As we speak, our parish is getting its new organ installed. We are upgrading from your standard-issue electronic church organ to an honest to goodness old-fashioned pipe organ. (That's like trading in your old economy Ford sedan for a high-end classic sports car.) We are talking hundreds of pipes here. Over a thousand actually. It takes a couple of weeks to tune all of them, but it should be ready by Easter Vigil. Apparently the organ's former home was in an Episcopal parish in Massachusetts, which was getting its own replacement. Another welcome convert, you could say.
The installation is providing the parish and its choir with an opportunity to explore some of the a-cappella musical gems produced by the Church, mostly from before the Marty Haugen era.
Good stuff.
While we are on our classical instruments kick, the parish also invested in a cute little harpsichord for the chapel. My husband discusses it here. For those of you who have never heard a harpsichord, I recommend that you watch the film Amadeus, in which the instrument features prominently. It looks very much like a piano, but its unique sound is due to the fact that the strings are plucked, as opposed to piano strings which are hit by hammers.
The social, cultural, spiritual, political, academic, and literary rantings of a slightly strange Catholic English teacher.
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