The American Guild of Organists

This evening I attended my first AGO meeting. I am pleased to report that it went reasonably well. The theme for pieces was "things based on hymn-tunes"; I performed that bombastic Karg-Elert Nun danket alle Gott setting, and, to atone for that, also BWV 645. The membership of the local chapter is quite tolerable: the only instances in which I found it necessary to bite my tongue were when I heard praise of Allen instruments. (One must bear in mind that many — far too many — organists out here in the provinces have never played a tracker, and thus may be forgiven for their misguided tastes.)

Being away from school, even for only these few months, has taught me how important the company of one's peers is. It is, of course, a bit of a stretch to call my fellow AGO members peers — they are, after all, predominantly women who could charitably be called "post-middle-aged" — but it is nice to have people who understand the vicissitudes of a career in church music. In every profession one needs people to whom one can complain about one's job; I suspect this is the true origin of the great medieval guilds.

Wolf Hall

Finished, at last, with my slog through Tolkien, I turned immediately to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's been a bit of an adjustment, going from Tolkien (who, though a worthwhile read, has too many adverbs and all the humor of the Heimskringla) to Mantel, whose wit could be metaphorically compared to something that is very sharp.

The hero (or antihero, if you must) of the book is Thomas Cromwell (who was indeed related to Oliver, though we mustn't hold that against him). History, for the most part, has not been kind to Cromwell: the impression one often gets is that he was an amoral schemer, who, in the end, reaped the whirlwind after several years of attempting to manipulate the king's favor. If you've seen A Man for All Seasons you've probably got a much more charitable opinion of Cromwell's rival Thomas More, whom Roman Catholics now call a saint; he's held in high esteem at Notre Dame, certainly. But Mantel deconstructs this beatific image we have of More: as she sees it, he was little more than a religious zealot.

[Cromwell] never sees More — a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod — without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before?

It's worth remembering that More was not some selfless defender of personal conscience to be compared to Cromwell's unprincipled henchman of royal prerogative. More merely preferred Papal tyranny to royal tyranny. The question, perhaps, is: which should one prefer in Henry VIII's England? Despite my fondness for Anglicanism, I still have this image of the king as this horrible sort of Bluebeard character, ruled by his appetites, quite probably more beast than man. I don't know if Mantel means to dispel this characterization further on in the book; after all, I've only read about a hundred of its six-hundred-odd pages. But I recommend it highly, so far.

Faust (1926)

Sort-of-but-not-really because it's Halloween I finally sat down and watched the 1926 silent film Faust, which I had never heard of but just read about over at the A.V. Club. (That web-site has some good things, but its advertising is consistently obnoxious.) If you haven't seen it and fancy yourself a film-lover, you should see it. The modern moviegoer is perhaps reluctant to take silent films seriously — so conditioned are we by the special effects and other conventions of movies these days — but once one discards certain expectations and assumptions it becomes clear how original and effective the best silent movies are. To employ an inadequate metaphor, it's like drawing a circle: sure, it's quite easy to open MS Paint and make a perfect circle, but it takes real practice and dedication to actually draw a circle, with a pencil, on paper. Faust passes the test of all real art: it's still worth experiencing today.

It occurred to me that Faust can be understood as symbolic of 20th-century German history: Faust renounces God to reshape the world according to his own ideas, with disastrous consequences. It then occurred to me that Thomas Mann already noted the Faustian resonances in the Third Reich. It then occurred to me that I really ought to begin reading Mann's Doktor Faustus: presently all my knowledge about it is secondhand, by way of The Rest Is Noise, which you really should read.

Quam dilecta!

You'll pardon, I hope, my low output as of late. (I won't apologize for it, anyway.) I have been thinking about several things — Montaigne and friendship, the pleasures of Indian summer, the nature of consciousness (with a nod to Andrew Bird) — but am not yet prepared to expatiate upon any of these themes. I shall, however, refer you to several other things worth reading.

• Philip Larkin: "An Arundel Tomb"
  
• Jason Peters: Curiosity Killed the Keg: A Tribute
  One can read lots of tiresome articles of socio-political claptrap by conservative Christians; sometimes that sort of thing shews up on FPR. But Peters, though he could quite fairly be called "conservative" and "Christian", manages again and again to write things that are actually worthwhile. In this particular treatise — O Theophilus — he makes several very good and entirely accurate points, among them observations about booze, O'Connor, and contemporary Protestant hymnody.
  
