Steven E. Lawson dead at 63

Nunc Dimittis

Ronald Kent Arnatt, 88, died August 23, 2018. He was born January 16, 1930, in London, England, and was a boy chorister at Westminster Abbey and King’s College, Cambridge. He was educated at Trent College, Derbyshire, Trinity College of Music, London, and Durham University. From the latter, he was granted a Bachelor of Music degree in 1954. In 1970, Arnatt was awarded a Doctor of Music degree from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey.

Over the course of his career he held numerous positions, including instructor, American University, Washington, D.C.; director of music, Mary Institute, St. Louis, Missouri; professor of music and director choral activities, University of Missouri, St. Louis; director of music and organist, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Louis; founder and conductor, St. Louis Chamber Orchestra and Chorus; conductor and music director, Bach Society of St. Louis; director of music and organist, Trinity Church, Boston, Massachusetts; president, American Guild of Organists; director of music and organist, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Beverly, Massachusetts; professor of church music and department head, Westminster Choir College; and editor, ECS Publishing, Boston. He was also the recipient of numerous awards, fellowships, and prizes.

Ronald Arnatt married Carol Freeman Woodward, who died in 2017. They had two daughters who survive, Ronlyn and Sylvia. He is also survived by nine grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

Jon L. Bertschinger, 65, died July 13, 2018, in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was born July 25, 1952, in Burlington, Iowa. Bertschinger began taking piano lessons at an early age, followed by organ lessons on the new M. P. Möller organ at his church, Messiah Lutheran Church, in Burlington, in 1958. He sang in and accompanied one of the five choirs at that church while in junior high school.

Bertschinger began work for the Temple Organ Company when it moved to Burlington in 1966, helping to install the rebuilt organ at First Methodist Church in 1967. He was still working with David Cool, son of the company’s founder, Fred Cool, when the church burned in 2007, and he accomplished the tonal finishing for the new 60-rank organ for the rebuilt church.

Bertschinger was on the volunteer staff for the Auditorium and Temple in Independence, Missouri, performing recitals under the direction of Jan Kraybill, former director of music for the Community of Christ Church. He also had regular church jobs in St. Joseph, sometimes two at a time, playing over the years at Westminster Presbyterian, Trinity Presbyterian, First Christian, and, up until his death, Brookdale Presbyterian.

Wesley Coleman Dudley, II, 85, of Williamsburg, Virginia, and Bar Harbor, Maine, died July 25 in Williamsburg. He was born in Buffalo, New York, December 15, 1932. He attended Nichols School and graduated from St. Paul’s School, Concord, New Hampshire, before receiving his bachelor’s degree from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. After two years in the United States Navy in Hawaii, he returned to Buffalo in 1958 to work at Worthington Pump Company. Six years later he became an entrepreneur, managing Auto Wheel Coaster Company, North Tonawanda, New York, before joining his family’s management office. He began spending winters in Williamsburg, Virginia, and summers in Bar Harbor, Maine, allowing him to explore his two dominant passions: pipe organs and boating.

A quiet philanthropist, he supported many projects anonymously, but there was one exception, the public radio program, Pipedreams. He was also a frequent donor to the Organ Historical Society.

Wesley C. Dudley was preceded in death by his daughter, Katherine Mary Dudley. He is survived by his wife of sixty-two years, Lucinda Nash Dudley, and his children, Nanette (David) Schoeder, Donald M. (Janet) Dudley, three grandchildren, Nicholas Schoeder, Katherine Dudley, and MacLaren Dudley, their mother Meg Dudley, and two step-grandchildren, Grace and Madeleine Waters. Memorial contributions may be made to Minnesota Public Radio, attn. Jamie Ziemann, 480 Cedar St., St. Paul, Minnesota 55101, or to the Dudley Scholarship at the Eastman School of Music, attn. Suzanne Stover, 26 Gibbs St., Rochester, New York 14604.

Steven E. Lawson, 63, of New York, New York, died suddenly, August 19, of natural causes. He had completed his usual Saturday evening practice at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, where he had served as assisting organist for 21 years, and failed to show up on Sunday morning.

