Category: Music for reflection

(picture) Dave Barrett

I dedicate this Psalm Offering to Fr. Dave Barrett. I have known Dave since the Fall of 2010 when he joined the staff of St. Wenceslaus as an associate pastor, initially serving at St. Scholastica in Heidelberg, and St. Thomas, St. Thomas. When St. Wenceslaus was merged with 4 rural parishes, Dave, while celebrating Mass at St. Wenceslaus from time to time, has concentrated his ministry principally at St. Scholastica, Heidelberg and St John the Evangelist in Union Hill. Dave embodies the meaning of priest as servant. Over time, many of us who serve in parish life minister out of our own brokenness. It is out of our own brokenness that we are able to minister all the more authentically and effectively to those God has called us to serve. Dave has had his crosses and brokenness in life, yet his love of God, the people of God, and the Church has sustained him through many trials. He is a good, compassionate friend, and an excellent priest. To serve alongside him is a tremendous blessing and privilege.

About this music. There was a time that I experimented in composing through-composed hymnody e.g. “Holy God We Praise Thy Name,” or “O God Our Help In Ages Past.” The melody of this Psalm Offering is taken from one such past attempt of mine. I have reset this hymn tune in a musical form for piano called “Variations on a Theme.” Essentially, a melody is stated in the beginning and then the rest of the music is multiple variations on that melody. This is an old form of composition. It exists in a way in some of the old Mass settings of the Renaissance where a popular song of the time, “L’homme armé” (present in 40 known Mass settings) was used as a cantus firmus, over which the composer would compose new music. Baroque, Classical, Romantic and Contemporary composers have all used this musical form over the past several hundred years. Mozart once wrote variations on the children’s song, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” Some of the more famous variations have been, Beethoven’s “Eroica Variations,” Brahms, “Variations On A Theme by Handel”, and Mendelssohn‘s Variations Sérieuses. I performed the Mendelssohn Variations at my graduation recital in college.

In this Psalm Offering the melody is introduced in the key of D major. The first variation of the melody is in triplet form with the melody running from the lower register of the piano to the middle register, then to the upper register and then progresses gradually back to the lower register. The second variation is the harmonic rhythm of the melody in running 16^th note arpeggios. The third variation modulates to B minor, the relative minor of D major. The lower register uses a technique of accompaniment used greatly in the Classical Period known as the “Alberti Bass”, a broken triad (3 pitch chord) played in either 8^th notes or 16^th notes underneath the melody. The fourth variation modulates to B major with an embellished melody stated in the lower register of the piano while a counter-melody in chords is suspended over the melody in the upper register. The fifth variation modulates back to D major, as the melody is presented in dotted rhythm in the higher register at the same time there are block chords in the lower register supporting the melody. The sixth and final variation continues in the key of D major and is presented in parallel 16^th note runs in both the upper and middle registers of the piano, occasionally punctuated by the dotted rhythm of the fifth variation.

One interesting thing occurred as I was listening to the playback on the second variation. I noticed that the harmonic rhythm of the melody resembles the same harmonic rhythm for an old Peter, Paul, and Mary song entitled, “Puff the Magic Dragon.” I swear that by the time I composed this melody, I was no longer smoking special cigarettes from the land of Honalee. The harmonic rhythm is purely a coincidence.

I have written this Psalm Offering for Kevin Clinton, pastor of St. Wenceslaus Parish. The music for this Psalm Offering is directly related to the music for Psalm Offering 5 in Opus 6. Psalm Offering 5 was originally a setting of the Lord’s Prayer I had written for a Mass setting I was hoping would be my graduate project when I was in graduate school at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, UST. The melodies in this music were taken from the Glory to God and Holy, Holy from the same Mass setting.

I first came to know Kevin, in 2007 when I was told that the parish in South Minneapolis at which I was a parish life administrator was going to receive a pastor. I talked to Kevin, who, at that time, had recently come to St. Wenceslaus as pastor, about possibly serving at St. Wenceslaus. We had a common friend in Denny Dempsey. The other common bond we shared was receiving our Masters in Pastoral Studies from the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. I began serving with Kevin at St. Wenceslaus in 2009. I discovered very quickly that we shared similar views of ecclesiology and theology. I have had the honor of serving with many fine priests in 39 years of church ministry. Kevin is by far the finest of all the priests with whom I have served.

I never thought I would find myself writing waltzes, but as I composed this music, it came to me as one grand Viennese waltz. As I set these melodies down, I kept seeing in my mind’s eye couples swirling across a dance floor. This music is written in Rondo form, the dominant melody repeating in different variations. The tempo Vivace gioioso, lively and joyfully, best describes the joy of serving with Kevin these past seven years.

