I know that is probably obvious to you, but it was a point that was driven home in a hymn sung in many parishes.
Maybe you caught it? It was in the list of negatives that we sang in the opening of Hymn 259 in the Hymnal 1982: “Hail to the Lord who comes.”
Hail to the Lord who comes, comes to his temple gate; not with his angel host, not in his kingly state; no shouts proclaim him nigh, no crowds his coming wait;
John Ellerton (1826–1893), alt.
In this hymn’s first stanza, John Ellerton gives us four consecutive negative images to let us know what the Presentation is not.
It’s not like the Second Coming when Jesus will come in glory with his “angel host.”
And, notably, it’s not anything resembling the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday when the crowds lining the streets of Jerusalem acclaim Jesus with shouts of “Hosanna!”. These very roads lead toward the temple, and at least in Mark's Gospel, Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem culminates with his entry into the temple.
For Ellerton, it is important to stress that the Presentation is not that kind of arrival. This is a quiet, unheralded entry—at least on the outside. The acclamations and epiphanies about who Jesus is come from Simeon and Anna once the infant Jesus is inside the Temple.
Defining something by what it is not strikes me as an unusual maneuver in hymn writing, but not a unique one. We find other examples of this in our hymn repertoire.
Request for rhetorical vocabulary: If there is a useful rhetorical term for this, I would be eager to learn what it is!
Not here for high and holy things we render thanks to thee, but for the common things of earth, the purple pageantry
Hymn 9, st. 1, Geoffrey Anketel Studdert-Kennedy (1883–1929)
When this old world drew on toward night, you came; but not in splendor bright, not as a monarch, but the child of Mary, blameless mother mild.
Hymn 60: "Creator of the stars of night," st. 3, Latin, 9th cent. ver. Hymnal 1940, alt.
He sent him not in wrath and power, but grace and peace to bring; in kindness, as a king might send his son, himself a king. He came as Savior to his own, the way of love he trod; he came to win us by good will, for force is not of God. Not to oppress, but summon all their truest life to find, in love God sent his Son to save, not to condemn mankind.
Hymn 489: "The great Creator of the worlds," st. 3, 5, 6, Epistle to Diognetus; ca. 150; tr. F. Bland Tucker (1895–1984), rev.
for not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums, but deeds of love and mercy, the heavenly kingdom comes.
Hymn 555: "Lead on, O King eternal," st. 2b, Ernest Warburton Shurtleff (1862–1917)
Labels: hymn, Hymn 259, Hymn 489, Hymn 555, Hymn 60, Hymn 9, John Ellerton, Presentation
Hymn 239 in The English Hymnal is an acrostic that honors St. Bartholomew, whose feast day we celebrate on August 24.
Saints of God! Lo, Jesu’s people Age to age your glory tell; In His Name for us ye labored, Now in bless eternal dwell. Twelve poor men, by Christ anointed, Braved the rich, the wise, the great, All the world counts dear rejecting, Rapt in their apostolate. Thus the earth their death-wounds purchased, Hallowed by the blood therefrom, On her bosom bore the nations, Laved, illumined—Christendom. On this feast, almighty Father, May we praise Thee with the Son, Evermore His love confessing, Who from Both with Both is One.
–John Athelstan Laurie Riley
Labels: Bartholomew, English Hymnal, hymn
Somehow I've missed this bit of hymn trivia until today, but Hymn 239 in The English Hymnal is an acrostic that honors St. Bartholomew, whose feast day we celebrate today (August 24).
Saints of God! Lo, Jesu’s people Age to age your glory tell; In His Name for us ye labored, Now in bless eternal dwell. Twelve poor men, by Christ anointed, Braved the rich, the wise, the great, All the world counts dear rejecting, Rapt in their apostolate. Thus the earth their death-wounds purchased, Hallowed by the blood therefrom, On her bosom bore the nations, Laved, illumined—Christendom. On this feast, almighty Father, May we praise Thee with the Son, Evermore His love confessing, Who from Both with Both is One.