• I have had Coverdale's version of Psalm 84 in my head for a while, now. (I suppose this is mostly due to the Vaughan Williams setting.) Its palpable desire for God is quite arresting, I think.
  

  O how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of hosts! My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be alway praising thee.

  
  

Thoughts from Concordia

Thoughts that have occurred to me whilst attending the 2011 Lectures in Church Music Conference (at Concordia University, Chicago):

• Good music is, inevitably, about addressing issues, solving problems. The issue/problem may be one about musical form, or color (e.g. instrumentation, texture), or compositional process (canons, fugues), or, in vocal music, text, or other things. Bad music, when it refuses to acknowledge a problem, is saccharine; when it fails to adequately address a problem, it is unsatisfying.
  
• Most defects of musicianship can be fixed, but I suspect that a poor interior sense of rhythm is irremediable. How can you learn something that ought to be inborn? (Well, technically, a sense of rhythm is acquired, but this takes place so early in childhood that it's like original sin: probably not inborn, but as good as.)
  
• Fr Anthony Ruff, whom I admire more and more, gave a presentation on the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal, with special emphasis on ecumenism (since this is, after all, a mostly-Lutheran conference). It is hard not to be disgusted with how Rome has bungled the new translation. It's not only that it is fundamentally flawed — after all, the current translation is deeply flawed, albeit in a different way — but far worse is the autocratic way Rome has handled things. From time to time, when utterly frustrated with the follies of Protestants, I find solace in the fact that at least we don't have to put up with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. If "by their fruits shall ye know them", then I fear we know the hierarchy all too well.
  
• Last night we had a concert of seventeenth-century Lutheran music (mostly Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt; no Praetorius, unfortunately). I've said it before: it's too bad that we hear this repertoire so rarely nowadays. One of these days, when I've got an early music consort at my disposal, I shall endeavor to do some of it.
  

Oh, and today is St. Luke's Day, the titular feast (heh) at my Episcopal parish in Dixon. We shall have some good hymns, I think. (I've had the tune Westminster Abbey stuck in my head for several days, now; I'm planning a rather grandiose introduction with the chamades, which should wake people up, if nothing else.)

Admirable Words, Vol. III

1. Avuncular
   
2. Braggadocio
   
3. Drupe
   
4. Embrasure
   
5. Harangue
   
6. Knish
   
7. Obstreperous
   
8. Persiflage
   
9. Phylactery
   
10. Wallop

The 2011 American Alain Festival

Greetings, dear reader, from Lawrence, Kansas, where I am staying the night after two-and-a-half days in Wichita at the 2011 American Alain Festival. Jehan Alain, for those of you with limited knowledge of 20th-century French organ composers, was quite possibly the most original voice of his generation, with a prodigious output (considering his brief twenty-nine years on this earth). Moreover he had a generous soul and a fervid imagination. This year marks Alain's hundredth birthday, and we celebrated his life and work with a series of lectures and performances. Our guest of honor was Aurélie Decourt, the composer's niece (and daughter of Marie-Claire Alain, who during her career was unquestionably the foremost expert on her brother's works). Other guests included many of Marie-Claire's American students (of whom many are bigwigs at various universities and larger churches). All in all it's been quite worthwhile. The world of professional organists is a relatively small one, and it has been interesting to observe professional organists en masse: though some are prone to cattiness (a common trait in all of academe, I fear), many are agreeable enough. Most could fairly be called eccentric, in one way or another.

I fear it may not interest you for me to go into much detail about what we covered at the conference. Suffice it to say we examined Alain's biography, instruments, and influences. There is also the issue of the various editions of Alain's works, which have differed in many registrations and other markings. Indeed, there was a major controversy about twenty years ago when a musicologist raised questions about the integrity of Marie-Claire's work. This led to much bickering back-and-forth, and it was quite obvious that there is still much bitterness over the whole episode. Such are the petty affairs of academia, I suppose.

