Organ Voluntaries

[presbyter]

St Peter's, Roath.

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=E01196 Oh wow - amazing! Never mind voluntary - you must have organists willing to pay to play that!

How on earth can an RC parish afford to have such a new organ? Mighty legacy from someone?

This instrument deserves a magazine article - editors please note

[presbyter]

Mighty legacy from someone?

Ah - is this the answer? Sir Julian Hodge (1904 - 2004) You had a deceased merchant banker who left the money?

[Mithras]

His widow actually. The Organ Magazine (now defunct) did a feature on it. If you look at M&L Spring 2009 I have a letter about it.

[Hare]

Nice to see you mithras - often read your posts on Mander and wondered why you posted there and not here!

[docmattc]

Our envy at the size of Mithras' organ is understandable, but the topic is:

Thoughts, please, on the role of the voluntary at Mass. A summing up? A commentary? A prayer[?]

If folk feel obliged to remain and listen to the final voluntary, then its fulfilling the same role as the final hymn, which keeping people in the pews when they should be going in peace. I have no objection to it being 'background music' to folk catching up, they can stay and listen, talk over it, leave... If the organist is thinking "Shut up and listen to my virtuosity" he should find himself a concert hall not a liturgy.
At Benedict XVI's installation Mass (that isn't the correct term but you all know what I mean) the organist played JSB's Dm toccata and fugue after the blessing, during which the pope got in the popemobile and did a drive by to greet the crowds. I doubt anyone was listening to the music.

If its a piece that fits the theme, it probably gives the organist a warm glow but how many folks in the pews would recognise Messe de la Pentecote and spot the connection to Pentecost. Lets face it, how many would know that Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme was an appropriate advent piece and not the old Lloyds bank advert music?

I confess to playing a thinly disguised version of "A life on the ocean wave" a couple of weeks ago (12th Sunday OTB) as the recessional voluntary.

[Mithras]

On the subject of the appropriateness of voluntaries, I recently played at a funeral and the coffin was brought into the church to the Cortege section of Dupre's Cortege et Litanie. One or two people said they found it quite moving. The piece itself has always spoken to me of a a dignity in death. I wonder if others have used this or similar music for entrance or departure of a coffin? (& how many have suffered a CD of My Way? We had A Whiter Shade of Pale last week; a good song, undoubtedly, but hardly in keeping with the liturgy.)

[Nick Baty]

& how many have suffered a CD of My Way? We had A Whiter Shade of Pale last week

Can't say I've ever suffered either because, as I understand it, these items are not allowed.
The most frequently requested item at our Funerals Masses is Farrell's Unless A Grain of Wheat and, mostly, we're able to do what we're asked. However, here in Liverpool we're requested (not instructed) to use the readings of the day so that does change the musical options slightly.

[NorthernTenor]

If its a piece that fits the theme, it probably gives the organist a warm glow but how many folks in the pews would recognise Messe de la Pentecote and spot the connection to Pentecost. Lets face it, how many would know that Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme was an appropriate advent piece and not the old Lloyds bank advert music?

Many things liturgical, musical and literary have multiple singificances and layers of meaning, and are all the more powerful for that. It's not necessary for everone to apprehend all of them immediately - or ever - but that's not a reasonable argument for avoiding the richness of such complexity of meaning. If it were, our religious and artistic culture would be the poorer for it.

[gwyn]

Organ voluntaries, for whatever reason, always seem to be played very, very loudly; some self-indulgence is suspected on the part of many a maestro. Other than that, let's have 'em.

Re. The organ at Roath, I'm pleased to note that it is harnessing a natural resource to power it via a wind turbine fitted to the front of the organ case.

[JW]

Commenting on several of the issues raised:

We have a final hymn and I will play a final voluntary. I see this as music to go out to - the organ is playing whilst people assemble; it completes the circle for the organ to be playing as people leave. I don't expect people to be listening but it's nice when the odd one or two do. The final voluntaries I choose are usually loud but tonal - we have a 2 manual Walker extension organ with limited sound palette which doesn't cope well with music written for large Romantic organs. I remember getting comments about horror films when I tried out some Messiaen.

Although people may not link the voluntary with the season or theme I think it's down to the organist to choose what s/he feels to be most relevant. After all, the church has never laid down specific guidelines here (unless someone knows better). The distinction between secular and sacred music presumably still applies but this would mean that we could never use Handel's 'Largo', Pachalbel's 'Canon' and what happens when secular tunes are used for hymns (e.g. Danny Boy) - I'm afraid I use all of these and others (Ashokan Farewell). Church documents seem to comment on what is sung than on what is played, so hopefully they are not too unhappy with what organists present. As NorthernTenor has said, there are multiple layers of meaning - and therefore I can see why 'Whiter Shade of Pale' could actually be suitable for a funeral. Funerals are for those who attend - who often are not Catholic or even Christian.

Just as an aside, there is related discussion on this topic on the 'Incidental Music for Mass thread'.

[Mithras]

Commenting on several of the issues raised:

- we have a 2 manual Walker extension organ with limited sound palette which doesn't cope well with music written for large Romantic organs. I remember getting comments about horror films when I tried out some Messiaen.

.

I cut my organ teeth on a gorgeous 2-man Walker extension in London some 30 years ago. Gave my first recital on it which included Messiaen's Apparition de l'iglese eternelle. Where's yours?

[Nick Baty]

About 20 jokes in that one, Mithras. Who are the gorgeous two men?

[JW]

Keeping on the straight and narrow:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N14239

[Mithras]

Keeping on the straight and narrow:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi?Fn=Rsearch&rec_index=N14239

I know that church! I was a Southwark seminarian for 4 years and a contemporary of the late Doug Morris, originally a parishoner. My Walker wasn't so far away - Holy Trinity, Dockhead

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch. ... dex=N16103

[keitha]

I have always regarded my playing of organ music before/during/after mass as, in a sense, the provision of liturgical 'mood music'. So, for example, before mass something quiet to assist people in quiet prayer and meditation, unless the 'mood' of the mass dictates otherwise - such as Easter Sunday, where I try to play something bright, tuneful and joyful (but not particularly powerful) such as some of the brighter movements from the Bach Trio Sonatas or maybe something from the Handel organ concertos.

After mass, if I am accompanying the procession, something reasonably solemn but intended to send people on their way feeling uplifted, but subject to the context dictated by the mass. Bach choral preludes get 'outings' during the mass when appropriate (and Max Reger and Messaien have been given a go at times). There's plenty of good stuff about which, played judiciously, should enhance the liturgy (failing which, and of course we all fail to hit the button at times, we should not do anything). The problem is, in my experience, there are too few organs in Catholic churches upon which it is possible to play good music that provides any such enhancement and, of course, this gives little encouragement to youngsters to take up the instrument. I decided that I wanted to learn at the age of 8 when a visiting organist played the Widor toccata after my confirmation mass. How many potential organists have we missed through not having decent music, decently played on decent instruments?

Going back to JW Walker, we have a 1 manual unenclosed Walker with a stopped flute rank ranging from 16' to 2', a 4' principal rank and an 8' string from TC (providing 10 'stops' from 3 ranks) - and this is in a large modern church that seats around 1,000. Walkers, in their history volume, said, I think, that they were 'not proud' of many of these instruments - and I can quite see why! The parish priest who had the church built was convinced that he had a bargain!! Since my arrival as a second stint (I originally played in the church as a twelve year old), I have rarely played any organ music - the experience is too frustrating, I just get bad tempered and it rarely adds anything to the liturgy.