Three church positions in a year?

It’s not that I can’t keep a job. Rather, for several years I have been dividing my time between my home in Boone, N.C., and that of my wife in Des Moines, Iowa. Conclusion: I can’t serve any one church regularly. So I have fun running around and helping this or that church from the organ bench week to week. I learn a lot about how folks are doing things – even if that research is sometimes horrifying. I’m glad for the education.

For much of this past spring semester 2025, I helped out as supply organist at First Baptist Church, Boone, N.C. Their organist retired, and I have enjoyed playing there and also spending some extra time with one of their problem choir members, otherwise known as my sister. The organ is a two-manual Reuter, Op. 2180, and the chapel houses the church’s former organ, a Möller double Artiste, Op. 10052. In the main church, there are no acoustics to speak of, and the padded pews do little more than foster a good nap, judging from the number of nappers I observe during sermons. But what a wonderful flock of music lovers and society servers. And if the Dear Reader has already been wondering how the words ‘Baptist’ and ‘organ’ can end up in the same sentence these days, wonder no more. This church has no screens and therefore no band and no intention of getting them. The choir loves to sing and learning how to sing better, and it keeps a stable of Appalachian State University students. The congregation is full of musical talent, and the handbell choir is healthy. And the church is the last one standing on the edge of campus, and its student ministry is strong. Go check them out.

As of this writing, summer 2025, I am embarking on my first position in a cathedral. Through August 10, I’ll be the interim organist for St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Des Moines. Two Eucharists each Sunday and the privilege of working with a semi-professional choir. I have even been assigned an email address on the Cathedral’s server! The organ is a sizeable Casavant, Op. 3719, and there is a 25-bell manual carillon. The Cathedral is searching for a director of music, so check them out, too. Dean and Bishop are welcoming and affirming, and there is a kind and music-loving congregation. St. Paul’s also has monthly Evensongs, society outreach, local beautification projects, Ascension service and soup dinner, etc. Downtown churches tend not to fare very well these days, so go and support them, if you’re around.

And then when I get back to western N.C. this fall, I’ll assume my annual seasonal duties as organist for All Saints Episcopal Mission in Linville, N.C., through their season that ends on the final Sunday of September. I just show up with a second musician of any flavor, play lots and lots of hymns and service music for Eucharist, and go to lunch. Another music- and organ-loving congregation, and I play on a sizeable Allen that has been expertly tended to and voiced by Jim Ingram. I have enjoyed visiting with guest clergy and celebrating far fewer than six degrees of separation most times. I even met Tom Roberts, the son of the Rev. Thomas Roberts, who hired my mentor Richard Forrest Woods in Houston way back in 1972.

Now after all that, I wonder what will be next. Anyone need any help from the organ bench?

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 11

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

*******************

Life with Dick

During my tenure at St. John the Divine in Houston, we did the Fauré Requiem one Good Friday. Dick had studied the work during his time in Paris with Fauré’s pupil Nadia Boulanger, and he told me that ever since then, he had had a perfect performance of it in his head. But he knew that a perfect performance was not to be had. He knew that he and the choir could only strive for perfection yet never achieve it, but I don’t think he ever gave himself permission to be human. Nowadays, accepting our limitations and simply doing our very best in the presence of God are standard fare in books on church music, but Dick never quite got there on the acceptance-of-our-limitations part.

Dick also had a ‘perfect’ Holy Eucharist in his imagination, from prelude all the way through the liturgy and the postlude, but he was always disappointed week after week when it never was achieved. He was always a little peeved after church. I once asked him how he felt each Sunday after having led hundreds of people in traditional Episcopal liturgy. He thought that was a ridiculous question and sarcastically answered that it made him “feel on top of the world.” Although I still sympathize with him on the elements he accused of marring a perfect Eucharist [and there were always plenty, a few of which included the celebrant using the wrong words or otherwise stumbling over the liturgy, the choir missing a cue, the organ having a cipher, one of us playing a wrong note, the sermon being useless, a microphone not being turned up in time, a small child screaming, an old lady coughing for fifteen minutes before finally leaving the room, the crucifer not holding the cross straight, a candle burning out, etc.], today I would disagree with Dick over this hypothetically perfect – and fully unattainable – Eucharist. I think he was howling at the moon and that it just made him unnecessarily tired.

While composing this biography, as I reflected on Dick’s stated desire for that elusive, perfect Eucharist, I realized that St. John the Divine was actually quite liturgically conservative in those days, just like Dick – perhaps more than he admitted. The clergy and servers took liturgy seriously; their movements and actions were well planned and smoothly executed. With very few exceptions, they were always vested and fully clothed underneath; long-sleeved shirts, ties, dresses, no jeans, no sandals. Celebrants celebrated with all the right words for the most part, usually missing only a word or two when they tried to recite liturgy from memory without having practiced first. Celebrants began Eucharist with the opening acclamation rather than with that most maddeningly human-centered and garden-party-oriented ‘Good morning.’ Even at the announcements following the Peace, rector Larry Hall never said, ‘Good morning.’ Rather, he always welcomed the assembly in the name of Jesus Christ. Neither did he use announcement time following the Peace to read out announcements that were already in print. He underscored the important ones, encouraged everyone to digest the others on their own time, and got back to the liturgy (exceptions noted at the end of this post). Upon reflection on those days, I truly appreciate that rector’s approach to liturgy. Everything was quite proper. Even the contemporary service, then just in its infancy, was faithful to every word of Rite II, with only the music, dress code, and sense of complete propriety relaxed.