Psalm Offering 5’s origin is found as a musical setting of the Lord’s Prayer for a Mass setting I had wrote intending it to

be a Graduate School Project back in 1985. I had dedicated the setting of the Lord’s Prayer to Fr. Denny Dempsey who was the associate pastor of St. Wenceslaus. Denny is a very good friend of our family. When he was the associate pastor of St. Wenceslaus, Denny spent a lot of time over at our home in his free time, watching movies and eating with our family. Denny and Ruth were very close, Ruth often acting as his confidant. Denny would later become pastor of St. Michael in St. Michael, Minnesota, then pastor of Jesu Cristo Resucitado in Venezuela, and is presently the pastor of St. Dominic in Northfield, Mn. Denny is a very athletic, active person. I remember him telling Ruthie and I that inspired upon seeing the movie “Breaking Away” (1979), he decided to take a year and bike all over the United States. He had hope to find the same inspiration in the movie “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure: A Story About A Boy and His Bike,” however, he never quite made it to the point in the movie when “large Marge” gave Pee Wee a ride in her semi-truck. Denny later became my graduate school project mentor when it became apparent that the Graduate School Project committee was not going to accept the musical setting of the Mass. A good friend, a good mentor, and a wonderful priest, Denny will always have a special place in the hearts of Ruthie, my kids, and I.

Never wanting a good melody to just lay around and not be played, I decided to resurrect that old setting of the Lord’s Prayer and completely redo it as solo piano music. The music is constructed in Rondo form, namely: melody A, melody B, melody A, melody C, melody A, melody D, melody A, Coda. Melody A varies in accompaniment and style every time it repeats to provide interest. Sometimes the melody in A is voiced in the middle of the piano, the upper register, and the lower register of the piano. The music starts pianissimo (very soft) and gradually increases in volume to fortissimo (very loud) in the Coda, only to diminish once more to pianissimo at the very end.

I would like to end this with two Fr. Denny stories. Denny  wanted to know if Andy could throw a stone from our yard and hit an old vacant house that was kiddie corner from our yard. So picking up some stones, the two start throwing stones at the house. After several attempts, Andy showed Denny that he could hit the house with a stone. Then Denny threw the next stone which instead of bouncing off the old siding ended up breaking a window, at which Denny suggested that it might be prudent for Andy and him to beat a hasty retreat by using the word, “Run!!!”

The second story concerned one of the many visits Denny would make to my home while he was the associate pastor at St. Wenceslaus. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Denny needing to to get out of the rectory came over for a visit. Ruthie was away from home, so it was just Denny and I sitting around chewing the fat. The kids were quite ornery that day fighting and bickering at one another. After a half hour of the kids fighting with one another, Denny quietly got up and walked to the door. He paused, turned and said, “There are times like these when celibacy is not a burden. I get to leave and you have to stay here and deal with all this (fighting kids).” I replied, “Chicken!”, at which point, Denny waved and walked out the door.

This newly composed music (started this past Friday and finished tonight) is in memory of Bob Murphy. Bob is the husband of my first cousin, Greta Cunningham. I remember Bob as he was courting my cousin. He was young, strong and fun … and treated us little kids with good humor and respect. Bob and Greta married, had three wonderful kids, Bobby, Maryjo and Kelly. Living in St. Paul and Chicago, I didn’t get much chance to be with my cousins out East. However, my mother was a constant source of information about all in the Murphy family. In 1995, I, along with Ruthie, and our daughters, Meg and Beth, visited all my relatives in the Pittsburgh area. Bob, Greta and Marjo were also visiting from Cleveland. I had the great opportunity to talk with Bob. I remember him speaking so highly about my Dad. Bob called my Dad, “ the Iron Man.” He admired my Dad because of the way Dad honorably surmounted so many obstacles in life. I was so deeply touched by our conversation. Knowing, via my mother, how Bob lived his life fully for others, even when it came at a great cost to himself, I thought, “It takes an Iron Man to know an Iron Man.” While their life circumstances differed, my Dad and Bob were both cut from the same cloth, men of honor, integrity and humor. Since that time in 1995, I only had the opportunity to see Bob and Greta two more times, at the funeral of my Aunt Ruth (Greta’s mother), and at the 50^th wedding anniversary of my Uncle Ozzie and Aunt Mary. Bob spent the last few years of his life struggling with Parkinson’s disease. As my second cousin, Kelly, wrote about her dad, “the essence of this wonderful man always shone through the suffering. We were incredibly blessed to have him in our lives. His mischievous grin and joking personality brightened those lucky enough to be around him, even in his final days.”

(picture below, Bob and Greta at their wedding)

From the time I was a teenager, I have loved Irish traditional music. I immersed myself in the Irish music I could find and actually formed an Irish folk group called the Irish Tipplers, comprising of such Irish names as Wagner, Windorski, Synder, Meuwissen, and King. Steeped in music from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem to the Chieftains, I have enjoyed the many jigs, reels, airs, ballads, drinking songs, and songs of Irish rebellion and freedom. I longed to play the music of the blind harpist, Carolan. Alas, arthritic thumbs curtailed my serious study of playing the harp. I have tried to incorporate the influence of this music in this Psalm Offering.

