The Limits of Mankind, Lovingly Considered: Schubert's "Grenzen der Menschheit" Answered by the Negro Spiritual "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands"
Every now and again, I do listen to singers who are actually still singing in this realm ... I do enjoy the voice of Matthias Goerne, and although he is a baritone, he nailed what keeps this particular Schubert lieder out of the mouth of most baritones: he was able to solidly hit that ending low E. His low range overall is quite strong, and his upper range is lovely ... to me he epitomizes what there is to love about baritone ... the strong depths and the lovely heights, therefore partaking of the best of both bass and tenor for those who are bass fanatics and care little for tenors.
Baritone is exactly as much tenor as I like (unless Jose Carreras or Placido Domingo are around ... there are exceptions to every rule)!
But the other issue: there's a high E too ... so, I did listen to Hans Hotter, great bass-baritone who literally sang his way from the first third to the last decade of the 20th century, sing this as well. Herr Hotter negotiated both heights and depths beautifully. To my pleasant surprise, Gottlob Frick, a true basso profundo described as having the blackest bass voice Germany ever produced, also managed it well. The absolute darkness of his voice perfectly fits the gravity of the subject ... famous German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe in the text discusses whether man should measure himself against the divine, and how well he will do in such a comparison -- and because the poem dates from 1791, the answer is roughly parallel to the answer given in English hymnody and the Negro Spiritual at the same time: if you try, you will find out even the attempt will destroy you.
I of course listen with chastened ears, knowing that Germany would forget this answer by 1933 ... and watching people in my own nation learning the hard way that this ain't what you do by the millions (because racism and sexism aren't getting their devotees the life their great-grandparents took for granted, and Covid-19 doesn't care who you think you are) ... so it is fascinating to hear Schubert's thoughtful setting of this poem as the singer walks us through the futility of mankind daring against the bonds of his mortal limitations ... if he stretches too high toward the sky, the wind will cause him to lose his footing and will dash him into the sea to drown ... if he roots himself to the earth, the tree and even the vine dwarf him, reminding him he is not so much, after all, in the affairs of the universe ... I was reminded of this on my Saturday walk ... to get these trees in the picture, I had to lean way back...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, November 11, 2023
The waves of time, while they do not disturb Him Who commands eternity will cause all men to founder in the end, for we cannot stand up against the waves...
Fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, made in Apophysis 2.09
... so it is better for mankind to understand his place in the great ring of human existence as it rolls forward from the past into the future,and not try to reach too high or too deep.
Speaking of too deep ... I enjoyed Goerne, Hotter, and Frick singing this song, but ...
"How did I know I was going to get called, Frau Mathews, before all this was finished?"
"There's still no one else in the universe for a lieder low E in its beauty, sir."
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past appeared and bowed in late middle age with a smile.
"The way you process information from these German lieder is interesting, Frau Mathews," he said. "You noticed that I had the longest recording by about a minute of all five recordings you considered, and therefore the slowest tempo."
"And for once, your diction did not elude me so much, because of that slower speed," I said. "I wondered if you might not have wanted to get this lesson across a bit more than some others because you were born in 1938."
"While Germany was setting itself up for the consequences of forgetting Goethe and Schubert and Wolf's combined effort to preserve this particular lesson -- and while your nation has been learning the hard way this past three years -- good attention to detail, Frau Mathews. I might not have thought about all that in the detail that you have, because your mind is unique, and yours is the privilege of hearing Matthias Goerne still singing -- does he not have one of the most remarkable voices of your time?"
"He does," I said. "I enjoy him greatly -- but you're not passing me off to him just because he is alive in this realm, Herr Möll."
I kept forgetting ... any attempt to be stern with him was just an invitation to the Knockout Zone... an object lesson in itself: the only thing to do with a man like him was truly quit him, because as long as you didn't, his perennial attitude would be this, with skills to match:
Oh, I am about to get told off again? In two languages? Go on and make me laugh, Frau Mathews!
