the cassandra pages

Hermit Diary 37: Beginning Again, and Again, to Draw

Red ochre on my hand, Anatoliki, Mani Peninsula, Greece.

 

This week, thanks to a link from Jean Morris, I read an essay by David Farrier at LitHub, titled "On John Berger and Rediscovering Drawing during Lockdown." Some of you might connect with the personal story he relates:

When I was younger, I used to draw. Not particularly well; enough to gain a little praise from adults and peers, although it wasn’t praise that interested me. There was a stillness in drawing that I didn’t find anywhere else. Paul Klee famously called drawing, “taking a line for a walk.” In a way, like walking, it gave me a sharper sense of how my own body occupied space. The close attention to shape and space was grounding. It made me feel both more distinct from my surroundings, and at the same time more a part of them. Knowing that I could draw was a talisman I carried with me, like a pebble in my pocket.

And then, without any clear sense of why, I stopped.

It’s now nearly 20 years since I have drawn out of habit. When my children were small I did plenty of scribbling and doodling with them; twice, I have painted my wife a picture for her birthday. But I have rarely sat down to draw for the sake of it. On the few occasions I have picked up a pencil I retreated after a few sketches. The line was broken. I felt guilty for letting it go, and unable to pick it up again.

As he remarks, the initial appeal of drawing was not in seeking praise, but in finding a sense of groundedness, that he defines as "stillness" and a different sense of self, as both "distinct from his surroundings" and at the same time more connected.

During the lockdown in Edinburgh, he kept thinking about drawing.

Thinking too much about the sudden disconnection from the life I knew before, or about how dramatically the future I had anticipated had changed, brought on a kind of vertigo. Lockdown left me feeling unmoored, and my mind turned often to drawing. I needed the old feeling of being grounded by the line. But still, as the weeks of lockdown went by I didn’t draw.

Instead, I read John Berger’s essays about drawing.

Berger compared the drawn line to music, saying that the line emerges from somewhere and leads you on to someplace new. As a musician, it's always been helpful to me to remember that music is never static; it's always coming from somewhere and going somewhere. As an artist, I agree with Berger too: the drawn line arises and moves forward, and so do I, the draughtsperson. Each drawing takes me somewhere I didn't anticipate, and in some very subtle way, changes me. But during the time when I'm drawing, everything except the line is very still.

“Each mark on the paper is a stepping-stone,” Berger writes, “from which you proceed to the next, until you have crossed your subject as thought it were a river.”

After all those years of not drawing, Farrier finally pulls out an old sketchbook and some charcoals and goes out into the garden. He makes three sketches, and describes them all as "clumsy" but in the third, a branch of tomatoes, he says he "feels something shift."

But then, as Berger wrote, real drawing is both “a clumsiness” and “a constant question.” I realized that drawing is not a pause, but an entry into the complexity and open-endedness of any given moment.

I too felt something shift as I read this essay. It reminded me that drawing is not just something I do, but a place where I go. It's a human activity nearly as old as our species itself. Yes, some of us have greater facility and perhaps greater innate talent, but drawing always improves with practice. I've been fortunate to draw almost continually, all my life, and it's been a great help to me during this period of time. But from what many of you have told me, you're more like the author, who "for years, ... had shied away from drawing because I regretted breaking with it, and as more time passed the gap seemed ever more difficult to bridge."

Regardless of where we begin, or begin again, the place where drawing happens is accessible to everyone, and doesn't need to involve a great deal of self-consciousness or self-criticism. Sometimes all it takes is the courage to makes some marks.  The hand, the eye, a stick of charred wood taken from a fire or a lump of ochre picked up from the ground -- this is all we need to take a line on a journey, and be taken by that line to somewhere new.

Basil and Tomatoes, fountain pen on paper, 9" x 6".

 

 

Hermit Diary 35: Proud

 

It's Pride Week in Montreal, and although there won't be the usual city-wide festivities, the cathedral held a virtual version of our annual "OutMass" on Sunday evening. The link above is our choir's offering of hope and love, with photographs from last year's Pride parade. This piece of music was written by the British composer Will Todd and made available to musicians worldwide. It was originally written to celebrate the NHS in the early days of the pandemic, and offer some hope and cheerfulness with the rainbow as a symbol, but we felt it was just as appropriate for a dual purpose, acknowledging that the coronavirus is still with us, making events like these as well as the usual closeness between friends impossible, and also as a symbol of Pride.

