There he goes!

Something from St John's, Camberwell

Last week I played a pair of intabulations on seasonal motets by Heinrich Sheidemann.  I first encountered these pieces way back in my student days, but only found a copy of the complete collection at Foyles when I was on a trip to London a couple of years ago.

I suspect that if most organists know Schiedemann at all, it is more for his short Preambulae, and possibly some of his chorale and Magnificat settings.  The intabulations are a product of a practice that allowed the organist to riff on the ideas and structure of a choral piece before the singers began.  Similar pieces were published by Gabrielli, although these were much shorter and ostensibly less interested in developing motific interest.  Schiedemann's intabulations are an example of a relatively small genre whose roots lie in a practical need -- to give the choir their pitch -- but elaborated the vocal original.  These pieces are based on motets by Scheidemann's contemporaries, so the organ pieces lie somewhere between being a transcription and an improvisatory prelude-fantasy.

The first of the pair is based on a relatively well-known piece by Hans Leo Hassler, Dixit Maria (click the title to hear the piece).  I played this as the service prelude to the main service on the Fourth Sunday in Advent, where the liturgy was built around Marian themes.

The second is a rather extensive unfolding based on Orlando di Lasso's Angelus ad Pastores ait.  This was the service prelude for Christmas Day.  I love the way this pieces opens out and expands from the first note.  It reminds me a bit of the opening music from Haydn's Creation, with that long single note at the opening of the prelude.

Out and about on Sunday

This week I'll be playing at St Paul's, Canterbury.  After the sheer quantity of work at Camberwell last week this will be a comparatively quiet morning!  There are three main points for the organ.

Prelude: Allein Gott in der hoh sei Ehr [BWV 664] -- J.S. Bach

Communion Voluntary: Intabulation on Verbum Caro Factum Est -- Heinrich Scheidemann, after a motet by Hans Leo Hassler

Postlude: Cantique (Op 3, No 1) -- Edward Elgar

St John

Hodie!

Angels 2

Angels 1

A modest proposal

I've not really paid a great deal of attention to the sad events in America in recent days.  Bits of the news coverage have seeped through, it is very sad, and one can only feel for the families who have lost younger and older members.

What's provoked me today is the National Rifle Association's proposal to put armed guards in schools.  I think this is a really terrible miscall on their part.  It does nothing to address the fetishisation of guns in the NRA, nor to address the whole question of why anyone should have the right to own a high-powered weapon.

I was on a field trip to Edinburgh in 2007 when there was an attempt to bomb the airport at Glasgow.  I remember the palpable change in the atmosphere after the event, but what really shocked me was arriving in at the train station in Birmingham a week later to find armed guards policing the platforms and exits.  It just didn't seem like the mark of a free society to have heavily-armed police patrolling public spaces.

My feeling about the NRA proposal (and it's not the first time they've advanced it) is the same.  Putting armed guards in any public place reduces its utility, and doing the same in schools can do nothing to promote social harmony.

The whole raison d'etre for the NRA is the Second Amendment.  As an amicable watcher of the US, I seriously question whether this part of their constitution is even relevant in this day and age.  It cannot be said to be a social good if constitutional rights are invoked as a means to own high-powered automatic or semi-automatic weapons.  I can't see how worries about the government turning on its own citizens are at all justified, other than the electoral needs of the GOP during a time of being out of the White House. The idea of openly or covertly carrying a gun seems obscene to me, and harks to a mythology of the Wild West that only ever really existed in 1950s films.  The US is not a lawless wasteland, but the continued use of the Second Amendment by the NRA creates the impression that such a situation could well come to pass.  That sort of rhetoric really ought to be called out for the kind of dangerous crankiness it is.

While legislation to enhance gun control is all fine and good, I think there is a fundamental issue at stake.  People have a right to live their lives in peace, without fear of random violence.  The public good is not subservient to the rights of the individual to engage in destructive acts of nihilistic violence.  More to the point, in a country where certain members of the judiciary are obsessed with the Ten Commandments, surely there can be no argument that people have the right to commit murder under any circumstances.  The Second Amendment is certainly being used to continue the conditions in which this needless conflict of principles will continue.  On this basis alone I think it is time for some real courage in raising a serious discussion about revoking the Second Amendment.

Music upon the Day

I will be playing for the Christmas day service at St John's, Camberwell, on Tuesday.  Having survived an extensive musical feast stretching into the wee hours, I'll be back for more music-making on the way to lunch.  Organ music for the 9.00am service will be:

Intabulation on Angelus ad Pastores Ait -- Heinrich Scheidemann (1596-1663), after a motet by Orlando di Lasso

Noel Suisse -- Louis-Claude Daquin

Music upon the Eve

Monday is going to be a busy day, with much music to be made.  I'll be playing for two services at St John's, Camberwell.  One is an early-evening childrens' event, where they will be assembling the crib set while telling the nativity story.  There are lots of little bits and pieces for the organ and piano to do, but you'll have to come along to find out what they end up being (it's a very free-flowing, on the moment-type event).

