The wandering organist

I can't believe how long it has taken for bookings to start coming in again after the 2020 lock-up of every church in the Kingdom. However, at long last I got  asked to play somewhere other than Brighton. OK, I have played here before, but it's still a change of scene. I played at Heene Church   on Sunday last. Heene is  a part of Worthing that predates Worthing. The word apparently means "high", it is the site of the old windmill (long gone) and is on the only high ground for some distance around. About 30' above sea-level, since you ask. The organ is still working, still uncleaned (last work was done in 1966, so it's a bit dusty in there), but the electronic "concert organ" has been taken out of service, and there seem to be no plans to plug it in again. (Just a couple of photoes to entertain. The organ facade was redesigned in 1966 to allow maximum sound to percolate from the chamber to the nave, as there is almost no egress from the west side. Al...

Well, I wandered again. Not far, St Botolph's, Heene, in Worthing, but it was a booking. An event nowadays. Sung eucharist, an anthem (Goss O Saviour of the World ) and some music before and after The choir was as good as ever, the sermon a bit "miserable sinner", intincted wafers, and the pipe organ ciphering on middle E on the Great, which rendered that manual unusable. So I played the hymns and voluntaries on the electronic. That had tenor E flat not working at all on the pedals, so I chose pieces which were in C major and E major (slightly modal E, leading note flattened every time it occurred in the pedal). The main thing is that, after such a long break from having to be responsible for leading the music in a service other than St Mary's Kemptown, the feelings I had of slight panic have returned after a good couple of decades absence. Probably all to the good, keeps me on my toes, and all that sort of thing. After lunch I decided I would like to go to choral eve...

Well, not quite free, but playing at a church again. After 4 months, I finally got my little fingers on the keyboard of a real organ. And it was the lovely Bevingdon of St Mary, Kemptown . I've been attending services, but only via the internet. Not the same. Better than nothing, but not the same. I've posted photoes of St Mary's before, but this time I took some pictures during the service (still only virtual for the congregation) as I was able to wander around without disturbing anyone. So here's a small selection. And, just to show we're an inclusive church, the 'concelebrant', Magnus, who's a sweety, and very good in church.

Yesterday morning was an unexpected pleasure when the previous Tuesday, I was asked if I could stand in at short notice at Findon, their organist booked for the day had a problem. A normal 4-hymn eucharist, with Bach during communion and Frank Bridge after. In the afternoon, I thought that, since it was a lovely day, I'd go to a choral evensong. Chichester had Purcell in C and his Thy Word is a Lantern.   Guildford had Howells' Gloucester service and Finzi's Lo, the full final sacrifice . So Guildford it was, 35 miles through the Sussex Downlands and Surrey commuterland. As I was standing, gormlessly, at the back of the cathedral, two friends greeted me, they'd some up from Portsmouth for the same reason (nothing much on at their diocesan cathedral - Chilcott 3 choirs service and Mathias' Let the people praise thee, a service, slightly confusingly, described as choral evensong "with Commemoration of the WWI Centenary ringing by Winchester & Portsmou...

A picture of the west end from 2010 Well, being titular organist means you have to deal with the choir library, whether small, large, or middling. St Botolph's library is large for a parish church, a legacy of days of yore when the choir was all-male with the number of boys in double figures. Now it's just double figures and all adult, but at least as competent. Double-choir stuff is out of the window (only one bass and alto), but they can do pretty much anything else. The library. Well, I was in for a nasty shock when I looked inside the folders. I had decided I needed to know what we actually had. The official index was about 10 years out-of-date, and to find stuff just ignore the index's idea, which was based on the position in a pile in a double-width cubby-hole: eg 1 A 13, being first cubby-hole, left hand pile, 13th down from the top. Hmm. Someone had changed this into alphabetical order, dividing anthems from settings, but not updated the index. So, out with th...

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...

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

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...

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 ...

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.