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In the wind . . .

July 24, 2006
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Put your best foot forward.

I live in a village at the head of the Damariscotta River in Maine. It’s a tidal river—so, to the surprise of many tourists not familiar with ocean tides, the river’s current changes direction four times each day. It is by definition an estuary—a long arm of the sea that stretches inland, very much like Norway’s fjords. The tide rises and falls between nine and twelve feet each day, depending on the phase of the moon and on what meteorological events at sea might be pushing extra water our way. The timing of the tides is related not to solar days—the regular 24-hour periods by which we organize our lives—but by lunar cycles. A lunar day is a little shorter than a solar day so the timing of the tides advances about 40 minutes each day. This morning, high tide was at 12:39 am, this afternoon it will be at 1:24 pm. Tomorrow morning, 1:27 am, tomorrow afternoon high tide will be at 2:12 pm. There’s a tide clock on our living room wall that has a 24-hour face much like any clock, but it has only one hand. High tide is at the top of the face, low tide at the bottom. The trick is that it counts lunar seconds so it gains the right amount of time against the “other” clock each day. In the British Navy during the 19th century, the payroll of officers was based on the 13-month lunar year.
The river is 12 miles long and as much as 150 feet deep in places. Down near where the river meets the ocean there is a narrow passage (The Fort Island Narrows) through which pass 3400 cubic yards of water each second at full tide race. In his charming book about life on the Damariscotta, a local writer converted that number to 283 dump-truck-loads-per-second!1
Where we live, it’s about 25 feet deep in the central channel at low tide, and the banks drain to mud flats. I can see clam diggers from my desk most days at low tide. Because the mud is rich in clay, there was a booming industry of brick-making along the river throughout the 19th century. Several places along the shore are littered with bricks that cracked or twisted in the kilns and were discarded on the beach. We pass by Brick Kiln Road and Brickyard Cove on the way to our house. The other big industry in town was ship-building. Four- and five-masted schooners were built here and sailed down the river to the ocean.
Main Street comprises a three- or four-hundred yard stretch of businesses and shops, most of which are housed in 19th-century brick buildings. It’s quite a bit more crowded in the summer than in the winter, but the town has been able to maintain its historic flavor. (Last winter, in order to prevent Wal-Mart from opening a store here, the Town Meeting voted a size cap for commercial buildings that allows a typical supermarket, but nothing larger.) You can buy T-shirts with a seagull or a fish and the name of the town, but there’s no saltwater taffy shop and no miniature golf course.
Recently a local gallery hosted an art festival that concluded with a solo cello recital—three of Bach’s unaccompanied suites played by a friend of ours. My wife and I were pleased with the performance—a well-conceived and presented reading of that magnificent music. But there was a problem with communication. There was no printed program. The performer told us that he would play three suites and each suite has six movements, so we could count on our fingers and know when to applaud, but lacking the names of the movements the astute listener had no chance to deduce the difference between a Courante, a Sarabande, and an Allemande (are they dried fruits?). He gave brief spoken notes in which he compared the three suites he was playing with the other three—meaningless to an audience of laypeople. And he referred to his own scholarship in oblique terms—also meaningless. After the recital, my wife and I were chatting with him (they served champagne and strawberries dipped in chocolate) about his approach to the music. He talked about different styles of Allemandes, one of which involves a given number of couples with an extra single man, something like a game of Musical Chairs. Apparently, some of the suites were written following the death of Bach’s first wife. How fascinating that the Allemande included a figurative odd-man-out. I bet that everyone in the audience would have loved to hear that.
What do we say about what we play? How do we share the mystery, the excitement, the playfulness, the pathos of our music? How do we communicate our relationship with our instrument and its music to the listeners on whom we depend so much? Here are some rhetorical questions that come from my own experience as a concert presenter and a better-than-average informed listener of organ music. I invite you readers (as important to me as the audience at a recital) to reflect:

• How often have we given knowing chuckles or annoyed glances when a well-meaning, even enthusiastic concertgoer applauds between the Prelude and the Fugue?
• How often have we addressed an audience using organ-only jargon? “ . . . and then I will add the Fourniture and Cymbal to emphasize . . . ”
• How often have we addressed audiences with implied assumptions? “ . . . and of course you know that Herr Scheidemann . . . ”
• How often have we played chorale settings with German titles as Sunday-morning preludes without offering translation or explanation to the congregation? “Doesn’t everyone at the First Baptist Church know that you have to play Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland on the First Sunday of Advent?” Balbastre’s settings of traditional French carols are as much a part of Christmas to me as eggnog and ribbon candy, but it’s not fair to assume that everyone in pews has the same reaction.
• How many recitals have we programmed according to historic progression and accuracy without considering the audiences’ appreciation and enlightenment?

