Adventures in Creative Futility: Churches (and their organs) Visited on My 1997 Vacation

All Saints' Episcopal Church, Palo Alto, CA

Sunday, September 21, 1997

Organs by D. A. Flentrop, 1969, featured on the CD, Organ Music of Johann Ludwig Krebs, Gwen Adams, organist, James Duncan, trumpeter, Arkay AR6122

    By some combination of divine providence and plain old dumb luck, the Sunday I attended a service at All Saints Episcopal was the very Sunday the Rector, Rev. Margaret Irwin, and the interim music director, David Sheetz, decided to honor Gwen Adams (their music director for the past seventeen years), who left on sabbatical the month before. So I not only had the opportunity to hear their scrumptious organ in person, but to meet an organist whom I particularly admire, and whose CD I've highly recommended on PIPORG-L.

    Everybody at All Saints' was wishing Maestra Adams the best, and encouraging her to return. (Some of that encouragement took the form of a "filk" psalm [for those of you unfamiliar with "filk" music, it is the tongue-in-cheek folk music of fandom; the term is said to have originated in a typo in a science fiction convention program, and seemed to fit; see here or here or here ]. To give you an idea of the nature of this "Psalm for Gwen Adams, here's the opening couplet of the last verse: "Gwen has played the mighty Flentrop both profound and sweet; / She has played it with ten fingers and two feet!" At that couplet, even those who'd been able to keep a straight face up to that point burst out laughing.)

    All Saints' actually has two Flentrop organs. The main one, featured on the CD, is a two-manual instrument (open Hauptwerk and pedal, with swelled Brustwerk) of 18 stops (22 ranks, 1144 pipes); the Brustwerk is fitted with sliding swell shutters of a type I've never heard of before. Couplers are actuated by three pedals above the pedalboard, and are of the full-motion type. Both key and stop action are tracker; there is no combination action at all. It sounds every bit as scrumptious in person (the acoustic equivalent of still-warm fresh-baked homemade oatmeal cookies) as it does on the record.

    The other organ, which I didn't have the chance to hear, is a split-manual positive, used mainly for continuo and for the occasional piece for two organs (such as the Soler concertos).

    True to my plans, I was prepared to be offered the chance to play one of the Flentrops, but did not ask for the privelege; especially at this stage of my musical training, it would have been extremely presumptious of me to do so. I was not disappointed when no such offer was made; just having the chance to hear the main organ, and photograph both instruments after the service, was more than worth the train trip (over an hour each way, by CalTrain), and the chance to meet Maestra Adams (and get her autograph!) was more than I could have possibly expected. She has no current plans, by the way, for a second CD, as she found the effort involved in producing the first one to be more than she had bargained for. Of course, people do change over time, and I would not be so quick to rule out the possibility as she seems to be.

Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Sacramento, CA

Sunday, September 28, 1997

Organ by Johnson and Son, 1877, Restored, 1996.

    I was referred to St. Paul's by fellow PIPORG-L subscriber William H. Evans, almost two months ago. Not knowing in advance that the early service at St. Paul's is normally a "dry" one (i.e. no music whatsoever), I ended up attending both services (and missing any opportunity to tour the Governor's Mansion, or Sutter's Fort, or the Towe Ford Museum). What I found was a study in contrasts. The first service is run completely dry, and even more informally than, say, a typical Methodist service, with the Rector (Rev. Elisabeth "Betsy" Seeger) presiding alone, asking for volunteers for the readings, and gathering the entire congregation at the altar for Communion, with each individual serving the next. The service thus had the charm of a great deal of intimacy. The second service, on the other hand, had a full staff supporting "Pastor Betsy"; organ, a small choir, a few handbells, and copious amounts of incense.

    The organ is a rather nice tracker (one of only three in Sacramento, according to their organist, David Robbins) with two manuals and 22 ranks. Like the All Saints Flentrop, it appears to have full-motion couplers (drawstop actuated in this case); unlike the Flentrop, which is in a freestanding case, this organ is built into a chamber, and at least some of the facade pipes are apparently dummies.

    After the first service, "Pastor Betsy" invited me to take all the pictures I wanted to, and when Maestro Robbins arrived, he left the access hatch to the organ chamber (which also serves as his music library, and as storage space for a couple of ladders!) open, and invited me to take pictures of the pipes and action. After the second service, Maestro Robbins asked me to sign the personal guest book he keeps for visiting organists, and invited me to try the organ for myself, which I did, after checking my shoes for any unpleasant substances I might have stepped in, and soon, a five-finger exercise on Beethoven's Ode to Joy was echoing through the Sanctuary, followed by my work-in-progress organ version of Cockles and Mussels (my piano text only gives one verse for it, and doesn't say whether it's an authentic folk song or simply in the style of one; also, out of idle curiosity, does anybody know if the melody has been used for any hymns?)

    I found the sound quite pleasant, and the touch to be equally so, and no heavier than that of the Austin on which I'm taking lessons.

    I ended up "talking shop" with both Maestro Robbins and Dr. Lee Lovallo (the choirmaster, who's currently restoring an antique positive!) so long that I didn't catch my bus back to the hotel until nearly noon (by which time it was already hot enough that I didn't relish the thought of walking twelve blocks in a suit!) It seems that Maestro Robbins is also a fan of Biggs, and of Dr. Pamela Decker.

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