Month: February 2019

Here is the commentary that goes along with my second collection of Psalm Offerings. The music can be bought either through iTunes or Amazon. You can also listen to the music for free on You Tube, Spotify, and other music streaming sites.

PSALM OFFERINGS

OPUS 2

Musical Prayer for the Pianoforte
by Robert Charles Wagner

(c) written text by Robert Charles Wagner

All photographs are from family albums or in the public domain.

PSALM OFFERINGS OPUS 2

These Psalm Offerings were composed between 1974 and 1986. Ruthie and I were busy growing our family. Andy was born in 1975, Luke in 1977, Meg in 1981, and Beth in 1984. During this time I taught Vocal/General music grades Kindergarten through 12^th grade. Then moved to New Prague and taught general music at St. Wenceslaus School and directed liturgical music for the church. In  1984, I had moved from directing music and teaching music at St. Wenceslaus, to become the director of liturgy and music and music educator at St. Hubert, in Chanhassen. I was composing all sorts of music at this time. Junior High musicals for my students, choral anthems for my choirs, at the same time composing this music for piano.

Church employees are not paid very well, so as a family we were living below the poverty line, at times, selling our jewelry to keep bread and milk on the table, robbing Peter to pay Paul, holding down a couple of jobs. Eating out was often buying some frozen pizza and cooking it at home. Long work hours and work weeks at church meant not much time at home. After Beth was born, Ruthie had to get relicensed as a nurse and started working full-time night shifts as an R.N. at the local nursing home.

The one positive side to poverty is that there are scholarships for further education. It was during this time that I received enough scholarships from the College of St. Thomas, that I could begin pursuing a Masters Degree in Pastoral Studies for quite a reduced cost.

The wonderful thing about being young (besides better mobility and energy) is that there is always so much that is new to discover and learn. As I grew personally with Ruth and our children; as I grew professionally as an educator and as director of liturgy and music; I was also growing as a composer. Adversity can be quite a catalyst for creativity. As a composer I was starting to evolve and learn my craft. All the musical influences that were the basis of the first Opus of piano music continued on in this second Opus. What was different was that rather just copying the styles and technics of the composers I had studied, for better or for worse, I began to develop my own compositional style. This begins to be seen in these compositions.

It was also at this time that I conceived the idea of “Psalm Offerings”, and instrumental musical prayer for piano. There is a Catholic practice of lighting a candle as a visible manifestation of a prayer offered up for the intention of a person. These songs became an aural manifestation of a prayer offered up for someone, not only in live performance but in recorded performance. This is why each one is dedicated to some person or persons.

Psalm Offering 1: Prelude (For Dr. Gene Scapanski)

Psalm Offering 1 was written for Dr. Gene Scapanski. Back in 1979, in order to better understand my role as a liturgical music director, I took as an audit a class entitled “Music and Movement In Liturgy”, taught by this young, liturgical, upstart priest by the name Michael Joncas, who was finishing up his Masters in Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame.  Mike’s class was offered through the College of St. Thomas, Masters in Pastoral Studies program, MAPS for short. Dr. Gene Scapanski approached me and asked me to officially enroll in the graduate school program. I was formally accepted in the MAPS program the following Summer. One of the first classes I took for graduate credit in the program was Gene’s “Introduction to Graduate Studies” class. I continue to be grateful to Gene in placing his trust in my abilities. By the time I graduated with a Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies the summer of 1989 (classes were primarily held in the summer months), I grew intellectually and most importantly, spiritually … fides quae, fides qua. MAPS by that time had been officially merged into a graduate program within the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, University of St. Thomas.

As I did in Psalm Offering 8 Opus 1, I modeled this composition using much of the same chordal structures after the manner of the German composer, Paul Hindemith, lending a mysterious quality to the music. The brevity of the song is much in the musical form of a Prelude.

                         Psalm Offering 2: Nocturne for my children

Psalm Offering 2 was written for my four children, Andy, Luke, Meg and Beth.  Andy was 10 years old, Luke, 8 years old, Meg, 4 years old, and Beth, not quite a year old. I first conceived this song as a lullaby for them, but it grew more into the form of a Nocturne. A nocturne is a short somewhat “dreamy” music associated with night, for piano.

