The Amorous Organ

Performed at Valentine’s Day Lunchtime Organ Concert 2005

(Organ plays extract from ‘Air on a G String’)

Please don’t blame the candles, Mother.
Please don’t blame the wine.
His ‘Air upon a G string,’ Mother,
truly was divine.

(Extract from Air on a G String moving into the sound of two pipes set on one note.)

Two pipes set on one note beat heart to heart.
They meet in air to kiss then fall apart.

(Voix celeste on the swell to fade away)

“Be still”, the organ cried, “Be still my heart.
Oh is there no one who can tell my part?

His soft shoe shuffle massages my spine
without a doubt this organist is mine.”

Before performances he sits and stares,
exploring buttons, slowly he prepares.

He sets the tone. His fingers ride the keys
as scales move in and out on notes that please.

He feels each movement. When the moment’s ripe,
as all those warm vibrations fill each pipe

they offer him the tutti of their frame.
He bows, then leaves. The organ calls his name.

(Music that will make audience think of unrequited love. .. possibly The street where you live from My Fair Lady.)

She took the bus to Birmingham
She sat here in this hall.
She heard each organ concert.
She had to see them all.

He never knew she worshipped him,
he never knew she cared.
He took his seat upon the stage.
She sighed, she cried, she stared.

She took the train to Gloucester,
flew first class to Milan
She went by coach to Chartres,
hitched a lift to Notre Dame.

And when he played Vienna
I’m sure that you can guess – she bought herself a ticket
on the Orient Express.

Then someone said, ‘He’s married’.
She cried the rivers dry
until a man behind her
dared to tell her in a sigh,

“I followed you to Hereford,
to Lichfield and to Leeds” – His voice, a broken baritone
came whistling through the reeds.

“Oh, come and hear my organ.
Let us leave here in my car.
We’ll make our own appointment
with a wedding registrar.

If we could live in Blackpool
Oh, how happy I would be
to live beside your side
beside the sea.”

(Music: ‘I do like to be beside he seaside’)

Come the night let them dance. Come the night let them sing.
The new moon shines gold. On his finger – her ring.
Let children, unnoticed drain glasses of dregs.
Let aunties with broad smiles kick can-cans of legs
as Dads raise their pints up in loud clinking cheers
to drink back the rounding of memory’s years.

Come the night let them dance. Come the night let them sing.
The new moon shines gold. On her finger – his ring.
A great aunt in flat shoes retires to her bed
to lay down with lovers long distant and dead
as young girls in high heels trip tart trotting stuff
and mothers’ stage whispers cry, “Girls. That’s enough!”

Come the night let them dance. Come the night let them sing.
The new moon shines gold in the hold of each ring.
As rockin’ and jiving’ turns hip-hop to trance
rhythm’s a rocking chair left out to dance
on the feet of a porch. Let it croon its own tune.
We will lift up our hearts to the moon.

(Music: ‘Harvest Moon’, ‘By the light of the silvery moon’ or similar)

Let us drink to Hippocrene and bless
this Bride, this Groom upon their wedding day.
Come Polyhymnia sing your sacred songs.
Come weave your words of love, sweet Euterpe.

Sisters of the well of Helicon,
hear the organ sound that fills the air.
Muses, sing the music of this love
she treads so gently on.

On many mellow Autumn afternoons
may aurum rays shine through Renaissance skies
and stars still shine the sea that moves eternity
inside this Bride, inside this Bridegroom’s eyes.

Let words of celebration ring the day
as they first vow to have
and then, to hold.
May those who rose in Love’s assumption once

- who in their winter loving now grow old,
feel flesh rise up inside the grace notes
of this altar dance where love moves on… ethereal.

(Wedding music )

The organ, past repair, has now been stripped
down, carried off in parts to who knows where.
How can something so substantial be ripped
away? Where there were pipes; the walls are bare.
A church of silent air rings loud today;
hymn books stand sentry by the doors, orders
of service behind them. I make my way
upwards to the organ loft where the stairs
grow steeper now. A banister tells me
the warmth that once was your hand. I pause – collect my thoughts – breath runs quickly
out before me, no longer finding yours.
My ears hear rain erode each gargoyled face,
my eyes take in your loft this empty space.

(hold silence for a moment)

Light another candle, Father, pour your cup of wine;
the organ swells,
my heart excels.
We sing of love divine.

(Love Divine all Love excelling)