"Who, me?" my guest cooed on the present occasion, his face looking like pitch-perfect boyish innocence while his voice spanned more than four octaves down and up, sounding like an old great northern owl with a black hole for a low range ... he just vocalized his whole range including his RIDICULOUSLY high falsetto in two words on two vowels, live!
I stared in amazement -- there being absolutely nothing else to do at his audacity combined with his ability -- until he grinned, and I could not do anything but laugh for a long time!
"Here you are stunting AGAIN with that voice!" I cried when I halfway recovered. "When is enough enough?"
Why did I give him that opening? Why?
"You know, Frau Mathews, I do vaguely remember some young tenor of your ethnicity -- remarkable voice -- singing something in the 80s about 'don't stop 'til you get enough'--"
" -- but since he was a tenor with a magnificent falsetto, I as a basso profundo will simply have to agree with the idea without even attempting to sing along, because neither you nor I nor the world are prepared for that kind of crossover!"
Had there not been a table I would have been rolling on the floor because he was now on a roll and there was no escape from the Knockout Zone ... that deep, dark voice was at its most mock-serious, with those huge sparkling eyes beaming all that laughter straight into me ...
"And then there would really be a problem if I tried that young man's dance moves. You have no idea, Frau Mathews, what choreography is like at this stage of existence. I used to bounce around on stage with my actual size quite a bit, but at this point I would start enjoying myself and forget that if I hit a spin in the opposite direction of Earth's rotation -- well, that's probably more quantum physics than anyone needs to know except to say that if you thought me stepping off into the black hole in Strauss's 'Der Einsame' was something at my mere six feet two, try a counter-Earth spin at six-foot-forever-and-a-half!
"Poor Gustav Holtz -- he would have to recompose 'The Planets,' and on getting the assignment necessary, half his orchestra would go on strike in a manner not seen since Father Haydn wrote the 'Farewell' Symphony and had the whole orchestra walk out. There is simply not enough orchestra pay nor angular momentum in the Solar System to cope with all those problems, Frau Mathews, so, I had better tell myself, 'Nur ruhe' and just be quiet -- der Schweigsam Meistersinger, shall we say, in merging two operas from Strauss and Wagner to meet our needs?"
I was in tears banging on the table laughing by the time he added laughing bass harmony to my laughing ... as ever, when he got into his joy, one was going to be carried and that was that! No audience had ever been able to resist him!
But then I stopped laughing as it came to me ... of all the singers who had ever sung "Grenzen der Menschheit" in his generation, had there even been one more tempted to not learn its lessons? As I considered this, I saw how he had lovingly and laughingly led me around to that very point -- though he had bent time and space in mortal life with that voice and that mind in service to his calling, he respected the limits, for he knew what happened when men did not.
"I understand," I said aloud.
"I knew that you would," he said, his voice now in its true deep gravity. "You are blessed, mein kind, that you are tender enough still in heart to learn in gentle ways, for this lesson, in full, is surely no laughing matter."
I closed my eyes and savored every note, but especially that low E that had come as easily and naturally as anything else in the song ... the high E had come as easily, and his high notes, though quite different from Goerne's, seemed as natural ... if any voice might have been thought to have no edge, no limitation, it was his ... if anyone was out bending librettos and time signatures and stealing shows as the villain turned into the lead comic, he was ... if anyone past his mortal life STILL had a grip on all the hearts he had walked off with and was still adding to his collection, he was ... and yet he took his time more than all the others to make the point in "Grenzen der Menschheit": "Don't try it. We are men, not gods." Perhaps he had been tempted more, but if so, the master teacher had taken his time and taught himself, for his friends still come on YouTube talking about how he was the least pretentious man they ever knew.
Consistency of life, testimony, and body of work ... a legacy beloved ... I savored every note, and thanked God that though past the time (I was five when this was recorded), it had come to me anyhow ... when I was ready.
When I opened my eyes, my ethereal companion had ethereal tears on his cheeks.
"Frau Mathews, you are making a certain unpretentious spirit blush ... you heard all that?"