–John Athelstan Laurie Riley
(h/t St. James Cathedral, Chicago Facebook page)
Labels: English Hymnal, hymn
“Although [the Offertory] has come to be a traditional place for an anthem, an anthem in this place tends to stop or delay the flow of action. What is required is 'cover' music, not a performance piece. Communion is a better time for a choir anthem. The custom of using both an anthem and a presentation hymn should be avoided.”Stuhlman, Byron D. Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded. New York: Church Publishing Inc., 1987. Page 128.
Labels: church music, Communion, hymn, liturgy, Offertory, Stuhlman
An Advent Hymn
At the end of Pent'cost every knee shall bow
to the god of commerce, and the shopping Tao;
we can wait for liturgy, we won't go to church;
for the perfect gift we now must start the search.
Some would say it's Advent, we would say "who cares"
After Giving Thanks, it's time to browse those wares.
Head we toward our temple, to our golden shrine,
Take your hands away sir; it's not yours, it's mine.
Name him shoppers, name him, with love strong as debt,
You must not count the cost; get what you can get.
Head now we toward Bethl'hem - snowy Christmas Eve!
Magic midnight music, then it's time to leave.
We climbed up the Zion of the shopping mall.
We dined at the food court, Mannon's banquet hall.
Christ had his Black Friday: manger to the cross.
Without Jesus' Advent there is only loss.
(tune: King's Weston)
Really the word "hymn" refers to the words. But for most people the music comes to mind just as quickly, if not more so.
Of course, a congregation needs both words and music to sing a hymn. Otherwise I guess they could just mumble some poetry together, or, alternatively, hum something for a while.
Note to self: write some intentionally wordless hymns. Approach publishers.
But sometimes a melody is written for words that so encapsulates their sentiment that the result is stirring, compelling, and nothing short of miraculous: a triumph of the great symbiotic art of hymnody.
Words
Walter Russell Bowie's two hymn texts are provocative and "have been judged as among the finest by an American author written in the first half of this century" (Hymnal 1982 Companion). They are "Lord Christ, when first thou cam'st to earth", and "O holy city, seen of John".
Walter Russell Bowie was a Social Gospel progressive who was baptized at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia in 1883 (just 21 years after Jefferson Davis was baptized there). He would serve as rector of the parish from 1911-1923. Just prior to assuming this rectorship, Bowie was asked for a hymn based on Revelation 21 by Henry Sloane Coffin for the collection Hymns of the Kingdom of God (1910). The result is "O holy city, seen of John".
One of Bowie's stanzas, however, seems not to have been handed down in most versions of the hymn. It appears in the original hymn text as stanza 2:
Hark, how from men whose lives are held more cheap than merchandise; from women struggling sore for bread, from little children's cries, there swells the sobbing human plaint that bids thy walls arise!
Music
I'm particularly fascinated with the connection between Howells and the marvelous words of Bowie because Howells is, quite simply, my favorite composer of twentieth century church music, and I was the organist of St. Paul's, Richmond for five years (2010-2015). It was a delight to relish this tune (and sing it often) in a parish so closely linked with Bowie.
I have written before about the two Herbert Howells hymn tunes for the both of the published hymn texts of Walter Russell Bowie (Bowie, Walter Russell - connection to Herbert Howells). Mostly, I wrote of my perplexity that the tune in the Hymnal 1982 for Bowie's "Lord Christ" is in a major key (Hymn 598)! But today, on Howells's birthday, no less, I want to turn to the other tune, SANCTA CIVITAS.
Howells's tune, written in 1962, is extraordinary. In fact, Erik Routley, the prolific church music scholar, names it one of "Six Great Moments in Twentieth-century Hymn Music"
- Vaughan Williams's KING'S WESTON, found at Hymn 435 (this article refers to hymns in the Hymnal 1982)
- Cyril Vincint Taylor's ABBOT'S LEIGH, found at Hymn 523
- A tune by Jean Langlais: DIEU NOUS AVONS VU TO GLOIRE (um, does anyone know this one?)
