This week's song is a treat: a beautiful choral arrangement adapted from Dvorak's "New World Symphony," composed during his three-year visit to America.
I tried to leave this comment before. I wanted to recommend a wonderful film called Paradise Road. Women POWs during WW2 learn to hum the parts and keep up their courage. Going Home!
I was meaning to comment on this by recommending a wonderful film called Paradise Road. A group of women POWs inspired by one of them, keep up their courage by learning to hum the parts of this and sing together.
This post shows what music can be for us, and is a great final meditation for this week on “home.” At our most human, we honor and hand on the best of the culture from which we spring. In music, particularly, we also cross fertilize with the sounds springing from places other than our own.
Please forgive me if I wax marital and historical. My 74 year old husband—Mike—was born in Bed-Sty, bused with other Black kids to a white school in Queens in grade four. In grade six they put a trombone in his hand; everyone in band rehearsed fifty minutes BEFORE period one. Before long the teacher had the kids sight reading big classical scores every day at lunchtime. In high school Mike made All City Symphony, which took up Saturday mornings in Manhattan. He recalled the ensemble were all colors “because that’s what New York City schools were” but you got in “because you could play the notes.” The musicians he came up with, including in the Catskills, The Peabody Conservatory, and the Goldman Band, devoted themselves to the music, to excellence; they were fluent in its many languages from classical to jazz. And this led to strong ties and respect among the practitioners of the art. Great music drew them, and draws us, beyond ourselves and honors what has gone before.
I will read and play this post for him, he sometimes gets the gist through his dementia. This week’s “Sometimes a Song” entry illustrates these truths which he always believed.
Thanks, Debra, for showing us how Dvorak’s love of music including the Negro spirituals, and this place we call America, bore something authentic to both, this wonderful symphony and hymn, stirring what is best in us and calling us home.
Thelma, I'm sorry I didn't see this post sooner. God bless your dear husband. They say that music is the last thing to go when folks suffer memory loss. I hope that your husband will continue to take joy from that life-long love of his. (What a great story from the days when schools were schools, not indoctrination centers and holding tanks.) We lost my mother to dementia when she was only 72, after a 12-year battle with it. It's very hard. I recall reading about Benny Goodman, who came very early to the idea of color-blind hiring practices in music: "If a cat could swing," he was quoted as saying, "I don't care what color he is." He was about the art, and he wanted the best he could get. Dvorak couldn't exactly foresee the ascendancy of jazz in America and around the world, but he saw (or more rightly, heard) in those songs real musical art. Thank you so much for following me along on this musical journey. I'm not an expert, but Sometimes a Song is a labor of love for me. :)
Thanks for your thank you and reply. Love the musical journey. So sorry about your mother’s dementia. Music likely reverberates in the soul, doesn’t it? And not only musical recognition but also terminal lucidity sometimes happens because when the mind may be gone the soul only leaves at death, as Catholics have always maintained.
(Yes, let’s hope schools will soon focus on the true, good, and beautiful, as they did for Mike.)
So, Sunday, yesterday I spent an hour and a half with Mike at dementia care where he lives. He has few words now. After some one-sided small talk I read and or highlighted your post, and his eyes seemed interested. I reminded him that Copeland had visited the conservatory and conducted. Ellington is one of Mike’s heroes. We listened to the hymn. I highlighted memories from my comment. Then I was inspired to play from YouTube, on my phone, the New World symphony. He fidgeted with objects on the table occasionally, but I could see he was experiencing lots through his eyes and facial expressions. He never tried to get up from the table. Though it was only a few measures he made a few conducting gestures I hadn’t seen in maybe a year. We both listened and watched and enjoyed it. 43 minutes is a long time in the abstract but we spent it well. After that I was exhausted, but he thanked me in such a heartfelt way when I left. I know I sound like a mother whose infant learns a new sound, but your essay inspired a leisurely time with Mike which reflected his lifetime love of great music, a time I will long treasure. And it was a stand in for all the times we turned to music in trials and pains by sharing and listening at home.
If all that happened to just one of your Word and Song subscribers, imagine what can happen to many more with just a single post or week! People you two don’t know will be thanking you in heaven! Keep guiding us on the musical journey, Debra. Stay strong and God bless you both.