Any of these scenarios (except perhaps the first) are appropriate for a university graduate recital or a recital at an AGO convention. But consider the old saw, “preaching to the choir.” In my practical experience, the choir does not necessarily agree with the preaching. If we assume too much in front of any audience, that audience’s first perception will be that the performer is aloof, even arrogant. I am fortunate to know many brilliant organists. Some are flamboyant, some are quiet and reserved, but every one of them has a powerful ego that makes it possible for them to perform. Playing any musical instrument well is a marvelous skill, and many of your audience members will be impressed, dazzled, and mystified by what you do. But they will appreciate the experience of hearing you play so much more if you let them in on the joke or relate the music and the historic figures around it to real life. Any concertgoer knows that Bach was a great composer. But how many know that he imbedded coded names (his own and those of family members) in his music? (Thanks to the vast success of The Da Vinci Code, audiences are really interested in codes these days.) How many know that he was a fiery guy who stood up to the City Council in Leipzig (his employers) and got in trouble?
Recently James Levine added the musical directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to his portfolio of responsibilities. (If you were leading the Metropolitan Opera wouldn’t you be looking for something else to do in your spare time?) He entered the scene in Boston without a trace of a suggestion that he was fitting his new job into the interstices of his life. It didn’t take long for the orchestra’s players to renegotiate their contract to allow for higher pay for the concerts Levine conducts because the rehearsal schedule and the music they are playing are so much more demanding. The orchestra’s Board of Trustees created a new endowment to pay for that. Mr. Levine is well-known for his love of contemporary music, and he has been challenging the audience with many complicated pieces that are, shall we say, less easy to hear and understand than the more traditional fare of symphonies by Brahms, Mozart, and Beethoven. Last season featured a series of concerts that contrasted and compared the music of Beethoven and Schoenberg. Schoenberg can be tough going for the average concertgoer. (In fact friends of ours gave us the chance to take over their choice subscription seats because they’d had enough of the modern music.) But presumably under Levine’s influence, the BSO created an elaborate and extensive museum-quality display of the life and work of Arnold Schoenberg. It was located in one of the large second-floor public rooms (no doubt at the sacrifice of considerable bar revenue) where the audience could view it before and after concerts and during intermission. It included biographical information and photos of Schoenberg with wives, family, and friends, even playing tennis, as well as reproductions of autograph scores and Schoenberg’s paintings. The display was effective at introducing us to Schoenberg as a man, informing us so as to allow us to appreciate the music from a wide platform of understanding. Program notes described musical motives and gave keys as to how the audience could follow the “story” and know specifically what the composer had in mind. Wonderful.
I know well from my travels that many people consider the pipe organ to be a hold-over from an earlier time. It is often and widely perceived as archaic, antediluvian, or eccentric. If we are not careful, if we fail to be good stewards and ambassadors of our instrument, that perception could become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We as educated and experienced lovers and practitioners of the organ must present the organ as a vital and integrated part of modern life. Offering concerts in the interest of the preservation of antiquity is both well and good (old music and old organs). But as we encourage congregations and concert halls to purchase pipe organs whose prices startle and amaze, we must present the organ and its music so as to raise the appreciation, awareness, and understanding of our audiences, and encourage their proselytizing. We must conscript the audience, not alienate it. The audience that goes home from a concert pleased and proud of its newly acquired knowledge will be more likely to come back than the audience that leaves a hall bewildered and excluded by the erudition of the performer.
Another old saw: “A rising tide floats all boats.” Bring your audience up to your level and everyone will be happy.
As I started with a river theme, so I’ll close with one. The Methuen Memorial Music Hall in Methuen, Massachusetts is a facility unique to American life, located on the shore of the Spicket River, a tributary of the Merrimack, which is a grand river meandering through New Hampshire and Massachusetts to the Atlantic Ocean at Newburyport, Massachusetts. Methuen resident and amateur organist and enthusiast Edward Francis Searles (1841–1920) started life in the fabric and interior design business and later had the immense good fortune of marrying Mary Frances Sherwood Hopkins, the widow of railroad magnate Mark Hopkins. The couple shared a deep interest in architecture and design until her death in 1891, when Mr. Searles inherited an immense fortune. In 1899 he acted on his love of the pipe organ, his love of architecture, and his wife’s fortune by commissioning Henry Vaughan (brilliant architect, famous for the design of many fabulous church buildings, notably the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.) to design a hall for the monumental organ built by E. F. Walcker of Ludwigsburg, Germany, built for and subsequently rejected by the Boston Music Hall. Mr. Searles bought the instrument from storage at auction for $1500, established a resident organbuilding firm, installed the organ in the hall, and began its long-term renovation.
Organbuilder Ernest Skinner owned the building and the organ between 1931 and 1942, operated his company in the adjoining workshop, and presented concerts to the public including major choral works and recitals by the organ virtuosi of the day such as Marcel Dupré, Lynnwood Farnam, and E. Power Biggs. In 1946, the building and organ were acquired by a new charitable corporation created to operate the hall as a cultural center. Following several earlier periods of rebuilding and alteration, the organ was substantially rebuilt by Aeolian-Skinner in 1947 (Opus 1103), leaving little of the original character intact.2
There is no other experience in America like entering this building. The ornate Rococo interior is dominated by what must be one of the most massive, famous, and photogenic organ cases in the world. The trustees of the Methuen Memorial Music Hall (MMMH) present an annual series of Wednesday night organ recitals. You can learn more about the hall, the organ, the organization, and the recital series at their website: .
 

