The Most Beautiful Thirty-Five Seconds In Wagner's Parsifal ... and How We Met the Byrds As We Turned (Turned, Turned) Around Alvord Lake

September ... still mostly summer, and a strange one in San Francisco ... usually by now, the heavy spring winds that blow through the summer have ceased, but not this year ... they have lessened, and it is warmer, but not yet at the last-of-summer heat that we usually expect ... that may happen in the early fall still ... but all that makes for a lovely day for a long walk to and from one of my favorite places in the world: Alvord Lake in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

But the path back to this lake was strange as well, though not bad ... I began the summer composing, and I approach its end not having completed a great deal of new music but a new book about the coming crypto bull run ... and also 27 pounds down from my peak weight of a few years ago ... causes of great celebration ... and yet, largely to God and myself alone, for so many of friends and community that I had in January have now vanished, and I even find myself at cross purposes with many of them.

In the spring, I wrote of Mahler's "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen" ... of understanding that my path must be again to turn from the world, and the thought of many friends, and return to the center, my art, my calling ... in the spring I wrote of Strauss's "Der Einsame," of the depth of grief that tempts one to despair, and how my beloved Kurt Möll (1938-2017) takes that voice of his and wrapped all the brightness of the Milky Way that shines within his midnight voice around the event horizon of that black hole to light it up -- so that no one hearing it might ever say they stumbled into that dark pit not knowing it was there. There is a line between grief and choosing despair ... the line between choosing to make the other person the continued cause of everything or choosing to return one's energy to one's self and move on. Everyone has to make a choice. I made mine, and moved on.

In the early summer I was composing my own music -- and yes, @mipiano, I have not forgotten, but the scoring is A BEAR and I will have to get back to it after my book launch -- and I have been out in the parks and hills as much as I can. I expected to be out more playing the pianos in the park, but instead stumbled on July 31 onto the projection of the beginning and length of the coming crypto bull run, and looked heavenward and asked, "Lord, what would You have me to do?" My fifth book came to be then, and I gave August 4 through Sept. 7 to that work both in outlining every day when I was outdoors, and finally buckling down to typing. It is done, at least in draft now ... but that was not even foreseen, to say nothing of planned, from even July 30.

I also, at 42, was not quite ready for the recurrence of the usual thing ... always the losing of companions, the long climbs alone to a summit no mortal near me can share with me ... at 16, at 27, at 30, and at 42, the story has been the same. Perhaps there is no real preparation for the loneliness at the top ... but if one is called to climb, then that must be its own reward, and sometimes, one can go to the lake instead.

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

I have listened to so much music in the past several days, old and new and Weirdsville ... finding comfort ... on Friday I rediscovered the most beautiful 35 seconds in Wagner's Parsifal, with to me the most beautiful bass voice singing it ... now, the video is 14:40, and you are welcome to leave it on ... but for me, that first 35 seconds is enough...

"Gesegnet sei, du Reiner, durch das Reine!
So weiche jeder Schuld Bekümmernis von dir!"

This ROUGHLY works out as -- pardon the continued roughness of my German -- Be blessed, pure one, in [the] pure; so may all guilt and sorrow pass from you!" This looks backward at the Biblical insistence that to the pure, all things are pure, but that purity only comes through redemption in Christ. Richard Wagner, who did his own libretto, blurred that line because of Parsifal and that Grail being so essential ... but, interestingly, Gurnemanz holds the line probably better than any other character in the story. He understands the importance of the Grail, and man's stewardship of nature, and the importance of Parsifal ... but he is more or less accurate ... just another case in which Herr Möll quietly steered around certain issues in his choice of roles ... the most "Lutheran" King Phillip EVER was also voiced by him, thus avoiding being enraptured BY the grave instead of resting IN IT...

But see, I have in common with Herr Möll a keen sense of how to avoid nonsense, even approved nonsense in my own culture ... "Girl, go treat yourself ... girl, buy you some this and that and celebrate ... girl, you deserve it!"

I have finished a book and have no money from it yet, and I have lost 27 pounds and have absolutely no need to go out and do anything to gain one of those pounds back. But there is no explaining how utterly satisfying these heralds of summer about to touch San Francisco's second spring (because autumn generally will not kick in here until Nov. 15 at the earliest) are ...

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

... to someone who does not understand that ... but ...

