Sense and Nonsense about Silent Finger Substitution and Pedal Technique in the Nineteenth Century*

Evidence of Baroque Practices

by Johannes Geffert

The pedagogy of organ performance must deal with the tension between playing technique and musical interpretation. On the one hand, all physical possibilities of playing ought to be developed, trained, and educated in a most intensive and versatile manner. On the other hand, musical interpretation demands a specially and carefully selected playing technique.

 

Since organ lessons usually follow several years of thorough piano study, playing on the manuals does not pose many problems at first, even when historical fingering (early fingering) is used. However it is a completely different matter when learning to play the pedal clavier. In wide sections of the organ world the opinion is generally accepted that in the organ music of the baroque and classical periods the pedals are to be played only with the toe of the shoe. A beginner whose repertory consists primarily of works from these early periods fails to develop a versatile technique that adequately serves pedal playing for subsequent periods which require both heels and toes.

I have observed that in my classes in improvisation, the most common limitation that impedes artistic abilities is a lack of a fluent pedal technique. This ubiquitous problem has led me to search for historical sources and to read most carefully and critically such writings in order to examine the arguments which furnish the reasons for toe-playing of music from the baroque era.  The very first sources mentioned in specialized literature which deal with questions of pedal application in detail are:

Johann Samuel Petri (1738-1808): Anleitung zur praktischen Musik (Guide to Musical Practice), Leipzig 1767/1; 1782/2, facsimile, Verlag Katzbichler, Giebing 1969.

Daniel Gottlob Türk (1750-1813): Beytrag von den wichtigsten Pflichten eines Organisten (On the Most Important Duties of an Organist), Halle 1787, facsimile Frits Knufs, Hilversum 1966.

Justin Heinrich Knecht (1752-1817): Vollständige Orgelschule (Complete Organ School), Leipzig 1795, facsimile, Breitkopf und Härtel, Wiesbaden 1989.

Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809): Der angehende praktische Organist (The Beginning Practical Organist), Erfurt 1801, facsimile, Frits Knufs, Buren 1981.

J. C. Kittel: Choralbuch für Schleswig Holstein (Choral-Book of Schleswig-Holstein), Altona 1803.

Johann Samuel Petri

Petri sees himself for all practical purposes as a self-taught organist. Although he was brought up in musical surroundings--his father had first been a cantor, and his uncle had applied for the position of cantor of St. Thomas, Leipzig in 1755--he was not allowed to begin keyboard lessons until the age of sixteen. Such a late start on the clavichord had to be a hindrance to his technical facility. After only nine months' instruction Petri took over his teacher's post as organist following his mentor's death. Thus he became an organist without a thorough grounding in organ technique. Such laxness in making appointments appears to have been a common practice of the times, underscored by comments found in the writings of Türk, Knecht, and Kittel. The young Petri was not only an organist but also played the flute and stringed instruments, and even tried his hand at composing.  In 1762 he was appointed music teacher in Halle where he met Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. He wrote in his Anleitungen: "Mr. Bach from Halle, whose friendship and teaching I myself have had the benefit of in 1762 and 1763, is the most powerful organ player I have ever heard."1

So we safely assume that in Petri's Anleitungen the considerable number of eighteen pages which concern the playing of the pedals and which surpass many times over the comparatively poor directions given by Türk and Kittel was influenced by his contact with W. F. Bach. Petri's examples given in the Anleitungen are extensive and virtuosic, and they exhibit a freer and more artistic shaping than those of Knecht whose exercises are more schematic. At the beginning of his book Petri writes: " . . . so the organist should be allowed to display all of his artistic skill at a wedding ceremony, after the service or before the Te Deum and should be heard playing fiery and animated preludes, fugues and pedal solos with the full organ . . ."2 As do his later colleagues in their organ methods, Petri begins his instructions with pedal scales. In his preliminary remarks dealing with pedalling he quite naturally refers to using the heel according to his rule: " . . . depending on the position of the keys one foot may be used successively several times." (See Example 1)

Following that, he goes on to describe the under-and-over placing of the feet and also a so-called "footshoving." The latter is used when it is not possible to place one foot underneath the other one. (See Example 2)

Petri's demands concerning fluent pedal playing are stringent: " . . . pedal application for runs therefore have to be learned first."3 He also demands versatility: "But does one always know beforehand on which key or the other one will end up? Thus to be on the safe side you should be prepared for all cases."4 He favors using different pedal formulae: " . . . so that the beginner does not get used to only one alone."5

Petri's extremely different pedallings which he applies to scales fortify the impression of a talented, practical, and efficient self-taught organist rather than that of a methodically trained professional pedagogue. In cases in which his pedallings (with the heel!) do not please he advises: " . . . use the feet alternately although in some cases . . . it is a little troublesome."6 Obviously Petri reckons toe-playing to be a mere simplification of a fully differentiated and elaborate pedal technique!

On the whole Petri makes high de-mands upon pedal-playing: " . . . runs like rolls or barrels and semicircles," " . . . leaps in which the feet must climb about each other in a crosswise manner several times," " . . . polyphonic and mixed pedallings." In this connection Petri refers to possible difficulties when playing intervals with one foot owing to a "too short shoe."

Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart also comments upon special shoes for organ-playing and heel-playing in his book Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1784) (Ideas on the Aesthetics of Music).

Playing the pedals poses great difficulties, owing to both its immense power as well as its varying nature. You may seldom use the right foot as you do the left, because the one really belongs to the sphere of the violoncello obbligato and the other borders the nature of the violon and the bass trombone. One has to have one's own shoes made for playing the pedals, making the heels very high so that one can play thirds and even fourths by leaping. Otherwise, the theory of playing the pedals is the same as the basso continuo.7

Schubart also describes W. Fr. Bach: 

. . . doubtless the greatest organist in the world! . . . his organ playing matches or even surpasses that of his father's . . . Besides his great father no one else has ever reigned over the pedals with such an omnipotence as he has. He takes up a fugue subject with his feet, makes mordents and trills with his feet and is able to dazzle even the largest audience by his ability to play the pedals.8

Does not Petri in his versatile and practical approach to pedal-playing, and the fact that he was a student of the brilliant W. Fr. Bach place him in the same "Bach tradition" attributed to Kittel? Burney even calls Schubart "scholar of the Bach school . . . He was an organist in Ulm for some time."

Daniel Gottlob Türk

Turning to Türk, one finds little information about his training on the organ. Records show that he was taught music at the Kreuzschule in Dresden by Homilius, a Bach scholar, and he had piano lessons for three months with Johann Wilhelm Hässler. In chronicles written by Scherder of Altenbruch it is revealed that Türk took up music late in life--in fact only after he completed his apprenticeship to a draper and served for years as a journeyman in that business.9 Nevertheless, he was appointed organist of the well-known Frauenkirche in Halle in 1787. In his Beytrag von den wichtigsten Pflichten eines Organisten (On the Most Important Duties of an Organist), Türk relegated pedal instruction to a mere three pages, and he describes ways of playing a few scales, but advises organists who are beyond that low level to skip them.10 On the whole, the bulk of his writing was aimed at "improving the musical liturgy" and is meant for schoolmasters, preachers, church committees, and persons who choose to become liturgical organists. The intention of teaching a person to become a competent artistic or virtuosic musician was evidently not in his thinking! Türk gives an example to show "where both parts of each foot are needed" and refers to Petri. (See Example 311)

Türk writes:

It does not suffice to play the low registers with the left, and the higher ones with the right foot, because this would cause an incoherence and leave many gaps, even at a moderate pace. [This can be interpreted as being in favor of playing cantabile tending towards a true legato.] . . . In fact each foot acts as two fingers; because you play with the toe (front part) and with the heel [!]. Training continuously in this manner one may reach a quite high level of dexterity.12

It would be difficult to discern exactly what Türk classified as real pedal dexterity. However, as exemplified by Türk himself, organ-playing was at a very low level both in rural and in urban regions: "Many a person has the silly custom of resting his foot on the pedal throughout his most tasteless runs. This results in most hideous dissonances and everything ends up as a motley jumble."13 His advice for accompanying instrumental music is also highly significant: "It is better not to play with the pedal those passages which are very rapid, especially the runs, and which you cannot shape in a clearly distinct and 'round' manner; instead, these should preferably be played with the left hand."14 Türk writes in his introduction what he demands from a good organist: good choral (hymn) playing, a thorough knowledge of the basso continuo, and the ability to play good and appropriate preludes.

Justin Heinrich Knecht

Knecht denounces the technique of touching the pedals lightly for single notes, a performance practice that Petri did not condone: " . . . therefore an organist must be careful to express everything by the pedals in order to avoid a gap here and a gap there."15 The first volume of Knecht's organ method, which is of interest here, was published in 1795. For the first time a formally trained organist with a technique based upon virtuosic expectations comes up with a didactic work. Naturally it stresses basic playing techniques. As a student of Vogler, Knecht already belongs stylistically to a different musical world, a fact which promptly arouses Türk's criticism. Knecht devotes his attention to proper development of pedal technique and related matters for eleven pages, and he addresses his teaching not only to beginners but also to the more advanced players.

It is curious to note that he attacks problems of pedalling from two perspectives: one for the organist who is required to play upon a pedalboard of only an octave or a little more, and one for the fortunate person who had a full pedalboard of twenty-five or more notes. For the former, he advises a rigorous toe-playing approach. It was easier on a small pedal clavier to use toes, alternating feet as much as possible. On such a limited span of pedal keys either foot could play any note. For the latter, the pedalboard of at least two octaves, it was physically difficult for the right foot to reach the low end and vice versa.16, 17

Knecht himself did not consider pedalling with "toes only" a sensible practice on a full length pedalboard as is now the case in many quarters today. He therefore describes a second kind:

According to this [second kind] when playing an ascending scale passage one places the toe on a pedal key and turns the heel towards the next key in order to press it down with the heel. Then one turns the toe towards the third key and thus continues using alternately heel and toe . . . depending on the position of the upper keys of the pedals one has to use the heel more often . . . One should train oneself to use this pedalling which is to be preferred to the first [toes only] in every respect, and which the great organist Vogler mostly used.18

In addition, Knecht makes it a rule: "Except in cases of urgency, beware of pressing the upper note with the heel or hopping from one key to the other with the toe."19

As exceptions Knecht then brings forth examples of scales in which two consecutive upper keys are played by the toe of the same foot and even a scale in which an upper key is played with heel.20 Note the high G-sharp in the example below, a possibility which even the most ardent advocate of heel-playing might find questionable and uncomfortable. (See Example 4)

Knecht summarizes: "If one combines both pedallings a third one emerges which is the most convenient and which also has practical advantages."21 In his final exercises for polyphonic pedal-playing he gives additional instructions as to the choice of heel or toe to generate a strict legato.