See also:
Alain's Postlude for the Office of Compline
(a past entry on this-a-here web-log)

The Inauguration of the Organ at Gröningen, 1596

In 1596 Heinrich Julius (1564-1613), the Most Reverend Bishop of Halberstadt and Serene Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, celebrated the completion of the pipe organ he had ordered four years earlier from the organ-builder David Beck. To inaugurate the instrument, located in the Schloßkirche at Gröningen, he hosted fifty-three organists and church musicians from across Germany, among them the renowned Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629) and Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612). Heinrich Julius's own music director at the time may have already been the young Michael Praetorius (1572-1621), who would go on to have a remarkable career as composer (of more than 1,200 chorale arrangements), consultant, and music theorist (his Syntagma Musicum is doubtless our most important source for music practice of the early seventeenth century).

Heinrich Julius himself was one of those colorful characters who abound in the first century of the Reformation: a Lutheran, elected bishop at the age of two, patron of the arts, witch-hunter, alcoholic, kabbalist, and polymath (or, perhaps more accurately, dilettante): he was trained in ancient and modern languages, philosophy, law, and theology, and fancied himself a playwright, architect, and musician. His learned tastes — though they fostered much great art that has survived to this day — proved financially ruinous, alienating both the nobility and the burghers of his realm.

We can only speculate about the goings-on at the conference at Gröningen. It is certain that the gathered organists took full advantage of the opportunity to observe the variety of compositions, styles, and performance practices assembled from across the Holy Roman Empire. It is almost equally certain that demand for liquor far exceeded the capacities of the city of Gröningen during the conference.

Unfortunately, of the fifty-three organists who were in attendance, very few left music that has survived to this day. What is still extant is very impressive, at least when performed on an appropriate instrument. I am fortunate to have an organist friend who visited Germany this past summer and purchased for me a number of very fine organ CDs, among them one featuring works of H. Praetorius, Hassler, and M. Praetorius, played on the Fritzsche/Treutmann organ at the Church of St. Levin in Harbke.

Listen: Michael Praetorius - Wir gläuben all an einen Gott
(11min, 20.66MB)
performed by Jean-Charles Ablitzer

Contra Keillor

My chief pleasure for the past, oh, eighteen years, or so, was being a good student. (Like many people at institutes of "higher" "education", I suspect I am better suited to be a student than to go into any sort of useful career. But I am attempting to correct this by means of honest employment, if music can be called honest employment.) Now that this is no longer an option, I find one must savor life's little pleasures, like discovering a new, good, artist while listening to Pandora. Or the lime yogurt, served in a waffle cone, at Arthur's. Or the luxury of an off switch when I hear Garrison Keillor, that old windbag, on the radio.

Do not misunderstand me: I think Minnesotans and Lutherans owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Keillor for all those years of good PR. I was once a great fan of A Prairie Home Companion, and I still tune in to it regularly. But invariably I will turn it off within a few minutes. Sometimes there may be good musical guests on the program, but the rest is quite dispensable. Oh! Another quaint anecdote about Wobegonians! Oh! Another sketch based on puns! Oh! He's singing again. Really it is Keillor's singing that is the worst. It is emblematic of the sort of sentimental self-indulgence that has come to define the program, which has been coasting — I think — for years, now. I rather hope they don't find a new host to replace Keillor when he finally quits milking the cash-cow that is public radio in a few years.

Chicago, Briefly

I am just returned from a brief trip to Chicago. The traffic was pritnear unbearable, but was, I hope, justified by my destinations. Besides attending a quite tolerable concert (the rather-unfortunately-named band Balmorhea), I was fortunate enough to visit Powell's Bookstore (which, indeed, is a sister store of the venerable Portland institution I visited in January); I purchased Mann's Doctor Faustus and an old edition of Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, which I think will someday make a fine gift. (Yes, I have begun to buy second copies of some books, the mark of an irredeemable bibliophile. But my excuse is that I do intend to give them away, eventually.) Best of all I went to a Meinl Kaffeehaus, where I had the first proper Eiskaffee and Palatschinken since I returned from Vienna (now several years ago). "O Memory, hope, love of finished years!" The great pleasure of such fare was counterbalanced by the reminder that I will likely not be able to visit Vienna for some time still. Nevertheless I recommend the place highly.