My greatest contributions to the world, and my greatest legacy are my children.  This music was composed in a neo-Romantic era style, based on the lullaby and a musical sketch I composed in 1973 for my children. I took the two melodies I wrote and reworked them into an entirely new composition. The musical form of the music is essentially three part, ABA form.

Psalm Offering 3: Lullaby for my Godson, Jordan

Psalm Offering 3 was written as a baptismal present for my godson, Jordan DuCharme, in 1985. Jordan is the son of Cheryl and Rob DuCharme, two very good friends of Ruthie and I. Ruthie and Cheryl have been Best Friends Forever from the time Ruthie’s dad moved her family out to the farm in Scandia, Minnesota. I felt so honored to be Jordan’s Godfather, that this melody just seemed to flow onto the staff paper. In between music classes I began to develop that melody. I started improvising on it, experimenting with the different elements of the music both in private and also in liturgies, where I would insert portions of it into that liturgical deadspot just following the reception of Holy Communion. Musically, this is composed in a neo-Romantic period style. The chromatic passages giving it a Chopinesque quality. It is essentially in two part, AB, form.

Psalm Offering 4 (For Archbishop Oscar Romero)

Psalm Offering 4 is dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero, a martyr of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. During my graduate studies, one of the most powerful classes I had was on Catholic Social Justice teachings, taught by Fr. Sean O’Riordan, C.SS.R., an Irish Redemptorist priest who was a professor of moral and pastoral theology at the Alphonsian Academy, Rome, during the academic year and taught during the Summer months at the St. Paul Seminary. Fr. O’Riordan introduced my class to the work of liberation theologians like Fr. Leonardo Boff, OFM, and Fr. Gustavo Guitierez, OP. He also introduced us to the work of Penny Lernoux who wrote exclusively about the heroic faith struggles of the people of El Salvador and Guatemala against the right-wing dictatorships of those countries in her book, The People of God. Archbishop Romero, challenged the right wing government of El Salvador at a time when the government was issuing statements like, “Be a patriot, kill a priest!” He received numerous death threats for being a shepherd to his flock. Receiving little to no support from Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, who supported the right wing governments of Central and South America, he was eventually martyred as he celebrated the Mass on March 24, 1980. He was officially declared a martyr of the Church by Pope Francis 1 in 2015 and canonized a saint on October 14, 2018.

This Psalm Offering is composed in the key of A minor. The primary melody quotes from the fugue subject used in Psalm Offering 7 Opus 1, which was written for another great hero of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John XXIII. The music begins and ends with the same open-ended chords. I have a propensity toward open sounding diads of Perfect 4^th and Perfect 5ths, which was the favored harmonies of medieval and Renaissance period music. It is in three part, ABA, form.

Psalm Offering 5: Lamentation for the Latin American Martyrs

Psalm Offering 5 is dedicated to the martyrs of Central and South America during the late 1970’s and 1980’s, who were “disappeared” by the military of the right wing Oligarchies of Central and South America. Referenced earlier in Psalm Offering 4, Fr Sean O’Riordan, C. SS.R., moral and pastoral theologian taught a class in Catholic Social Justice teaching during the summer of 1985 at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. I was shocked and dismayed to find out of how implicated the United States was in the massive slaughter of humanity in Central and South America during this time.

The U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia,  taught the military of the right wing Oligarchies of Latin America how to terrorize, torture and execute anyone who opposed them. Many Latin American priests and women religious were tortured, raped, and executed during this bloody time. Many Latin American bishops received death threats. Four American women, three religious sisters and a lay Maryknoll missionary, were tortured, raped, and executed by a death squad of the El Salvadoran government (see the documentary Roses In December).

I was so disturbed by what my government was doing that I composed this Psalm Offering in memory of those who died for their faith.

Musically, I had been greatly influenced  by the Polish composer, Kyrsztof Penderecki. Penderecki is a contemporary composer who uses extensively, atonal music in his compositions. Horrified by the dropping of the atomic bomb on the civilians of Hiroshima, he wrote a stirringly, haunting piece of music for orchestra entitled “Threnody For The Victims of Hiroshima.” This atonal orchestral work in which instruments are used in ways  not originally intended, gives the listener an aural experience of the horror and the aftermath of the blast that leveled the Japanese city. It is not music for the faint of heart.