Considering all of the aforementioned, it is safe to assume that Knecht was a highly skilled organist. His musical sensibilities evidently prompted him to pay attention to the danger of allowing the pedal to interfere with the overall musical fabric when dealing with contrapuntal music. "Using the pedal too much, especially when holding deep and low sounds fills the ear too much and becomes monotonous."22 According to Knecht it usually suffices "when one touches the pedals lightly to stress the main notes in order not to darken a melody or an outstanding delicate accompaniment by a continuous droning of the pedal."23 This was not a new idea, having already been mentioned in 1710 by Friedrich Erhard Niedt in his book Musicalischen Handleitung.24

Johann Christian Kittel

Turning to Kittel, we learn that his writings are considered to have special importance since he is known to have had lessons with J. S. Bach for two years when he was sixteen years old. Kittel does not favor us with any information about pedal playing technique passed on to him by the great master himself. He mentions only that he received instructions for composing music and for playing the 'Clavier'.25 Assuming that all keyboard instruments were covered by the term 'Clavier' his organ studies were not touched upon as being special. This is why Forkel writes about him later: "He is a thorough (although not a very dextrous) organ player."26

It is very interesting that in his instruction book Der angehende praktische Organist (The Beginning Practical Organist), Kittel does not give any practical explanation for performing nor does he supply any exercises for the novice. His book rather elaborates upon the theological, artistic, and aesthetic values necessary for playing the organ effectively in church. In this context he explains numerous rules dealing with figured bass and the theory of composition which underlie the matter of accompanying the German chorals. This is the only context which Kittel touches when he mentions a "method which is completely formed along the principles of Bach."27 Also, his account of having 'lessons' (Unterricht) with Bach28 refers solely to this context.

Yet, his own compositions reveal that he wrote in a simpler, sensitive and galant style, especially from an aesthetic point of view; Bach's former student had moved quite a distance away from his teacher. Kittel describes music as a language of sensitivity:

Happy is he who was given by nature and science the power of the Almighty to move, to heighten and to lead the hearts of thousands closer towards the Supreme Being by his playing . . . Lo, these tears of affection which are the most holy ones to be shed, these hearts so moved all wave up to God and you are the one who made flow these tears and moved these hearts . . . Reflect diligently upon the purpose of your playing, and always try to improve your moral behavior . . .  the character of organ playing is strength, cordiality, dignity, solemn earnestness, majesty.29

Even though these objectives are disdained in many circles today, in my opinion they are not evidence of a decay in church music. (Every kind of theology forms its own corresponding music.) However, concerning Kittel's ideas here, there is nothing much left of the school and tradition of J. S. Bach.

There was a good and practical reason for Kittel to write his book for beginners: the level of organ playing in Germany was extremely bad in all but the largest metropolitan centers. Proof of this can be found in another writing of Kittel: the Choralbuch für Schleswig Holstein, Altona 1803. Kittel describes the same applications for the pedals as Knecht does: the exclusive toe-playing with alternating feet, here called the "first and superior" kind, and the second kind which is to play with toe and heel of the same foot, here called the "older way." He warns of using the latter, however, "because one may easily destroy the pedal keyboard by clumsy usage. This second way may be used with the first (toe) method, but the first is to be preferred in all respects."30 One can estimate the quality of his fellow organists when it can be seen that he has to explain the distribution of the four parts of the choral for the two hands!

Summary and analysis

Surveying the teaching literature chronologically, I am convinced that it was deemed necessary and of great importance to provide help for organists who had no means of serious organ study and who depended largely upon self-help method books for private study. We cannot draw valid conclusions about the playing proficiency of all four writers dealt with so far. We know that Knecht and Petri held respectable positions and wrote studies that would have been helpful to even advanced players. Türk and Kittel, on the other hand, were concerned primarily with the liturgical aspect of organ playing. They act not as experienced organists drawing upon a rich vein of professional training as performers upon the organ, but as high clerical officials with that as their primary station in life--not first and foremost performers.

The first author, Petri, still deals quite naturally with heel playing, and his demands upon pedal dexterity are the most extensive of all. Kittel, the last author of the four, favors and demands the playing of the pedals with toes only, but we must not forget that his words were directed at the beginner and the untrained.

In my opinion the reasons are less to be found in a historical tradition than in pedagogic aims. At the end of the 18th century the duties of appointed teachers and organists were being merged. "The union of school and church offices hopelessly overburdened the musician-educators, and the situation corresponded to the union of throne and altar."31 The education of teachers thus implied obligatory organ study, whether the future teacher was talented and willing or not. "In many cases this was not in the least appropriate for creating qualified organists."32 "Someone who could already accompany the chorals regularly with the organ, without pedals, was considered in some rural districts to be an advanced organist."33

At the end of his book, Der angehende praktische Organist, Kittel writes:

Many organists do not have any knowledge of music theory. Their art on the whole is limited to making scanty work of a choral and to playing an easy and studied prelude or postlude without faltering or stumbling. To be fair, one cannot demand much more from any single man who should at the same time be an organist, a teacher, and maybe a verger, and who never has had the benefit of a scholarly education . . . and who is troubled by poor domestic circumstances.34

Seen from this angle, Kittel's pedalling directions can be understood in a completely different light: using the toes for the pedals is undoubtedly the easiest and most natural way for beginners. Kittel's strong emphasis on toe playing and his warning about damaging the pedalboard when using the heel is aimed at those poor students who were totally without talent or the time to develop a genuine technique. Regular pedal exercises would undoubtedly have brought forth a different and more musical pedalling.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to obtain any knowledge about J. S. Bach's pedal playing from these available sources with which we have been dealing. Forkel describes Bach's pedal technique from the viewpoint of a later generation:

Bach . . . used . . . the pedal obbligato in a way known to very few organists. He did not only pedal the ground tones (bass notes) or the lowest notes ordinarily played by the fifth finger of the left hand, but played a complete melody with his feet which was of such a nature that others would scarcely have been able to play it with their five fingers.35

A contemporary of Bach by the name of Mitzler praises him: "With his two feet he was able to execute passages of a kind that would have given many a skillful player of the keyboard great pains to negotiate with his five fingers."36 Gerber writes: "His feet had to imitate every subject and every passage which the hands had played beforehand. No appoggiatura, no mordent, no tied trill was allowed to be missed or to sound less nice and round."37 A certain Bruggaier recorded: "J. S. Bach is singularly outstanding concerning his most skillful usage of the organ pedals."38 In another instance he continues: "Bach's double pedal playing originates from the same disposition as do fugues for solo violin. Both are an expression of an instinct for virtuoso performance which sometimes ignores technical limits."39

The only instructions for using toe pedalling ascribed to J. S. Bach himself come from his student Tobias Krebs.40 Krebs' comments, however, I am compelled to analyze in the same context as those of Kittel's pedal instructions: as a guide for neophyte organists, often forced to teach themselves. Albrecht writes about a toe-heel technique learned from Johann Caspar Vogler who was also a student of Bach.41

In all likelihood, those organists who were able to play the organ, including pedals, in true virtuosic style during the baroque era numbered only a few. Among the organists from Tunder to Krebs (1630-1780) one can find only a handful with a pedal technique that well-trained organists today take for granted. Because of this fact it is impossible to point to any scheme or course of study of that time that could have brought about widespread technical proficiency in pedal playing. Those who excelled were gifted and were persons of vision. A survey of the organ music of the period in question reveals that the bulk of it does not require a facile pedal technique and can be played most easily using only toes. It is the monumental and demanding masterpieces of the few that prompt us to doubt the efficacy of following the "toes only" plan for all baroque pieces.

Historical research uncovers other good reasons for widespread pedalling using only toes. Many of the old organs had pedalboards of such varying dimensions that a universal technique was out of the question. Many historic organs are indeed impossible to play using heels for the simple reason that the pedal dimensions preclude it. The pedals are too short, front to back, for anything but toes, and often the console layout made the player sit in a rather unbalanced position that would have prevented using heels. In spite of these drawbacks, in some situations it is possible for the expertly trained organist to use heels occasionally. So much de-pends upon such things as size of the foot, height of the player, as well as the training. In all of the writings to be found, only one person, Eduard Bruggaier, gives specific details about pedalboards and their dimensions.42 According to the results of his measuring the long keys of the Compenius organ in Frederiksborg (43 cm) or those of Gottfried Silbermann (55 cm) it would be possible to play with the heels, even with the size of our feet nowadays. In any case, I am confident that if there is enough space to pass one foot over or under the other for toe-playing, there is also space enough for using the heel on the keys.

Many sources document that even when historic organs were being built, undersized pedalboards provoked anger and criticism by the true virtuoso players. Of course, such organists were the tiny minority. Arnolt Schlick wrote in Spiegel der Orgelmacher und Organisten in 1511: "So do not make the pedal keys too slim or too broad, but take a reasonable common measurement for the usage of everyone so that he may strike two parts with one foot . . . the sharp key of the pedals should not stand upwards at the end, but be even."43

Jacob Adlung from Erfurt, a predecessor of Kittel, wrote about the keys:

The keys should not be too short, because the feet are otherwise not able to be placed one after the other comfortably. The width of the keyboard has to be the same in every other organ, because it would be annoying having to change the accustomed way of playing for each organ. It should be possible to reach the outer keys without trouble when sitting in the middle, and furthermore having enough room for the feet.44

Again:

The whole pedalboard should be in-stalled a little inwards, because if one wanted to play something special, it would otherwise not be possible to move. The reason for this is that feet sometimes have to follow each other and there must be enough room for them. If you want to gain space by setting the bench farther away, the manual would be too far away to play . . . Such players who do not make much fuss about the pedals do not need such de-vices: however, one has to build in such a manner that it is convenient for a wide range of players . . . Also the lightness of touch is to be praised . . . times change; nowadays one wants to play two or three tailed notes [sixteenth or thirty-second notes] which one also should be able to slur.45

In the organ method book of Johann Gottlob Werner it is printed: "It is preferred to make the pedal keys out of oak wood and to adjust the length in such a manner that it is convenient to place one foot after the other . . . It should also be considered that proceeding with the toe and heel of one foot should be possible in a most convenient way."46

Johann Christian Wolfram writes:

In cases in which the organist is obliged to stretch far out to reach the manual and consequently is in constant danger of falling off the bench or if the manual is too close, too low, or too high . . . in all these cases the manuals have been installed wrongly, because it hinders good and convenient playing. It is incredible how unconcerned our good ancestors were in this respect[!]. One finds old organs at which the poor organists must have made a quite comical figure!47

When writing his book, Wolfram "had in mind the organists and rural school teachers who in most places performed the duties of the church organist."48

People everywhere were lamenting the poor organ playing in the churches and also were criticizing bad organ construction. From the point of view of the poor organ builders, it was quite probable that they had to build the minimum instrument for the situation, considering that the church would not spend more money than was necessary and their instruments were to be played by organists quite pedestrian in capabilities. Pedalboards did not have to be complete and versatile divisions for the run-of-the-mill usage.