Just as the service began, our gathering -- which had been advertised and was open to the public -- was Zoom-bombed by a group of anonymous men, who spewed homophobic hate in the most vile way possible. Thanks to the quick reactions of our hosting team, they were removed and the "room" was locked, but of course it was a shock, and distressing. However, the service resumed under the calm leadership of our music director, Jonathan White. The incident was unable to mar the beauty, love, and solidarity of the hour that followed, which was filled with music, spoken word, prayer, reflection, and shared purpose. In fact, I think all the positive qualities of the gathering were actually augmented, and burned into the memories of the people who were present.

When I think of the courage, gentleness, openness, honesty, and calmness of the people of all ages who were gathered, representing all aspects of LGBTQ+ expression as well as their straight allies, and compare it to the cowardice of those who tried to disrupt this beautiful celebration of pride in our human diversity --  and the sanctity of that diversity -- there's really little to say. It's so obvious. Love triumphs over hate.

I'm proud of our community, and extremely proud of and grateful for the friends who planned and prepared this service, and all those who came and stood together on Sunday night. Your strength makes all of us stronger, and I'm glad to be able to help salute you in music and join with you in working for a better, kinder, more just world.

The full service is embedded below. I'd like to call your attention particularly to the section from 26:16 - 32:10, where members of the community offer a litany asking God to "walk with us, grieve with us, and rejoice with us," interposed with Jonathan White singing a Kyrie.

 

 

Hermit Diary 28: Some calm at the end of a wretched week

Deer under a palm tree, a watercolor and ink drawing of a tiled panel in Lisbon.

Such a difficult week this has been, full of sorrow, outrage, solidarity, anxiety for the future, and also some glimmers of hope that this might be a turning point.

I will not add any words, as I think this is a time for me, and for most white people, to listen to black voices, and to learn what we need to do (and not do) to be the best allies we can. What I can offer is a little bit of calmness through music, which is maybe the best and most continuous gift I've been able to give others throughout my life. Music has always given back to me, too, in multiples, helping me through the worst and best times.

Not being able to sing together has been one of the most difficult parts of isolation for me, and probably for all choral singers everywhere. Because there's so much danger about viral spreading through singing (though there have recently been some articles saying it may not be quite as bad as we initially thought), it's still going to be ages before congregational and choir singing returns to churches, and before my professional musician friends are back in concert halls. I'm seeing first-hand the financial and emotional toll this is taking on many of them. For congregations who are used to a lot of beautiful music, as most Anglicans are, the loss is keen too.

But where there's a will, there's a way. Our choir has produced its first two virtual choir pieces, and we've got two more in the works. These were presented during live-streamed Zoom services of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, and then placed on social media, YouTube, and the church's website, along with a growing library of organ music, music education resources, psalms and hymns, and recorded services. We're finding that the new situation is spawning some new creative responses, and also the surprising gift of being able to share what we do with a much wider, far-flung audience.

Recording your own part as a solo, based on a click track or recorded accompaniment, is totally different from the organic experience of sitting or standing next to your colleagues and making music together -- so much of what happens in live performance has to do with careful preparation combined with listening closely to each other to correct the pitch and watching the conductor for tiny shifts in tempo, dynamics, and feeling. This creates a collective emotional and physical reaction to the actual moment. It is intensely "real-time." In contrast, the way I do the recording is to stand in front of a tripod that holds my phone, which will record the video and audio of me singing, while playing the accompaniment on my computer and listening to it in headphones. Meanwhile I'm holding the score in my hands and yet trying to look at the camera as I would the director. You can see that most of us got better at presenting ourselves visually the second time around.

It's a very weird and self-conscious-making experience! But I've found that this process is showing me aspects of my voice and technique I didn't know, encouraging me to listen harder, practice, and try to improve in subtle and not-so subtle ways. For instance, I can really hear my American accent on certain vowels -- not really desirable! Once we've done several recordings and chosen the best, we each send off our video files, and our music director does the painstaking work of assembling and editing the tracks. The results have been startlingly good, considering how flawed some of us have felt our individual recordings have been. Even though our voices and images have been technically-reassembled, we sound remarkably like our own particular choir. Hearing and seeing these pieces of music, sung by people I care about deeply and haven't seen for months, has really moved me, and members of the congregation say the same. I hope maybe these motets will give you some peaceful moments at the end of this week.

The first, Palestrina's Sicut cervus, is a setting in Latin of the first verses of Psalm 42, "Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks/so longeth my soul after thee, oh God."

 

The second piece is a setting of a well-loved hymn, O for a Closer Walk with God, by Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924). The original hymn was written by William Cowper in 1769 during the serious illness of an aunt he loved.