"Just like everyone else around you always did," I said. "It was not just that you had one of the most beautiful voices God ever made ... it was that you were content with that, and never attempted to step into His place with it over anyone else. You understood the assignment, Herr Möll: a steward of grace -- and that's the other side that this song does not address quite so well ... but then again, you singing it covered it!"
He smiled, but one tear hit the floor.
"Habe Dank, Frau Mathews," he murmured. "It was my duty, and honor, and pleasure, extended now even past my lifetime by you as well as many others ... so many, to whom I am eternally grateful."
"Habe Dank, Herr Möll," I said, and gave him a moment with his memories and his ethereal handkerchief while I brought him a cup of tea, which he looked at for a very long moment before speaking.
"You are such a kind hostess, Frau Mathews, although you have forgotten what the Commendatore said about such matters regarding fictional spectral creatures: those who dine on the food of Heaven ... ."
"Oh, I am so sorry!"
"You apologize for being kind and thoughtful? Nein, Frau Mathews. I thank you ... you brought me so many memories of family and friends and the sharing of loving hospitality with that kind act. You accomplished exactly what you intended, and I thank you. It will delight me even more to watch you enjoy such a finely prepared beverage in my stead as we talk over this song.
"I give you my commendation, first of all, Frau Mathews, in the maturity you showed on getting through the first shock of this song."
I sighed deeply.
"I thank you for telling me plainly that what I hear is not always what Germany has said some time ago," I said. "I needed that to be ready when Matthias Goerne hit me with Goethe's ancient holy father scattering benevolent lightnings -- but then having the hem of his garment kissed!"
My guest smiled.
"Your initial reaction created another 'Only Frau Mathews!' laughter wave in the choir on high," he purred. "Jerome Hines is up there talking about no one before you has EVER said about ANY German lied: 'What kind of CONFUSION and FOOLERY is THIS?'"
"I wanted to go to the Goethe Institute here in San Francisco and ask someone: what was he THINKING?" I said. "I mean, we just passed Reformation Day three weeks ago -- it's not like Goethe couldn't have read Genesis 1 and 2 -- I mean, Haydn's Creation already had that in music by then!"
"But, Frau Mathews, what are you thinking, knowing as you surely do that not everyone who knows, cares? Here you are stubbornly holding the Bapto-Lutheran line for October 31 having been Reformation Day, and 99 out of 100 Protestants you know celebrated Halloween!"
"I keep forgetting," I said, and put my head in my hands.
"But you learned something important, Frau Mathews," he said gently. "The question you have had in your heart since age 16 has now been answered. You have accepted the answer, and that is progress."
I looked up, sad but resolute, and he whipped out a fresh ethereal handkerchief for me.
"I would no more be at home in German culture in any time period than I am here in this culture, and only home shall I be -- and this is also why that part from 'An die Musik' when that chord comes from Heaven moves me so much -- when I am home, in Heaven. This is why I said to you that, had that tree branch taken me from here in October, although I am only 42 years old, I would not have regretted it."
"Hmmmmmmmm..." he rumbled. "Since I was born well after the Protestant Reformation, and read just a little bit, I seem to remember the Apostle Paul having made a similar statement."
"In Philippians," I said.
"And then Father Bach left us 'Ich habe genug,' in which he affirmed exactly the same thing."
"Among my favorite recordings for high bass or baritone," I said.
"So it seems, Frau Mathews, that those who are called above are called above. Your own great Negro Spiritual, from the same time period as the lieder, says precisely the same thing, but more hopefully, for in them, God is not as far removed -- and with that background, why would you not want to go home?"
"I always feel like I need to pick up 'Der Wanderer' and that poor young man in 'In der Fremde' and tell them there is plenty good room in my Father's kingdom, or come and go with me to my Father's house where there is love, joy, and peace ... and that would also answer the man wishing he could get back to the linden tree in both Stolz and Schubert!"
"I want you to hear yourself, Frau Mathews. Keep in mind what you have said. It is important as to why you have been called to study the music of my culture, from age 11. After 31 years, it is important that you understand."
