Back on the bench

Today I was back on the bench in Duke Chapel, playing for a noon-time demo on the Flentrop following a six-month hiatus. In Freiburg, I devoted my practice time almost exclusively to two pieces: Mendelssohn's sixth organ sonata, and Franck's Grand Pièce Symphonique. I told myself the latter was off limits today, since I didn't have anyone to pull stops for me--but who am I to listen to myself? I succumbed to the ethereal second movement. Alas, my pitiful registrations were anything but French, and I've clearly been spoiled by the swell box and sequencer on the Rieger organ at St. Petrus Canisius in Freiburg.

On the bright side, practically no one was in the Chapel to hear the Franck--or is that the down side?--and those who were there probably didn't know the timbres that should have been. And if failed registrations on a four-manual, 5033-pipe organ are my greatest disappointments (after the Second Amendment and global warming), my life must be pretty good.