 

Hermit Diary 26: Down to the Sea in Ships

This entry is cross-posted from Daily Bread, the blog of Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal. The painting is Dutch Fishing Boats in a Storm by J.M.W.Turner, 1801.

 

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.

Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.

He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.

-- Psalm 107: 23-30 (KJV)

 

Psalm 107, appointed for Evening Prayer today, is a true poem, immensely satisfying not only for its message of deliverance from various sorts of trouble but also for its use of language. In sections of about 8 lines each, we hear about four different groups of people in danger: “Some wandered in desert wastes / finding no way to an inhabited town”; “Some sat in darkness and in gloom / prisoners in misery and in irons;” “Some were sick^[through their sinful ways / and because of their iniquities endured affliction.” Finally, we meet the sailors: “Some went down to the sea in ships / doing business on the mighty waters.”

Each of these four groups is, or becomes, lost in some way, which the psalmist describes, but by the end of the eight lines, the Lord has led them out of their trouble into safe haven. The whole psalm is wonderful in its repetition and vivid description, but the best-known lines are those quoted above, about sailors who go to sea, only to be tossed and terrified by winds and waves, but are saved when the Lord calms the storm and brings them safely home.

The King James Bible gave us the familiar English wording: “They that go down to the sea in ships.” But throughout the centuries since the psalm was written, to the life of Jesus of Nazareth, to the era of exploration, and right up to the middle of the 20^th century, when air travel became common, the basic concept resonated. People have always known what it means to go to the sea in ships, face the intense danger that claims many lives, and they’ve always been grateful for reaching safe harbour.

It’s not surprising that Henry Purcell (1659-1695), living in a great age of seafaring, felt compelled to set these words to music; his is a chamber music setting for bass, alto (or counter-tenor), two violins and organ.

 

But the setting better known to Anglicans today is the one linked above, written by Herbert Sumsion (1899-1995). It was brought to our cathedral choir two years ago by Rob Hamilton, co-interim-music director, who remembered it fondly from his own days as a boy chorister. Most of us had never sung it before, but we too had fun with its evocation of calm seas, then the storm, and the sailors “staggering like drunken men” before the calm is restored again.

I asked our music director Jonathan White for some additional insights about the composer and what might have influenced him to write this piece.

“Sumsion was heavily embedded in the English choral tradition,” he told me, “spending practically his entire musical life at Gloucester Cathedral, all the way from being a chorister as a child to being Director of Music for almost 40 years. This is a late work from his career -- 1979 -- and we know it was written as a commission. He may well have known Purcell’s own setting of the text as this was also a period of ‘rediscovery’ of older music. Sumsion was well acquainted with composers like Elgar, Howells, Vaughan Williams, Holst. Howells and his circle were central in reviving the Renaissance composers – Byrd, Tallis, Gibbons etc – and Purcell likely also formed part of this. Britten and his circle were very interested in Purcell, for example.”

Jonathan went on to say that he didn’t know of any other Sumsion anthems quite as dramatic as this one:

“It’s a very evocative anthem, with a rippling accompaniment that is clearly designed to convey the ebb and flow of the waves, that follows a great arc, building to a dramatic climax before ebbing away again. This, of course, is a trajectory that you can see in many Renaissance works (think of the Tallis O sacrum convivium that does just that, the Palestrina Agnus Dei from the Missa brevis…) but I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s directly connected to that period of music – it could just be a coincidence.”

As I listened to Sumsion’s anthem again, I thought about how we often forget that Montreal was once a seafaring city, except maybe when we attend a concert at the Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours in the Old Port -- once known as the “seafarers’ church” -- and see all the handcarved wooden ship models hanging from the ceiling: offerings of thanksgiving made by sailors. A great many of our ancestors, including mine, arrived on the shores of the New World by boat, often enduring horrendous trips during which survival was not at all certain. Sometime, visit the Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum next to the Chapelle Bon-Secours, and listen to the recording of a letter written during a terrifying voyage from France to the nascent colony of Ville-Marie around 1653 (four years before Purcell was born.)

But you don’t need to be a seafarer to find a contemporary resonance in the psalm and the anthem. The arc of the text and music also mirror the uncertain journey we’re going through today -- and express clearly how grateful we will be if and when the waters feel calm again, and we’re home, on dry land, in “our desired haven.”

