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Dan Coren
'Tuneful fun'? Or something more?
The story the Inquirer missed
DAN COREN
Imagine this scene. It is a cold evening in Lübeck, Germany in the winter of 1705. Dietrich Buxtehude, the city’s organist, has just finished playing his Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne. Johann Sebastian Bach, a few weeks short of his 20th birthday, has come a long way to study and learn from Buxtehude and is overcome by what he has just heard. Buxtehude, nearing the end of his life, reflects morosely on his lack of an apparent successor.
At this moment, a stranger appears, dressed in blue jeans and a J.S. Bach sweatshirt. “Gentlemen,” he announces, “I bring you news from the future.”
The future to which he referred took place this past May 20th at the Kimmel Center’s “Pay to Pay” event, in which anybody with a mere $25 could sign up to play for a minute on Verizon Hall’s new organ. But the news was missed by the Inquirer, which reported the piece only as a fluffy segment in Michael Klein’s “Inqlings” gossip column, under the headline, “Kimmel’s Pay to Play is tuneful fun.” Contrary to the Inquirer’s impression, this event was no mere public relations exercise but a showcase for an important and often neglected constituency: organists, many of them serious and professionally trained.
Thelonius Monk said it best
It’s hard to imagine “P.T.P.” being more enjoyable or better conceived. Hosts Mervon Mehta and Tom Warner, both Kimmel Center executives, alternated as emcees, welcoming each guest to the stage, asking where they lived and what they were going to play. H. L. Smith, an organist from the Temple Faculty, acted as a silent organ docent, adjusting organ stops, helping players onto the organ bench, and radiating a sense of calming reassurance. These officials presided over a diverse parade of participants: adorable children; a few local celebrities; an 11-year-old girl piano student who played a heavenly reading of the C major prelude from Book One of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier; a woman who didn’t play at all but just wanted the experience of sitting at the console and putting her hands on the keyboard.
I was reminded of words attributed to Thelonius Monk: “On my piano, there are no wrong notes.” Here you could screw up only by being rude; nobody cared if you played badly, or well, or even just sat at the keyboard and did nothing.
My moment of fame
Tucked into the festivities somewhere around 2:45 were minute-long appearances by yours truly, my younger brother Robert (down from Boston for that evening’s Phillies game) and his husband, John Gintell. I indulged my craving to hear lush jazz harmonies on the Kimmel organ with the iconic Jerome Kern standard “All The Things You Are.” I wish I could report that my moment in the sun was a climactic fulfilling experience, but in fact it was just plain disorienting. I meant to play slowly – but not that slowly!
My brother knocked the socks off the jagged, majestic opening of the Bach C Minor Keyboard Partita. John, steadfastly uncommitted to any music until the last minute, noodled around satisfyingly in a minor. For me, with my complete lack of experience with the organ and agonizing memories of student piano recitals, this was a triumph of optimism over neurosis.
Revenge of the nerds
But back to the real organists. They play a formidably difficult instrument that, as my wife so beautifully put it, is the monster truck of the musical world. They fight against the public’s stereotypical view of them as spooky nerds. Their organ repertory consists largely of music by arcane composers like Vienne, Widor and Messaien. They do seem to live in a different sphere from most musicians. If you want to get a feel for this world and an insider’s account of the event, I highly recommend the contributions of one of the participants, Desireé Hines, to the “Pay to Play” section of the Kimmel Center blog. (Click here.)
Bach to the rescue
On the other hand, organists also have the music of Bach. This occasion included two especially spectacular performances, one of music by Bach himself and another of music by his great predecessor, Dietrich Buxtehude.
While I was waiting in line to sign up, I fell into conversation with the fellow behind me in line, one Kenneth Coy, who told me that his mission, his dream, was to buy ten minutes to play J.S. Bach’s “St. Anne” fugue. Bach wrote this work in the late 1730s as the conclusion to Part III of his Clavier Übung, an encyclopedic compendium of all he had to pass on about keyboard music. It is also, according to scholars who should know, an intentional homage to the style and techniques of Buxtehude. Mr. Coy got his wish (the event offered a volume bargain rate of $75 for five minutes); immediately after our cameos, he played it gloriously from memory, filling the hall with mountains of Bach polyphony.