The A melody seeks to capture the speed and excitement of an Irish jig. The melody is based on the mixolydian mode of D (think a D major scale with the half step between the sixth of the scale to the seventh of the scale). The B melody seeks to capture the sound of an Irish air, with musical ornamentation characteristic of Irish music. In composing this part of the music, I found the Irish air interestingly enough encountering the compositional style of Ludwig Von Beethoven.  It really becomes evident in the  middle section of B. The music then follows with a development of themes from both melodies, A and B and ends with a recapitulation of the A melody and a coda. Overall, the joyful, vibrant quality of the music, including the air in the middle, is a musical reflection of the man for whom I have written this Psalm Offering. I’m thinking that Catie, my third cousin (daughter of Kelly), a Irish traditional dancer would be able to dance to the A melody. I’m not to sure about the Irish air in the middle.

Ruthie and I out on a date in 1969.

I have been blessed to have my beloved Ruth in my life from 1969 to the present. There is no other person who embodies God’s love greater than she. Is it any wonder I have written so much music dedicated to her, and volumes of poetry?

The primary melody of this Psalm Offering was originally a song I wrote for our wedding in 1974. Diane Strafelda, a good friend and a voice major in music from the College of St. Catherine, sang it at our wedding. While the original setting of that music has long been lost, I have never forgotten the primary part of that melody. The melody was inspired by an aria entitled, “Dido’s Lament”, from the Baroque opera Dido and Aeneas, written by the English composer, Henry Purcell. I was tremendously moved when I heard that aria for the first time. As a young man, deeply in love and filled with grand illusions, I sought out to compose a melody as deeply moving as Purcell’s aria. Ah, the folly of youth! The song may have lacked, however, the primary melody was still very good.

I had been thinking about resetting that melody in piano music for over a year. With nothing but a dim memory of Diane’s voice singing that song, I recomposed it in this piano setting for my beautiful Ruth. The bare bones of that melody is all that remains from the wedding song. The variations on that melody and the middle section are all newly composed.

Overall, it expresses in music my relationship with Ruth over the past 45 years. Ah, mythic love. First there was Dido and Aeneas, then Tristan and Isolde, and now, Ruth and Bob. The primary melody retains the great passion I have had for Ruth. In the first part of the song (A), the primary meldoy starts simply in the lower register like one lover expressing his love to his intended. It is restated in the higher register, his lover reciprocating his affection than moves into a secondary melody where the couples love for each grows until the primary melody returns in chordal octaves, a passionate expression of love consummated then peace as the lovers begin life together.

The middle section of the song (B) is the dance of the couple as they work, have children, raise their children, and the demands of life attempts to pull them in all directions. However, in the midst of the hustle and bustle of that dance, the love and the passion the couple has does not fade as the primary melody (A) is joined into the dance.

The song concludes to a simple restatement of the love that began many years before, intact, and filled with nothing but gratitude of a life together.

Psalm Offering 2, Opus 6 was originally conceived as an organ fanfare back in 1978. As a transplanted piano player, I always thought playing on the pipe organ was similar to wrestling a huge octopus. The unnatural way of playing pedals (hips were not designed to be turned that way), I have often thought led to the premature deterioration of both of my hip joints, not, as my Aunt Mary Jernstrom has postulated, me inheriting the family’s “Swedish hips.” All that aside, what I needed was a “fanfarish” piece of music to be used as a wedding recessional/postlude for liturgical celebrations. I composed this simple little tune that addressed specifically my needs as an transplanted piano/organist. In its original incarnation I entitled this, “A Fanfare for Brother Francis”. I have taken this simple music setting and have recomposed it to be played on my “King of Instruments”, the pianoforte.

I have dedicated this to the Order of Franciscan Secular. When St. Francis of Assisi was living, he established three Orders, namely, the Order of Friars Minor, the Poor Clares, and the Third Order. The First Order, Order of Friars Minor was created specifically for single men. The Second Order. the Poor Clares, was created for single women. And the Third Order, now known as the Order of Franciscan Secular, was created for lay men and women, married or unmarried, and secular clergy (diocesan priests and deacons). I feel that I was imbued with the Franciscan spirituality from birth. In May of 1980, I became a professed member of the Order of Franciscan  Secular. The rule, or way of life, of this Order has profoundly impacted my life. That rule stated simply is “from Gospel to Life”.

