The wandering organist

Just to wish people a happy festive period (a tad late, admittedly) and a prosperous 2017. Christmas was frenetic, and I could have booked myself five times for Midnight and Christmas Day. Carol services took up all of Advent except Advent 2. Being a freelance is always feast or famine. I have finalised my letter to any parish which intends to treat me as an employee, and if you wish to see it, please comment here and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. But the one which was obdurate has now managed to persuade their retired choir director to return, presumably because their other deputies also said "no" to the Vicar, whose position it is to follow the Diocesan employee's advice uncritically. Enough. Enjoy 2017 with all the challenges and possibilities it will offer. Philip Christmas 2012 - the begonias moaned when they saw the tree had been decorated.

Have just got back after a day in church, rehearsing and then performing Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle . Worthing Choral Society with excellent soloists and my friends Marcus Martin and Donovan Brown on the two pianos, myself on the "harmonium". The style is pure Opera Buffa, and the concert (with a 30-minute interval after the Creed) lasted two hours. Many thanks to Emmanuel Church, Worthing  f or their hospitality. (They don't have a website, or I'd give a link here.) Rossini wrote:  "Dear Lord, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Have I just written sacred music, or rather, sacrilegious music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much technique, a little bit of heart, that’s all. Blessings to you and grant me Paradise." So it was "cramming for his finals", as one irreverent person called it. "Harmonium". Well, yes, the sounds were right, thanks to Al Stepney's laptop and some downloaded sample

I have spent two-and-a-half hours putting together a dossier of documents from the internet to find out if I and the Revenue have been wrong these last 21 years that I've been filling out (or in? In, I think.) the self-assessment forms. This, together with the other hours I have spent talking with priests and a diocesan employee, has convinced me that the commandment to describe me (and all other organists in the Diocese of Chichester) as employed by every church we play for, is based on a very one-sided opinion . There has been no change of interpretation by HMRC, no new guidelines. I spoke with the employee, who was unwilling to meet or change his mind without a decision in writing from HMRC, something I don't know how to achieve as HMRC only allows you to phone them, and it costs 12p a minute whilst you spend 3 minutes listening to their exhortations to "do it online" and 40 minutes waiting to speak to a real human. Not a postal address anywhere on their site.

To update on the HMRC side, I have completed their self-employment assessor programme and it clearly says Self-Employed. I have spoken to three different HMRC people, one a specialist, who all say I am self-employed. It would seem that the Diocese is the originator of this, but I haven't been well enough (damn cold and now a cough which has revealed yes, I do have a diaphragm and that's there I'm breathing from) to ring him and ask for his source of knowledge on this point. Anyway, playing at one church today where, in the past, I used to turn up and there was a cheque ready and waiting every time. Now I turn up and I'm lucky to be paid two or three weeks later. I just think of the cost of the stamps and envelopes and think "this could be better organised". I am the last person to criticise others on their organisational skills. But late payment can cause overdrafts. More anon.

Back again to St John, Findon this morning, and a Fambly Service which, with voluntaries (Bach, von Paradis arr Macdonald, and Charpentier) thrown in free, worked out at £12.50 per hymn. To dark and wet to take a picture of a splendid pine tree with all its cones on, so will try to pop back soon and get it before they get blown/rained off their branches. Lovely to look at whilst I sat in the car, listening to A Point of View, with Howard Jacobson on Difficulty . Update on the Revenue situation: Despite having called them twice, and been promised a 72-hour (3-day, to you and me) callback twice, I'm still waiting for them. Apparently they don't have enough Technical Experts any more. Bearing in mind my own experience of DWP Voluntary Release schemes, this doesn't surprise me. Recently they offfered VR to all the computer experts whilst advertising for more. We now have no-one actually closer than 20 miles away to sort out any server problems. Oh well. Only 21 months to go.

