welcome
to PIANONOISE!
specializing in
duets for piano and leaf blower
Nov. 26
edition
For
OLLI students: click here to
access the class page "getting there is all the fun"
with Dr. Michael Hammer
-- FINAL WEEK --
above: Pictures from
a previous "OLLI" class The banner photo the
falls at Ohiopyle, PA
This Week's Featured
Recording: for Friday, November 26 This
is the first recording I've made that features
some of the restored pipes from the massive
Moeller pipe organ (124 ranks, 6,845 pipes) in
the church's rear balcony. It is also a piece
I've had on my list to record for about 10
years! (see the article below for why)
This is the third article
this autumn in which I remember a
friend and colleague who has died
recently. I'm getting weary of doing
this, so maybe we can have a
moratorium on mortality for a while?
This person is particularly
important for the impact she had on
the lives of so many people in my
old stomping grounds in central
Illinois.
Julie Beylor was stubborn. I didn't
hear much mention of that at her
service this week, possibly because it
doesn't sound very polite. But I'm
going to develop this into a theme,
because it may actually have been this
trait that was a large part of the
reason so many friends and family
gathered to celebrate her life and
impact on them--an unusual impact.
"dedicated" may be a nicer way to put
it, or having high standards, or
single-minded. Those will work, too.
They don't capture the fact that she
could be difficult for those around
her, but then "stubborn" doesn't get
at the reason for that difficulty,
which was that she wasn't just doing
it to annoy people, but because there
was a higher purpose to all this.
The Chorale was begun largely by
accident, as a group of Christmas
carolers who decided they'd like to
get together to sing more regularly.
By the time I became the group's
accompanist they had been on a couple
of international tours and attracted
the then director of the Mormon
Tabernacle Choir, Dr. Craig Jessop, to
direct them in a huge festival
concert. Some 70 people from all walks
of life gathered every Sunday night
for rehearsal to prepare for the three
or four regular concerts they'd give
each season.
Did I say every Sunday? I meant EVERY
Sunday. But you say, Easter is on a
Sunday. Yes, your point? That's still
a Sunday. The Chorale still has a
rehearsal. And what about SuperBowl
Sunday? Despite its high religious
significance to a large percentage of
the choir, there was still a
rehearsal. About a third of the choir
managed to catch a bad case of
SuperBowl Fever and have to stay home.
But we musiked on. If Christmas was on
a Sunday, I think she usually got
talked out of that. But we'd have an
extra rehearsal the next day. The
thing was, there were never enough
rehearsals for the Maestra. She would
remind us how many were left until the
next concert every week, always in a
measure of grave concern.
I mentioned the choir drew its members
from all walks of life. Teachers,
farmers, plumbers, bank tellers, it
didn't matter. If you wanted to sing,
you were in. There was no audition.
And the miracle in all that was that
The Chorale sounded good! Sometimes
really REALLY good! The group had
trouble being consistently excellent
(the bane of all amateurs) but we hit
the high bar Julie set for us
surprisingly often. There were a few
moments during some of those all-day
Saturday rehearsals during the weekend
of a festival concert that I'd close
my eyes and think I was listening to
St. Olaf. That may have only been for
a few seconds, but for a
non-professional, non-auditioned group
to EVER sound like that is, when you
think about it, kind of unfair to us
professionals. I mean, I could go to
one of those fantasy baseball srping
trainings, and you could put me in
against Nolan Ryan (even the
long-retired versions) and if he threw
a thousand fastballs, I would never
hit a single one of them over the
fence. It just would not happen. And
yet, the Chorale managed to do that at
times. As well as get a few sold hits.
I often wondered whether if Julie had
been more sanguine about The Chorale
and its rehearsal schedule, or less
tyrannical about attention to every
detail of the music in rehearsal if
that kind of exquisite music making
ever would have happened. And it
wasn't just so we could be technically
polished but so that we could bring
the music of the spirit to our
audience. The group's motto was
"refreshing the spirit." Getting there
was much more prosaic.
Imagine the group singing just a few
notes, followed by a sharp hand clap.
"Late!" she yells. "Again!" She gives
the downbeat. Another percussive
interuption. "Men! You're too loud!"
She starts us again. The same two
notes. "Watch your vowel! ahhh! not
AAAA!" Now imagine this happens five
more times before she finally lets the
group sing a phrase. It might be ten
minutes before we get off the first
page. But one day this piece will
sound amazing. In the meantime, she's
exasperated, and she doesn't mind
letting us know it!
There is the school that thinks you'll
catch more flies with honey, and she's
clearly not of that opinion. Human
beings have a tendency to get away
with whatever they can get away with,
and she's not going to let us get away
with mismatched vowels or tenors who
are too loud, or basses who just went
flat. Sometimes it seems she goes
through life with an upraised finger.
All of these tense rehearsals result
in some pretty fine music making. This
is particularly true in 2011 and 12
which might have been the group's
finest year. In fact, I'd like to
focus on that year for a moment
because it brings me to another theme,
or trait of hers, that was important.
