The Daily Walk to Save One's Life (Sviridov, Mozart, Clara Ward)

The coming change of the season is subtly advancing and working some things loose ... although the Oak Woodlands appear largely defiant, and even has a few trees that think spring is coming...

... the subtle tinge of gold can be seen among the green with a careful eye ...

... and against a true blue sky, the presence of gold in green in the early trees getting with the coming program is obvious!

Getting with the program and staying in the lane ... the necessity of that came to me as disaster struck in an area adjacent to my responsibility in community music this week. I was ashamed and angry to see my colleagues wantonly whiff and waffle and let the people down. But that is a whole situation the powers-that-be have to fix, not me. I was called for the emergency, contributed what was needed on behalf of the people, and then returned to my lane, more determined than ever to not be drawn into channels in which people want things fixed without stopping the breaking. Everyone gets to choose what they want to pour more support into, and humans will stay human. After 25 solid years, I know what to do and what can be done, in spite of lack, in spite of human neglect -- behind those who will do right, there is infinite strength!

But I am human, too, and I had a moment ... how I long to be in the company of musicians who likewise are at the top of their game and get it ... to hear more of my works realized by people as skilled as I am, with instruments that are not past their prime, with enough time and money for everything to come together. I too get tired of superior earthly resources being passed around by people who are not good and faithful stewards, and I get tired of people settling for that because they too don't want to step up and invest in better.

The composer Georgy Sviridov, who had to hide his sacred works until nearly the end of his life because the Soviet Union's lifespan overlapped his own almost exactly, whose music would not fit the traditional liturgical model anyhow, comforts me at such times. He waited and was faithful in what he could do until at last the time for his full harvest came ... and all that is required of any steward is that he, or she, be found faithful. Glory, and Alleluia, indeed.

Mr. Sviridov endured HALF A CENTURY before his sacred works were performed. I think I will have to not complain about a mere quarter-century in which only some works wait their turn, and I am no under threat for writing them.. I think I will have to buckle down and keep going, blessing those I am called to bless. I think I will have to look away from all unfavorable earthly circumstances, and the ease at which people seem to get things to waste, and refocus on being in the position to receive strength and power not available to the wasteful. I think I will have to continue to walk, abide, and adorn myself as I am called, so that the overflow can bless all around, without regard to who may or may not get it.

It happens that I have an excellent model for this, who still, a quarter of the way into the 21st century, has people just looking and listening even in the middle of other great singers and going, "How ...?" There is an art and a calling to staying in and growing super deep in one's lane.

OperaAnna on YouTube recently analyzed the Commendatore Scene in Don Giovanni,, and the questions she had opened my mind up to deeper levels of what is going on: the director of the performance she was analyzing added things he knew from elsewhere in Catholic convention. Mozart and Da Ponte had the Commendatore stand at the door and knock, and that puts him in line with Christ Who does that in Rev. 3:20 just before bringing judgment. But this director, in having two statues on stage for a moment, not having the Commendatore leave on time and also have to drop Don Giovanni off before presumably making it back to Heaven from whence he came in time for dinner linked up everything from what is written in Scripture to what would have been known around Mozart: the Savior, refused, becomes Judge (in every Dies Irae, this is known), and said Savior in the course of His work went to Hell and declared His triumph for those Who believed on Him over the doom of the unrepentant before ascending (in every Credo, this is known).

So then, Statue A has the sentence of vengeance already written on it. Statue B comes offering mercy through repentance. Statue B stands at the door and knocks, vocally has the "keys" to both Heaven and Hell with both a shockingly easy high E and a stunningly low D even Mozart did not dare to write, makes the delivery to Hell because the former is refused, and after dropping his murderer off presumably returns home for dinner even though Don Giovanni refused to come. But even the detail, at the very end ... "it is not His will that any should perish" is reflected for just a few seconds ... the statue becomes human again, with a look of grim, deep sorrow for the doomed man in his grip.