Dick and I agreed that ‘Good morning’ betrays an unsettling willingness to interrupt timeless liturgy with temporal tripe. The first words out of the celebrant’s mouth, whether ‘Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit,’ or, ‘Good morning!’ will set the tone for the rest of the hour, like it or not. Even the congregation of liturgically rock-solid Rite I Christ Church Cathedral in Houston in those days proved that just about any congregation may eventually go where it is consistently steered. During the 1990s, the Cathedral had gotten a new dean, who was into the ‘good morning’ nonsense. It wasn’t long before he began waiting for a response in kind – and got it. Before you know it, the Cathedral congregation was responding enthusiastically, “Good morning!” to begin Rite I each week, and never batting an eye. They also absorbed without a whimper that dean’s affinity for Rite II, which he not-so-subtly sneaked in the back door by celebrating Holy Baptism as often as possible, thereby forcing Holy Communion into Rite II on those Sundays. Dick would have blown a gasket to see liturgy turned into such a personal playground. Clyde Holloway and Bruce Power at the Cathedral fixed it for themselves by retiring/resigning, and one of them even returned after that dean was gone.

But I digress.

Another example of congregations being willingly misled is in the printing of hymn texts in service leaflets or projected onto screens, diabolical practices that started in the late 1990s in churches everywhere. Hymn texts alone were now printed or projected as some sort of perceived convenience. But musical notation and a multitude of additional information for each hymn were now absent, and congregations everywhere who followed this practice began to regress into the most musically ignorant in modern Christianity.

Dick would have lost his mind at all this, and I nearly have. I have maintained all along that musical ignorance aside, there is little that looks more ridiculous than a white-collar congregation singing sturdy hymns of the faith not from the sturdy repository of music called the hymnal but rather from a flimsy service pamphlet they are going to throw away upon exiting the building.

But I digress again.

Despite the propriety of the liturgy on a general level at St. John’s, the time of announcements following the Peace was often a cringeworthy wild card. We never knew what was coming, whether a small troupe doing a silly Rally Day skit or the Senior Warden singing a stylized rendition of Happy Birthday to the rector. [True story. In 1992, the Senior Warden sang ‘He’s turning 50 in the morning’ to the tune ‘Get me to the church on time.’] Apparently, we musicians were the only ones bothered by that shift in tone during otherwise fairly respectable liturgy. Since the liturgy was so dignified and the shenanigans so base, the contrast was that much more cringeworthy. I often wanted to slip out of the room or crawl under something. And both Dick and I felt extra-conspicuous to be observing all that silliness while vested. We felt like we had shown up at a crawfish boil in tuxedos.

Next time: Dick’s complaints

I work among freaks, apparently

I once heard from a prospective student from Virginia. He had been looking for a college in Virginia where he could double major in statistics and organ. He found more than one, but they never returned his messages of inquiry. So he started looking across the state line and found me. The rest is history – he came to Appalachian and double majored as planned.

What I didn’t know at the time is that all other things being equal, what tipped his scales toward Appalachian was that not only did I respond to his inquiry, but I also responded the same day. Well, imagine that. E-mail – what a concept. I told this story to my colleagues in a full faculty meeting one day, to illustrate our ongoing commitment to students and to encourage everyone that just answering a freaking email could get some fine students coming our way. What a surprise.

In this age of enhanced, instant and constant communication, how is it that messages still go unanswered? How can a college expect to survive if it doesn’t respond to tuition-paying business knocking on the door? How can a college hate teaching so much that it ignores prospective students coming in?

All my colleagues and I love hearing from students new and former. We are committed to them and to their success. We say so in our vision/mission statements, and we practice what we preach. And when any of us travel and visit with counterparts at other institutions, we are always alarmed by their situation and simultaneously amazed at our own. How did we all land in a place where upper administration listens to its faculty and where our dean supports us with every fiber, every word, and every dollar available? That’s probably not answerable, so we just enjoy it and exercise it and keep paying it forward.

I have lost track of the number of times someone has expressed pleasantly-surprised thanks that I returned their email or phone call so promptly. Honestly, I just don’t know any other way to do business. Communication is king, and I insist on it from all students. I have blogged before about not receiving return messages in the other direction – that’s not so pleasant.

My school of music just had its ten-year review for reaccreditation. I told the reviewers, “The most truthful thing we should (but can’t) put into our recruiting materials is, ‘Come major in music here, because we’re nowhere NEAR as dysfunctional as everybody else.’”

That is what keeps me showing up for work. Truly I work among freaks. And my colleagues work with one, too.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 10

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

*******************

The Choir of St. John the Divine, Houston

My first experience with the choir was at my first regular Thursday evening rehearsal in 1990. From day one, I saw how dedicated they were to Dick. I saw how dedicated they were to great music. I saw how dedicated they were to fine liturgy. And I saw how dedicated they remained, even as ‘renewal music’ gained ground all around them. This choir was a collective workhorse, and their love for each other and for all that Dick taught them never flagged:

"[It was quite the] … impact that Richard Woods’s friendship, example, musicianship, and professionalism made on a 23-year-old fresh out of LSU grad school. It seems like yesterday. I’m always happy to share interactions about Dick Woods. He was a force!”