I am just completely fed up with 1) Inland Revenue (as it used, in simpler days, to be known) and 2) the Diocese of Chichester for blindly following the stupid HMRC diktat which completely contradicts the church's earlier position - not contradicted by the revenue at the time - that organists were not employees and thus eminently sackable . And here . And here . Two churches have mentioned this to me, that I am to be treated as an employee. It would be financially doubleplusungood as my expenses would be slashed at a stroke and, much more importantly, my National Insurance Number, birth-date and everything necessary to commit mayhem and ID theft would be at the mercy of about 10 parish treasurers and their internet security. One treasurer-click on a phishing link, and there's my bank details gone. No. No, no and NO. One person mentioned that I would get a pension - well, no. I'd have to be paid £10,000 by each church to qualify for that, likewise sick pay. Even the ide

A trip to London one hot July afternoon, to play for that high art form, the service of Choral Evensong, with Wyndcliffe Voices and Philip Drew. St John, Holland Road was the destination, invited by the church's organist, Paul Joslin. I had visited the church about 30 years ago and knew it as the last stone-vaulted building to be built in London. Built from 1885 to 1910 the website is worth a look, and explains some interesting little oddities, like the floor-level. Walking in, the immediate impression is "wow". We arrived after another service had finished and incense was still lingering. In the history of this church, that was nothing new! An estate agent's blurb about a flat for sale next door: " Holland Road is close to the green open spaces of Holland Park and the Shepherd's Bush's Westfield shopping centre " which made me smile. The organ has no case, and is almost unphotographable, being 50' above floor-level. The origina

A friend of mine chooses the ties he wears on Sundays by the liturgical colour of the day - predominantly green in the Sundays of Trinity, gold for Easter and Christmas, red for Martyrs - and, nowadays, Whitsunday - and so on. Whilst I have a large number of ties, they don't seem to have a predominating colour, being mostly musical notation or instruments (Christmasses became a little predictable a while back!). And then, about three years ago, I spotted a multi-pack of socks in Marks and Spencer and my problem was solved - liturgically appropriate socks. Unfortunately, the green pair has had rather more wear than the others and has gone into holes, so here is a tribute to the set before they start, one by one, to go through. I had thought to take pictures of them actually being worn, but it was an unusual day, quite summery and warm.

Yesterday was a sad day - the funeral of John S Smith, past President of the Organ Club and long-standing secretary of my local Organists' Association, Brighton & Hove. A fount of information on matters organic who will be missed. A true old-fashioned gentleman. It was also sad as I said goodbye to the last remaining part of my graduation present from my parents, the Dual 505 turntable (which was connected to a NAD3020 and Acoustic Research AR18s). It just stopped working. Bearing in mind it was 35 years old and was one of the old-fashioned sort that had an extra lead to connect to the amp, and that it had been quite well used before the advent of CDs, I actually had to put my hands over my ears as it went into the skip at the local tip. And lastly, I got so fed up with not being able to find music I wanted to hear from my CD collection, I indexed them all. It was started by not being able to find the Holst St Paul's Suite which, even when they were finally put into co

Danehill, Parish Church of All Saints'. Now, that's not something you might expect to find in a small parish church in the depths of East Sussex. Taken from the east the console is behind the red ochre doors. The manual compass is an octave short of normal (nipped off the top end) and the pedals only have two rather than two-and-a-half octaves. Despite this, it was pretty standard, the builder (in about 1892), Wordsworth of Leeds, aligned the pedalboard so that it is almost in the standard position. Because of the lack of depth in the loft it is impossible to get a view which shows both manuals and pedals. From the console you get a superb view of the reredos, a pretty stunning creation with more gold leaf. This was taken from just beside the priest's stall in the choirstalls, return stalls to save length. The service was BCP Mattins, straight from the book, with Ferial responses (accompanied), Venite and Jubilate to chants, and four traditional hymns. A

Well, not quite, in fact that headline contains about as much truth as a tabloid red-top article. The badge However, the Bishop of Portsmouth did - in effect - cancel the Choral Evensong planned for Pentecost at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Southsea, by scheduling the presentation of the first ever St Thomas Awards in Portsmouth Diocese on the evening of Pentecost at 6pm. My friend, Philip Drew, was one of the first 12 to receive one of these, and over 30 people from his church went along to see him receive it. Post-service, just before the bun-fight Very pleased that Philip should have this, well-deserved. Not eating, talking! Choral evensong resumes on 5th June with Walford Davies' Chant Service setting.

