Good King Wenceslas

When I first "discovered" the organ at the late age of 16, and decided IMMEDIATELY after hearing the Choir of New College, Oxford sing 30 seconds of William Byrd's motet, "O sing joyfully," Virgil Fox, E. Power Biggs and Helmut Walcha were the only organists that I knew of.

When I had "convinced" my parents that this is what I was going to do, my father, welder/pipe-fitter relented, and we thought about purchasing the smallest Rodgers organ - the 110.

My mother made some phone calls, and we went out to Altenburg's Piano House in Elizabeth, NJ to look at them. While there, and I had a chance to play the big Rodgers 990 that was in the showroom. It was sort of like Virgil Fox's touring organ, so, it must be the greatest organ in the world.

It so happened that Fox was going to play a concert in the next few weeks, and afterwards I would get to meet him, and MAYBE, play for him. I knew nothing at the time, really did not read music, but I had "learned" the "Prelude in B-flat" from the "Bach 8 Little", so, I was all set... ;-)

Well, I did meet him, and I did play for him. He was a bit, well, "Fox-like". He turned to me and said, "So, the Lamb meets the Fox, eh?!?" Bill W., the salesman "presenting" me said, "Oh no, Virgil, you've got that wrong! It should be the Fox meets the Lamb!"

He told me to the play the pedal solo again, and then said to the salesman: "William, I think you may me be right! THIS boy may have something to show us after all!"

And my father decided that I'd already shown "Dr." Fox enough... ;-)

Virgil Fox (1912-1980), one of the leading organists of the 20th century did these Christmas carol arrangements for his own recording in the 60's, and they were published in the book, "At the Organ with Virgil Fox," published by H.W.Gray/Warner Bros. in 1994.

As much as I do like this organ, the non-multi sampled releases are exceptionally unfortunately annoying...