 

Hermit Diary 24: Remembering Patrick Wedd

A year ago today, the music world lost a great man and musician, Patrick Wedd, who had retired a year before as organist and music director at Christ Church Cathedral Montreal but whose reputation extended well beyond Canada. It was a personal loss for me, too: in addition to feeling incredibly fortunate to have sung with him for more than a decade, and to have had the privilege of sitting near the organ bench watching him play, Patrick was a dear friend.

Nick Capozzoli, our present assistant organist, had worked under Patrick for several years and became interim co-music director during the year after Patrick's retirement. Nick is one of the finest organists of his generation, following in Patrick's footsteps. As a tribute to his teacher and mentor, Nick put together this video, published today. The music is one of Patrick's favorite hymns, being sung in the crowded cathedral during his memorial service, and the photographs of Patrick and our choir were taken on several occasions by the diocesan photographer, Janet Best. At the end, our soprano section takes off in a descant written by Patrick for the final verse of the hymn.

--

On Thursday, Donald Hunt, former assistant organist here in Montreal, and now director of music at Christ Church Cathedral Victoria, will present Olivier Messiaen's l'Ascension as a live-streamed concert in memory of Patrick Wedd. The movements will be interspersed with meditations on the scriptural verses to which they refer, by several of Patrick's clerical friends and colleagues. The links for that are here: To tune in live: https://www.facebook.com/MusicCCCVictoria/live_videos/
To watch on demand after the live stream: https://vimeo.com/user12422383

--

The worst part about the current crisis for me personally, other than intense sadness about the loss of life worldwide, has been the loss of making music with others through singing. Added to that is the growing awareness that, because singing is one of the most dangerous activities, it may be a very long time before we can return to it. I was already fearing that I might be getting toward the end of my time as a choir singer, though I waffle back and forth about that. Now, in my worst moments, I wonder if I will ever return to it, after a lifetime of being in church and cathedral choirs.

However, our choir has just produced their first virtual-choir video, and we're working on two more which I'll share with you here when they're completed. It's a bizarre and quite self-conscious process, where you  record your own part, solo, while listening to a backing track on headphones. The tracks were then assembled by our music director, Jonathan White, and the resulting video recording sounded remarkably like us -- the way our own particular voices blend and sound together. This video was played during the cathedral's Zoom service last Sunday morning, and a number of parishioners told me they were very moved to hear and see the choir again.

Patrick was one of the least technological people I've known in my life, but I know he would have been delighted. His focus was always on producing the best music possible and sharing it widely. He'd be happy to know that we're finding new ways to continue singing, continue performing, and bringing this tradition of liturgical music to people at a time when it particularly matters.

Hermit Diary, Montreal. 6. Tranströmer plays Haydn.

Yesterday Teju Cole asked his Facebook followers a simple question: "What's helping?" As you can imagine, the comments included a wide range of answers: everything from "the stillness" to "connecting with others." In addition to "talking to friends", a lot of people (including me) mentioned reading and music. I've been playing my piano much more lately, and I'm going to miss it badly because we are seldom going to our studio, where it lives. The cathedral, where I've been involved in music for more than a decade, is closed, and there will be no choral services for a long time. I'll have to sing to myself, or get out my flute, because there's a music quotient in my life that can only be satisfied by making music, not just by listening.

So here is a poem by Tomas Tranströmer, the late Swedish poet and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011, who also played the piano. After suffering a stroke in 1990, his right side was paralyzed, and he taught himself to play with just his left hand. He is quoted as saying that playing was a way for him to continue living after the stroke -- though he did go on to write poetry until the early 2000s, publishing his final book, The Great Enigma, in 2004. He died in 2015, just weeks before his 84th birthday.

Allegro

I play Haydn on a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.

The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.

I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on the world calmly.

I hoist the Haydnflag--it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace."

The music is a glasshouse on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.

And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.

--Tomas Transtromer

 

When black-and-white doesn't make it.

Here's a charcoal sketch of the view at Segesta, Sicily, that you see if you turn 90 degrees to the right from the angle in the previous post, the picture with the Artemesia bush. This direction looks into a deep gully, with areas of exposed rock that may have been a source for some of Segesta's ancient buildings. After two attempts, one in pencil and one in charcoal, I still felt that it was almost impossible to capture the essence of this landscape in black and white, so I thought I'd try a quick sketch in oil pastel. It ended up being more than a sketch, and I rather like the feeling of it. Here, the mountains came alive with both rocks and trees, the fields sparkled with color, and the abyss of the gully fell down and away.

View at Segesta. Oil pastel on paper, 9" x 6.5 ".

