As I was playing some Advent hymns on the piano today, I thought about the many Decembers I spent singing in parish choirs in Chicago. St. Veronica's, St. Benedict's, St. Mary of Perpetual Help, St. Martha's: many years' worth of music and liturgies. In each of these settings, the choir director was my friend Les. He is one of the most creative and talented musicians I have ever met (perhaps the most) and over the years became one of my closest friends.
I am not even in the same hierarchy of musicians! I belong in an entirely parallel list. But as time passed, I actually became the substitute organist at three of these parishes. And I never would have thought that was possible. Never. Who thought I could meet those challenges without any problem? Les did. In his usual, off-handed way he would mention that he needed me to cover for him on a particular date. Stress!! The worst obstacle was learning the psalm for the day, because Les also composed a marvelous collection of psalm settings and they were always a challenge to me. Some of them only had chord suggestions (!!) accompanying the melody lines, and when I asked him for tips, he would rattle off what I ought to do and move on to another topic. Oh my goodness. Usually the hymns gave me no problems, since I grew up playing the piano for congregational singing in my church in Virginia. But those psalms gave me fits! And of course there were the additional pieces I needed to play during Communion and other moments. My focus intensified as Saturday and Sunday approached.
It's important to note, also, that although I studied the piano for ten years, I only had one year of organ lessons, in high school. I couldn't improvise or transpose and I had no good sense of chord varieties/progressions. What did I think I was doing?
Here's the amazing part: I actually managed to serve as a substitute organist without disaster or mental breakdowns. I learned so much! I mastered the "cues" from the liturgy, so that I didn't break into "Holy, holy, holy" too early; I was ready when it was time for the Memorial Acclamation; I began the Agnus Dei in time to 'call' the priest back to the altar before the sign of peace got too carried away. I learned which combinations of stops on the organ sounded the best for hymns, for psalms, for service music, and for the solo organ pieces during Mass. And I learned all of this pretty darn quickly, because Les assumed I could just do it.
On two different occasions, I literally slid onto the organ bench during Mass as Les slid off, first due to a family emergency and then due to his sudden illness. How in the world did that happen?
My dear friend Alice and I have discussed this many times, she from the vantage point of a professional singer and I from my little corner as an accompanist. (Many times she cantored when I played the organ--the "Alice and Barbara Show", we called ourselves.) We have concluded that we rose to meet these challenges largely because Les thought we could. And perhaps more than thought--because he expected that we could. I became a better musician because somehow Les knew I would be. (Alice was already marvelous.) Isn't that such a gift?
No comments:
Post a Comment