Happy Veterans Day!

I am humbled when I think about those in the armed forces, willingly putting themselves in danger for the welfare of others. They have more bravery than I could ever have, and I am thankful for their service and sacrifice.

American composer John Adams set Walt Whitman‘s “The Wound Dresser” for voice and orchestra. It is a lengthy and emotional narrative, in the tradition of Barber‘s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 (listen to it here). Musically, it’s somewhere between an opera and a song cycle, and the text ranges from fine poetry to graphic description. It’s a longer listen, but well worth it, especially on this day. Whitman wrote his poem shortly after the Civil War, 150 years ago. Only 100 years ago, the Great War ravaged much of the world. And World War II was so horrific that we are still in shock concerning the horrors of the holocaust and atomic bomb. Take a mere 20 minutes, have a listen, and give thanks for our soldiers.

Everyone seems to agree that this presidential election is unpleasant, depressing, stressful, etc. So if you’re sick of listening to all the political bullshit, allow me to give you some very different bullshit for your listening pleasure!

If you’ve taken a music appreciation class, you’ve probably had some John Cage forced on you. I should point out that I like the guy, and I like musing over and talking about his ideas. At the same time, I don’t actually enjoy listening to his music; I think it’s main value is not aesthetic but philosophical.

Among the many cool ideas he had (I say “cool” because I don’t think it’s necessarily “good”) was to remove the human composer from the act of composing as much as possible. From here he began exploring other ways to challenge our ideas about music composition and creation (and, about ourselves and our social interactions). His piece Indeterminacy is a recording of Cage reading random sentences from selected stories, while his friend David Tudor makes random musical sounds with various instruments.

If the music were more typical, and the spoken words made sense, this recording would be same-old-stuff, perhaps something akin to a children’s story accompanied by music. But since both music and words are nonsensical, our initial response is “what the hell is this?” But, to a non-human, both same-old-stuff and the nonsensical-stuff might sound exactly the same. Who gets to define what is music and what isn’t, anyway?

Two important Christian celebrations happen at the beginning of November, and are linked with Halloween. All Saints’ Day is November 1st, All Souls’ Day (AKA the Day of the Dead) is the 2nd. Most churches today celebrate these two days together on the first Sunday in November; the resulting combination includes elements of both holidays – the work of the saints are celebrated, and the dead are remembered.

For me, the beginning of November and these celebrations remind me of a young boy I knew who died of a brain tumor before his third birthday. My first child was roughly the same age as the boy, so the events of that year hit me. He became ill around the beginning of November, and his funeral (for which I played the organ) was in June. It was by far the most difficult service I’ve ever had to play.

Ever since then, I’ve played this piece by Louis Vierne on All Saints’ Sunday. “Stele pour un enfant defunt” (memorial for a dead child) tries to emotionally capture the peace that parents seek when they lose a child. Vierne dedicated the piece “to the memory of my little friend”. The sweet, high melody searches for resolution, but the twisted harmony keeps wrenching it away. At the end, the harmony tries to break the melody’s resolution, but fails; peace is attained at last.

Vierne was a marvelous composer who kept late romanticism alive long after it had gone out of style. This was the final piece he played, before he himself died, sitting on the organ bench.