This Psalm Offering, starting with repeated diminished chords (melody A), evolves into a passage of atonal intensity (melody B) that gradually resolves from harsh dissonance to consonance (melody C). In a musical way, it expresses the horror of greed and its sin upon a victimized humanity but resolves into the grace of God that ultimately wins victory for those martyred for the faith.

Psalm Offering 6: Meditation on a Musical Life (For Dr. Maurice A. Jones)

I wrote this Psalm Offering for Dr. Maurice A Jones in 1986. Dr. Jones was the finest music professor I have ever had, a choral director par excellence, a mentor, a hero, and a good friend. Maurie was a professor at the College of St. Catherine. I had the honor of singing in the Chorale, which Maurie directed, at St. Kates. Maurie died from AIDS on Holy Thursday of 1986. Interacting with Maurie, you would never associate him with the typical stereotypes we construct about homosexuals. Being a musician and working with many artists, I have been around the homosexual community all of my life. Many of my best friends and colleagues whom I admire are homosexual. When his illness began to reveal itself, I sat down and wrote this Psalm Offering for him, recorded it on cassette tape, and sent it to him. It was reported back to me that he appreciated it. I continue to grieve his death even though 30 years have passed. The College of St. Catherine never acknowledged that Maurie died from AIDS, though the entire Twin City Music community was well aware of it. May this most beloved man and musician rest in the peace of God. The Psalm Offering is again composed in a neo-Romantic period style. It is in simple three part, ABA, form. At the time I composed it, it was one of my first really ambitious composition for piano, my love and utter respect for Maurie Jones pushing me to the next level of musical composition.

Psalm Offering 7: Danse Comique (For Dr. James Callahan)

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to Dr. James Callahan. Dr. Callahan was my professor of Music Theory and my piano professor in college. Though diminutive in stature, he was a musical genius as a composer and as a concert pianist in the Twin City area. Under his tutelage, Dr. Callahan took my very raw abilities and guided me to develop into a competent classical pianist. His abilities as a composer and as a teacher of composition inspired me to continue to pursue music composition. Music Theory is a very difficult class. It quickly weeds out those who are serious about music from those who are not. My beginning class of 35, dwindled down to about 20 within the time of a semester. I remember Dr. Callahan once stating that for some, it takes a while to understand what they learned in Music Theory. The concepts so seemingly abstract when first learned all of a sudden make sense much later. He said that the rules of music need to be learned so that when you break them you have a good reason for breaking them. While I never quite developed the relationship I had with Dr. Callahan that I had with Dr. Jones, I knew that with both of these great musicians, I had the best of teachers. This Psalm Offering began as an assignment in Dr. Callahan’s Music Theory class as an exercise in changing meter. The music moves from 5/4 time to 6/4 time back to 5/4 time to 3/4 time, and there is even one measure of 4/4 time. The harmonic structure and melody is reminiscent of Hungarian composer, Bela Bartok’s piano “Suite Opus 14” that I played in my graduation piano recital. I like to think of this music as Bela Barok meets Dave Brubeck, the famed American jazz pianist. It is in two part, AB, form.  Of all the Psalm Offerings in Opus 2, it is one of the shortest and most whimsical in nature.

Psalm Offering 8: A Plaint for a Dead Mother (For Marian Hagan)

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to Marian Hagan. Marian is the mother of Ruthie’s BFF, Cheryl Ducharme. Marian had struggled and suffered throughout most of her life with Diabetes. After many years of carefully monitoring her diet and doing everything she could to maintain her health, Diabetes finally took its toll and Marian passed away in 1986. I wrote this Psalm Offering as a memorial to Marian, a woman of strength and integrity, and loving mom to Cheryl and her siblings.

The music is in the style of the Impressionistic Period, citing the influences of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel (and a hint of Sergei Rachmaninoff). The melody is constructed from the whole tone scale. With the exception of the Pentatonic scale, all scales or modes are a series of whole steps and half steps, arranged in a certain order. A whole tone scale has no half steps. As such, a melody constructed using only whole steps has a certain sound to it, quite different from most melodies. I like to call the sound “ethereal” almost dreamlike. It was for this “different” sound that the whole tone scale was favored by many of the Impressionistic composers. The music is in simple 3 part, ABA form.

