Tuba Mirabilis

It was a bit of a rush getting to the church tonight for Evensong and an organ recital from Chinatown to Foggy Bottom. The trains were running particularly slowly tonight, plus there are still a lot of protestors in town wandering lost on the subway, so I didn't walk into St. Paul's K Street until just after 6 when the choir had just started singing the introit back in the narthex.

I don't usually go to Evensong at St. Paul's, since they always do both Solemn Evensong and the Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament (what R.C.s call "Veneration of the Host," something my Protestant sensibilities find rather "popish") which makes the service a full hour; unlike Trinity Episcopal back in Tulsa, they don't have tea and sherry or wine and cheese afterwards as a "reward" for sitting through a long second service. Tonight was a special occasion, though, so that's why I went. In addition to this being Michaelmas, they were blessing and dedicating their new tuba mirabilis for their pipe organ, and there was a mini-recital featuring three organists slated after the service.

For you non-organ people, the tuba mirabilis is a special set of organ pipes which is similar to a state trumpet or a trompette en chamade, except they are much bigger and have a little lower register than the trumpet stops. Most organ pipes are tubular, but tuba pipes are conical and very long. These special ranks of pipes are used for fanfares and as a "solo" stop designed to soar over the full organ. Both trumpets and tubas (particularly tubas) are a typical characteristic of the English-style pipe organ, and generally these pipes are located in the back of the church. It would be a bit of an understatement to say that the tuba mirabilis is rather loud.

Anyway, I missed the prelude, which the program said was going to be the "Prélude" from Widor's Symphonie III, Op. 13. When I got there, the choir was singing the introit a capella, which was "Duo Seraphim clamabant" by Jakob Handl. After the collect was chanted, they did Psalm 150 using a very unusual antiphonal technique with the odd-numbered verses being sung by the choir and congregation and the even numbered verses being "sung" by the organ. I suppose it gave the organist a chance to do a bunch of improvisations, but I guess you could say the organ pipes need to work on their verbal diction. ;-)

As soon as the pipes and cabinets were blessed, aspersed with Holy Water and censed with incense, we got to hear a fanfare with the new tuba mirabilis pipes speaking for the first time. We had no problem whatsoever hearing them. That fanfare segued into a processional hymn, Parry's Laudate Dominum, to get the choir and clergy out of the narthex and up to the chancel. From that point, we were into "Evensong." The Preces and Responses were by Richard Ayleward. Caelites plaudant was the office hymn. The Magnificat and Nunc dimittis were from The Gloucester Service by Herbert Howellls. The did all 35 verses of Psalm 104, plus the Gloria Patri, to Anglican chants by Joseph Barnby and Samuel Wesley. The anthem was "Let the people praise thee, O God" by William Mathias.

After a plainsong Marian antiphon, "Salve Regina," we got to the Benediction service. They started with the choir singing Marcel Dupré's hymn, "O salutaris hostia" as the Host was prepared, and then after the blessing, they sang Charles-Marie Widor's hymn, "Tantum ergo sacramentum." There was a bit of a magical moment when the priest blessed the congregation with the Host. The lights were extinguished in the nave. Dim lights supported the eighteen candles on the altar. After the Host was displayed in a large, silver, jeweled monstrance on the high altar and "adored" for a while, the priest (who was already wearing a festal cope) was wrapped in a humeral veil and then he stood to pick up the monstrance and turned to face the congregation, holding the monstrance above his head. The sanctuary was already filled with smoke from all the incense, and had quite an ethereal look about it. The organ had been playing mysterious chord progressions, and as the priest made the sign of the cross with the monstrance to bless the congregation, crescendoing dissonant, yet glorious, chords were played. I got shivvers up and down my spine!

At last, the service was over, and we got to the organ recital. St. Paul's assistant organist, Mark Dwyer, played John Cook's "Fanfare" as the first selection, which also served as an extended postlude to the Benediction service. He made more than ample use of the new tuba pipes. The most interesting piece of the evening was played by St. Paul's organist and music director, Scott Dettra. He chose Resurrection by Larry King, a work in four continuous movements, "The Lament," "The Rising," "The Ecstasy," and "Reflection." It was difficult to discern the end of "The Rising" and the begining of "The Ecstacy," though the other movements were fairly obvious. Clearly a work in the contemporary idiom, King created a series of quiet and unusual dissonant chordal progressions with "The Ecstacy" rising to a great climax. This piece gave Dettra an opportunity to show off some of the more unique stops and mixtures on the parish's impressive 54-rank, four manual, 3,500 pipe, Schoenstein instrument. The final work was Mendelssohn's Sonata IV in B-flat, Op. 65, performed by J. Reilly Lewis (he is organist at Claredon United Methodist Church in Arlington and conductor of the (Washington National) Cathedral Choral Society). His registrations were very straightforward, though I did notice the third movement "Allegretto" was very flutey. I was grateful that he only made limited use of the new tuba during the final movement "Allegro maestoso e vivace."

It was a tough audience tonight. There was no applause after the first two pieces. Even after the third work, there was silence until the three men came out for a curtain call, and then I found the ovation to be rather restrained and short. Not much credit for what seemed to me to be considerable work to learn difficult organ music. Nonetheless, St. Paul's now has their tuba, and it got a good workout tonight.