Landscape: Picasso

Pablo Picasso, "Landscape with Dead Tree" (1919).

Graduation

At many schools this weekend including ours, it's graduation weekend! (My wife Beth is president of Webster University, where I also teach; nearby Eden Seminary, where I teach as well, has its ceremony next week.) Students and their families celebrate the conclusion of those years of work; students say goodbye to friends, although with Facebook, those goodbyes are less lonely than for those millions of us who hoped to stay in touch with friends by postal mail and an occasional phone call.

I have three degrees: a BA, Mdiv, and PhD. My favorite degree program was the Mdiv, but that was the least satisfying graduation, since it rained that year, and after the ceremony, everyone scattered with discouraging quickness. My significant other of that time warned it would be that way but I'd hoped otherwise. I liked college, although I was socially lonely there (partly my own fault). The courses and certain professors truly focused me upon my life's work and also my faith. But the graduation was way too long: well over two hours of ceremony on an unseasonably hot day, with tearful students' testimonies how much college meant to them, and I think a sermon, too, plus of course the conferral of diplomas. Did I mention the day was unseasonably hot? I just wanted to get out of that dark gown and get this over with. Doctoral work was painful and distressing, and perhaps for that reason, though the degree work isn't nostalgic, the graduation ceremony was rather thrilling and my favorite of the three. I almost skipped it and was so happy Beth talked me into it.

I offer prayers for students: that they'll continue into satisfying jobs or degree programs, that their memories of their graduation are happy, and that they can stay in touch with these friends for many years, as I have with mine.

For All the Saints: Monica

Anyone who has read all or portions of Augustine's Confessions are quite familiar with the story of his mother Monica, known for her sorrowful and prayerful devotion to his spiritual well-being. She may have been a Berber, married to a Roman name named Patricius, and had three children who survived infancy. She died in about 387 and was buried at Ostia, though her remains were later moved to the Basilica of Sant'Agostino, Rome. Namesake of Santa Monica, CA and many churches, she is honored today on the Orthodox and Anglican calendars and on August 27 on Roman Catholic calendars. http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1120 http://www.antiochian.org/node/18343

A Year's Music: Mendelssohn's "Lobgesang"

Early in our marriage, Beth and I took a driving trip along the east coast. One of our stops was Frederick, Maryland, where we discovered a wonderful book store with a large selection of LPs. I purchased two 2-LP sets, one of Mendelssohn's first and second symphonies conducted by Karajan, and the other was Mendelssohn's third, fourth, and fifth symphonies conducted by Bernstein. I don't remember why I gravitated to this particular composer that day, but ever after, Mendelssohn's music has reminded me of Maryland and the Chesapeake region, and of being happy and newly married!

Mendelssohn's second symphony lasts over an hour (three sides of that Karajan LP set) and is less popular today than the Scottish or Italian, but I've always enjoyed it. Entitled Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise), it is a symphony and cantata, written and premiered seven years after the symphony now numbered 4.

The All Music site has a description by John Palmer, which reads in part: "After the 'Italian' symphony, Mendelssohn waited seven years before returning to the genre, composing the Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 52, for the celebrations in Leipzig of the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press. ... Mendelssohn entitled his second symphony 'Lobgesang' (Song of Praise) and described it as a 'symphony-cantata.' After its first performance, on June 25, 1840, in Leipzig, the 'Lobgesang' became very popular; today it is rarely performed...

"Four of the symphony's five movements share material. The main theme of the first movement appears in the trio of the ensuing scherzo, and is present in the first and last sections of the choral Finale... The first section of the cantata is based on the first theme of the opening movement. Highlights from the movement include the invigorating chorus 'Let all men praise the Lord.' Quite touching is the tenor solo, 'The sorrows of death,' with its chromatic inflections, followed by 'Watchman, will the night soon pass?' Throughout these two numbers Mendelssohn creates strong dramatic tension. Much of what follows, however, is anti-climactic. The close of the cantata begins with a choral fugue and moves to 'All that has life and breath, sing to the Lord,' a choral development of the first-movement theme...."

