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?

on Richard Forrest Woods – Part 12

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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Dick’s complaints

One of the clergy at St. John the Divine, Houston, was always driving the congregation’s spoken texts by staying ahead of the assembly – loudly and at high speed – under the guise of ‘leading’ them. He was always out ahead of the congregation in everything: the Gloria, the Creed, the Confession, the Lord’s Prayer, every Amen. Yelling one’s way through the liturgy to ‘lead’ the congregation is the spoken equivalent of blasting full organ at them during every stanza of every hymn. The yelling (Dick’s word) drove Dick crazy, week after week. He once addressed it during a weekly Tuesday staff devotional, warning that dragging the congregation that way through their parts of the liturgy turns too much attention to the ‘yeller’ and away from the congregation’s leitourgia. In that same staff session, Dick also tried to correct a sexton, whose style of increasingly heated-up extemporaneous praying the previous week Dick labeled ‘conjuring up God.’ Dick did not share with me what he was going to say that day, and I was alarmed at the risk he took in saying those things to the entire staff, with both offending people present. But I was riveted by his knowledge and authority in addressing those matters, even as I knew he might not have felt so authoritative by then in his life. He was well trained in congregational worship matters, but his expertise was on the way out from the mainstream, and I had to discern his expertise more often in his practice than in his instruction.

Dick hated to see liturgy repurposed on a whim; he always wanted liturgy to speak for itself. He would even raise an eyebrow if Holy Eucharist began with a direction to the page number in the Prayer Book rather than directly with the opening acclamation. After all, the page number was in the bulletin, and to verbally call attention to it was the equivalent of reading the bulletin aloud to the congregation, something else Dick hated. Nowadays at St. John’s, depending on the celebrant, a quick ‘good morning’ and welcome may follow the opening acclamation, during which the congregation is sometimes promised a ‘powerful worship experience.’ Dick insisted that liturgy is inherently powerful but that to literally interrupt it to label it in such obvious, pedestrian language immediately lessens the very power it could wield on its own. But so it goes. Fortunately, the celebrants at St. John’s these days don’t wait for a response to ‘Good morning;’ rather, they move straight through it: “Good morning, and welcome to the Church of St. John the Divine …” Gotta give them that.

Anyway, Dick despised how liturgy was being increasingly customized for the contemporary service, and he trusted no one who embraced it. As a proponent of the latest edition of the Prayer Book, he had invested some of himself in it and didn’t appreciate its erosion so soon after its publication. He suffered a double loss of liturgical conservatism and of self that came with so much modern liturgical overhaul without his input or blessing as the ‘chief liturgist.’ [Aside: Dick was never titled ‘chief liturgist’ and was never acknowledged as such, from my observations. But he was definitely most knowledgeable about liturgy, as parish musicians usually are, often far more so than the clergy. Although an Episcopal rector is the final word on liturgical matters, the parish musician is most often the more knowledgeable. (We need not venerate our musicians for that so much as we should impugn our seminaries for not training our clergy better in such matters.) As the scope of his influence allowed, Dick planned liturgy, conducted the choir, and cued the crucifer with great authority. My first time to witness it, I saw Dick truly in his element. Not only did I see a true ‘boss’ in him in that moment, but I also realized that for those of us paying attention, we were all part of something far bigger than any one or two of us. But the title of ‘liturgist’ was not bestowed on a musician in this parish until ten years into the tenure of Dick’s successor John Gearhart.]

A ‘Music Committee’ was formed in the mid- to late 1980s or so. I never went to those meetings, but according to Dick and his circle, it was merely another antagonistic tool to use against him, and since then, no one I have talked to can recall what its charge was or what it accomplished for the greater good. Its formation was probably a placating gesture toward the pushier renewal music contingent of the parish. Dick would go to meetings and listen and understand, but he had no intention of increasing the renewal music component of the services under his direct management. He already included at least one such song each Sunday during communion, sometimes even dipping into the more casual hymnal supplement Songs for Celebration. He tended to fill communion with congregational singing anyway, rather than choral motets, which was probably as much compromise as he was willing to allow. A friend of mine from the Cathedral, who would visit occasionally would complain to me that St. John’s sang far too many hymns and that the choir didn’t have enough to do. At any rate, Dick’s quiet, unadvertised refusal to increase the ‘renewal music’ component to Sunday mornings didn’t relieve the inner stress he felt from the redundant Music Committee and the tenuous reasons for its formation. That committee lasted only a handful of years after Dick’s retirement, confirming its dual callousness to him and pointlessness to the parish.

Dick’s mistrust of most of the parish and its managers was deep-seated by the time I arrived on staff. I didn’t mind being some sort of bridge between him and them, but he wouldn’t have it. When I offered to play the piano for a certain Sunday School class, he said, “No! You can’t do that! Once you start that, you’ll be playing that stuff for the rest of your LIFE!” I might have tried harder to bridge gaps, but I didn’t create them, and I didn’t know what I was doing, and I always had him in one ear, warning me that I’d never be let out of the fluff-piano-playing box once I stepped into it. Perhaps Dick should never have hired an assistant so young and inexperienced. Perhaps he really needed an assistant more like himself at that point. All this sailed right over my head in those days. I would like to have been able to visit with him over that and a host of other matters, lo these many years later. The learning experience I was in was rich, but other learning experiences I let slip by were surely abundant.

Dick enjoyed the respect of his counterparts all over the country. He was well-liked in the American Guild of Organists, Association of Anglican Musicians, and the Association of Diocesan Liturgical and Music Commissions [now the Federation of Diocesan Liturgical Commissions], and he played, conducted, and lectured magnificently for their various programs. But he and I would also garner unsolicited sympathy from counterparts. We would introduce ourselves to fellow musicians, but when they learned where we worked, they would usually say, “Oh, I’m sorry,” rather than, “Hey, that’s a great church.”

A fighter Dick was not. Fully peaceful on the outside, he deferred to authority 100% of the times I witnessed. He would then internalize any pain, betrayal, annoyance, or injustice. He would complain bitterly in private about it, but only if asked, and always without raising that swallowed, medium-high-pitched Pennsylvania-Dutch voice of his. Perhaps a drink or some dinner would boost his spirits, and the next day he’d be fine. He once told me that I could say absolutely anything to him, that he was the most resilient person I would ever meet. He was right about that, at least from day to day, but I’ll bet the cumulative effect of it all just made him tired and immunocompromised.

Next time: A bit of fun

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 (for now, that is. At present, the church is between pastors.). 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 the Appalachian State Univ. 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 serve as interim organist for the Cathedral Church (Episcopal) of St. Paul in downtown Des Moines. Two Eucharists each Sunday and the privilege of working with a semi-professional choir. I am even official, having 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, Bishop, and all clergy are welcoming and affirming, and there is a kind and music-loving congregation. There is also an attentive interim organist, who is seeing to some lingering maintenance issues with the organ and is composing a how-to manual for the next organist. St. Paul’s also has seasonal 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, 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?