Now, here is the challenge: said director could have easily painted himself into a corner, because there are just not that many basso profondos with the size, the vocal size, and the personal gravitas to be able to pull off Commendatore on this DEEP double-duty. However, it was the early 90s, and it just so happened that there was a basso profondo already known to have joyfully sung as Raphael in Haydn's Creation from that same low D up to a shocking high F, already known to have joyfully sung the Redemption as Gurnemanz in Parsifal, radiantly explaining the meaning of Good Friday ... so then in the next decade, the Creation and Redemption being so masterfully and movingly handled by him, possibly he could also pull off the Damnation, as the Angel of Death cast in stone.

It takes a lot of not worrying about everything and everyone else to get to the point that people can call you for the Creation, the Redemption, and the Damnation -- the whole great eternal drama -- and know they will get their money's worth. Now that takes some staying focused, and some serious personal work, and some seriously staying out of dramas you don't need to invest your energy in (i.e., Hagen and Wotan got skipped)! And, this also demonstrates that it does not take a cohort of people. That one truly deep bass was of course the one and only Kurt Möll.

I thought after this that I indeed had better not be complaining -- I got called for an emergency that had no one for me to deliver to Hell. My life is too easy for me to even be worried!

So, out into the beauties of late summer ... I had taken the bus to the second highest point accessible to traffic on Lone Mountain, and while walking there into the Oak Woodlands on the northern end of Golden Gate Park there, I felt very good and strong. It was a clear blue day over me, and just warm enough and yet cool enough because of the flowing finger of fog far off keeping temperatures cool... I felt this was a day that conditions were perfect for a few things to happen.

I was right -- thunder out of a clear blue day over me! But of course that was coming through the portal of imagination ... my favorite musician was in route to his residency at Q-Inspired, gently laughing.

"I heard that you thought some things could happen today, and your wish is my command, Frau Mathews. I have been waiting for you to be ready for this advanced lesson."

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past appeared with a smile and a softer take on Commendatore's costume ... the Angel of Death taking a late summer holiday, if you will, in a hiking suit of softly radiant silver-blue that contrasted beautifully with the gold-tickled green of the Oak Woodlands in late summer ... striking with his white hair and beard for the occasion, although ...

"I know you have been trying to aim for 55-60," I gently teased, "but you need to talk to costuming because you are missing -- barely hitting 50 -- these last few weeks!"

"I know ... why do you think old men want to run around with young women anyhow?"

"I walked right into that one," I said as we laughed.

"Your energy commends you well, Frau Mathews -- you certainly whipped through the challenges of this week with and for the young people of whom you have charge!"

"For me it is not a game, a job, or even a performance -- I am giving of my life to them through music," I said. "I am going to get smack done, so long as I am given strength to do so."

"I know, Frau Mathews, which is why, at last, we may have this lesson -- openly, for we have discussed before how you do not always sing even on Hive. But now I may say to you openly: when you refused to over-compensate and walked right back out of a mess you did not make when the needs of the innocent parties were met, then, my daughter, you were working with the plan to save your life."

I started ... but then it settled in with me ... he was right.

"You were not made to spend your life on the abundant folly and the consequences thereof around you, Frau Mathews. You are meant to live as you are called. The choice put before Don Giovanni really is put before us every day, and actually Mozart showed that earlier in the opera. To whom will you give your hand, and thus your person, and your love -- every day, this is the question, and the choice!"

I considered this for some time. He was right. But I also understood why he had not said it in 2023.

"Your heart is still so tender, Frau Mathews ... before 2022 you had never even considered the question seriously outside of you extending your hand to help others, and you could not understand how and why certain people would have gnawed your hand off to keep their foolery going and centered. And yet, though you were so hurt, you left and kept going and would not turn back when you found out and were called away. What you understood, you acted on, and you were asked for no more."

He smiled.

"Not once, Frau Mathews, did you even intimate that you wished to turn back ... I said to you last autumn that you were on your own Herbstreise, but upward ... you have not stopped, not wavered, not faltered ... if you were moving, you were moving forward."

I chuckled grimly.

"I did need you to explain it a few times," I said, "but I already know what you are telling me. That mess would have killed me, and it was close enough."

