“You want me to sit WHERE?” I asked incredulously.

“Yes, sit on the right side of the bench. You’ll have an easier time of it!”

All these years I have sat in the middle of the organ bench and all these years I have told my organ students to always sit in the same place on the bench, the middle! That’s so you can easily find the pedals.

Well, not so in two of the organs we visited today, especially at the Villaz Saint-Pierre Église reformée. The whole reason for sitting on the side was because of the pedals are in a totally different place from usual! WAY OFF!

That is to say, where you expect to play tenor C is an A instead! I was totally discombobulated!

I had picked a relatively easy piece, Gerald Near’s “Jesus, lover of my soul,” on the tune ABERYSTWYTH, but I could not find the low notes without looking at my feet, a no no!

Today we were in the northern part of Switzerland with beautiful green mountains and valleys, dotted with chalets and cows, exactly what I think of as typical Swiss scenery. I couldn’t resist taking many pictures from the windows of the bus.

Our first stop was at the Église cath. Saint Pierre aux Liens, which had some beautiful stained glass. The organ here was played by Mendelssohn and Liszt, so I played the second movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 2, choosing a nice oboe stop for the solo.

We next went to the Église de La Roche en Gruyère and learned that “gru” in French means crane, so this is the crane church! (Of course, when people say “gruyère” I immediately think of cheese! This church had many beautiful paintings on the walls and ceiling.

The church organ was built in the mid-19th century by Joseph Scherrer. Here there was only an 18-note pedalboard (instead of the usual 32 note) and Christophe Mantoux gave us an explanation. Back in the early part of the 20th century, the local bishop was a choral and organ music lover and it was his wish that all the children (and their teachers) learn how to sing and play the organ!

But they didn’t have to master the instrument, just be able to play simple pieces with few pedal notes, hence the shorter pedalboard.

The organ was dismantled and stored from 1989, and had to wait for six years to be restored. The short pedalboard was put back for authenticity’s sake.

I decided to play one of Dupré’s Fifteen Antiphons (the one with the ornamented melody) and I checked that the top note was F# so the pedal part was definitely within the octave-and-a-half range of the pedalboard. But I discovered that the pedals were again shifted to the right. I was again discombobulated with the pedals not where I expected them.

We moved to the Au Parc Hotel in Fribourg where I was assigned a big room with twin beds. We’ll only be here two nights before moving on.