The Christmas pressure has been mounting – your organist has been up to her eyebrows in Carols for Choirs 1 and 2 for several months, and fretting over whether a new barnstorming Christmas Day voluntary is sufficiently bullet-proof, or will the congregation get Nun Danket Alle Gott (again)? By the time she has fielded extra rehearsals for the joint carol service with the neighbouring village, a Pop-up Nativity, Midnight Mass and Christmas Day itself, she will be completely carolled out, and only fit to collapse with a glass of something fizzy and the thoughtful Christmas gifts which will be showered on her by family and friends. So what do you get for the organist in your life?
1 Something warm
Keeping warm is an existential preoccupation for all organists. Most already have had several pairs of fingerless gloves pressed on them by sympathetic members of choir and congregation, but a jumper or fleece will be very welcome – not a daft Christmas Jumper please, but something we can wear all year round. A gilet or padded waistcoat would also be very appropriate, especially if smart enough to be worn throughout a service in extremis when the church heating has failed yet again. (In other words, not a khaki thing with lots of pockets and zips that makes us look like a trainspotter or birdwatcher. We have enough problems with nerdiness as it is.)
My best winter friend is a black fake fur coat, which is not only delightfully cosy but also adds a rather glam air to the organ loft, I think. The fashion mags tell us that fake leopard fur is very now – though I have not quite been brave enough yet to sashay up to services in the ankle-length fake leopard I recently fell for on eBay. (NB Note your organist’s gender and adjust your purchase of warm item accordingly. Male organists might appear a bit louche and Liberace in fake fur.)
2 Something to read
And something a little more light-hearted please, than another earnest tome disputing the latest Bach scholarship, important though that is.
Whose recital came to an abrupt halt when their grandiose opening chords fused the Royal Festival Hall organ? Lots of enjoyable detail as well as serious research in W Harry Hoyle’s WEDNESDAYS AT 5.55 : Organ Recitals at the Royal Festival Hall. These popular weekly organ recitals were a phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century, and this engaging history will particularly appeal to organists of a certain age (and many of them are). Published by Clontarf Press, you can order from YPD Books.
Who said of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge “Nice singing, but a trifle pansy”? Just one of the many entertaining quotes in Timothy Day’s masterful history I saw Eternity the Other Night – King’s College, Cambridge, and an English Singing Style, published by Allen Lane to coincide with the 90th Anniversary of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s. Here’s a review with full details.
All organists will chortle at Jenny Setchell’s compilation Organs & Organists: Their Inside Stories. Well worth it just for the reprints of Adrian Marple’s blog posts, and the splendid photography. After Christmas it can be left in the downstairs loo to educate family and visiting non-organists. Find it at Pipeline Press.
3 Something pretty
On Christmas Day I’m going to sport my new FunkyTypes organ stop necklace (above) and enjoy the quizzical looks. Amy Mellott in Pennsylvania, USA, upcycles old organ stops into brooches and necklaces and sells them on Etsy. Is your organist a Clarabella, a Vox Humana or a Tremelo? Plenty to choose from.
4 Subscriptions and memberships
Memberships of professional bodies and subscriptions to this and that are essential investments in theory, but they eat into disposable income, which most organists don’t have very much of. So buy your organist a subscription to Organists’ Review – hey, in no other magazine is a pipe organ the star of the cut-out-and-keep gatefold.
Professional memberships include the Royal College of Organists, and the Royal Schools of Church Music. Not, as far as I know, available gift-wrapped, but you could wave your credit card at the appropriate moment. You could also offer to pay for a year of HymnQuest, not the organists’ Game of Thrones, sadly, but a jolly useful searchable database of hymns, tunes and hymnbook indexes (so EVEN MORE EXCITING than Game of Thrones). As a stocking filler, stump up a few dollars or pounds for a year’s ad-free access to ISMLP, the enormous online library of public domain music. They’ve even organised gift cards to make it more fun.
5 Lead kindly light
Actually, I really would like a head torch. The torch app on my phone is OK-ish, but I’m fed up of dropping bags, gloves and phone as I fumble for the church lights and the organ key in the winter – and bumping into the churchyard sheep in the dark is actually quite scary. Replace that dim old hand torch that your organist has been carrying around in her bag for too many years with one of those powerful sparkly LED ones – whether it fits on her head or not, she’ll be most grateful.
see also What to get your organist for Christmas 2
and What to get your organist for Christmas 3
and What to get your organist for Christmas 4
More suggestions from readers in the comments below >
I dream on, Morwenna, I dream on. Mind you, Diapason Forte is more likely to be a reed organ stop, I reckon.
I think you’re right, Gordon. Amy is more likely to find reed organ and harmonium stops to reclaim (especially in the US) than pipe organ stops.
The Friends of Cathedral Music https://fcm.org.uk/ have contacted me and suggested a gift membership would make a good Christmas present – it includes their biannual magazine CATHEDRAL MUSIC.
This is just lovely, Morwenna! Thank you for including my organ stop jewelry in your article!
For warmth, I swear by some black silk ski socks — thin enough to wear under organ shoes, and marvellously warm. Plus some reusable hand warmers to hold between carols. And a little hip flask of Armagnac.
Absolutely perfect Patti! – thank you, I’m going to invest in some silk ski socks. Morwenna