“… with Alexander Schreiner at the organ.”
Many baby boomer Utahns heard those words a hundred times growing up. The phrase had a musical quality. And the name, for many of us, was fun to say. It sounded regal and important.
It was.
This week, as the general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints nears, I’ve been thinking of Schreiner. I never got to see him in person, but over time I grew to love his touch on the keyboard and his talent with a tune. Nine hymns in our hymnbook today are his, most with majestic melodies that make them staples as sacrament songs: “In Memory of the Crucified,” “While of These Emblems We Partake,” “God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son.”
I’ve known about Schreiner the “lofty legend” for half a century. He was a Tabernacle organist for more than 50 years. But only recently have I gotten to know Schreiner the doting father, camper and pickle buyer.
I learned of that Schreiner while corresponding with Julianne Johnson, his daughter.
“He was my champion, my guru, my inspiration, my mentor and my confidante,” Johnson said of her dad. “I remember practicing my violin as a beginner. I couldn’t coordinate my left-hand fingers — so frustrating! Daddy poked his head in the door and said, ‘How’s the practicing going?’ I said, ‘I can’t do this. I’m not going to take any more lessons, and you can’t stop me!’ Smiling, he said, ‘I won’t stop you. I’ll keep you right on going!’”
That was the personal style of Johnson’s father.
Eventually, she joined the Utah Symphony. And though many memories of her father revolve around music, the “daddy” memories remain front and center — the day he took her to see the Pirates play the Bees, and how he marveled at the speed of the double plays; the time he took her and a friend camping and did the cooking while the girls played. There was the airplane ride in an old propeller plane, the climb to the rafters of the Salt Lake Tabernacle to see the rawhide straps around the beams, and the out-of-nowhere trip to an air show.
“Once, at the grocery store, I picked out a big glass bottle of pickles — a gallon maybe,” Johnson said. “‘Can we get this?’ I asked. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Put it right in the basket.’”
He was funny and imaginative and a pushover for his young daughter.
At the organ, of course, he was always professional, precise and cool.
Still, even those of us in Brigham City had an inkling that Brother Schreiner was, inside, a man of compassion and warmth. All we had to do was listen to the final bars of “God Loved Us, So He Sent His Son” to realize that the tunesmith had a heart the size of a gallon of pickles.
This afternoon, as I went back through the Schreiner hymns again, I could hear in them a man schooled in love. It was not only in the tunes but also in the names he chose to give them: one he named after his beloved Tabernacle organ; one he named for the missionary who baptized him; and one was for his cherished wife, Margaret.
That was the Alexander Schreiner Johnson always knew.
And it’s the Alexander Schreiner I’m now — fortunately — finally getting to know.
Email: jerjohn@deseretnews.com