Here's a detail, close to life-size on my monitor, that shows a little better what the surface is like. 

Oil pastels are an interesting medium. Using them is more like painting in oils, I think, than drawing in dry pastels, but with some of the qualities of both. They're also very messy - I was covered with sticky pigment by the end of this and so was my work surface. Fortunately, all Rembrandt oil pastels are non-toxic. They never really dry, though, so an oil pastel painting has to be presented behind glass.

The good thing for me is that it's almost impossible to get fussy or tight with them, because the sticks are soft, large, and blunt. You can layer and mix colors on the surface, and scratch through the paint to add some detail or texture, as I've done here, but you can't draw like you would with a small pointed tool. The palette I have is limited - about 45 colors - but that's OK for these purposes. And it's a good change from the demanding tension of watercolor.

--

Choir started again this Sunday, and it would be hard to express how glad I was to be singing again. During the summer, I'm glad of the break, but eventually I miss the music and the challenge of trying to do my best, and I miss my community of friends there. At our first rehearsal last Thursday, we sounded almost tentative to begin with, but quickly found our voices again. Yesterday's two services were very good, and it always feels like a miracle to me that with only fifteen or sixteen singers we can make as much sound as we do, or sing as subtly. This past weekend, Montreal celebrated "Les Journées du patrimoine religieux" so we had a steady stream of visitors through the doors, displays of historical photos and memorabilia, and volunteers on hand to give tours and answer questions. It also meant that we had quite a crowd of people for Evensong, which gives us a lift. This year we'll be experimenting with singing from the chancel steps so that we're not so far from the congregation as when we're up in the choir stalls or in the organ loft at the back of the church. The tricky thing is that this makes a physical separation from the organ when we do accompanied works, and there's a slight delay in the sound, so the organist has to watch the director in his monitor and play with the tempo he or she sees, which will be slightly ahead of the beat that is heard. Most listeners would not know this is going on, but it's a musical reality in many of the large cathedrals of the world.

The point of connection with painting is that in any art form, there are challenges, but also ways to overcome them!

--

This week I'm also remembering our friend Jenny, who died a year ago, and thinking of another friend whose husband died yesterday, while we were singing. He had been in difficult health for a long while, and in a crisis situation for two days, so it was not entirely unexpected, but it was still too sudden, and far too young. Suffering and death seem, at first, to be black and white, but in fact they aren't at all, because human lives are not monochromatic. We need to look at the difficult parts of life in all of their shades, not just in black and white, but in color too. Even an abyss has color and form in it, if we have the courage to look. Art, however, fixes a moment in time, while music always moves.

With its capacity to express such a wide range of human emotions, music is one of the best and only ways I can deal with death; I'm grateful for it always, but especially now.

So Sad, So Grateful: rest in peace, dear Patrick

Patrick Wedd during the rehearsal with our choir for his final Evensong before retirement, in June, 2018.

Patrick Wedd, consummate musician, choral director, and my dear friend, died yesterday. I was extremely fortunate to sing under his direction at Christ Church Cathedral for the past eleven years, to hear such a master play the organ, and to perform music he had written as well as the huge repertoire of Anglican liturgical music that he brought to us, week after week. He was a mentor to all of us, but especially to the young organists who were our assistant organists and organ scholars, and it was a joy to watch them grow in confidence and ability under his eye.

Patrick and I worked together on a number of projects, including educational programs, fundraising concerts, and a CD of contemporary Canadian liturgical music sung by our choir and published by Phoenicia, and during his last year, on the process for the transition to his successor. I'm especially grateful for his close and steady friendship over all these years: he was supportive, enthusiastic, and interested, and sympathetic whenever there was a problem, and I hope I returned the same kind of friendship to him and to his husband Rob.

Many people are writing today about him; I feel more like being quiet, and letting music speak for me. Last night I sat down at the keyboard and played some Bach preludes and fugues, and then a few of Patrick's own hymns from the Canadian Anglican hymnal. His music will live on, through all of us, and the person he was will continue to influence me all my life. Patrick, I'm so grateful to have known you. May you rest in peace. 

Goodbye, Beloved Piano

The year is 2006; my friend Jon Appleton, composer and professor, and I are at his piano in Jon's former home in Vermont. These pictures were taken before my husband and I moved to Montreal and several years before Jon moved to Hawaii, taking his piano with him. Jon and I look quite a bit younger; the piano, of course, always looks just the same. It's an 1895 Steinway B, and is my favorite instrument among those I've had the pleasure of playing. 