The lack of the fine organ in Finedon was the only regret. It was lovely. Path from gate to the North Door . A fine day, lovely weather, and up to 23 C. Only days ago it was 8 C. The organ behaved itself, as did the electricity supply, and a nice, very ordinary parish eucharist was celebrated. The only thing of note was that a bee landed on Revd Bucqué and seems to try to have some fun with the wireless microphone she was wearing. Nothing else to report. Just have a couple of photographs. I am so lucky to live so close to such lovely countryside. View of Lych gate towards the Downs Tree in blossom

It's 6:40pm and I've taken my pullover off, it still smells of the incense at this morning's service. Feast of Title fo r St James' North Lancing , so they pushed the (incense) boat out. Heaven knows how the choir sang, they were disappearing behind the cloud of holiness at the high altar. One of the choir had his surplice on back-to-front. And the organ greeted me in its usual way, when I switched it on, with a careful "parp" from 8' C on the Swell Cromorne. One day it will just carry on, not just the little 1-second musical fart. Looking in the tuning book, the chest is inaccessible for maintenance so when notes stick on, the tuner just slips something under the pipe to stop it sounding. But the thurifer certainly made sure we were in the odour of sanctity today. The bipolar cherry tree was in blossom again. Someone stuck a twig from a different tree into a crack, so it now produces blossoms of two colours. Rather nice. Photograph copyright (c)

Just back from playing for the funeral of a friend, John Casemore, whom I knew for nearly 30 years. Nice service, but coming home just about every precipitation you can imagine has happened. Now it's heavy snow. It's not settling, of course, since it's well over freezing, but I hope it's not a comment on the Boëllmann Toccata, requested for the voluntary. A 6-rank extension organ in two separate swell-boxes, one of the ranks is an unexpected full-compass Tierce. I must get the current specification onto NPOR. I'll miss him, I used to go over and we'd play CDs one Saturday every so often. A compassionate and caring human, worn down by Parkinson's over the years. Bon voyage, John. May there be organs in Heaven for us all.

Friday's post brought the first bill from the new managing agents of the flats where I live. Paying half-yearly, I was expecting it to be about £900-1,000 as there is a lot of work which the previous managing agents just didn't do, we've a lot of catching up to do. I had enough saved, but not much extra. How does this relate to holidays, I hear you ask? Well, the bill was just under £500, which means that I have the money to go with Cantores Vagantes to Derby Cathedral for a week in August. (BTW, not the Estonian one, the one run by Philip Drew.) I like that church, the organ is a classic Compton rebuild of a Hill (with a little tinkering since)  http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N02750  with a lovely little 2-manual by Cousins in the Retro-Choir (that doesn't mean a choir which looks or sings in a 1950s way)  http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N05294  which is used for weekday services. A small specification, but every stop counts. It needed a little TLC

I played at a church which has featured here before, which again I will not identify. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa maxima est, but I was away last weekend (in BSE) and preparing for that occupied my thoughts in the Octave of Easter. Thus I didn't bother the Director of Music to let me have the music for today until 7am on Wednesday morning. (I switch off of an evening, especially after a heavy day to work.) When it arrived, with a chilly reproof for not asking before if I needed it before, it was photographs (not scans) of copies from a phone, which had (undetected) stripped out half of the stuff I needed, probably because of the size of each one. These sent by the DoM at gone 10pm on Thursday night.  It was only today that I pointed this out, having had that chilly email already I didn't want to bother the DoM because it seemed that the DoM thought that these were all I needed. It was then that the DoM phone was checked and corroborated my story. I mean, there's sca

The week after Easter is often called "Low" Sunday. A sermon I heard once (in Parkend church) wondered if it referred to the number in the congregation, and surmised that those seen on Easter Day and then not again til Christmas were having Holy Car-munion (ouch) at home, washing their Fords and Vauxhalls. For those involved with Cantores Vagantes, it's the weekend jaunt to some cathedral or other to sing the weekend services. Some hundreds of miles and to the north-east of London is the town of St Edmundsbury, now usuallly referred to as Bury St Edmunds. I was last there in 2010 on my 51st birthday, which is another story altogether, and the cathedral had scaffolding up in the chancel whilst they installed the new Harrison & Harrison organ  (rather than pinch their excellent photo, I thought a link better). I didn't think then I would be playing it for three services. Whilst waiting for the choir to assemble, I took a quick pic of the east window from

Found some Easter joy at Holy Spirit, Southsea. Stanford in C and Walford Davies' O Sons and Daughters, followed by Preston's Alleluyas, resurrected after some years' neglect. Thank you Philip Drew for letting me play. A picture from Easter Day, 2014.

