on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 17

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods, organist/choirmaster at the Church of St. John the Divine, Houston. See here for the entire series.

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After the Woods era

Dick was of the ‘Organist-Choirmaster’ vintage. The next generation was ‘Director of Music.’ Dick’s calling card actually displayed both titles, each on a separate line: Organist-Choirmaster / (Director of Music) [parentheses included]. About five months after Dick’s death, his successor John Gearhart arrived from St. Paul’s Church in Mobile, Ala. In John and his wife Laurie, I found easy confidantes and a whole new set of lessons to learn. John is a good man and a conscientious and creative director of music. He was necessarily a bit of a shock to the choir – a man of wider smiles, more relaxed wardrobe, and louder living than Dick. He was as organized as Dick but also rather more passionately impulsive. It took me only a short while to learn how fast I would have to move to make things happen when John had an idea. Dick had his ideas months ahead; John seemed to have his just before bulletin printing deadlines! [Kidding.] But one is a fool who thinks John didn’t fit in. Rather, it was Dick who had over time become the outlier in that parish. John Gearhart quite satisfactorily and appropriately completed the public gleam of the parish that the rector and the congregation had in mind.

As the final word on matters of worship staff, rector Larry Hall hired and presented John to the choir, sight unseen. There was plenty of grumbling that the choir never had much of a say in the matter and therefore felt unappreciated. Some fallout and exodus were predictable and indeed occurred. Not everyone was willing to accept the new way, appropriate though the new way admittedly was for that parish. A sense of making a statement gnawed at me. The Woods era was over, and I felt like I was supposed to make some dramatic statement to that effect. I self-misguidedly chose resigning to make that statement, effective May 15, 1994. It wasn’t until much later as that date approached that I realized that it was one year to the day after Dick’s death.

For a number of years following, several choir members organized an annual choir reunion on the Saturday closest to Dick’s birthday, July 26. The group would gather at a gourmet Mexican restaurant in the Houston area, in homage to Dick’s preference for the original Ninfa’s Mexican restaurant on Navigation Boulevard. [It was at Ninfa’s with Dick where I learned everything there is to know about Tex-Mex. I also learned that Dick proudly knew how to ask for an ashtray in Spanish and that he drank his margaritas in the uncommon fashion of straight up with no salt. I think of Dick and the choir and of Ninfa’s and of life in Houston every time I go out for Mexican.] At these post-Woods-era gatherings, the choir would update their contact info with each other, tell stories, eat lunch, and sing one or two pieces together, usually the Doxology and the Mozart Ave verum, which is fitting, since we didn’t get to that one during Communion at the funeral. Previous assistant organists able to attend always added a level of remembrance from their perspectives that enriched the choir members’ recollections from theirs. This annual gathering was about the man as much as the experiences and training he provided.

One friend in the choir has stressed what it was about Dick to be able to create what he did, against so much headwind. When it came to music and its community-building component, Dick was genuine. He focused on tone, and the rest followed, including goodwill. [Paraphrased.] These annual re-gatherings were not hero worship; rather, we were still honoring the community Dick fostered within us all. As of this writing in 2025, we’re all getting older (and worse), and those gatherings are no longer annual, but they still occur here and there.

About six years after Dick died, the church campus was finally showing enough wear and tear that it had to be dealt with. And deal with it the parish did. They realized that the buildings had lasted fifty years and needed some help to continue into the future. The perfect committee was formed, coordinated by the perfect chair Mrs. Sally McCollum. They openly and honestly discussed and dealt with every inch of the physical plant. They retained leading professionals in liturgical design, infrastructure, roofing, fire suppression, landscaping, and a host of other fields. And yes, they dealt smartly and successfully (and finally) with matters of acoustics, chancel layout, seating, and floor covering in the main church. The entire room now has slate flooring and completely modular liturgical furniture and platforming for infinite versatility for services and concerts. What had previously been one of Houston’s more visually disagreeable rooms is now rather luminous, and what had previously been one of Houston’s driest acoustical spaces is now one of the warmest and most commanding. The architecture now serves the function of the space better, rather than being merely a perpetuation of the original architect’s adherence to his idol’s designs. All this, plus a five-manual pipe organ with two consoles, built by Orgues Létourneau, St. Hyacinthe, Quebec [their largest, at 144 ranks] to replace the 1954 Wicks rebuilt in 1970. The room, previously and deservedly shunned by all competent musicians, is now in constant use as a popular concert venue. The parish has enjoyed hosting such events and takes an active role in hospitality.

That renovation is a visible representation of the parish’s revolution toward smarter decisions on many matters. Dick’s successor John Gearhart reports that the conservatism toward the marginalized turned around, too, for which I offer congratulations to the parish and many thanks to God. John reports that all things were made new during the time following Dick’s death. Certainly overdue, but revolution toward a better church for God’s people made its way organically and peacefully into many lives there. John’s own successor Steve Newberry reports that things continue on that good track. The liturgy in the nave has remained faithful, even adding vergers, Anglican-chanted Psalms, and monthly Evensong. ‘Renewal music,’ now perhaps better known as ‘praise and worship,’ is still plentiful in its own services in another space on campus.

Next time: Some final observations

Note by note: Vierne Symphony No. 1: Final

Vierne was later apologetic for this movement. He felt it was too youthful, too swaggering, and too shallow to be good music. If my memory serves, he also felt it was unnecessarily hard compared with the musical return on it. I agree with all this, but if we play the piece with dignity rather than pageantry, it will say what it needs to say, without offending. It is exciting enough on its own without me getting in its way. And guess what – we can hit more of the right notes when we slow down. Just imagine.