Jon loves to give dinner parties, and during those evenings back in Vermont he'd often sit at the piano and play for a while, before or after the meal. Sometimes it was serious, but there was always some goofing around too. If other musicians were present, which was often the case, he'd get them to play or sing something. That's where I met the master shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki, several Russian friends of Jon's, and many other people who came through town and stopped to visit their former teacher, friend and colleague -- Jon traveled widely, and had musical friends from all over the world.

My husband was a student at Dartmouth College around the time Jon first came there as a professor, so they knew each other, but our acquaintance deepened when we began doing design and advertising work in the 1980s for New England Digital, the developer and manufacturer of the Synclavier, one of most successful music synthesizers. The hardware and software geniuses behind the Synclavier were Sydney Alonso and Cameron Jones, and Jon was the musical adviser. These three were the founders of the company, but Jon didn't stay on as an active business partner -- instead he became a pioneer in electro-acoustic music, composing and performing on the Synclavier all over the world, and developing an influential electro-acoustic music program and state-of-the-art studio for study at Dartmouth. In the summers, New England Digital hosted a summer seminar for users, with technical workshops by the company staff, and concerts and lectures at Dartmouth given by invited guests and Synclavier users such as Lorrie Anderson, Pat Metheny, Oscar Peterson, and John McLaughlin. There was always a picnic at Jon's house where everyone could talk and mingle. Needless to say, it was an exciting time, and we were fortunate to have been involved in it.

I think it was after those years, and after New England Digital had gone out of business, when Jon and I really got to be close friends. in spite of the fact that his international reputation was based on his electro-acoustic compositions and recordings, Jon was a classically-trained pianist who had been a prodigy as a child, but suffered from stage fright and eventually gave it up in favor of composing. All the while he was doing the electronic music, he kept practicing piano for his own pleasure, and wrote compositions that he termed "neo-classical." As we began to know each other better, he learned that I was a serious amateur piano student, and we would talk about classical piano music, sharing favorite recordings and listening together. It was hard for him to get me to play, though, because I was very shy about it and, I'm sure, intimidated. I hated giving recitals and had always had trouble with nerves during solo performances -- my hands would shake and sweat. But Jon understood this, and he kept after me, in a gently encouraging way. For some reason, I also felt drawn to his beautiful piano, and rarely visited him without touching the keys, but seldom sat down to actually play.

The breakthrough was four-hand piano music. Jon loved playing four-hand pieces, and he had composed some marvelous works for his friends Julia and Galina Turkina, a famous Russian four-hand duo in Moscow. He gave me a couple of books of much-easier four-hand pieces and suggested that I learn one part, and we could try playing them together. I'd heard him play four-hand with other people, and I was secretly dying to try it, so I dutifully took the scores home and practiced, and the next time I was up at his house -- not at a big party -- we played. It was such fun, I began to relax and enjoy it. Jon was, as always, very encouraging. "Don't worry about the mistakes!" he'd say. "You play really well! Just have fun!" Of course, nobody could be harder on themselves than he was -- he hated making mistakes! But over time, largely because of his help (I had a very good teacher but she wasn't nearly as kind or gentle as Jon) I gained confidence,  and eventually I was able to play in front of other people, both four-hand pieces and on my own -- things like Brahms Intermezzi, Scarlatti sonatas, or Bach Partitas that I'd been working on in my lessons. Sometimes I brought my flute, and Jon would play the piano part. He loved Scarlatti's piano sonatas, and Bach, and we often played favorite passages for each other and talked about the technical difficulties. We worked hard on a suite of four four-hand pieces he had written called Quatre regards sur le Parc du Roy d'Espagne, and hoped to perform it as a farewell party Jon gave for us at his house when we moved to Montreal, but the birth of his grandson intervened. Eventually, I would produce three CDs of Jon's music through Phoenicia Publishing, including his Scarlatti and Couperin Doubles.

Almost all of Jon's neo-classical compositions were composed at his Steinway, and one of my great pleasures during those years was hearing the latest progress he'd made on a composition, and sometimes sitting down to play through parts of it myself -- that's what's going on in these pictures (all taken by my husband Jonathan Sa'adah.) The painting in the background is by Matt Bucy, and to the right in the upper pictures is a print by Matisse. I like how this third picture reminds me of Matisse's own "Piano Lesson," minus the rather ominous but universal figure of the teacher in the background!

