DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997                TAG: 9703100043

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY GUY FRIDDELL, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   69 lines

ORGANIST KNEW CLASSICAL MUSIC LIKE NO OTHER

A memorial service at noon Tuesday for the grand old master of music, Grover Oberle, will inspire such grand recollections as the time Oberle enthralled President Franklin Roosevelt and held a congregation captive.

In 1942, just weeks after Pearl Harbor, FDR came to St. John's Church near the White House for a service on the anniversary of his inauguration. Oberle was then organist at St. John's, which was packed with national leaders, foreign ambassadors and FBI men.

``I had an FBI man sitting on the organ bench with me,'' Oberle once told The Virginian-Pilot's Mark Mobley.

During the postlude, a signal for the worshipers to leave, Oberle improvised on the Navy hymn - ``Eternal Father, Strong to Save.''

As he played the hymn to which the nation recurs in crises, Roosevelt plunged into a reverie and showed no signs of emerging. Not until Oberle cadenced and stopped did Roosevelt rouse to go and thereby release the others.

``Grover was recognized as one of the greatest organists in the 20th century, but he was so quiet about it few realized his national reputation,'' said the Rev. James Sell, rector of Christ and St. Luke's Episcopal Church, the site of Tuesday's service in Norfolk.

Oberle, 83, died Saturday at his home.

``Very gentle and self-effacing, he never saw his music as aggrandizing Grover Oberle,'' said Mr. Sell. ``It was always to the honor of the music and the church and the Christian faith.''

The Rev. Peyton Robertson, seeking the best possible organist for St. Luke's 30 years ago, went to the National Cathedral for advice. He secured Oberle, and set about to supply an organ to match the master. Oberle helped design it.

He was one of the youngest ever to earn a fellowship with the American Guild of Organists, said Allen Shaffer, his assistant who succeeded Oberle when he retired in 1989.

Of profound faith, he was one of the most genuine, honest, and humble persons who ever lived, Shaffer said.

``People adored him!''

As a choir boy at St. Thomas Church in New York on Fifth Avenue, he became a pupil of the great organist T. Tertius Noble and, eventually, his assistant. ``That shaped his career,'' said Shaffer.

He founded the Cantata Chorus in Norfolk, and one of its members, Margaret Redfern, recalled the weekly rehearsals of classical religious music of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven.

``He prayed for us before we sang,'' she said, smiling. ``We felt it was to help us produce beautiful music.''

Grover was eloquent, soft-spoken, and a thorough musicologist, said Robert Deal, host for a classical music show on WFOS radio.

Having been, among other things, the music critic for The Ledger-Star, there wasn't anything Oberle couldn't explain in classical music, Deal added.

``When I was in the choir, even the rehearsals were a great deal more than just singing hymns,'' Deal said. ``Each one was a musical experience.''

Another member, Henry Bernick, said Oberle was one of the kindest, most considerate individuals he ever met, always more interested in the other person than himself.

``He was very quiet, very loving, and never said anything to hurt anybody. He was a beautiful man.''

Bernick and his wife visited Oberle shortly before his death. He was eating with a bed tray over his lap, and she suggested they bring their daughter's electric keyboard for him to play.

At that, Oberle smiled and his fingers began to move rapidly in rhythm across the bed tray, producing music they yearned to hear. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Glover L. Oberle KEYWORDS: DEATH OBITUARY

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