Lawson was born September 9, 1954, in San Diego, California, attended elementary school in Fullerton, California, and high school in Topeka, Kansas. He earned the Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance at Oklahoma City University, where he studied with Wilma Jensen, and the Master of Music degree in organ performance at Indiana University, also studying with Wilma Jensen. At Indiana University, he minored in carillon performance and accompanied the University Singers, working with conductors Robert Shaw and Margaret Hills. Before his appointment at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, Lawson served St. Luke’s Lutheran Church near Times Square in New York City for ten years.

As an active member of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, Lawson served as registrar, webmaster, and editor of the chapter’s concert calendar, but his towering achievement was the New York City Organ Project (NYCOP). Starting with his interest in gathering the histories of various pipe organs in churches he served or played in, the NYCOP grew into a seemingly limitless body of information, published online as part of the website of the New York City AGO Chapter. Thousands of organs are diligently documented with histories, specifications, and photographs. (For example, see the documentation of organs at the Church of the Heavenly Rest: www.nycago.org/organs/nyc/html/HeavenlyRest.html.) Friends and colleagues have joked that no one knew the organs of New York City as well as Lawson, given the countless hours he traveled around the city carrying heavy photographic equipment.

Lawson’s passion for collecting and making available this type of information drew him to the Organ Historical Society’s Pipe Organ Database, where he continued his vast contribution to the art of the organ, expanding his boundaries from New York City to include the entire United States. He worked closely with the OHS Database Committee, contributing and updating countless entries of organs, and behind the scenes with the development of a new, more user-friendly version of the database.

Steven E. Lawson is survived by his parents, George W. Lawson and Doris E. Lawson, and his cousin Linda Driskel.

­—John Bishop

Frank G. Rippl, 71, died August 11, in Appleton, Wisconsin. Born in Neenah, Wisconsin, Rippl earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, Appleton, where he minored in organ, studying with Miriam Clapp Duncan. He received a Master of Music degree in Orff-Schulwerk from the University of Denver. Rippl also studied at the Cleveland Institute of Music, as well as the Royal School of Church Music in England.

In 1979 he co-founded the Appleton Boychoir, for which he conducted and played organ for 26 years until his retirement from the organization in 2010. He initiated the Boychoir’s popular Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols held each Christmas in Memorial Chapel, Lawrence University. During Rippl’s tenure, the choir performed as choir-in-residence at the Green Lake Festival of Music under Sir David Willcocks and toured nationally and internationally.

Rippl taught elementary vocal music in the Appleton Area School District for 33 years. Upon retirement from school teaching, he pursued additional organ study with Wolfgang Rübsam. In 1996 he founded the Lunchtime Organ Recital Series held each summer in the Appleton area, attracting organists from all over the country.

Rippl began playing the organ at St. Mary Catholic Church, Menasha, later at Saint Bernard Catholic Church, also of Menasha. He was organist and choirmaster of All Saints Episcopal Church, Appleton, for over 46 years (1971–2018), retiring January 7. At his retirement, the parish established a choral scholarship for Lawrence University students to sing in the church’s choir. (For information on Frank Rippl’s retirement celebration, see the April 2018 issue, page 8.)

Rippl served as dean of the Northeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, was active in the Organ Historical Society (OHS) and the Packerland Theatre Organ Society, and performed on Minnesota Public Radio’s Pipedreams. He penned numerous OHS convention reviews for The Diapason. He accompanied silent movies on the organ for over 20 years for the American Theatre Organ Society. He loved teaching and the pipe organ, and combined these two passions by giving organ lessons to many students.

In 2007, Rippl received the Rotary Club Paul Harris Service Award for service to the community; he played for the Appleton chapter’s weekly meetings for many years. While a student at Lawrence he was Vince Lombardi’s favorite pianist at Alex’s Crown Restaurant, as cited in David Moraniss’s When Pride Still Mattered. In 2014 he became director for the new Memory Project choir, “On a Positive Note,” for those suffering from memory loss and their families.

Frank Rippl is survived by his wife of 43 years, Carol Jegen, his brothers Bill Rippl, Rick (Marie) Rippl, and Dan (Becky) Rippl, as well as numerous extended family members. His funeral was held August 21 at All Saints Episcopal Church, Appleton. Memorial donations may be directed to All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Appleton, the Appleton Boychoir, or his family for an organ scholarship.