For this entire movement, the eighth-note pairs of the main theme will give you no end of grief for evenness. Those two notes often come out as lopsided triplets or as subsets of sixteenth quintuplets. Keep them even and perfectly aligned with the accompanimental figures against them.

Repeat after me: “Slurs in French Symphonic music do not break at the end.” The only authority to break a note in this style is a rest, a breath mark, or some sort of articulation such as a staccato mark. All those little paired slurs at the beginning are nothing more than strong-weak indications. Now, for the right hand, the first notes of these pairs are automatically louder, anyway, because they are higher. So don’t work too hard with those. But the left-hand pairs are the reverse, and you and your ears are going to have to show up for work to keep those sounding correct.

Measures 1 and 2: In many performances, these two measures tend to come off as regal, with poise and grandeur. And then the Pedal enters, and the discussion above regarding uneven eighth-note pairs comes into play. Listen mercilessly to the main theme throughout the movement – the recurrences of that rhythm are relentless, and the siren’s song toward rhythmic sloppiness is nearly overwhelming. Your ears need to be as tired as your fingers and feet when you play this piece.

Measures 4, 8, 13, 17, etc.: Everyone shortens the first note in the Pedal, but Vierne doesn’t ask for that. Nevertheless, I think that approach is here to stay. The accents he places on the half-notes are compelling for some detached prep just before, but he would have placed a staccato on the preceding note each time if he wanted the break.

Measure 5 is usually where people realize they started a little slower than they intended, and so they catch up in this measure. Don’t.

Measures 6, 10, and 11 tend to rush. Don’t let them.

Measures 13, 14, 17, 18, etc.: Again, the eighth notes in the melody tend to rush. Keep hands and feet rigorously aligned in solid rhythm.

Measures 23-27: I tend to start this section on the Récit and then move to the Positif in the middle of 25 and to the Great in the middle of 27. Harmless. I do the same in the recap, measures 190-194.

Measures 31-37: Again, make sure the left hand and Pedal remain rock-solid in their rhythms and tempo. The Pedal often tends to rush the eighth notes. Dust off your Gleason technique and clean those up.

Measure 40: The manual change there is terribly awkward. It can be easily fixed by making the manual change on the second eighth of that measure. Although slightly different, Vierne does this in measure 44.

Measure 49: Vierne doesn’t ask for a slower tempo, but many people play this slower. After all, it’s hard to play, plus it’s marked cantabile. But if you do choose to do that, then you’ll need a place to recover tempo in time for 85. Many people speed up in 67, 77, or 81. Just do so gradually and with intention, rather than jarringly. Another option is to play the entire movement more grandly, if I haven't said that already, hint, hint.

Measure 65: The left hand should move to the Positif on beat 2. Consult Olivier Latry’s corrections for this and other spots.

Measures 65-76: Those double thirds are going to require your best finger crossing technique. There is precious little time for substitution. Those thirds are often played with some sort of articulation, although Vierne doesn’t ask for that. But that might be another one of those global habits that’s here to stay.

Measure 66: I move the right hand to the Great for the final three eighths of 66, and then move the left hand on the second beat of 67. Smoother and easier.

Measures 127-130, 135-139, 143-145: Consider using two feet for each pair of Pedal eighth notes. This will keep the tempo under control, but that idea goes out the window beginning in 147.

Measures 215-218: Detail alert: Notice that Vierne doesn’t ask the melodic half notes to break along with the staccato quarters under them. And notice the absence of staccatos on the downbeats of all these measures.

Measures 218-220: There are staccatos on some right-hand notes that are not present in the left. I believe they should be added. But not in the Pedal.

Measures 243-244: As I have said many times before for many other pieces, those Pedal notes are melodic, and this is neither a race nor a parade of technique. Those notes deserve to be heard as the music they are, not as a Pedal exercise. Play music there, and let the notes be exciting on their own terms (which they are). Matter of fact, notice that Vierne does not even ask for a final ritard. If you obey that non-directive, then the final four measures are quite thrilling without help.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 16

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods, organist/choirmaster at the Church of St. John the Divine, Houston. See here for the entire series.

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The funeral

Mr. Bob Jones, then president of Geo. H. Lewis & Sons Funeral Directors, was a dear friend of Dick’s, and he stood ready to assist when the inevitable occurred. I thank him, God rest his soul, for that service in friendship. Aside: Over the years, Bob also spearheaded a most welcome practice that nearly all other funeral homes in Houston still follow today – bringing a check to each funeral for the organist.

Dick’s funeral was May 22, 1993, at 1:00 pm at St. John’s. Bishop Sterling celebrated. Rector Larry Hall preached. My teacher Clyde Holloway played the Franck B-Minor Choral for the prelude, after which I added the Bach E-Flat Prelude and Fugue. The hymns were Engelberg, St. Columba, Melita, Down Ampney, and Land of Rest. And the choir completely filled the stalls with current and former members. (How I wished I had been around during the heyday of this choir with Dick.) There were surprisingly few other people in attendance – maybe fifty or so – a final insult, I felt, from a parish of some 4000 members, for a fellow who had served among them for two decades.

The choir sang three anthems at the Offertory: Duruflé Ubi caritas, Mendelssohn ‘He that shall endure,’ and Vaughan Williams ‘O how amiable.’ Even today, I still weep openly upon hearing the Vaughan Williams. For whatever reason, my myriad emotions converged around this piece during this time, and I remember Dick and everything he stood for, every time I hear it. Communion motets were Tallis ‘If ye love me’ and Mozart Ave verum. I recall running out of communicants before we ran out of music, and just as Dick would have done, we ended the music and did not get to the Mozart.

