A job and a half by Edward Picton-Turbervill

THE EAGLE Music at St John’s

A job and a half Edward Picton-Turbervill (2012) is in his second year reading Music at St John’s.

He was a chorister at Winchester Cathedral and went on to study at Eton.

He spent a gap year as an organ scholar in New Zealand and enjoys scuba diving and hiking. And music.

I’ve just finished my first year as organ scholar at St John’s. It’s an enormous privilege to be part of such a rich tradition, and also a great responsibility. I am acutely aware of the long list of very fine musicians who have sat on this organ bench before me, and my strongest motivation is the desire to prove myself worthy to be counted among my predecessors. For those who want to pursue a career in cathedral music, St John’s provides the best and fullest training imaginable. For those who want to work in another field, the organ scholarship provides an ideal foundation; it demands rigour, adaptability and self-discipline.

MUSIC AT ST JOHN’S

It is hard to emphasise enough the prevalence of Oxbridge organ scholars in the English musical world; I have been completely surrounded by them since I was young. I was a chorister with Andrew Lumsden, Philip Scriven and David Hill, all three of whom had previously been organ scholars of St John’s. At Eton, my organ teacher had been an organ scholar at King’s and my piano teacher an organ scholar at Christ Church, Oxford. I am a musician because of these people and I hope that I will, in turn, pass on what they have taught me to the next generation.

I’ve come up with a few words that I associate with the organ scholarship, and I’m going to write a little about each of them.

The organ Organs are possibly the most idiosyncratic of instruments. Since so much money and effort is spent building an organ, each organ is unique, highly individualised and closely reflective of prevailing fashions. Ours is the same age as me, and I often like to think that I’ve aged slightly better – hardly a day goes by without something going wrong with the organ. It suddenly stopped working three days before my first live broadcast on BBC Radio Three and, although the problem was quickly fixed, it made the broadcast more nerve-wracking than it might otherwise have been!

Unlike many modern organs, ours has a purely mechanical transmission of information between the keys and the pipes, which brings with it both advantages and disadvantages. Playing the organ is an intensely physical experience, and it’s quite pleasing to have a strong connection to the magnificent sound for which you’re responsible. On the other hand, at the end of a long playing session, I often come away in quite a lot of pain; the action is so heavy that it’s easy to let

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Photography: Ben Wright

THE EAGLE Music at St John’s

tension creep into your shoulders and wrists. An organ is like a painter’s palette – there are almost innumerable possibilities for blending sounds together, and the better you know an instrument, the less the distance between your imagination and the sound you can produce. Other than my bed, the organ bench is where I spend the most time, and I feel a strong personal connection to the instrument; we work together very closely!

Freddie and Andrew I spend more time with my senior organ scholar, Freddie James, than with anyone else, so it’s lucky that we get on well. Every organ scholar brings a unique flavour to the job – Freddie is an inspirational player and one of the finest interpreters of Baroque organ repertoire that Cambridge has seen for a long time. By contrast, I hope that I might be remembered for my improvisation, though I still have a lot to learn. The organ scholars look after one another and there’s a huge store of wisdom in the collective memory, written into copies and kept alive by word of mouth. Our Director of Music, Andrew Nethsingha, was himself an organ scholar at John’s, so he is extraordinarily understanding about the difficulties of the job.

I think that under his leadership the Choir sounds as good as it ever has and his vision ensures that we are continually tackling large projects that keep us at the forefront of the choral world. The three of us work together very closely and watch each other’s backs like hawks – if one person goes down, it’s very difficult for everyone.

MUSIC AT ST JOHN’S

The Gents The Gents, drawn from the undergraduates at St John’s, sing the lower parts in the Choir. It’s a very tight-knit community and there’s not much point trying to keep any secrets as they’re normally weaselled out pretty quickly. Other than love and war, I think that making music together is about as intimate a bonding experience as you can hope for. In a good performance you bare your soul to the other performers, and in the very best choirs all the individuals meld together into a whole. It’s exhilarating to be part of an engine made up of so many people, all of whom understand each other’s intentions so exactly. When the Choir is singing, it’s almost as if you can tune into the frequency of the collective and then just allow yourself to become a part of it. That’s a rare thing and part of the reason that the St John’s Choir is world famous. I think it’s also the reason we appear cliquey in the pub!

The choristers We rely on the choristers’ unbroken voices to provide the top line of the music.

