Memorial Church To Ring in 75th Year

The sound of hollow footsteps heightens the chill of the room in Memorial Church. A hooded female figure, carved in stone, mourns over a fallen soldier. In the stone walls, cool to the touch, 691 names of Harvard’s World War II dead form grooves that welcome grieving, searching fingers.

Suddenly, an organ sounds.

On Sunday, the church will mark its 75th anniversary and commemorate the war dead once again. Those who work and worship in the church will remember a tradition that has survived four wars: music.

Harvard was founded in 1636 to train young ministers. Even after the institution ended mandatory chapel attendance in the mid-1880s, Harvard remained strongly Protestant. In response to a growing turnout, the University built a total of four chapels, including Appleton Chapel in 1855.

Eventually, the congregation outgrew the chapel. On Armistice Day 1932, Memorial Church, built on the site of Appleton Chapel, was dedicated in memory of those who died in World War I.

On Sunday, a Protestant service will mark that date, and worshippers will proceed to a lunch in front of the Science Center—led during their walk by a bagpiper.

“I think the main function of music is to enhance the worship,” said Edward E. Jones, Harvard’s head organist and choirmaster.

Appleton Chapel, rebuilt as a room in Memorial Church, now houses the choir and organist.

“I love the wonderful old dark wood atmosphere and the intimacy,” said Christine E. Whiteside, staff assistant at Memorial Church. “When people gather there to worship, you really have a sense of being a small intimate community.”

There, the Isham organ reclines against the back wall, surrounded by rows of pews that the choir typically occupies.

The organ was built in 1967 by a Harvard physicist. The pipes, of varying sizes, resemble faces with elongated foreheads and tiny rectangular mouths. Gold metalwork laces the perimeters, and a small mirror propped at an angle allows the organist to see the conductor behind him or her.

Despite the organ’s apparent obsolescence. Jones believes its age enhances the music it plays.

“The very fact is that most pieces of organ music was written for churches,” Jones said. The choir, an integral part of any service, uses literature that is most often written with the organ in mind.

Jones was a cathedral chorister in England, and there he learned to play the organ. He began playing at Memorial Church in 2003.

Down the hall from Appleton Chapel is the office of Harry L. Huff, associate organist and choirmaster.

Huff, seated before his computer on which he arranges music, is surrounded by rows of books, photos of friends and premier organists, and a lamp in the shape of a cat, its innards expected to glow when switched on. A closet, door ajar, holds recordings of the choir.

“It’s a cozy little nook, steps from the organ,” Huff said.

Next to it is a flight of stairs that leads up to the choral library. This dank space, with the pert smell of cement, has high, downward-sloping ceilings. Choir secretaries who serve as librarians of the literature. Metal shelves holding alphabetized black boxes full of music sheets lined the intricately latticed wooden wall that the choral library shares with Appleton Chapel.

Through the wall, Huff can glimpse the chapel’s organ.