Bishop Benitez (previously the rector) could not attend the funeral and wrote an address of sorts to be read aloud. I was keen to hear what final words he might offer for this fellow he openly admired. To my disappointment, the letter was full of platitudes and clichés. It was all smiles and read like a merry biographical sketch intended for a retirement party. I was deeply disappointed that the bishop didn’t make better use of the opportunity for a Christian teaching moment. There was no mention of the tragedy of this death, no mention of the unnecessary stigma that came with AIDS in those days, no reprimand of this parish or the Church at large – an institution that should have been there for sick people who often unnecessarily lost their dignity and friends and family as well as their lives with this disease, no mention of the HIV learning curve the whole thing put some of us on and should have put everyone on, no call for better education and better treatment of each other. I seem to be the only person who remembers the address at all, and although I can’t recall if it was read aloud or if the bishop had pre-recorded it himself it to be played back at the service, I know I’m not making it up. I have tried to get a copy of it from the archivist at the diocese, but the backlog on the digitization of previous bishops' documents is understandably formidable.

Credit is due Bishop Benitez, however, for his unwavering and demonstrated admiration of Dick from the day they met to the day Dick died. He always called Dick ‘maestro.’ I remember his graciously attending a birthday party for Dick in 1991 and uttering a most sincere prayer to God, some of the words I remember as, “… for your servant Dick … that as his days increase …” The bishop even visited Dick on his death bed at home. Dick’s inner circle has never forgotten that gesture from the bishop nor the absence of the same gesture from the rector and others.

Dick’s ashes were interred in the columbarium at the church. As one enters the gate, his niche is on the left-hand side, in the first bend of the columbarium’s cruciform layout. Dick is interred directly next to Mr. Collis Woods, Sr., a Black gentleman who served St. John’s for decades as sexton. The two of them had arranged to be interred next to each other so that visitors might assume they were brothers. Dick always chuckled like a sly villain whenever he told anyone of those plans. The whole thing is a perfect representation of his wry, sneaky humor, and it is quietly hiding in plain, perpetual sight right there in the church columbarium.

Next time: After the Woods era

A few more little-known facts

I tend to accept the things I can’t change, keeping quiet about some things and otherwise choosing my battles carefully. But I can tell I’m turning into my grandfather. Witness:

Other than in movie theatres, it is foreign to me to require food and drink just to sit through a performance in a theatre. In my youth and college days it was unheard of to allow food and drink into, say, an opera or even a musical. And certainly not during church. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all the coffee thermoses now in church, candy bars at orchestra concerts, and wine glasses at virtually everything. And when one considers the price markup of concessions at all theatres, then the ‘need’ for a plastic cup of wine appears to be more an addiction or nervous habit than anything else. I feel sorry-not-sorry for people when they learn they are not allowed to bring their salads and pinot grigio picnics into our student concerts at the university.

I shake my head over our addiction to noise: omnipresent earbuds, days-long playlists, resonant clubby restaurants, screaming children, Broadway live sound, souped-up motorcycle and car stereos, fireworks, dance clubs, and souped-up cars missing their mufflers. Seriously, are we really that afraid of our own thoughts anymore? Of course, I myself don’t seem to mind dozens of ranks of organ pipes sounding within striking distance; so there’s that.

I miss church weddings, even if I don’t miss playing for them. I have reached my limit for remote, expensive wedding venues that used to be hay barns.

I miss tuxedos on performers.

I miss white tie.

I miss matching socks.

I miss dress socks.

I miss any socks with suits.

I miss suit coats that cover the butt and actually button around the belly.

I miss dress shoes.

I still don’t like blond shoes with dark suits.

I don’t like that an untucked button-down with no blazer is now called ‘business casual,’ and a standard suit with tie is now called ‘formal.’ I suppose that means I’ll be considered a freak or an extra-terrestrial if I ever wear white tie or even black tie again, or if I tuck in my button-down and wear a belt with it.

I don’t miss men’s pants pulled up to the chest, nor neckties that barely make it past the sternum.

Speaking of ties, I miss symmetrical knots.

And I am completely at a loss to explain the proliferation of pajamas for public attire. Seriously, people, what happened?

In other news, I still believe in using hard-copy scores whenever possible. I suppose I would read from the original manuscript, if I could.

And I still believe in showing up early and in eating afterward with whoever wants to go and in talking about music and men’s ‘fashion’ and the grandfather I have apparently become.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 15

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods, organist/choirmaster at the Church of St. John the Divine, Houston. See here for the entire series.

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The inevitable

After he got out of the hospital, Dick said strange things and had trouble following conversations. That was to be expected for what his brain had just endured and was now up against, but he needed to save as much face as possible. He wisely stayed off the organ bench during church now. I started taking up more bureaucratic slack, most of which involved finding ways to keep him off the phone. He couldn’t carry on much of a conversation, and most of the folks he was talking to were uninformed about what was going on. Furthermore, there was no voicemail in those days; phone messages existed only on pink slips from the receptionist’s office. Dick would return a call from a pink-slip message, get no answer, and then just throw the slip away and declare the matter ended. He wouldn’t [couldn’t] even leave messages on answering machines. Complaints began to mount. I began to go in after he left each day, retrieve messages from the trash can, and return calls. Of course, e-mail didn’t exist yet.

