Knoxville

The online news is always flashing its top stories when I log in. Some stories are seriously newsworthy, some gossip and celebrity-sightings, some human interest, others are odd curiosities. The other day one of those items was called 'Divorce and Dating', so I read it. It gave five tips for coping with divorce after a long-term marriage. I remember two of the things quite clearly: rekindle old hobbies and interests, and reconnect with people who knew you before that marriage. Those will help ground you to who you were/are. I have mused over how my divorce came on the heels of me reconnecting with high school friends the year prior to all this craziness. I have also, thanks to my iPod, been reconnecting with music from my early years. Some of that music is rock, some pop, and some classical. This weekend I uploaded my favorite concerto, 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915' by Samuel Barber. The Oberlin Conservatory had an annual concerto competition and the three or four winners would get to perform their concerti with the conservatory orchestra. I heard one of the seniors sing this piece and was so moved, so completely swept away by it, that I was speechless afterward. Congratulating the performer, I could do no more than babble. She probably thought I was nuts. I purchased the only known recording of the piece, one done by Leontyne Price. Leontyne Price broke the color barriers at the Met, was one of Toscanini's favorite divas, and was Samuel Barber's muse. He specifically wrote pieces (songs, song cycles, the opera 'Antony and Cleopatra') for her. During his lifetime, most of his works for soprano were recorded by Price. She had an enormous gift for sure, but I have always felt her huge, operatic voice was a mismatch for Barber's more lightly lyrical style, and the daily-life topics he illustrated in much of his music. I see that more artists have now recorded this piece, and will buy the Dawn Upshaw and maybe the Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recording; I would like to hear how it sounds when sung by a man, especially Fischer-Dieskau. The piece, 'Knoxville', is written in what I think of as Americana style, much like that of Aaron Copland or Douglas Moore. In it, Barber does his usual masterful treatment of tone painting to enhance the lyrics. It is based on a James Agee's Pulitzer-Prize winning "A Death in the Family".

I listen to it on my iPod as I am drifting off to my assisted sleep. Yes, I am in an altered state and my sensitivity to music is magnified. The quiet, dark bedroom provides no other sensory stimuli. I am safe in my bed and there is no distraction to my listening. The music starts with a rocking, rolling accompaniment. It is like gently riding through town in a horse and buggy. 'It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently', Ah, yes, the music is the rocking chairs. Languid, gentle, peaceful like a summer evening. Next comes the brief interruption of a streetcar 'raising its iron moan, stopping, belling and stopping, stetterous!' As the piece goes on, night falls, and you can feel it. There is a distinct change in the music and the lyrics 'now is the night one blue dew' begin a section depicting the beauty of nature interspersed with mundane verses about spreading quilts on the lawn and coiling hoses, a beautiful picture of a peaceful town on a warm summer's night. Musical motifs hint at each new passage. These new melodies are introduced by the orchestra giving the listener a glimpse of new vocal lines before the singer starts a section. As nightfall arrives, the focus of the piece then turns to the child narrator. This is Agee as a four-year-old. He speaks of the love, comfort and safety of being with those he loves. 'One is an artist; he is living at home. One is a musician; she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me.' The first two sentences are light and performed pizzicato but the music quickly changes to legato and rises and swells in a gush of affection for the last two sentences. And later, 'After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep soft, smiling draws me unto her. And those receive me who quietly treat me as one familiar and well-beloved in that home.' Near the end of the piece the instrumentation is briefly foreboding as the singer says, 'May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father. Oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble and in the hour of their taking away'.

I know from having seen "A Death in the Family" that this piece is Agee's recollection of the last night his father was alive. Later that evening, at least in the play, his father and uncle drive somewhere and the codder pin, a pin that went down the steering shaft in early vehicles, released, shooting into the elder Agee's forehead, killing him instantly. A freak accident, even in the early years of the automobile.

The piece brings forth emotions in me that I cannot explain. The sensations, the brilliant meshing of words and song, the beauty, the tranquility and happiness of a southern summer evening, people surrounded by their loved ones, makes me sob. I lie in bed and I sob.