Mr. Gottschalk and I

This is the final installment of the Gottschalk series I wrote in June while preparing for a recital. The series was interrupted while I was on summer break.

Life moves pretty fast, says the prevailing wisdom. You say it. I say it.

Which moves faster, the change or the monotony?

For me last spring it was principally the rapid pace at which I had to adapt to new material. There was new music to learn and play every week. There were rehearsals, concerts, church services (four a weekend), weddings, gigs, people with various projects. There was email to keep up with, blogging and recording, composing, reading and learning, domestic chores---getting tired yet just reading about it?

And then, after a semester of all that, just when things were supposed to simmer down a little bit for the summer (but never did), I decided to throw in a piano recital for the heck of it.


Actually, there was a little more than devil-may-care involved. It had been on my so-called "bucket list" for several years,  and last summer seemed like time to do it. Mr. Gottschalk had nearly gotten himself involved in the Battle of Gettysburg, and that Battle was turning 150 on July 1st. So his music seemed to fit the occasion. And, while I wasn't under contract to anybody and could have pushed the recital back a month to give me time to practice, I really wanted to eventually have everything finished up so I could relax a bit before the fall semester started things up again (no such luck, as it turned out).

In a way, that gave me some insight into Mr. Gottschalk's world. He also had to turn it up a notch a lot of times when he was pretty worn out. In fact, the man gave at least one, if not two or three, concerts every day when he was touring, which was most of the time. During his stint in the United States between 1862 and 1865 he gave hundreds of concerts and traveled thousands of miles by train, often barely getting to the next town in time to start the next concert. Forget actually getting to practice.

But that's where our two worlds diverge. And frankly, I've taken the more obscure path, and it's made all the difference.

It can be stressful learning new music all the time, but routine may be the worse tyrant. And Gottschalk was nothing if not the machine on the road. Always playing the same pieces, night after night, able to predict, as he notes in his diary, at what time he would play The Banjo, when the audience would encore Aelian Murmers, when they would be charmed by Cradle Song, when he would receive thunderous applause for his Union, followed by a light supper (he often didn't get to eat until after the concert it seems!) and a few hours of sleep before that @#$% hotel gong would wake everybody up at 6 a.m. and it was time to catch a train to the next town.

Gottschalk could be fiercely proud of his torrential work schedule. He was once mortally insulted by someone who claimed he had traveled 80 miles by rail in the last year. It was 800! he says, indignantly. Any fool could have done 80. He was forever crabbing about the boredom of the road and of concert life. It sounds a bit like melodrama, perhaps: oh, woe is me, I'm a famous concert pianist whom everyone adores and look how hard it is to be this in demand; :sigh:--but I'll take him at least partially at face value. It wasn't as glamorous a life as it looked to outsiders. I've had enough experience with touring to know. By the third city you can't even remember which way to turn the key to get into your hotel room or how to get the water running because you keep having to learn different procedures for the most basic operations. And you never know about breakfast. Gottschalk complained about hotel food plenty as well.

The truth is, at some point we're all going to get pretty fed up with the life we've chosen and any glamour is going to wear thin at least some of the time. And you can pick your poison: I get more control, and more time to learn and grow, think and play, and do a variety of things, for which I pay by having to constantly juggle and balance, adapt and learn on the fly, and get paid less and acheive less notoriety. Gottschalk got to be famous, see the world, and make a niche in musical history, for which the price was boredom, fatigue, and probably wondering whether it was worth it. Then again, he might not have had such a choice. He had a large family to support, his father having died, and several siblings who depended on as big a paycheck as he could muster. This seemed to be the way to get it.

I've found Gottschalk a fascinating travelling companion this summer as I worked on the concert. His "Notes of a Pianist" is back in print and I highly recommend it. It is an interesting read. And his music, though not of the vintage of Chopin and Mozart is, as one writer put it, "frankly appealing." It is easy to get the ears around, and repetitive, but still has some very original things to say. You can hear some of that music here where it rests in the pianonoise archive. In the meantime, it is time to play "The Banjo!" and you can listen to it right here.

The Banjo by Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

I've outlived the man by over two years now. It must have been an exhausting life on the road. I've enjoyed journeying a little with him, but I don't mind that I am someone else. Maybe he wouldn't want my life either. You never know, though.

Seriously. This is what I am playing in church this weekend.

The church secretary called me yesterday morning to inform me that I was playing the prelude, the offertory, and the postlude at Sunday's service and to ask if I wanted to list anything in the bulletin.

Uh, oh, I thought.

Now ordinarily there would have been nothing odd about that. As the church musician (organist and pianist/keyboard player), I provide those three pieces nearly every week at our "traditional" services (save for the rare occasion when somebody else takes one of the slots). But this week we aren't having our usual slate of four services. Instead, there is only one, taking place in our Worship and Life Center, which is home to our contemporary service, and has a grand piano but no organ. It's time for our annual Children's Musical and Confirmation service, when our teens join the church. I'll be around to play a song with the band, and a hymn or two, but our children's choir director is playing the piano for the musical, so it is practically like having a week off. At least, that's what I thought was going to happen. For the last couple of years there has been so much music in supply from the kids that they sing the offertory as well, as part of the musical. Change of plans this year, apparently.

Hmm. Could I think about it for an hour and get back to her?

At which point my wife, wanting to be helpful, asked if I had anything under my fingers from the concert I am planning to give this summer. Not yet, I told her. Besides, I can't think of anything that would be even vaguely appropriate for church.

