Remembrance of Things Past
This afternoon I went to the West Side Market to order the roasting chickens for Thanksgiving. (No, no turkey for us this year. Neither of us is very fond of it, and chicken tastes better.) I’ve been shopping at the Market regularly (as in several times a month) for over 25 years. What a dispiriting affair it was today. I remember when people used to go there to actually BUY things. Now that Cleveland has been turned into a foodie city, the Market has been turned into a tourist destination. Traffic was backed up to gridlock in the parking lot, which meant circling around ad infinitum. The one Cleveland police officer eventually in sight was shooting the breeze with a vendor inside the market. I eventually gave up and had better luck on a side street south of Lorain Avenue.
I knew that this parking dilemma did not bode well for my shopping experience, so I was not surprised to find the place mobbed with tattooed hipsters with their coffee cups, Beachwood ladies in wildly inappropriate outfits for the West Side Market (Prada, massive jewelry and full make-up are not necessary), suburban people with young children in strollers gawking, stopping dead in their tracks to take photos. As I was leaving, I witnessed the downtown Embassy Suites shuttle van dropping off people. Despite the milling hordes, quite a few of the vendors did not seem to be selling much.
Image via Wikipedia
Until quite recently (i.e., until a year or so ago) the West Side Market had a kind of tacky, rundown charm, where poor people mingled with the middle class eastern European ethnic population of Cleveland’s west side, whose families had been patronizing the market for generations. George and I were relative newcomers, shopping there regularly only since 1983. But over time we have built lasting relationships with various of the vendors, whom I have now patronized and recommended to others for decades.
I know I sound like a grumpy old man, and I should be happy for the Market’s success. West 25th Street and the West Side Market are being promoted like crazy by the city and the other businesses on W.25th Street, and the street is no longer the sketchy and relatively dangerous place it once was. (The Jay Hotel and its unsavory cast of characters is long gone. The hookers and most of the drug dealers have moved on.) But over the last year, it has become such a hassle to park and shop at the Market, that it makes me not want to go there. It’s easier to go to Whole Foods. But the experience is not the same. Tourists are transient, and if the Market loses its historical Cleveland character, including its local shoppers, what will it have left? I hope it doesn’t become Disney-esque, like Legacy Village, Crocker Park or other “lifestyle centers.” It won’t be for real shopping by real people.
A Year Ago… EACC fire remembered
It was a year ago today in the early hours of the morning that fire destroyed Euclid Avenue Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ, which was my church home (and employer) for twenty-seven years. The fire began during a freak thunder and lightning storm late the night before. I’d had Rosie out for her last walk of the night, and I remember wanting her to finish her business because it was starting to thunder. I’d also had a series of annoying spam calls on my cell phone, so I had turned it off before I went to bed at midnight. Had I not done that, I would have been among the first (perhaps the first?) to get the call about the fire, since I live in close proximity to the place and occasionally would receive calls from the Cleveland Clinic security about issues at the church. As it was, I did not know anything until early the next morning.
This all took place the Wednesday before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. There was a meeting of church leaders and staff in the morning on Wednesday, and by the end of the day the church found a temporary home thanks to the congregation of the former First United Methodist Church, who had recently vacated the church to merge with the former Epworth Euclid United Methodist Church. It was quite a miracle—a spacious facility with a large pipe organ, grand piano, hymnals in the pews. The EACC congregation is still meeting there a year later as they determine their future as a church.
The impact to me personally was considerable, since the church’s organ was lost, as was the choir’s music library and much of my own personal organ music library. I received a very generous insurance settlement, and I have replaced a lot of the music; I also received several very generous gifts of organ music from professional colleagues. Almost every week, however, I still discover something else that is gone. And money alone can’t replace the personal nostalgia that I had for some of the music, with its accumulation of forty years of markings, fingerings, and teachers’ markings. Some of the music was falling apart; other things had never been played.
