Dame Gillian Weir

Do we like pictures of organists in gorgeous frocks and pretty shoes gracing the organ steps? Of course we do – I know Dame Gillian Weir has resisted, rightly, being styled as a lady organist, but the organ world desperately needs a bit of glamour.   She has had a dazzling career as an international concert artist, was the first woman President of the Royal College of Organists, the first woman President of the Incorporated Society of Organists – is an authoritative and inspiring teacher,  has collected more awards and honours than you can shake a stick at, while her CDs of the works of Messiaen and the Poulenc Organ Concerto are regarded as definitive recordings.

I went to her final public recital in December last year.  The great and the good of the organ world packed Westminster Cathedral – as one wag put it, if a terrorist plot had blown the building sky-high that particular evening, church music in Britain would have been wiped out for several generations.  I won’t even attempt to write a review – but you can see what the British press thought on her home page here.

Last April Dame Gillian taught us for a day on an RCO course in Oxford.   I can’t think of any teacher who gave so much in such a short time, and hooray that she is continuing to teach, even if she has decided that the live recital no longer appeals.  When asked for advice on performance she said – resist thinking about people who might want you to fail – imagine you and the organ are in a bubble which rejects thoughts that you don’t want inside, but projects the music out.  Eliminate page turners! – or train them not to move or ‘keep time’.  Don’t live on hope! – mend your shoes, take care of every eventuality you can think of, and make it simple for exams – do something easy, well, rather than seek the experience of losing by trying to wing it on the day.  And a great tip – learn a difficult piece from the end, working backwards, then you are always going towards something you know.

Dame Gillian’s recital was part of the Grand Organ Festival at Westminster Cathedral, which continues through 2013.  You can download a brochure, and see the other regular organ recitals here.

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Daniel was helping us on the elements of music performance which actually trip us up – 80% more likely to be mental issues rather than physical.  The sports psychology guys have been onto this for several decades he said, but music conservatoires are only just putting Mental Skills Training into their mainstream teaching.

The old school music teacher would shout encouragement along the lines of  “Watch what you’re doing!  F sharp!  F natural!! CONCENTRATE!!”  Seldom productive of a great performance.  The focus, said Daniel, should not be on watching the notes as you play them, but thinking ahead in the music.

Your piece ultimately should be so thoroughly grounded in your muscle memory, that the music is just an aide memoire.  And if your playing of a particular piece isn’t automatic enough to withstand chattering bystanders, or vacuum cleaners in the nave,  it’s not ready for performance.

Daniel gave us lots of mental exercises on focus, confidence, coping with anxiety, knowing when a piece is ready – and you have to practice this in, he warned, no good thinking you can paste it into your performance on the day.

I am now working on reading one or two bars ahead of my playing, in pieces I know well – it’s difficult! I tried really hard today, and can manage it briefly, but fall back into old habits…

I’ve added a page of psychology books for organists.

Daniel Moult is an international concert organist and teacher.  You can catch up with him here.

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Plainchant isn’t just a pleasant experience, a tradition to be maintained, explained Fr Alexander.  Psallite sapienter – sing praise with all your skill, or wisdom- commands Psalm 46.  And Pius x, in the early 20th century, put his weight behind the revival of Gregorian chant within the Catholic Church, and said that the performance of chant should be studied as an art.

“Inasmuch as this kind of pleasure (ie singing, music) is innate in our mind…so God established the psalms…” advised St John Chrysostom, back in the 5th century.  “Charismatic” praise singing in the church was a very early oral tradition, too sacred to be written down. It was hundreds of years before systems of written plainchant codified this extempore oral tradition handed down from cantor to cantor.

The psalm texts are extremely suggestive and pictorial, and rather that being just one note after another (as I had seen it), the written form of the music hides codes and symbolic structures which represent the text, and the modes each have their meaning.

William Dore, organist at Ampleforth, and Martin Baker from Westminster Cathedral (staying over from a concert with the Westminster Choir the night before) joined us for a discussion of the slightly contentious topic of accompanying plainchant.  “Avoid root position chords or V7″ suggested William, “they give it far too tonal a feel.”  Martin demurred slightly – acceptable for later chants, perhaps, in the major?

Coming from the Anglican tradition, I felt a little small at my feeble grasp of the modes, let alone the skills to improvise an accompaniment, but hey, this is the story of my life at the moment.

Back in the Abbey, Martin blew us away with a masterclass in improvisation using plainchant as a basis.  Then William knocked our socks off with a recital ending with the Demessieux Te Deum.

As a fellow organist and I wandered, slightly dazed, back to the car park, she muttered “The trouble is, tomorrrow morning my first hymn is Who put the colours in the rainbow…..”  Back to our world.

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