Psalm Offering 9: Fugue Americana (On the occasion of my 12^th year of marriage to Ruth)

This Psalm Offering was dedicated to Ruthie on the occasion of our 12th wedding anniversary. It is a fugue that is best described as Johann Sebastian Bach merged with Aaron Copland. I wanted to express in music the vibrant joy and the quiet tenderness that Ruthie had given my life over the 12 years we had been married. The Baroque Period form of the fugue seemed to be the best way to convey this musically. To be married to such a wonderful woman is a gift given every day. To be separate from her is the worst of pain. Such is the transformative power of sacramental marriage. I only feel whole when I am with her.  I remember performing this for my general music classes at St. Wenceslaus School. I don’t know that they were impressed, but at least they were attentive. Musically, I had for a long time admired and enjoyed the musical compositions of the American composer, Aaron Copland, particularly his ballet, Appalachian Spring. In the ballet, there is a rousing section in which an Appalachian bride and groom get married. I wished to capture the vibrancy of Copland but work it into a fugue. The last time I composed a fugue was for Psalm Offering 7 Opus 1, dedicated to Pope John XXIII. Within this fugue, I abandon the polyphony of the traditional fugue to merge the subject (melody) of the fugue with a homophonic chordal structure used by Aaron Copland. It ends up as Fugue Americana. 

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to Julianne Kerber. I started working as director of liturgy and music, nights and weekends at St. Hubert in Chanhassen the Fall of 1986, while teaching general music classes, grades 1 to 8, at St. Wenceslaus School during the day. In the Spring, on the evenings I had off from rehearsals and meetings, I liked to walk around New Prague. The Kerber family is a large relationship in the Chanhassen area. The pastor told me that Julianne was entering into the end stages of her battle with cancer. While not knowing Julianne personally, I knew many of her relatives, in particular her son, Ed, whose wedding music I would be playing in the summer. I found myself preoccupied with thoughts of Ed’s mother, Julianne. As I pondered on one of those walks, this melody began to form in my mind and when I got home I quickly jotted it down on staff paper. Over the ensuing weeks of spring and early summer, I continued to work on this music completing it prior to Julianne’s death. Directing the music for Julianne’s funeral Mass, I played it for the first time publically as a post-communion song. Two weeks following Julianne’s funeral, I played the wedding of  Ed and his bride, Robin, as they began they journey together as husband and wife. This Psalm Offering is written in the style of the Romantic Period.  It is in Rondo form, ABACAD. Unlike many songs, it does not conclude with a typical cadence in the tonic key. Rather the Coda is open ended, in an entirely different key area from the tonic key, as if it continues on and on (perhaps a musical, theological reflection of life not ending but growing  beyond the confines of earthly life.). 

Beginning with my earliest compositions composed for piano, I am publishing the album notes I have written for each one of my CDs. These are the notes for Psalm Offerings Opus 1. You can find the music for sale at both Amazon and iTunes. You can also listen to the music at no cost on You Tube.

PSALM OFFERINGS

OPUS 1

Musical Prayer for the Pianoforte

By Robert Charles Wagner

© 2016, music and text, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

All pictures from family photo albums or in the public domain.

Introduction

My father was a mechanical engineer, a brilliant mathematician, and a great man of faith. Whenever there was a lawsuit involving an accident between a train and a vehicle, my father was called to court as a professional witness. His testimony helped to decide whether the engineer of the train could have stopped the train in time to order to avoid hitting the vehicle. The math formula used for many years was only accurate plus or minus 100 yards. My father began work on a mathematical formula that would be more accurate in determining the stopping distance of a train given a number of variables. The formula he created and copyrighted was found to be accurate to plus or minus 5 feet, and from that time forward has been the formula used in courtrooms. I once asked my father whether he made any money on his formula. He said no and added that he intentionally planned it that way. The inspiration he had to create the formula did not belong to him, it belonged to God who inspired him. As such, the formula belonged to all of humankind and was free to be used by all humankind.

I mention this story about my father primarily because his premise is totally accurate about all good things that are created. It makes no difference whether it be a scientific breakthrough in medicine, the understanding of the universe, or creating a work of art. All inspired good that is created by the human mind is a gift that originated in God. The music of this opus, this creation of pitches, rhythm, harmony and tempo, I attribute to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  

About the Psalm Offerings.  I think of these songs as a musical prayer offered up for the person or persons to whom they are dedicated. It is somewhat familiar to the Catholic custom of lighting a candle as a visible manifestation of a prayer being offered to God. Biblical Psalmody are sacred songs. Like their Biblical counterparts, I consider these sacred songs, too, albeit without text. These have been written over a long period of time, beginning in 1970 and continuing to the present.

