A Dying Past

LeTourneau Organ, Hodge Chapel, Beeson School of Divinity, Samford University

I keep getting surprised by death.

No, not the concept but the fact that someone has died whom I had already presumed to be departed.

Some months ago it was Mitch Miller. (See August 3, 2010 blog.) More recently it was Eddie Fisher. I think that since Elizabeth has had so many very publicly traumatic health encounters, I had assumed that he had slipped quietly away some time ago. Aside from his marital histrionics, I didn’t know too much about him. I am aware of the “spacey” daughter. (You can read into that anything you wish.)

I was also surprised by death this week to learn the loss of an old mentor from college days. H. Edward Tibbs, a brilliant organist, designer of over 50 area organs, and excellent teacher, died in Birmingham. He was a great influence in my musical training.

However, I did not represent one of his great achievements.

I arrived as a transfer student to study church music at Howard College – now known as Samford University – with all the skepticism that a relatively large secular state university could imprint on a small-town boy. Couple that with the “worldliness” of having been under the spell of Paris-trained architects since leaving home too young and you have a cynical pseudo-sophisticate naïve teenager who was full of himself and the “international style.”

The state university campus had evolved with no apparent long-range plan. Remember that state universities expand on the lowest-bidder formula – edging a building spot wherever possible. Howard, however, was a model of planning – a collection of updated 18th Century design plopped down in the heart of Birmingham’s wealthiest area. Seas of limestone-clad towers, beveled glass, brass, and hand-rubbed paneling preening on a manicured landscape. Think William Graves Perry and Colonial Williamsburg without the sheep.

I arrived in this scenario of order and discipline with something of an attitude, I fear.

In order to be admitted to the music department, I had to play an audition. This was the second hurdle in this change of life plan. The first was telling my mother and father that not only was I not going to be an architect, I was also going to leave the relative inexpensive world of the state university to transfer to a private college in another town.

The plan unfolded, publicly, over Thanksgiving in my third year of design. It had been forming since I had begun to direct the choir at the Baptist church in the community where I lived. I was bitten by the music bug and it was gnawing away at my architecture

Being absorbed into the world of building design, I had not studied with a teacher in several years at this point. I contacted my old piano instructor from my youth to assist me with polishing my performance. I learned, later, that it was a “black day” for her. She was at once faced with the memories of a “less than dedicated” student who opted to drop out of lessons every other year. “Why is he tormenting me now?”

I had managed to prepare two Bach inventions and a Mozart Rondo. I actually surprised her and we had fun “polishing” the product. Only later did I learn about the “black day.”

Because I had a vision that I would spend my years as a church musician, on the order of J.S., himself, I decided I would be an organ major. Not good! Not good!

While I loved the organ, I was not “in love” with it. Even today, my playing is barely acceptable and my technique deplorable. Up to that point, my association with the instrument had been via an electronic device made popular by Ethel Smith and her famous Tico Tico. Hardly anything promising for someone expected to master the "St. Anne." Even Albert Schweitzer carved a better association with the instrument in the remote jungle. His tempos were a bit slow. It was probably the heat.

Page McPherson, on the other hand, was its most devoted follower. Her devotion could probably be characterized as obsession. She was our supreme “organista.”

You have all met a “Page” at some point in your life.

She was frighteningly dedicated. Physically, she was not a winsome wonder – rather plain. My friend, Steven Sparks, would have referred to her as a “woman of rare beauty.” But Page was in love with the organ.

She even had a special language which was associated with her grand passion: “HE” was Harold Gleason, the author of the “Bible” of organ-methodology. “SHE” was Catherine Crozier – married to Harold – who was one of the great organists of the day. “IT” was the large Aeolian-Skinner instrument in the chapel on the Howard campus. “HIM” was, of course, Tibbs, her teacher and mine.

Like the postman in the famous weather adage, Page walked the distance from the music department over to the chapel many times each day with her “Orgelbuchlien” clutched against her chest. She was not a shapely girl so I chose not to use bosum. And because of her limited lexicon, she was not particularly popular. It is hard to fake interest in a discussion with that many pronouns. You get confused easily.

My lessons were always traumatic. I practiced, but refused to own those special male tap-dancing shoes that were required for excellent pedal technique. My “chukka” boots just didn’t hack it. I would forget to lift the inner fingers on the repeated notes. Dealing with me was a challenge for Tibbs. I should have shared the contact information for my piano teacher of childhood so they could commiserate together. They could have compared "black days."

Eventually Tibbs and I had a meeting of the minds. I became a voice major. You don’t need special shoes for that.

Page continued her devotion.

One fine spring day after I had come to my senses and dropped my organ career, everyone was in a “forget practicing and let’s goof off” mood. The windows of the music building were open and you could hear competing melodies. Coming from up in the garret was the sound of Page slaving away on the “Little G-minor" on the Holtkamp.

It was April and 50 years almost to the day of that riotous premiere in Paris. You know the one. A light went on in my rambunctious mind.

I coerced a couple of buddies to assist me. We dashed upstairs as the strains of “Le Sacre du Printemps” was being blasted out an open window and grabbed Page from her perch on the organ bench. We opened the garret window – three stories up – and bodily dangled Page headfirst as our virginal sacrifice to spring as Stravinsky’s pulsating ostinatos hit their peak.

Yes it was cruel, But it was Spring! April is, after all, "the cruellest month."

While she screamed protests, she smiled the rest of the month of April and even into May for all the attention she received. She, he, and him would have been proud of her!.

While I was a disaster as an organ major, Tibbs taught me a ton about sacred music. I learned about the practice of music in varied faiths. I developed quite a love of contemporary organ literature – especially Dupré, Langlais, and Messiaen. He taught me the fundamentals of organ design. I even became a better composer because I understood “the king of instruments.” Who knows what might have happened if I had those tap shoes.

So a great "thank you" to HIM!

Tony Curtis died today.

While we were not particularly close, the past keeps leaving me.