“What a talented, dedicated, humorous combination of a man he was. I miss him … and all of the individual choir members we were blessed to spend time with praising God, sharing beautiful music, and nurturing souls. … I am always saddened when I remember how sick and how heartbroken Dick was at the end. He gave so much and loved so much. … No one that was fortunate enough to know him can ever forget him. He shaped all of our lives, for the better, and made us all better musicians along the way. What beautiful music we made. I always felt like he deserved so much more than we were able to give him in return. I truly loved that man.”

“Dick was able to get more out of a choir, perhaps even beyond his own technical abilities. It was just the way he brought everyone together around the music.”

The sextons always had coffee prepared for Thursday evening choir rehearsal. The choir would arrive early to chat and visit, and then Dick would call out, “Let’s go, please!” to begin rehearsal. [“Let’s go, please!” was going to be the subtitle of this biography, if published.] There was a break about midway through for more coffee and conversation, and then the second half. Dick was all business during rehearsal but was all in for the visiting before, in between, and following. Dinner with the inner circle often followed rehearsal. I was honored to have been invited.

Dick insisted on a clear, vibrato-free sound from his sopranos and altos. He also required a certain dress code when the choir processed in the aisle: black flat shoes for the women, no dangly earrings, and modest hairstyles. He put in writing these and other policies prescribing how to process, how to hold one’s folder, how much space to leave between pairs in procession, how to acknowledge the altar and turn into the stalls somewhat sharply, etc. I have followed suit with similar rules for my own choirs.

Dick and the choir stayed busy. They went on tours to England in 1982 and to Eastern Europe in 1990, the repertoire for each of which they recorded stateside. They also presented occasional Evensong at sister parishes in Houston and sang a major work every Good Friday. This choir embodied the fact that a church choir is probably going to be their director’s Sunday School – and this choir was that perfect Sunday School class. They embodied the importance of gathering in church with other human beings and to having fellowship one with another. Worshipping God was one thing, but doing so among kindred spirits was indispensable, and they knew that.

The choir was populated by many strong personalities who wasted no time making their approvals and disapprovals known to the rector. They didn’t care so much how the choir was treated, but they were quite the watchdogs for Dick’s treatment. They stood up for him, and I know he appreciated that. Thanks to Dick, they were also respectably well-versed in liturgical matters, and they deserved – as the tithing parishioners most of them were – to be heard as lay experts in such matters.

Dick and others of us would go out for dinner and drinks after Thursday rehearsals and for lunch after church on Sundays. I developed a ravenous craving not only for the food but also for that fellowship, and I have never stopped organizing similar small groups in my succeeding positions. Every time I go out with folks following a rehearsal or performance or service, I think of the St. John’s choir. Every time I go to a British pub or to get Mexican, I think of those days. That is no exaggeration.

Next time: Life with Dick

Under the ‘P’

The Appalachian State University Marching Mountaineers are dubbed “North Carolina’s Band of Distinction.” They are 300 strong, and they preside at Mountaineer football games with enthusiasm, focus, determination, precision, and musical integrity.

One day in 2023, director Jason Gardner stopped me in the hallway and asked if I’d like to serve as “The Voice,” following the retirement of Jay Jackson. Once I actually found my voice in that moment and picked my jaw up off the floor, I managed to say something like, “Yes, yes! When do we start?” The second thing I said was, “But I’m not saying Roll 'neers.” [He and I are of one mind on that silly little phrase that won’t go away.]

My job is to announce for the Band when they are on the field. Show tunes, context, generate excitement, etc. [I do NOT announce the games, heaven forbid.] So on home game days I arrive at 7:00 am to get good parking. I’m in my khakis and black Band polo and my black Band ballcap. I join the Band in Kidd Brewer stadium on the ASU campus around 8:30, and we rehearse. I get to hang out in the uppermost areas of the home side press boxes, where I enjoy the grandest view in town. I sit directly under the ‘P’ in ‘Complex’ in this photo:

 

Then we walk downtown for some lunch. I hit a few tailgate parties and enjoy the gathering crowds. Then I go change into the official black suit, white shirt, gold tie, Appalachian cufflinks, black ballcap, flashy oversized gold pocket handkerchief, and stadium credentials. We do a lawn concert for any fans who wish to gather, while I roam among the people and make announcements in a wireless mic. Following the lawn concert, we line up and commence our grand Episcopal procession into the stadium to the cadences of the percussion battery, and we are greeted by the roar of gathered students and fans trickling in. I start roaming the stadium and greeting folks in the name of the Band. I announce the pre-game show and then roam the stadium during the first half of the game, then announce the halftime show, and I am done for the day. I usually hang around, though, and roam some more and make sure the Band sees my face and the enthusiasm on it for them!

I love game day for the crowds and for the Band. I love working behind the scenes and making things happen, much like doing so at the organ for church. I love being involved in a marching band once again. I had not been involved in one since the football season of 1982, when I was the best last-chair third trumpet player the Statesville (N.C.) Greyhound Grenadier Marching Band ever had [by golly].