I always loved playing that instrument. It had the rich, warm sound that older Steinways are known for, and a fairly light action that made it easier to play music like Scarlatti or Bach than on my own stiffer-actioned Schimmel upright; plus, it had personality -- it's a fine piece of woodworking, and always occupied a central place in Jon's home; it felt like a member of his family, to be greeted and touched and given its share of attention during any visit, to which it responded by helping to make beautiful music and nurture relationships between people.

A few days ago, Jon posted a video on FB in which he says goodbye to his beloved piano, which he is donating to his alma mater, Reed College. The movers were coming later to pick it up. Now in his 80s, and having had some health problems, he says he's not composing anymore, and soon he's moving from Hawaii back to a smaller apartment in Vermont. I read his news about the piano with bittersweet sadness. Because I witnessed the relationship he had with this instrument firsthand, I know how painful it must be for him to let it go, while I also know he's glad to have found a good home for it. I'm also a little wistful because it means I'll never play it again myself. So, along with Jon, I wish this beloved instrument a safe trip to its new home, and I hope many generations of Reed students will appreciate it and perhaps sense a little of the history and love that have been absorbed by those keys. As Jon says in his poignant video, "Goodbye, old friend."  

End of an Era

Over the past two weekends, we bade farewell to our beloved music director at Christ Church Cathedral, Patrick Wedd (far right,above) who is retiring after 22 years in this job, and 58 years in church music - he had his first job as an organist at the age of twelve. The previous weekend was a whirlwind of public events - a big Stravinsky concert with a wind ensemble on Saturday night, where our choir was joined by many former singers, then we sang the Stravinsky Mass again as part of the Sunday morning liturgy -- as the composer had intended. On Sunday afternoon we did a big, special Evensong, with music by Britten, Howells, and Jackson, followed by a reception for Patrick and his husband Rob, who has always sung with us, taken care of the music library, and even served as cathedral verger. It was a big deal, and a lot of work for those of us on the music committee who were in charge of all the events, fundraising, and publicity.

The poster for the Stravinsky concert, and the cover page from a folio of Patrick's music that we published as a gift for him. Patrick has been a prolific composer, and was a major contributor and advisor to the revised Canadian Anglican hymnal. We love singing the music Patrick has written for choir, and wanted to make more of it available to other groups.

Yesterday, though, was a quieter goodbye for our parish and the choir family. Instead of showy pieces,  Patrick had chosen some of his more reflective favorites: Healey Willan in the morning, and Orlando Gibbons in the afternoon. The Gibbons was a perfect choice because it was St-Jean-Baptiste Day here, the national day in Quebec, which meant we could sing some Advent hymns about John the Baptist ("A voice crying in the wilderness/Prepare the way of the Lord"), sing the magnificent Gibbons Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and end with one of his greatest verse anthems, "This is the Record of John" for solo alto or counter-tenor and choir. The anthem was written by request sometime between 1611-1621 for St John's College, Oxford -- which is dedicated to John the Baptist -- and has been sung by Anglican choirs ever since.

Getting ready for Evensong rehearsal in the Cathedral's "crossing:" the area behind the forward altar, in front of the choir stalls, between the two side chapels. Nathalie Gagnon-Joseph, in the black top, has sung with Patrick since she was a little girl in the treble choir - like all the other former trebles, receiving a broad musical education in the process.

A Gibbons verse anthem in rehearsal - various soloists are singing the verse sections, and the entire choir comes in for the "chorus" sections, marked "Full" in the score. The high altar is behind us. Our assistant organists are accompanying this particular piece on a portative organ, behind the choir. The soloists, standing, are Michel Duval (bass 2), Catherine Murray (alto 2), Christine Jay (soprano 2), Ana Lewton-Brain (alto 1), Phil Dutton (tenor 1,behind Anna) and Carole Therrien (soprano 1).

It was difficult to have so many "last things" happen: the last rehearsal with Patrick in the choir room, the last time seeing him robe outside his office, the last Agnus Dei and post-communion motet, the last Sunday morning postlude. But Evensong was even harder, since it feels so much more intimate, and is something that is mainly the choir's responsibility. During the rehearsal for one of the Gibbons pieces, I stepped aside and took a few photographs. And after the final recessional, instead of going down to the undercroft to disrobe and put away our music during the organ postlude, we all stayed in the side pews to listen, and then posed on the chancel steps for a final, formal portrait with Patrick that will hang on the wall of the choir room for posterity, along with photographs of former choirs from other eras.

We were all struggling, I think, to keep up a professional appearance and not make things harder for Patrick, but I'm sure I wasn't the only one to shed a few tears. We celebrated, though, with champagne and treats after Evensong. One thing this choir knows how to do, besides sing, is enjoy a party!