As the photograph suggests, music has been in my blood from the beginning. My Great Aunt Sarah Gallagher insisted that the musical DNA of my Great Grandpap Marron ran in my veins. My Great Grandpap Marron was an Irish Traditional Musician whose fiddle played many a jig, reel, and ballad for dances and other occasions. I would like to think that Great Aunt Sarah was spot on about this, or perhaps that I am channeling Great Grandpap Marron’s spirit in some fashion or another.

Long before I met the love and center of my life, my beloved Ruthie, music had been the love and stabilizing center of my life. It was not performance I was after as a young person, but the creation of new music. Leonard Bernstein, in one of his Young People’s Concerts, pointed out that there are only 12 pitches in the chromatic scale and over time the combinations of these were going to used and reused. Of course, Bernstein was correct and promptly demonstrated this using the musical tune, “How Dry I Am” in any number of folk and symphonic melodies. As much as we may think that what we compose is original, we quickly find it is just another variation on a common theme. Many an Irish folk song uses the same basic melody. The Irish believe that if a melody is a good one, why waste on only one song, use it as the basis of many other songs. With this in mind, you may in the course of listening to this music hear something vaguely familiar.

You will hear the influences of Classical Music composers. The  polyphony of Johann Sebastian Bach, from the Baroque Period, to the sonorous homophony of  Frederick Chopin, from the Romantic Period, to the ethereal sonorities of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, from the Impressionistic Period, the modern music of Paul Hindemith and the atonal serial music of Arnold Schoenberg.

These Psalm Offerings were composed from 1970 to 1974, many beginning as music assignments for Dr. James Callahan, my music professor in Music Theory Classes 1 and 2. I would take these bits and pieces of those assignments and expand them into more complete music compositions. This was a time of great musical exploration and experimentation. My major instrument was piano, and Dr. Callahan was introducing me to the music of J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Listz, Chopin, Mendelsohn, Bartok, Debussy, Ravel, Hindemith, Schoenberg. This was like learning to speak many different dialects of the language of music. All of them different, challenging, enticing, and exciting. At the same time, I was ushering at the Minnesota Symphony concerts held at O’Shaughnessy Hall on the campus of the College of St. Catherine and listening to the vast array of music they performed.

Robert Charles Wagner

January 2016

Psalm Offering 1: “Prelude” (composed for my Dad)

Psalm 1 Opus 1 was written in 1972 for my dad, Walter Walterman Wagner. Dad is the closest I have come to knowing a saint. A man of compassion, a man of service, a man of intelligence and a man of courage who lived his faith to the fullest. There is not enough room to begin to say all that could be said about this very great man. Though he loved music, he couldn’t play a lick, except perhaps for some of those gimmicky piano songs. This Psalm Offering is not the first composition I wrote. That was written when I was in 8^th grade. However, it is pretty close to being the first full composition I wrote for piano. Dad had specific tastes when it came to music. He loved Classical Music, primarily that written during the Romantic Period. He had a special love for Tchaikovsky. I remember him after supper, sitting in his chair, smoking his pipe and listening to music on the phonograph. This was written as a birthday present for my Dad. It is written in simple three part, ABA form. I was heavily influenced by the music of Frederick Chopin at the time, hence, you will hear a heavy influence of the Romantic Period present in this song.

Psalm Offering 2:  Lento con dolente (for the men and women who fought in the Vietnam War)

This Psalm Offering was written in 1971, when the Vietnam War, the war of my generation was still being fought. I was a Music Major in my Sophomore year at the College of St. Thomas at the time this was composed, and eligible for the draft. My draft status was 1-A. While I could have obtained a student deferment delaying my eligibility for the draft, I chose not to do so out of a feeling of solidarity with the men from my age group. As it ended up, Selective Service moved to a lottery system with random numbers assigned to dates of birth. The number for my birth date exceeded the number from which Selective Service drafted that year, moving my draft status from 1-A to 1-H (meaning if there was another World War III, I would be drafted).