And so it went for a few months. That Christmas 1992 was touch-and-go. Dick’s brain couldn’t keep up with appropriate tempos in rehearsals. I took it upon myself to practice playing and conducting just in case I needed to, and I had to practice those during times Dick was not going to be within earshot. I had to work out in my mind where the orchestra might re-set to see me, should Dick not be able to conduct. And I worked out any spots where I might gently drive tempos ahead at the organ without losing the orchestra, whether Dick was conducting or not. He was determined to remain in charge, and his inner circle was determined to help him. Even though it was my job to be prepared, ironically I had to think through all these things and be ready without anyone knowing. Fortunately, those secret plans weren’t necessary, and I have never shared them with anyone until now. We made it through that night. Dick even managed to rally for the evening with higher energy and better tempos. But he was exhausted afterward, of course, and he never rallied back to that level again.

We all knew there would certainly be no post-Christmas-Eve party at Dick’s that year. Those were always epic in previous years. Church would be over around midnight on Christmas morning, and many choir members and other friends would gather at Dick’s and party well into the night. Dick always invited the Diocesan Music Commission and his good friend Bruce Power. The party would last until at least 4:00 am. I would go and stay for only a short while, because I had Christmas morning duties. It was one of the most joyous times of year for me. Since I couldn’t get home to North Carolina for Christmas, I could enjoy my dear friends in the choir, celebrate a [big] job well done at church, and get in the habit of being in church on high holy days, a foreign concept in my childhood but a necessity for me now.

Soon after that Christmas 1992, we moved out of the church into the gym for services during nave renovation. Then Dick announced his retirement, to take effect after a couple months’ vacation he had accrued. I officially took over as Interim. I didn’t see him for a while, during which time he lost half his weight and began wasting away. He arrived in a wheelchair for his farewell Sunday, during which he received a lengthy standing ovation. Dick managed to stand his poor, emaciated self up and accept it.

Once Dick’s retirement was effective, no one in the music department knew what was next, and a sense of threat loomed. We were all waiting for some sort of bomb to be dropped – choir disbandment in favor of the contemporary service, choir scattering out of frustration, choir scattering because they realized that Dick was the only glue holding them all together. I just wanted to hand them off intact to Dick’s successor, whoever that was going to be. And Holy Week was now around the corner.

Meanwhile, the search for Dick’s successor was now on. A search committee was formed, but when Episcopal policy gives the rector the final say over matters of worship and therefore worship staff, this was going to be under the hood a quiet, intensive, one-man search. This was rector Larry Hall’s chance.

Saturday, May 15, 1993: Dick was on his deathbed at home, under Hospice care. Here I should thank a gracious and dear lady, ‘Pearl,’ assigned to his care. I had stopped by to speak what few words I had in my feeble, uninformed vocabulary for such a time as that. Not having experienced this before, I was horrified at how emaciated Dick had become, and I was unfamiliar with the short gasps of breath that are the typical death rattle. I wanted to stay but had to head to church for a wedding. A few minutes before I began the prelude, rector Larry handed me the note that Dick had died; he was two months and eleven days shy of age 64.

Next time: The funeral

Note by note: Jongen Toccata

To clean up printing errors in this piece, you’ll need John Scott Whiteley’s book on Jongen’s organ music. He corrects many instances of pitches and other issues, and I feel he’s right.

Note that Jongen’s instrument in Brussels didn’t have a mixture on the Récit. The organ had plenty of mutations, so his music can authentically have a bit of a ‘snarl’ to it, if you care to experiment with registration.

The temptation should be resisted to play the manual notes staccato. They are already ‘detached’ in a high-low trading pattern. One chord should give way to the other, sixteenth to sixteenth, in a legato fashion with no intervening staccatos.

Tempo: My sermon on French Symphonic tempos is a litany: Slow down, for heaven’s sake. Lord, hear our prayer. ‘Fast’ and ‘grand’ are different things. But don’t take my word for it; see Jongen’s note at the very end of the piece. And as usual, keep in mind that published metronome markings always tend to be impossibly fast, which is the case here. I hover somewhere between 92 and 100, and that’s plenty fast in most acoustics.

Measures 5-6: I believe the tenor D-flats in the Pedal should have staccato markings, like their siblings up to that point. But notice that the low G-flat in measure 6 is now legato into the C-flat.

Measures 13-16: I am ambivalent about the lack of staccatos in the Pedal eighths, and Whiteley is silent about them. It seems that with so many staccato markings now missing, compared to the first few measures, legato is now Jongen’s intent. But I also know that this publisher was notoriously lacking in the proofreading department. Ultimately, it seems to me that the off-beat nature of the motive would retain more ‘presence’ with staccato eighths. Put in modern street terms, it would ‘pop’ more.

Measure 15: I find the addition of the tirasse Positif more effective if moved to measure 18.

Measure 18: I believe the final A-flat in the left hand should be G-flat, to match the right hand. And that would make the final note of the left hand G-natural.

Measure 26: I break my own rule of full-value notes here. I release the Pedal A-flat a sixteenth-note value earlier, to ‘clear the air’ for the landing on the Great.

Measures 27-31: The Pedal now has a melody; so listen mercilessly to it, and keep it under control. Avoid double-dotting. Ditto later measures such as 51-63, etc.

Measure 40: I find the Swell box closure is more effective if moved to measure 42. Smoother that way. But save some of that closure for 46.

Measure 40: Jongen calls for a move to the Positif at the final eighth of that measure. I move the right hand as instructed, but I move the left hand after the downbeat. Smoother that way.