There have been, of course, many challenges since then, and I salute those church leaders who have worked so tirelessly over the past year. The year was not without conflict, but the EACC congregation continues to be the resilient body it has been for over 160 years.
There have been many changes in the past year: Rev. Terri Young, the Interim Pastor at the time of the fire, has moved on to a new situation; the church has called Rev. Courtney Clayton Jenkins as its permanent pastor; and I have retired from the church as its Director of Music, with the intention of not playing every Sunday.
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t still think about the old church, and the magnificent Karl Wilhelm organ, which can never be replaced at any price. It was a unique instrument in a specific environment. One of the wonders of being an organist is that one’s instrument is integral to the architecture in which it is installed. Sometimes that equation works; other times it’s out of kilter. The Wilhelm was a perfect fit.
As Isaac Watts’ hymn said, “time, like an ever-rolling stream,” keeps on going. We survive; things change; things get better or worse. All the tears in the world won’t bring back the past. Optimism for the future is what sustains us.
There will be a service of remembrance at the site, 9606 Euclid Avenue, tonight, March 23, 2011, at 6:00 PM.
Our God, hour help in ages past,
Our Hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
– Isaac Watts, 1674-1748
Cleveland’s famous Beckerath organ gets a boost with a $100K donation
Donor gives $100,000 to Trinity Lutheran Church’s Beckerath organ restoration fund
Published: Tuesday, January 04, 2011, 11:38 AM Updated: Wednesday, January 05, 2011, 10:46 AM
By Donald Rosenberg, The Plain Dealer
Thomas Ondrey, The Plain Dealer
Florence Mustric plays the Beckerath organ at Cleveland’s Trinity Lutheran Church. The instrument is undergoing a restoration that should be completed this year, thanks to a $100,000 contribution from an anonymous donor.An anonymous donor who loves Baroque organ music has pumped $100,000 into a fund supporting the restoration of the Beckerath organ at Trinity Lutheran Church on Cleveland’s West Side.
Until recently, the Beckerath Organ Restoration Fund stood at $142,000, about half the amount needed to refurbish the 1956 instrument. The $100,000 donation will enable the project to be completed this year, said organist Florence Mustric, who chairs Friends of the Beckerath.
Mustric said 92 percent of the $142,000 came “not in major gifts, but in small and modest donations over three years, ranging from a great many $1 bills to a few $1,000 checks.” The donors have comprised music lovers from across Northeast Ohio and the country, including members of the Organ Historical Society.
The church’s admired organ was built by Rudolph von Beckerath of Hamburg, Germany. It is being restored by Leonard Berghaus, founder of Berghaus Pipe Organ Builders in Bellwood, Ill., who was inspired to become an organ builder by Trinity’s Beckerath.
The instrument has been undergoing restoration in stages, as funding has allowed, since 2007. After a concert Sunday, Jan. 16 by organist David Tidyman, who’ll present a program titled “Bach as Visionary and Mystic,” pipes and several divisions of the Beckerath will go to Berghaus for restoration.
Mustric said this stage should be completed by April, after which the final stage, including renewal of the console, will follow.
The anonymous donor has been a fan of the Beckerath for two decades, said Mustric.
“When we first met, I expressed surprise that he knew nothing about it,” she said. “I said, ‘I have the keys to the candy store’ and invited him to come hear it and play it. His first words on hearing it were, ‘This is not the candy store.’ Stunned, I said, ‘No?’ He said, ‘This is no candy store – this is Fort Knox!’ ”
Mustric said the $100,000 donation will make it possible for her and Trinity organist and director of music Robert Myers to pursue foundation support for the restoration.
“Bob is speechless,” said Mustric of the $100,000 donation. “I’m stunned, but, as you see, I am not speechless, which is a good thing.”
Mustric and Myers alternate as soloists in free recitals on Wednesday afternoons in Trinity’s Music Near the Market series. The church is at 2031 West 30th St., Cleveland.
Congratulations to the indefatigable Florence Mustric on this great advance in preserving the historic Rudolph von Beckerath organ at Trinity Lutheran Church. It is one of the treasures of Cleveland’s musical culture.