"Aber verstehe ich dich sehr gut, Frau Mathews."

The voice that had been ringing in my ears for that 35 seconds, over and over, rang out gently yet again in another Q-Inspired production of the imagination ... the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, again looking hearty and hale and well-aged with his hiking poles and hiking suit of yesteryear, suddenly stood by me. He had gotten that close that fast because, big and tall as he was, he had cast no shadow on the lake ... and with no bulk, no sound that he made in his shoes on approach ... although he could have just materialized, but then again, it did not seem to be his way to frighten everyone else into the lake, although several people looked over because of his voice, so lovely even in mere gentle speech, and so resonant.

And then I realized he had adapted his Gurnemanz costume into a hiking suit, and would have gone into the lake laughing had the old knight on a hike not put his arm out to steady me. He knew how to change my mood ... we had a good laugh about all that.

"I almost became the Lady of the Lake in my own production here -- guten tag, Herr Möll!" I said as he smiled his sweet smile.

"Ich gratuliere Ihnen zur Fertigstellung Ihres fünften Buches und zu Ihrem anderen, persönlicheren Ziel," he said, leaving his congratulations of my two goals in German so that mere English speakers, realizing they were not invited into the conversation, would return their attention elsewhere.

"Danke schön, Herr Möll."

"Bitte schön, Frau Mathews."

With congratulations, thanks, and you're welcome out of the way, and nosy ears turned elsewhere, we walked on together, enjoying the further sights of the lake.

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

My companion took his time getting to the purpose of his visit, and was gentle in going ...

"I notice, Frau Mathews, that you your choice of lakes and some of your music clips you very much alike to keep: small enough to go around, and around, and around."

"That's right," I said. "Sometimes there is no need to extend or mess with perfection."

He sighed.

"You recorded the most beautiful 35 seconds in that entire opera -- everything else is a step downhill, in every way," I said.

"That is a bold statement, Frau Mathews. I sang it, and I would not have said all that. My colleagues were all magnificent."

"It's not their fault that they are not you, and it's not their fault that Wagner blended what he understood of Christianity with Germanic paganism and longings to be seen as the next great ascendant empire -- but I've read that whole libretto, and I know who found Wagner a big inspiration in the next century. Remember that comment you made about me needing to come to terms with all of Germany? I'm doing what you said. I did it long before I discovered you. Just because I prefer not to think of Germany in those terms most of the time doesn't mean I don't know."

"Ach, he said, with a gentle smile. "That young woman's memory of yours, Frau Mathews, but also, your ability to love so hard and devotedly and look for hope makes an old teacher concerned that you must be naive to still be so unspoiled in a world of sinners openly sinning. I mistook your understanding because of your youth. As said by one of your nation's actors, 'you have me at a disadvantage, my dear.' "

We laughed, the mood somewhat broken, and then walked on some more.

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

"I certainly have no argument with you, Frau Mathews, from that side of the matter. I cannot, having been born in 1938, and having seen what I have seen. What I appreciate about you is your consistency, within your own culture. You noticed my reversions in King Philipp's aria in Don Carlo back to a strict translation to avoid certain problems, and that is like into your slight changes in even Negro Spirituals to avoid certain problems, and your complete steering around certain beloved cultural productions in your own culture because you have compared them to a higher standard and chosen not to compromise."

"Better to stand and walk alone than to compromise with many and fall," I said. "It's just too costly -- but I need not explain that any further to you."

"No," he said. "It takes too long to get up, Frau Mathews. I was seven when my nation fell, and I was just about fifty-two before the recovery for the whole nation could even begin with the Berlin Wall at last coming down.

"In your nation, however, Frau Mathews, you indeed will often have to walk alone. The way of humility was easier for me. It is easier in a nation so completely humbled as mine was by 1945. The way of purity is also easier when the cost of evil is so present. The way of gratitude is easier when your permission to recover is seen for what it is: only coming by the forgiveness and grace of the ones you have sinned against. Imagine, Frau Mathews, if you can, the Marshall Plan, in light of the grace of God."

"I know the testimony of Konrad Adenauer, first chancellor of West Germany," I said. "I can imagine it. Herr Adenauer gives me a nearly modern bridge -- and a sturdy old one, anyhow -- to see that in Germany to the present day. There was also, just last week, a young German tennis player who had a match stopped and a fan removed from the stands for singing that old anthem I will not even so much as hint to you -- so, even the younger generations are standing up."

