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Andrew was most amused on one occasion to be asked by a prospective bridegroom if they could have a hymn that was taken out of the hymn book used at his work place. And the hymn was..........."Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning"...........and the place where he worked was the local...............CREMATORIUM! People often KNOW what they want played at their wedding............but do they KNOW the proper title to the piece of music they are referring to? Well on this one occasion the youth worker and his prospective bride, as church people, had plainly attended dozens of weddings where this particular recessional voluntary had been played...........but DID they know what it was called? Before you guess...........the couple actually meant to ask for the "toccata" taken from Widor's Fifth Symphony for organ and it was the final movement. The request for the "Hallelujah Chorus" was a rather sticky one. The request came to Andrew via the bride's mother. She was anxious to have this chorus played of course, even though there was to be no choir. The bride's mother visited church on a Sunday before the wedding and Andrew played the "Hallelujah Chorus" over to her.............but she was NOT happy with it.....and why.........because it didn't sound very like the "Hallelujah Chorus". It took a little explaining to tell her that it didn't sound exactly like the chorus because..........THERE WAS NO CHOIR SINGING IT! Andrew had done his best to incorporate the four parts of the choir with the accompaniment but there was only so much he could do on that score! Organists can do many things to accommodate the various requests (reasonable and the less reasonable - as this proved to be!) made by wedding parties........but there will always be one that proves too difficult to conjure up however clever they are! The daft thing here was.........the church concerned had a VERY competent choir who could have performed the chorus for them if only they had been asked!
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Updated: 02 January 2009
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