When I mentioned to Eileen that my boss’s visiting Dad had commented that my Widor sounded very clean (He also said it was always good go hear “Charles”…. ???? Ooooo. Charles Marie Widor) Eileen said that it sounded cleaner on Sunday morning than it had on Saturday evening at the Vigil. Off hand remarks like this are often helpful as they usually are made with candor (this is true in Eileen’s case most if not all of the time). I admit to finding it satisfying to hear since I have spent the last week playing through this worn old warhorse very slowly on flutes. I came to realize that if played with the metronome marking in my part the staccatos would be lost in any sort of  acoustic with reverberation. I played it a tad under tempo and allowed my week of work to take care of the very quick staccatos. Apparently this worked.

I admit I didn’t do much research on the correct tempo for this piece. On Facebook, a fellow musician referred admiringly to his assitant’s performance of it as “not too fast.” I hope mine wasn’t as well. And I would love to have a hotshot assistant to pawn off my postlude on big feasts like Easter.

As it is the choral anthem for Easter Sunday morning looked very challenging to me to learn on the organ and play and conduct.

Especially the ending:

However, with a little practice it turned out not to be hard. Even that little pedal trill didn’t stop my conducting. I did have to put both hands on the manuals for most of the final measure, but still it came out fine.

After church, Eileen and I dashed off to her Mom’s house for the annual Hatch Easter egg hunt.

I love having a phone to take pictures with.

Well, I’m out of time and have to get ready to go play ballet class. Only three more weeks or so of this. Looking forward to a break from it. But I do like it.