Keeping busy

I’ve now been here about a month and I’m getting used to having the responsibility of playing whole services. Obviously as we approach Easter it’s a lot busier than normal from last Sunday to next Sunday I will have played at 8 services. It would have been 9 but there was a poor cut on the island we were meant to go to on Sunday afternoon so the service was cancelled. That was a great shame as I was looking forward to another “adventure” - we had to hire a ferry for the journey across, there are apparently no roads on the island and it was a harmonium that I was to try and play. I was confident (or let’s say optimistic!) that I’d be able to work out how to play it but I had a Johannus One with me just in case.

The services in the Old Folks’ Homes are fairly straight forward - I play a short piece before and afterwards and there are usually 2 or 3 hymns during. I try and listen as much as I can to the readings and the talk to see how much I can pick up. I can generally get an idea of the reading by one or two key words that I know. I still work away with Duolingo everyday but alas “she does not have a phone” is yet to come up in any conversations I’ve been party to… The minister announces each of the hymns so there is no stress involved at all.

The services in the church are much more complicated - and seem to be getting more complicated each week. Palm Sunday’s service was in Hestad Church is between Bjørn and Herøy - initially the area was assigned to Herøy parish but the travel by sea to Herøy could be difficult so a request was made for a new church. Once permission was given the church was built mainly by volunteers and the interior was decorated with gifts from locals. It was opened in 1913. Apparently it is a bit under threat at the moment because of a lack of runnning water/ facilities. However even the lack of these basics does not prevent kaffe and kake after the service. I appreciate this :-)

One of the pictures attached to this post shows my idiot’s guide that I used at Hestad church on Sunday. The upshot of this complication is that I can have 3 or 4 books up on the music stand all at once - the hymn book with the music/ the hymn book with the text/ the liturgical music and the pamphlet which is hopefully keeping me right. Even then it can still be a bit hit and miss - there was a section with 4 prayers that required me to play a response for the congregation to sing with so it was really a case of me listening to the pitch of the minister‘s voice to judge when to play. Fortunately he is very good and seemed to go ok (or everybody was too polite to mention my mistakes!)

As I’ve mentioned before none of the organs are the same here so the challenge is to have different music for each church (or almost) and I’m really enjoying learning lots of new pieces. It‘d be v easy to play music by Bach etc (which is after all where my heart lies) but I do try to perform a variety of composers so over the next few days there will be music by Dandrieu, L. Couperin, Brahms, Guilmant, Stanford and others.

There is some very wonderful music composed for Passiontide so I’m planning to put out a wee programme on Good Friday (15th Apri) on Facebook and YouTube which will feature music by Hesse, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Parry.

On Monday I went for a delightful walk up the hill just beside Dønnes Kirke. The weather has been pretty grim on Sunday but it was a bright day and a very healthy walk was had. There is a cafe at the top of the hill, Dønnesfjellstua, but alas it is temporarily closed. Stunning views are to be had from the top of the hill and apparently it is a great viewpoint for watching the midnight sun when the time comes. Very much looking forward to that!