Why do we schedule tunings accord- ing to seasons? Simply and authorita- Harpsichord News In the wind . . . tively because the pitch produced by an by Larry Palmer by John Bishop organ pipe of a given length is subject to temperature. Say a pipe plays “440- A” and say it’s 70 degrees in the church. Raise the temperature a degree and now the same pipe plays 442 (roughly). And the catch is that the reeds don’t change with temperature and the wooden pipes (especially stopped pipes) are more af- fected by humidity than temperature. So when there’s a temperature swing the organ’s tuning fl ies into pieces. You cannot defi ne organ pitch without ref- erence to temperature. A contract for a new organ is likely to have a clause that defi nes the organ’s pitch as A=440 at 68 degrees. And here’s the other catch. My little example said it was 70 degrees in the church. But it’s never 70 degrees every- where in the church. It may be 70 at the console, 66 in the Swell, 61 in the Choir, and 82 in the Great. If these are the con- ditions when it’s cold outside and the The temperamental organ thermostat is set to 68, you can bet that Winter was coming to an end, and at summertime conditions have it more Fenway Park, fabled home of the Bos- like 75 or 80 degrees everywhere in the ton Red Sox, and the facilities manager building except any high-up area where was working down his checklist of pre- you fi nd organ pipes—then it’s super hot 3 November 2002: players at the dedication of Richard Kingston’s Millennium harp- season chores. This would be the second and the reeds won’t tune that high. sichord, opus 300, in the Washington, D.C. music room of Charles and Susan Mize. year of the new ballpark organ, and he Conditions outdoors can have a dra- Left to right: Dr. Mize, Larry Palmer, Virginia Pleasants, Don Angle, Brigitte Haude- fi gured it would need tuning. He called matic effect on organ tuning. Imagine bourg, and composer Glenn Spring up Fred Opporknockity, the guy who an organ placed in two chambers on had delivered the organ, and asked if either side of a chancel, and imagine Another member joins the he could come to tune the organ be- that the back wall of each organ cham- harpsichordists’ century club fore Opening Day. Fred replied that ber is an outside wall. The tuner comes the organ didn’t need to be tuned—he on a rainy Friday and gets the organ Virginia Pleasants, harpsichordist, was sure it would be fi ne. Mr. Facilities nicely in tune. Sunday dawns bright clavichordist, and fortepianist, celebrates suggested that the organ at his church and sunny, the south-facing wall gets her 100th birthday on May 9, 2011. Born was tuned for Christmas and Easter. heated up by the sun and that half of in Ohio, she attended Wittenberg Uni- “No,” said Fred, “don’t you know that the organ goes sharp. During the ser- versity and completed her baccalaure- Opporknockity tunes but once?” mon the organist “txts” the tuner to ate degree (with a major in piano) at the This joins a long list of so-called jokes complain about how awful the organ College-Conservatory of the University like the one that ends, “Is that an almond sounds. (Wht wr u doing☹) The fol- of Cincinnati. After private piano study daiquiri, Dick?” “No, it’s a hickory dai- lowing Thursday the organist shows up in New York City, she won a fi rst prize in quiri, Doc.” Or the one that goes . . . But for choir rehearsal and fi nds the tuner’s the MacDowell Competition for Cham- I digress. (How can I digress when I’m bill in his mailbox. What would you do? ber Music. only 160 words into it?) Was it the tuner’s fault that it rained? Joining her husband, music critic In fact, the Fenway Park organ didn’t Any good organ tuner pays attention to Henry Pleasants, in Europe at the end of need to be tuned. It’s electronic and was weather conditions and forecasts as if World War II, the couple lived in Austria, tuned at the factory. But the tuning of he were the mother of the bride plan- Switzerland, and Germany until settling pipe organs is a subject without end or ning an outdoor wedding. in London in 1967. There Henry wrote beginning, without right or wrong, with- I care for a large tracker-action organ music criticism for the International Virginia and Henry Pleasants, 1996 (pho- out rhyme or reason—it just needs to be in Boston, housed in a free-standing Herald-Tribune and Virginia served for to: Charles Mize) in tune! case with polished