A Bonus Walk, on Approach to the Gates of Spring (Bruckner, Bach, Alkan)

I had time so I took an extra short walk this week. The whole idea that I had time to do it was a blessing. The reason I took it was eloquently exhorted from the fictional side of the fourth wall by the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past just before he became the singing heliotrope in "Aus Heliopolis 1," which pretty much gives parallel advice. It is always necessary to be moving toward where one is going.

There is a time to act, to move, to weep ... your heart is still tender, so all that must be ... but there must also be a return to rejoicing in the blessing that is yours, in due time. While others continue their Winterreise, your destination is still a new spring, in all its fresh beauties. Keep in mind what you are called to ... there is so much blessing budding, blooming around you and for those you are called to pour into ... there may even be a blessing coming out of what looks like tragedy on its way ... remember how you are called, mein geliebtes, goldenes Blumenkind, and to what world you belong!

This put me in mind of the end of Bruckner's F minor mass... that great prayer for mercy and peace ... granted by the end, for the Kyrie's music returns and is resolved in F major before breaking into a light that leaves no doubt of the answer from on high...

... but one has to continue on the journey to the end. The drama just before that peace breaks is epic ... a sudden C minor outburst ... it has to be gotten through. Bruckner is honest about the process.

Schubert, too, is honest about the process ... one cannot follow erring lights out of the winter into the spring, or kill and freeze one's heart to hold the picture of a lost love ... spring is going to melt that ice, so to stay in that space, one must indeed die -- and that is obvious in Winterreise, from song 4! Meanwhile, Schumann and Mahler's characters in the same situation survive -- one has a funeral for his all his feelings and drops them into the sea (of forgetfulness, if the poet thought of the well-known Scriptural and Greek references?), and the other sleeps under a blooming linden tree and rests from his anguish, and gets up relieved.

No linden trees grow near me, but magnolias are of course available ...

... they greeted me as I entered the near meadows of Golden Gate Park, and headed for its nearest redwood grove... combining the paths of Bruckner and Mahler to move toward receiving the mercy, grace, and peace available to me ... as I was going, even before I reached the park, I began to feel a lightness that I have not felt for some time ... a filling with joy because of just having the blessing of a bonus walk ... I began to express my gratitude upward as I was going, so by the time I made it to the park I was in a state very close to that last section of Bruckner's Agnus Dei ... gratefully receiving the gift of the day, and being filled with the joy and peace of the Giver.

Meanwhile, on approach from the fictional side of the fourth wall was the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, for he had asked me whether I would like coffee or tea for my second break of the day, and was walking down the near meadows in my general direction ... and having been reminded of singing in Bruckner's F minor mass, was vocalizing the second theme of the Benedictus on an "oo," emulating the sound of the high woodwinds that introduce that theme before soprano Karita Mattilla sings it beautifully. I always think of a gentle wind through the trees when hearing that section, and that put me in mind of the whole thing...

He was no soprano, of course ... even in his immense falsetto, he could not within the approximation of his mortal voice get quite that high and sound right ... but he also had forgotten he was a basso profondo for the moment, cooing an octave down from what was written for soprano in the alto range, sounding like some English horn in love ... I could not see him in the trees, but I was just watching heads turn at the sound as they tried to see where in the world that glory was coming from. But the section is short before the reprise of the first theme, and he was soon enough silent again and so could not be tracked that way because nobody expected such a sound as possible from such an imposing man.

At last he came within my sight, and even on a bright day such as this was, he looked to me like where he had been -- on high, giving thanks and praise in those realms of everlasting rejoicing. Even in the full sunlight, I could tell he was very much glowed up. And then, there was the fact that gravity and physics were just done with him. His stride was relaxed ... but I could see the cup he was carrying was transparent, and the liquid in it was staying perfectly level. He was walking on air -- gliding -- and was not aware of it.

My gentle laughter reached his ears and alerted him to where I was, and I watched him stop and actually settle into gravity as he focused on finding me and making a quiet approach to where I was now sitting. As he looped around, I vocalized the second theme of the Benedictus an octave down in my alto range on an "oo" ... much softer than him, but I knew he would hear me, and in fact he let me know because I soon enough heard the bass that Bruckner wrote for that gently undergirding my singing, gently growing in volume until it was a real duet, for he came up behind me in due time.