"But to return to this masterpiece by Goethe and Schubert; surely you know that the confusion and foolery, as you call it, is not out of line with their output in total -- they seemed to have no trouble making art out of a lot of different and even contradictory viewpoints because they never settled in where you are, Frau Mathews, in life. Remember this, mein kind, as you choose partnerships in the intimate portions of your life and work. You are not a match for many, because you are clear on what you believe, and how you manage your stewardship -- in a decadent age, you must keep that in mind from here on. You did not know at age 40. You know now.
"In addition to the pains your not knowing before has led you to, from here, you will be held eternally responsible for what you do in both the temporal and spiritual realms with that knowledge. We shall say here that you have no extended business with people who are not at least good "mere" common grace stewards, and doubly not with people who call themselves Christians but are bad stewards -- what you have learned to your pain you must put to your purpose."
"Yes, sir," I said.
"Now that we have dispensed with the foolery -- such a word from your elders, Frau Mathews, that you use with such relish -- I tell you we have had such joy with your elders also in Glory over this --."
He could not hold back his laughter, and I laughed with him, enjoying this moment of relief.
"At least the attitude is almost right," I said, picking up the thread of the song. "You delivered that so well ... the humility of desiring only to touch the hem of the Savior's garment, and thus knowing, just that close, that one would be blessed."
"Well, if you fail that part -- how is that you young people say that -- 'throw the whole song away'?" he said.
"What?" I said as I cracked up from surprise. "What did you just say?"
"Well, you know I was keeping up with personal computing and what Wagner might have done with it when I was 50," he said, "when you were eine kleine fräulein of merely seven, and also just learning ... and you are now a composer who writes music on a personal computer. So I had to get started, Frau Mathews, because I had to be just that close to keeping up to be able to be here with you ... so you might expect that in getting here, I've picked up what your students are saying as well.
"Meanwhile, back to alerting 16-year-old you that no, moving to Germany is not the answer ... we just get past kissing the hem of the garment of the singular divine before that next line goes into the plural: How do the gods differ from men?'"
I put my head back in my hands.
"It was like walking into the wrong meeting after a 26-year search," I said. "'I thought I heard -- but no, my apologies, I'll just see myself out, thank you.' The dream died right there, and I just went on and put the 16-year-old me, bewildered, to bed for good. Of course I know, intellectually, that Germany was the home of Kant, Marx, Hegel, and Nietsche, and also Graf and Wellehausen the higher critics. We do not need to discuss the 20th century, because I know exactly how Germany got there, philosophically -- from Luther to Goethe to Nietsche, and between us the rest need not be said. But confusion is no place to stand."
"It is not," he said, "but understand what I said before, Frau Mathews. It is not always that people are confused that they put forth confusion. There is another way to do that, and this song highlights it: people choose confusion in its true sense, and then the apparent confusion is the natural result of their foolish justifications for aspiring to do what this very song warns against, however imperfectly.
"Remember that Bach and Luther's lifetimes almost overlap ... their combined setting forth of a clear way in doctrine and art was more than manifest by Goethe's and Schubert's times, to say nothing of the later philosophers you mentioned. But as you know, Frau Mathews, you can have the answer, but you cannot make anyone want it."
I had not yet gotten my head out of my hands ... this lesson, again ...
"Sometimes people just want the foolery," I said.
"And so, though they stretch themselves so high that the winds mock them, and toss them into the sea to drown, or they make themselves rooted to the earth while the tree and vine mock them in height and length of days, they find only what Solomon found and I also sang in Brahms 'Four Serious Songs' -- all is vanity in the seemingly endless run of days under the sun ... 'der kleiner Ring,' the little ring of human life is all ... and they are lost ... ."
I thought again of "Der Wanderer," "Der Einsame," "In der Fremde," and "Der Winterreise" ... indeed, across the Romantic period, men kept making the most beautiful art out of being lost ... and Strauss lived long enough to see Germany as he knew it, lost!
