The Last from the Thirties

Holy Week can be a sort of "hell week" for church organists, such as myself. Simply because of the thousands of notes to practice and perfect. And the extra musical events, extra music, period, for which to prepare.

That explains why no tie got posted last weekend. I had my regular Sunday service in the morning, then several hours of practice, followed by a hymn sing that evening. The next day I played a 30 minute noon recital sponsored by the local chapter of the American Guild of Organists, of which I am dean.

I practiced Tuesday evening, Wednesday evening, and Thursday evening there was a Maundy Thursday communion service to play for, with the final Easter choir rehearsal afterwards.

Saturday afternoon saw a couple more hours of final practicing for the big Sunday Easter celebration, which included no fewer than six big choir anthems, culminating in The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, which has to be one of the most difficult pieces to play in the entire repetoire.

All of that effort comes together in a very rewarding fashion, but it's still very tiring, very labor intensive, a lot of hard work!

But this is supposed to be a blog about ties, not about church music. This is, so far as I have been able to determine, the last of my 1930 era ties. If I have any more, they're hiding. I call this one "Leaves of silver, blue and copper on a burgundy background." It's one of the more glamorous entries in these richly fabricated ties that I have been featuring since January first, this year.

I'm also loading a second image, of both ends of the tie from the back side, primarily to show another unique characteristic of 1930-era ties. These ties are invariably put together in an off-centered fashion. Look closely at the image of the back side of the tie, and you will see that the fold where the two sides of the tie come meet and are stitched together, are not centered, but are severely lopsided.

This is the way all of these ties are put together, and is quite distinct from most ties of later vintage, which, if not perfectly symmetrical, are generally more so than these. You can see a couple more examples, albeit only of the small ends, by taking another look at "Red Paisley" and "Red Spiderweb," both of which show the back side of the small end of the tie.

"Red Spiderweb" definitely shows the lopsided stitching, while "Red Paisley" is a little more centered, but demonstrates another aspect of these ties: looser stitching. These ties are typically only loosely stitched together in back, unlike later examples, which are generally more tightly and evenly stitched.

So, now that we're done with the thirties, at least for the time being, what next? I haven't decided, so you'll have to wait (with me) until next week to find out.