Requiem Eucharist for Dennis Graham ~ 2006

GRAB BAG

Photo:Bruce Damonte/thecjm.org

Today’s posting is a real grab bag of topics. But I guess that’s why this blog is called POTPOURRI.

Yesterday was not only the 250th birthday of Scotland’s national poet, but it was the final Sunday for my Dean, Alan Jones, of Grace Cathedral. The two major services seemed almost an installation—or even coronation— rather than a farewell. We had four trumpets, four trombones, tympani and assorted percussion with two choirs and full organ for the eleven o’clock service. I sang with the Choir of Men and Boys. Three of the pieces were actual English Coronation anthems, I guess because Alan Jones as a young boy had sung at the coronation of Elizabeth II, and had premiered both the Vaughan Williams and the Walton pieces. The Parry was a holdover from the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. At Evensong we premiered a newly commissioned Mag & Nunc (Magnificat and Nunc dimittis) by Stephen Paulus. It was commissioned by Donald Runnicles, the opera conductor, in honor of The Very Reverend Alan Jones, Seventh Dean of Grace Cathedral. (I’m almost embarrassed to admit that I’ve been at Grace for four of the seven Deans.) Both services went very well. Alan Jones had been installed as Dean on Michaelmas 1985—just three months before Dennis and I got together. So it was a poignant remembrance and completion of that whole period of my life.

Saturday I visited the new Contemporary Jewish Museum before seeing the new Daniel Craig film Defiance. The museum opened a few months ago, but this was my first visit. It’s a fascinating building with its blend of old and new. The older building is a handsome brick Renaissance revival style built as a PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) Power Substation in the “City Beautiful” tradition by Willis Polk just after the great earthquake and fire of 1906. To me its style looked more Venetian Renaissance than Roman or Florentine, so I guess that makes it appropriate for a Jewish Museum, since the term ‘ghetto’ was first used in Venice.

The new addition was designed by the Polish architect Daniel Liebeskind, and features among other things a stainless steel blue cube.

Since its founding in 1984, the Contemporary Jewish Museum has engaged audiences of all ages and backgrounds through dynamic exhibitions and programs that explore contemporary perspectives on Jewish culture, history, art, and ideas. Throughout its history, the Museum has distinguished itself as a welcoming place where visitors can connect with one another through dialogue and shared experiences with the arts.

In 1990, the success of the Museum prompted its leadership to plan for a more expansive facility to meet the growing interests of the local community. The Museum began formally exploring real estate options when the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency (1994-1995) invited the Museum to develop the historic Jessie Street Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) Power Substation, a 1907 landmark designed by architect Willis Polk.

In 1998, the Museum selected architect Daniel Libeskind to design its new home. Envisioned as a dynamic and welcoming space, the new 63,000-square-foot facility was planned to be a place to experience art, music, film, literature, debate, and — most importantly — other people. Daniel Libeskind's design for the Museum does not simply house this programmatic vision; it enables and inspires it.

I particularly enjoyed the inside of the blue cube, which is not what I had expected. The exterior is blue stainless steel. The inside has white walls, and is an open space, used not for display of art, but as a listening hall currently for commissioned music based on several Hebrew letters.

From a new building by a modern Polish architect, to a Hollywood movie about Jews in Belorussia during World War II. Defiance is a gripping film, though I’m not sure how accurate it is. Daniel Craig was terrific. With the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day coming up tomorrow, it somehow seemed appropriate to see it now, even if it is somewhat a Hollywood, cleaned up version of real events. When I wrote about the second partition of Poland the other day, I mentioned World War II only in passing. A sense of the horror of that war can be experienced in several other films: The Pianist, Schindler’s List and one of my all time favorites, Sophie’s Choice.

Meryl Streep won the Screen Actors Guild award last night for her portrayal of the headmistress nun in Doubt. She was wonderful in it. I shouldn’t be surprised-- I guess I am gullible-- but I am continually amazed at the power of her acting. One of my favorite performances of hers was Sophie in Sophie’s Choice. It’s hard to believe that that was her last of only two Oscars for best actress, since she’s done so many memorable roles since. (She’s just been nominated for her fifteenth Oscar!) I loaned a DVD of Sophie’s Choice to my Polish friend Adam. I asked him how good her accent was. He said he didn’t notice she had one. I guess that’s the proof in the pudding. (I think Meryl Streep and I overlapped a couple of years in New Haven. I’m sure I saw her in several productions of the Yale Rep.)