Musically, this music is in Rondo form. Rondo form has a primary melody that, like a refrain, recurs following a number of different melodies. In this piano music the form is A, A, B, A, C, D, E, A, A. Recomposing this for piano gave me the freedom to fully express and explore the potential of the music. By the time I finished recomposing this music, it was an entirely new composition. While the bones of the original organ composition were retained, it has become something much finer and festive now.

Picture: A poster of Donizetti’s Opera “L’Elisir D’Amore”, “The Elixir of Love.”

I dedicated this Psalm Offering to my friend, and lyric opera tenor, David Waite. I met Dave, when I was in college. He had the lead role of Nemorino, in the opera seen to the left. I sang in the chorus, playing numerous roles, e.g. diplomat, peasant, soldier and so on (there was a lot of costume changes in the wings to say the least). Dave is one of those extraordinary personalities that one rarely encounters in life. He had tremendous confidence in his ability as an opera tenor, so much so, that he would sell his car to pay for a one way plane ticket to Sydney, Australia, to audition for a role in the Sydney Opera. He had the talent, and perhaps the moxie, that he would always get the role. He would sing, get paid, buy another car, and when the gig dried up, sell the car, and go somewhere else to audition. Later, when he would come and visit, he would regale Ruthie and I with all sorts of stories about singing at Mafia funerals in Little Italy, being involved in the Boston Opera, New York City Opera company and other opera companies around the world.  Though we believed that half of his stories were based on truth and the other half bullshit, they were, nonetheless, great stories and David was a great storyteller.  I still remember some of his stories to this day.

About the music: David originally requested that I write him a musical setting of a Psalm that he and his wife, another opera singer, could sing in concert. I sat down with my favorite psalm, Psalm 84, and wrote this music originally as an operatic duet. I gave the music to him and away he went to Zurich, Switzerland, where he and his wife were singing in the Zurich Opera Company. I wrote the music in 1978 and never knew whether he and his wife ever performed it in concert. The last time I saw Dave was when I was in graduate school at the St. Paul School of Divinity at the University of St. Thomas. Dave was getting a Masters in Business Administration at the University at the same time. It had been 10 years since we last saw each other and we caught up with each other over lunch. He had been divorced by his wife during that time, worked at the Boston Opera company, and decided that he was too old and tired to engage in “playing the director’s couch” in order to get singing gigs, hence deciding to focus on the business end, rather than the performance end, of the opera business. In 1988, I decided to take the setting of Psalm 84 that I had written for him ten years earlier and recompose it into the piano music that is heard here (by that time I had written different setting of the same Psalm for choir, as a present for Ruthie). The original 3 verse construction of the song has been retained with all of its operatic flourishes.

A photograph of myself, my sister, Mary Ruth, and my mother, about one year before Mary Ruth’s death.

I wrote this Psalm Offering for my sister, Mary Ruth, in 1988, 11 years before her death from Chrones Disease. I thought for some time that I had lost this music I had composed for her as a birthday present. Fortunately, I had made a rudimentary recording of the music and was prepared to reconstruct the entire score from that recording, a painstakingly slow process of listening, writing, listening and writing. It is a short piece of music, just 3 pages in length. I was surprised and greatly delighted to find in a bin of music, the first and third page of her music. Though I still had to listen to the recording to reconstruct the missing middle page, I was greatly relieved to have finally had her music back in entirety.

About the music:  It is written very simply, in two part, AB form. It is in the key of F major. For some reason F major has a sonority that does not resemble any other key. There is a deep richness to that key that I have used in only 3 Psalm Offerings; Psalm Offering 6, Opus 1 (for Ruthie), this Psalm Offering, and the one that will be following this, Psalm Offering 4, Opus 4 (for David Waite).

Psalm Offering 2 Opus 4 was written for Eleanor Campbell (seen in the photograph posing with my little sister, Mary Ruth). Eleanor was a very dear family friend, who, though not related to my family by blood, was nonetheless the closest person we had as an Aunt. With all our relatives living either in Pennsylvania or Virginia, we rarely had the opportunity to be with them. Our understanding of family was greatly extended to include many of our closest friends. Eleanor was such an extraordinary person, and a very classy woman.

About the music: As a student of music I had the wonderful experience of being inundated into all kinds of music. One French composer that had an impression on me was Olivier Messiaen. Messiaen wrote a considerable amount of music. Messiaen was also an avid lover of nature and an orthinologist (study of birds). He would go about the countryside notating onto staff the bird song of all the different species of birds. He would then work that bird call into his music compositions. I remember when Dr. Callahan played an organ piece written by Messiaen for us in class. I was incredibly struck by how the bird call worked within the music. Messiaen was not the first composer to this. Beethoven had been at it, particularly in the second movement of his 6th symphony. If you listen closely, Beethoven replicates the bird song of the nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (2 clarinets) into the score. Eleanor was a great lover of nature. Following the example of these two great composers, I worked into this piano piece the bird song from around my home.