Absentmindedness

This past weekend I served as a calcant for several hours. A calcant (non-organists can be forgiven for not knowing the terminology), from the Latin calcare, "to tread", is the unfortunate fellow whose job it is to pump the bellows to supply wind pressure to an organ's pipes. It is a dull task that is at the same time quite unforgiving of lapses in concentration, for if the wind lags everyone in the audience will hear it. In former times, I suppose, it was the duty of every apprentice-organist to pump the bellows; perhaps it is only fitting I should have to do it. Bach surely served as calcant for his teacher Böhm, don't you think?

Calcants' minds wander. Indeed, my mind has been elsewhere much of the time these past few weeks. There is the past: on Monday the weather reminded me so much of early spring in Vienna that I experienced the first palpable longing for that city I've felt in more than a year. When will I walk 'round the Ringstraße again; when shall I climb Kahlenberg; when shall I eat at Schnitzel King or Café Prückel? I want to go back before I forget how to use the subway or order a Hot-Dog.

There is also the future to distract me. I come from a long line of worriers, and I have begun to wonder about the sort of job I'll get after I am an accredited Master of Sacred Music. My natural inclination — one not yet dulled by the unquestioned assumptions of an incurably mobile society — is to go home. Ah, but I wonder what it will be like, trying to make good music and good liturgy in a place where ignorance and poor taste are so entrenched. I am willing to teach, of course, but one cannot change a culture singlehandedly.

In any case, I acknowledge I really ought to be thinking about the present. All shall be well, and all that.