Processional on the pump organ
Playing music with a joyful heart and numb fingers.
One winter Saturday, I was slated to play the pump organ at St. John the Divine Anglican Church for a wedding. The building is unheated except for a wood stove. No electricity. No plumbing. Lots of history, though. It is a beautiful worship space with good acoustics for singing.
When I was warming up (pun intended) the organ, I was immediately confronted with the fact that none of the treble stops worked except the Melodia which worked at half to full volume or not at all. I fiddled with getting the stop pulled out just so far and then some of the other treble stops worked.
This was a small, very private wedding with only the priest and me, the bride and groom, the two witnesses and the photographer in attendance. With the Melodia stop working, the only volume available was pretty darn loud, which tended to drown out any small talk as things were being set up.
Pumping out the program
If you’re wondering what I played on that crippled wind-bag of a reedy organ, these are the pieces (all in simplified form): a variation on Genevan Psalm 133 for the pre-service; Mozart’s Ave Verum; and a processional from Handel’s Xerxes.
During the service we sang “Praised Be the Father,” #582 from the grey Psalter Hymnal which was new to everyone but me. All sang with feeling, being a musically-talented small assemblage. The lyrics to this hymn were written by Dr. Seerveld for his own wedding to Ines long ago. Everyone loved it.
I took the recessional from Handel’s Water Music. The church is so small that the processional and recessional took about seven to ten seconds, if taken at a snail’s pace.
Moving memories
I found out later that the groom’s mother and grandmother were church organists in the past. I shudder to think about their reactions to a fumble-fingered amateur trying to play classical music on a handicapped pump organ.
I thought it was one of the most moving weddings I had ever attended. They used the Anglican formulary and the groom – although standing near the wood stove – did not catch fire in a literal sense.
My daughter and son-in-law were married in that church, too. At that wedding the maid of honour wore an off-the-shoulder dress and froze one shoulder and burned the other. The wedding was wonderful, the marriage – much more important – is still going strong. At that wedding, I escorted the bride down the seventeen-foot centre aisle before sitting down at the wheezy pump organ and playing with joyful heart and numb fingers.