"Ich weiss, Frau Mathews," he said. "I know. I heard. I felt when that evil music was stopped, and I rejoiced for that young man. I also know what it means to you, being as you are in a nation we hope will not have to learn that you cannot play with evil such as that the hard way -- again."

"You would think the Civil War would have been enough," I said.

"You would think World War I would have been enough," he said, "but Germans and Americans have something in common: shared humanity."

This thought struck me so hard I stopped and put my head in my hands.

"The path of peace, which is what you get when you combine humility and purity and strength, is lonely, Frau Mathews," my companion said. "That is not going to change, no matter who thinks they have the holy spear and Grail today."

"Which is why I don't listen to the rest of that Wagnerian nonsense, longing for a white man as savior, and then the women only having a place through mere service and death when no longer useful," I said. "The music is exquisite, but the content -- I can't do it. I can't do the foolery with my own culture's music nowadays, so I certainly can't do it with any other culture. "

"I see your point, Frau Mathews."

We came around to the other side of the lake from where we had started, and walked out to the end of the pier. He waited, with the patience of one who had all the time ahead of him not in the world, until I had calmed down a little.

Photo taken by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, September 9, 2023

"I don't mean to offend you, sir," I said. "I know that I am speaking of some of your culture's greatest treasures."

"I am past the point in my existence, Frau Mathews, of being offended by the truth," he said. "It pleases me, greatly, such clear-headedness in one so young to see. So long as your own nation has enough such people who will not a mere mortal to God's place exalt, your nation has yet life to live. Had I been Herr von Manowarda, you would not have been safe to say that, because the deadly pass had been crossed. I made it the point of my life, being in the generation that paid for all the sins of my fathers and grandfathers, to leave mortals, including myself, in the humble place where they belonged."

I lowered my head.

"It hurt me to realize what he had chosen, and to turn away from his voice, for I would not have a Nazi so much as sing to me from YouTube," I said. "But I cannot imagine what that was like to process for you as a young bass who grew up listening to him."

"No, you cannot, Frau Mathews," he said. "You made a good guess when you analyzed 'Heimlichkeit' by Lowe, and noticed the contrast between Herr von Manowarda's perfection in it, and my struggles... how fast I took it, the almost boy-like strain in my voice, and the fact that I went sharp ... and left it right there, unwilling to sing it over. You cannot imagine it, but you made a good guess, and then went and discovered the truth."

"I know your voice, and your attention to detail," I said. "I knew something had to be seriously wrong, beyond you having a cold or not feeling well -- that F sharp, and that suddenly hurt-child timbre before that."

"The choice of evil is the betrayal of love, always," he said, "and where love is betrayed, ruin follows."

"I know, my mentor and friend," I said. "We know, though not in the same way."

"I also cannot imagine with it means to you to again walk away from those intent on that which is not love, Frau Mathews, and the grief that comes with the joy of your achievements, again here alone."

"Some things, as you had King Phillip sing it twice, can be known only by God alone ... to that I add that Charles Tindley wrote in 1903, 'Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave it There.'"

"You do have an ear to find a way between your culture's wisest music and mine," he said, with a smile.

"And so I close my ears to foolishness and move my feet, for I know 'above my head there is music in the air," I said, referring to the Negro Spiritual.

"'The song of saints on higher ground,' he responded, reminding me of my favorite hymn."

"The way of the wise goes upward,' " I said.

"'That he -- and she -- may depart from hell beneath,'" he said.

He put his strong right arm around me as Alvord Lake glittered with a new fountain ... drops of regular tears, adorned by ethereal tears of light ... so much beauty, so much good, so much loss, so much pain.

"So, tell me this, Frau Mathews," he said. "Why that 35 seconds in Wagner, when you could have rejected it all?"

"That part was true," I said. "In love, in grace, in purity, in truth, there we find the refuge from sorrow, from guilt ... to repent, to leave aside all that hinders us, and to go on to what we have been called to. There is the blessing of the ages ... that One calls and blesses, and gives us the power to respond, and go, through blessing -- and in context, this time, because Gurnemanz actually does know Who God is, and it is NOT a mortal man!"

He broke out laughing.