Measure 81: You’ll need to release the Pedal low D-flat a bit early to add its anches. An eighth rest ought to do it.

Measure 82: I tie the final G-flat of the right hand into the downbeat. Ditto 84 into 85.

Measures 98-100: Listen carefully to the pairs of notes in the Pedal, and make sure they all sound consistent. My teacher Clyde Holloway busted me one day in the Messiaen Transports de joie, where I was playing a similar two-note motive in the Pedal with whatever foot/feet was/were available – in other words, what was more convenient [comfortable]. He said that they actually sound different if played with different pedaling from pair to pair. And he was right. And from that moment on, I decided that my comfort is secondary to consistency and integrity. Same thing for the Pedal note pairs throughout BWV 552i.

Measures 101-102: That’s not a cadenza. It is part of the continuing crescendo. Keep it in tempo. The slower note values will automatically create more crescendo for you. Go ahead – give it a try.

Measures 105-107: Depending on the organ, I keep the 32’ reed in reserve until here. It makes a more powerful appearance that way, rather than gurgling its way through, say, measure 101.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 14

This is one of many installments of a biography of mentor and friend Dick Woods, organist/choirmaster at the Church of St. John the Divine, Houston. See here for the entire series.

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The tragic surprise

By the spring of 1992, Dick’s skin had developed a grayness. His lips were coated with a pasty, white residue, and he had little appetite for food and had lost the energy to clean his house or wash his dishes. Heavy smoker that he was, I thought he had emphysema or cancer. I had no idea what he thought or knew about his condition, other than that quitting smoking cold-turkey – which he did – might help. Several people had other suspicions, and they feel that Dick did at that time, too. By the time he finally went to a doctor just after Easter 1992, he was diagnosed not only HIV-positive but also with full-blown AIDS, manifested via pneumocystis pneumonia. He was immediately admitted to Park Plaza Hospital and remained there for three months. Here I must acknowledge most gratefully the heroic efforts of Didier Piot, M.D., and the entire Park Plaza team. Dr. Piot was a pioneer in the U.S. for HIV/AIDS care, and he was the founding physician of what eventually became the AIDS Foundation Houston. The Park Plaza team worked several miracles on Dick, and he was able to return to work a few months later, if only for a short time. His illness was too far along for him to work meaningfully for much longer.

A diagnosis of HIV or AIDS in those days was a death sentence in most cases, not only to one’s body but also to one’s employment and/or status. HIPAA protection was still four years away, and there were no mechanisms in place at St. John the Divine for continuing nor suspending the compensation of a sick staff member, especially one with a sickness suspected to result from a ‘lifestyle’ of which the parish so often vocally disapproved. Dick did not disclose his diagnosis outright to rector Larry Hall for quite a while. (Although that secret was of course particularly sensitive, Dick was always keeping secrets, anyway, thanks to the mistreatment he endured at places like St. James in Wichita and St. David’s in Austin and here at St. John the Divine, Houston.) The rector inferred Dick’s diagnosis from the location of his hospital room on the AIDS floor at Park Plaza, but he could not get confirmation from Dick nor Dick’s inner circle. That had to have been frustrating. I knew it wasn’t my place to reveal information like that. I also didn’t know the law nor which of these men was more within his rights. I can understand Dick’s unwillingness to trust Larry with that information, and I can understand the rector’s frustration as a boss being strung along without much recourse.

Once Dick was stabilized enough to sit up and talk more or less coherently, I would haul service planning materials to the hospital so we could work. I did that to keep him occupied, to encourage him, to help him show the administration that he was still working, and to keep him from otherwise losing face. But I also knew I was engaging in a certain amount of codependency, which was draining my own energy. I mitigated it all as much as I could. I’d certainly not work so hard today.

While I was doing the work of two, it was a little annoying to have to point out to the administration that increased salary for it would be nice. But Dick, ever the threatened one, then wondered if he was to receive some sort of docking or if I was now to be doing twice the work in other capacities. None of that was going to happen. Dick’s salary continued throughout his hospital stay, and my pay situation quickly improved, for which I was most grateful.

Things were chaotic under the surface for a time. The situation never boiled over, but the amount of scrambling and face-saving was near-epic. Dick was naturally withdrawing from his earthly authorities, even as his body was withdrawing from functionality. I’m sorry to report that he was also withdrawing from some dear friends, who would have moved heaven and earth for him. I was fielding questions I had no business fielding, from people who had no business asking. I was fielding phone calls from debt collectors. I learned very well how to say, “You’ll need to speak with Dr. Woods’s attorney. You know how this works. Here are his name and number.” Meanwhile, I was managing the program with the scant two years’ experience I had as an Episcopal musician up to that point, while the rector was wrestling with his own opinions of what to do, especially regarding exercising a Christian response to an evil disease that most people in those days were all too quick to blame the victims for. Anecdotal evidence from others suggests that the rector wanted to fire Dick outright but was eventually talked down from that particular ledge – by whom, no one seems to know. Dick had few allies outside the choir, and so it is reasonable to assume that whoever it was, they had either money or diocesan authority. At any rate, it was high drama as AIDS had finally arrived in posh River Oaks.

Dick eventually came clean with rector Larry, who to his own credit then organized an HIV/AIDS training session for the staff with a guest clinician. It was time, and it was important. So many people were uninformed or ill-informed in those days, and I was grateful to learn the language of the illness much better. I don’t recall us receiving much Christian sympathy/empathy training, but at least we learned some nuts and bolts about the terminology. There was mild grumbling about Dick’s privacy, and there was mild [uninformed] panic about catching HIV from him, but for the most part, heads were pulled from the sand, and we began to deal with the reality that was now upon us.