My favorite parts of game day:

- walking into the stadium for rehearsal and listening to the Band crank up for the day;
- hearing that first cheer from the audience at the lawn concert;
- stepping off for the parade into the stadium;
- the diabolical sense of enjoyment I derive from the drunken fools who don’t get out of the band’s way during the parade. They are about to get, shall we say, 'maced' by up to four drum majors wielding maces;
- the percussion battery taking the field for pre-game, announcing to the world that it’s on, and the Band holding their position in the end zones and then taking the field and daring anyone not to listen;
- the first four chords of Simple Gifts after some fanfares;
- poking my head into the Band stands during the first half and getting a blast of second-down fanfaring;
- walking around during the first half of the game and visiting with friends. Walking through Miller Hill in the south end zone, which I call Hops and Pot Field, and hearing people say, “Hey, nice suit!” I always say, "Thank you – please watch the band at halftime;”
- seeing the entire production team up in the booth linger to watch the Band on the field. They could be taking a break during that time, but they are staying up there to watch and to comment on their favorite moments, just like I’m doing now. It’s a great day.

The Marching Mountaineers are collectively our teams’ biggest fan. And I am glad to have been given a place among them, considering my otherwise unrelated ‘field’ of expertise.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 9

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

*******************

Some writing on the wall

Dick succeeded Mr. G. Alex Kevan as Organist/Choirmaster for the parish. During my tenure, I discovered many photos of Mr. Kevan and many anthems and service pieces he had written. His music program for the parish appeared to be squarely grounded in the great American musico-liturgical heyday of the 1950s-1970s. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the Rev. Thomas A. Roberts, who hired Dick in 1972, was equally grounded in that liturgical heyday. But Father Roberts died suddenly and unexpectedly the following year and was succeeded by The Rev. Maurice “Ben” Benitez.

Fast-forward to 1993: rector Benitez was now Bishop Benitez. He was unable to attend Dick’s funeral. He prepared a letter to be read aloud during the funeral. In it, the bishop related the story of his and Dick’s first sit-down at St. John the Divine in 1974, during which he insisted Dick include ‘renewal music’ in services. He then reported that Dick sighed deeply and asked resignedly, “Well, do I have to do that every week?” That short anecdote reveals that when Dick took the post under Fr. Roberts, perhaps it was in the sort of environment that would feed his musical and liturgical soul. Perhaps based on the legacy of Alex Kevan and Fr. Roberts’s direct recruitment, Dick saw at St. John’s an opportunity to ply his trade unimpeded. But this story also bears out how easy it was – even in the 1970s – for St. John’s to drift into musical licentiousness, notwithstanding its ultra-conservatism otherwise. But Dick’s response in that story also suggests that he was accepting of where things were heading. As a former lecturer on church music at the Seminary and having served as the head musician at several parishes around the country, he knew very well the ‘renewal movement’ was on the rise, and perhaps he was increasingly resigned to the fact that the movement would probably catch up with him, no matter where. Although Benitez was demonstrably one of Dick’s biggest fans all the way to the end, that meeting was a turning point, a sort of writing on the wall, by my calculations. Dick soldiered on, and when rector Benitez became Bishop Benitez in 1980, the next rector, the Rev. Laurens A. “Larry” Hall embraced the same trend in music, yet to a much greater degree. Dick soldiered on.

--------------------------------

The annual parish hymn-sing each Thanksgiving Wednesday was a highlight. It was an evening of Thanksgiving dinner in the parish hall, followed by about an hour of hymn singing with piano and small orchestra. We did nothing else like it all year. It was always a full house, and I loved seeing everyone enjoying themselves outside of liturgy. In 1991, Dick was particularly inspired to compose arrangements for the orchestra for many of the hymns for the event. He had learned that rector Larry Hall could not attend that year, and so Dick felt freer to do his own thing and had a surge of creativity. The two of us stayed at the church one Friday evening until 4:00 am the next day, composing arrangements and making copies. We were nearly derailed by the rector, though, who had been insisting there be an element for children during the event. But Dick felt it wasn’t a children’s kind of event, and I felt the children would be just fine singing hymns along with everyone else, just like on Sundays. Larry announced in full staff meeting one week that since he was going to be away for it that year, he wouldn’t push the children thing; otherwise, he would have pulled rank. He seemed truly irritated.

Larry and Dick had worked together long before I arrived, but the meeting just described was the first time I sensed Larry losing patience with Dick, and I became uncomfortable with the realization that Dick and I might have been on thinner ice than I first thought. Things didn’t feel transparent. I began to wonder if Larry merely tolerated Dick since he ‘inherited’ Dick from one of Larry’s best friends and one of Dick’s biggest fans, former-rector-now-bishop Benitez. I woke up to the sense that Dick was somehow in the rector’s way and that I was likely guilty by association. I became manifestly ill at ease for the duration of my tenure there.

Next time: The Choir of St. John the Divine, Houston

Note by note: Dupré Prelude and Fugue in A-flat

This is an extraordinary piece. I think it’s the finest of Dupré’s six Preludes and Fugues. The Prelude churns and alludes to the Fugue to a high – but not overdone – degree, and the Fugue is one of the most beautiful pieces ever composed for the organ. Dupré is not his usual gargoyle self here but rather a picture of nobility and soaring melody. Don’t know what came over him.