I never served in the Vietnam War, but knew many and worked with many who did. For those who served in combat, their tour of duty “In Country” was for one year. However, that one year serving in Vietnam continued to haunt and possess their souls when they returned State side, many of them never recovering from the experiences of what they did, what they saw, and what happened to the people with whom they served and the people whom they fought. When I think of the Vietnam War and all the lives that were lost in that hopeless effort, I think of the words Pope John Paul II spoke in condemning the invasion of Iraq by the United States. The stern warning the Pope gave to our nation was, “War is ALWAYS a defeat for humanity!” No one wins, all who participate in war end up broken.

In the three years I ministered at St. Stephen’s in South Minneapolis, many of the homeless we served in the homeless shelter were former Vietnam War veterans, still broken psychologically from what they experienced in combat 40 years earlier. It is to all the men and women broken by that war that this Psalm Offering is dedicated. It is written in three part, ABA form. The slow mournful melody A, the motif for war, the dance like quality of melody B, the propagandized promise of glory to unsuspecting youth, and a return to melody A with ponderous, oppressive octaves, revealing the true horror of war. The Psalm Offering ends with a mournful tolling of bells for the war dead.

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to my mother, Regina, “Queenie”, Jernstrom Wagner. My mom has been and remains an incredible person. She has always found great strength in God which has sustained her through many of the tragedies in her life, the death of her mother, when mom was 12 years old, her little sister dying two weeks later on Christmas Day, her dad dying when mom was 25 years old, the death of my sister, Mary, in 1997, and my Dad’s death in 2004. My mom received a Degree in Home Economics from Mount Mercy College in Pittsburgh, PA. She taught in the public school system, and later for the Gas Company in Pennsylvania conducting cooking schools throughout the state.

She met my father, moved to Chicago, and raised her family. After leaving teaching to raise us, she continued to substitute teach in the Catholic Schools insisting that she receive no pay.  She believed she had already been paid in full in having had the opportunity to receive a college education. Always one seeking to help others, she continues to do so even now that she is 94 years of age. I composed this Psalm Offering for her in 1972. The music is a variant of the Rondo form, ABCBAB. I always thought of the running arpeggio in the left hand as a kind of musical water fountain flowing up from the lower register of the piano, cresting, then flowing back down. Though the Psalm Offering is written in a major key area, it has a kind of wistful, sad quality to it.

Epilogue: My mother died peacefully on June 30, 2018 at the age of 97 years.

Psalm Offering 4: Impromptu (For the Victims of Violence)

Psalm Offering 4 is dedicated to all victims of violence. Throughout the 1960’s and early 1970’s  the United States was awash in violence. It was the time of assassinations, John F Kennedy, Malcom X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy, the Vietnam War, bloody violent protests both for the Civil Rights movement and anti-Vietnam War movements, the Kent State Massacre, riots everywhere.

We pride ourselves on being a Christian nation and yet, we inflict untold horror and violence on so many people. We forget what Jesus said in the last judgment scene in Matthew’s Gospel, Chapter 25, “when you do this to the least of these, you do it to me.” While Jesus was referring to clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, visiting the imprisoned, welcoming the stranger,” conversely, when we injure our neighbor, kill our neighbor, who are all a part of the cosmic Body of Christ, we are also inflicting violence upon Jesus.

This Psalm Offering is not just for the victims of war, but for the victims of domestic violence, the victims of racial prejudice, the victims of poverty all of which inflict as much psychological violence upon people as physical violence.

This Psalm Offering was originally an assignment in the composition of atonal, serial music for my Music Theory 2 class in 1971. Serial music, while sounding rather arbitrary and dissonant (many considering the sound “ugly”) is actually more difficult to compose than the simple songs we normally hear. There are strict rules to follow in the composition of serial music. In editing this Psalm Offering in 2016, I have composed and inserted new passages, namely the ostinato sections, into the music to lend a little more interest. The form of the song is a simple three part, ABA, form. It begins establishing melody A, introducing and establishing the tone row of pitches, much like the introduction of the “subject” or short melody, in a Baroque Period Fugue. 

This Psalm Offering is dedicated to my sister, Mary Ruth Wagner. I composed this in 1973, when I was a Junior at the College of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN. Mary had just graduated from Our Lady of Peace, sadly, the last graduating class from that all girl Catholic High School.  It was about this time in her life that Crohn’s disease, the illness which afflicted her from this time forward and would eventually end her life, began to affect her health in a major way.