The seconds of the fourth movement are:
"Sinfonia
All men, all things, all that have life and breath (Chorus)
Praise thou the Lord, O ye Spirit (Soprano Solo and Semi-Chorus)
Sing ye Praise (Tenor Recitative and Aria)
All ye that cried unto the Lord (Chorus)
I waited for the Lord (Soprano Duet and Chorus)
The sorrows of Death (Tenor Air)
The Night is Departing (Soprano Solo and Chorus)
Let all men praise the Lord (Chorale of Now Thank We All Our God)
My song shall be always Thy Mercy (Soprano and Tenor Duet)
Ye nations, offer to the Lord (Chorus)"

Good ol' Wikipedia provides these divisions, as well as the words: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobgesang

 

Here is a lovely performance conducted by Mark Elder. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBlsQnWpalw

Pierre Boulez

There were many tributes to composer and conductor Pierre Boulez following his death January 5, 2016, at the age of 90. Here is the NYT obituary, and I enjoyed reading the articles in the February  Gramophone magazine. Just last year David Robertson of the St. Louis Symphony wrote an appreciation of Boulez for the same magazine; when we saw Robertson at a social occasion here in town, I was able to tell him the article was interesting and helpful.

When Beth and I were dating, PBS broadcasted the Ring operas conducted by Boulez, something we alluded to for a long time. So it was enjoyable to go back and re-watch Das Rheingold, with the Rhinemaidens loitering around a hydroelectric dam and Loge, as one of the YouTube watchers commented, looking a little like Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

A Former Rock Hound

There's a scene in The Shawshank Redemption, where Andy Dufresne introduces himself to Red Redding and asks if Red can smuggle into the prison a rock hammer. Andy wants to be a "rock hound" again, to continue a hobby that he'd enjoyed prior to his conviction.

The scene reminds me of rock collecting, a childhood joy of mine. I had a little souvenir from a Western vacation: stone samples glued into a box and labeled. I think the box contained granite, gypsum, rose quartz, basalt, obsidian, the always popular fool's gold, and others. I also liked to collect bigger rocks on trips.

When I was a kid, my parents went to nearby St. Louis to shop. One Saturday, Dad drove me out from the downtown somewhere to a rock and gem shop. Now that I live in St. Louis, I'm guessing that the shop was in Maplewood, because the business district of that suburb looks like my long-ago memories of the shop. Dad bought me a rock polisher which tumbled rocks for a designated amount of time and made them smooth and shiny. I'd load the cylinder with the gritty polishing material and the rocks themselves, and wait to see how the rocks looked afterward.

I remembered all this, not to make a lame connection between rock polishing and "polishing" one's writing, but because I've driven over to Maplewood more often recently. The St Louis Poetry Center has regular events (see their website), at least two of which happen in this community. As I wrote here, I've been renewing my interest in poetry-writing these past few years and have become involved in the local poetry scene, a wonderful and unexpected direction of my writing career. Though I'll likely never know the location of that geology shop, I did write a poem (under submission at a couple of journals) about a boy whose hobbies including finding and identifying stones and minerals.

A Year's Music: Faure's Requiem and Pavane

Here's are two old favorites, for over thirty years! For a long time I had the Seraphim Records LP, King's College Choir conducted by David Wilcocks. Then my daughter's Ohio choir performed the piece during the 00s, which was wonderful.

The requiem is appealingly gentle and consoling throughout, even the short Dies Irae sequence (incorporated in the Libera Me section) is comparatively peaceful next to the famously scary versions of Mozart, Verdi and others. Faure composed this "lullaby of death" in the 1880s, conducted the premier in 1888, but continued to revised it prior to its 1900 publication. He wanted to emphasize the aspect of rest, and so the requiem gives one a peaceful sense of that aspect of death. It is short, about 35 minutes., with the Kyrie followed by the Offertory, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, Libera me, and In Paradisum.

Yesterday (April 30) was the hundredth anniversary of the birth of conductor Robert Shaw, and here is Shaw conducting the Atlanta Symphony and Chorus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnilUPXmipM

I add the Pavane because, on the Wilcock recording, it filled out Side 2 of the LP, and I like to think of them together. Listening to it for the first time, I had such an experience of knowing this piece, as if it was from a long time ago, although I was only in my early 20s and had no memory of the piece prior to that. Here is that recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTAsztQxd5Y