Meryl Streep has an extraordinary capacity to immerse herself in a role and deliver lines in impeccable accents. I loved her as the Danish writer Karen Blixen in Out of Africa. The only disappointment in that movie was Robert Redford. He played an Englishman... with an American accent. I’m sure he felt he couldn’t compete with Meryl Streep in that category, but I feel it would have been preferable just to make his character an American, since he didn’t use a British accent. By the way, I adore the Romantic score from Out of Africa by John Barry.

Then last night I watched the new Lifetime made-for-television-movie “Prayers for Bobby” starring Sigourney Weaver. I had read a preview of it in the blog “Loose Ends” by New York actor Patrick. (His blog is one of several I follow. I have a link to it here and recommend it highly.) The film is not perfect, but it was very moving.

It brought back memories of my own crisis at twenty. Oh, how I felt I was utterly alone! I didn’t have fire and brimstone Fundamentalist parents – but my Dad was a United Methodist minister and Mother, a very rigid and uptight moralist. It was fortunate I tried other means. I never had the courage or nerve to jump. I liked the Keats' quotation: “To cease at midnight with no pain.”

Over the weekend I finished the new Steve Berry novel The Charlemagne Pursuit. It's a whopping good tale. I first got interested in him with The Venetian Betrayal. I had read in reviews that it contained the premise that Saint Mark in the crypt of San Marco in Venice was actually Alexander the Great. Well in the novel it turned out not to be the case. It got much more complicated and very interesting. But I think there's a decent case that Alexander may really be there. And providing that Philip II was Alexander's actual father (a debatable point in itself) you could prove it by DNA analysis, since Philip's tomb was discovered about thirty years ago. Of course, I know that the Roman church would never allow such analysis. And I would personally miss the patron saint of Venice. After all, that's the lion on the Venetian flag!

Final thought for the day: “Gung Hay Fat Choy!” on this first day of the Chinese New Year, in the year of the Ox. Greetings as a new year begins!

YALE GLEE CLUB at Grace Cathedral

coro.unimi.it/grandiapp/yale/yale_foto_g.jpg

The Yale Glee Club is singing at Grace Cathedral tonight at 7:30. Because of that I'm going to miss the Schola Cantorum's end of holiday season party at Sam Smith's place on Potrerro Hill.

I offered to put up one of the singers tonight, but I was late in making the offer. The Alumni Club also preferred hosts' taking a pair of students. I could have done that; but one would have had special accommodations in Dennis' Venetian room, and the other would have had to be content with a sleeping bag. When I first moved to San Francisco Memorial Day weekend in 1973, I hosted two members of the Yale Glee Club within ten days of my arrival. I think I gave one my bed, and the other a place on the sofa, then in the dining room.

I'll be interested to hear the Glee Club at Grace. It's not the easiest place to sing for all kinds of music-- superb for some things, and terrible for others because of the seven second reverberation. It also helps to sit near the front section of the pews.

The new sound system may make a difference too. After one of our Christmas Concerts with the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, I mentioned that several people had expressed their disappointment that the choir had been amplified from the gallery. It defeated the wonderful and subtle acoustics. Dr. Jeffrey Smith, our organist and choir director, hadn't known that it was amplified and thanked me for the feedback. While in the rear gallery, it's impossible to tell. Supposedly the sound technician was told not to use the sound system when the choir sings there. In fact, he almost never should.

Tonight's concert will bring back memories of Fenno Heath, my Glee Club Director, who died a few weeks ago on the anniversary of Mozart's death. I toured Latin America with him in 1968. Fenno had been the 'boy wonder' when in his early twenties he succeeded Marshall Bartholomew, who had been there for decades. Fenno would do the same. He was still fairly young when I sang under him. Fenno was the director when Yale became Co-ed in 1969 and made the immediate decision to bring women into the Glee Club.