"I remember, Frau Mathews. We laugh about the Knockout Zone now, but when anyone is down to the margin of some old bass's voice to get the sleep needed to survive, that is not good."

"But if it had to be," I said, "let that margin be as thick and comforting and warm and rich as the best of velvet, black and deep as the midnight, as gentle and powerful as lovely -- if it came down to any one voice, I let it be yours! I am by no means the first person to make that calculation -- when it had to be right, it had to be you!"

"Look, Frau Mathews, everybody was not of the mind that no other bass needed to work for 35 years," he said with a laugh. "I did get few calls, though, for some extraordinary asks ... I would like to have met the bass Haydn had in mind for the Agnus Dei for his C major mass. He would have left me entirely lost in the dust of history!"

"He could also have been a wide baritone," I said.

The basso profondo who had put forth that extremely high tessitura (high E and high F in there!) for his voice class sighed in mock frustration.

"I cannot even intimate completing my retirement from the memory of earth in your presence, Frau Mathews."

"Look, sir, I put you on the blockchain for a very good reason."

He laughed gently.

"I noticed, Frau Mathews. I noticed."

But then a tear twinkled in the corner of his eye.

"You extended my legacy of love into the daily legacy of love you are creating on Hive, Frau Mathews, and for that, I am eternally grateful to you. Ich danke dir, Frau Mathews."

"My pleasure, and my honor," I said. "Mein Vergnügen und meine Ehre."

He closed his eyes upon hearing that in his mother tongue, his face becoming overwhelmed with joy.

"I was blessed with longevity, not least in this way, for I so enjoyed the second half of my career, and my retirement -- so many younger musicians and directors blessed me! It was such an honor -- it is such an honor, to be likewise blessed by you and Q-Inspired!"

Then he looked at me with eyes sparkling with both tears and that irrepressible sense of humor.

"Have I told you about that time I got that better-than-front-row seat to enjoy those wonderful young basses Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto sing for hours, night after night, one wonderful run of Don Giovanni?"

"Now, you stop that, Herr Möll!" I said as I broke out laughing.

"The problem, Frau Mathews, with that occasion, is that you are right: I'm not a little bass, and although I had decades of experience flopping on stage, you get to a certain age and a certain weight and that really starts to get to you ... and then add a few pounds of makeup and costume every time you do it ... but I knew it was too late to ask for an operatic stunt double because you know that Commendatore and Masetto used to be the same singer, so already, the budget people were talking about how this double-vision cast was not what Mozart intended ... ."

He was on a roll, having me rolling laughing!

"Reviews even on YouTube are still mixed on my performance, Frau Mathews, but I generally am given credit on really getting into role for that stone statue -- but you get over 50 and sit for too long after hitting the deck too many times, and you don't have to act that part. I wish I had been stone -- Bayer's Aspirin would not have hit its quarterly numbers in the region around the Met had I been, but ... "

My ribs were going to need some aspirin as he went on ...

"But you know, it was a blessing, because this is how it ended up being the easiest role I've ever done: when everything is stiff but your voice and everything hurts but your ears, it helps one focus on listening and singing. You know I needed all the help I could get, needing to sing with both Sam and Ferruccio -- I did not need a single distraction! I could not let them down, since they had gotten me that better than front row seat! You know I have to do the utmost for you young people, bruises, bumps, Bayer's Aspirin, long commutes back to San Francisco from up home, and all!"

"You excel at being utterly ridiculous just as in everything else!" I said when I had halfway recovered, only to have him send me off again...

"Of course, Frau Mathews. You do not have room for an inconsistent man in your life."

I laughed until I cried, and he at that point harmonized me in laughing.

"But in all seriousness," he said at last when we had enjoyed that laugh to the utmost, "your estimation of the difficulty of that conception of Commendatore is sound, Frau Mathews. I am fascinated by how you reverse-engineered how that came to be and found what you love to find: an Akkord, for one singer to have in a decade sung in roles that focus on the Creation, the Redemption, and at last, the Damnation, with only one of those being an actual oratorio. And yes, I will say that many directors were aware of my wide voice range.

