The first chord of the longest organ song ever was struck on February 5, 2003, the next change of tone is scheduled for July 2008, the final in 2639

This morning I was blessed with the amazing opportunity to hear a professional organ performer do what he loves for a great audience, and that’s putting it in the tiniest, neatest little box I could probably manage, unless, of course, one forced me to sum it up in one word, which would have to be me hopping up and down making one of those high-pitched, excited squeeling noises often stereotypically associated with youthful teen females when they find that their boy-band heart throb is playing a concert near them, to which they have the best tickets in the house, backstage VIP pass included. If I have not already made it clear in my possibly vague allusions in early entries, I am quite fond of the organ, and getting to hear OWU’s little beauty put through her paces was wonderful. Hearing her during German, as she admittedly ruins my attention span, is great, but that’s usually just a few bars drifting in, and never for very long. Huw Lewis, whose organ playing skills and merits did a tidy job of covering half of the back of the modest program when put into a shorthanded biography, gave a magnificent one hour treat to the American Guild of Organists and the handful of ‘townies’ and other outsiders such as myself and my Grandmother. Ou s’en vont, ces gais bergers by Claude Balbadtre started us off, and though I have absolutely no idea what that line of French says, and I’m rather sure I could find out with a minute of Googling, it was absolutely lovely. But, to be honest, things only got better. Mozart’s Fantasia in F minor and major followed by Bach’s Sonata no. 6 in G major? Brilliant. I seriously thought that there was no conceivable way that Lewis could outdo this, but then, of course, he did the ever so kind thing of taking that thought and easily brushing it aside just after pausing to adjust the pistons in the organ; Sonata on the Ninety-Fourth Psalm by Julius Reubke was moving beyond words. The floor literally shook with the power of the music, but even as the organ belted out these amazing notes, one had to recall the sweet, soft, bird-like whistling it had done not too long before. Such a magnificent instrument! Lewis received a well deserved and exuberant standing ovation at the end of it all, and from the satisfied twinkle in his eye, one could tell that he’d also had a marvelous time despite the sweltering heat. (The main disadvantage of the otherwise fabulous University Hall is its total lack of air conditioning, which, when the temperatures are soaring in the nineties, can be quite brutal. It does have a heating system, though, which makes interesting thumping noises that more than one professor has jokingly labeled as the ghosts of problem students, but more on OWU ghosts another day!)
The concert ended at ten, leaving my grandmother and me with plenty of time to wander into the downtown area on Sandusky Street. We walked along, relishing in the liveliness of the city, stopping in a few shops along the way, and simply enjoying ourselves. Super finds of the day include nice yet inexpensive butterfly pins, and oak leaf hair thinggummer from the Global Village store, and two antique teacups and saucers, neither of which match, but who really wants a fully matching set anyway? Once I finally arrived back home I made myself some (read: quite a bit of) tea and somehow managed to take pleasure in sipping it outside in the ninety-two degree heat while perusing the latest issue of the Newsweek magazine. (I admit to becoming addicted to Newsweek during my high school days with an enthusiastic and extremely eccentric economics, history, and social studies teacher who always had the latest issue about to use during any and all of his classes.)

German Word: As far as I’m concerned, the organ is the Koenig (ker-nig) and Koenigin of all instruments, meaning that I think it the King and Queen thereof. I have heard the term Kaiser falsely translated more than once as being ‘king,’ but I feel the term is more precisely ‘emperor,’ particularly since it is derived from our dear olde emperor Julius Caesar’s name.

Pictures! A few of the organ concert, namely of Huw Lewis, the nice fellow that turned his pages for him, and the lovely Ohio Wesleyan University organ in Grey Chapel. Sandusky street was lined with four tour buses of Organ and music enthusiasts on the ‘tour’ of Columbus organs with the AGO, so do enjoy my quick snapshot of those not long before they pulled away for their next destination of the day. Also note my teacup purchased during my day in Delaware, filled at that time with some of my blue spring oolong tea, which is quite excellent, no matter the season.