Worship Weblog
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Organist Retires; Organ Recovers?
Commenting on the NY Times’ recent tribute to John Weaver, retiring organist of New York City’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, Martin Marty writes:
... after a couple of decades of decline in the number of organ majors in schools around the country, there are signs now of some recovery. My prejudices, which allow me to hope for some success stories, formed because I am the son of a church organist and the sibling of other organists, and a beneficiary of friendship and tutelage by the likes of Morgan Simmons, Paul Manz, and too many others to mention. My soul is fed even when listening to an organist practice in an empty church on a Saturday afternoon, and I can be stunned and then lifted
up, full of awe, by organs in worship, whether in tiny Iowa town churches or great cathedrals.Today electronic guitars and drums replace organs in many, but not all, megachurches because they make sounds and use rhythms that exactly duplicate what one hears in the rest of the mall. ... many argue that well-done, adaptive, and also contemporary organ music finds its following and enhances worship.
Related: CICW has posted a Nicholas Wolterstorff address on the organ in Reformed liturgy
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