Before we begin: Graham Steed’s book The Organ Works of Marcel Dupré is a most helpful guide for history, some performance advice, and so forth. And it doesn’t take itself too seriously – imagine encountering humor in a book on Dupré.

Opening registration: In the U.S., I leave the Swell mixture off. The reeds are often enough to create the manual contrasts we’ll need, particularly if the Choir/Positif is weak by comparison (and it often is in the U.S.).

Measure 4: The Final D of the left hand should probably be D-flat. See Graham Steed.

Measure 11: I add the Positif to Pedal, if it needs it.

Measure 16: Graham Steed suggests the Great to Pedal remain off, in case that helps the balance. He suggests adding it in 24. At 16 he also advocates moving the left hand to the Great and the right hand to the Positif for this passage, to improve the balance. I concur, but I move the left hand to the Great at the final three sixteenths of measure 15. Easier to “thumb” that way. The hands can then follow the published manual indications again from 24.

Measure 22: The second F in the alto should be an eighth note, not a quarter. And if you don’t have the high A-flat and B-flat notes Dupré writes (and he didn’t either), then just play from the fourth beat of 22 without 8va. You can recover at the third beat of 24.

Measures 26-29: I achieve a bit more gradual decrescendo by:

- taking the final alto B of 26 with the left hand and moving the right hand to the Positif for the downbeat of 27;
- taking with the right hand all manual notes of the fourth beat of 27, plus the first sixteenth of 28;
- then moving each hand in turn as published in 28 and 29. 

Measure 32: Graham Steed recommends moving the dim into the middle of 33. I concur.

Measure 42: Graham Steed suggests the first D# in the left hand be D natural. I concur.

Measure 44: If you don’t have the high A# in the right hand (and Dupré didn’t), just play that one note an octave lower.

Measure 63: I move the right hand to the Positif there, to keep those higher notes from screeching so much.

Measures 73-75: In the interest of a more gradual decrescendo, I would play the left hand on the Great in 73, then on the Positif in 74.

Measures 74-76: The left hand and Pedal are vying for the same pitches, which makes some notes ‘disappear.’ Just remove the Pedal couplers (and beef up the Pedal a bit, if the sudden loss of the couplers renders it too weak).

Measure 93: I remove the Pedal stops and couple Récit and Positif to it, to help with the wide reaches. Pedal can be restored in 94.

Measure 98: Graham Steed and I agree the Pedal G should be G-flat.

Measure 102: I don’t play the left hand low A-flat. With a note that low and that quick, who’s going to notice? I feel the first-tenor subject statement there is more important than risking a misfire with rapid substitution after the low A-flat.

Measure 106: I remove all Pedal couplers, especially the Swell. The Swell is required to add stops in 108, but there is no need for those to transfer to the Pedal during its ongoing decrescendo.

Measure 108: I tend to leave the Swell 4-foot principal off, to keep the Swell from growing too much there. We still have a long way to go.

From here on, obey Dupré’s every staccato marking. If not marked staccato, then legato. And if one hand has one voice marked staccato and another one not, then your finger independence is about to get the workout of its life.

Measure 121: The second eighth notes in left hand and Pedal are not marked staccato. Misprint? Also, the final E-flat in the second tenor appears to be marked staccato. Dirty engraving plate?

Measure 130: The final eighth note in the right hand appears to be marked staccato. Dirty engraving plate?

Measures 134-136: I achieve a more gradual decrescendo by moving the right hand to the Positif on the downbeat of 134 and the left hand on the second half of beat 1. Then I move the left hand to the Swell on the downbeat of 135. I move Dupré’s Swell growth onto the sixth sixteenth of 136, so that the Swell growth doesn’t transfer coupled to the Pedal.

Measure 141: I move the left hand to the Positif on beat 2, rather than in measure 144.

I execute tiny crescendos via pistons at 147, 156, and 162, before the bigger growth begins in 169. These little growth spurts are only for a lingering Prestant here or another 8’ there. Maybe a small mixture here or a light reed there or a heavier Pedal 16’ there. Just a little something here and there to begin filling the room.

Measure 150-152: In the interest of a smoother crescendo, I take the first sixteenth of 150 with the right hand and move the left hand to the Positif on the second sixteenth. Then I move the right hand to the Positif at 152.

Measure 158: Graham Steed says the right hand first note G should be staccato. I concur, but I also say it should be G-flat. And the high B-flat on the downbeat is legato.

Measure 160: I believe the first two eighth notes of the left hand should be staccato, and that the final eighth of the left hand (B-flat) also be staccato.

Measure 161: ditto the final two eighth notes of the left hand.

Measure 163: I believe there is a ledger line missing on the second eighth of the left hand. That should be E-flat.

Measures 163 to the end: If you don’t have that high A-flat (and Dupré didn’t), then you’re missing out on one of the most sumptuous moments in organ literature. The French are forgiven, but American builders are not.

If you have been keeping score, you'll notice I have dealt with three of Dupre's six Preludes and Fugues. Those three -- B, A-flat, and C -- are my favorites. I have not learned the others and am having some trouble imagining doing so. Forgive me. (Or change my mind?)