- Herbert Howells's SANCTA CIVITAS, found at Hymn 582 (but not completely)
- Michael Dawney's FELINFOEL (yeah, no idea about this one either)
- And Richard Dirksen's VINEYARD HAVEN, found at Hymns 392 and 557
Tangent: Routley's work on hymns is always provocative. Of the six he names three are "bestsellers", one is mostly hiding in plain sight (Howells), and two of them I've never heard, nor can I find. There's more here to research, as always!
Howells's name for the tune, SANCTA CIVITAS, is Latin for "Holy City," making the text-tune connection clear. But more than that, the name is surely a reference to the large choral work by Vaughan Williams with that name. It was, after all, a close encounter with Vaughan Williams himself at the 1910 Three Choirs Festival that set Howells firmly on the path of being a composer.
Howells manages the melodic modality masterfully, with the music meandering from D minor to an F Major finish. The intervening notes between stanzas (they are in the original hymn but, most unfortunately, edited out of the Hymnal 1982) raise the Tonic to the Mediant so that the successive stanza can fall into place without a hitch.
There is what I believe to be an intentional seamlessness to the hymn accompaniment that arises when these inter-stanza passing tones are used (as in the wonderful recording from St. Clement embedded above). This is up to interpretation, to some degree. I can find another recording that does not treat the accompaniment this way.
If the "seamless" approach is what Howells had in mind, this is by no means a new technique, though it is an innovation on it. Think of the hymn tune ENGELBERG, written by Stanford, Howells's mentor, in 1904. The single, solitary "thump" allows the hymn accompaniment to be continuous, which has the affect of somewhat blurring the line between the strophic hymn form and something through-composed. And this is, in fact, the common modern-day performance practice with this tune. Howells's innovation is to simply expand that pedal thump into a treble "doo-doo" — which, incidentally, builds more time into the "join" between the stanzas for a breath but without making the interlude needlessly fussy.
Still with me? Good, because we haven't even brought up the final stanza yet. Howells gives this text the full treatment with a slightly altered harmonization and supremely musical descant. Not a single note is wasted, and the sopranos' expertise is fully demanded — this is not a trivial sing! But the result, to my ear, is so completely and utterly thrilling.
A melody of great sweep and dignity, with a descant for the final verse [sic] which gives the impression of having been conceived along with the tune and of being a natural efflorescence of it.English Church Music, Royal School of Church Music, 1965
Consider the final stanza and the city that rises "in the mind of God". It is of divine imagination. And this inspired descant catches our souls and flings them heavenward where we chance to dream of things eschatological and that poorly-understood sentiment in the Lord's Prayer "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven".
The unchurched Howells finds a way to join what we would call Bowie's Anglo-Catholic Socialism if he weren't in fact a Southern Churchman Social Gospelist.
Another thing that is lost in our modern hymnals is editorial direction. Howells, who never fails to give descriptive language, here gives "With warmth, but moving easily". I can't quibble at all with the St. Clement recording above, but I do want to note that it is a choral recording. I think that for a full congregation, the organ will want to provide a bit more "fire" for the warmth. The word "ardente" from the anthem "Like as the hart" comes to mind.
I suspect that, for many parishes, this tune is hiding in plain sight. If we did a survey I think we would find that the American tune on 583 is sung for these words more than 582. And there is precdent for a Howells tune having a slow start. MICHAEL first appeared in The Clarendon Hymnal in 1936 and was neglected for over thirty years. Though it doesn't appear in Routley's "Six Great Moments", it doesn't need to. It exploded in popularity, and it now has a Triple Platinum Hymnal hanging in its living room.
But perhaps SANCTA CIVITAS tends to be overlooked because the Hymnal 1982 doesn't present the hymn tune as Howells intended.
We can fix this.
I implore you in choirs and on organ benches: buy this hymn from Novello, or play it out of Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Your congregations will allow you two little extra notes, I promise.
And Howells wants it that way.