Fenno awarded me the shared last tenor voice lesson scholarship my Freshman year, autumn of 1967. I thought I was bound for singing group glory. I was courted by all the a cappella groups my first few months at Yale; but I never became a Whiffenpoof. That's a very long story. (Part of it was told in my posting on 09/29/08, my late friend Stan Ziegler's birthday.) The Spizzwinks(?) were in San Francisco at the St. Francis Yacht Club just a year ago. I'll be going back to New Haven for the 95th Anniversary Reunion in early April, just before my birthday. Fenno had been a Spizzwink(?). The last time I saw him was at the 90th Anniversary Reunion five years ago.

All SOULS DAY TRANSFERRED

Jerusalem Cross : nextjeneration.net

Today was a day of rituals and remembrance. I went to the Mozart Requiem performed as part of the regular service at Grace Cathedral. Initially I wasn’t sure why the All Souls Day commemoration had been postponed a week; but then it made sense. All Saints Day was on Saturday November 1, but was celebrated a day later. So All Souls had to wait a week. I didn’t sing today, but I had rehearsed part of the Mozart a few weeks ago when I subbed for John Kelley, fellow Yalie and Bohemian. In any case, I wanted to hear it and had given a donation in memory of Dennis.

I thought at first to wear the suit I had worn at Dennis’ funeral, but instead wore what had been my everyday outfit on our last trip to Venezia for Carnevale in 2006. So I wore olive corduroys, a black turtleneck with the gray, rust, olive and black Harris tweed Orvis jacket Dennis had given me as a final Christmas present. Since it was chilly, I wore the Woolrich logan coat I had bought for Dennis at the company store the day we were in Woolrich for Mother’s interment. Then with a muffler, tweed cap, and Dennis’ Cartier wristwatch, I headed to BART. It was a clear, beautiful, sunny day, particularly after the rain yesterday. As Charles Agneau— the late verger at Grace Cathedral— had recommended to my Dad, I took BART all the way to the Embarcadero stop and then the Cable Car up California Street to the cathedral, rather than walking up Powell Street as is my usual custom. At the coffee shop downstairs I bumped into former Chanticleer alto Jesse Antin, who was going to be one of the soloists today. He said he hoped to do an adequate job. He was utterly superb!!

I sat on one of the stack chairs in the left front of the nave with a perfect view of the choir and orchestra in the North Transept. Els Holt, a parishioner I hadn’t seen in several years, greeted me and asked how Dennis was. She was shocked to hear that he had died two and a half years ago – embarrassed that she hadn’t known.

The altar frontal was the ivory and gold mosaic-like fabric with the Jerusalem Cross motif that former Chanticleer singer Sanford Dole had sewn for Easter many years ago. It inspired me to find the gold Jerusalem Cross pendant Dennis had given me at the time of my confirmation. I nearly threw it away by mistake. He gave it to me right after Bishop Swing blessed me. It was wrapped in tissue paper, and I thought it was for a runny nose or emotional response. Dennis had it engraved with my name, the date 28~9~86 and a reference to Psalm 46 verse 10 :  “Be still and know that I am God.”

A few days before I was confirmed, Dennis almost retracted his sponsorship. We were having a heart-to-heart theological discussion, when all of a sudden he exclaimed: “I don’t think you’re a Christian!” But he deferred until I had had an opportunity to discuss the matter with our then pastor Dr. Lauren Artress, founder of the Labyrinth project at Grace Cathedral. Lauren and I hit it off pretty well. I think her own perspective is more universal than most Episcopalians’ and is open to Hindu and Buddhist influences.

I was being confirmed at Dennis’ insistence in the first place. He didn’t think it right that I was a 'music mercenary.' If I were going to sing at Grace Cathedral, I should be a contributing member. After all he was on the Board of Trustees and the Stewardship Committee.

I have one of the few 18 carrot gold Jerusalem Cross pendants that Dennis had designed and made especially for our then Dean David Gillespie to give to the visiting Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, a few years before. In 1987 Dennis and I had a private visit with the Archbishop on the grounds of York University when we were in England together for the first time. (We had hoped we might be invited to tea at Lambeth Palace instead, but the Archbishop wasn’t in London when we were.)

Anyway, this has been a day of remembrance. The Mozart was glorious. I particularly liked the 1994 completion by Robert Levin of Mozart’s incomplete final work. Afterwards, I visited Dennis’ plaque in the North Tower Columbarium. Dennis died without knowing that I would have the space next to his. I’m still paying a monthly mortgage on my Nob Hill condo.