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 8

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

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The red sea, a.k.a. the sock drawer

[This post is a rant on how things were, not on how they currently are. Anyone familiar with the parish of St. John the Divine, Houston, will know that things are now much improved from the days (1990s) I am describing herein. But it’s where Dick Woods and I worked, and it warrants description]:

The original worship space for St. John the Divine, Houston, now still in regular use as its chapel, was completed in 1940. Other buildings, including the nave, were completed in 1954, designed by Karl Kamrath (1911-1988) a Houston-based devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright. The exterior of the church proper is striking, with its heavy limestone walls and high-pitched roof with low-hanging eaves. Faithful to its architectural style, it looks like it naturally, literally, organically ‘grew’ out of the earth. But this author never found the interior very beautiful nor very worshipful. Thanks to acoustical-paneled ceiling, cork flooring under the pews, and wood veneer everywhere, it looked less like a church and more like the attic of a high-end suburban house. The room seemed to call more attention to its severe architectural style than to God. Furthermore, there was thick, red carpet in all three aisles, in the side chapel, and throughout the chancel and sanctuary. I called the room ‘the red sea.’ Any reader familiar with the acoustic that results from all that carpet can also appreciate my bonus appellation ‘sock drawer.’

A renovation of sorts of the nave was slated to be rendered between Christmas 1992 and Easter 1993. During the renovation, Sunday services were moved into the gym. I played a most interesting digital organ that could say things like ‘Hey!’ and ‘Yeah!’ and make the sound of dentist drills. I never discovered a suitable use for such sounds during Rite II, but I would have enjoyed it, and the choir would have welcomed the diversion. Anyway, the nave renovation was not intended to make any major changes but rather to spruce up what was already there. The carpet was to be replaced, and so I threw a Hail Mary and spoke up about this chance to improve the acoustics. But not only were acoustics not on the table and we were wasting our time resisting it, Dick and I would also have been painfully incompetent bulls in that particular china shop, anyway. Neither he nor I had the vocabulary nor the finesse nor enough time to educate the parish with any degree of success in matters of acoustics and worship. Furthermore, he was very sick and in the final weeks of his work, and so I was sounding the carpet alarm alone and in vain.

The 1992-1993 renovation transformed the narthex and hallways outside the nave into much more useful spaces, but it left the nave proper unchanged in all ways except cosmetically. The red carpet (which had faded over time to near-orange) was replaced by new, lower-pile red carpet. [It can’t be ignored that a longtime Vestryman, who always had the ear of the rector, made his millions … selling carpet.] The ugly wood veneer throughout the room was replaced by new, equally ugly wood veneer. The trusses and ceiling were re-treated and achieved a modicum of aesthetic and acoustical improvement. A not-so-heavenly host of spotlights was added. The rector wanted those lights and got those lights and at the very first services held in the renovated space, Easter Vigil and Easter Sunday 1993, announced, “These are my lights.” That was kind of endearing: not only did it elicit some snickers as to how those new bright lights got there, but it also let everyone know to whom they could complain – and that he wouldn’t be listening. Nowadays, bright lights in church are normal, but that was everyone’s first experience with them in those days, and they were quite jarring to behold the first time. Some choir members wore sunglasses in protest during rehearsals held in the chancel.

Furthermore, I swear I saw hearing aids on the fellow selling and installing the new sound system. And since another old fellow who was going to be operating sound each week was also hearing impaired, I was not encouraged by that particular ‘renovation.’ [I was right. The sound and lights systems became nightmarish places of steep learning curves, usually during Sunday preludes (lights) and sermons (sound). Even the rector called out during more than one sermon and told the technician to just disable the wireless mic and switch to the pulpit mic to avoid the constant, shrieking feedback.] But oh, you should have heard that room while the old carpet was out. For one glorious week between the completion of work and the installation of the new carpet, it was heaven on earth during practice time. No one knew it at the time, but that carpet-free sound was a preview of another, future renovation finally done right. I’ll get the dear Reader there eventually.

Next time: Some writing on the wall

Note by note: Dupré Prelude and Fugue in C

Memorizing is hard work. And it’s time-consuming. But it’s worth it, because memorized performance always sounds better (assuming the music was solidly memorized in the first place). Memorizing this prelude and fugue is not to be taken lightly, and it must be constantly refreshed. I believe that the chromaticism of the prelude and the close strettos of the fugue just make this piece a memorization nightmare. Not even the Vierne 6^th or the Clérambault first Suite was this tricky!

Well, that’s that. Below are some of my insights into playing the piece, memorized or not:

Dupré’s fingerings and pedalings are welcome, although I changed quite a few to fit my own hands and feet. I wonder what he would have thought. Sometimes he goes to an unnecessary amount of trouble with substitutions, whereas I could just tuck a thumb or cross a long finger over another.

Graham Steed’s book has excellent insights into all of Dupré’s organ music. He knows of a couple corrections for the C Major that Dupré confirmed post-publication (measures 27 and 179, mentioned below). I see several additional opportunities for consideration, all mentioned in turn below.

Measure 12: The final eighths in the manuals will have to be released early to be repeated in measure 13. Dupré would have prescribed a sixteenth-note break, but if you’re playing slower, you might delay that to the thirty-second-note level with some success. So long as it doesn’t sound panicked. Ditto the second eight note of 19 and the final eighth of 38 and 39 and isolated notes in the right hand of 52-54. Ditto lots of individual Pedal notes in measures 2, 4, 9, 26, 28, 40, 43, 45, and 65.

