Church Hymn Doctrine and Other Things

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.