This past week, DeRay and
I watched Quartet.
The plot takes place in Beecham
House, a retirement home for former professional musicians, patterned after the
real-life Casa di Riposo per Musicisti founded by Giuseppe Verdi.
Reg, Wilf and Cissy are
retired opera singers who often worked together in the past; among other
residents are Cedric Livingstone, a former director, and diva Anne Langley. All
the guests in the retirement home continue to be engaged in their former
professions in one way or the other, including lecturing and initiating young
people to music.
Finances threaten closure
of the home but proceeds from a yearly gala concert on Verdi's birthday hold
hope for a continuation of the place. However, Cedric has been rather desperate
due to the fact that some of the most prominent singers have either died or
decided not to participate at all. Reg, Wilf and Cissy, were in the cast of a
very highly rated recording of the opera Rigoletto,
which includes a famous quartet for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and
baritone. This version is very prominent amongst opera buffs as THE Rigoletto
of the post-war era.
One day, Reg is shocked to
find his former wife Jean Horton, the missing soprano of the Rigoletto
recording, turning up to live at Beecham House.
Jean is played by Maggie Smith.
Reg is played by Tom Courtenay.
Being impressed with the
movie, when Charmaine’s Writing Group was meeting on Friday, I decided to pull
some of our musical experiences from the past and read them:
As it happened, Brooke was scheduled to play with
the Utah Symphony in Abravanel Hall on my dad’s birthday, March 21 (1997). It seemed a long ways from the sheep herd to
symphony hall; yet I think Brooke would be perfectly happy at the sheep herd
and I think Daddy enjoyed good music. By
coincidence, it appeared the concert itself was in Daddy’s honor. They played The Cowboys Overture; then the Suite from The Big Country, and On the
Trail from the Grand Canyon Suite.
The featured guest artist
was seventy-two year old Chet Atkins, the country-Western guitarist credited
with single-handedly rescuing country music and bringing it into the modern era
with his eclectic tastes and sensitivity to the new recording technology, some
of which he invented.
There was foot stampin’ and
clappin’ and Yahooin’ I didn’t ever think I’d see the likes of in Abravanel
Hall. We all joined in singing America the Beautiful.
*
“Why don’t you and Dennis spot $40 and go to the symphony with
us tonight?” DeRay asked his bus aid.
“We don’t do classical, ” Vernetta informs him.
“You don’t do Chet Atkins?”
“Who’s Chet Atkins?”
“You don’t know Chet Atkins?
Don’t you ever watch TV or listen to the radio? I’ll bet Dennis would know.”
“So,” DeRay tells me, “we call Dennis (also a bus driver in his retirement) on the phone and
asked him if he knows Chet Atkins, and he said, ‘Which bus does he drive?’”
“Not really?” I laughed.
“No, we didn’t call him but that’s what Vernetta said he would
say if we called him.”
We were reared on
church-hymn doctrine. I don't remember
Mama quoting much scripture, but she often sang:
Let's be kind to one another,
Let us win each other's love,
Let each be a sister, brother,
As the angels are above.
Anyone involved in a
quarrel with a friend, unfailingly would hear this message:
Angry words! oh, let them never
From the tongue unbridled slip:
May the heart's best impulse ever
Check them ere they soil the lip.
"Love one another," thus saith the Savior
Children, obey the Father's blest command.
Love is much too pure and holy,
Friendship is too sacred far,
For a moment's reckless folly
Thus to desolate and mar.
Whenever we declined to
hold the baby or scolded her for spoiling our things, Mama would sing:
If we knew the baby fingers,
Pressed against the window pane,
Would be cold and stiff tomorrow--
Never trouble us again--
Would the bright eyes of our darling
Catch the frown upon our brow?--
Would the prints of rosy fingers
Vex us then as they do now?
In our old family home,
the windows were high and to pacify our toddler, we would hold her up so she
could peer out the window on the top half of the door. Little finger marks were always imprinted on
that window. I treasured them because of
the song. I always was afraid it was
written about our door, our window, and our baby.
To ease and enhance our
day-to-day toils, we sang the sentimental songs of the church. In times of extreme sorrow, they helped heal
our hearts and offered solace to our souls.
After Daddy was killed, many evenings Mama would quietly go into the
front room--a room we hardly ever used or heated--to play the piano and sing
the hymns. Always she sang:
When upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,
When you are discouraged thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings; name them one by one,
And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.
Count your blessings; Name them one by one.
Count your blessings; See what God hath done.
Count your blessings; Name them one by one.
Count your many blessings; See what God hath done.
She sang all four verses;
each one seemingly giving her renewed courage and strength to carry on.
We were related to nearly
everyone in town and all of us had at many times been in every home in town
"visiting with Mama", so we grew up going to funerals as faithfully
as we went to church. Hymns like The Vacant Chair, In the Garden, Oh My
Father, My Father Knows, and Sometime We'll Understand, were our
testimonies, our succor, our hope, and our abiding faith.
Mama used to sing when she
worked. With the TV, stereo, CD's, boon
boxes, tapes, and whateverall, I wonder if this wondrous technique of therapy
is vanishing from the civilized world.
As the years went by and
we were unable to conceive a child, I often played on my new Acrosonic and sang:
Why what we long for most of all
So oft evades our eager hand
Why hopes are dashed and castles fall
Sometime, sometime we’ll understand.
When Brent was in the
doctoral program, he called and asked DeRay and me what our favorite hymns
were. We had been taking an institute
class from Brooke’s favorite teacher and he has explained how each verse of A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief displays
how when you give, you get back more than you ever gave. I like that concept. Also, the melody is hauntingly beautiful so I
chose that hymn and Brent composed FF A
Work for Orchestra in 2 Movements; the first movement is dedicated to his
dad with his favorite hymn and the second to me.
Ed and I sing hymns nearly
everyday. I guess our very favorite is How Great Thou Art but one year he got
me hooked on Jesus Lover of My Soul. We also like For the Beauty of the Earth, Ye Elders of Israel, and There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today. After we’ve been back visiting with Brent
and Jan in Missouri, we especially like to sing Adam-ondi-Ahman.
Like I say, I was reared
on Church hymn doctrine.