Where's Easter gone? Even the normal fourth Sunday (trad. lang., Martin Shaw) got displaced for a Family Service this morning. The 8:30 said service over-ran by 15 minutes, the 9:30 started 10 minutes late, I didn't know the hymns til the board was put up two minutes before the service started, the Gloria was sung to the Thorne setting but the words in the service book were the "Peruvian" Gloria, and the Agnus Dei was sung (metrically) to Repton. About the only thing we didn't have was "If I was [were! Conditional!] a wriggly worm". The Clergy are throwing away the Church's traditional music without noticing or caring. There were five hymns in all, three were generic "alleluia" type, so where were The Day of Resurrection, Jesus Lives, Love's Redeeming Work is Done, The Strife is O'er, Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem, to name only a few? (Quite pleased Hail Thee, Festival Day didn't make it.) All classics, and unless we introduce th

It's not often I feel so dispirited I have no wish to play, but after Sunday's service I couldn't face even a run-through of some choral accompaniments coming up all too soon. I will leave the church unidentified. The Director of Music was off sick and the choir had been cancelled as no rehearsal could take place during the week. Two children and adults turned up. The person taking the service had a strong foreign accent, was wearing the microphone either some distance from his mouth or under some thick clothing, and the acoustics prevented me from understanding more than one word in 10. At zero notice it was suggested I play something during communion - fortunately I had brought a piece which I had prepared, in case - and the full music, harmonised edition of the service setting was only found for me on the day, not one which I knew. And the voluntary: it went ok until my great, flat, left foot plonked itself on bottom e on the last chord. The piece was, of course, dear

Some weekends, there's time to be leisurely, do some practice, read a little, cook something. Others just turn into mayhem. But even in the mayhem, there can be little oases. Yesterday was one such. As I rushed round and tried to get everything done the day before yesterday, I looked forward to an afternoon where I could just chat about organs and everything or nothing with one of my oldest friends. And so it turned out. From about 4pm yesterday til he had to depart to play for the Marian devotion which was replacing Evening Prayer (Mothering Sunday), we talked organs, I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again , the editing of the organ part by the previous organist to play Blow in F (coming up at Low Sunday on the new Harrison organ in St Edmundsbury Cathedral) from that particular copy and, ooh, all sorts. It seemed longer than a couple of hours, and made me so grateful that I could stop for a while. One of the things I was asked to do over the weekend was to transpose the Iri

It would seem that I have started a race to summer. A church for whom I play asked me for dates up to June, and I thought they were getting well ahead and nicely organised. I looked in my diary and found that, between then and today, I have only four Sundays free. The same church has got back to me today, and asked for dates through to August! Now that is  organised - no pun intended. I do enjoy playing for different churches. For decades I was attached to one console or another, from my first job at St Peter's, Acton Green at age 14, to the last at St Bendybus, Hove. The variety of organs was huge: from 2-manuals and 10 stops (Peter Collins, 1974) to three and 70 stops (Noël Mander, 1964). They've been far too loud, too soft, on the west wall, buried in a chancel cavity, and, just occasionally, right. My favourite organ was St Augustine's, in Brighton. With three manuals, 42 stops it was certainly not small, but the sounds it produced belied the nameplate on it - Morga

St John the Evangelist, Findon  Sunday, and playing at the charmingly (and inconveniently) sited parish church of Findon. Inconvenient because it is far out of the village, beyond the old manor house, across the A24 which can be busy. Charming because it sits between fields and a wood, nestling in a fold of the South Downs. I turned up to play their recently overhauled (and somewhat indifferent) organ, which is not a thing of beauty, hung high on the west wall, with the console en fenêtre to the clergy vestry in the south transept. I was looking forward to playing there, as I like the service, very simple setting and hymns, and there is a peace about the building which is rare, even in churches. At quarter past nine, then I had selected the music play before, during and after, bearing in mind it was Lent I, so switched on the blower. At which point, all electricity died. No lights, heat, anything. So I earned my fee by humming the first notes of the hymns and setting

It was pointed out to me that the "comments" part of my blog on my site lacked an "approve" facility, that anyone could publish anything and it might be days before I noticed - since I don't update the site on a daily basis. I am truly grateful, Jenny :-) So, I've taken the old one down and started here (http://wandering-organist.blogspot.co.uk/) where there are different things to learn (and I haven't managed to work out the website controls yet) and sprain my brain on. Bear with me as I learn, please.