James Ralph Verdin, of Indian Hill, Ohio, died August 8. He was born July 30, 1936, in Cincinnati. He grew up in Mariemont and graduated from Mariemont High School in 1955. After graduation, Verdin served in the United States Army.

Verdin was president and chief executive officer of the Verdin Company of Cincinnati, a family-owned business since 1842 that installs bells, tower and street clocks, electronic carillons, and organs across the United States and abroad. Notable installations include the World Peace Bell, the Ohio Bicentennial Bell Project, and the Verdin Mobile Bell Foundry.

Verdin’s vision to redevelop and transform the Pendleton Neighborhood in Over the Rhine, Cincinnati, led to the founding of the Pendleton Art Center, Pendleton Square Complex, the old Car Barn (Nicola’s Restorante), and the restoration of St. Paul’s Church. The church became the corporate offices of the Verdin Company and is now the Bell Event Centre.

A funeral Mass was celebrated August 16 at Old St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Cincinnati. James Ralph Verdin is survived by his wife Carole (nee Conners), daughter Jill (Sam) Crew, and grandchildren Caroline Verdin Crew and Samantha Verdin Crew. Memorials may be made to Summit Country Day School, 2161 Grandin Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45208.

We’re havin’ a heat wave
It’s hot. I’m writing in mid-July from the coast of Maine, where we usually enjoy cool ocean breezes. But records are being set. It was 98 degrees in Portland yesterday and it’s 98 degrees at home today. I said ocean, didn’t I. That means humidity. A few minutes ago, the meteorologist on the radio said the humidity is “about as high as it can go.” Like most desk-days, I’m talking on the phone with people all over the country, and everyone says it’s terrible today. Electric utilities are limiting power even though they’re dealing with record high demands. Hospital emergency rooms are busier than normal. Several of the church offices I tried to call today had messages on their phones saying they had closed early in order to save energy.
For fun (or longing) I looked at the website of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to learn that while it’s 98 here, it’s in the high 60s in Nome, Alaska and around 70 in Helena, Montana. But it’s 90 in Detroit, 103 in New York City and 104 in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania.

All those organs sounding terrible
Many churches have summer schedules during which the organ isn’t used much—a good thing, because when the weather gets hot, the pitch of flue pipes rises dramatically, while the reeds stay right where they are. I advise clients (and resist temptation myself) not to raise the pitch of reeds in the summer to match the rest of the organ. That’s how tuning scrolls get wrecked—you roll them down “into the quick,” as if you were trying to get a carp out of a sardine can, to match the pitch of the flues. Then in the winter when you try to get the reeds back to usual pitch the scrolls are torn. When a tuning scroll is damaged and “leaks,” the speech of the pipe is compromised.
If your church has “Church School Sunday” on the first Sunday in June, then summer services in the air-conditioned chapel (pretty common in New England Protestant churches), you’re fine. I played for almost twenty years at a church with exactly this schedule. It was a delight because there was no choir in the summer, and the services were an hour earlier. I was active in a sailing club in those days and we ran races every Sunday, so it was handy to be finished with church at 10 a.m. We moved the church’s wonderful piano from the sanctuary to the chapel each year so I could play on a “real” instrument for the summer—a great opportunity to keep my fingers around my piano repertory. The permanent instrument in the chapel was an aging and low-end electronic organ. Something about it meant that every A# in all the “stops” was out of tune and the dealer/technician said it couldn’t be fixed. There was a sprinkler head above it that never leaked.
The problem with this summer schedule at my church involved the huge and popular Sheraton resort nearby. A couple would book one of the banquet rooms for their wedding reception and ask the wedding consultant if there was a pretty church nearby. We had dozens of weddings. Not bad for the pocketbook, but couples who “booked” their weddings because ours was a “pretty church nearby” were often less devout than we might have wished and came with priorities counter to many of the church’s teachings. ‘Nuff said.
I might be scheduled to play ten or twelve weddings in July and August. The church had a large and attractive electro-pneumatic organ with plenty of reeds, and any organist knows how important reeds are to the standard wedding repertory. Think of all those eighteenth-century English trumpet tunes or that ubiquitous Mendelssohn march without reeds. If it was 80 degrees or less, the organ sounded okay. Much above that and the reeds couldn’t be used. And I would not tune them in temperatures higher than chamber temperatures at Christmas or Easter, when the furnace was running for days on end and the organ got good and hot. That was the limit. I’m not willing to wreck $75,000 worth of reeds for a wedding march. On a really hot summer Sunday you can play a perfectly respectable worship service without using the reeds.

