Music

In memoriam Carl B. Staplin

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Carl Staplin
Carl Staplin

A week ago this evening, my principal organ teacher, Carl Staplin, died at almost 80 years of age. I studied with him from 1970-1974 when I was an undergraduate student at Drake University, in Des Moines, Iowa. I’ll be making a quick trip to Des Moines tomorrow afternoon, and I will be one of the organists for his memorial service on Monday morning at First Christian Church, where he was the organist for decades, presiding over a 1956 Holtkamp organ of great integrity, if not great size.  Indeed, my first church job as a beginning freshman at Drake was as his assistant at First Christian. I had the opportunity week-in-and-week-out to hear him play repertoire, lead hymns (often with dazzling free accompaniments) and accompany the choir, which was conducted at the time by the late Allan Lehl, the director of choruses at Drake. That experience gave me a model to emulate for my 40-year (and ongoing) career that followed.

Carl was a brilliant teacher, patient, but insistent. He could always find something encouraging to say, even after the most dismal lesson. I don’t recall ever hearing him utter an unkind word. He had a friendly smile and greeting for everyone. Although all of his students were expected to study masterpieces of the organ repertoire, he also encouraged students to explore the repertoire of interest to him or her. My own senior recital had Bach, Sweelinck, Hugo Distler, the Roger-Ducasse “Pastorale” (What was he thinking!?), and Ligeti’s “Volumina,” that masterpiece of graphic notation with its use of the organ as non-traditional sound source. I’m sure Carl knew little about the piece when we started, but we plowed through it together. There are probably many teachers with whom I could have studied more repertoire; Carl insisted that things be very well learned over time and usually memorized. The result of that kind of study was that we didn’t necessarily cover lots of pieces but we learned how to listen and learn, a skill that has been my shield for all of my playing career and that has brought me performing opportunities that I might not otherwise have had. Most notoriously, that skill came into use once when I received the invitation in Cleveland with just two weeks notice to perform Jean Langlais’s Messe solennelle at which the composer himself would be present. Although I had heard Langlais’s mass before, I hadn’t played it. All worked out well for the performance.

Another aspect of Carl’s mentorship came in his encouragement of his students to follow their hearts in regard to their careers. I can’t imagine that he didn’t have some amount of disappointment when I decided not to pursue an advanced degree in organ and church music; I instead became a librarian. But if he was disappointed, Carl never uttered a single word of it to me. He has always been tremendously supportive of my library career, and seemed to be proud of my advancement to the upper levels of administration in a university research library. My library career, contrary to being a hindrance, has given me the opportunity to have a profession to “pay the rent,” but letting me pursue the musical career that I wanted, without having to depend on it for my living. It has for me been the best of both worlds, although not without some compromises in the amount of time I’ve had to practice. (Another example of using the skill of knowing how to learn quickly.)

The cadre of organ students at Drake became our ad hoc social group (very few of the students belonged to the Greek organizations that were the hub of social life for many at Drake). The parties at the Staplin home were legendary. Carl’s wife Phyllis, and his two children Elizabeth and Bill, put up with the uproar. Bill was a toddler at the time, and I think he often wanted us just to leave so he could get some sleep.

I’ve spent the last week reflecting on Dr. Staplin’s influence on my life and career, and even now I hesitate to publish this, because a few sentences cannot do justice to his life as a musician, academic, personal mentor and friend, husband and father. Rest well, Carl. Your legacy is secure in the lives of your students, family and friends.

Cameron Carpenter vs. the Mighty Wurlitzer in Akron

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Cameron Carpenter

Last night I heard organist Cameron Carpenter perform at the Akron Civic Theater on its Wurlitzer theater organ, as part of a series sponsored by the University of Akron and E.J. Thomas Hall. Thomas Hall doesn’t have an organ, and Cameron’s long-awaited digital touring organ isn’t yet complete, so he had to do battle with the Wurlitzer, which put up a tough fight, including a couple of ciphers (notes that don’t stop playing when you release the key), but Cameron ultimately prevailed. The audience was slim, filling only the front section of the main floor of the theater. And if the sponsors’ plan was to entice younger people, it didn’t work—the audience was proportionally higher with gray hairs.

Cameron took his bad boy image to the max, at least during the first half of the concert, where he was sullen, sarcastic and never looked at the audience head-on during his remarks between pieces. (He sat half-way on the organ bench and looked at the wings of the stage.) And a lot of what he had to say was just pretentious bullshit, for example, his statement that in playing the Bach G Major Trio Sonata—a very difficult piece technically—one should just relax and let the music play itself. (Not that he cares one iota what I think.) If his idea is to draw new audience to the organ, it seemed an odd way to do it, unless the audience has masochistic fantasies. Do I really need to be talked down to? In the second half, he was remarkably more relaxed, even friendly, as if he had changed his attitude along with his costume.