I'd like to think we could, but we need to make ourselves again the sort of a people who could/would read "Huck Finn" in the same magazine that published Dvorak's reflection on America first. And like the great American writers, we have to value, love, and draw on the heritage of the past even to have a chance at such a flowering in our own time. What we produce now isn't "of the people" in any real way. It's manufactured, canned, crass and debased, and instead of appealing to the highest faculties it appeals to the most base. That is the plague of "modernism," which teaches us to despise the past and thereby removes us from our best chance at continuing and building upon the tradition to which we owe so much.
Way to make me cry over my coffee! How satisfying those repetitive notes are, carrying those meditative words. Great share! When I saw the title, I thought of this Knopfler piece.♥️
Yes! The intersection of the arts in the heyday of classic film adds greatly to the overall performance. I learned in researching this song that Duke Ellington began writing film scores in his early-mid career. Never knew that, but Dvorak wouldn't have been surprised at it.
Nancee, I am sorry to hear of your loss. Yes, this piece provides great comfort when it is used at funerals, though that wasn't its original purpose. It's very moving.
Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony is my #1 favorite Classical Music symphonic piece … the Largo never fails to result in tears rolling down my cheeks … it rips my heart out of my body and squishes it to mush … sooooo gorgeous ❣️❣️❣️
Donald, at the premier of this piece in New York, the audience evidently were so moved that they couldn't hold their praise until the end. After the Largo, they rose and called out "Dvorak! Dvorak!" until he came to the stage and took a bow. Then the rest of the symphony continued. Imagine being among the first audience to hear this piece of music.
As proof of his genius, here's country music's gentle giant, Don Williams, cribbing Dvorak's melody note for note on his "Miracles".
https://youtu.be/uUiudTFm4Xo?si=6XOryiXWubIvI5Tt
I tried to leave this comment before. I wanted to recommend a wonderful film called Paradise Road. Women POWs during WW2 learn to hum the parts and keep up their courage. Going Home!
I was meaning to comment on this by recommending a wonderful film called Paradise Road. A group of women POWs inspired by one of them, keep up their courage by learning to hum the parts of this and sing together.
This post shows what music can be for us, and is a great final meditation for this week on “home.” At our most human, we honor and hand on the best of the culture from which we spring. In music, particularly, we also cross fertilize with the sounds springing from places other than our own.
Please forgive me if I wax marital and historical. My 74 year old husband—Mike—was born in Bed-Sty, bused with other Black kids to a white school in Queens in grade four. In grade six they put a trombone in his hand; everyone in band rehearsed fifty minutes BEFORE period one. Before long the teacher had the kids sight reading big classical scores every day at lunchtime. In high school Mike made All City Symphony, which took up Saturday mornings in Manhattan. He recalled the ensemble were all colors “because that’s what New York City schools were” but you got in “because you could play the notes.” The musicians he came up with, including in the Catskills, The Peabody Conservatory, and the Goldman Band, devoted themselves to the music, to excellence; they were fluent in its many languages from classical to jazz. And this led to strong ties and respect among the practitioners of the art. Great music drew them, and draws us, beyond ourselves and honors what has gone before.
I will read and play this post for him, he sometimes gets the gist through his dementia. This week’s “Sometimes a Song” entry illustrates these truths which he always believed.
Thanks, Debra, for showing us how Dvorak’s love of music including the Negro spirituals, and this place we call America, bore something authentic to both, this wonderful symphony and hymn, stirring what is best in us and calling us home.
Thelma, I'm sorry I didn't see this post sooner. God bless your dear husband. They say that music is the last thing to go when folks suffer memory loss. I hope that your husband will continue to take joy from that life-long love of his. (What a great story from the days when schools were schools, not indoctrination centers and holding tanks.) We lost my mother to dementia when she was only 72, after a 12-year battle with it. It's very hard. I recall reading about Benny Goodman, who came very early to the idea of color-blind hiring practices in music: "If a cat could swing," he was quoted as saying, "I don't care what color he is." He was about the art, and he wanted the best he could get. Dvorak couldn't exactly foresee the ascendancy of jazz in America and around the world, but he saw (or more rightly, heard) in those songs real musical art. Thank you so much for following me along on this musical journey. I'm not an expert, but Sometimes a Song is a labor of love for me. :)
Thanks for your thank you and reply. Love the musical journey. So sorry about your mother’s dementia. Music likely reverberates in the soul, doesn’t it? And not only musical recognition but also terminal lucidity sometimes happens because when the mind may be gone the soul only leaves at death, as Catholics have always maintained.