§

It’s a privilege for me to serve on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (FOKO) in Portland, Maine. It’s one of two instruments in the country with a municipal organist on the bench (Ray Cornils in Portland and Carol Williams in San Diego, California) and it’s a popular beloved civic icon. It was built by Austin in 1912—the centennial year is coming up—and has 100 stops and five manuals. The people of FOKO work diligently to maintain the instrument and present up to twenty concerts each year with a variety of international stars. In addition, the organ is used in performances of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Choral Arts Society, and for many high school and college graduations each year. You can see a full schedule of concerts, specifications of the organ, and information about educational activities at the website <www.foko.org&gt;.
Last week Stephen Tharp played a concert as part of the regular summer series. His program included some wonderful twentieth-century music, a couple of the big classics, and his own transcription of The Fair from Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Stephen has been voted 2011 International Performer of the Year by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and will be presented in recital at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City as part of the chapter’s annual President’s Day Conference next February. That is the weekend before the beginning of Lent, a perfect time for a few days off between the high spots of the liturgical year. Come to New York for the conference. You’ll hear great musicians playing great organs. You can find details at <www.nycago.org&gt;.
Stephen and his wife Lena stayed with Wendy and me for a couple nights after the concert, and we had plenty of chance for shop-talk, carrying on about the state of organ teaching, performance, and building. Much of our talk focused on the philosophy of performance—what do we try to accomplish when we perform, what are the benefits for the performer and the audience? Many organists have two levels or venues for performance—worship and concert. Are they the same?
When we work from the organ bench on a Sunday morning, we are certainly trying to do our best, maybe even consciously hoping that the congregation (at least the personnel committee) is impressed. But our challenge is to focus our skills and diligence to enable the fullest communication between the congregants and God. It’s essential to do your very best, but it’s not appropriate for you to be feeding your ego.
I’m reminded of a story from the Johnson White House. President Johnson was presiding over a working lunch with members of Congress and foreign dignitaries. He asked his press secretary Bill Moyers (whose Ph.D. came from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas) to give a blessing as the meal began. Moyers folded his hands, bowed his head, and began. Johnson bellowed, “Speak up, I can’t hear you.” Moyers replied, “Mr. President, I wasn’t addressing you.”
When we perform on a concert stage or in recital at the church on a Sunday afternoon, we are working to create a harmonic unity between composer, performer, audience, and instrument. The performer who is inspired by the instrument and the music can bring the audience along on a magic carpet ride. What’s the energy that makes the carpet fly? It’s the energy that the performer draws from the experience and shares with everyone in the hall. Have you ever attended a concert and found that you were exhausted when it was over? That’s because the energy transmitted by the performer passed through your consciousness and body, sapping your energy in the process.
Have you ever wondered about the word recital? The dictionary in my Macbook says, “to read aloud or declaim from memory.” It’s a standard word in our organ lexicon, as well as those of singers, pianists, and almost any solo musician. If we get fussy about etymology, a recital by definition would not be an exciting event, but simply a retelling of something created in the past. That would be the essence of an “Urtext” performance—playing the music as the composer would have played it (to the best of our research and ability) on an organ that the composer would have recognized from a score presumed to be as authentic as possible. It’s hard to fathom resisting the temptation to add any of yourself to that mix, and the best historically informed performances are those in which the player manages to inject his or her personality into the music, allowing the energy to flow, and projecting the excitement of the music. Bach, Buxtehude, and Bruhns were all great improvisers, and I bet their performances were bawdy and thrilling. Bach would have been the master at slipping Happy Birthday to a violinist during an offertory improvisation, no doubt in retrograde inversion and canon.
Using the strict definition, does a recital allow for any creativity? Is the performer licensed to add to the material being recited? Is the listener free to feel moved emotionally? I remember the terror of being required to recite a few verses of a Longfellow poem in elementary school. I was well into my thirties before I felt comfortable speaking before a large group.
We’ve all heard thrilling renditions of the great classics of organ literature. But haven’t we also heard boring, rote recitations of pieces when half the audience knows they could have done better? Is that the best way to project our magnificent, thrilling, all-encompassing instrument to the public?
As part of his concert on Tuesday, Stephen Tharp played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in F Major. That’s one of my life pieces—you know, those pieces you played for required student performances in school, the equivalent of final exams for organ performance majors. I worked on it for months, did a harmonic theoretical analysis of it, memorized it, and offered the longest performance on record because of those traps Bach left us where if you change a B-natural to a B-flat you jump back sixty measures! Stephen’s performance had none of that. All he did was give us an energetic rendition, clearly defining the architectural structure of the piece, sharing the trickery of canon and triple-invertible counterpoint in the relative minor, using Bach’s toccata-flourishes as bridges that connected those mile-post pillars. It was Bach’s music, clear as day, but it was Stephen’s performance. As he played, he showed us what he likes about the piece. I like it that way.
Stephen, along with many of our brilliant young players, is blessed with tremendous technical facility, honed and nurtured by countless hours of practice. I recall plenty of performances with enough shaky moments that I would worry as the player approached each treacherous passage. It’s hard to enjoy a performance if you can’t trust the performer. We are extremely fortunate to share the instrument with a growing breed of brilliant organist/musician/performers whose love of the instrument and musical instincts allow “just anyone” to appreciate the organ to the highest degree.

