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Come with Thy Grace

Come with Thy Grace

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I often go to a Saturday-evening church service that “counts” for Sunday (it’s a Catholic thing), and was surprised when I arrived to see the red wall hangings and vestments. I had forgotten that it was Pentecost, or more technically, it was Pentecost Eve. Turns out, I had unwittingly worn orange, and so was semi-appropriately decked out for the feast day.

I’ve written about Pentecost before, noting that it was a celebration of clarity, that from the many voices came one.  What spoke to me this time, though, was the jubilation of it all: the extra prayers (a sequence before the gospel), the special blessing, and, of course, the music.

It dawned on me, then, and not for the first time, that one of the needs church meets for me is singing aloud. I’m not saying I don’t go for spiritual strengthening and inspiration. But to join voices with hundreds of others is not an opportunity I’m given every day.

We opened with “Come, Holy Ghost.” Thanks to my parochial schooling, I know the words so well that I didn’t even crack the hymnal till the second verse. “Come with thy grace and heavenly aid, to fill the hearts which thou hast made. To fill the hearts which thou hast made.” I could almost hear my seventh- and eight-grade classmates belting it out with me, struggling as usual to reach that high “D.”

This is dedicated …

This is dedicated …

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A spring walk yesterday took me from ugh-it’s-a-Monday to I’m-glad-to-be-alive.

It was about 65 degrees with a brilliant blue sky and leaves that seemed to have their own power source, so brilliant was the green they were flashing.

Their power source, of course, was the sun, which was flooding the day with light and warmth. My winter-weary bones were soaking it up (through properly applied sunscreen, of course) and my work-weary mind was jetting off in several directions: how beauty sustains, how I wished everyone I love could be in my skin experiencing it with me.

Especially those no longer on this side of the ground, I wanted them to have it, too, to be back long enough to feel warmth on their skin and see a redbud tree in flower. So this walk, like the song says … was dedicated to the ones I love.

Transcendence

Transcendence

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A friend sent me an electronic Easter card, the kind that comes with music and motion, with sweet scenes of birds and bunnies.

Only this one played the powerful “God So Loved the World” by John Stainer.

I’ve heard this piece before and marveled at it, but something about the animation of the dove — a pure white bird flying heavenward, spreading flowers in its wake — and the dynamics of this hymn, the great swells of its sound, the ache in its harmonies — spoke powerfully of the mystery and the promise of this day.

I write these words in the office, a room I don’t often sit in this time of day. I don’t know why not — because it sits in the front of the house, the one the light touches first.

It is not just Resurrection we celebrate on this day, but transcendence.

Give(ing) Sleep a Chance

Give(ing) Sleep a Chance

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Lately I’ve been giving sleep more of a chance. When I wake up at 4 a.m. I don’t always rise to start the day. Instead, I read or lie still and concentrate on breathing in and out. In other words, I try harder to add those elusive sixth and seventh hours to my nightly tally.

This may take time. It may be getting light by the time I finally drift off again. But I persist.

The other way, the way of wakefulness, is good too. It opens up hours in a life that seems to never have enough of them. But things are brighter, sharper, clearer, with those extra two.

By the way, this is a tip of the blog to the 1969 John Lennon song “Give Peace a Chance,” which I found out this morning was recorded … in bed.

Evening Musicale

Evening Musicale

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The players were beginners, but they were not. Beginners at music, but not at life. And so the music they made, while tentative, was full of life and experience. It was brave and it was beautiful.

There was the violinist who tackled a duet with Latin flair. A clarinetist who brought Mozart to life. The cellist who played “The Swan.” Two pianists, one who played simple notes, the other more complex ones. “I just don’t want to have to start over,” the latter admitted before she began. She didn’t have to.

Tonight is the first fall rehearsal of the Reston Community Orchestra — the sessions I attended this summer were open to all — so this will be a beginner night for me. I’ve tuned and practiced and hope that I’m ready.

But as the players this weekend showed me, sometimes you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. The only thing left … is to play.

Courthouse Pub

Courthouse Pub

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The guitarist wandered in with two cases and what seemed a permanent scowl on his face. He had gray dreadlocks and sandals on his feet.  One of the first things he did was knock his guitar over.

“That’s the guy who played at St. James last night,” said a fellow pub-goer. “Only that night he wasn’t wearing shoes.”

Oh, man, I thought. What are we in for?

What we were in for was some of the most inspired, toe-tapping, goose-pimple-raising Irish music I’ve ever heard.

The dreadlocked and sandaled one was no other than Steve Cooney, who’s played with the Chieftains, Altan and other primo Gaelic groups. According to barstool neighbor Tom O’Connor, he is the adopted son of an aboriginal chief who grew up in Australia and moved to Ireland in 1980. He was also briefly married to Sinead O’Connor.  A quick glance at Wikipedia confirmed all of this. (It also confirmed that no one is ever married long to Sinead O’Connor.)