The great basso profundo heir of Germany's loss, herald of its return to respect and honor, put forth his voice in quiet but firm authority.
"Hear me well, Frau Mathews, for I that speak with you am a voice from the past while you are the heir to now. Who do you know among my associates who also would have known the end of "Grenzen der Menschheit" is not the end? Who would have the song that confirms that there is not a distant deity Who has condemned mankind to nothing but an endless round, but is instead Love, Himself, concerned with finding man and redeeming him and walking with him through this life to the next? Had I, steeped in the culture I was, having seen what I did, had for a moment felt that life was empty, and that there was no one beyond this world with any concern, who would have answered me among my own associates??"
I grinned, and pulled it up on YouTube... Jessye Norman and also Kathleen Battle have the answer!
We savored every note, and every word!
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past placed his hand gently upon my shoulder.
"You began really in German music with Father Haydn and The Creation as a little one, and then ran innocently into Father Beethoven at 11 and did not realize it took him decades and decades to get past Kant and back to the reality that there is a personal God Who loves ... and then you discovered Father Bach, with whom you realized you were more at home ... but those who came after him left you the question, Frau Mathews. That question has bounced around in your mind since age 11, and since age 16 ... but in your spiritual and musical heritage, you already have the answer.
"The resonance between you and me as musicians is that of question and answer, call and response. You keep hearing these German lieder and running your mind around them, Frau Mathews, because of the call of every question for an answer -- you keep hearing it because *the Negro Spiritual, contemporary to the lieder, has the answer -- and those are yours, as the lieder are mine! You are already right where you need to be, in this portion of your culture! Be thankful that you heard "Plenty Good Room" before hearing my admired peer Herr Ridderbusch singing about there being a linden tree in his father's house, and what you were about to do, wandering off into a culture not yours and wishing you could get back home!"
"I suppose Grandmother and her singing of spirituals tore up my ticket to Germany before I could ever use it," I said.
"It is not so bad as that, Frau Mathews. Remember the Heidelberg Gospel Choir, singing at your church. Remember your amazement, and joy. Remember also what you learned that was good from Father Beethoven's biography, since you never have been content with anyone's music! He taught you how to live as a composer with the love of Creation, and how exploring it by walking is one great interconnected blessing with the sources of art and music -- one great common grace, we shall say, in light of Reformation Day. Later in your studies of Scripture you realized that under special grace, man's whole redeemed life was to return to walking with his God, in Christ, to higher ground, and that connected to what you also had learned even earlier from your grandmother's Negro Spirituals about the same journey homeward, and also then from Father Bach -- and I understand you have found yourself a little German church to visit online!"
I smiled.
"Kirche des Nazareners, Freikirche Gelnhausen," I said. "A little German evangelical free church, indeed ... I listen and read the closed captions, and I love what I learn ... recently they have been preaching on faith and joy and rest in Christ, and that indeed echoes all of what what we have been discussing! The pastor read from a song there, although they did not sing it, and I could read that the songrwriter, too, has reached back to the right answer -- so, within Germany, all is not lost yet!"
"I knew it was not in you to give up that easily," he purred, "and it is also known on high ... so of course you would get your reminder of your fellow travelers, Frau Mathews."
"I was so happy to find myself in the right room -- I was doing my whole Black church call-and-response in German for Sunday's sermon, just Amening and go-head-on-ing, in German!"
"I know about that, too," he said with a laugh. "Some of Madame Mahalia Jackson's friends slid over on the heavenly organ and started backing Pastor Hans-Gunter Mohn up in full gospel style in Sunday while you were carrying on, and we just had combined classical and gospel choir after all that -- and then of course everybody had to give it to me in twenty-part harmony or so: 'Only Frau Mathews!' and laughed me clear from one side of the bass section to another!
"But you see, mein kind, Heaven never contradicts itself, in any language or culture. You hear that harmony because you are listening for it everywhere ... and always, you will hear that holy chord, because your ear has been opened for it, everywhere.