However, toward the end of Dick’s life, I remember a staff meeting during which a status report on him was requested. After a tick of silence, one clergyperson said, “I think he looks good. I saw him yesterday.” I asked, “Are we talking about the same fellow? He doesn’t look ‘good.’ He looks lousy; he is dying.” [I nearly added, “You idiot.” Dick had always thought that person was stupid, anyway.] The aftershocks of denial were still rumbling following the earthquake of the flagship River Oaks church learning that it had employed not only a gay man all this time but also one now dying of the gay man’s curse in those days.

I should add as I have before in this series that this parish eventually and largely cleaned up its act, and it is a much more Christlike place to be today. History is history, but I would be remiss to continue to leave the dear Reader with an unfavorable impression of a parish that no longer deserves it. I'll address that more directly in three more installments here.

Next time: The inevitable

Note by note: Vierne Carillon de Westminster

Just about any organist could say, “I have played this piece since high school.” That is not always good news. This carillon is often played too fast, surprise, surprise. Vierne says Andante con moto, not Allegro con fuoco. And when you recall that most metronome markings (here, dotted quarter 69) were often insisted on by the publishers against composers’ wishes and are often wayyyyyyy too fast, then there is no empirical support for playing this piece any faster than marked. Don’t forget that this is live music, not a computerized light show. Vierne asks for ‘motion’ in his Italian indication, but honestly, he writes so many notes in such vigorous rhythm that there is plenty of moto present without having to force things. The piece should soar rather than dive-bomb. Never stop listening.

Registration: French Récits will require everything on, except 16-foot stops. But in the U.S., I often leave off the mixture and the 2’ and even the 4’ reed and have a much better time. Those stops may make for a more imposing buildup later in, say, measure 66.

Measure 1: Repeat after me: “Those slurs over every measure do not indicate lifts at the end.” “Those slurs over every measure do not indicate lifts at the end.” “Those slurs over every measure do not indicate lifts at the end.” French Symphonic is always played legato unless otherwise indicated, and ‘otherwise indicated’ is going to be much more obvious than a phrase mark. Had Vierne intended lifts, he would have inserted breath marks or rests outright. The copious slurs here are not liftable phrase marks but rather moments of ‘pulses,’ where the first note of the slur is ever so slightly lengthened, and the remaining notes simply grow naturally from it and make their way without delay to the next slur. In other words, one may put the slightest tenuto on the first note of each slur and then proceed a tempo through the rest of the measure, with no breaking to prove a point. (Pedagogical descendants of Clyde Holloway will recognize this as ‘pulsing.’) Notice the actual rests Vierne inserts into the Pedal in measures 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, etc.

Measure 3: I like to play this melody on the manual adjacent to the Récit. It makes some of my own ‘thumbing’ easier in measure 33.

Measure 4 and following: observe exactly all printed rests for the Pedal. That goes for each hand, for that matter, for all 165 measures.

Measure 5: Compare the left-hand and pedal cutoff here with those in measures 9 and 14. They’re all different and are perfectly playable differently. I don’t think Vierne was being careless in his notation – he was too advanced in his style by then to miss errors like that. So go to the trouble to be rhythmically precise and listen to the results.

Measure 9: Notice that the left hand will need to insert an eighth rest in order to re-strike the A for measure 10. Same thing in measures 17 and 30. Same thing in measure 54 for the right hand. Plenty other places – just keep your eyes and ears alert for rhythmic precision at all times.

Measure 33: I ‘thumb’ a few sextuplets into the left hand, to keep things smooth and panic-free.

Measure 34: If you have been playing your left hand on the middle manual since the beginning and your Positif is on the bottom, you can ‘recover’ to the bottom manual at some point in this measure and prepare the Great stops for measure 35.

Measure 35 and following: Repeat after me: “Those slurs over every measure do not indicate lifts at the end.” This also applies to the Pedal slurring, which is aligned differently. Same thing as before – the beginning of a slur can mean a slight dwelling on the first note, but in French Symphonic style, such never indicates a break prior. Only rests and breath marks and staccato marks and the like indicate breaking. German and English? Yes, feel free to break at phrase marks. But not in French Symphonic.

Measure 51 is missing its slur in the left hand. Not that we were at a loss without it.

Measure 59: The final D in the left hand may need to be broken for the re-strike of that note for measure 60. But if the acoustic says otherwise, feel free to tie. In any event, no need to break the B – again, always legato in this style unless otherwise instructed.

Measure 62: The first eighth rest in the Pedal is unnecessary and should be crossed out. The Pedal holds its first note a full large-beat dotted quarter and then releases with the left hand.

Measures 66-69 and similar measures through 93: Repeat after me: “Those slurs over every beat do not indicate lifts at the end.” Use dwelling, not breaking, on the first note to make things clean. But don’t dwell too much, because the first note of each beat here is already the highest, and therefore the loudest.

Measures 70, 74, 78, 82, 86, 90: The left hand is told to lift its chord on the final eighth of each measure, while the Pedal is told to hold all the way to the downbeat. There is always the chance that one of those treatments was an afterthought that didn’t get changed in the other part. But there is plenty to be said for taking Vierne literally in those measures and allowing the Pedal to linger just a bit longer in the name of sustained reverberation. This makes even better sense in measures 114-118. Only in 119 does he change it, and for good reason of the registration change.

Measure 86: The final C in the right hand may need to be lifted for its re-striking in 87. See the discussion for measure 59 above.

