still remembering

It never occurred to me at the Time that it was not just Mr Whitley's imagination, but there seems to have been, and be, a round of orchestral compositions that were more or less standard for high school bandmasters to introduce to their students. I realized this when Caroline played in the Lincoln High School band, and then Charlotte, and sometimes memories would flood back of our playing the same piece, perhaps something we learned for the magnificence of it, something we learned, rehearsed ad infinitum to perfection, and played for a band festival in Tallahassee, or further downstate, I don't remember where.

In our Bay High Band under Orin Whitley nothing was acceptable in competition but Superior ratings, and we always, always came home with that top honors in every competition. There was never an Excellent, and never, ever a Good. God forbid.

This came to mind in the last month or so when a bell rang in my mind as I watched online, a pianist and several orchestras playing "The Great Gate of Kiev" from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and a light bulb flashed: I remembered both the title of the piece and the theme as the sound thundered into 7H. It's the most magnificent thing imaginable, and it kept taking me back and back to standing at the drums and the huge bronze gong while Mr Whitley wildly flashed his conductor's baton. As I've said here any number of Times, Orin Whitley and Bill Weeks were my favorite high school teachers. Both of them died not long after my Bay High years, and I attended both their funerals.

But the music: Mussorgsky's masterpiece https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictures_at_an_Exhibition has a brilliant and moving history that I don't remember Mr Whitley sharing with us. On this wiki link, scrolling way down, one may actually click on and listen to each of the composition's components.

"Mussorgsky wrote his Pictures at an Exhibition in honour of a friend - a painter called Vladimir Hartmann who had died at the peak of his career, aged just 39. The loss of not just a close friend but also an artistic inspiration had a profound effect on the composer and the wider artistic community in Moscow." Each of ten paintings is honored with a musical piece. The concept is to wander from picture to picture, sometimes accompanied by a theme promenade as you walk; and as you pause to admire each painting you hear the musical section named for it. Ten paintings, so ten components to Mussorgsky's composition, the last of the ten being the magnificent Bogatyr Gates, usually called the Great Gate of Kiev.

It's evening, Sunday evening, and I listened to more Youtube presentations of "The Great Gate of Kiev" noting that the apparent Russian spelling anglicized Kiev may be offensive in Ukraine these days, the correct Ukrainian spelling being Kyiv. This most magnificent of Youtube's orchestral clips is conducted by Myung-Whun Chung, and if you can find it and listen to it online, it's unforgettable.

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Trinity Sunday at church with a memorable sermon by our rector, painting the Trinity as a work of love that we don't need to explain, understand, and agonize over the boring theological technicalities. No matter who comes next, we will long miss this priest, preacher and pastor. Especially will I, remembering all his kindnesses to me our years working together, including his flying to Cleveland in January 2011 for my heart surgery, and, before I was wheeled away to the OR, appearing in the prep room for a prayer and to anoint me with oil. There are things in life that one appreciates, always holds in mind.

Sunday evening in the overnight darkness transversing to Monday morning with the waning full moon high over St Andrews Bay.

RSF&PTL