Be all you can be,
but be who you are
Tradition says that a symphony conductor mounts the podium with white tie and a cutaway jacket with tails. In the 1980s, Seiji Ozawa startled the conservative blue-blood crowd in Boston with his trademark white turtleneck shirts. Heresy. I’m sure he wasn’t the first to break tradition on those exalted steps, but he sure made a noise. In the 1960s and ’70s, E. Power Biggs and Virgil Fox carried on their celebrated feud, one in a tux, the other with sequins and a scarlet-lined black cape. What does the performer’s dress have to do with the performance? Does it make the music sound better? Does it help the audience understand the depth and excitement of the music? Does it help the performer define for his or her own self who and what is being given to the audience? Does it honor the dignity and majesty of playing great masterworks in a huge acoustic space?

§

When the visit was ending, I drove Stephen and Lena to the Portland International Jetport (international because of daily flights to Nova Scotia, jetport because they have jets!). We stopped in Portland for lunch and dropped in to St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral to see the Skinner organ as restored by the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut. It’s a modest four-manual organ with 47 ranks that include seven ranks in the chapel at the rear of the nave that doubles as the Echo of the Chancel organ. It’s a beautiful building, and the organ is a knockout. The Vox Angelica in the Echo absolutely disappears when the shutters are closed, and the full organ is a mighty blast of gorgeous tone. The extreme range of volume and the possibility of truly seamless crescendo from the softest (imaginable) string to the thrilling fortissimo and back again are perhaps the most impressive facets of the wonderful organs built by Ernest Skinner.
As Stephen played through countless combinations of stops, we reveled in the beauty of the sound. But it was hot. Remember, it was 98 degrees outside. It might have been five degrees cooler—or less hot—indoors, but it was hard to tell. The organ sure knew it was hot. The reeds, and especially the gorgeous harp, stayed right where they belonged, and the flues went to the heavens with a fiery tail. No worries. The stakes were not high, the organ sounded terrific, and we were the richer for the experience. The cathedral musician, Albert Melton—my colleague on the FOKO board—was on vacation and the office staff welcomed us warmly. Congratulations to Nick Thompson-Allen and Joe Dzeda and the staff of the Thompson-Allen Company for their wonderful work and obvious deep respect for Mr. Skinner. Congratulations to Albert and the people of St. Luke’s for their appreciation of the great artwork that is their organ.
Now let’s have some cooler weather. ■

John Bishop is executive director of the Organ Clearing House.