All that said, there is no one else in the organ performing sphere that has Cameron’s technical skills, and his performances are riveting, if willful and infuriating. The only comparison that might be made would be to the French outlaw virtuoso Jean Guillou, in his prime. I found myself not caring in the least that Cameron’s performances were not “historically informed.” He also played to his own strengths, in his transcriptions and arrangements of other music, starting with an etude based on the first movement of Bach’s first cello sonata. The cello part was played in the pedals, with increasingly complex layering on the manuals above it. He also made an effective transcription of Liszt’s “Funerailles,” originally for piano. It seemed tailor-made for the theater organ. He ended the first half with an austere and mostly atonal composition by a Ugandan composer whose name I did not recognize. (And since there was no printed set list for the concert, I can’t confirm.) With massive sounds, including pedal chords, on full organ, it was as if Cameron truly was trying to test the Wurlitzer to its limits. There weren’t any ciphers after this piece, but there was one after Marcel Dupré‘s “Variations on a Noel,” which Cameron dissected and reassembled in his own fashion. (At least the cipher was on the tonal note of the piece.)

The second half was devoted to lighter fare, a medley of some Gershwin tunes, and ending with three relatively brief improvisations devised by the performer on the spot, including a concluding fugue recognizably, if loosely, based Beethoven’s famous piano piece “Für Elise.”

It was announced that Cameron Carpenter will be back next year with his new touring instrument. Maybe playing on a familiar instrument will put him into a better mood.

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Modern music that doesn’t suck (one in a series): Timothy Andres’ “Shy and Mighty”

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Andres - High and Mighty

My new music recommendation for the day is Timothy Andres’s 2010 album on Nonesuch Shy and Mighty for two pianos.  The music is deceptively simple sounding, but when you listen more carefully it has quite a lot going on, and periodic “explosions” that force you to pay attention.

The composer is one of the pianists on the album, along with David Kaplan.  They are a formidable duo, with unearthly precision.  

I am especially fond of the track “Out of Shape.”

Gyndebourne’s “Turn of the Screw”

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Turn of the Screw - Glyndbourne CD

Over the last couple of years the Glyndebourne Festival in England has been producing a series of CD recordings of outstanding past opera performances from the festival, made from live performances. The latest of these recordings is from a very fine production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw in 2007, with soprano Camilla Tilling as The Governess and tenor William Burden in the dual role of The Prologue and the ghost Peter Quint. Edward Gardner conducts members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Henry James’s ghost story, in which nothing is certain and everything might be imagined, is turned by Britten and his librettist Myfanwy Piper in 1954 into a creepy opera in which Britten portrays the ghosts Peter Quint and Miss Jessel as very real and on the make for the two children, Miles and Flora, left in the Governess’s charge by an uncle who is too busy to care for them himself.

The performance is excellent. Camilla Tilling’s portrayal become increasingly unhinged as the story progresses. William Burden’s bright, light tenor is a worthy successor to that of Peter Pears, Britten’s life partner and the originator of the role. The two children are played by Joanna Songi (Flora) and Christopher Sladdin (Miles). Since this recording is taken from a live performance, there is a considerable amount of stage noise, especially during the scenes when the children are playing together. The elderly housekeeper, Mrs. Grose, whose belief that the Governess has seen the ghost of Peter Quint, the former valet, sets the story in motion, is by mezzo Anne-Marie Owens. Soprano Emma Bell plays the small but essential role of the former (and now dead) Governess Miss Jessel, who was forced to leave the house because of an unnamed scandal with Peter Quint. Conductor Edward Gardner leads a taut performance. A few of the vocal/orchestral balances are not quite right, but this is undoubtedly because of the conditions of live performances. The orchestral playing is precise and virtuosic. The opera is a set of variations on a theme that appears at the beginning of the first scene. Each variation sets the tone of the next scene; thus, the orchestra is a prime character in the drama.

Glyndebourne’s CD production is lavish. The two CD set is bound into a 60 page book featuring color photos of the production, synopsis and complete libretto, and an essay about the opera by Britten scholar Michael Kennedy. The CDs are already available in the U.K., and will be released in the U.S. later in June 2011.

I highly recommend this new recording. It stacks up well with the composer’s own recording (in mono) with the original cast, as well as such later recordings as that by Britten expert Steuart Bedford with the excellent Felicity Lott as the Governess.