In the end, perhaps one should even be allowed to point out that 200 years ago people generally were of smaller stature. According to a study by Professor George Kenntner49 the average height has increased by 20 cm (7 7⁄8 inches) from 1750 to today. Therefore, what we consider too-small pedalboards today might not have been such a problem then.

Always of great interest are the questions as to whether musicians and musical aesthetics helped to develop the art of organ building or whether the latter brought on styles of playing, or whether compositions helped develop technical improvements in the instrument or vice versa. How extremely different are the historic instruments from each other in cases in which we can be certain the old organ has not been altered. Just a few examples: Some actions are quite easy to play while others on the contrary are almost impossible because of the hard action; wind may be steady, even under full organ, whereas a neighboring organ has wind so shaky that it is truly an abomination; organs are tuned to different intonations, so a piece of music that sounds right on one will sound ugly on another; organs with short octaves allow the hand to span a tenth with ease, while on a standard keyboard that is not possible for many players; the compass of the keyboards vary in range as much as an octave. In short, organ playing is always a new experience and depends completely upon the individual instrument and its location.

Thus, a true historical interpretation, applying the most detailed knowledge possible, about practical performing conditions would be nothing more than a mere attempt to find the 'best' solution for the individual instrument, and let us admit that after all is said and done, the musical outcome is in the hands and feet of the organist interpreting the music.

When I teach pedal playing I sympathize with Petri: One has to be 'armed' to encounter all kinds of pedalboards, all shapes and styles. I believe that a pure application of toe-playing must be understood and practiced, but not to cling to it rigorously. To understand it is necessary to employ it to make musical sense: " . . . a secure and effortless technique will free the player to concentrate on playing more musically and communicating with the listener . . . "50 This in fact is the whole point: to let the music speak, and not be overly compelled to adhere to narrow views on toe or heel.

Prepared for publication in English by Emmet G. Smith, Fort Worth, Texas.

Notes

                  1.              Petri, Anleitungen sur praktischen Musik, p. 101.

                  2.              Petri, loc. cit., p. 298.

                  3.              Petri, loc. cit., p. 315.

                  4.              Petri, loc. cit., p. 317–318.

                  5.              Petri, loc. cit., p. 321.

                  6.              Petri, loc. cit., p. 321.

                  7.              Ch. F. D. Schubart, Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst, Verlag Reclam, Leipzig 1784/1, p. 220.

                  8.              Ch. F. D. Schubart, loc. cit., p. 96.

                  9.              According to G. Fock, Zur Biographie J. Kittels, in Bachjahrbuch 1962.

                  10.           Türk, Von den wichtigsten Pflichten eines Organisten, loc. cit., p. 158.

                  11.           Türk, loc. cit., p. 159.

                  12.           Türk, loc. cit., p. 158.

                  13.           Türk, loc. cit., p. 158.

                  14.           Türk, loc. cit., p. 107.

                  15.           Türk, loc. cit., p. 314.

                  16.           See Knecht, Vollstandige Orgelschule, loc. cit., vol. l, p. 45.

                  17.           See Christian Namberger, Untersuchungen zu ergonomischen Optimirung von Orgelspielanlagen, Verlags-GmbH Kleinbittersdorf, 1999.

                  18.           Knecht, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 47.

                  19.           Knecht, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 48.

                  20.           Ibid.

                  21.           Knecht, loc. cit., vol. 1, p. 51.

                  22.           Knecht, loc. cit., vol. 1, p. 85.

                  23.           Knecht, loc. cit., vol. 1, p. 81.

                  24.           Friedrich Erhard Niedt, Musicalische Handleitung, Hamburg, 1710, facsimile, Frits Knuf, Buren, 1976, Chap. IV, p. 43.

                  25.           Letter to the 'Consistorium' in Zeitz in 1756.

                  26.           Johann Nikolaus Forkel, J. S. Bach, facsimile edition, Frankfurt, 1950, p. 43.

                  27.           Kittel, Der angehende praktische Organist, Preface.

                  28.           Kittel, loc. cit., 3. part.

                  29.           Kittel, loc. cit., Introduction, p. 4ff.

                  30.           Cited by Knufs facsimile, p. 65.

                  31.           Arnfried Edler, Typen des protestantischen Kantors im 19. Jahrhundert und ihre Musik, in Zur Orgelmusik im 19. Jahrhundert, Verlag Helbling, Innsbruck, 1983, p. 17.

                  32.           Ibid.

                  33.           Arnfried Edler, loc. cit., p. 17.

                  34.           Kittel, Der angehende praktische Organist, loc. cit., 2. part, p. 95.

                  35.           Johann Nikolaus Forkel, J. S. Bach, loc. cit., p. 37.

                  36.           Musicalische Bibliothek, IV, l, p. 172. Cited by Peter Krams, Wechselwirkungen zwischen Orgelkomposition und Pedalspieltechnik, Wiesbaden, 1974, p. 67.

                  37.           Ernst-Ludwig Gerber, Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Tonkünstler, Leipzig, 1812/14, vol. I, p. 90; cited by Peter Krams, ibid.

                  38.           Eduard Bruggaier, Studien zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels in Deutschland bis zur Zeit Johann Sebastian Bach, dissertation, Frankfurt, 1959, p. 137.

                  39.           Bruggaier, loc. cit., p. 149.

                  40.           See Klotz, Orgelspiel, in MGG, vol. 10, col. 389.

                  41.           Christoph Albrecht, Zur Artikulation Bachscher Orgelwerk, in Der Kirchenmusiker, 1988, p. 3.

                  42.           See Bruggaier, loc. cit.

                  43.           Cited by Peter Krams, Wechselwirkungen, loc. cit.

                  44.           Jacob Adlung, Anleitung zu der musicalischen Gelahrtheit, Erfurt, 1758, facsimile, Bärenreiter, 1953, p. 359.

                  45.           Musica mechanica II, p. 26, cited by E. Bruggaier, loc. cit.

                  46.           Johann Gottlob Werner, Orgelschule, Penig, 1807, p. 31.

                  47.           Johann Christian Wolfram, Anleitung zur Kenntniss, Beurtheilung und Erhaltung der Orgeln, Gotha, 1815, facsimile, Frits Knuf, Amsterdam, 1962, p. 117.

                  48.           J. Ch. Wolfram, loc. cit., Prologue VI.

                  49.           George Kenntner, article in Friedericiana, Zeitschrift der Universität Karlsruhe, part 46.

                  50.           Gerard Brooks, Your Feets Too Big, in Organists' Review, August, 1997.   

About heel playing (with many exercises), and dealing briefly with double pedal and with pedal substitution

Gavin Black

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Organ Method VIII

This month’s excerpt continues the discussion of heel playing, with many exercises. It then deals briefly with double pedal and with pedal substitution. This wraps up the chapter on pedal playing as such. The next part of the method is about manual playing—aspects of keyboard technique specific to organ, and ways of getting comfortable at the organ keyboard for players who come from a piano or harpsichord background. Later on I will deal with putting hands and feet together, and with overall organ practice techniques and habits.

 

Here are several other exercises along similar lines. Each one gives you the chance to try out the heels with a different note pattern. For the moment, the principle that the toes take the raised keys and the heels take the natural keys remains (Examples 1 and 2).

In the six short exercises above, I have provided pedalings that allow each foot to play notes that are in the region of the pedal keyboard where that foot automatically falls as you sit on the bench. However, these very same note patterns can also be played by the opposite feet, as follows (Examples 3 and 4).

Each of the gestures in these exercises—playing a natural note with the heel after having played a sharp or a flat with the toe, then again playing a sharp or flat (the same one or a different one) with the toe, turning the foot—feels different and of course requires different planning, depending on which foot is involved. It is not necessarily true that a gesture is easier or more natural if it is carried out by the foot that is “proper” to the side of the keyboard where the notes are found. As you play these exercises notice whether you find the note patterns easier with one foot or with the other. Also notice which exercises, with which pedaling, can most easily be played legato. In some cases it may seem nearly impossible to keep a full legato through the turns of the foot. However, after you have practiced the exercise enough with detached articulation, and your feet have become adept at following the shape of the notes, the execution of the same exercise with full legato may begin to seem possible. This will vary from one player to another. (Note: do not try to connect notes with a strong legato in these exercises if doing so is awkward or creates tension in the feet, legs, or ankles.)

 

Posture

Everything about your posture will affect how you carry out these exercises: that is, which parts of the toe and heel region of each foot you actually bring in contact with the keys. You must pay attention to this and work it out consciously for yourself. It is different for each player. In general, as with the “toes only” exercises, the more that you prefer to hold your knees close to each other, the more you will find it comfortable to play from the inside of the foot; the more that you prefer to let your knees move away from the center and follow the feet towards the notes, the more you will find it comfortable to play with the outside of the foot. However, this varies greatly with individual posture and physique. Only you, the player, can figure out what works best for you.

The following exercises ask the foot to span slightly longer distances between the toe and the heel—still with the toes playing the sharps and flats, and the heels playing the naturals (Examples 5 and 6). Again you can try these note patterns with the feet reversed, as in the following (Examples 7 and 8), and so on.

This might seem like a bit of a stretch. It will certainly be necessary to turn the body a lot to reach the opposite sides of the keyboard with the heels. Each of these exercises should be done slowly, paying maximum attention to foot position, especially during any turns.

The next step is to use the heel on natural notes following the use of the toe on other nearby natural notes. This feels different from playing a natural with the heel when the toe has just been on a sharp or flat. The angles at which the feet need to be held are different. The following exercises begin to address this sort of playing (Examples 9 and 10).

These should be played slowly and, at first, non-legato. As you become comfortable with the shapes of the gestures you can try connecting the notes. You may find some of the pedalings in these exercises uncomfortable. Again, this is something that varies with the posture and physique of the player. If you do, then move away from that exercise for now. It may (or may not) feel more comfortable later. You should make up short exercises of your own in which you play simple chains of notes with alternating toe and heel, or with irregular patterns of toe and heel.

 

Toe and heel together 

Here is an example of a short phrase in which toes and heels can used in an irregular pattern geared to the shape of the particular melody (Examples 11, 12, 13, and 14). I give it, however, with four different pedalings. Which one do you like best? Can you devise another that you like better?

After you have become comfortable with the basic gesture of playing successive notes with the toe and heel, you can begin to look at pedal passages from the repertoire in which a combination of toe and heel pedaling can be used. (Note that it is rare for a passage to be played with heels only. Any passage that is best played without the application of alternating toe and heel is normally played with toes alone, not heels alone. Also, the heels rarely play raised keys, so any passage that is not all-naturals will be played either by toes alone or by a combination of toe and heel.) 