tin Principal pipes in twenty years as an adjunct lecturer at Mr. Facilities’ recollection that the the façades of Great, Pedal, and Rück- Cambridge University. Her frequent eastern Historical Keyboard Society, Vir- church organ needs to be tuned for positiv cases. It’s situated in a contem- recitals of early music and her gift for ginia gave a memorable lecture-recital Christmas and Easter (notice that I capi- porary building designed by a famous keeping in touch with a wide circle of in- on the fortepiano works of Philadelphia talized Opening Day as a High Holyday!) architect, who gave the congregation terested friends kept Virginia in the fore- composer Alexander Reinagle for the is only half right, in my opinion. For years the gift of light from the heavens com- front of the British early musical scene. Society’s 2007 conclave at the University I scheduled big tuning routes that occu- ing through a long narrow window that In turn she kept many, including read- of North Texas in Denton. pied Advent and Lent, but where I live runs along the ridge of the roof. In the ers of The Diapason, better informed With her attainment of the century in New England, Christmas and Easter winter as the sun moves across the sky, about interesting happenings across mark, Virginia Pleasants joins a select are almost always both winter holidays, brilliant light moves across the front of the Atlantic. Pleasants’ discography in- group of revival harpsichordists, includ- and the August brides would walk down the organ, heating the façade pipes as cludes four discs of Haydn Sonatas for ing Marcelle de Lacour and Virginia countless center aisles straining to the it goes. Instantly the Great 8-foot Prin- The Haydn Society, and Quincy Porter’s Mackie. More research may be needed, strains of sorry 8-foot trumpets that cipal goes 30 or 40 cents (hundreds of Harpsichord Concerto, issued by Com- but it seems that daily practicing, espe- made her guests pucker as if they were a semi-tone) sharp. Do the math—how posers Recordings Incorporated. cially on a plucking instrument, might be biting into a lemon. It’s my experience many hundredths of a semitone are Four years after the death of her hus- considered benefi cial for a long, as well that summertime tuning problems al- there in a quarter-tone? Guess what band in 2000, Virginia came “home” to as happy, life. ways involve either “soprano” D, F#, or time of day this happens? Eleven AM. Philadelphia. In 2002 she joined several A, ruining virtually every Trumpet-Tune And guess what time the opening hymn friends in dedicatory festivities for Rich- Comments and news items are always processional. In one wedding I played, is played on a Sunday morning? The fi rst ard Kingston’s 300th harpsichord, playing welcome. Address them to Dr. Larry the fourth E went dead—the trill on time I tuned that organ, I felt as though music of Zipoli, Blow, Croft, Domenico Palmer, Division of Music, Southern beat three of Jeremiah Clarke’s ubiq- I were in a carnival fun-house with mir- Scarlatti, and Hungarian composer Tibor Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275. uitous tune made me laugh. I was only rors distorting the world around me as Serly. A longtime member of the South- E-mails to
12 THE DIAPASON
May 2011 pp. 2-19.indd 12 4/14/11 10:02:13 AM tomorrow—and the time and mileage An organ tuner is something of a I spent today goes on your bill. Once I contortionist—he has to be able to for- showed up at the church (made of blue get about physical discomfort in the On Teaching brick and shaped like a whale—some often-awkward spaces inside an organ by Gavin Black architects have the strangest ideas) and so he can concentrate on the sounds. the sexton proudly announced, “I got He often hangs from a ladder or a it good and warm in there for you this swell-shutter for stability. (Key hold- time.” It was 95 degrees in the church ers, please keep your dagnabbit feet and the organ sounded terrible. Sorry, off the Swell pedal!) He learns to tune can’t tune. I’ll come back tomorrow. He out little mechanical noises and defects must have run $400 of fuel oil through of speech. An organ pipe might have that furnace in addition to my bill for burps and bubbles in its speech that wasted time. And the haughty authori- are clearly heard when you’re inside tative pastor of a big city Lutheran the organ and still sound perfect from church once said to me from under an the