We’re havin’ a heat wave
It’s hot. I’m writing in mid-July from the coast of Maine, where we usually enjoy cool ocean breezes. But records are being set. It was 98 degrees in Portland yesterday and it’s 98 degrees at home today. I said ocean, didn’t I. That means humidity. A few minutes ago, the meteorologist on the radio said the humidity is “about as high as it can go.” Like most desk-days, I’m talking on the phone with people all over the country, and everyone says it’s terrible today. Electric utilities are limiting power even though they’re dealing with record high demands. Hospital emergency rooms are busier than normal. Several of the church offices I tried to call today had messages on their phones saying they had closed early in order to save energy.
For fun (or longing) I looked at the website of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to learn that while it’s 98 here, it’s in the high 60s in Nome, Alaska and around 70 in Helena, Montana. But it’s 90 in Detroit, 103 in New York City and 104 in Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania.

All those organs sounding terrible
Many churches have summer schedules during which the organ isn’t used much—a good thing, because when the weather gets hot, the pitch of flue pipes rises dramatically, while the reeds stay right where they are. I advise clients (and resist temptation myself) not to raise the pitch of reeds in the summer to match the rest of the organ. That’s how tuning scrolls get wrecked—you roll them down “into the quick,” as if you were trying to get a carp out of a sardine can, to match the pitch of the flues. Then in the winter when you try to get the reeds back to usual pitch the scrolls are torn. When a tuning scroll is damaged and “leaks,” the speech of the pipe is compromised.
If your church has “Church School Sunday” on the first Sunday in June, then summer services in the air-conditioned chapel (pretty common in New England Protestant churches), you’re fine. I played for almost twenty years at a church with exactly this schedule. It was a delight because there was no choir in the summer, and the services were an hour earlier. I was active in a sailing club in those days and we ran races every Sunday, so it was handy to be finished with church at 10 a.m. We moved the church’s wonderful piano from the sanctuary to the chapel each year so I could play on a “real” instrument for the summer—a great opportunity to keep my fingers around my piano repertory. The permanent instrument in the chapel was an aging and low-end electronic organ. Something about it meant that every A# in all the “stops” was out of tune and the dealer/technician said it couldn’t be fixed. There was a sprinkler head above it that never leaked.
The problem with this summer schedule at my church involved the huge and popular Sheraton resort nearby. A couple would book one of the banquet rooms for their wedding reception and ask the wedding consultant if there was a pretty church nearby. We had dozens of weddings. Not bad for the pocketbook, but couples who “booked” their weddings because ours was a “pretty church nearby” were often less devout than we might have wished and came with priorities counter to many of the church’s teachings. ‘Nuff said.
I might be scheduled to play ten or twelve weddings in July and August. The church had a large and attractive electro-pneumatic organ with plenty of reeds, and any organist knows how important reeds are to the standard wedding repertory. Think of all those eighteenth-century English trumpet tunes or that ubiquitous Mendelssohn march without reeds. If it was 80 degrees or less, the organ sounded okay. Much above that and the reeds couldn’t be used. And I would not tune them in temperatures higher than chamber temperatures at Christmas or Easter, when the furnace was running for days on end and the organ got good and hot. That was the limit. I’m not willing to wreck $75,000 worth of reeds for a wedding march. On a really hot summer Sunday you can play a perfectly respectable worship service without using the reeds.