The show must go on.

During the week of May 21, 2006, New England experienced torrential and seemingly continuous rainstorms, and many areas suffered severe flooding—so severe that friends from Europe called to check in after seeing TV news reports about Methuen. By Monday, May 22, the water had risen above the top of the organ blower of the Methuen organ. (I’m told that the high-water mark is well up on the rubber-cloth sleeve above the blower!) The season’s opening concert (May 24) was cancelled and those scheduled for May 31 and June 7 were much in doubt, but with heroic efforts from trustees and the people of the Andover Organ Company (especially Robert Reich), the blower was dismantled and dried out, rectifiers repaired, and the organ was ready to play on Monday, May 29. Margaret Angelini (Dean of the Boston Chapter of the American Guild of Organists) was the scheduled recitalist for the 31st. She was gamely waiting in the wings not knowing if the organ would be ready, and of course losing most of her scheduled practice time! But the show must go on. A large and enthusiastic audience was on hand to hear a wonderful recital.
Though the organ is up and running and the recital series is continuing, there is a great deal of restorative work still to do. The trustees of the MMMH published this notice on their website:

We are back in operation!!!
The trustees and program committee of the Methuen Memorial Music Hall are pleased to inform you that we are resuming the 2006 summer recital series with the concert on May 31.
Please understand that the magnitude of the flood caused severe damage to the basement of the Hall, the organ blower, electrical systems and interior walls. We continue our recovery efforts. If you would like to make a donation in any amount to help us, it would be greatly appreciated. Contributions may be sent to:

Flood Recovery Fund
Methuen Memorial Music Hall, Inc. c/o Elaine M. Morissette
10 Overlook Drive
Methuen, Massachusetts 01844-2372

In tribute to this marvelous landmark of American culture, the people who care for it, and at the risk of offending the men and women of the United States Navy as I exercise my First Amendment right of free speech, I offer these words to be sung to Melita (the Navy Hymn):

Aeoli’n-Skinner, foreign made, your blower gurgles ’neath the waves.
We bid the mighty Merrimack, recede, dry out, and ne’er come back.
Oh hear us as we try to see the way to keep you mildew free.

Aeoli’n-Skinner, wide admired, your sounds for years have us inspired.
We feared you might not sing again—the forecast only told of rain.
Now Diapasons’ moistened breath show how you have forsaken death.

Aeoli’n-Skinner, grand encased, the flood has threatened, now effaced.
The waves now flow between the banks, our colleagues offer hymns of thanks.
The basement will be freed of mud, the Spicket’s spigot tames the flood.

 

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