"But what is unique about your perception is that your mother had you memorize Revelation 3:20 as a little one, and you have read the entire book many times, so you also have a deeper view of every 'Dies Irae' and every 'Credo' ... so you have a view of Commendatore, coming from Heaven to Earth, knocking, making the offer of forgiveness, sparing the one who acknowledged his sin and acknowledged that he should be punished, and personally condemning the one who refused ... you have at least as deep a view as any director I ever worked with."

"I'm just trying to keep up with you," I said. "I could feel that you knew, the first day I saw you perform it, and over time, as I watched you as Raphael, and as Gurnemanz, I knew even more that you knew. As I listened to those last four songs in your collection of Brahms, and also Brahms' last four songs, how each points more and more up home, I knew you knew.

"But it was Bruckner's F minor mass that confirmed it... how you sang that with as much joy without thought to a solo as anything else. After all the awards of that decade and the one before, it did not matter at all to you that you did not have occasion to show off how you got those things. You loved singing of man at peace with all things temporal and eternal, man restored and redeemed, man responding to being called and thus returning to grace and love, across opera, oratorio, mass, and lied ... and it takes a man filled with such love to truly get across the absolute tragedy it is that a man should refuse all that and be damned.

There was silence for a long time, during which time the tears came out upon his cheek, one after another after another, until at last he took out his ethereal handkerchief and dried them. He opened his mouth to speak, but then shook his head and closed it, and again had to dry his tears. When at last he was able to speak, it was in his gravest double-deep tone, but soft ... his heart was still almost in his throat.

"Thus far, Frau Mathews, you see and you hear for what I preserved my life and voice. As your life converges upon the things to which you are called, and those around you share your life as you give to them from the depth of your heart, on the day someone half your age comes to you and says, 'You represent Him Who calls us well,' you will understand. I will tell you this, so you will be able to get your heart out of your throat just long enough: do not be surprised if instantly, even the hard things you had to endure become nothing but additional causes of gratitude because you were spared, and given the strength, in spite of everything, to choose and to do what you were actually put here to do."

"My people have a song about that, Herr Moll."

"I am well aware of Mahalia Jackson ... she, like you, does not perform ... that is her life she sings of!"

The radiance of his smile told me that up home and the Oak Woodlands were nearly touching for him while hearing this music, and it was but a short step up -- a big enough gap, since he and Ms. Jackson now lived across it and I could not go yet ... but not so big that the nearness could not be felt. So there we sat, and he afterward, having been brought so near to home with all his feelings, was able to compose himself enough not to have to step up for a moment.

"I do remember that I am supposed to be teaching a lesson, Frau Mathews. There will be some shouting later on when I am at home, but I do remember that I have a lesson I must finish."

"Shall we walk a while?" I said. "From here, it is but a short climb up and over to the Fuchsia Dell."

"It is a short climb measured in June's terms, Frau Mathews ... but it is not so much more than the northeastern side of Alamo Square. You are pressing the limits of your strength just a little ... but it is September ... and if you are to have your strength back for the holidays that are coming, perhaps this is necessary for you."

"We can go slowly," I said, "and where there is room for us to walk in double file, I would be glad to lean upon your arm."

He smiled.

"I think that will work," he said, "with the additional proviso that going up I shall come behind you so that you cannot fall backward, and coming down I shall go before you and assist you on the steeper steps."

"It is agreeable," I said, and thus, up we began.

We were silent for a little while, as I sensed he did need a little more time to compose himself ... which brought a question to my mind as he gently poked fun at himself.

"I was billed as warm, restrained, and intelligent. I am attempting to use the third to manage the second, but you know it sometimes did not work even back when, Frau Mathews."

"I wonder if you have experienced what I have at times ... you were 'overpowered,' in a good way," I said.

He considered this until we crested the hill --

-- and answered it when we stopped at the local top of this flank of Lone Mountain.

"German culture does not admit as directly to the idea as African American culture does," he said. "Because you grew up with the Negro Spiritual, you expect that 'Ev'ry Time I Feel the Spirit' is going to occur in the course of regular life. And, because you are also very well read in the epistles of Paul, that reinforces the possibility."