Freddie and I walk over to the College School at 7.45am from Tuesdays to Fridays to teach the youngest choristers what they need to know to be part of the Choir.

This is not conducive to the normal university experience, but it seems to me that there’s nothing worse than trying to control eight-year-olds early in the morning if you’re exhausted, so it’s a good incentive to go to bed on time!

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Music at St John’s THE EAGLE

Our relationship with the choristers is a strange one. I find pretending to be a strict teacher one of the most difficult parts of the job, partly because it feels like only two minutes since I was in their position. You’re never more than three years away from total disaster in a boys’ choir and because so much gets passed on from the older choristers to the younger ones, the job Freddie and I perform carries a great weight of responsibility.

Responsibility Teaching the choristers is only one of the many aspects of considerable responsibility that come with the organ scholarship. Broadcasts and recordings are some of the most frightening, since they concern the reputation of the Choir.

I don’t mind so much if people say ‘Ed is a bad organist’, but it would really upset me to hear someone say ‘the St John’s organ scholar isn’t up to much this year’.

The Choir’s reputation has been building for more than half a century and it doesn’t take a huge amount in the musical world to shatter a reputation, since gossip is so rampant. We also have a responsibility to ensure that the Choir is able to perform at its best, by providing a faultless accompaniment that not only supports the singers but also lifts them higher.

Challenge The best bit about the organ scholarship is the constant challenge. It’s never enough just to rest on your laurels, and there’s always work to be done.

We frequently have to learn new skills – the Choir has just got back from Denmark, where I was playing the fortepiano (the precursor to the piano) with a professional orchestra. Though I had never done anything like this before, the

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MUSIC AT ST JOHN’S

Commitment The only way to ensure that we match up to what’s expected of us is by committing to it fully. Someone once said to me that it would be an act of extreme selfishness to take this organ scholarship and then not commit to it wholeheartedly, given how many other organists would love the opportunity.

It’s not easy trying to balance a degree with the demands of Chapel, and contrary to many people’s beliefs the two are independent, although we do learn transferrable skills. I try to practise for at least two hours a day, teach the choristers for an hour most mornings and sit through or take part in at least two hours of rehearsals and services every day except Monday. The Chapel is so busy that often the only time to practise is late into the night and I struggle to be selfdisciplined on Sundays and late on Friday and Saturday nights (the weekend is by far the hardest part of the week) when all my friends are enjoying time off.

We often go on tour in the holidays (which is enormous fun) and I frequently come back several weeks before term begins to prepare for the term ahead. It is a large time commitment, but nothing that is worth doing is ever easy and it is certainly possible to balance it with the degree. Indeed, a recent King’s organ scholar, Ben-San Lau, managed to come top of his year in his finals.

THE EAGLE Music at St John’s

College arranged some lessons for me with an expert and it was tremendous fun.

My conducting is also steadily improving with help from Andrew – when I first conducted at school, I was so nervous that I fainted during the rehearsal!

Of course sometimes we perform pieces of music that are not terribly challenging, but lots of it stretches me to the limits of my ability, musically and technically. There’s a great joy to playing when you know a piece of music well enough to stop worrying about mistakes, a rare luxury given the amount of music we get through here. You can disengage your conscious mind from the part of the brain that is concerned with making your fingers and feet work and then inhabit the music fully. I find playing a good piece of Bach that I know well an almost out-of-body experience, one that removes me from all the ordinary concerns of life.

The Chapel It’s easy to forget the reason why the Choir is here, which makes it all the more important to remember! I grew up surrounded by the great cycle of the Liturgical year and it’s as much a part of me as the seasons. I love the thought that we are the living embodiment of a tradition that originated nearly 3,000 years ago in the Middle East. It’s sad that at St John’s we don’t get to celebrate the entire year in the Chapel, and I deeply miss the beautifully balanced stream of festivals and observances.

MUSIC AT ST JOHN’S

Nonetheless, there are still wonderful moments of spirituality, and I see the ultimate aim of the organ scholarship as enabling the congregation to get as close to God as they can. When I’m exhausted and would rather be doing other things, I always try to remind myself that there could be someone in the congregation whose partner has just died, or who has just been told they have cancer.

That’s one of the reasons we sing evensong day in, day out – so that when someone needs solace, we are there to provide it. And if I’ve helped just one person to come to terms with bad news, then it’s all been worth it.

Edward Picton-Turbervill

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