Last night’s concert was excellent, though I’m afraid I have to agree with S.F. Chronicle reviewer Joshua Kosman, that the Brahms Violin Concerto was fine, but not outstanding – despite the soloist Nikolaj Znaider’s Guarneri violin once owned by Fritz Kreisler. The Nielsen Symphony No. 3, however, was absolutely grand. Herbert Blomstedt certainly knows how to interpret the symphonies of Carl Nielsen.

Tuesday is Veterans' Day and my late friend Gary Murakami’s mother Toki’s birthday. Since she’s allergic to fragrant flowers, I always send her an orchid plant. Her living room is full of them.

BOY SOPRANO

Grace Cathedral Choir of Men & Boys on tour at Westminster Abbey 2007

Tomorrow I sing at Grace Cathedral as a sub for fellow Yalie and Bohemian John Kelley. He’s one of the few people I know, who can sing all four parts. I sub for him as an alto. After singing at Grace in the choir of Men and Boys for more than two decades, I finally left in 1995, primarily because of conflicts with multiple commitments on Thursday nights. But today as a sub for three people, I’m able to choose when I sing at Grace, so the conflicts are more manageable.  For a few years as a child, I was a boy soprano myself.

 

John Fenstermaker, former organist and choir director at Grace Cathedral, used to say that boy sopranos are judged by absolute standards and not given allowance for their age as boys; that –unlike sports, or even playing musical instruments— singing as a soprano in a cathedral choir is one of the few circumstances boys are judged by adult standards. Jeffrey Smith, the current organist and choir director at Grace, certainly maintains and promotes that performance point of view. I was not able to sing in the choir at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania –my home town— because my Dad was minister at Grace Methodist Church a few blocks away.

 

In the summer of 1960 before going to New Hampshire and Canada, I spent five weeks at the Columbus Boy Choir Summer Camp at Fred Waring's estate at Shawnee on the Delaware near the Delaware Water Gap. It was my first time away from home or the family. (I was there at the time of the Republican and Democratic political conventions for Nixon & Kennedy.)

 

I loved the singing and the music. We lived in tents and rehearsed in an old barn, where we had movies on weekends. I especially enjoyed Erroll Flynn in The Prince and the Pauper.

 

I brought my 'cello, and practiced once in a while. I also brought along three volumes of Will Durant's History of Civilization, which Mother and Dad had bought me from the Book of the Month Club, as I had requested for my  tenth birthday. One of the adult counselors recommended Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, which I read, but didn't fully appreciate until I read it again at Mercersburg.

 

In my free time I built dams on one of the creeks, and used Mother's brownie land camera.  We went swimming in the river and took canoe trips.

 

Some of the boys liked to enact wedding ceremonies. One boy pretended the piano was an organ and would play the Wagner and Mendelssohn wedding marches— and I would be the minister.

 

At the end of camp, we gave a final concert around the pool of Fred Waring's Hotel.  We sang a Bach Easter cantata, Mozart's Ave Verum and several comedy numbers. The Director, Mr. Bryant, wanted to talk with Mother and Dad after the concert. He was about to offer me a scholarship to their school in Princeton.  Sherry had just finished his freshman year at the University, and I was thrilled at the prospect of going to the Choir School (today called the American Boys’ Choir.)

 

I saw Dad. I had never seen him look like that before. He was sporting a Van Dyke beard. He had grown it for the Harrisburg Centennial. I was such a little twirp. I didn't like Daddy's beard, particularly, a Van Dyke. (Today, they're back in fashion, and look rather becoming on some people. I had my first Van Dyke a month and a half ago to disguise a black and blue chin after fainting from some of my heart meds and hitting my chin against the marble sink at home. I shaved it off – keeping only the moustache – as soon as the black and blue cleared up, but that was because it was too gray.)

 

Anyway, Mother and Dad said they would consider the offer; but I don't think they ever really did. Mother had gone away to boarding school at the age of twelve, and I think she regretted it.  I was the youngest child – I don't think Dad wanted me to leave home yet. It was a big disappointment.