Measure 13: I believe the final A-flat in the left hand should be A natural, since there are two A naturals against it in the right hand, plus the A-natural quarter note in the Pedal. Crunchy chromaticism aside in this Prelude, outright atonality or the prolongation of what sounds like a wrong note is probably a misprint.

Measure 27: According to Dupré/Steed, the final G of the right hand should be G-sharp. I concur.

Measure 33: Curious that Dupré does not reverse the Pedal couplers here like he did for a similar texture in measures 16 and 51. That’s probably because in 35, the right foot will be more melodic there than textural before. By 43, the Pedal is back to ‘normal’ in this configuration. In 60, the Pedal is once more melodic, but with the Récit coupler rather than Great. I doubt any of this is a misprint, but it is nevertheless noted, and the performer may have to do whatever it takes to preserve good balance. As we all know, the lower end of Pedal eight-foot flutes and bourdons can be notoriously weak in the U.S., so you may have to go into various contortions to keep the upper Pedal notes from being too loud but the lower notes from disappearing completely 

Measure 35: The right hand is on its own for legato here. I don’t try to disguise wide intervals with what my teacher Clyde Hollway called the “omigod” way of trying to achieve legato where legato is not possible for most hands. So I just lift the thumb proudly, note by note, until the intervals shrink back down to something more manageable. That is even more pronounced in measures 59, where the white/black key pattern makes detachment even more necessary. I’ll take a detached sound over a panicked sound any day.

Measure 43: The first eighth (E-flat) of the left hand is not the same interval it was in corresponding passages in measures 2 and 15. I wonder if that E-flat should have been a G instead. If so, then the entire passage (42-43) would match its sibling measures 1-2 and 14-15, interval for interval. For the record, I have not changed that E-flat in performance; I just raise the question here. Misprint?

Measure 56 is engraved strangely. The half-rest in the Pedal most likely applies to the upper voice in the Pedal, which has been resting since the previous measure. The lower voice has a half-note, which lasts the full measure, but its stem is pointing up. I believe the stem should be pointing down to continue to signify the lower voice, and that the note be held for the entire measure.

Measures 69-70: The left-hand stab accents are a bit jarring. Was Dupré just asking for an early release? If so, he might have used a staccato, as he did at the beginning of 69. And I don’t know how much “accent” one should be expected to get from the light registration. Was Dupré asking for only the top note to be released early and the other two notes of the triad to move legato? Who knows? I’m still experimenting.

The Fugue is a nightmare for finger/voice independence. Make sure you’re obeying Dupré’s staccato and legato markings exactly.

Measure 109: Third beat, I move the right hand to the Swell as instructed, but I move the left hand to the Positif, for greater relief of the subject. I’ll move the left to the Récit for the downbeat of 115.

Measure 115: The soprano is legato, but not the second soprano. This legato lingers all the way into the downbeat of 123, including the manual change.

Measure 124: The pedal is still legato, which suggests a full-value second beat, against the staccato second beat of the manuals. So far, that hasn’t sounded ragged to me. Similar mismatches occur in the B Major fugue, so it’s not unheard of. Dupré’s exacting markings and performances are testament.

Measure 134: The left hand note values are incomplete. The final E-flat should probably be an eighth note.

End of measure 137: Both soprano voices are now legato, all the way to the rest in 143.

Measures 149-157: Legato here, staccato there. Watch Dupré’s markings, especially for the isolated staccato voices. And release legato voices exactly on rests, not early.

Measure 158: The downbeat is still legato, which means full value to the rest. 

Measure 159: Second and third beats: notice that Dupré has written a long note value there, asking for a longer length to the tie. Otherwise, all is staccato.

Measures 167-173: Hardest part of the piece, if you ask me. I’m dying here.

Measure 179: I move the left hand to the Positif on the downbeat of 179, rather than 180, so that I don’t have to negotiate a potentially awkward manual change after sextuplets. Third beat of 179: I move the right hand to the Positif, one beat earlier than instructed. Since the fugue subject begins on the 3^rd beat, it just makes sense there. Curiously, Steed/Dupré says that the left hand should remain on the Great there to the end of the piece. That doesn’t make sense to me until 190.

Measure 189: I move my right hand to the Great a beat early. Although that is not a subject statement, moving on the third beat of 189 would retain the third-beat start pattern.

Measures 197-204: I find it dangerous for my hands to work so hard. Those bouncing/traveling chords would all be hard enough to play, anyway, even without the Pedal scurrying up and down. I redistribute the notes and leave the hands in one position. That introduces issues of finger independence but it would remove the issue of hitting cracks with so much quick repositioning from chord to chord.

Measure 218: Dupré didn’t have that high C at St-Sulpice. If you don’t, either (and if you’re in the U.S., then why not?!), solve it any way you like.