Measures 96 and following: See those staccato marks? Now you can start breaking some things. The authority for that is granted by the staccatos, not by the slurs. Keep everything clean and consistent.

Measures 120-125, 130-140: Honestly, I don’t know what sort of claws Vierne is expecting an organist to have in these passages. There are a couple spots where the finger stretching is heroic [read: laughable] and downright dangerous if over-practiced. Be careful. Everyone’s hands are different, so I’ll just offer general comments: 1) When in doubt, strive for legato melody – we would notice a broken soprano note before we noticed a broken or missing inner voice; 2) The sextuplets add a very effective sense of churning but no melody; 3) The drone on A in the left hand adds more sound but no melody. I would say that that A could be the first note you sacrifice to save your wrists or to preserve other parts of the texture. Experiment as needed – no need for this to hurt.

Measure 125: Tie the left hand A into measure 126. Ditto for measure 140 into 141. That is, if you’re actually playing it! (See the discussion just above.)

Measures 126-129, 141-144: The pesante chords are marked with sharp accents, which may be executed by shortening the quarter notes. Not too short – they still need a moment to speak with full voice.

Measure 144: Depending on the organ and the acoustics, I might tie the final F# in the Pedal into 145.

Measures 157-159: I have experimented with all sorts of rhythmic and acoustical manipulations here. Some folks add fermatas to the notes and/or to some of the eighth rests. But with Vierne suddenly coming to a rhythmic halt here for the first time in the piece and adding a ritard, I believe we might have plenty enough success just to keep counting while still slowing down.

Measures 160-163: If you can’t hear the Pedal notes, it’s too fast. That’s only four measures, so there’s no time for the Sowerby Pageant here – those notes are still quite melodic, and they deserve love.

Measure 163: I wouldn’t slow down too much. And I certainly wouldn’t add fermatas to the final sextuplets. Imagine a carillonneur playing a piece such as this – they wouldn’t slow down much. I might, however, release the penultimate chord just a bit early, to hear the Pedal cadenza better. And I might play the final two sextuplets in double octaves, especially if the organ doesn’t have enough lungs otherwise.

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 13

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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A bit of fun

Any discussion of Dick’s influence naturally includes his command of his work and his welcoming others into it. But a discussion must also include his sense of humor. Although he felt increasingly slighted and irrelevant at St. John the Divine, Houston, he always maintained a wry sense of humor just under the surface, and he was always grateful when he found himself in company where he could unleash that humor freely (which he did). The apex I witnessed of his ability to shed work and enjoy life was a short trip he, Bruce Power, Richard Rhoads and I made to New Orleans beginning on Christmas Day 1991. Just four busy church musicians enjoying a few days off, with Dick leading the pack. We ate at the Camellia Grill one day and playfully concluded as a group that ‘Camellia’ was probably Dick’s drag name at Tulane. He went along with the gag.

Whenever he said something sarcastic or off-color, Dick would follow it with a smirk, a raised shoulder and raised eyebrows, or he would smile and tuck his chin in a demure pose of look-at-me-I-made-a-funny. He had a twinkle in his eye and a childlike smile. He never laughed out loud but rather grinned it out under a bulky caterpillar mustache I never saw shaved off.

He and I and several friendlies on the church support staff would giggle at the sincere but tragically all-too-frequent spelling ‘St. John the Devine.’ We snickered as we visualized champagne bottles and prows of ships when we heard of new parents asking to have their babies ‘christened.’ And we would snort at the strings of fashionable last names being given to babies for their full names; we imagined the future chaos when these children would be told to ‘print last name first’ and then an unsuspecting reader would have to recalculate which of all those last names was the real one.

Dick and I would always pass the Peace at the appropriate time and in quiet reverence, complete with handshake and the full exchange, “The Peace of the Lord be with you. / And also with you.” Then he would immediately exit that mood and make some characteristically Dick comment: “Where the hell is the choir today? This is going to be terrible.” … “Where would we like to go for lunch today?” … “Boy, that was some sermon. I should have gone to feed the doggies during it.” [‘Feed the doggies’ was code for ‘smoke a cigarette.’ Dick was a heavy smoker. When my non-smoking, teetotaling parents first visited me in Houston, we went to Dick’s one evening for dinner. Rather than smoke in front of them, Dick stepped outside several times, claiming he needed to check on or feed the doggies. That wasn’t entirely contrived: he had two small dogs that were quite the entertainment. ‘Ralph’ was an assertive, black, short-haired miniature Dachshund, and ‘Butch’ was an exceedingly lovable and gassy English pug.]

If Dick and I were planning a service and discovered we needed something from outside arm’s reach, I would ask, “Am I supposed to go get it?” And he would say, “No, I’ll get it. You just sit there, drawing salary.” I still use that line today in banter with colleagues.

As soon as dinner would be delivered at a restaurant, Dick would ask the table, “Well, you ready to go?” Or, “Well, I’ll see you in the car.”

Dick once accused a too-loud tenor of sounding like a braying donkey. He accused one person’s sudden vibrato of sounding like an English horn in a string ensemble. When a section of the choir would launch too loudly into a phrase or when a women’s section began to allow too much vibrato in, Dick would yell, “No, you can’t do it that way – you’ll scare the children!” He always said such things only to old friends and knew that they would take it in the banter from which it was intended, but I’m sure he would get quite the shock if he said any of that to anyone at all today. [By the way, ‘You’ll scare the children!’ was very briefly a contender for subtitle of this would-be published biography of Dick. I quickly decided against it, knowing that only insiders would get it, while other readers would think God-knows-what from it.]