"An important corollary for this lesson, and also that which you received so joyfully Sunday: so often grief and loss make us think we are going out empty ... that all is lost ... you have been reading in Der Winterreise, and you added reading in Mahler's song cycle that parallels it, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen. And of course you know Strauss's "Der Einsame.' But do you realize, with all the losses you have endured, that you have become more creative, not less? Do you know why?"
I thought about this.
"He Who has called me, keeps me."
"That is the ultimate answer -- of course. But think a layer further into that. Because that answer is true, what does that mean about those things left behind you?"
I thought about that, and smiled.
"No matter what, Psalm 23:1 is in effect. 'The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.' I shall never lack anything that I may need. It will be in front of me from here to eternity."
"So this is the same lesson as last week, just from a different direction. Now we can go back and address you at 11, and 16, kindly: you lived in a neighborhood from which the music of Haydn, and Beethoven, and Bach, and others, relieved you until the change came and you survived with your family to enjoy the peace there is today. That music was a vision of a better, more peaceful and orderly world for you ... the lesson of 'An die Musik' occurs yet again there!
"But remember, Frau Mathews, remember: we were told different lies, growing up. Little boys like me were told we were the greatest in the world. Little girls like you were told that you are the least of all people. Everything outside our doors told us this was true at our formative ages -- but we also were born at a time when change became inevitable.
"So, we were spared, Frau Mathews -- we were spared to learn that we do not come as masters, slaves, or beggars to each other or anyone else. Our cultures are not masters, slaves, or beggars to each other. The possibility of human interdependence and co-creativity across the great questions and answers of human life will always exist to be explored and enjoyed. All one has to do is not choose the foolery, as you express it one way, and "Grenzen der Menschheit" expresses it another way!
"Someday, Frau Mathews, if you pursue it, your scope as a writer and musician exploring this nexus between our two rich cultures will get larger than Hive, just as your scope as an author and curator did two weeks ago -- but in the meantime, remain faithful as you are called. The world does not see Hive as much now, but you and I know that it is the 'Art Exchange' that Father Beethoven foresaw in 1810! Remain faithful over a few things, mein kind, for you know how that verse ends, and He Who said it is true."
"'You have been faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many,'" I quoted. "That is what is missing from 'Grenzen der Menschheit' -- if the ring of human affairs is small, within it, there is so much of stewardship to be done ... and so much loving concern and involvement from Him Who is indeed the loving, eternal Father."
"Which is why Ms. Norman and Ms. Battle are so perfect here, with the answer," he said, "and also, Frau Mathews, since my time and theirs has past, why it is so wonderful that you now are the standard bearer for that answer. Know for certain that your impulse to answer the question as an artist is the exact right nexus for you, in your time. In that space, where the question is heard and the answer you have is desired, no matter the culture you may visit while standing firmly where you were called, you will find a happy sojourn, on your way home!"
We turned Ms. Norman and Ms. Battle on again to savor every word and every note one last time, and he reached over and hit the refresh button again, and again, and then once again. I realized he was impressing his point upon me about my own things and the richness of them, without another word ... for after all, the time for his voice in the world had passed. But me? The holidays, Christmas through Easter with Black History Month in between, were at hand ... I would be all over the place, doing what I was called to do ... it was, after all, my time. His lessons had consistently been about that point, despite the struggle and the pain and all the rest... all the temptation to distraction in all its forms ... faithfully he had echoed a Voice greater than his own, calling me back to my calling, again, and again, and again.
It had been seven months ... I wondered then if his assignment with me might be nearing its end ... we had covered a tremendous amount of ground from April to November, of questions, and answers between his culture and mine ... there was a kind of finality to this, like that low E he had uttered ... long ago when I was five ... but time had moved on. Nothing lasted forever except forever's things, in forever's home, and I was not there yet.
On the other hand, YouTube's algorithm hasn't quit yet ... the oldest part of my personal quest of exploring German music and culture was finished, but the nexus of learning remained open ... and that big wink and smile my guest left me as he wordlessly vanished meant I had picked up that part of the lesson too!