"You know, I had not thought of that in that way," I said, "but you are right. There is a traditional African and African American expectation of intimacy with the spirit world."

"Meanwhile, as you know from your study of classical music, many Europeans were daily in the position of asking for that closeness -- the cultural expectation is quite different. However, since at every Christmas someone is going to sing someone's Magnificat, there is an acknowledgment of being 'overshadowed,' and I think we shall make of that the analog, Frau Mathews, for the purposes of discussion, and I shall add this to it: for a humble man, a little bass, it is very easy to be overshadowed."

"Oh ... that's a different view of the idea!"

"Here is where things go wrong, Frau Mathews, because Christmas comes every year, and people have not yet stopped to think: how do you get 'overshadowed' by the Most High, Who is Light?' There are certain limitations in human language because we are human, but think about that paradox for a moment, Frau Mathews."

He paused to let me think and then smiled.

"Did I tell you how I got that better than front-row seat to listen to Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto, and did I tell you the best part? They actually let me sing twice in the opera with them!"

I laughed, but I could now see the serious point he was making, and besides, one cannot afford to roll laughing here ...

"It was an honor to sing with and be dismissed from the stage by such a great star as Samuel Ramey, and then be able to watch and listen to him and Ferruccio Furlanetto shine for hours on end," he said. "I loved being in a supporting role."

"I know, because the camera caught you beaming with a smile once, very briefly," I said, "and just before you hit that high note, your eyes twinkled and you almost smiled."

"I was on Cloud 9, Frau Mathews, because you have seen enough performances to know: I did not always want to be out front alone."

"Yes, there are a few solo occasions in which I could see that you were quite nervous," I said. "But then, when you were singing, that completely disappeared -- and some times, you got from focused to a point in which -- well, you've been bringing houses down for quite some time!"

"Because, Frau Mathews, one gets to the same place by the same route. Pride, inadequacy, fear, doubt, and disbelief block the route, because in our humanity we worry that either someone else is going to block the light that we need to shine in, or that we are not ready, so we hide in the shadows that do exist. But here is wisdom: stop a moment and look up. I am nearly a foot taller than you, but am I going to block that light?"

The sun was doing its thing, beautifully.

"Not at all -- I mean, I can get into your shadow, and we can get into the shade of larger trees we will meet below, but there is plenty of light for everyone."

"Sometimes, we forget, so, we worry about being overshadowed -- but here is another way of looking at it. It is quite warm today, Frau Mathews. Is not the shade pleasant as a relief from the heat?"

"It is," I said.

"Did I mention how I loved playing a supporting role and being in the shade of Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto? I mean, that big fall at the beginning, and getting stiff, and all that costuming, and then that makeup ... that part melts too long under hot lights ... so I had time for the aspirin to get to working a little bit, and I was not out overheating in that heavy Commendatore costume. It is often a relief not to have top billing, Frau Mathews, when the heat is on, because then when you do step out, you have the strength to do your best. I had a long career because I understood this."

"Yes, but you do have to be a little bass, or a little contralto, to see that," I said.

"I go a step further toward my ultimate point in this way: there is also something to be said for being able to reflect light well. Those two excellent basses and that cast in total were so wonderful that I really had very little to do but not let them down. Yes, there were plenty of favorites in there that people actually came to see, and yes, I was overshadowed by them in that sense, but I also shone in the light they brought to the room when my time came to do my part. I was blessed, over the course of my career, to most often have such situations. You think of me, and many did, as a big, big star ... but really I was good at reflecting so much light around me."

I considered this for a long moment.

"That is actually what I am missing in my musician life right now," I said. "By necessity, I am out front, overcompensating when necessary, and I have been since age 18. Rarely have I been able to move into a supporting role -- and then, people get jealous and envious over something I don't even want. But I do it because I cannot abandon those to whom I am called."

"Of course, Frau Mathews, which is how I know that you will understand my ultimate point. Remember that riddle from a few minutes ago: how are you overshadowed by light, anyhow? It is an eternal paradox that we hear of every Advent season, and along with that we sing all the songs about the state of the world of men: it is very, very dark. Evil is exalted and paid well and allowed to get into position to create disasters large and small. But, since it is dark ... ."