Easter 2010 at Euclid Avenue Congregational Church in Exile
Easter Rainbow above the church in a clear sky
EACC Easter crowd on front church steps at E.30 & Euclid
Balloon flight 2010
The congregation of Euclid Avenue Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ celebrated Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010, in the sanctuary of the former First United Methodist Church, East 30th Street and Euclid Avenue, in downtown Cleveland. There was a very large crowd, and the enormous First Church sanctuary was well-filled.
It was a very festive service, and the grief of the previous twelve days was, at least temporarily, set aside to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ. There was festive music: Jean Langlais’s “Acclamations” for the organ prelude; Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia;” an arrangement by Mack Wilberg of “Sing Praise to God Who Reigns Above;” and, of course, the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s Messiah. The mighty Casavant organ got to sing at full volume with the energetic singing of the congregation.
Interim Pastor Terri Young gave a beautiful sermon about just as for the early followers of Jesus, it was necessary to pass through Good Friday in order to get to Resurrection Sunday. In the same way, EACC has passed through the death of the fire in order to be reborn into the new life that God has in store for the congregation.
Pastor Terri also baptized six or seven children, and there was Holy Communion. Rev. Curt Ackley, the Association Minister of the United Church of Christ Western Reserve Association, welcomed representatives from other Western Reserve Association churches who presented greetings from their congregations.
Following the service the congregation celebrated its traditional “Easter balloon release.” Prior to Easter, Sunday School students and other members of the congregation sign church-addressed postcards which are then attached to the strings of hundreds of helium balloons. After the service, each person is given a balloon, and the congregation assembles on the front steps of the church. In response to the Easter Acclamation, “The Lord is risen!” the congregation shouts, “The Lord is risen indeed!” and releases their balloons. This was a stunningly beautiful day, with a clear sky and a slight wind which took the balloons in a northeasterly direction. Just as the balloons were launched, the sun was hidden behind the church steeple and there was a mysterious “rainbow” or “corona” that appeared in the sky above us. Was it God renewing God’s rainbow covenant with our church? It did seem miraculous to have the colors of the rainbow at that particular moment.
The balloon launch was followed by a reception for all in the dining room of the church. After the somber tone of the Palm Sunday service and the palpable grief of just a week ago, it was good to see people set it aside, even momentarily. There is no doubt that there will be many challenges in the weeks, months and years ahead as the church decides on its future. But with God’s help, all is possible.
A few steps forward, a step backward
Since last Tuesday night after the EACC exterior walls were demolished, I have purposely not visited or driven by the site, in the same way I would avoid looking at a rotting corpse lying alongside the road. Today, however, our Wednesday mid-day services of prayer and healing resumed. The Cleveland Clinic has generously offered the church the use of their lovely chapel—very modern and quite stark, but full of light and visual interest—for the services. The clinic also offered grief and wholeness counseling to the attendees at the service. There was no way for me to get to the service without passing by the EACC site, and I knew it would be difficult.
On the way in I tried not to look, but after the service I intentionally stopped to observe the ongoing demolition and removal of debris. The demolition experts have found several artifacts (including some historical records that may or may not be able to be preserved because of water damage). Sitting on top of a lidded dumpster was one of my organ music books (I recognized it immediately—a volume of Bach organ music, a reprint of the Bach Gesellschaft edition by Dover). It was brittle and totally charred around the edges, beyond anything that could be considered useful. It disintegrated to the touch. Another member asked if I didn’t want it. No, I have no use for it. The book had a useful life once, but that life is now extinguished with the flames that burned it.
That was enough for me, and, frankly, I had to walk away to compose myself. It was time to return to work. There may be remnants of our past church life there, but I question the amount of energy that some may be expending to retrieve them. (It is, of course, not for me to say what is meaningful to others.) I guess it is part of the grief process, but for me, grasping at what is gone won’t help me move into the future.