nave or the console. expensively-coiffed shock of theatrical He gets into a nice quiet state and a white hair, “We heat the church for the rhythm develops: “next,” tick-tick-tick, people, not the organ.” “next,” tick-tick-tick. A couple hours The eternal battle of the organ tuner and ten ranks (610 pipes) into it and the and the thermostat is not because we sexton comes in with a vacuum cleaner. don’t like working in cold rooms. It’s The fl owers are delivered for Sunday. A not because we want the organ to be lawn mower starts up at the house next warm. It’s physics. When you chill oxy- door. The pastor brings in a soon-to-be gen, the molecules get closer together married couple. They politely assure me, and it thickens to the point at which it “Don’t worry, you’re not disturbing us.” Pretty Nancy Faust doll becomes a liquid. When air warms, the Once I showed up to tune the organ molecules get further apart. When the at a university chapel. A couple heavy circulated by fans and sports offi cials of- air molecules get further apart, the air trucks full of equipment were outside fended that the White Sox had placed Buxtehude and Boëllmann—fi nal gets less dense. When the air gets less and a guy was loading tools into the a woman on the team’s payroll. But she thoughts (for now) dense, sound waves need less energy bucket of a cherry picker. I went up to came into her own when Harry Caray For the last year I have looked, in as and they shorten. When the sound waves him saying I was there to tune the organ became the radio commentator for the much depth as space seemed to permit, shorten, the pitch increases. It’s not a and wondered if they’d be making noise. Sox. He gave her the moniker Pretty at the process of studying and learning matter of comfort, it’s physical law—the “Not much,” he said, “just a little ham- Nancy Faust, and started the tradition of two contrasting and, I hope, comple- laws of physics. mer-drilling.” leaning out the window of his announc- mentary pieces—the Praeludium in E The same laws say that the organ will § er’s box to lead the singing of Take Me Major, BuxWV 141 by Dietrich Buxte- be in tune at the temperature at which it out to the Ballgame as Nancy played. She hude, and the Suite Gothique, op. 25 was tuned. Set the thermostat at 68 on As I write, the Red Sox offi cial web- played by ear, and kept current with all by Leon Boëllmann. This month I will Thursday for the organ tuning, turn it site says that the Opening Day game the latest music through her four decades share a few thoughts about this project down to 55, then back up to 68 on Sun- at Fenway Park starts in twelve days, of playing so she was always ready with a as a whole; then next month I will turn to day. Voila! The organ is in tune—unless eight hours, thirteen minutes, and current musical quip for the amusement something new. the weather changed. And it’s better for twenty-fi ve, twenty-four, twenty-three of the fans. She was the originator of the The goals of this long series of col- the organ not to be vigorously heated all seconds. It doesn’t really matter wheth- ballpark use of the now ubiquitous 1969 umns were really two: fi rst, to provide a the time. Ancient European organs have er the organ is tune or not—they don’t Steam song Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss him template for working on the two pieces, survived for centuries partly because use it as a ballpark organ any more. But goodbye), playing it when the pitcher of which, if followed, would help a student their buildings are not superheated. there was a time when the organ music an opposing team was pulled out during learn those pieces securely and com- American churches are often guilty of was an integral part of the ballpark ex- the 1977 pennant race. fortably; and second, to suggest ways “organ baking”—keeping the heat up perience. A common question in Bos- Nancy Faust was honored by the of thinking about and working on organ all winter, using the argument that it’s ton sports trivia quizzes was, “Who’s White Sox for her years of service to the repertoire that could be applied broadly more cost-effi cient than reheating a cold the only person who played for the Red team and its fans on September 18, 2010 to other pieces. building several times a week. Sox, the Bruins (hockey), and the Celt- in a pre-game ceremony. Ten thousand ics (basketball)?” Answer—John Keilly, Pretty Nancy Faust bobblehead