§

It’s a privilege for me to serve on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Kotzschmar Organ (FOKO) in Portland, Maine. It’s one of two instruments in the country with a municipal organist on the bench (Ray Cornils in Portland and Carol Williams in San Diego, California) and it’s a popular beloved civic icon. It was built by Austin in 1912—the centennial year is coming up—and has 100 stops and five manuals. The people of FOKO work diligently to maintain the instrument and present up to twenty concerts each year with a variety of international stars. In addition, the organ is used in performances of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, Choral Arts Society, and for many high school and college graduations each year. You can see a full schedule of concerts, specifications of the organ, and information about educational activities at the website <www.foko.org&gt;.
Last week Stephen Tharp played a concert as part of the regular summer series. His program included some wonderful twentieth-century music, a couple of the big classics, and his own transcription of The Fair from Stravinsky’s Petrushka. Stephen has been voted 2011 International Performer of the Year by the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and will be presented in recital at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin in New York City as part of the chapter’s annual President’s Day Conference next February. That is the weekend before the beginning of Lent, a perfect time for a few days off between the high spots of the liturgical year. Come to New York for the conference. You’ll hear great musicians playing great organs. You can find details at <www.nycago.org&gt;.
Stephen and his wife Lena stayed with Wendy and me for a couple nights after the concert, and we had plenty of chance for shop-talk, carrying on about the state of organ teaching, performance, and building. Much of our talk focused on the philosophy of performance—what do we try to accomplish when we perform, what are the benefits for the performer and the audience? Many organists have two levels or venues for performance—worship and concert. Are they the same?
When we work from the organ bench on a Sunday morning, we are certainly trying to do our best, maybe even consciously hoping that the congregation (at least the personnel committee) is impressed. But our challenge is to focus our skills and diligence to enable the fullest communication between the congregants and God. It’s essential to do your very best, but it’s not appropriate for you to be feeding your ego.
I’m reminded of a story from the Johnson White House. President Johnson was presiding over a working lunch with members of Congress and foreign dignitaries. He asked his press secretary Bill Moyers (whose Ph.D. came from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas) to give a blessing as the meal began. Moyers folded his hands, bowed his head, and began. Johnson bellowed, “Speak up, I can’t hear you.” Moyers replied, “Mr. President, I wasn’t addressing you.”
When we perform on a concert stage or in recital at the church on a Sunday afternoon, we are working to create a harmonic unity between composer, performer, audience, and instrument. The performer who is inspired by the instrument and the music can bring the audience along on a magic carpet ride. What’s the energy that makes the carpet fly? It’s the energy that the performer draws from the experience and shares with everyone in the hall. Have you ever attended a concert and found that you were exhausted when it was over? That’s because the energy transmitted by the performer passed through your consciousness and body, sapping your energy in the process.
Have you ever wondered about the word recital? The dictionary in my Macbook says, “to read aloud or declaim from memory.” It’s a standard word in our organ lexicon, as well as those of singers, pianists, and almost any solo musician. If we get fussy about etymology, a recital by definition would not be an exciting event, but simply a retelling of something created in the past. That would be the essence of an “Urtext” performance—playing the music as the composer would have played it (to the best of our research and ability) on an organ that the composer would have recognized from a score presumed to be as authentic as possible. It’s hard to fathom resisting the temptation to add any of yourself to that mix, and the best historically informed performances are those in which the player manages to inject his or her personality into the music, allowing the energy to flow, and projecting the excitement of the music. Bach, Buxtehude, and Bruhns were all great improvisers, and I bet their performances were bawdy and thrilling. Bach would have been the master at slipping Happy Birthday to a violinist during an offertory improvisation, no doubt in retrograde inversion and canon.
Using the strict definition, does a recital allow for any creativity? Is the performer licensed to add to the material being recited? Is the listener free to feel moved emotionally? I remember the terror of being required to recite a few verses of a Longfellow poem in elementary school. I was well into my thirties before I felt comfortable speaking before a large group.
We’ve all heard thrilling renditions of the great classics of organ literature. But haven’t we also heard boring, rote recitations of pieces when half the audience knows they could have done better? Is that the best way to project our magnificent, thrilling, all-encompassing instrument to the public?
As part of his concert on Tuesday, Stephen Tharp played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in F Major. That’s one of my life pieces—you know, those pieces you played for required student performances in school, the equivalent of final exams for organ performance majors. I worked on it for months, did a harmonic theoretical analysis of it, memorized it, and offered the longest performance on record because of those traps Bach left us where if you change a B-natural to a B-flat you jump back sixty measures! Stephen’s performance had none of that. All he did was give us an energetic rendition, clearly defining the architectural structure of the piece, sharing the trickery of canon and triple-invertible counterpoint in the relative minor, using Bach’s toccata-flourishes as bridges that connected those mile-post pillars. It was Bach’s music, clear as day, but it was Stephen’s performance. As he played, he showed us what he likes about the piece. I like it that way.
Stephen, along with many of our brilliant young players, is blessed with tremendous technical facility, honed and nurtured by countless hours of practice. I recall plenty of performances with enough shaky moments that I would worry as the player approached each treacherous passage. It’s hard to enjoy a performance if you can’t trust the performer. We are extremely fortunate to share the instrument with a growing breed of brilliant organist/musician/performers whose love of the instrument and musical instincts allow “just anyone” to appreciate the organ to the highest degree.