I will routinely be walking that path to these services in the coming months. In a relatively short time the EACC site will be fully excavated and will again be green space, as it was in the 1860s when the church first built a structure on the place, when the area was at the far reaches of the city of Cleveland. Maybe the healing of the site will help with the healing of our hearts.
One week, post-fire. Life continues
The shell of the burned out church, taken 6:45 PM, March 23, 2010
Euclid Avenue Congregational Church engraved into the building
It has been a long and extraordinary week. I have had neither the time nor the inclination to update this blog until now, but I need to capture some of the events before they recede too far into memory and are lost.
By Tuesday morning last the fire at EACC was more or less under control, but only some of the exterior stone walls remained. The entire contents and interior structure of the church were destroyed. At 10:00 AM the church staff and some of the church lay leaders met at the Mount Zion United Church of Christ, our sister church near the Cleveland Veteran’s Administration hospital in University Circle, to start to discuss decisions to be made to move forward temporarily, including a place to hold Holy Week services. A representative of the church’s insurance agency was also present to discuss the church’s coverage. I had to leave the meeting shortly before 11:30 in order to get to the library for an important lunch meeting there. I confess that my mind was not on library business for the afternoon. Among other calls I received (because somehow my office number was listed and the media and others could not reach other church staff) was one from an agent from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agency of the U.S. government. It turns out that the ATF investigates all church fires. I also had calls from some very pushy reporters, one of whom from the Plain Dealer I more or less hung up on.
In the evening there was a special church service and congregational meeting called for 7:00 at Mount Zion. On my way I stopped to look at the church “corpse,” because I had heard that the remaining walls would be demolished overnight. There were a number of other church members also present to view the scene, as well as a constant parade of curiosity seekers driving by.
The service was brief, with a couple of hymns (“The Church’s One Foundation” and “Amazing Grace”), some scripture readings and a prayer during which members were invited first to name one thing that they had lost in the fire, then later to name one thing they hoped for the future. After the service, there was a brief meeting in which some announcements were made: that for at least the next two Sundays we would be holding services at the former First United Methodist Church at East 30th and Euclid in downtown Cleveland; that we would not hold Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services this year. There were some questions as well, although there were not yet many answers. After the meeting there were lots of hugs and tears. There was a full array of media covering the service and meeting.
I left Mount Zion a little after 9:00 and went to get something to eat—I’d had very little all day—and by the time I headed home a little before 10:00 I could see that the remaining walls of EACC were gone. I was exhausted.
The rest of the week combined trying to do library work with figuring out what would happen next with the music at the church. I needed to decide about music for Easter Sunday and figure out how we would have a choir rehearsal this week with no space. I received many messages of support from friends, former choir members, and from others interested in the church. There were offers of hymnals, choir robes (not accepted) and offers of loans of music for the choir (accepted gratefully), as well as offers of organ practice time. I have been overwhelmed by this outpouring of compassion.
The last picture of the Wilhelm organ at EACC, taken March 17, 2010
Although there were offers of choir rehearsal space from other churches, for this week I decided that we needed to be “family” and I hosted our regular Thursday rehearsal in my music room at home. It was good to have that sense of togetherness, even though the space is really too small for the sound that was coming out of the sixteen people assembled. People were very anxious about what would happen, and I did my best to reassure them, even though I’m not sure myself.
Throughout the week I kept thinking of pieces of music that were at the church that have some special meaning to me that can’t be replaced. Of course, the practical midwesterner in me knows that dwelling on what can’t be undone is not very productive, but I guess it’s going to happen whether I like it or not.
On Saturday the church staff and some of the lay leaders met at the First Church building to become oriented to the building and how it works. The sanctuary is vast. The organ (an older four-manual Casavant that was renovated at some point in the ’90s, I think, with a new French-style console) is quite impressive, in a totally different way from my beloved Wilhelm organ at EACC. But I keep telling myself, it’s a real pipe organ in a real church, and not an electronic keyboard in a hotel meeting room somewhere. I had about 40 minutes to practice on it—by no means not enough, but at least enough to get some idea of how to play a service on Sunday. George had driven in from DC to be with me and the EACC family for the weekend. I was glad to have him around to help keep me sane.