Labels: Dirksen, Engelberg, Henry Sloane Coffin, Howells, hymn, Hymn 392, Hymn 523, Hymn 557, Hymn 582, Hymn 598, Hymnal 1982, Langlais, Routley, St Paul's (Richmond), Stanford, Walter Russell Bowie
The Topmost Apple reminds us that Ut Queant Laxis is the appropriate hymn for this afternoon.
Quick, there's still time to dust off your Titelouze setting!
A hymn for the beginning of our Lenten journey into the desert:
With tender look, and voice of thrilling grace,
The SAVIOUR once to His disciples said,
"Come ye apart into a desert place.
And rest awhile the aching heart and head."He says so still to all who are His own,
To all aweary with the world's sad strife,
"Come, spend with me a little while alone,
Leave the hot fever and the fret of life."Come from the world's hard struggle and its din,
Discords that pain the ear and never cease,
Wild stormy passions, tumults of man's sin,
Which put to shame the angel's song of peace."Come, when perplexed by doubt or anxious fear,
And I will make dark things all clear and plain,
Will shed the light of hope on dull despair,
And give true peace where now is only pain."C. D. Bell.
Labels: hymn
Sinden.org has received the following in an email forward:
A Tribute to Anglo-Catholics
(tune: Aurelia: The Church's One Foundation)Our church is mighty spikey with smells and bells and chants,
And Palestrina masses that vex the Protestants.
O happy ones and holy who fall upon their knees
For solemn Benediction and mid-week Rosaries.
Though with a scornful wonder men see our clergy, dressed
In rich brocaded vestments as slowly they process;
Yet saints their watch are keeping lest souls be set alight
Not by the Holy Spirit, but incense taking flight.
Now we on earth have uni on with Lambeth, not with Rome,
Although the wags and cynics may question our true home;
But folk masses and bingo can't possibly depose
The works of Byrd and Tallis, or Cranmer's stately prose.
(Here shall the organist modulate)
So let the organ thunder, sound fanfares "en chamade";
Rejoice, for we are treading where many saints have trod;
Let peals ring from the spire, sing descants to high C,
Just don't let your elation disrupt the liturgy.
Labels: Anglicanism, hymn, liturgy, parody
Always pioneering in our hymnological research, we at Sinden.org are using Google to research the tunes associated with "In Christ there is no east or west".
Before we begin, however, please note that many hymnals (and web authors) credit the words of this hymn to John Oxenham, the author's pseudonymn.
We're thinking here of the tunes ST. PETER, which seems to us to be the mainline, evangelical choice, and McKEE, which is the upstart "liturgical hymnal" choice.
Google gives us the Cyberhymnal, which lists ST. PETER as the tune, with McKEE as an "alternate tune".
We must face the sad fact that when we stand to sing, "In Christ there is no East or West," we stand in the most segregated hour of America.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Oremus Hymnal, ever the Anglican choice, lists McKEE first, and another tune, ST. BERNARD, about which I cannot say I know anything.
Christian Web Resources (UK) lists ST. STEPHEN as the tune, but the MIDI file plays what I know as ST. PETER. There might be naming confusion here.
The blog Hymns of the Spirit Three, about a hymnal of the same name, lists McKEE in this entry.
Of course, the wonderful thing about a Google search is that you can run across a wide variety of sound and video.
These video results reveal the popularity Josiah Fahey's McKEE arrangement among folk musicians (note the ASCII tablature at a domain named after him). It's popularity was likely helped by guitarist Leo Kottke.
Unrelated: kottke.org
Google also cleverly pulls up books these days. And here's where things get a little interesting.
- In this generic version of the 1990 Presbyterian hymnal, ST. PETER and McKEE appear as consecutive hymns.
- But Erik Routley's Rejoice in the Lord had reversed this distinction in 1985.
ST. PETER is the tune of choice in the 1919 Hymnal for American Youth. This is noteworthy, because the text to "In Christ there is no east or west" was written in 1913, and some sources don't have it coming to American hymnals until 1925, at which point it is apparently sung to ST. PETER. This Hymnal for American Youth is copywritten in 1919, and the copy digitized by Google appears to be a 1922 edition.