dolls The learning process It’s a Zen thing. the organist for Fenway Park and the were distributed to fans that day. My The process of learning a piece of I’ve been asked if I have perfect pitch. Boston Garden. wife Wendy lived and worked in Chicago music on the organ can be thought of in No—and I’m glad I don’t. A roommate My father and I have been to dozens for about ten years, and as both a gifted three parts—parts that are not rigorous- of mine at Oberlin had perfect pitch, (maybe hundreds?) of games at Fenway organist and a baseball fan, she joined ly separate, but interact with and blend and he identifi ed that my turntable ran Park. He’s had the same seats (section countless other Chicagoans celebrating into one another. The fi rst is the very slow (remember turntables?). It didn’t 26, row 4, seats 13 and 14) since the Faust’s contribution to the game. We practical: learning the notes by work- bother me—but he couldn’t bear it. early 1970s. When John Keilly was at heard about her retirement on the NPR ing out fi ngerings and pedalings, and The organ tuner with perfect pitch has the Hammond B-3, we joked about get- sports program “Only A Game” early by practicing the notes systematically to compensate for the fact that you are ting to the park early so we could hear one Saturday morning, and Wendy let and patiently—and practicing enough. not necessarily tuning at A=440. If the the preludes. And he had an uncanny me know how much she wanted one of The second is getting to know the piece organ is a few cents sharp or fl at when knack for playing the right tune at the those dolls. With thanks to Chicago or- as well as possible. This includes any- you arrive to tune, chances are you’re right time. When Carlton Fisk hit his ganbuilding colleague and theatre organ thing that permits the player to know, going to leave it that way. It takes sev- now legendary “walk-off” twelfth-inning guru Jeff Weiler, I found one complete consciously or subconsciously, what is eral days to change the basic pitch of homerun to win game six of the 1975 with the ticket stub for the September 18 coming up next in the piece. This has most organs. And for really big organs it World Series, Keilly created a secondary game, and it now has an honored place in a working relationship with the act of can take weeks. sports legend when he played “Hallelu- our living room. memorizing a piece, but doesn’t depend I’ve been asked how I can stand lis- jah”—though not according to historical In the pages of this journal we often on memorization. (And indeed memori- tening to “out of tune-ness” all day. I performance practices. read about churches celebrating their zation does not guarantee really knowing don’t like hearing it when I’m listening retiring long-time organists. I’ve read the content of a piece musically.) This to organ music or attending worship, but § plenty of stories about fancy concerts knowledge reinforces the learning that when I’m tuning I love it because I can with reunions of dozens of past choir comes from practicing—makes it more change it. There’s a satisfaction about Nancy Faust was organist for the Chi- members, music committees commis- secure. The third part comprises purely working your way up a rank of pipes cago White Sox from 1970 until her last sioning commemorative anthems (bet interpretive decisions that are made bringing notes into tune. You can feel game on Sunday, October 3, 2010. She you can’t say that three times fast!), about how to play the piece: tempo, ar- them “click” into tune—in good voic- missed fi ve games in 1983 when her cakes that look like pipe organs, bronze ticulation, phrasing, and so on—and of ing there’s a sort of latching that I sense son was born—otherwise she played for plaques, and surprise tickets for Carib- course also registration. when I give the pipe that last little tick more than 3,200 games without missing bean cruises, but never bobblehead In the columns of the last year I em- with my tool. one. When she was hired, petitions were dolls. How cool is that? ■ phasized the fi rst two of these, writing The right organ at the right price We’ll help you chose from the hundreds of vintage organs available through our website. We can deliver it to the organ builder of your choice or refurbish, revoice, and install it ourselves.
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14 THE DIAPASON
May 2011 pp. 2-19.indd 14 4/14/11 10:04:10 AM