 

So I went back to sixth grade at Steele School. I was in the Special Interest Class (meaning accelerated –but we were conscious about not saying so). The spring before, I had been interviewed by a school psychologist to be eligible for the program. He had given me a battery of tests –including several free associations.  I figured I was supposed to impress the guy; so in the midst of other things, I listed the first six Roman emperors and several of Napoleon’s marshals. I have no idea what he actually thought of me. I would be startled if a ten-year old did that to me today, and would think he probably needed some help with self-esteem.

 

I sang in the chorus. I remember auditioning with "Hello Young Lovers" from The King and I. (I had played one of the princes in the Harrisburg Community Theatre's production back in fourth grade, when I had to dye my hair black, and received special permission to arrive late to school after long rehearsals.)  I tried to sound like Deborah Kerr as Anna in the movie. Little did I know that the singer was actually Marni Nixon, who also dubbed for Mitzi Gaynor in South Pacific and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. (Did you know the origin of the title of that play, derived from Shaw? Professor Higgins never calls Eliza his fair lady. Instead, Eliza was a cockney girl from Mayfair. So with a cockney accent, she was a 'M’eye-fare' lady – anyway, that's according to my actor, solicitor, friend, Jeffrey Hardy).

 

In the autumn of 1960, Robert Clippinger, my Dad's church organist, asked me to sing the boy's role in Felix Mendelssohn' oratorio Eljiah with Grace Church choir and another Methodist church in Williamsport, near Woolrich.  Dad said I had a very lovely voice; but I should learn to project better.  That could still be said about me.

 

[It's funny about opera singers: they can have serious problems with intonation, have too wide a vibrato, have little sense of line or language, certainly be deficient in theatrical skills and physical good looks, not even have a pretty voice; but if they can be heard over the orchestra, they can make it to the top. If not, why even bother. On the other hand, groups like Chanticleer, Episcopal men and boys choirs, and the Schola Cantorum—with whom I currently sing— do very well with moderate dynamics and a pure, clear sound. They depend, however, on appropriate settings and supportive acoustics.]

 

A few weeks after I sang the boy in Elijah, I went to the Camp Curtin Junior High School football game against our city arch-rival, Edison, and screamed my little heart out.  I strained my vocal chords so much, that the doctor told me I shouldn't sing for a year, or I'd never sing as an adult. So that was the end of my career as a boy soprano.

 

BLESSING OF THE ANIMALS

Dear Rose and Prince Rupert are going to church this morning. Today is St. Francis Day at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. My friend Deb Cornue will attend to my guys during the service while I sub in the choir. After the service there will be the blessing of the animals on the plaza. R & R are really excited. Of course, they love to go everywhere; and they can tell from the tone of my voice that something’s up.

I used to sing regularly at Grace—in fact for twenty-two years— from June 1973 through June of 1995.   I stayed through the Fiftieth Anniversary Commemoration of the Founding of the United Nations. Then for a year I sat in the congregation. That turned out to be rather difficult to do. So when John Renke— who at been assistant organist and choir director for my first fifteen years at Grace,  and then became  organist and music director at several other churches— asked me to sub at St. Dominic’s one Sunday in August, 1996, I accepted and ended up singing with him for more than a decade. We moved from St. Dominic’s to St. Francis of Assisi in North Beach with the founding of the Schola Cantorum. That’s a story in itself and will be a separate posting someday.

A major reason for leaving the Grace Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys back in 1995, was a regular conflict on Thursday nights with overlapping commitments up and down Nob Hill on Taylor Street. For six years I sang Evensong at Grace and had to leave before the end of the service to rush five blocks down the hill to a required rehearsal with the Aviary Chorus at the Bohemian Club, then leave that rehearsal early to slog back up the hill for another two and a half hour rehearsal at Grace. I’m amazed I continued for six years.

So when we started the Schola Cantorum at St. Francis of Assisi, I was able to convince a quorum to have our rehearsals on Wednesday nights. Now with my subbing at Grace for three different singers, I have more flexibility to do it at my convenience— though after my heart attack four years ago, it’s still a challenge. (That will be a separate posting as well.)

Rose and Rupert have had their breakfast and are asleep on their sofa in the Red Room as I write this. But it won’t take much to get them going. They’re gonna have a ball. (Though I probably shouldn’t take Rupert’s tennis ball with him this morning. Otherwise, he’ll want to play all during the service.)