We passed under deep shade then ...

... but as I stood close to him, with him glowing up the way he was, what in the sunlight would have been his shadow instead was the pool of his light, and I was in it. The closer I stepped to him, the greater the light around me.

"I shall carry this one additional step, Frau Mathews. Suppose it was a winter's day, windy and cold, or, suppose you were hurt."

He gently swung me off my feet as we came down onto a broader path.

"Overpowered and carried by far greater strength and overshadowed by light, combined," he said, "but without any fear from you."

"I know you," I said, "so there is no reason for me to be afraid."

My mind went back 18 years ... a devastating situation that had nearly cost me my sanity ... but as I slept, I remembered seeing the vision of my bed, bathed in a shaft of light so bright that although the darkness was thick and utter elsewhere, that shaft of light protected me.

"I continue to say, Frau Mathews, that I am just the echo. You know these things when you see them because you know these things when you see them. Now, I will caution you of something that you see in your sphere as well: personalities vary. Excitement over amazing music is no actual indicator of anything but a sensitivity to music."

"Oh, I have learned that -- just this week -- excitement over music, overlooking of greater matters -- disaster!"

"And yet you came in and calmly and accurately handled the emergency, and got those people on their feet and out of pain, despite your dismay and anger, despite being completely unprepared -- you were enabled to bless them."

"Overshadowed and overpowered, like that Christmas concert where the ants had their better than front row seats," I said. "Got it."

"My career was, in many ways, far easier than yours," he said, "but what no one could have known in the 1980s was that I was going to need to sing so well in both voice and my life that a little one born then in San Francisco could hear me in 2021, four years after my permanent retirement. About that situation, I can only say that for me to even be heard by you at age 40, yes, Frau Mathews, I was both overshadowed and overpowered."

"But when you are a humble man, a little bass, it is not as hard for that to happen," I said. "We little contraltos understand."

He put me down, and looked at me affectionately, and dazzled me with his smile, and then ...

"You see how I have completely taken you out of telling me off in two languages in advance of me still calling myself a little bass despite all my awards, do you not?"

I put my head in my hand as I started laughing ... that comic timing of his was undefeated!

"How are you just taking fussing out of my mouth a week in advance?"

He folded me gently back into his embrace as I broke down laughing.

"Corollary: being granted joy and peace when you anticipate difficulty and strife and are getting ready for it is another way to consider being gently overpowered, provided you are actually inclined to and desire love, not strife."

This was a deep corollary indeed ... but many times I had avoided all strife while reflecting joy and peace in the situations I had found myself in. I knew what he meant, for I did desire love, deeply, for myself and all others, and far more deeply than I cared about getting my point across or knocking other people out of the spotlight or fighting over scarce resources. All that damage to myself and others was not necessary when I knew I could access infinite resources. Keeping that in mind was another way that I was saving my voice, my energy, my sanity -- my life.

"And so we end where we began, Frau Mathews ... back into your beloved Fuchsia Dell ...

"... by which we have entered by the very path you refused to risk some weeks back in climbing upward ..."

... given to you in gentle descent today, in all due time ...

... for the whole of this advanced lesson is to give you the perspective on what you have done and you are doing, in the face of grief, loss, and provocation: you are walking, abiding, and adorning yourself in the plan to save your life to do what you are called to do, and to have all that is meant for you in that process. This late summer day and this first real climb for you is among all those things for which your life has been saved."

The thought of that ... of the depth of the way in which I had been called to walk ... brought me to tears. Of course he was instantly ready with his ethereal handkerchief, and then carried me to a lovely seat.

After I had composed myself, he spoke in his gentlest tone to close the lesson.

"Walk, adorn, abide, and stay in your lane, Frau Mathews -- when the season has changed for you, you will find all the harvest that is for you, and the provision out of which you will bless many others, just in the way that you have been led to walk ... and about the distinctiveness of your way, I shall have more to say next week."