In the choir room before Evensong, looking at a commemorative photobook that we gave to Patrick last weekend, with photographs from his more-than-two decades in Montreal. Carole Therrien and Normand Richard, left, are professionals who have sung with Patrick for more than twenty years. Margery Knewstub, holding the book, sang with him in other churches before coming here - she's been with Patrick for thirty years. Emily Hush, at right, was a faithful member of the choir during her years at McGill and came back to sing with us for these weeks after graduating from Columbia Law School last month. Behind them are Bob King and Bob Gibson, both longtime parishioners and volunteer singers in our choir - Bob King and his wife, Janet, have been singing in the choir since long before Patrick became director.

Some of my own discomfort about this transition comes from the questions Patrick's retirement brings up about my own music-making. I've never wanted to be one of those old ladies in a choir who get whispered about: "Why is she still here? Doesn't she know?" While I don't think I'm at that point yet -- I hope I'm still contributing -- will I know when it's time? When you're a beloved professional like Patrick, and stop well short of being an embarrassment, as he did, everyone feels like it's too soon. There's no perfect answer, but it's certainly better to exit gracefully too early rather than too late. Still, when making music together with other people in this form has been such a major part of one's life -- I've been singing in choirs since I was seven -- to stop feels like cutting off one of your limbs.

Patrick in the organ loft.

At last Saturday's concert, three of us gave short speeches. Here's mine.

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It's one of the great privileges and joys of my life that I've been able to sing with Patrick for the past decade, and to sit next to the organ in the loft, watching him play. He's a consummate musician - which is clear through all the tributes you will hear and read throughout this weekend.

But tonight, I want to say a few words about Patrick not just as a musician, but as a person.

Someone with his talent and dedication certainly could have taken other paths in music, but I don't think it's an accident that Patrick has dedicated his life to being a musician in the Church.  He rarely speaks about it, but those of us who know him well realize that his whole life is deeply informed by his beliefs, and the choices he has made about how to live and how to be. What we see is a profoundly good person, a cheerful person, a generous person, a kind person, a supportive and respectful person -- a true friend. The faithfulness and commitment of Patrick and Rob has also been an example to all of us.

As a leader, Patrick brings all of these qualities to our choir, and quietly influences how we behave toward each other. He often accepts blame for things that weren't really his fault, he never singles people out, he moves on after the inevitable mistakes and problems, and always looks forward with a positive attitude. He is almost never absent. Unlike many performing groups, this choir is not about Patrick or his ego: he encourages us to work as a team, to continually improve, and to care about each other. His approach is to build an atmosphere of mutual respect, offer a wide variety of the best material to work with, and then expect more of us than we think possible.  As a result, we often surprise ourselves, and do our best to rise to the challenge presented by Patrick and the music. And we are loyal because he is loyal. We keep showing up, week after week, year after year, because we love what we do -- and because we love him.

As a cathedral music director, Patrick looks inward, because presenting this much music, week after week, at a very high level, requires a cohesive and committed group of musicians. But he also looks outward. Liturgical music encompasses a tradition, stretching back to the time of the psalms and even before, of composers and poets who tried to make sense of what it means to be human and mortal. The music is rich and complex, rather than simple, because human lives have never been simple and neither has the world. In order to interpret this music well, you have to look into yourself and outward toward the lives of others, and grow as a person over time.

Patrick has made lasting contributions to the great tradition of liturgical music as an interpreter and performer, a conductor, a teacher, and a composer. But his primary job in this place, week after week, has been to present a broad spectrum of music to a wide and unknown variety of people. It is a serious responsibility. We never know who has walked through these doors, or what is in their hearts, or what they are looking for. Maybe they're here every week for the services, or maybe they've just come in for a few minutes, bringing whatever is going on in their lives. All we can do is to sing and play what has been handed down to us to the very best of our abilities, and trust in the power of music itself to uplift, comfort, heal, and transform, and to express the mystery of being spiritual beings on a human journey. Patrick has done this with grace and integrity for an entire lifetime -- and what a privilege it has been to do it with him.

We will miss his presence here, but I think you will agree with me that the qualities of the teachers and leaders who've inspired us never leave us -- they form important and lasting parts of our own selves that help us as we meet life's challenges -- or try to sing a complicated line of music! I know that Patrick will continue to make music, and that we won't be strangers in this wonderful city that we call home. Our promise to you, Patrick, is to guard your legacy in this place, and to keep on singing all our lives. Thank you from all of us.