But then a light bulb went on. You are going to think this is a really bizarre idea for a Sunday morning offertory, but I think I'll just let you listen to it first and then do my explaining.

[listen]

It's a piece called "The Banjo" by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a pianist from New Orleans who lived from 1829 to 1859, and toured the United States during the Civil War. If you are wondering why on earth it would make sense to play it in church, here's why:

The kids are doing a musical called "Down By the Creek Bank." Most of the pieces sound like they were written for banjo, even though they'll be played on a piano. The folks in this musical would use words like "crick" and "holler" (as in "down by the")--it is an evocation of the Appalachians or the Ozarks or someplace in the southeastern United States. The offertory has been placed right after the musical ends.

In other words, I chose the offertory as I was thinking about the nature of the musical and the tradition from which it, broadly speaking, sprang. This is second nature to me, being used to doing this, but I know it is not for many organists: this idea that whatever music you select for a service should somehow belong to the particular service for which it was intended, should somehow match it, in spirit, mood, style, tradition, or whatever. You may think that on this occasion it lead me to a rather bizarre conclusion, but I want to stress how important this idea is.

Besides being a useful discipline (meaning that I don't just play whatever I feel like playing on a given Sunday) it also sends a signal to the other persons in charge of worship that you are taking your cue from their efforts as well. Every pastor I have worked with has at some point been pleasantly surprised to discover that what I choose to play frequently has something to do with the sermon topic or the scripture.

Sometimes that means I go outside accepted norms with regard to church repertoire, which isn't hard to do because somebody's tradition or personal inclination has outlawed practically anything (even music itself, in some cases), or because liturgical instrumental music has usually been pretty narrow in focus, i.e. organists don't think they can get away with much (with reason). Within my own tradition, the rules seem comparatively lax, although people are free to complain about anything they wish, such as playing the piano one week instead of the organ (God's chosen instrument, apparently), or not basing your selections on familiar hymns (these days that's called "diluting your brand"). In our educated university town, however, people seem to be relatively tolerant of a wide range of music. Including gospel and jazz, and--Oliver Messaien. Were I to behave as befits my training, and as many of my colleagues would like to behave if their congregations would let them, I could almost get away with, although I know it would not be the majority taste, playing major classical repertoire every week, scouring the canon of great literature as if on a parallel lectionary schedule. But I think that misses something. For one thing, it is too autonomous. A cycle of Beethoven sonatas would be great (that has been suggested to me, before, by the way) but it kind of misses the larger picture. I can do that in concert, where there isn't anything else, no message, no presenters, no participation, to think about. Or to engage, collaborate with. To cause me to do something I wouldn't have done otherwise.

And then there is this...Paul wrote, right before that endlessly read scripture about love in the 13th chapter of Corinthians that he wanted to "show [us] a more excellent way" which was an attempt to get the members of the church in Corinth to stop going at each other and get along for a change. Love, it turns out, starts with an attempt to actually get along with people, even to recognize and affirm their contributions, their ideas, their tastes, their standards of value. It does not insist on its own way. Which is why I let the service, the contributions of others, have a say in what I play, rather than sticking to the classical organ or piano repertoire I was taught to value. It may be great music. But it isn't the only music.  And my way isn't the only way. My classical canon can get stretched a little. I don't have to play everything on the organ. Everything doesn't have to have been written in the 17th century by some fellow named Bach. And maybe--perish the thought--it really is ok to let people tap their toes to an offertory some of the time. And even more radical, maybe it wouldn't cause almighty wrath to come crashing down on our heads if we actually had a banjo in church. As it is, we'll be getting it second-hand.

There is, finally, something about this selection that might be even more important, particularly if it doesn't sound like church for many of us. It is this: music is a cultural product. Though we claim to worship a creator of everything around us, most faith traditions are pretty exclusive about what they think belongs in a worship service. Some will make arguments relating to quality (including the composer of the present selection, who might have been as shocked as anyone to find his piece in a church bulletin). These arguments are fraught with human relations peril. Often that music which is "quality" just happens to be music from one particular culture, for instance, all dead white European men. Now, I play healthy quantities of Bach and Buxtehude and plan to keep on doing it. And I find the music of high quality as well as spiritual uplift. But shouldn't we be careful about excluding music that doesn't fit our supposedly objective sense of quality? I think of so many people from the Evangelical tradition who have been quite disdainful of rock music, gospel, syncopation, back beats--all things they claim have no place before God, and all things which just happen to have come into our musical vocabulary by way of African Americans. It would be unfair to say (as some do) that any discussion of musical quality whatsoever is snooty or even racist. But I think as human beings with a long history of treating each other pretty poorly we can never be free of this evil possibility. Excluding music is also excluding people.

And so, even though I never would have thought of a piece like this for church before, on this day and in this place, it seems a good match. Besides being a day to celebrate the entrance of several of our teenagers into membership in the church, and the songful contributions of our children, there is also an evocation of the rural southeast, and the culture of a people who are our neighbors from several states over. Is it ok to go on mission trips to build houses for them but not to allow them or their music in our church?

I'll grant you that the children's musical isn't exactly great art. And it's cheesy. But it's a children's musical--what else would it be? The kids enjoy it, and it helps them contribute to our community. And if it happens to stretch our boundaries a little, maybe that's not the worst thing that's ever happened in a church. To which my little offertory says "I support that. I agree with that. Yeah that."

Or in liturgical terms, AMEN.