Am I actually doing groundbreaking hymnological research using the internet? Can someone check me on this, please? Have I just moved the earliest known American publication of this hymn up three, possibly six years?
Presumably "In Christ" was first published to ST. PETER, as it is in this early source. Harry T. Burleigh wed the hymn to McKEE in the late 1930s, in time for publication in the Episcopal Hymnal 1940. But now the groups that share interest in McKEE are guitarists, mainline protestants and Episcopalians. How exciting.
It seems that McKEE is a tune that knows no east or west.
Bonus: Lectionary.org points out that "In Christ there is no east or west" is best understood in relation to Kipling poem.
Labels: hymn
Have you heard these lost verses of "Jesus shall reign"?
Behold the islands with their kings,
And Europe her best tribute brings;
From north and south the princes meet
To pay their homage at his feet.There Persia, glorious to behold,
There India shines in eastern gold,
And barb’rous nations at his word
Submit and bow, and own their Lord.Where he displays his healing power,
Death and the curse are known no more.
In him the tribes of Adam boast
More blessings than their father lost.
Eloquent Christan triumphalism and thinly veiled anti-Semitism anyone?
See the complete hymn in the Harvard Classics, Vol. 45, Part 2.
Labels: hymn
Today (St. George's Day) in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for "Royal Perculiars [sic] Chapels Royal, Religious Peculiars, and Westminster Abbey".
What's a Royal Peculiar, you ask?
A Royal Peculiar (or Royal Peculier) is a place of worship that falls directly under the jurisdiction of the British monarch, rather than a diocese.It dates to Anglo-Saxon times when a church could ally itself with the monarch and therefore not be subject to the bishopric of the area. Later it embodied the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English church.
Every good Anglican should know this.
A Royal Pipedreams peculiarity: It seems to me that the third selection on this week's episode of Pipedreams was not a Fantasia on MADRID, but rather KINGSFOLD (it starts at about 26:00 into the program). This is a little strange since host Michael Barone introduces this selection by referring to the ubiquity of hymn tunes in organist-composed music and saying "I expect some of you might recognize this one". Barone himself either does not recognize it, or is confused about its name.
A royal explanation? It was Spain's King Phillip II who moved the Spanish capital to Madrid. Previously, ruling families held court in Toledo and Zargoza. It is said that Phillip folded these the power of these other two capitals into Madrid, the "doblez del rey" or "king's fold".
MADRID is included in the Presbyterian Hymnal at 150: "Come, Christians, Join to Sing".
Labels: Anglicanism, hymn, prayer
The results of Higher Education Arts Data Services's survey of music schools reveals that the number of organ performance majors is down across the board.
The number of organ majors at the baccalaureate level (237) and master's level (123) are at their lowest level in eight years.
Taken as hymn numbers in the Episcopal Hymnal 1982, these numbers correspond to "Let us now our voices raise" and "Alleluia, song of gladness" respectively.
The total number of organ performance majors (498; "Beneath the cross of Jesus") is also at an eight-year low.
The sharpest decline is shown at the critical baccalaureate level, which has sustained a 28.4% drop over the past three academic years.
With fewer students entering an organ degree program after high school, one can expect the other degree programs to suffer in the coming decade.
The good news in all this? I singlehandedly accounted for .813% of all organ students in a master's degree program in the 2005/06 academic year.
I can also infer that I hold slightly less than 1% of all master's degrees in organ performance awarded in 2006.
Labels: hymn, shortage of organists
I couldn't resist looking a bit at the orchestral parts for Gustav Holst's Hymn of Jesus before I shipped them off again.
The trombones start the work with the pange lingua chant melody, and they have this note written in their parts:
Note: As the free rhythm of plainsong cannot be expressed in modern notation, the Trombone and Cor Anglais players are to study the manner in which this melody is sung by experienced singers.