Here are two examples of such passages, with possible pedalings. The first is from Franck’s Choral No. 3 in E, beginning at m. 138 (Example 15). The second is from the chorale setting Alles ist an Gottes Segen, op. 67, no. 2, by Max Reger, beginning at m. 2 (Example 16). The pedalings that I have provided for each of the complete passages are just suggestions: each is one way that an organist might configure the pedaling, but not the only plausible way, and also not necessarily the best way for any given player. Try each of these passages slowly and carefully with the pedalings that I have given. Then try to find other pedalings for at least part of each passage that would also work—perhaps that feel better to you. For the purpose of this exercise, assume that you want to use pedalings that would in theory allow you to play legato: that is, do not use the same part of the same foot for two successive notes in such a way as to require a break between those notes. 

Can you find other pedalings that you like as well as or better than those that I have given? In the Franck, I have had each foot remain on its “proper” side of the pedal keyboard—the left foot plays tenor C and lower notes, the right foot plays tenor C and lower notes. In the Reger, I have written in more crossing of the middle of the keyboard, especially involving the right foot’s reaching for some of the lower notes. Could you pedal either passage differently by crossing the middle line of the keyboard either more or less than I have done? Are there pairs of successive natural notes that I have assigned to the heel and the toe of the same foot for which you would find it more comfortable to reverse that heel and toe (for example, the A and the C in the seventh measure of the Franck)?

Here are a few more pedal passages that can or should be played by a mix of heel and toe. They are from Mendelssohn Sonata #3, first movement (Example 17); Vierne Symphony #3, first movement (Example 18); and Elgar Organ Sonata, op. 28, first movement (Example 19). In each case, work out a few different possible pedalings, and practice them slowly and carefully. 

In general, organ music written after about 1800 is likely to make more use of the heel than that written before then. (Some of the reasons for this are discussed in the last section of this book.) The music of the composers excerpted here and their contemporaries will provide you with a treasure trove of passages with which to practice the use of the heels.

 

Double pedal and substitution

There are two special pedal playing techniques that should be mentioned here: double pedal and pedal substitution.

A small number of pieces in the organ repertoire have pedal parts in which for some of the time or all of the time two notes are to be played at once by the feet—or two ongoing independent contrapuntal lines in the pedals. Here is an example from a Bach chorale setting—Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 686 (Example 20).

Once the second—higher—pedal line comes in here in the fourth measure of this excerpt, each of the two pedal lines has to be played in its entirety by one foot. This is the norm for a double-pedal part. For anyone who has learned to look at pedal parts on a one-foot-at-a-time basis, as we have done here, this actually presents no conceptual challenge, and no more physical challenge than a similarly intricate single pedal part would.

In order to practice a double-pedal part, first work out a pedaling for each separate pedal line: the upper line in the right foot, of course, and the lower line in the left foot. The pedaling will of necessity be a mix of same-toe pedaling—which is intrinsically non-legato—and heel/toe pedaling. Once the pedaling has been worked out separately for each foot, each foot should be practiced separately. This is exactly the same process as practicing each foot separately when the two feet will end up being combined into one pedal line. 

Next, you should practice putting the two feet together, but with the notes staggered, so that you are not yet trying to play two notes at the same time, but are tracing the outline of the two-voice pedal part as it will be. This step in the process is unmeasured: you are following the physical shape of the pedal parts, but not their rhythm or the way that they will actually fit together. For the sixth measure of this Bach example, the practice line would look like Example 21.

This should be practiced slowly and reasonably steadily, without worrying about any particular rhythm. I have not indicated a specific pedaling here because that will be up to the particular player, and makes no difference in principle for the working out of this approach. After the patterns of the two feet have become comfortable interspersed with each other in this way, they can be brought into the proper rhythmic alignment and the passage can be practiced as written. 

Substitution in pedal playing is either 1) changing feet on one key silently: that is, bringing the right foot onto a note that is being held by the left foot and then removing the left foot from that note, without releasing the note, or the same with the roles of the feet reversed; or 2) moving the heel of one foot onto a note being held by the toe of that foot, or vice versa, again while holding the note—not releasing and repeating it. 

Substitution is a natural outgrowth, technically, of the act of repeating a note using the other foot, as practiced in Exercise V of the March 2013 column. The change is, in a sense, just one of articulation: instead of putting a space between the “two” notes, you make them, in effect, legato—playing the second one before the first one has been released. Planning is required whenever you play two notes that are close together: which foot should be closer to the instrument and which closer to the bench? Should the new foot take over the key behind the old foot, or in front of it? Above or below? Try Exercise V this way, not repeating any of the notes that are the same as one another, slipping the foot that would have played the second note onto the key and then—but only then—silently removing the first foot and sending it on its way to its next note. This should feel like a natural outgrowth of the work that you have already done.

 

 

Gavin Black

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

 

Some thoughts about substitution

Substitution in organ playing—both with fingers and with feet—is a technique that is practiced to some extent by almost every organist. This includes both those who plan it out and know that they are doing it and those who don’t plan it and nonetheless do it by chance at the last minute. It has been the subject of heated debate and disagreement—one of those subjects that can sometimes seem almost political in nature. The disagreements are usually about the relationship between substitution and various aspects of authenticity—and of course authenticity is the most political subject in the realm of performance. Indeed, it is quite certain that substitution has been more prevalent at certain times in the long history of organ music than at others, and practiced, or expected, more by some composers than by others. 

It is also a technique that can be carried out in ways that are natural and easy or in ways that are awkward and difficult. In this column I want to discuss, just briefly, the history and theory of substitution and also to suggest ways of thinking about applying the technique itself.

 

Before the eighteenth century

The usual succinct way of describing the history of substitution in keyboard playing is this: that it was unknown or at least very uncommon before the late Baroque, and that by the nineteenth century it had become extremely common—though more so in organ playing than in piano playing. As far as the historical record is concerned, there are no sources from before the early eighteenth century that explicitly discuss substitution or that direct a player to use it, but there are many from the nineteenth century and beyond. 

The first surviving printed or written reference to finger substitution comes from François Couperin, writing in his L’Art de toucher le clavecin—a harpsichord method published in 1716. He speaks of it as something unusual if not downright new, contrasting it to “l’ancienne manière”—“the older way [of fingering].” Couperin’s prose is concise or even cryptic, and he says very little about the thinking behind his employment of substitution, but it seems to be intended some of the time to make it easier to achieve some sort of legato, as in Example 1, or to cope with suspensions or other complicated textures, while maintaining legato as in Example 2. (Note that there are no fingerings given for the upper left-hand notes. The G in the second measure would be played with the thumb—after the substitution on the lower note is complete. But what then? A substitution to preserve strict legato in the inner voice or not?) 

There are two significant pieces of evidence that substitution was not common before the time of Couperin. They are, first of all, Couperin’s own attitude about substitution: that it was something new. Of course, he did not know everything about musical practices over the whole world and for all of the decades before his own time, but he probably kept himself rather well informed. The second piece of evidence is simply that no one mentions it prior to 1716. During the seventeenth century there was by no means as much written about keyboard playing and pedagogy as there was in later centuries. However, enough such writing has survived that it seems significant that substitution is not even hinted at in any of it. This is of course consistent with much of what else is known about keyboard playing, whether on organ or on harpsichord or clavichord: in particular, that full legato was the exception, especially over long chains of notes such as the ornamented melody in the first example above.

I however have always felt cautious about assuming that no one in the time before Couperin ever used substitution, either with fingers or with feet. My principal reason for this is that it seems to me to be a natural human thing to do—not necessarily as a result of planning or artistic decision-making, but as a tool for coping with situations that might arise. I have seen many students—beginners, with no preconceptions about fingering, to whom I had certainly not (yet) said a word about substitution—in effect re-invent the technique because they found themselves at some sort of fingering dead end. Furthermore when they do this, they usually do it—because it is not self-conscious—in a relaxed and natural way that constitutes good technique. Also, substitution is a natural thing to do by analogy with other human activities. For example, arriving at the front door recently from a trip to the grocery store, I shifted the bag of groceries from one arm to the other so that I could reach my keys. This is conceptually the same thing. If a player is holding a note with a particular finger and finds that it is inconvenient to be holding it with that finger, slipping a different finger onto the note is a natural, spontaneous human response. I put it this way only partly to make the case that players prior to the eighteenth century may well have used substitution willy-nilly, so to speak, even though it was clearly not a prominently taught technique. I also want to suggest that because it is a natural and physically obvious thing to do, when we in fact want to do it, we should remember to do it in a physically natural and comfortable way. Also, perhaps, that we should avoid it whenever it cannot feel natural and comfortable, unless there is a very strict reason for its being necessary. 

The choice about whether to use substitution in playing music that was written in the era when it was, at a minimum, clearly not being taught as a core technique is of course one for each individual player to make. It will inevitably stem in part from that player’s overall approach to questions of authenticity, and also from other things about technique and habit. Every teacher should frame this particular issue to students in whatever way is consistent with the teacher’s and students’ interactions over matters of authenticity in general. To me the bedrock caveat or concern about substitution in what we might categorize as “pre-Couperin” music is this: that if you actually need substitution to make a particular articulation or phrasing happen, then that articulation or phrasing is almost certainly not anything that the composer specifically had in mind. 

 

The Classic period and beyond

Substitution is referred to in printed sources only a little bit through the middle of the eighteenth century, but references to it in keyboard methods and elsewhere proliferate in the Classic era. It is interesting to note that although we organists (rightly) think of substitution as being most at home in a certain branch of organ technique, it was in early piano playing and teaching that it first caught on. This was in the era when the damper ‘pedal’ on pianos was usually either a hand stop or a knee lever but, in any case, was awkward to operate. Legato lines were by and large achieved through fingering. During the nineteenth century two developments shifted the emphasis on substitution from piano to organ: first, the invention and quick universal acceptance of the (real) damper pedal, and second, the use of a more legato style in  organ technique.

It is worth remembering that even for the relatively well-documented nineteenth century we do not in fact know how everyone did everything. Franck, for example, left no substitutions among the few fingerings that he provided for his own organ music. There are clearly many places indeed where substitution is required, especially if the goal is to create true unbroken legato. In this passage from the Prière (Example 3), there is a need for substitution in, probably, a majority of the transitions from one moment to the next—if, again, true legato is to be maintained. (It is possible to play these notes without any substitution if the full-fledged legato is abandoned.) The section of the piece from which this passage comes is under the marking “très soutenu,” which suggests legato. However, I myself cannot devise any way at all to play the last three eighth-note left-hand chords of either the second or the fourth measure truly legato, with or without substitution. There are other spots throughout the section of the piece about which I would say the same thing. Does this tell us anything about articulation? We know that Franck had large hands—much larger than mine or than those of other players whom he might have expected to play his music. We also know that most European churches, certainly including Sainte-Clotilde, have spacious acoustics in which listeners can experience the effect of legato even through subtle breaks. 

