A Priest’s Tribute

For a while, I would play funerals at Saint Francis de Sales on East 96th Street. My mother’s family would occasionally attend Mass there in the good old days. The church is exquisitely beautiful. The organ is a tiny, but lovely, G. Donald Harrison Aeolian-Skinner.
Father Victor, the pastor, took quite a liking to me. After I played one Ash Wednesday, I stayed afterwards while he waited to give ashes. During that time, I improvised on Lenten melodies. The following is what he wrote in the bulletin and posted online thereafter.
I may not be young anymore, and I have never been Polish; but nevertheless, this is one of the kindest and warmest tributes I’ve ever received. Thanks and Godspeed, Father Victor.

A Priest’s Diary
Ash Wednesday
(posted March 2, 2009)
The Rev. Victor Muzzin, FDP
Pastor, St. Francis de Sales Parish
East 96th Street, New York, NY

…The gentleman invited by the family to play the organ (and
sing) was a nice young fellow of Polish [sic] origins with
extensive knowledge of Church music. He liked the organ. He
said that we have a little treasure there. It is small, original,
renowned builders and good condition. He asked my
permission if he could play for a while after the funeral softly
and unobtrusively and I said of course. I love organ music.
Especially when played with competence. Being Ash
Wednesday Jonathan played all the ancient Lenten
Gregorian melodies starting with Parce Domine, Parce populo
tuo (Spare Lord, spare your people). Playing them gently,
softly, also freely and flowingly, improvising delicately on
the theme and bringing out cleverly the various voices of the
organ. it was exquisite and made my soul sing. Believe you
me, I wanted to write, I wanted to do something else but
for the good part of an hour I was not able to do anything
except just listen, reminisce and walk down memory lane:
my days in the seminary when we would gather and sing the
vespers on Sundays. I miss those melodies. It is high quality,
elevated music mostly in minor keys, hauntingly beautiful; it
digs into your soul…

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Beethoven and Fugue

I’ve posted a short piece—almost a meditation—on my Facebook “musician/band” page regarding Beethoven’s use of fugue procedure and fugal genre in his piano works. It’s a really fascinating topic.

I got interested in this while preparing the Opus 10, no. 2 for a recital in February. I saw clearly that the final movement, while pretending to be a fugue, is in fact in simple sonata-allegro form. That got me thinking.

Long ago, in high school, I’d sung the Hallelujah chorus from his oratorio, Christ on the Mount of Olives. That has some fugue in it, and I thoroughly got into singing it! Here, Beethoven uses fugue as a procedure, integrating it nicely into the largely homophonic texture of the chorus.

Then, last Sunday, pianist Carolyn Enger gave a fine recital at my church, as part of our May in Montclair celebrations. She played the Opus 110, which concludes with a learned fugue, complete with an exposition recto and an exposition inverso, with the last statement of the theme in both cases in the “pedal.” There’s even a “pedal” statement per augmentationem. In between comes passagework.

Remarkably like a North German präludium, when you get right down to it; and in its overt learnedness and especially its use of the bass register, uniquely organistic.

Anyhow, there is a book to be written here,  not just a short public homily. But there ’tis. Go and read, and give me a like.

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On Playing the Piano

Since yesterday, my keyboard attention has been occupied with Beethoven’s opus 31, no. 1—the first sonata in volume 2, as the ‘great thirty-two’ are usually published. It’s one of the sonatas that I have not yet sat down and had a go at. It’s a joy to play.

…the rest of this article, which asks the question “why should an organist play Beethoven sonatas?”, is found on my Facebook page, at JBHorganist.


 

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On Hymn Tempi

The following post is taken from my public Facebook page. If you like it, and would like to read more, please visit and give me a “like.” The URL is given in my previous post.

My Monday-morning coffee-time thoughts are centering on hymn tempi. Looking through many renditions of the Welsh classic HYFRYDOL, I have found that most of them simply go too fast. When they don’t—when the tempo is actually musical, breathable, and religious—there is sure to be a snarky response along the lines of “pick it up, grandma!” Well, hurrah for grandmas if they remind us that hymns are for singing and for worship…and not for the discharge of pent-up emotions in the organist.

I can’t forget a hymn festival in which I sang, at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, back in the ’90′s. John Ferguson played the organ, and we concluded with HYFRYDOL at simply the slowest tempo I’ve ever heard before or since. So convincing was John, so strong his sense of music and leadership, that I feel I surely was levitating by the final verse. There’s no doubt I was in tears.

Trying it out at my own church the next morning, I was promptly conducted, flagged, wig-wagged, and eye-rolled-at by the cognoscenti of the choir loft. Since then, I have settled for a strategy of gradual de-escalation. HYFRYDOL is not meant to be sung at a fast clip…of that I am convinced.

We have come through some of the hardest decades in the history of Christendom. One of the greatest challenges has been in the area of music. Here, the anxiety and addiction to distraction so typical of the modern age have intruded with point-blank demands to “pick up the pace.” Yet there is the wisdom of two millennia to consider as well. This wisdom bids us slow down the tempo, de-emphasize the rhythm, spiritualize the music: to invite what Pope Benedict calls “the sober intoxication of the Holy Spirit.”

For “sober intoxication” one could substitute other antitheses: voluptuous chastity, calm intensity, gentle rage. Dylan Thomas said “there was calm to be done in His safe unrest.” Amen! That breathes an apostolic spirit.

It is hard indeed—sometimes impossible, and sometimes dangerous to a career—to buck the trend and witness to an evangelical spirit in one’s hymn playing. Oftentimes, one is in conflict with clergy as well as with random YouTube commentators. Yet if the organist can make his case with grace, candor, and persistence, and demonstrate a pastoral and teacherly spirit at all times, change is possible. The modern world feels that it just about has the Church where it wants it. May organists one day be remembered as those who helped prove it wrong.

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Like Me on Facebook

I now have a public page on Facebook.

It contains a lot of information on my career as an organist, choirmaster…musician in general…and writer. If you’re on Facebook, please feel free to “like” the page and stay up to date.

Of course, keep in touch via this blog as well…but this blog is more an exercise in self-expression than specifically a focused, professional page.

There will be some links back to this page, but not everything will be carried over.

Come see the Hall Wall!

 

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