Playing To Open The Recital

Mary Ann, a piano teacher, attends our Mid-Week Bible Study. She is an excellent pianist who has occasionally accompanied our daughter, a soloist, in the church service. She said that Mary Ann never plays from the original score but arranges her music to suit her own taste.

One evening Mary Ann announced that her piano students would be having a piano recital and it would be in White Rock Baptist Church. She wanted her Bible Study Group to assist her in presenting the program, by supplying an announcer, a greeter, a host and guest artist. She asked me to open the program with the bagpipes, to which I happily consented. I would soon appreciate the high caliber of her students.

To play the pipes for an audience in a sanctuary so well noted for its fine acoustics was an honor and Mary Ann’s invitation to open the program was exciting. In fact, the Welsh Men’s Choir chooses this venue every year because of its fine acoustics. A gentleman who sings with me in our church choir also sings in the Welsh Men’s Choir.

I entered the stage from the right side, playing “Highland Cathedral,” and marched across several times. I was absolutely entranced by the sound’s fullness. The whole sanctuary was filled with the bagpipes’ harmonics. Never, have I experienced such richness of tone as I did that afternoon. It was a wonderful feeling and I could have desired to continue playing. However, I realized this was not my recital but that of Mary Ann’s piano students. I stepped down a few steps to conclude the anthem. The group of 15 piano students arranged themselves around me to lead everyone in Mary Ann’s beautiful arrangement of our National Anthem, “O Canada!” Obviously, the singers were accomplished musicians and maneuvered gracefully through the intricacies of Mary Ann’s ingenious arrangement. We were about to hear some amazing young pianists. Mary Ann’s students were gifted and it was certain that they practiced conscientiously. They needed no sheets of music. It was well memorized and would have consisted of many pages. They were disciplined and polite, because they bowed before and after every presentation.

When the recital was over and after the students presented their parents with roses, we were in the reception. A lady took me by the arm and said she thought “Highland Cathedral was a beautiful song, and because her husband missed it, she was “really in hot water with him now.” He had asked her if she thought he should attend this music recital and she had advised him, “there wouldn’t be anything there for him and he might as well stay home and relax.” That’s what he did. He’s the gentleman who sings in the Men’s Welsh Choir and who told me many times, that his favorite piece of music is “Highland Cathedral,” especially when played on the bagpipes. Now, she would have to go home and tell him that he missed his favorite selection and that she was terribly sorry she had given him the wrong piece of advice. It was a beautiful compliment however, that she would tell me she enjoyed it, and that her husband would have too, if he had been there. I enjoyed playing so much in that acoustically perfect sanctuary that I could have played a whole concert if it had been the right thing to do. It would be a wonderful experience!