2011 was a particularly exausting
Christmas season for me personally. I
remember it because the earliest
recordings on this website date back
to 2011. Christmas Day was on a Sunday
and I have some fine memories of that
service; Christmas Eve was the night
before, and there were three large
services. I wouldn't miss any of them,
but if you are a musician you know
they can leave you out of gas.
Actually, I was out of gas before the
season even started. It had been an
intense semester. And now, the
Children's Chorus was set to give
around 5 performances, the church had
its big dramatic production, the
church choir had its cantata, and the
Chorale was getting ready for New
Year's Eve. I was getting ready for a
breakdown!
Late in the season I was at a very low
ebb. That's when Julie called and
wanted to do a flash mob at the local
shopping mall. Flash mobs were quite a
fad at the time. The idea that Julie
Beyler would want to be part of the
latest popular craze seems geniunely
nuts, but looking back on it I think
this most atypical choral performance
still gives us an insight into her
character. She didn't want the chance
to go by.
I noticed that especially that year.
She had a good group at the top of
their arc and she knew it. She also
knew nothing lasts forever and that
someday--today, in fact--the story
would be over, and whatever you hadn't
done, opportunities last, doors not
walked through, would be regrets at
chances not taken. There seemed to be
an almost manic drive to capture, to
revel in, the moment while it was
there, and to give dozens of people
the chance to do things that they
might never have imagined doing
before.
Like go to Europe several times. Like
sing in a restored Vaudevill theater,
ringing in the New Year. Like be
friends with people like Jean Redpath,
Alice Parker, Rene Claussen, and Craig
Jessop--leaders in choral music, not
just our mentors, but friends we
looked forward to seeing again. Like
sing at Carnegie Hall, and in Utah at
choral festivals with at least 300
participants. Like singing in that
flash mob. Or at an airforce museum.
Or for cancer patients. Or giving
scholarships to dozens of young
people, and to follow their lives and
careers with interest and joy. To
unleash hundreds of hours of music to
the people of two continents, and see
so many of them come up afterward with
tears in their eyes because they had
just experienced something so deep, so
life-affirming, that no words could do
it justice. The Chorale must have had
at least 200 different members over
its 37 year run, and they all have
stories of fun and funny and wonderful
things that happened along the path. I
was just telling someone about that
time Julie and I had our ears glued to
the door of St. Vitus' Cathedral in
Budapest, listening to the organist
improvising, the huge sound filling
the space, the organist stretching the
ending with harmony after harmony,
refusing the bring it to a close,
until we nearly missed the bus back.
Who knows what else will come back to
me in a random moment, years from now,
about that time when...
In the middle of that storm of
humanity stood the irascible (is that
not a great word?), irrepressible
Julie Beyler. There were many other
aspects to her, as a mother and
grandmother and friend, which got more
verbal attention during her service
because it was her family that was
doing the remembering. But I knew her
through the lens of an unusual musical
group. Thirty-four members of that
group (so many have passed on already)
gathered to sing at that service,
members of an extended family that she
cultivated over the years.
Last week I recorded J. S. Bach's
setting of the chorale "Now Thank We
All Our God." The recording was a long
time coming. Ten years ago, in 2011, I
played the piece at a church service,
and, as was my custom then, tried to
record it. Unfortunately I was sick
that week, and my performance was
lacking. I never released the
recording. There was a narrow window
to get it finished before the onrush
of Christmas, and I missed it. Ten
years went by before I got back to it.
That is not so unusual. If you can't
make something of an opportunity in
the time you have, it goes by, and it
may not come again for a long time--or
ever. Julie Beyler knew this. 2011 was
the year of the flash mob at the mall,
and (unless I have the year wrong) a
Christmas concert with the symphony,
in addition to the annual New Year's
Eve concert at the Virginia Theater.
It made us all quite busy, and the
maestra quite nervous about our
preparation. There were extra
rehearsals, and extra remonstrances at
those rehearsals. She wanted to hold
us all to high standards, and some of
the chorale members I talked to this
week remembered that, and were
thankful. Thankful, too, for the
opportunities to do all of those
various performances, and to engage
with the places and people that those
performances took them all to.
I played the Bach at her memorial
service this week as a postlude. It
didn't get the notice of the piano
pieces I played during the service
(I'll post those after the holidays)
but it seemed appropriate. We often
think of the chorale as a Thanksgiving
hymn, and what better way to conclude
a celebration of the life of Julie
Beyler than by thanking God for her
life. These are tumultuous times, and
the hymn was written at the end of a
long period of war and pestilence
(which makes me think that in some
ways I am being premature in its
selection).
Every November the Chorale sang a
concert termed "a celebration of
life." Julie often programmed Requiems
for that occasion: large works about
life and death. She usually chose
usually modern, life-affirming
settings of these ancient masses for
the dead. The quest for meaning, for
the sacred, for what gives life
purpose, are themes that run through a
lot of choral music. The Chorale under
her direction became a vehicle, not
just for great singing, but to
minister to the people of east central
Illinois and the parts beyond, singing
comfort in dark times, and hope for
what is to come. As her service
concluded, the singers were joined by
many old members of the group to sing
her to the beyond with the benediction
that ending every rehearsal. It was a
moving tribute.