About an hour later, a woman with the unlikely name of Paula Dollarhide sat down and announced she was going to play a Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne by… Dietrich Buxtehude! Buxtehude’s influence on Bach was, until this moment, merely a scholarly fact to me. But as Ms. Dollarhide started the piece– which begins with a thunderous cadenza for foot pedals alone– it was easy to imagine Bach sitting awestruck in the presence of such monumentally rhapsodic music. And Ms. Dollarhide played it as if she were a kid unwrapping a bounty of Christmas presents, exulting from start to finish in the power of the music and the way it resonated in Verizon Hall.
After 300 years, the return of Dietrich Buxtehude
But let’s return to my Lübeck fantasy of 1705.
“Herr Bach,” the stranger from the future tells young Johann Sebastian, “you are destined to be remembered as not only the greatest organist the world has ever known, but as the greatest composer as well. Because of your fame, your stay here in Lübeck will be remembered as a great event. In fact, legend will say you walked more than 200 miles to get here.”
Bach laughs. “Yeah – like I’m going to cross the Harz Mountains in winter! Do I look crazy to you? The coach ride was heroic enough!”
“Nevertheless, the story persists,” the stranger replies. “Herr Buxtehude, you are partially right. For many years, your music will be forgotten. But in about 200 years, a miracle will occur. A generation of scholars will devote their lives to rediscovering your music! Yours, and everybody else’s. The day will come when your works, beautifully printed and bound in material tougher than leather, will sit side by side with Herr Bach’s in libraries around the world. Organists will study and revere your music almost as much as young Herr Bach does this evening. Here … look at this!”
The stranger reaches inside his shirt and pulls out a glossy eight-by-ten-inch print of the very picture that accompanies this article. Bach and Buxtehude are completely mystified. What an odd painting! What are those strange numbers? Who is the mysterious figure hovering nearby? What is that woman wearing '
After some time, though, Buxtehude realizes that things haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. Somebody is playing the organ. A big one. And that does look like his music! A smile slowly crosses his face. “She seems to be enjoying herself, doesn’t she?”
“You have no idea!” says the stranger. “The local journals used some silly phrase— ‘tuneful fun,’ I think it was. Eternal joy is more like it. Yes, gentlemen, that’s what you’ve given us. Ewige freude…ewige freude.” And the stranger walks off into the night.
“Young man,” Buxtehude says to Bach, “I’m glad you made your journey. May I buy you a beer?”
To view responses to this article, click
The story the Inquirer missed
DAN COREN
Imagine this scene. It is a cold evening in Lübeck, Germany in the winter of 1705. Dietrich Buxtehude, the city’s organist, has just finished playing his Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne. Johann Sebastian Bach, a few weeks short of his 20th birthday, has come a long way to study and learn from Buxtehude and is overcome by what he has just heard. Buxtehude, nearing the end of his life, reflects morosely on his lack of an apparent successor.
At this moment, a stranger appears, dressed in blue jeans and a J.S. Bach sweatshirt. “Gentlemen,” he announces, “I bring you news from the future.”
The future to which he referred took place this past May 20th at the Kimmel Center’s “Pay to Pay” event, in which anybody with a mere $25 could sign up to play for a minute on Verizon Hall’s new organ. But the news was missed by the Inquirer, which reported the piece only as a fluffy segment in Michael Klein’s “Inqlings” gossip column, under the headline, “Kimmel’s Pay to Play is tuneful fun.” Contrary to the Inquirer’s impression, this event was no mere public relations exercise but a showcase for an important and often neglected constituency: organists, many of them serious and professionally trained.
Thelonius Monk said it best
It’s hard to imagine “P.T.P.” being more enjoyable or better conceived. Hosts Mervon Mehta and Tom Warner, both Kimmel Center executives, alternated as emcees, welcoming each guest to the stage, asking where they lived and what they were going to play. H. L. Smith, an organist from the Temple Faculty, acted as a silent organ docent, adjusting organ stops, helping players onto the organ bench, and radiating a sense of calming reassurance. These officials presided over a diverse parade of participants: adorable children; a few local celebrities; an 11-year-old girl piano student who played a heavenly reading of the C major prelude from Book One of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier; a woman who didn’t play at all but just wanted the experience of sitting at the console and putting her hands on the keyboard.
I was reminded of words attributed to Thelonius Monk: “On my piano, there are no wrong notes.” Here you could screw up only by being rude; nobody cared if you played badly, or well, or even just sat at the keyboard and did nothing.