That’s neither here nor there, though. All that mattered was the driving rhythm, the concertina player (whose name I never caught, perhaps equally famous?) who added the melody … and the end result, which was pure heaven. All in one night at the Courthouse Pub.

Gaudeamus Igitur

Gaudeamus Igitur

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At last night’s rehearsal we played Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture.” It’s an expansive piece of music, a war horse, often played, and one of my faves. It ends with the tune known as “Gaudeamus Igitur.”

I looked it up this morning and learned that in addition to an academic processional, Gaudeamus is also a rowdy drinking song with a “carpe diem” flavor. It’s also known as “De Brevitate Vitae,” or “On the Shortness of Life.”


Here’s an English translation of the Latin:

While we’re young, let us rejoice,
Singing out in gleeful tones;
After youth’s delightful frolic,
And old age (so melancholic!),
Earth will cover our bones.

I like to think that while I was sawing away at those eighth notes and dotted quarters, the hair rising on the back of my neck as it does when I play, a chorus of ghosts was hovering around us, chanting these words.

Not Tragic, After All

Not Tragic, After All

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It was 15 minutes to starting time when I hauled my string bass through the doors of the Sunrise Valley Montessori School, the first of four summer reading sessions of the Reston Community Orchestra. The first piece of music on my stand was Brahms’ “Tragic Overture.” I hoped it wasn’t a sign.

I’d signed up for this local orchestra’s “summer camp” when I was still high on my youth orchestra’s reunion performance in May. It was another chance to be part of a big symphonic sound … even though I barely knew where the notes were, even though my biceps ached from hauling a bass around in Lexington, I thought it was time to try this again.

But standing there Monday night I wasn’t so sure. The Tragic Overture wasn’t the only omen. The room was filling up with musicians — violinists, flautists, brass players and half a dozen cellists (including one who doubled as a French horn player). But no one was walking over to my little corner of the orchestral universe.  And no one did. I was the lone bass player Monday night.

And … it wasn’t as tragic as I thought it would be. The notes came back into my fingers again, the lower C, the high D. The string bass part often doubled the cellos, so I mimicked my fellow lower strings as much as I could.

We played the first movement of Schubert’s Symphony Number 9 in C Major, the Brahms’ overture and a lovely waltz-like piece by a local composer who was there to hear us rehearse. The thrill was back. The tragedy … nowhere to be found.

Forever Young

Forever Young

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Spending one’s birthday evening at the symphony may not seem the hippest thing to do, but for feeling young, it can’t be beat. At the symphony the hair color is decidedly white and the movement style decidedly shuffle. Average age — average! — can’t be less than 75.

While this makes me fear for the state of classical music, it does just the opposite for the state of my health and energy level.

Ride the elevator? Of course not. Let’s take the stairs. Hum out loud during the Schumann? Maybe in the car but never in public.

But what the audience lacked in vigor, the orchestra more than made up for. During one challenging set of runs, the violin section stood up and finished the passage with a flourish. And for the encore — one of Brahms’ “Hungarian Dances” — the entire orchestra leapt to their feet. Except for the cellists, of course.

So thank you, Baltimore Symphony. Last night you made me feel forever young.

We Did It!

We Did It!

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I knew when I heard the trumpet solo in the Triumphal March from Aida that there was a different energy at the performance. Something inspired, something transcendent. Seasoned artists say that performances aren’t usually better than rehearsals, but this one was.

I’m not saying that this particular performer played better at the concert. I was nervous, almost dropped my bow switching from pizzicato to arco. But I held on, made most of the notes in the run, did not rush the entrance in the exposed string bass part half way through the Verdi, and was able to hit the harmonic in the tip-of-the-bow opening of the Firebird finale.

From there on, the hair stood up on the back of my neck as I played our B flats and E flats, putting everything I had into those notes, doing my awkward vibrato, hearing the timpani pounding behind me. I didn’t just play the music, I felt it. The trumpets and trombones blaring out their final chords, the whole marvelous ensemble, and at its helm, Dr. Joe Ceo, 85 years old.

“We’re doing this again in five years for the 75th anniversary,” he said after the concert, as a bunch of us stood around, still in a bit of a rush from it all. “You all will have to be here for it, because I don’t know if  I will be.” No way, we said. If you can do it at 85, you can do it at 90.

It was that kind of music, that kind of concert, that kind of day.

(The Central Kentucky Youth Orchestra with vocal soloists in its final performance of the 2017-2018 season. No pictures of the Reunion Orchestra yet!)