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Conversations with Charles Dodsley Walker, Part II Neal Campbell Part 1 of this interview was published in the March 2010 issue of THE DIAPA- SON. Charles Dodsley Walker celebrated his 90th birthday on March 16. He is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organ- ists and is the founding director of the Canterbury Choral Society, which he began in 1952 at the Church of Heavenly Rest—a position he still holds, preparing and conducting three concerts per sea- son. Part I ended with Mr. Walker about to leave for France to serve as organist at the American Cathedral in Paris. NC: So, you’re in Paris. CDW: Yes, I’d longed to go to France; this was my fi rst time there. I’d been to a French-speaking country during the war—Algeria, on the way to Sicily. At Trinity College, I had immersed myself in the study of the French language and cul- ture, and this was a dream come true. Charles Dodsley Walker teaching air- I lived in the deanery—a lovely three- craft recognition while in the Navy, 1944 story stone building separated from the (Offi cial U.S. Navy photograph) cathedral by a garden. The church sexton was a man named Lucien; he was also a cathedral, as director of the American master chef, and he did a lot of things Students’ and Artists’ Center on the Left beside dust the church pews off, I’ll tell Bank—a beautiful building on what had you that! I lived there on the top fl oor of Brahms Requiem at the American Cathedral, Paris, 1949 been Chateaubriand’s estate. The place the deanery, and he would come up and had been closed up because the Ger- wake me up in the morning with a plate One of the things I tried to do was to concert I want to conduct your orches- mans had taken it over during the war. of what he called paingrillé, which was get more Americans in the choir. I had tra and do a concert with my chorus and a word I hadn’t learned in my study in a lot of French opera singers already in your orchestra.” All my life I’d wanted to NC: So this was an umbrella of the French, but it turns out it was actually there. They’d sing [mimicking the French do works for chorus and orchestra. Many cathedral or part of its ministry? two words, pain and grillé—toast. pronunciation of English] oly, oly, oly, of the orchestra players were members CDW: Yes, exactly, to students in Par- looord Gott uf osts, aven ant urse are fuel of Lamoreux Orchestra, which was an is. On the fi rst fl oor it had a theater with NC: Quite a few well-known Ameri- of zei gloory, so I was trying to get more important orchestra in Paris. So we did a balcony. It didn’t have a very big stage, can organists have held that post, Americans, and Janet [Hayes, later Mrs. the Palestrina Missa Brevis unaccompa- more of a lecturers’ stage than a theater haven’t they? CDW] was part of that campaign after nied, of course, and then his orchestra stage. And there was a big lounge, and a CDW: Yes, Robert Owen preceded we married. joined us for the Bach Magnifi cat. It was billiard room. On the second fl oor they me and Donald Wilkins followed me. One day after service, a little man recorded on acetate discs, which I still had a library and on the opposite wing They were great years over there, espe- came up to talk to me and said, “I am have, and it was broadcast over the Ra- was the director’s apartment. I had ad- cially if you were a Francophile. Pierre Duvauchelle and I am the con- diodiffusion Française. ministrative charge of the operations of ductor of the Paris Chamber Orchestra. I must have met Langlais by then, the center. NC: What were services like at the You have a beautiful acoustic here in the because I remember that he came to American Cathedral? They were in cathedral.” Well, he wanted to do a series that concert and complimented me on NC: And that’s where you lived? English, I assume? of three or four concerts at the cathedral. the Palestrina. He also brought along a CDW: That’s where we lived—I was CDW: Yes, they were just as if you And I thought quickly and said, “I will friend, a pupil I think, named Pierre Co- married by then. The apartment provid- were here in the States. Everything was see to it that you may have the use of the chereau, whom I met for the fi rst time. ed for the director was very comfortable. in English, we chanted the canticles and cathedral, heated and lighted, for the fi rst Not too long after I arrived, the dean The building was designed by prize-win- so forth. three concerts, and then for the fourth gave me a new job, in addition to the ning architect Welles Bosworth, who Organ recital series, American Cathedral, Paris, 1949 Janet Hayes and Ned Rorem, American Embassy, Paris, 1950 24 THE DIAPASON June 2010 pp. 24-29 .indd 24 5/12/10 9:18:59 AM Church of the Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue and 90th Street, New York City Bach, St. Matthew Passion, Canterbury Choral Society, Good Friday, 1957 had been J. D. Rockefeller’s architect him at the American Embassy; he ac- and they had been sent to Ernest Skin- and put the phone down. Then I called in charge of restoring Reims Cathedral. companied her. One of the things Bou- ner in America in order to learn from André Marchal, and repeated my story, He also designed all those buildings for langer did was to act as a resource to the him. The result was that it was a rather saying that Dupré had agreed to play, MIT along the Charles River that have American ambassador in Paris in pro- typical E. M. Skinner Solo division. It and would you do it, and he said yes. Of those rotundas. And several former Har- viding Franco-American musicians for had nice strings, a French Horn, one of course, if Dupré hadn’t agreed to do it, it vard students were over there—Robert concerts of the Cultural Relations of the the few in France, a Tuba Mirabilis, and might have been a different story. I didn’t Middleton, Noel Lee, Douglas Allan- American Embassy. And on this concert a Philomela which was huge! No chorus know Marchal from a hole in the ground! brook. Leon Fleisher was there at the Janet sang some of Ned’s songs. reeds, but, of course, there were 16, 8, It was the same with Langlais, Messiaen, time, also. Janet had gone to the New England and 4 reeds on the Great. and Durufl é. These names were legend, Conservatory on the recommendation of Anyway, I saw this organ and thought even back then. NC: Those were pretty heady years Eleanor Steber, and she won the Frank it would be nice to have a recital se- Then I called up Mlle. Boulanger, tell- to be in Paris; you must have met Huntington Beebe award for study ries. So I told the dean I’d like to invite ing her that I had asked each of these many well-known persons? abroad, which is what brought her to a bunch of famous French organists to eminent organists to conclude with an CDW: Yes, including Poulenc, and Paris. She knew Ned at the New Eng- play on this organ, and he said “Fine, improvisation, and asked her to submit notably Nadia Boulanger, whom I had land Conservatory and he dedicated a go ahead.” I wish I could remember the the themes for each of these players. I known from her time in Cambridge piece to her—A Sermon on Miracles, fee we paid them, but it was ridiculously must have caught her at a weak moment while I was at Harvard. A lot of people which we performed in his presence at small. I think it was 10,000 francs, which and she agreed. As it turns out, I had to were studying with her in Paris in those the Church of the Heavenly Rest many was about $30. chase her up each week to get the themes days. Janet studied with her. She was years later, in 1973. So, I picked up the phone—believe in time for the recital. It wasn’t that she Nadia’s favorite singer, and everyone We also toured throughout Germany it or not—and called Marcel Dupré, gave me all fi ve at once in advance. said she sang French songs better than during the summers of 1950, ’51, and ’52 whom I had met through Clarence Wat- the French did. under the auspices of the United States ters in this country. He was the only one NC: Was that part of the promotion- Department of State as part of a cultural I knew, and I didn’t call him Marcel, ei- al packaging of the series, that she NC: Boulanger didn’t teach voice, exchange program established after the ther! It was “Maître, would you be will- would be supplying the themes? did she? war. The state department wanted to ing to play on a series on this organ? I CDW: It wasn’t on the advertising, but CDW: No, she had been a very close present our musicians so the German want to help raise the reputation of the on the program I inserted a little slip sheet friend of Fauré, and coached singers people wouldn’t think we were all bar- American Cathedral as an artistic center stating that the themes for each of the im- working on his songs.

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