The point here is not to resolve anything in general about the articulation practices of Franck. It is rather this: that we should be ready to use substitution where it makes sense, but be cautious about assuming that legato is necessary in nineteenth or twentieth century music, simply because the possibility of substitution exists. There is a kind of circular logic that says: “This passage must be played with a lot of substitution because it has to be legato, and we know that it has to be legato because players at that time used a lot of substitution.” This doesn’t make sense. (I have certainly caught myself thinking that way, as well as students and people who have written about these things.) The more appropriate way of thinking about it something like this: “If I want this passage to be legato and that requires substitution—even a lot of substitution—that is indeed completely consistent with what the composer might have intended or expected.” 

This is the fingering, just as an example, that I myself would use for part of the left hand in the excerpt from the Prière (Example 4). The function of most of the double substitutions is clear and normal: to create the possibility of smooth legato. There are a few specific things to say about these fingerings. The 3–4 substitution on the fifth eighth-note of the first measure is really just for comfort—better hand position reaching that chord and moving away from it. That is specific to my hands: another player might play the lower note initially with 4 or hold it with 3. Holding that D# with 3 might take away the need for the lower part of the next substitution (Example 5).

I would execute these substitutions quickly and in an unmeasured fashion (more on that below), with the possible exception of the one on the chord that spans the first bar line. That one I might divide between the two beats in a measured way. The 3–4 in the second measure is—again in relation to my particular hand—an attempt to make the large jumps at that spot more comfortable and closer to legato, although, as I said above, I cannot quite reach them fully legato.

As I wrote in my column on repeated notes (January 2009), there is a relationship between the practice of playing repeated notes with different fingers and substitution, but with a difference in articulation. In playing two notes in a row with different fingers, you release the first finger before playing the second; in substitution you play the second finger before releasing the first. (It is interesting, by the way, that Couperin was an advocate of, and wrote about, both of these practices.) There is also this difference: with repeated notes you have the opportunity to get the first finger out of the way early, but with a substitution the two fingers must be able to share the key at least briefly. This can dictate the details of how the fingerings are carried out—which finger goes above or below which, and whether the finger being released is released up, sideways, or down. 

 

Playing substitutions

The most important thing in preparing a substitution to be comfortable and natural is working out the details of the direction in which the fingers move—the choreography of the fingering event. In the first Couperin example, the first few substitutions are all 4–3. In these cases the fourth finger must be released down (towards the player) and slightly to the right. In the 4–5 substitution at the beginning of the second line, the fourth finger must be released up (away from the player) and probably straight or slightly to the left. These shapes will prevent the fingers from interfering with one another. In double substitutions the most important part of the choreography is the order in which the chain of substitutions is carried out. There is always an order that allows the hand to contract during the process and an order that causes the hand to stretch. It is never hard to tell which is which. The former is always better; it is always possible to tell which is which: it is important to do so. 

The gesture of substitution can usually be carried out either in a way that is measured—the new finger moves onto the note at a definable time, the old finger moves away at a definable time—or in a way that is unmeasured, with the new finger simply sweeping onto the note as promptly, quickly and lightly as possible, while the old finger is swept away. The first of these is, in a way, analogous to a measured appoggiatura in the Baroque style, and the second to a quick grace note or an acciaccatura. Furthermore, whether the substitution itself is measured or quick, it can, on a longer note at least, be positioned either right at the beginning of the note or anywhere else in the lifespan of the note before the moment when the logistics require the new finger to be in place. 

On the whole, I prefer to execute suspensions quickly—the acciaccatura model—and as close to the beginning of the note as possible. I believe that I do this because I want them to have no rhythmic weight of their own. Not that they would have audible rhythmic weight since by definition they are silent. In fact, that is the point. As much as possible I like to reduce the feeling—which substitutions by their nature are inclined to create—that there is something going on physically in the playing that is not reflected by anything audible to the listener. All else being equal, I believe that a one-to-one correlation between physical gestures that we feel ourselves making and sounds that we hear our instrument producing helps to intensify our focus on the rhythmic aspect of the music and to make it more likely that we will effectively project rhythm and pulse to the listeners. In my fingering example above, I might play the substitution on the note that crosses the first bar line at the downbeat of the second measure rather than at the beginning of the note. This is because there is an implied rhythmic event there—the strong beat across which that chord is suspended. I would probably still make the gesture of the substitution a quick one, since there is only one rhythmic event going on with which the gesture might be correlated. 

 

The use of substitution

There are three ways in which substitution is used: 1) as part of a well worked-out fingering plan, with some specific goal in mind, usually related to achieving legato, but sometimes for comfort, reliability, or good hand position; 2) as part of an approach to fingering, even when it is not explicitly worked out in advance, but still with goals in mind, again usually having to do with creating legato; and 3) as a way of scrambling around to get notes at the last minute in a passage that has not been adequately prepared. For an observer, including a player observing him- or herself and also including a teacher observing students, these last two can be hard to tell apart. The third of these is on the one hand a useful fallback if it is needed: substitution can be a powerful way of crawling around the keys and getting notes in an emergency. However, any tendency to rely on it for that, except in the occasional emergency, has to be resisted ferociously. If a teacher believes that a student is using a facility with substitution to avoid having to think about the best fingerings, listen for what fingering does for interpretation and performance, and practice enough and well, then the teacher must step in and ask the student to pull back from that and restore substitution to its place amongst the legitimate technical tools that we have at our disposal.

 

Part 1 was published in the May 1996 issue of THE DIAPASON, pp. 10-13.

by Sally Cherrington

The Introduction of Organ Voluntaries: The Organist as Solo Performer

Despite the emphasis on the organist as an accompanist in
the first half of the nineteenth century, the playing of voluntaries did not
suddenly commence in 1850.  The use
of voluntaries became common in some churches after about 1810, although in
other churches (particularly those in rural locations) voluntaries were not
played until much later in the century. In 1835, Musical Magazine in New York
City published an article complaining about abuses in voluntary playing, which
contained the following comments on the problem of inappropriateness:

Every real proficient on the organ, knows that voluntaries
upon that noble instrument, ought to consist of broken passages, scattered
chords, etc., etc., which will not seize upon the attention of the listener but
rather soothe his mind, into calm collected meditation. Any thing like a
regular air would here be out of place. Even the learned harmonies of the
Germans, impressive and beautiful as they are, prove for the most part too
spirit-stirring, in their influence, for American voluntaries. Some of our
organists, however, have but little invention, and others but little taste. So
when they should either be silent or be endeavoring merely to soothe the
worshipers into devout meditation, they rouse them by a march, an overture, a
sonata, or a thundering chorus. . . . Such abuses, if tolerated, will bring
voluntaries into disrepute; if not lead to the expulsion of the organ from our
churches.57

Orpha Ochse adds wryly that if the situation was so bad in
the cultural and intellectual climate of New York City, one could only imagine
what sorts of things the untutored village organists were playing for
voluntaries.58

The common complaint of too much showmanship, which had been
levelled at the performance of interludes, was also carried over to
voluntaries. For example, Jane Rasmussen notes that Episcopal churches were
often the first in an area to get an organ, and whenever possible they would then hire a competent organist from Europe, New York, or Philadelphia. The organists often played virtuosic voluntaries as a form of advertising in order to attract students to supplement their church salaries.59 Whether justified or not, this virtuosity was generally considered distracting to the tone of the
service.  In non-Episcopal (or less
wealthy) churches, this problem would probably have occurred somewhat later in
the century due to the later technical development of native players, but it
became a problem nonetheless.

Charles Zeuner

Prior to the publication of Zeuner's collections of organ
voluntaries, most organists who played voluntaries improvised them.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Zeuner presented an alternative for
those who did not yet possess this skill. Zeuner's Voluntaries for the Organ, published in 1830, was the first collection of organ music published in the United States, and consists of six voluntaries.60 Although the use of the term "voluntary" and his designation of the pieces as "Before Service" or "After Service" suggests that he intended the pieces for church use, Zeuner indicated on the score that the pieces were "composed and dedicated to the Handel and Haydn Society, Boston,"61 a secular musical society. However, his second organ publication, Organ Voluntaries, published in 1840, is clearly a volume for the church organist. This is a longer and more comprehensive work than his first collection, and consists of two parts. The first part involves 165 interludes and short preludes in a variety of keys (to be used with hymns). Part II contains "Practical Voluntaries to be used before and after services in churches," with intended uses specified for each piece.62
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  These voluntaries have no pedal parts,
and contain dynamic markings but only minimal registration indications. This
collection forms a sort of bridge between the earlier "methods" and
the forthcoming collections of music with instructive introductions: it is the
first comprehensive printed collection for church use of interludes and (more
importantly) voluntaries, which were becoming the new focus of most organists,
but it does not yet include any of the descriptions and admonishments for
performing them that the later collections include.

The opposite situation occurs in an article from The
American Journal of Music, published in Boston on February 25, 1845, and
entitled "On the Use of the Stops of the Organ."63 The anonymous
author explains that although the organ is the instrument best suited for
extemporizing (voluntaries in church), he has never seen any "practical
treatises" on this subject. Therefore, he provides stylistic and
registration suggestions for voluntary playing. In contrast to Zeuner, this
instructional treatise is all text and no music.

Thomas Loud

Thomas Loud's organ method with its extraordinarily lengthy
title, discussed briefly in the first of this series of articles, was also
published in 1845.64   As the
title suggests, The Organ Study: Being an Introduction to the Practice of the Organ; together with a collection of Voluntaries, Preludes, and Interludes, original and selected; a Model of a Church Service; Explanations of the Stops and their Combinations; Studies for the Instrument; and Examples of Modulation intended to aid the Extempore Student; accompanied by an Engraving and description of the Mechanical construction of the Organ begins with explanations of organ basics important to Loud. These include descriptions of the basic organ mechanisms and stops, as well as practical matters such as beginning and releasing chords (Loud recommends rolling the notes individually from the bottom until all notes are sounding) and playing shakes. Significantly, he uses this material to lead into pointers on accompanying, illustrated in his model service for the Episcopal Church, before turning his attention to playing voluntaries. He does include two sample voluntaries in his "model service":  an introductory voluntary (shown in Example 1) and a voluntary for before the second psalm or hymn (in other words, an offertory). These voluntaries are musically straightforward, with basic registrations provided. Both include trills (shakes), an ornament that Loud seemed to feel was absolutely essential to the church organist's success. While the first voluntary is manualiter, the second indicates that the organist is to play certain bass clef notes with the pedals. Loud, however, provides small notes at these spots for those organists whose instruments do not have pedalboards.

Loud follows his model service with many pages of hymn
preludes and interludes in a variety of major and minor keys before furnishing
15 pages of voluntaries for church use, composed by himself and a variety of
other composers (Rinck, Cross, Russell, etc.). He does include several
voluntaries which are transcriptions, principally of religious works by Haydn.
He avoids the popular music pitfalls decried earlier in this article; although
he does include one "Religious March" by Gluck, it is quite austere
in character. At the end of this section, Loud adds a page illustrating the
"fine effect" of embellishing the end of a voluntary with a simple
suspension, emphasizing again the modest nature of this music.