Really? Holst expects trombonists to "study"? Does Holst really know trombonists? (Well, yes, as a matter of fact; he was one himself.)
And where do you find these "experienced singers"? Was Holst expecting the monks of Solesmes, or just your average Anglican choirmen? An interesting performance issue to be sure.
Looking a little more closely at some of Holsts articulations in this trombone part, it quickly becomes apparent that his ideas of how the chant should go are not my ideas about how the chant should go.
And a little later on, under an asterisk:
By using the positions marked, the Trombone players will avoid the unpleasant smearing of one note into antother. If this cannot be managed, the melody is to be played on the Horns.
This is an interesting window into the world of a young composer who is maybe too eager to exercise a little extra control over the instrument which he himself plays.
And compare "study" with "unpleasant smearing". The latter sounds a lot more like trombonists I know.
At least Holst and I agree on that bit.
Tomorrow I'm helping out those others.
You know. Those people.
It's easy to pick up on our differences. Which is just another way of saying how tempted I am to look down my nose at these people.
"Ah, I see you've delayed the final stanza of the hymn with a silly responsive reading. How quaint."
"Oh, I see you've chosen that hymn. And you're having a soloist sing that song. Hmm."
It will be interesting, and different (liturgically, theologically, especially musically) from what I am becoming used to, but I can't let myself lose sight of what's really going on here.
Sometimes we find ourselves in the others we serve.
In many ways the _______ is the church closest to Anglicanism in terms of history and liturgy.
At the cathedral, we don't just cater to our own. We cater to everyone.
And who knows if the high altar will be used tomorrow? The host might be catered quite literally.
Labels: hymn
Capt. David Sinden, LDBC
(Photo: camper Brandon Applegate)
I just got back a couple days ago. I had a long drive.
Here are some things I learned on my drive home:
- Ohio feels like home
- One can always find a Christian radio station in this country
- The Strauss second horn concerto is nice
- One cannot find any Strauss horn concerti on Christian stations
- McDonald's Restaurants in New York state serve iced coffee. Those in Indiana? Not so much.
- Chocolate milk is a poor substitute for motor oil.
Early this week, I was living in a canvas Civil-War-style tent in Delaware County, New York. I had served for a little over a month as a Tactical Officer at Lake Delaware Boys' Camp.
Here are some things I learned at camp this year:
- Small town fireworks displays are beautiful.
- Camp feels like home
- There's an American-style football league in Wales.
- Welsh people are cool, and they know about hymn tunes.
- Thumbing down on an 1877 Roosevelt is next to impossible (sorry Herbert Howells).
- Whitewater tubing can be fun/scary.
- There's only one hymn that mentions Mary Magdalene? (1940 hymn 585)
- If you wear a shirt that says "sinden.org" on it, kids will ask you questions like
- is that a real website?
- is that your website?
- how much did that shirt cost?
- and then they threaten:
- "I'm going to visit that website as soon as camp is over."
- I don't think they will, but if they do, I hope they email me.
- Motor oil is a poor substitute for chocolate milk. (But with a little persuasion you can get kids to drink it.)
One camper did visit Sinden.org before camp this year, and he called me out for terming the place a "cult." I've rethought my label for the place, and the one I've come up with is this:
A hyperactive monastic community.
One of the things about being gone for so long is that the internet moves mercilessly foward.
Two things that happened while I was gone:
- Sluggy has been delightfully non-linear (try early July; it's not so interesting now).
- Dylan is moving to the RCL in Advent for another three-year cylcle of splendiferous lectionary blogging! Hooray!
I'm working on getting caught up, and I'm moving.
Sinden.org, however, is staying right where it is, with one major change to come on August 28.
Clothing tangent: Take a look at the shirt that I'm wearing in the photo above. Now take a look at the shirt I'm wearing at (the pre-iced-coffee) McDonald's last year. Apparently, I only take one shirt to camp.
It's deputy blogging time!