The Great upper work and reeds, the Pedal upper work and reeds, and the manual 16s are not employed at the beginning of the Fugue. Dupré does not specifically call for registrational buildup except by way of his fff in 197, which to the French meant simply ‘full organ.’ But surely he would allow some sort of buildup along the way from his opening registration. I suggest some growth at the third beat of 137 (which may have to be reversed somewhat in the Pedal for 161-173). Depending on the size of the instrument, I suggest further growth at the third beat of 173, the second beat of 184, and the third beat of 189, plus the required full organ at the third beat of 196. Finally, I don’t see the point of holding something in reserve for 216 – the pregnant pause and the thick notes themselves are excitement enough.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 7

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods. See here for the entire series.

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The parish of St. John the Divine, Houston

In the early 1990s my professor Clyde Holloway, Organist-Choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, would shrug his shoulders in mild defeat when discussing St. John the Divine, Houston. He said (paraphrased) that St. John’s always … just … kind of … proudly lingered on the fringes of Episcopalianism. There was always … a vague sense … more of … Hey look at us over here … rather than … Hey let us help you with your struggles. Friends of mine have put it more bluntly: “They were just Baptists posing as Episcopalians.”

Dick arrived at St. John’s in 1972. By the time I got there in 1990, it was the third-largest Episcopal parish in the country: 4500 members, right behind St. Michael and All Angels, Dallas (#2), and St. Philip’s Cathedral, Atlanta (#1). And being situated at the portal of River Oaks Boulevard leading into one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the country [anyone who has driven down that street knows what I’m talking about], it was among the wealthiest churches of any sort in all of Houston, and it was helmed at the time by the nation’s highest-paid Episcopal priest.

Speaking ever so subjectively, I’d say St. John the Divine represented a high-level, complex system of self-preservation. With so many successful white collars on the parish roll, it should come as no surprise that there was a careful, corporate approach to the management of the parish. Everything stayed clean, well-organized, and in relatively decent repair although aging by that point. Deferred maintenance was common so as not to overspend, but emergencies were handled straightaway. Money was spent copiously but deliberately. But there was also a vague sense that although the poor were welcome in the door, the rest of us will handle things around here, thank you. I sensed early on that we artists were welcome as members of the parish but would never be members of the club. There were plenty nice enough individuals about, but the parish as an entity seemed to take a greater interest in being the Church of St. John the Divine for River Oaks than in being an outpost of Jesus Christ for all people. Dick sensed all this, too, and we discussed it many times. It’s hard to say unequivocally, but he and I always detected something just a little … cold … about this parish.

On many fronts, St. John the Divine was always one of the most conservative parishes in the country. Members were the ultimate conservative in matters of wardrobe – everyone was dressed to the nines, and not just on Sundays. The parish was painfully conservative in social matters, which was usually [and was here] an extension of painfully conservative scriptural approaches. And of course, they were fiscally conservative. On another hand, the parish was refreshingly conservative in liturgical matters, delivering well-orchestrated, faithful liturgy at all services. That is about the only sector where the parish’s conservatism overlapped with Dick’s.

The parish lay clear at the other end of the spectrum on musical matters. While many other outposts in the diocese were still on an unchallenged, steady diet of motets, anthems, and organ music, St. John the Divine was always clamoring for spirituals, praise choruses, piano music, and ‘renewal music,’ as it was called in those days. Folks didn’t notice or didn’t seem to care about the irony of singing campfire choruses while wearing cufflinks. Virtually no one but us folks in the choir stalls thought twice about the National Anthem being shoe-horned into such Sundays as Lent I just because it also happened to be Boy Scout Sunday, or onto Pentecost just because it also happened to be Memorial Day weekend. Dick and I were in the dissenting minority, but we always dutifully pulled out all the stops for the assembly to sing their hearts out to their country. Dick always longed for them to sing sturdy hymns of the faith so well. I suggested we passive-aggressively carry big mixing spoons around, in protest of the blissfully ignorant mixing of church and state going on.

We nearly had mutiny in the congregation one Sunday when the choir sang the Messiaen O sacrum convivium and I played his Le Banquet céleste during communion. A couple outspoken parishioners hated it all, said that “the music today was awful; just awful,” and left truly angry. One of them even made a groaning sound and bent over like an old man to illustrate how painful it was to sit through that music. When I related that story to Clyde Holloway, he shrugged [as he did at the beginning of this post] and said, “I guess some people just don’t like to be challenged in God’s presence. We do Messiaen at the Cathedral all the time, and people just file by and say, ‘Nice to hear Messiaen again. What’s on deck for next week?’”

Self-preservation existed on various fronts and levels. The tragedy is that the various versions of self-preservation were seldom compatible. There was general toleration on each side, but both sides chose to feel threatened at every turn. Dick was trying to preserve a tradition and an art, but there was fear that he was holding the parish back from bursting in full glory onto the renewal music scene. Dick, meanwhile, felt further threatened because he felt his training meant little to nothing to anyone within those walls, which then put him deeper into survival mode.

A new contemporary service materialized in those days. While it got on its feet, its budget was embedded in the music budget at first, and so a new double threat emerged. ‘They’ felt threatened that Dick was going to cheat them or pull rank, and Dick felt threatened that ‘they’ were going to become the preferred service for the entire parish and he’d be washed up and/or sent away. Then, as with most contemporary services, when the service had ripened enough to get its own budget, the threats still didn’t go away. Dick still felt threatened that they were going to take over and start getting some of his budget for themselves. And so the us-vs.-them cold war continued.

Next time: The red sea, a.k.a. the sock drawer