At the end of his method, Loud provides some interesting
directions showing how to produce registrations of increasing power on instruments varying in size from four stops to modest three- manual stoplists, as well as ways to achieve particular registrations "effects." This leads into his closing and quite notable conclusions on voluntary playing, with which he ends his method. His concern is that voluntaries be consistently used, but not abused:

The style of performing (voluntaries) on this instrument
should always be in accordance with the use made of it, as forming a part of
the service of the Sanctuary; nothing therefore, opposed to the sacredness of
the place, can with propriety be introduced: whatever may be the character of
the Stops made use of, the music should be chaste and solemn, and all the
variety of the instrument, should (in the hands of the efficient performer) be
made conducive to the same subject. . . . Voluntaries should as much as
possible be suited to the subject of the discourse or character of the service
. . . 65

Loud continues by explaining how specific divisions or stops
can help to achieve these lofty goals. He concludes by explaining how to play
"fancy voluntaries," which his text implies are improvised and
probably not for use in church. 
His final admonishment is still applicable for improvisers today: "
. . . above all, remember to stop in time--a common fault with performers is,
that they never know when they have done enough."66

Cutler & Johnson

Before returning to Johnson's important American Church
Organ Voluntaries (mentioned in the first
article), we will make a brief digression to examine another of Johnson's
publications. Johnson originally published the Voluntaries in 1852 under his
name.  When it was republished in
1856, H. S. Cutler's name was included as well (see Example 2 - portraits of
Johnson and Cutler). A discussion of Cutler and the reasons for his addition in
the second edition is beyond the scope of this article, but apparently his
contribution was minimal (it is thought that perhaps he penned the
"Remarks"). Whatever the case, Johnson had originally intended to
write a second book, apparently planned in conjunction with American
Church Organ Voluntaries, called Instructions in the Art of Playing Voluntaries and Interludes and of Composing Simple Music. This book was conceived as a combination of an organ method and harmony book. It is thought that it existed in draft form and that Johnson was using it to teach his organ students. Unfortunately for the history of organ pedagogy, it was never published.67

Instead, Johnson published in 1854 his Practical
Instructions in Harmony, upon the Pestalozzian or Inductive System; Teaching
Musical Composition, and the Art of Extemporizing Interludes and Voluntaries. This book was unique in organ "methods" published to this point in that it was directed at the more sophisticated music student.68 Basically, it is a book of music theory with practical keyboard exercises. It was probably intended as a successor to Johnson's popular Instructions in Thorough Base which had undergone at least six reprints by this time, testifying not only to the need for these types of materials but also to the growing technical sophistication of the organist.

Johnson's Practical Instructions, however, contains no
discussion concerning church voluntaries, but approaches them from a completely
technical standpoint. This is not the case in American Church Organ
Voluntaries. The volume opens with
"Remarks," wherein the editors comment that one should speak of an
"opening voluntary" rather than a "voluntary before the
service" (as Zeuner does), since this voluntary is a part of the service
and should arouse the proper feelings in the listener for the worship which
will follow. They waste no time in criticizing the commonplace habit of playing
popular music, including bits of opera, as voluntaries. They warn the organist
not to give in to popular opinion which supports this sort of music, even if
they are getting pressure from a wealthy person in the congregation who has
money but no taste, ending by saying that in such cases it is better to
"vacate your office and retain the good opinion of all whose good opinion
is worth having" rather than to give in to "depraved taste."69
In regard to voluntaries after the service, Cutler and Johnson admit that there
are differing opinions on the value of playing music while people are leaving. They justify this practice by saying that there is already unavoidable noise at the end of the service as people prepare to leave, and therefore playing
appropriate music while this is happening will remind people for as long as
possible that they are still in the House of God. "What more appropriate
monitor than the solemn Diapasons judiciously managed?"70 The
"Remarks" answer many of the contemporary complaints mentioned
earlier.

The complete pre-publication title of this anthology, Organ Voluntaries, a Complete Collection, adapted to American Church Service, and designed for the use of Inexperienced Organists who have not Progressed far Enough in Their Studies to be able to Play Extemporaneous Voluntaries (i.e., improvised), indicates Johnson's purpose in compiling this collection--providing music for amateur organists. The voluntaries are all manualiter. Numbers 1-35 are opening voluntaries, while numbers 36-41 are opening voluntaries for use on festival occasions. Twelve closing voluntaries are included. Many of the voluntaries are by either Johnson or Cutler, but works by Haydn, Muller, Rinck, and Mendelssohn are included, as well as works by lesser-known composers of that period. The pieces contain some tempo, dynamic, and keyboard indications. The tempi vary, although in both the opening and closing voluntaries the majority of tempi designations provided are moderate. The voluntaries are one to two pages in length and generally homophonic in style. There are only isolated indications of sections with solo stops, marked in tiny print "solo . . . solo ends" (see Example 3 for the first half of an opening voluntary with these frugal registration markings). Thus there is nothing about these pieces which would relate them to popular music. Pinel suggests in the Foreword to the edition that although these pieces seem very plain to our contemporary ears, they would have been harmonically innovative, even "exhilarating," to mid-19th century rural listeners.71 (The harmony, while hardly daring, is more chromatic than that of the average hymns and service music.) One reason for the lack of excess in these pieces (and those in Loud's method) may have been the fact that Protestants were still strongly affected by the recent appearance of organs and conservative views of the appropriateness of instrumental music in
general.72 

The several printings of American Church Organ
Voluntaries testify to its popularity.
Gould comments that in his travels he did visit some congregations where the
voluntaries were appropriate and therefore useful (although he had many
negative experiences as well). Thus, Johnson and Cutler's music or at least the
approach to service-playing which it and Loud exemplified was represented in
practice and was not just a theoretical goal.

Southard & Whiting

Although organ methods from the Continent, American
materials for playing the harmonium or cabinet organ, and other unannotated
volumes of voluntaries appeared after Johnson's anthology, the next significant
collection was that of L. H. Southard and G. E. Whiting, entitled The Organist (1868). This volume is also an anthology of music for service use, with an introduction discussing registration and other useful information for the church organist. However, as will soon become evident, there are many
differences between this collection and that of Cutler and Johnson, despite the
similarity of their subjects and their separation in publication by only 16
years.

In the second half of the 19th century, one can observe the
rise of concert organs and concert organists. Large organs were built at
Tremont Temple in Boston (1853) and the Boston Music Hall (1863). The
increasing popularity and professionalism of orchestras fueled the popularity
of orchestral transcriptions for organ. 
Organists adopted some of the Romantic excesses of European organists,
such as the fascination in trying to recreate "storms" on the organ.
It is noteworthy that the first piece performed on the new Walcker organ in
Boston's Music Hall was the "Overture to William Tell" by Rossini.73
At the same time, the technical improvements and expanded size of organs made
it more practical to perform legitimate organ literature of greater magnitude
than the voluntaries.  The
dedication recitals of organs in churches now were devoted exclusively to organ
solos, whereas previously these events consisted of vocal solos accompanied by
organ with perhaps a few organ voluntaries.74 Several sources mention that Bach
organ works were performed in America for the first time in this period (about
the mid 1860s). Most of the concert organists, however, were English or
European.

In examining The Organist, these changes in organ literature in the second half of the 19th century are reflected.  The subtitle of the volume indicates that it is "a collection of voluntaries, studies, and transcriptions of moderate difficulty," and includes information on registration (which will be explored shortly).  The editors explain in the introduction that "melodious and piquant Voluntaries" are part of the church organist's responsibilities, and that therefore the aim of this volume is to supply opening and closing voluntaries which meet these requirements, complete with registrations.75 Like the Cutler and Johnson volume, this collection was apparently intended primarily for less experienced players who were not yet adept enough to improvise appropriate service music.  It is interesting that, unlike Johnson who taught improvisation based on models of Bach, Southard and Whiting refer the aspiring church improviser to the piano sonatas of Mozart and Haydn as a basis of study, pointing already to a sharp difference in outlook.

The music supplied for opening and closing voluntaries by
Southard and Whiting differs markedly from that of Cutler and Johnson. Even the
titles underscore this difference: although the term "voluntary" is
used in the introduction, the pieces are entitled "Prelude" and
"Postlude" (or "Postludium"--see Example 4). This implies a
slightly different function than the term "opening voluntary" which
Johnson carefully chooses (probably something closer  "voluntary before the service"). In addition,
several of the pieces have titles like "Reverie" or
"Romanza," reflecting a strong Romantic secular influence. The pieces
are much longer than those in American Church Organ Voluntaries
style='font-style:normal'>, and all include pedal parts on separate staves.
Three of the pieces are identified as transcriptions of Haydn, Mendelssohn, and
Mozart. The pieces are very pianistic technically, and include a multitude of
interpretive marks, including articulation, phrasing, and many dynamic
markings. Big chords alternate with solo passages, with all sorts of pianistic
accompaniment figures; one prelude even has a cadenza (#4), and piece #5, a
"Pastorale," contains running scale passages in 32nd notes. The
Postludes are all loud pieces, but the style of the Preludes varies widely, and
one is not always sure which category the pieces with other titles fall
into.  There is even a
"March," one of the styles specifically attacked by church music
critics of the previous generation.

It is interesting that the final piece in The Organist is Bach's "Celebrated Prelude and Fugue in e minor" (BWV 533), as edited by Mendelssohn. This seems to be a direct reflection of the apparently successful introduction of Bach into the concert organ repertoire at this time. It also suggests that organists were no longer expected to be able to distinguish sacred music from secular or concert repertoire, since both were equally acceptable in church. Apparently the responsibility of the organist to musically interpret the text and mood of the hymns and scriptures which had been emphasized earlier in the century was no longer a principal focus.

One of the most conspicuous differences between the two
organ anthologies, however, is in the treatment of organ registration. Here a
brief digression is necessary to survey the changes which had taken place in
organ construction between the writing of these two volumes. Although Americans
had begun building their own instruments instead of importing them from England
in the first half of the 19th century, the English influence remained very
strong.  By 1850, although loud
organs (by early standards) were increasing in popularity, the basic sound was
light and bright, emphasizing the diapasons and flutes, with some reeds and
strings included.  The manuals and
pedalboards were not standardized--both the Pedal and Swell divisions tended to
have incomplete ranges.76 The first large American organ was the Hook and
Hastings instrument installed in the Tremont Temple, Boston in 1853, with four
manuals and 70 stops.77 Thus, from about 1860 on, the enthusiasm for
increasingly louder organs continued, with a bolder, brighter sound appearing.
Console controls and nuances of the expression pedals became more important.
Organs now tended to be placed in the front of the church rather than hidden in
the balconies, and cases were often eliminated.78

These changes say a lot about the change in the role of the
organ in the church service. Around 1841, one writer complained that the organs
were sometimes unsuited for leading congregational singing, one of the possible
problems being that they were too small to really lead the singers and keep
them on pitch.79 However, by about 1850, Gould writes that performances were
gradually getting louder, complaining that in some churches the choir and
congregation combined could not sing above the organ, satisfying only those
"who are more pleased with noise than with sense."80 Johnson and
Cutler warn the organist about playing too loudly while accompanying in their
opening remarks, explaining that the organ should be subordinate to the
singers.81 However, it is interesting that in The Organist
style='font-style:normal'>, although the organs by this time must certainly
have been louder, this warning is never mentioned.