Today I was working with some recordings of mine. One of them was an arrangement of 'Come, Christians Join to Sing'. However, there seemed to be a character limit in the filename, and so one possibility for the name was 'come christians join to sin.wav'
Naturally, this mistake was promptly corrected, but I began to wonder about the rhyme. The hymn goes:
Come, Christians, join to sing
Alleluia, amen
Actually, 'Come, Christians, join to sin' is a much better rhyme! Compare, sin-amen, sing-amen. I have to wonder if the hymnodists noticed this. I bet they did, but sometimes one just has to compromise on word choice to stay theologically consistent.
Deputy blogger out!
Labels: hymn
I don't know what's more mysterious. The fact that the Saturday's Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist passed seemingly unnoticed by Sinden.org, or that this guy is like way out of sync with what he's singing.
So, what is he singing, and what does it have to do with NatStJnBpst? And is that even a real abbreviation?
This video (courtesy of MusicaSacra.com) shows William Mahrt demonstrating the Guidonian hand with the Nativity-of-John-the-Baptist hymn "Ut Queant Laxis".
Well, in truth the Guidonian hand is in pretty bad shape. It belonged to Guido of Arezzo, and he died nearly a thousand years ago. But his hand trick lives on.
If only I can figure out how to sing ahead of myself like this guy does though.
It must have something to do with the hand. And the Roman Catholic Church (i.e., murder and the Mona Lisa).
Because, that creepy grin at the end just speaks volumes.
Labels: hymn
I haven't been slacking off. My intense research into the world of American improvisation/creativity, which consists mainly of watching movies and reading books, is proceeding as planned.
Shortly, I will be viewing Keith Jarrett: The Art of Improvisation, and I expect to publish a reaction here.
Based on titles of works they have published, both organist Gerre Hancock and pianist Keith Jarrett believe that improvisation is an Art.
Jarrett will be an interesting case study in the world of improvisation. He's clearly a superbly gifted musician, one who is well-known as an improviser. More than that, his innovative solo concerts have been instances at spontaneous creation (improvisation that is not based on pre-existing themes).
Like comedian Jerry Seinfeld in the documentary Comedian, Jarrett recently sought to remodel his improvisations by starting from scratch (these efforts are captured by his most recent release Radiance). This artistic trajectory reveals an artist who is particularly attuned to the distilled, creative essence of his art.
There's a lot of personal interest here. I grew up listening to Jarrett, and I grew up improvising on the piano and the organ. What I'm really interested in getting a hold of is the concept of improvisation in isolation -- improvisation for its own sake.
I don't think organists have much experience with this concept. Most organ methodologies don't hesitate to introduce hymn-based techniques fairly early on. Surely this is practical, but it is putting the cart before the horse.
By teaching organists how to improvise set forms, certain methodologies surely relegate improvisation to the world of "craft." And while this may speak to the reality of what occurs when the organist improvises, I think it is worthwhile to try to access the bigger picture: improvisation as "Art."
By the same token, however, improvisation is most easily accessed through set forms and stipulations: a craft, if you will. And for some inexperienced improvisers, improvising without a predetermined form will lead to musical incontinence.
How much have organists been limited by our received methodologies? How many organists are asked to just improvise, for its own sake, and without the aid of anything pre-composed?
How many organists are comfortable removing the trappings of western music, or inherited default-churchiness to create something really honest, personal, artistic?
By way of example, the fugue was a necessary thing to improvise in Bach's time. One could even argue that the French had their own fugue thing going too. But how many American composers are still writing fugues? I mean, not even Henry Cowell really did (he wrote fuguing tunes, trying to reclaim an earlier American form), and he died forty years ago.
American organists just aren't talking enough about the Art of Improvisation. This is symptomatic of too few American organists improvising, which is in turn symptomatic of their being a lack of an American improvisational "style" or ethos.
And so, my quest for an An Ethos of Improvisation at the Organ in the United States (AEIOU) leads me into Jazz, a realm where improvisation is regularly practiced and discussed, even if not fully understood.
©MMXVII Sinden.org: a site for fun and prophet