Penderecki’s “Passion”

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Penderecki Passion According to St. Luke

This evening I have been listening to a recording of Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion, composed in 1966 to commemorate the thousandth anniversary of the introduction of Christianity into Poland, and for the 700th anniversary of Münster Cathedral, where it was first performed. Penderecki has been a leading light of the European musical avant garde since the early 1960s. His Threnody for the victims of Hiroshima was a landmark (and has been used as source material for any number of movie soundtracks.)

The Passion is for three mixed choirs, boychoir, soprano, baritone and bass soloists, spoken narrator, and very large orchestra. It is a daunting work combining twelve-tone writing with vocal lines based on Gregorian chant, aleatoric passages as well as huge climaxes that end on shockingly diatonic major chords. The form is similar to the Bach passions: large choruses interspersed with narration and arias that comment on the action in Luke’s gospel. Other contemplative texts are taken from the psalms, Roman Catholic antiphons and hymns, sequences (Miserere mei Deus; Pange lingua; Stabat Mater, etc.)

The drama of the choruses is astonishing. Who could not be shocked by the screams of “Crucifige ilum.” (Crucify him)? Later there is an a capella setting of the “Stabat mater” describing Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the foot of the cross. The final chorus proclaims, “In Te, Domine, speravi, non confundar in aeternum.” (In Thee, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be ashamed.)

Penderecki’s Passion is a masterpiece that should be performed more often. Too bad it’s so expensive to produce and no one (but me) wants to hear it….

(And of course, I’ve been listening to Penderecki while procrastinating practice the organ continuo part for the Bach Passion I have to play on Friday evening.)

A Year Ago… EACC fire remembered

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Euclid Avenue Congregational Church Euclid Avenue Congregational Church fire Ruins of Euclid Avenue Congregational Church

It was a year ago today in the early hours of the morning that fire destroyed Euclid Avenue Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ, which was my church home (and employer) for twenty-seven years. The fire began during a freak thunder and lightning storm late the night before. I’d had Rosie out for her last walk of the night, and I remember wanting her to finish her business because it was starting to thunder. I’d also had a series of annoying spam calls on my cell phone, so I had turned it off before I went to bed at midnight. Had I not done that, I would have been among the first (perhaps the first?) to get the call about the fire, since I live in close proximity to the place and occasionally would receive calls from the Cleveland Clinic security about issues at the church. As it was, I did not know anything until early the next morning.

This all took place the Wednesday before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. There was a meeting of church leaders and staff in the morning on Wednesday, and by the end of the day the church found a temporary home thanks to the congregation of the former First United Methodist Church, who had recently vacated the church to merge with the former Epworth Euclid United Methodist Church. It was quite a miracle—a spacious facility with a large pipe organ, grand piano, hymnals in the pews. The EACC congregation is still meeting there a year later as they determine their future as a church.

The impact to me personally was considerable, since the church’s organ was lost, as was the choir’s music library and much of my own personal organ music library. I received a very generous insurance settlement, and I have replaced a lot of the music; I also received several very generous gifts of organ music from professional colleagues. Almost every week, however, I still discover something else that is gone. And money alone can’t replace the personal nostalgia that I had for some of the music, with its accumulation of forty years of markings, fingerings, and teachers’ markings. Some of the music was falling apart; other things had never been played.

There have been, of course, many challenges since then, and I salute those church leaders who have worked so tirelessly over the past year. The year was not without conflict, but the EACC congregation continues to be the resilient body it has been for over 160 years.

There have been many changes in the past year: Rev. Terri Young, the Interim Pastor at the time of the fire, has moved on to a new situation; the church has called Rev. Courtney Clayton Jenkins as its permanent pastor; and I have retired from the church as its Director of Music, with the intention of not playing every Sunday.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t still think about the old church, and the magnificent Karl Wilhelm organ, which can never be replaced at any price. It was a unique instrument in a specific environment. One of the wonders of being an organist is that one’s instrument is integral to the architecture in which it is installed. Sometimes that equation works; other times it’s out of kilter. The Wilhelm was a perfect fit.

As Isaac Watts’ hymn said, “time, like an ever-rolling stream,” keeps on going. We survive; things change; things get better or worse. All the tears in the world won’t bring back the past. Optimism for the future is what sustains us.

There will be a service of remembrance at the site, 9606 Euclid Avenue, tonight, March 23, 2011, at 6:00 PM.

Our God, hour help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
– Isaac Watts, 1674-1748