Midnight Mass will be preceded by a short carols service, commencing at 11.00pm.

At the conclusion of the carols, the prelude to the procession will be:

Où s’en vont ces gais bergers -- Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (1724-1799)

The postlude for the whole service will be:

Fanfare from Four Extemporizations -- Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)

Out and about on Sunday

This week I'll be playing at St John's, Camberwell.  Actually, this is the start of a long shift in that church -- I'm covering while their organist is away over the Christmas break (yes, I know, odd time to be away and all that, but c'est la vie) -- so I'll be posting more about what I'm doing there in the next few days.

In the meantime, here is the music for the prelude and postlude on Sunday.

Intabulation on Dixit Maria ad Angelum -- Heinrich Scheidemann

Tempo Moderato from Sonata a moll (Op 98) -- Josef Rheinberger

Getting into the season

Comment from elsewhere

Crikey ran a story about how children prefer a Christ-less Christmas.  Actually, the article isn't as bad as it sounds, although I'd question the premise of it a bit.

Parents are quite right to reject the sanitised Christmas tableau. It bears no relationship to the gritty and unsettling story found in the Bible, which is in itself quite unsuitable for children. It involves inter-generational marriage, pregnancy out of wedlock, traveling long distances only to be rejected from bottom-of-the-pile accommodation, childbirth in squalid conditions, infanticide on a large scale, flight into refugee accommodation, visitation by strange men bearing ominous gifts, and generally hanging around with the scum of the earth.

Now, if a sanitised vision of Christmas cheer is under threat in schools, then I say good riddance. It does irreparable harm because it represents an impossibly idealised vision of human happiness. This time of year can be a pit of misery for many of us, and having to put a happy face on it only makes things worse. Most of the non-religious carols we sing seem to be about a winter wonderland, which is strange given the general lack of snow at this time of year. There are Australian Christmas carols, but who has the time to teach them in the age of NAPLAN?

Where I have a problem is the premise that sacred and secular are eternally separated spheres of influence. This is patently not the case, as the presence of figures in our public life from Tony Abbott through to Peter Jensen and Jim Wallace demonstrates. There is a predominance of a particular sort of religiosity among public figures, and this is a problem. The main public face of religion at the moment is a very rigid and antagonistic one, and it can be very hard for people to see that this is not the end of the story. Certain people get away with bandying around punitive ideas ‘because the Bible says so’ only because the majority of people don’t have the wherewithal to question it right to the very bottom. This is very bad news for women, for gay people, indeed, for anyone who does not enjoy white hetero male privilege. Unsurprisingly, it was the equivalent of the white hetero males of around 2,000 years ago who strang up some peasant from Galilee.
As far as Bible teaching and religious education in schools goes, I’d say parents are absolutely right to run for cover when religion is used as a tool for ideology. But they owe it to their children to see that they are culturally literate enough to be able to recognise the misuse of religion. Religious illiteracy only makes it easier for the pious quacks to make converts and build influence. They owe it to their children to make sure that they have enough of a handle to be able to beat the next generation of public fundamentalists of the world over the head with it.

The good news of Christmas is that in the middle of all the messiness of our lives we’re not cut off from something greater. What you call — or don’t call — that something doesn’t matter so much.

Published again!

Another book chapter has appeared, although I missed it when it came on to the market from the publisher.  The launch is next week.

This chapter came from another conference paper, actually the first piece of writing I did after the thesis was completely out of the way.  I spent about four years running hot and cold on George W.L. Marshall-Hall, probably a reflection that he's an unavoidable fact of writing about music history in Melbourne even when you're dealing with someone else.  I admire his gadfly side, insisting on absolute freedom in the development of the students at his conservatorium, but I still find it very hard to square this with the realities of having to teach something about music in a useful way.  My paper was called Superman and Society, which summed up the effort of trying to tease out some of the similarities and differences between Marshall-Hall and his successor in the Ormond Chair of Music, Franklin Peterson.

More about 16 December

In a couple of weeks I'll be performing in a nice Sunday afternoon concert at St Gabriel's Catholic Church, Reservoir.

It's a varied programme, mostly showcasing music the ARCappella Choir is performing around the traps at the moment, along with some Christmas music.

And the Hallelujah chorus from Messiah.

This is where your humble scribe comes in.

I've also been asked to contribute a couple of items to the programme, so here's what I'm planning.

Allegro Giocoso (Op. 150, No. 7) -- Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)

 Suite from Henry V -- William Walton