"How are you doing so much better and so much worse at the same time, Frau Mathews? I realize that I ticked you off just a little last time about context in Mozart, so you went, plucked out a mere 35 seconds from an entire opera, reread the whole libretto for Act 3 to make sure, and came with this!"

"But am I wrong?" I said, and he kept on laughing as everybody for a long way around started chuckling at his bass-voiced merriment.

"Nein, Frau Mathews, nein!" he said, just as readily backing them out of our conversation again.

"I also need to add here," I said, "that bass singing that 35 seconds was tremendous, both in the voice, and in the life that matched it. It all comes together."

"I did enjoy my decades as Gurnemanz," he said. "The role fit me, more and more as I matured into what you would think of as a kindly, devoted old knight-teacher, blessing the younger folks, helping them on their way, and standing back and enjoying them do what they were meant to do ... and to be given such a devoted late-coming student as yourself ... a further reward!

"But now hear me, Frau Mathews. It does not get easier from here. You are only 42. You may find companions along the way that suit you better as you are today, but there will never be many on the narrow road. In that you have given up all delusion about one called as gifted as you are ever being in the crowd, you are wise. You do not yet know what it will mean to have the crowd, and still be alone -- there are terrors on both ends, and because of how you produce, and how consistently, it is likely you shall know this in your earthly life as well. But should your path lead you there, in the humility and purity to which you have come there, walk through and beyond it. You will find it is enough."

"I noticed how you retired, in such an act of humility, and how you were honored ... and then went into retirement, and stayed there, never looking back for what was past ... you moved forward, always."

" 'To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven,'" he said. "I remember when the Byrds had that as their hit -- don't think I didn't hear all the other great songs that were young when I was young, because I am a storyteller -- a lieder-singer -- at heart."

Wouldn't you know it -- the Byrds flew up, got on the pier, got set, and started singing!

"I love that song -- it is so pretty, and also true," I said.

"Indeed," he said, and we filled in the contralto and bass lines at the right moments and just enjoyed.

After that -- for we had cleared the pier so the Byrds could land, set up, and take off -- we had made all the turns we would around the lake, and it was come for me to head for home. My knightly old companion would not hear of me walking so far alone -- "This is your longest walk in months, Frau Mathews, and the wind is getting up now" -- so we made the journey together, him shielding me from the wind at all crossings, and humorously singing back and forth with me and the birds -- the regular songbirds -- two octaves down, but with perfect accuracy! But mostly we just walked except for stopping and smelling some gallant late-summer roses along the way, and at last we were again at my home. He smiled, and then sang the finest 35 seconds ever, with one little change ...

"Gesegnet sei, Frau Mathews, durch das Reine!
So weiche jeder Schuld Bekümmernis von dir!"

As I stood in utter delight, that smile of his got bigger.

"I should have thought to do that at Alvord Lake and then splash some water on you, but you were reading that sign about how they have to maintain it because of the summer algae blooms, and you might have pushed me right in -- I would have been nature-baptized for real!"

"See why I don't listen to the rest of that -- it's a bad influence!" I said.

Both of us were cracking up, and the harmony of bass-contralto merriment was drawing ears and eyes ... joy is a blessing, all around, so it was just fine.

"Gesegnet sei -- be blessed, Frau Mathews, and stay pure, as the One Who calls you commands, enables, and blesses you. No pond water needed -- although do remember to get some kind of cup without holes in it and hydrate yourself when you get inside."

"An 'unholey' grail -- see, it is my fault that you have expanded your English enough to even do that!" I said, and was still cracking up as he went down the street, waved, and turned the corner -- but was not seen around that corner, for he stepped a great step up, and was again at home.

"So, who is this big old Teutonic knight of a man?" a well-meaning neighbor said. "I mean, he's a bit old for you, Deeann, and his fashion for hiking suits is a bit outdated, but he definitely seems like a wonderful fellow!"

"Indeed too old, neighbor -- but you misunderstand. He is a beloved mentor, a retired international opera singer from Germany, and when he really wants to use those frequent flyer miles from where he lives now, he comes through San Francisco and we get some walking and talking and singing in."

"I don't know if I would let a man like that get past me when clearly the love is there, though."

"Well," I said as I went up my stairs, "remember, neighbor: not everyone is called to the same things. Enjoy the rest of your day!"