Of course he was radiantly smiling ... doing his best to echo the Beatific Vision as well as the Beatific Voice, of which to experience just once is to be forever happy -- and doing a fine job. However, surprise colored his face, and he looked at me for a long moment before his look became even more tender.

"I told you that you would outgrew me, Frau Mathews," he said gently. "You look to me like you have seen and heard Whom I have just seen and heard, and been in the Presence -- given what you have been through this week up to this morning, there is no other explanation -- no echo required!"

Of course I had no mirror, but I could see myself in his eyes ... and also I knew that he was right. From Bruckner, my No. 2 composer, back to Bach, my No. 1 composer to explain: I had dressed myself for the afternoon in thought of being in the park, walking with the One Who had gifted me the day -- and, by faith, I had indeed seen and heard and felt His response to my trust and faith and gratitude. Bach wrote his prelude on "Adorn yourself, O Beloved Soul!" from a place of believing that such meetings with God were possible and definite in every day life -- to be expected. Now, it was meant to be played for a Sunday, and being reminded in this way when walking into the building would indeed be helpful!

But, we know Bach meant that more generally, for every day, for when he picked up his pen to write his manuscripts, he often wrote the note: "Lord, help me!" and closed his manuscripts with "To God Be the Glory." Somewhere in the middle, the meeting happened -- and he wrote down, "I have enough -- I have my Savior -- with the eyes of faith, I have seen Him -- I have enough!"

That in C minor reminds me of just how deep that went for Bach -- he lived from his music, and had to keep writing ... lost wife, lost eleven children ... married again, had a bunch of surviving children to support ... politics and religion of his day to manage at the same time, and that was not always easy either. And yet ... he kept right on, creating some of the greatest music ever penned to the very end of his very long life by that day's standards (and 65 years is not bad compared to world averages for men today)!

I came from all these thoughts to look up again into the tender humility of my companion's expression.

"Well," I said, "the company of one who understands the situation is never undesirable, and such company is rare enough in this world. Stick around, please."

He smiled and sat down by me, and I laid my head on his shoulder. That was that.

After a while, he remembered...

"It is very warm today," he said as he reached down and picked up the tray with the tea cup in it. "I thought you might enjoy some iced mint tea."

"Vielen Dank," I said. "What a pleasant surprise!"

"Gern geschehen," he said, and smiled as I sipped and enjoyed ... and then kept looking, still in a bit of wonderment.

"About here," he said, "because I remember what this world is like, there would be so many people not of the mind that we are, thinking, how dare you, Frau Mathews?"

To be scolded by a world-class comic bass is probably the most hilarious thing ever, and he absolutely loved these kinds of situations! The way he leaned into that German accent on his English and kept running up into his upper range in mock outrage, jangling all those sweet golden bells with play-roughness -- while grinning -- just had me rolling. It takes a scherzo by Charles Alkan to get this across musically ... such virtuosity in being so hilarious ...

... but also teaching a deep lesson, too.

"How dare you be out here just glowing up -- how dare you? How dare you, with everything going on, not be caught up in the legitimate struggles and the illegitimate drama that completely tie down the minds and hearts of so many around you? How dare you bounce back from even the news of the week, to be out here just relaxing and resting, so soon? How dare you have access to joy in a joyless society? How dare you?

"How dare you not be rushing around desperately seeking scarce resources -- how dare you believe in sufficient abundance to be out here in the middle of the day? How dare you receive the fruit of the hard decisions you have put in to learn and grow and just be out here, enjoying work they refused to do?

"How dare you do all this without reference to the money, power, and status of this world as it is generally assigned to people like you? How dare you be glowing up, manifesting that there is indeed so much more to life, and that those refusing to answer the call are missing out? How dare you begin to look like the lies they are telling themselves are not true? How dare you snatch from them the idea that their erring lights are as good as any other? How dare you? Who do you think you are? How dare you?