(Yes, let’s hope schools will soon focus on the true, good, and beautiful, as they did for Mike.)
So, Sunday, yesterday I spent an hour and a half with Mike at dementia care where he lives. He has few words now. After some one-sided small talk I read and or highlighted your post, and his eyes seemed interested. I reminded him that Copeland had visited the conservatory and conducted. Ellington is one of Mike’s heroes. We listened to the hymn. I highlighted memories from my comment. Then I was inspired to play from YouTube, on my phone, the New World symphony. He fidgeted with objects on the table occasionally, but I could see he was experiencing lots through his eyes and facial expressions. He never tried to get up from the table. Though it was only a few measures he made a few conducting gestures I hadn’t seen in maybe a year. We both listened and watched and enjoyed it. 43 minutes is a long time in the abstract but we spent it well. After that I was exhausted, but he thanked me in such a heartfelt way when I left. I know I sound like a mother whose infant learns a new sound, but your essay inspired a leisurely time with Mike which reflected his lifetime love of great music, a time I will long treasure. And it was a stand in for all the times we turned to music in trials and pains by sharing and listening at home.
If all that happened to just one of your Word and Song subscribers, imagine what can happen to many more with just a single post or week! People you two don’t know will be thanking you in heaven! Keep guiding us on the musical journey, Debra. Stay strong and God bless you both.
Beautiful!
Kalee, isn't it? I've had that sublime piece of music in my head all weekend!
The hymn itself - moving.
Dvorak's recap of the accomplishments of this American nation during its first century - perfect.
To paraphrase John Adams, can we continue this tradition?
I'd like to think we could, but we need to make ourselves again the sort of a people who could/would read "Huck Finn" in the same magazine that published Dvorak's reflection on America first. And like the great American writers, we have to value, love, and draw on the heritage of the past even to have a chance at such a flowering in our own time. What we produce now isn't "of the people" in any real way. It's manufactured, canned, crass and debased, and instead of appealing to the highest faculties it appeals to the most base. That is the plague of "modernism," which teaches us to despise the past and thereby removes us from our best chance at continuing and building upon the tradition to which we owe so much.
Way to make me cry over my coffee! How satisfying those repetitive notes are, carrying those meditative words. Great share! When I saw the title, I thought of this Knopfler piece.♥️
https://youtu.be/3DB-uJ0TxKQ?si=K7C22oPJp_3CWv8o
Gosh! I forgot that this was part of the soundtrack for "Local Hero." Thank you for sharing that link.
Featured very beautifully in The Snake Pit, too!
Yes! The intersection of the arts in the heyday of classic film adds greatly to the overall performance. I learned in researching this song that Duke Ellington began writing film scores in his early-mid career. Never knew that, but Dvorak wouldn't have been surprised at it.
So appropriate this morning as we’re getting ready to go for the funeral of Bruce’s only sister in a few minutes!
Nancee, I am sorry to hear of your loss. Yes, this piece provides great comfort when it is used at funerals, though that wasn't its original purpose. It's very moving.
Made me pause.
Made me cry.
Grateful.
Ann, me, too. All three.
Dvorak’s “New World” Symphony is my #1 favorite Classical Music symphonic piece … the Largo never fails to result in tears rolling down my cheeks … it rips my heart out of my body and squishes it to mush … sooooo gorgeous ❣️❣️❣️
Donald, at the premier of this piece in New York, the audience evidently were so moved that they couldn't hold their praise until the end. After the Largo, they rose and called out "Dvorak! Dvorak!" until he came to the stage and took a bow. Then the rest of the symphony continued. Imagine being among the first audience to hear this piece of music.
As Gandalf said, "Not all tears are an evil."