To return now to the topic of registration, both volumes
include information on registration in their introductions, as well as sample
specifications. (See Example 5 for the basic specification list from the Cutler
& Johnson collection.) As might be expected from the changes in organ
building, a much wider variety of stops is mentioned in the later volume. Both
collections describe stops, but Johnson and Cutler add information on the
purpose of some of these stops in worship.  For example, they recommend the diapason as "well
suited to church purposes in general," but guard against using the flute,
which "is a fancy stop, and generally much abused . . . when used as a
solo stop . . . the effect is suggestive of the theatre, or ball-room, rather
than the church."82 Within the pieces themselves, Johnson and Cutler
suggest only one specific stop in the entire volume, sometimes designating
where a solo stop should be used but not suggesting a particular stop. Southard
and Whiting, on the other hand, provide detailed registration suggestions at
the beginning and throughout every piece, as well as directions to use the
couplers, expression pedals, and tremulant. They also suggest in the
introduction that one of the responsibilities of the organist is to create
"striking and delicious effects of the organ," which they advise
requires the use of varied registrations and separate manuals.83

This emphasis on registration, coupled with the changes in
organs observed above, suggest that the role of the organist was changing by
about 1870. Although Johnson and Cutler provide basic material on registration
for the stops generally appearing on a "modern" organ, they are not
as concerned with how the organist applies or combines these stops as they are
with the spiritual effects that various stops induce.  Southard and Whiting, however, comment from the start that
"the chaotic droning and ridiculous combinations of stops which were
satisfying until within a few years, will no longer be endured by Congregations
of average musical culture."84 This implies a concern that the organist
have a greater technical knowledge of registration than was previously
considered satisfactory. But this comment also suggests that the organist is
now expected to start with the registration concepts of "musical
culture" of the society at large and apply them to the service of the
church, reflecting the increasing importance of musical culture in society in
general. This differs from the earlier outlook on registration which assumes
that the organist chooses stops based on their contribution to solemn worship
without regard for (or deliberately in contrast to) the types of sounds
associated with secular culture.

A final point of contention regarding registration is
illustrated in the closing comment of the introduction to The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>ist,
where the editors comment that they hope that their collection will "tend
to improve the taste and ability of players, and thereby create a general
demand for more complete and effective organs than are often found outside of
two or three of our largest cities."85 This is in marked contrast to
Cutler and Johnson, who, although they would agree with the goal of improving
the taste and ability of players, are trying to "improve" it in the
opposite direction from the goals of Southard and Whiting. It is noteworthy
that Gould writes in 1853 that organists should be careful that their playing
serves no other purpose than to recommend the organ and organ-builder86--what
Southard and Whiting seem to be suggesting as a positive goal.

It is interesting to note that in looking at the two
above-mentioned church music anthologies, there is scarcely any mention of
accompanying hymns and psalms. This may reflect the new rise of the use of
voluntaries and corresponding lack of suitable literature (thus the focus on
this aspect), or it may be considered a commentary on the relative lack of
importance of hymn-playing to these editors.  Southard and Whiting, for example, ignore the subject
altogether.

In studying the voluntaries in The Organ
style='font-style:normal'>ist, it
becomes apparent that some of the registration changes must have required
pistons, which as stated were becoming more popular. This makes the fact that
this volume excludes a discussion of registering hymns even more interesting,
since changes between verses of hymns to illustrate the meaning of the text
would now have been much easier and smoother. Perhaps due to the emphasis in
earlier years on accompanying, the editors were interested in looking ahead to new directions in church music.

It has always struck me as interesting that changing fingers on repeated notes and substitution are so similar to one another in what they actually involve physically. Thus it makes sense to me to use one of them to introduce the other. It is also important to keep them straight: it is extremely common for students to fall into the habit of doing a substitution when they think that they are changing fingers from one note to the repetition of that note.   

This continues without a break from last month’s column.

Gavin Black

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected]. He writes a blog at www.amorningfordreams.com.

A further practice step is to try patterns in which the hand plays more than one note at a time (Examples 1–4). The fingerings given above and below each line are alternates. There are other possibilities, for example, involving pairs such as 1/4 and 2/5. You can adapt these exercises in ways that occur to you, such as using black notes. Once again you should experiment with articulation. You can make non-repeated chords legato, and repeated chords any degree of non-legato; or try to match, as nearly identically as possible, the articulation of each of the motions from one chord to the next; or use a variety of non-legato articulations. Keep the hands light and relaxed, especially while releasing notes. Pay attention to the direction in which you release each finger when another finger is preparing to play that same note: up, down, slightly (or fully) to one side or the other. These logistic possibilities all have their place. They work out differently for players with varying relative finger lengths, and also for varying note patterns. It is your job to pay attention as you work on these exercises and figure out the most comfortable ways.

Repeated notes often occur in the context of ornaments, especially trills. The exercise in Example 5 allows you to practice that, assuming that you start each trill with the upper (auxiliary) note.You can play the opening note with 3 and each of the trills in succession with 4-3, or play the opening note with 2 and each of the trills with 3-2, or perhaps other patterns. You should adapt this exercise to other specific note patterns, including some involving black notes and the left hand. Do not worry about making the trills especially long or fast: the focus of practicing is the repeated note that initiates each trill.

Another ornament-based repeated note exercise, involving mordents, is shown in Example 6. You can play each quarter note with 3 and each mordent with 2-3-2, or other fingering patterns. For the purpose of this exercise it is only necessary that the final note of each mordent be played with a different finger from that which you want to use to play the following quarter note. Again, adapt this exercise to different specific note patterns and to the right hand.

Playing repeated notes with different fingers, in addition to giving the player more control over the timing, articulation, and sound of the repeated note patterns, also gives the player a free chance to re-position the hand. It can actually clarify and simplify fingering patterns for the passage around the repeated notes themselves. The excerpt from Rameau shown in Example 7 (part of the fifth of six variations on a Gavotte in A Minor) is an example of this, so extreme that if Rameau hadn’t written it, anyone discussing the fingering of repeated notes would have had to do so.

For all players except those with the very largest hands, changing fingers on the repeated notes in each group of four sixteenth notes is actually necessary to permit the playing of the other sixteenth notes. The same is true in the left hand sixteenth note pattern in the sixth variation from the same piece (Example 8).

But in being necessary it also guides the shaping of all of the rest of the fingering in such a way that the passages are actually quite natural and straightforward to play. Each decision about what fingers to use on the first and second notes of each pair of repeated notes should be based on where your hand is coming from and where it is going. Example 9 shows one possible fingering for the left hand part of the preceding example.

In Example 10, from the Brahms chorale Mein Jesu, der du mich, there is a moment, at the beginning of the second full measure, where the use of a different finger on a repeated note makes it possible to set up a simple and effective fingering for the succeeding passage. (My suggested fingering is not the only way to do it.)

The musical advantages of using different fingers to play repeated notes can only be heard and felt if the hand is very relaxed and the touch smooth and fluid. Any repeated-note moment (such as the one in this Brahms example) is a good place to remember, recapture, and apply the feeling of lightness gained from the trill exercise described above. 

Substitution

As opposed to changing fingers on repeated notes, the technique known as “substitution” is changing fingers on held notes. While these two techniques serve very different musical and technical purposes, and indeed are most typically associated with different historical periods and repertoire, they have so much in common technically as to be essentially versions of one another. 

There are several things to bear in mind when beginning to work on substitution:

1) A substitution can be either measured—the new finger placed silently on the note at a predetermined time, probably defined in relation to the beat of the passage, or instant—that is, the new finger slides in to replace the original finger as part of the gesture whereby the original finger played the note in the first place. (Whereas the timing of finger change in a repeated-note passage is determined by the timing of that passage’s notes.) A substitution can also be somewhat in-between: that is, not instant, not a one-gesture slide, but not specifically timed to be on a beat or subdivision of a beat. This latter is probably the most common in practice, though all are quite useful.

2) In any substitution there is likely to be something to observe about the specific direction in which the original finger departs and the direction from which the new finger arrives. It may make sense to get the original finger out of the way by lifting it up, moving it sideways, allowing it to curve downward, or something else, or some combination. The new finger can slide in under the old, or from above it, or from one side or the other. All of this affects or is affected by hand position and by the relative lengths of the fingers. It is not—since the substitution is silent in any case—something that affects the musical results. It is about comfort and reliability. 

3) Substitution is generally associated with legato. The usual reason for introducing an extra gesture into the act of playing is to permit the hand to be in a position to play the next note or notes without having to release the existing note(s) in a way that creates an unwanted break. Sometimes, however, substitution simply seems to make a passage easier. Different players develop different degrees of comfort with substitution and use it to differing extents. 

4) Substitution is more likely to be necessary or to provide an appropriate solution for creating true legato in situations in which a hand is playing more than one note: counterpoint or chords. In single line textures, substitution is rarely necessary to effect a particular musical result. (When it is necessary, that is usually a result of something having to do with very wide intervals.) That is not to say that it is not often comfortable or convenient. Sometimes it can serve the same function as changing fingers on repeated notes in that it can allow the hand to reposition itself efficiently.

5) Substitution—unlike most of what most performing musicians do while playing—creates physical gestures that do not correspond to anything that the player or the listener actually hears. This can break or weaken or generally interfere with the player’s ability to experience the rhythmic vitality of the music through the kinesthetic experience of playing. For some players this sense—almost of dancing to the music while playing, but doing so with the playing gestures themselves rather than by literal dancing—is a real and valuable aid to vivid and convincing performance. If the feeling that the hands (and perhaps feet) are doing things that aren’t part of the rhythmic flow of the music seems, to a particular player, like a problem, then that player might well be inclined to use substitution less than other players. There are also ways of counteracting or compensating for that effect. At an early stage of learning organ, and of becoming comfortable with substitution, this is something to file away at the back of the mind, in case it seems like an issue to be dealt with later.

6) Sometimes a tendency to rely on substitution as an all-purpose way of finding notes (scrambling for notes, in effect) can lead a player—whether a student or otherwise—to cut short the process of working out good, efficient fingerings and then practicing those fingerings with enough focus and dedication to learn them. In this way, a heavy reliance on substitution—especially by a beginning or “intermediate” student—can actually damage the learning process, sometimes seriously. This is far from being a reason not to learn and work on substitution, since it is a valuable tool, and for some purposes a necessary one. It is simply something to watch out for.