Dick drove a white 1989 Chrysler le Baron with a black cloth convertible top. He looked quite the part in it, with a ball cap and sunglasses. He always wanted a fluorescent light frame around the rear license plate. Those things were still novelties back then, and whenever he’d see one on a souped-up car, he’d endearingly get so excited he couldn’t sit still. So I got him one for Christmas one year, but then one thing in life led to another, and it never got installed.

We had some fun with a little fiefdom cropping up in the receptionist’s office. The receptionist began to require staff members to mark themselves present or absent on a magnetic board in her office. For us, that meant a trip to another building and upstairs, just to slide a little magnet left or right. She insisted everyone play along, but she was endearingly quite appreciative of anyone who did. So we would just call her with our status, which was fine with her. A few times, Dick called to tell her that he was heading to the restroom and that he would let her know when he was finished. Not only was the overkill of that lost on her, but also a tiny, private restroom was located right next to Dick’s office, not eight feet from his desk. He could have carried the hard-wired landline phone in there with him, if it meant that much to him. (And it didn’t, of course.)

Dick hated having to answer to more and more people in his work, a growing percentage of whom had no idea how to do that work. So he understandably resisted being required to sign in and out of campus, as if his hours were being tallied. But the bit of fun he had with the receptionist was surely an entertaining (if admittedly passive-aggressive yet equally futile) protest of increasing encroachment on our professional privacy.

Dick didn’t like the tidal wave of paperwork beginning to invade. Purchase orders, work orders, pre-purchase approvals and all other manner of paperwork made their appearance in churches everywhere during this time. Dick nominally worked at the pleasure of the rector, but now we all – including the rector at times – were beginning to work at the pleasure of the church administrator. When Dick suddenly had to justify every expense as if it were a first-time expenditure, he tried very hard to stay cool on the outside even as he railed in private against this new management style. I, too, hated it and felt that artists were going to have to begin operating like oil companies just to get pianos tuned and music ordered. [That’s life in the modern world, of course. The paperwork I am now responsible for in my university teaching is staggering, and it makes a few handwritten triplicate purchase orders at St. John the Divine look like a dream job – or dream vacation.] We found the whole thing silly and trendy, IRS bullying aside. We were annoyed all over again when we learned that church administrators’ salaries everywhere were beginning to eclipse those of the clergy for whom they worked.

The Rt. Rev. William E. Sterling (1927-2005) served as Bishop Suffragan of Texas 1989-1999. He previously served as rector in several churches in the Houston area. And he was a good friend of Dick’s. When he would visit St. John the Divine on official duty, he didn’t hang out with the clergy between services. Rather, he and Dick hung out in Dick’s office, smoking. Bishop Sterling confirmed me at St. John the Divine in the fall of 1990. Dick told him to give me “an extra-special blessing,” which the bishop dispensed by doing a near-complete handstand of his entire 200+-pound weight on my bowed head. The short prayer uttered over each confirmand was never so long than when he uttered it over my head that day. But my neck and I survived, and Dick and Bishop Sterling had a little fun.

To my ears, Dick’s favorite story to tell was of a service of healing and Eucharist one of us would play every Friday in the chapel. Dick loved telling this story, and he would chortle at the punchline every time, as if he were telling it for the first time:

One Friday, I was playing … just … the dreariest, most depressing music for communion for that service. And one of those old ladies passed by and patted me on the shoulder and whispered, “Your music really makes this place come alive!” I could hardly keep playing for laughing!

Bruce Power, one of Dick’s true friends, still giggles at that story today. One day, when Bruce learned I was going to play a special concert with the choir at First Methodist in Houston, he instructed a buddy of his in that choir to come up to me during rehearsal break and say, “Your music really makes this place come alive.” That was the kind of thing Dick would have done. 

Next time: The tragic surprise

In the Red

Several years ago, my wife was hired to play for a wedding to be held at the Marriott in downtown Des Moines. One of the grooms was her colleague in the Des Moines Choral Society and had asked her to play. As her significant other, I was also invited.

So we were ascending the escalator on wedding day. My wife was heading into Salon A to prepare for the wedding. At the top of the escalator, I noticed outside Salon B the seal for the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa. As any other curious and self-respecting Episcopalian who didn’t live there would have done, of course I had to poke my head in and ask, “Hey, what’s going on in here?” to which a very nice lady replied, “Oh, we’re electing a bishop! Would you like to see the ballot?”

Well, that ballot had three candidates on it, all women –– a deliberate effort on the part of the delegates. This election was going to seat Iowa’s first female bishop. Now, all this is significant and rates a blog post because of the inclusion and tolerance represented by the gay wedding in Salon A and the all-female bishop ballot next door in Salon B, all in a state not generally recognized for its tolerance. For one brief moment, all was well in the world. I thought, “I’ll take it.” But it got even better:

At the same moment that the two grooms started down the aisle to get married, the Episcopalians next door had completed their balloting and now had a bishop-elect (the soon-to-be Right Reverend Betsey Monnot). Therefore, there was much cheering and rejoicing from Salon B, which we could hear from the wedding in Salon A. I had no problem appropriating in my own mind the neighbors’ applause for the wedding’s purposes, and I am confident they wouldn’t have minded. Matter of fact, they would have come next door themselves and continued the celebration.

Perhaps you needed to be there. But for me, it was a moment worth preserving and sharing, and I have delighted in sharing this story with all who will listen, including the two grooms, the bishop, the bishop’s priestly husband, and the dean of the cathedral. And now you. Who’s next?