Portland, Oregon: Amadeus Press, 2000), 211.

16. Labounsky, 211.

17. Labounsky, 214.

18. Anthony Ruff, Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform: Transformations and Treasures (Chicago, Hillenbrand Books, 2007), 314.

19. Labounsky, 219.

20. Labounsky, 226.

21. Labounsky, 229.

22. Labounsky, 272.

23. Langlais, Jean Langlais Remembered, 263.

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