I managed to get it together to be at the new location by 8:30 on Sunday morning—Palm Sunday—so I had about twenty minutes to warm up on the organ. Other than the hymns and prelude (Max Reger’s “Benedictus”) I didn’t have to play much else, because the church’s Gospel Choir was also performing, along with the Chancel Choir, which sang Daniel Moe’s “Hosanna to the Son of David.” Since we had never sung in the space before, nor sung with the organ, I too the easy way out and accompanied them on the piano. The acoustic for the singers is quite strange and will take getting used to, as will singing in a much larger space. The temptation is to over-sing, but it’s not necessary. Despite everyone’s anxiety, the service went quite well, and there was a large crowd, including a panoply of media, who were discreet during the service.
Following the service I was interviewed at the organ by Leon Bibb from Cleveland’s ABC affiliate, Channel 5 WEWS. Leon is not only the evening news anchor but also an EACC member. He covered the fire from the beginning, and his coverage has been unfailingly tasteful. It must have been incredibly difficult for him to maintain his professional persona while being personally involved with the circumstances. In that we share something—despite my personal grief, it is my responsibility to help the choir and members of the congregation in their worship of God, so I have to set aside my feelings, at least for a while, to accomplish that goal.
In the afternoon, after George left for Washington, I was able to finally give myself the chance to unwind. I only wanted to sleep. My failed attempt to read resulted in a four hour nap.
So we have made it through Week One, post EACC. It has been difficult, but the outpouring of concern has been a blessing. Maybe it will get easier. I hope so.
Grief
To my friends near and far:
Overnight in the early hours of Tuesday, March 23, the Euclid Avenue Congregational Church in Cleveland, where I have been the director of music for the past 26 years, caught fire and was totally destroyed. I only have sketchy details at this time. This includes the magnificent Karl Wilhelm organ that I have been privileged to play.
Most of my personal organ music was stored there and was also destroyed. For me that is more devastating, and not because of financial loss, but it included music that goes back to my beginnings as an organist and music that contained markings from my beloved organ teachers who have taught me so much.
I am too overwhelmed to say more at this time, but please keep our congregation in your thoughts and prayers. The congregation was founded in 1843 and has suffered through adversity in the past. As a Christian I believe that God (or Allah, or Yahweh, or whatever word for the Almighty you want to use) will provide for the future.
Tim
My cultural weekend continues: Jonathan Moyer plays Messiaen's "Livre du Saint Sacrement"
My weekend musical bonanza continued this afternoon with an outstanding performance of Olivier Messiaen’s “Livre du Saint Sacrement” performed at the Church of the Covenant in Cleveland by Jonathan William Moyer, the church’s new organist and music director. The performance was give in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Messiaen’s birth. Moyer is a doctoral candidate at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and will be performing the work there next week, so this was the out-of-town try-out on the Covenant’s large Aeolian-Skinner organ. The organ sounded better than usual today; I noticed a large pile of red upholstered pew cushions in the corner–if they were banished permanently, that’s a good thing for the usually dry acoustics in the church. Messiaen’s organ music sounds best in a reverberant room.
“Livre du Saint Sacrement” is a daunting work in eighteen movements lasting a bit over two hours. The composer indicates an optional intermission following the eleventh movement, which Moyer observed. His performance was clear, cleanly played (if perhaps a bit conservative in tempos at times.) The organ worked surprising well with Messiaen’s registrational instructions. The notated birdsongs sang out not just from the chancel organ in the front, but sometimes from the antiphonal organ in the back of the church.
There was an unfortunately small audience—I’m guessing mostly Church of the Covenant members. Several whom I spoke to indicated that the organist had “coached” them in what to expect, with a lecture and film about Messiaen, and very complete program notes. (I had the benefit of my own copy of the score to follow, but the notes were also very helpful.)
