The parochial school I attended (Kindergarten through
Grade Eight) furnished its church with two children's
choirs, the Junior and the Senior. The Junior, taken from
the second, third and fourth grades, sang mostly unison with
occasional two-part harmony; the Senior choir sang in three-
and four-part harmony, with occasional spots for soloists
for its strongest singers. (I had the honor of singing
solos.) Much of what we sang were treatments of Bach
chorale tunes. The custom was for the organist to lead the
children's and the Adult choirs. Although I have no memory
of Becker's musicianship, I did have the advantage of
singing, from the fifth grade on, under the direction of an
accomplished organist (who played a lot of Bach and Handel
and whose wife was a professionally-trained soprano). This
man, Arnold Bathje (who also served as the school principal
and teacher of the Eighth Grade who descended on our school
when I was in the fifth grade), taught the Senior choir to
follow hand movements indicating the do-re-mi etc notes of
the diatonic scale, and thus had a hand in sharpening my
ear. He chose me for the role of Gretel in the operetta, Hansel and
Gretel, and for numerous solos (including Mary's
Magnificat, which I sang behind a curtain for the pretty but
tone-deaf blonde girl who was cast in the role of the Virgin
Mary in the school's Christmas pageant).
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