My moment of fame
Tucked into the festivities somewhere around 2:45 were minute-long appearances by yours truly, my younger brother Robert (down from Boston for that evening’s Phillies game) and his husband, John Gintell. I indulged my craving to hear lush jazz harmonies on the Kimmel organ with the iconic Jerome Kern standard “All The Things You Are.” I wish I could report that my moment in the sun was a climactic fulfilling experience, but in fact it was just plain disorienting. I meant to play slowly – but not that slowly!
My brother knocked the socks off the jagged, majestic opening of the Bach C Minor Keyboard Partita. John, steadfastly uncommitted to any music until the last minute, noodled around satisfyingly in a minor. For me, with my complete lack of experience with the organ and agonizing memories of student piano recitals, this was a triumph of optimism over neurosis.
Revenge of the nerds
But back to the real organists. They play a formidably difficult instrument that, as my wife so beautifully put it, is the monster truck of the musical world. They fight against the public’s stereotypical view of them as spooky nerds. Their organ repertory consists largely of music by arcane composers like Vienne, Widor and Messaien. They do seem to live in a different sphere from most musicians. If you want to get a feel for this world and an insider’s account of the event, I highly recommend the contributions of one of the participants, Desireé Hines, to the “Pay to Play” section of the Kimmel Center blog. (Click here.)
Bach to the rescue
On the other hand, organists also have the music of Bach. This occasion included two especially spectacular performances, one of music by Bach himself and another of music by his great predecessor, Dietrich Buxtehude.
While I was waiting in line to sign up, I fell into conversation with the fellow behind me in line, one Kenneth Coy, who told me that his mission, his dream, was to buy ten minutes to play J.S. Bach’s “St. Anne” fugue. Bach wrote this work in the late 1730s as the conclusion to Part III of his Clavier Übung, an encyclopedic compendium of all he had to pass on about keyboard music. It is also, according to scholars who should know, an intentional homage to the style and techniques of Buxtehude. Mr. Coy got his wish (the event offered a volume bargain rate of $75 for five minutes); immediately after our cameos, he played it gloriously from memory, filling the hall with mountains of Bach polyphony.
About an hour later, a woman with the unlikely name of Paula Dollarhide sat down and announced she was going to play a Prelude, Fugue, and Chaconne by… Dietrich Buxtehude! Buxtehude’s influence on Bach was, until this moment, merely a scholarly fact to me. But as Ms. Dollarhide started the piece– which begins with a thunderous cadenza for foot pedals alone– it was easy to imagine Bach sitting awestruck in the presence of such monumentally rhapsodic music. And Ms. Dollarhide played it as if she were a kid unwrapping a bounty of Christmas presents, exulting from start to finish in the power of the music and the way it resonated in Verizon Hall.
After 300 years, the return of Dietrich Buxtehude
But let’s return to my Lübeck fantasy of 1705.
“Herr Bach,” the stranger from the future tells young Johann Sebastian, “you are destined to be remembered as not only the greatest organist the world has ever known, but as the greatest composer as well. Because of your fame, your stay here in Lübeck will be remembered as a great event. In fact, legend will say you walked more than 200 miles to get here.”
Bach laughs. “Yeah – like I’m going to cross the Harz Mountains in winter! Do I look crazy to you? The coach ride was heroic enough!”
“Nevertheless, the story persists,” the stranger replies. “Herr Buxtehude, you are partially right. For many years, your music will be forgotten. But in about 200 years, a miracle will occur. A generation of scholars will devote their lives to rediscovering your music! Yours, and everybody else’s. The day will come when your works, beautifully printed and bound in material tougher than leather, will sit side by side with Herr Bach’s in libraries around the world. Organists will study and revere your music almost as much as young Herr Bach does this evening. Here … look at this!”
The stranger reaches inside his shirt and pulls out a glossy eight-by-ten-inch print of the very picture that accompanies this article. Bach and Buxtehude are completely mystified. What an odd painting! What are those strange numbers? Who is the mysterious figure hovering nearby? What is that woman wearing '
After some time, though, Buxtehude realizes that things haven’t changed all that much over the centuries. Somebody is playing the organ. A big one. And that does look like his music! A smile slowly crosses his face. “She seems to be enjoying herself, doesn’t she?”
“You have no idea!” says the stranger. “The local journals used some silly phrase— ‘tuneful fun,’ I think it was. Eternal joy is more like it. Yes, gentlemen, that’s what you’ve given us. Ewige freude…ewige freude.” And the stranger walks off into the night.
“Young man,” Buxtehude says to Bach, “I’m glad you made your journey. May I buy you a beer?”
To view responses to this article, click
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