The second exercise given above for changing fingers on repeated notes can be adapted as a good beginning point for practicing substitution, simply by tying the repeated notes, and keeping the fingering the same (Example 11).

And this same note pattern can be used with an extremely wide variety of fingerings, since in principle any substitution is possible and is worth practicing. For example, the right hand fingering could be 3-4-5(1)-2-3-2-1(5)-4-3(5) (The parenthesis indicates substitution. In this fingering, the tied g’ going from the second to the third measure does not have a substitution.) Another possibility would be 1-2-3(1)-2-3(1)-4-3(1)-3-2(1). These fingerings are musically random: their purpose is to help you get the feeling of different substitution patterns.

The two-note chord exercises above can also be adapted as substitution exercises (Example 12). With the same-note chords tied, the fingerings would be carried out as substitutions rather than as changes of fingering on newly played notes. This can be tried with other specific fingerings, and other similar note patterns, and of course also in the left hand.

In carrying out substitutions with multiple notes, it is important to do the individual substitutions in the correct order. The correct order is the one that is the most comfortable and natural physically. (Again, since the substitutions are silent, this is about physical comfort and reliability rather than any audible result.) Usually that means the order that keeps the hand small: that doesn’t stretch the hand out any more than necessary. So, in the example above, the substitutions on the lower notes of the two note chords should be done first. It is always possible to figure out by trial and error which way is best. Sometimes it is also possible to figure it out in advance by analysis of hand position. Performing multiple substitutions in the correct order also has the effect of allowing the whole hand to move in one gesture towards the next note or notes or towards its next position. It is extremely important to get this right. That can make the difference between a substitution’s being easy and natural and its being both difficult and a potential source of strain or even of real injury.

Next month’s column will continue with more exercises for substitution and examples drawn from the repertoire.

Gavin Black

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at .

More about pedals:
looking at heels
This month I am returning to the subject of pedal playing, this time to discuss heel playing. I have some general thoughts to share with students, and a few practical suggestions and exercises.
It is interesting that the use of the heel in pedal playing is an artistic issue that has a history of lending itself to controversy, becoming a political and, almost, an ethical matter. I have had students come to me who believed—or who had heard—that it was out of the question to use heels in music written before a certain date: that is, essentially in Baroque music. On the other hand, I have heard students and others say that failure to use the heels in Baroque music could only be motivated by a pedantic insistence on academic correctness at the expense of artistic considerations. I once heard two musicians passionately agreeing with each other that “heel and toe” was the only way to play the organ, even though neither of them was an organist! I thought that this was—quite apart from the merits of the notion—a fascinating example of how ideas or ideologies can spread beyond their original home turf. It was also revealing how heated this discussion was and how angry (good-naturedly angry, as I remember it, but still angry) the two of them seemed at people who might disagree.
I have also had students come to me convinced that “heel and toe” pedaling is intrinsically legato, whereas “alternate toe” pedaling is intrinsically detached. (I’m not sure about the concept of “alternate heel”!) In fact, alternate toe pedaling is usually capable of creating a full (even overlapping) legato. It has trouble doing so only in some patterns involving sharps and flats. It is same-toe pedaling (using the same toe on successive notes) that is inherently detached. Also, while heel and toe pedaling can often create legato—and sometimes in places where all-toe pedaling cannot—it is also true that the use of the heel is often most natural in detached situations, where the heel can be used without resorting to an uncomfortable foot position.

Stylistic authenticity
Questions about heel pedaling are bound up, as are many other technical matters, with questions of historical authenticity. These apply in several ways, of which the most prevalent is the above-mentioned concern about using the heel in older music. Questions of authenticity do arise in connection with later music as well, for example, whether a legato achieved using alternate toes is or isn’t acceptable in music written by a composer who is known to have used, or explicitly called for, heels. Is it enough for the player’s judgment—or that of a teacher or any listener—to conclude that the effect is suitable or perhaps actually identical to what the composer intended, or is it in some sense necessary (ethically, artistically) for the composer’s technical suggestions to be followed literally?
It is certainly generally true that earlier organ playing probably made less use of the heels (short pedal keys, giving little room for the heels; relatively restricted use of sharps and flats, and of pedal scale passages; non-legato style attested through surviving fingerings, among other things) and later organ playing more (big and, eventually, “AGO”-type pedal boards; more sharps and flats and scale passages; legato style; the need, some of the time, to assign one foot to the swell pedal), though, as with so many issues, we do not know everything about the historical situation, and what we do know contains intriguing anomalies. These include, for example, the Schlick work Ascendo ad Patrem from about 1512, which has a four-voice pedal part clearly requiring the use of heels, and the (mid-to-late-nineteenth century) organ playing of Saint-Saëns, who apparently never used heels.
(If the one surviving pedaling by Saint-Saëns,1 along with contemporaries’ comments on his playing, were all that we knew about nineteenth-century organ playing, we would assume that Franck, Widor, Reger, and the rest all used only toes! If the Schlick Ascendo were the only surviving organ piece from before, say, 1610, we would assume that in the late Renaissance, multi-voiced pedal parts and heel-based pedal playing were the norm!)
When I was first getting interested in the organ in the early 1970s, I did not, for a long time—a year or two at least—become aware that there were these sorts of historical or musicological polemics—or such strong feelings—surrounding heel playing. I did absorb, however, the idea that it was more difficult to create clarity and precision with the heels than with the toes, and that, any concern for authenticity aside, a player has to be sure that heel pedalings in any given situation really work to create the desired effect. This is an issue with heel pedaling in a way that it is not with toes.
I recall hearing that Helmut Walcha insisted, with his students, that the famous pedal solo in Buxtehude’s G-minor Praeludium, BuxWV 149, be played with all toes, the left toe moving up to play the off-beat F-sharps. (See Example 1.) The purpose of this was to achieve the greatest possible crispness and accuracy of timing, not necessarily to be historically accurate, although it probably was that too, or at least might well be. (Other players might use the right foot to play all of the upper notes—heel and toe—while the left foot remains in the lower half of the pedal keyboard rather serenely catching what might be called the melody of the passage. It is an interesting exercise to work the passage up both ways and listen to the difference(s) in articulation, timing, and pacing between the two.)

Anatomical issues
The fact that playing with the heel is, in general, harder to control with great precision than playing with the toe stems from the basic anatomical fact that the foot is hinged in a way that gives the toes more leverage, a better mechanical advantage. In other words, the heel is closer to the ankle than the toes are: simple, but very important for organ playing. To some extent, whereas the toes play a pedal key through the flexing of the ankle, there is a tendency for the heel to play a key by dropping the leg onto the key.
The approach to teaching pedal playing that I outlined in four columns in The Diapason (November 2007–February 2008) relies on using the instinctive pointing gesture of the toes as a starting place for developing a strong kinesthetic sense of the pedal keyboard. It is mainly for this reason that the various strategies deployed there and the various exercises suggested do not include any work with heel. In spite of this, however, the approach laid out in those columns actually sets a student up to learn heel playing efficiently and with great security. This can happen best after the student has become truly comfortable with the techniques developed through that approach.
Each student—each player, in fact—has a somewhat different physique, which suggests a somewhat different physical orientation towards the pedal keyboard. Some people can more comfortably play off the inside of the foot, some the outside; some people can most comfortably keep the knees fairly close together, some people are more comfortable with the knees farther apart, and so on. The key to incorporating heel playing into this overall approach is to remind the student always to monitor and make decisions about the exact physical approach of the heels to the keys: which side of the heel for which notes, where on the keys the heels should land (perhaps different for each key or different depending on previous or subsequent notes), where the knees should be in relation to the feet in a given passage, etc. These are things that only the student can judge, since that judgment depends on how things feel.

Some practice exercises
The first step in practicing heel playing is to choose a simple passage—taken from a piece or written as an exercise—and to play some of the (appropriate) notes with heel, trying out different positions and placements along the lines mentioned above. It is by far the easiest to use the heels on a natural key that is being played just before or just after a sharp or flat, so it is best to start with such a passage. The Buxtehude quoted above is a good example. It is clear that, if the right heel is going to be used in this passage, it will be used on the G that is the second overall note and its reiterations. A student can try—slowly and keeping everything physically relaxed, as always—to play G–F#–G with heel-toe-heel, using first the inside of the foot, then the outside, letting the knee move to where it is most comfortable. (To play on the outside of the right foot the right knee will probably need to be farther out—to the right—than to play on the inside of the foot.) A player with slender feet might find that the center of the foot works. For most players, one of these configurations will be the most comfortable and should be practiced until it feels reliable. If more than one feels equally comfortable, then both, or all, should be practiced.
A short exercise like Example 2 can be used in the same way, again trying out different angles and positions for the feet and keeping track of what is comfortable. (Note that this, on its own, can well be played like Example 3. It is interesting to compare the differences in sound and feeling, if any, between the different pedalings. In the context of a longer passage, one or the other might be better or actually necessary.)
Here are two matching exercises for heel at the extremes of the keyboard. (See Examples 4 and 5.) Again, they should be tried with every different alignment of inside/outside and knees. The teacher can help the student remember what all the possibilities are, but only the student can tell for certain what is and what isn’t comfortable. They should be tried both fully legato and lightly detached.
The well-known Vierne theme, from the Carillon from Op. 31, is an interesting one on which to try various different heel-based pedalings.2 (See Example 6.) It is possible, while keeping this completely legato, to use alternate toes (left first) except for left heel/left toe going across the bar line. It is also possible, however, to make more extensive use of the heel, for example, using left heel on all of the C’s and fitting the other notes around that. The student can try it a number of ways. For using this as a learning tool, it is crucial to remember to keep it slow and light.
Example 7 is a somewhat arbitrary heel-based pedaling for a scale. I’m not sure that I would use it in “real life,” but it works as an exercise. The challenges here are 1) to orient the left foot in such a way that the toe is aimed easily at the F-sharp after playing the D; 2) to reorient the left foot to execute the more difficult G–A with heel-toe; and 3) to move the right foot securely to the B after leaving the E.
In beginning to practice playing with the heels, as with any pedal practicing, it can be useful to practice separate feet, in the manner that I have discussed in earlier columns. In the above scale, for example, the right foot can practice moving from the E to the B. Really what this means is practicing moving the right heel from the position in which it rests while the right toe is playing the E to the position in which it (itself) plays the B, while turning the foot so that the toes are poised to play the C-sharp. This is a bit more abstract than moving the toe of one foot from one note to another, but equally subject to being analyzed and practiced systematically.
Students themselves, and their teachers, can create little exercises like this, and can extract bits of pieces with which to try out the use of the heel. I want to reiterate that the key to integrating heel playing comfortably into pedal playing is to pay attention to—and make choices about—the position and angle of the feet as they address the keys. This should be done, in the manner discussed at length in my earlier columns, without any particular preconceptions. It is in the end up to the student to determine what is comfortable and what works. The teacher can certainly make suggestions, and can help evaluate the results, but only the student can actually tell how it feels.