Be all you can be,
but be who you are
Tradition says that a symphony conductor mounts the podium with white tie and a cutaway jacket with tails. In the 1980s, Seiji Ozawa startled the conservative blue-blood crowd in Boston with his trademark white turtleneck shirts. Heresy. I’m sure he wasn’t the first to break tradition on those exalted steps, but he sure made a noise. In the 1960s and ’70s, E. Power Biggs and Virgil Fox carried on their celebrated feud, one in a tux, the other with sequins and a scarlet-lined black cape. What does the performer’s dress have to do with the performance? Does it make the music sound better? Does it help the audience understand the depth and excitement of the music? Does it help the performer define for his or her own self who and what is being given to the audience? Does it honor the dignity and majesty of playing great masterworks in a huge acoustic space?

§

When the visit was ending, I drove Stephen and Lena to the Portland International Jetport (international because of daily flights to Nova Scotia, jetport because they have jets!). We stopped in Portland for lunch and dropped in to St. Luke’s Episcopal Cathedral to see the Skinner organ as restored by the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut. It’s a modest four-manual organ with 47 ranks that include seven ranks in the chapel at the rear of the nave that doubles as the Echo of the Chancel organ. It’s a beautiful building, and the organ is a knockout. The Vox Angelica in the Echo absolutely disappears when the shutters are closed, and the full organ is a mighty blast of gorgeous tone. The extreme range of volume and the possibility of truly seamless crescendo from the softest (imaginable) string to the thrilling fortissimo and back again are perhaps the most impressive facets of the wonderful organs built by Ernest Skinner.
As Stephen played through countless combinations of stops, we reveled in the beauty of the sound. But it was hot. Remember, it was 98 degrees outside. It might have been five degrees cooler—or less hot—indoors, but it was hard to tell. The organ sure knew it was hot. The reeds, and especially the gorgeous harp, stayed right where they belonged, and the flues went to the heavens with a fiery tail. No worries. The stakes were not high, the organ sounded terrific, and we were the richer for the experience. The cathedral musician, Albert Melton—my colleague on the FOKO board—was on vacation and the office staff welcomed us warmly. Congratulations to Nick Thompson-Allen and Joe Dzeda and the staff of the Thompson-Allen Company for their wonderful work and obvious deep respect for Mr. Skinner. Congratulations to Albert and the people of St. Luke’s for their appreciation of the great artwork that is their organ.
Now let’s have some cooler weather. 

Lewis & Hitchcock, Inc. has installed an Aeolian-Skinner organ in the residence of Patrick Allen of New York City. The organ is Opus 1128 of Aeolian-Skinner, built in 1947 for Room 424 of the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, where it was used as a practice instrument. When the organ became available, Dr. Allen, who had practiced on this organ while a student, purchased it and contracted with Lewis & Hitchcock to remove the organ, restore it, modify it to fit his apartment, and to install it. The drawknob console is located in his living room at the foot of the stairs leading to the second floor; the organ is installed in a former bedroom on the second floor, facing the stairs. Dr. Allen is organist and master of choristers of Grace Episcopal Church, Lower Broadway.

GREAT
8′ Bourdon 61 pipes
4′ Principal 61 pipes
Great to Great 4′

SWELL
8′ Viole de Gambe 61 pipes
4′ Gemshorn 61 pipes
8′ Hautbois 61 pipes
Swell to Swell 16′
Swell to Swell 4′

PEDAL
16′ Bourdon 32 pipes
8′ Spitz Principal 32 pipes
4′ Flute 32 pipes
Couplers
Great to Pedal 8′
Swell to Pedal 8′
Swell to Pedal 4′

Swell to Great 16′
Swell to Great 8′
Swell to Great 4′

Pistons (preset at the factory)
3 General, 2 Great, 2 Swell, SFZ and General Cancel

Toe Studs: 2 Pedal, Great to Pedal and SFZ

Shoes: Swell & Crescendo

The organ is listed on the NYC AGO Organs pages: <www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/ResAllenP.html&gt;

Photo credit: Steven E. Lawson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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