"How dare you even be out here not trying to prove to anyone that you are who you have been called to be, but instead be basking in the presence of the One Who led you here -- how dare you destroy the idea that mere mortals are worthy of your worship by blocking the contrary ones out of your life instead of proving yourself to them? How dare you, Frau Mathews? How dare you declare yourself lost to the world system -- 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen' -- and walk in that, using but not living for the world and its aims? How dare you? How dare you?"

I laughed until I cried ... such a change from the earlier tears ... and looked back over my life for a decade ... and then forward, through the gates of spring to which we were so near in time ...

"I suppose no one who has not taken a similar journey would understand the true answer," I said. "I also know even offering it to the people I have blocked out of my life would be pointless."

"It would indeed, Frau Mathews," he said. "In fact, it would only serve to anger many even more -- which outcome you will not be able to avoid to some degree for those who know when you turned away from them and why. They will continue to be more and more upset unless and until they answer the call ... and for some ... well, if on one hand we see that by faith, heaven's joys can be opened to us even in this earth, it follows that some people, in their refusal to move forward and resentment of everyone who does, have opened to them the torments of hell likewise in advance."

He sighed ... for half a moment, that thousand-yard stare ... he had some stories he was never going to tell me about the musicians he had known ... but he shook that look off and smiled.

"But," he said, "that is not your tragedy."

"No, it is not, and so I can give the true answer: how dare I not, given how I am called, Who called me, and Whose I therefore am?"

"That is the answer, indeed."

His smile became a grin, and then mellowed to a look much more tender.

"All those years of climbing through grief, I knew that as you kept going, this day would come. I was so glad to sing to encourage you ... I was so honored that you invited me to talk with you about what you were learning in Q-Inspired, and to do so with such love ... I was so glad because I knew: you would get here to this very understanding, and it would be absolutely glorious. I am still surprised, however ... one never can be ready for how beautiful this type of glow-up will be on anyone, to say nothing of how it will transform her earthly life, from here."

"Now, you see all the women in glory in their glory," I said as I demurred his compliment.

"And I am continually astonished by all of them," he said, "and I will tell you how you know that things are right for everyone on high: they think I am handsome, up there, because the glow-up is real!"

I cracked up laughing.

"Yes, it is -- it always was for you, even in mortality!" I said, and he blushed.

"Well, you know, costuming here is pretty good, too," he said. "But indeed I am talking about something that comes from the inside, showing out, without regard to whether the person is considered beautiful by the world's standards. This to some degree is available to everyone through common grace: putting more time in the peace of nature, or in all the wonderful music that there is, and thus away from the bustle of the system does so much for the soul. But even in common grace, so few avail themselves that this kind of beauty is rare.

"I say also this, Frau Mathews, in mind of previous lessons: we have spoken about being invisible, and also about the fact that light is only concealed in greater light. The one is to withdraw from where light is not wanted for its proper purpose, and the other is a question of where to appear safely. In both those matters, we were speaking of the orientation of the private life. What I did not say to you at that time is that you do need to start preparing for a massive glow up in your public life ... and you are already quite bright in the eyes of many."

"Yeah, and the foolery has already started," I said.

"Consider what I said to you upon meeting you this afternoon: I see reflected in you the very Light in which I daily live and give thanks and praise on high, for you were engaged upon the same activity I was, and that Light condescends to shine down, as the sunlight also does, to bless those who attend.

"That said, there is now a way for me to stop annoying you with the analogy to even "little star" status: we shall say you are a reflector of a far greater Light, and the more your life comes into line with that, the brighter you will appear in your public life as well. You will need to be even more discerning as light draws everyone looking for it, for all kinds of different reasons. There will be future days for that -- have no fear, for I still have much that I can teach you.

"But for now ... the day has become so beautiful here at the gates of spring ... "

"... that we might give ourselves this break in full, and then I will walk you home."

I laid my head on his shoulder and vocalized the first line of that second melody from Bruckner's beautiful Benedictus into his ear, and he shivered from pleasure -- "You have some golden bells of your own in that voice, and so rarely do you ring them, Frau Mathews-- Ich danke dir!" -- before answering with the second line where it lay in his "proper" and gorgeous middle bass range ... and so we kind of worked out the whole rest of the Benedictus from there ... just another way to enjoy the gift of the day.