The Church of the Covenant has made a good choice in their new organist, who must have had a bit of trepidation in following the very popular and brilliantly talented Todd Wilson who was in the position for most of the past twenty years. But Jonathan Moyer acquitted himself admirably today.
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra in Cleveland
I turned in my tickets for the Cleveland Orchestra concert on Friday night (Herbert Blomstedt conducting the Beethoven “Eroica” Symphony) in order to hear the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Tonu Kaljuste, at the Cathedral of St. John in downtown Cleveland. I made the right choice.
I have several recordings of the Estonian choir, notably music by fellow Estonian Veljo Tormis, but also a landmark recording of the Rachmaninov “All Night Vespers,” so I knew that they were good, but their performance was nothing short of phenomenal, with laser-like precision in sound and intonation. The Estonians make John Rutter’s Cambridge Singers and other famous choruses sound as if they are singing quarter-tone music. What was downright eerie was that the Estonians did not seem to be working very hard to do what they were doing. The discipline required cannot be underestimated.
The Estonian group has recorded much of the choral music by Arvo Pärt (probably the Estonian composer best known in the West), and the first half of this program was devoted to Pärt’s music. Only one of the works, “Da pacem Domine,” has been recorded. The find of this program was Pärt’s 2004-2005 work “L’Abbe Agathon,” a musical parable about an abbot who encounters a leper and demonstrates Christian charity. Sung in French, it was very moving. A soprano soloist sang the role of the leper, and a baritone soloist was the abbot. The choir were corporate narrators (in much the same way that the chorus is the narrator in Pärt’s “St. John Passion.”)
The second half opened with an instrumental work by Erkki-Sven Tüür, “Action, Passion, Illusion,” which was also striking, especially the central “Passion” movement, which moved from low string polyphony upward through the string orchestra, ending in an unsettling high string cluster.
The remainder of the program was devoted to Antonio Vivaldi’s setting of Psalm 112, “Beatus vir” for strings, continuo, soloists and choir. The virtuoso soloists were all drawn from the choir.
As I’ve written before here, I think that there are in general too many standing ovations in Cleveland, but this is one concert that I can honestly and vigorously say deserved the ovation the performers received. The audience was rewarded with an encore, a meltingly beautiful arrangement of an Estonian Christmas carol, mostly for women’s voices with strings, but in the end with the men humming along on the tune.
This concert has to be considered one of the top concerts of this season. Cathedral music director Greg Heislman is to be congratulated and thanked for bringing the Estonians. (The concert was also co-sponsored by the Cleveland Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.)
Twenty-five years at Euclid Avenue Congregational Church
On Sunday, November 2, 2008, I celebrated twenty-five years as Director of Music at Euclid Avenue Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ, in Cleveland, Ohio. I began there (as Interim Director) on November 1, 1983. During that time I have survived three permanent ministers, at least that many interim ministers, associate pastors, directors of Christian Education, secretaries, and custodians. What better way to celebrate than to give a recital? You can download the program. (PDF). (Audio samples forthcoming)
The church publicity committee did a good job of getting the word out, and there were between 75 and 100 people present, including a fair number that I didn’t recognize, and some friends whom I would not have expected to see.
I am never fully satisfied with my own playing, but it went reasonably well. There are always things to improve. George turned pages for me and pulled stops in several of the pieces, especially the Messiaen “Apparition”. It is (I think) more nerve-wracking to turn pages and pull stops than it is to perform. But he was very confident and things came off without a hitch.
After the concert there was a lovely reception in the church parlor, with spoken tributes by several people. I am pleased to say that the church is taking up an “anniversary collection” on my behalf that will be used for scholarships for persons wishing to study organ. It is a wonderful idea–much better than a gift to me; I have more than enough of my own. The church also commissioned a quite amusing iron sculpture that is a caricature of me playing the organ and conducting at the same time. Everyone should have a statue! I may not have an Oscar, but I still have a statue.
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