At the time, internal medicine was just discovering what Crohn’s disease was, and Mary was treated for other illnesses before her doctors finally made the correct diagnosis. Mary would live another 24 years, go on to become an Occupational Therapist, graduating from the College of St. Catherine, and obtaining a Graduate Degree in Education from the University of St. Thomas. Between 1973 and her death in 1997, Mary had close to 30 surgeries, all Crohn’s Disease related. The doctors were finally unable to stop her internal bleeding and she passed away on August 10, 1997.

In her 42 years of life, Mary squeezed a lot of living, traveling to Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti, Hawaii, San Diego, San Francisco and, even at her sickest, camped in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. She was fortunate that two of her classmates from Our Lady of Peace, became medical doctors, and they often accompanied her on her journeys abroad. At this writing, Mary has been dead for 18 1/2 years, and not a day passes without me thinking of her.

This is a minuet in G minor, in three part, ABA, form. While it has a vibrant tempo and the swirly feeling of three, there is a tinge of melancholy in the music. Little did I know at the time of composition, it would be a musical reflection of my sister’s life, that is, short, adventuresome, and filled with both a lot of pain and a lot of love.

Psalm Offering 6: Etude (For my beloved, Ruth)

Psalm Offering 6 was composed in 1970 as an assignment for Music Theory 1 in college. The assignment was to compose music in the form of an Etude, etudes being basically a music exercise for the hands. Some of the more famous Etudes were written by Frederick Chopin, most people having heard the #12 Etude, also known as the “Revolutionary” Etude. What I handed in to Dr. Callahan was the first 20 measures of this music. I remember I knew the intention of my Etude was arpeggio exercises for the right hand. I worked out the chord progression (harmonic rhythm for the musically astute) but could not think of a melody to go along with the arpeggios in the right hand. I went to bed and in the middle of the night, the melody came to me in a dream. I awakened and quickly wrote down the melody I heard in the dream. After it was graded I knew that I wanted to compose it as a present for Ruth.

I took my Etude assignment and expanded the original 20 measures and gave it to Ruth. From the time I was a Junior in high school, I was in love with this beautiful girl, Ruth Ahmann. Ruthie and I dated steadily since May of 1969. I had my whole life planned, and the biggest part of that plan was to marry Ruth. As you know, the biggest part of plan was realized and Ruthie and I were married in 1974.

I revisited this Psalm Offering in 1985, altering the middle section slightly. When Ruthie heard this Psalm Offering recently, she thought it was brand new. I guess a few years have gone by since she last heard it in 1970. One thing has not changed over the years. My life still revolves around that beautiful brunette haired girl with the most magnificent smile. The music is in three part, ABA, form.

Psalm Offering 7: Fugue (for Pope John XXIII)

This Psalm Offering was written in 1974 and dedicated to Pope John XXIII. I remember distinctly as a kid, the opening of the Second Vatican Council. While I experienced the transition from serving Mass in Latin to serving Mass in English, I didn’t fully appreciate the tremendous contribution Pope John XXIII made to the Church by convening the Council.

I picked the Baroque music form of the Fugue for this music because the fugue has a dynamic quality to it that truly characterizes the life of Pope John XIII. There is a relentless power in a fugue. The subject of the fugue, a short melody, gets introduced and repeated over and over in different key areas both major and minor, sometimes inverted (upside down), sometimes backward (called retrograde), sometimes slowed down (augmented) and sometimes sped up (diminished).

Just as the subject of a fugue dominates the music and continues through to the end of the Fugue, so the spirit of Pope John XXIII and the work began at the Second Vatican Council has not ended but continues to be implemented in spite of the efforts of some in the Church who would like to diminish it. It is with great hope and relief that Pope Francis I is continuing the vision of Pope John XXIII by implementing the reforms called by the Second Vatican Council.

Note that the principle pitches from the fugue subject I would take 12 years later and fashion a new melody dedicated to Archbishop Oscar Romero (Psalm Offering 6 Opus 2), an equally dynamic and inspiring man. The next time I would write a Fugue would be to celebrate the 12th anniversary of my marriage to Ruth (Psalm Offering 9 Opus 2).

Psalm Offering 8: Meditation in the manner of Hindemith (for myself)

Psalm Offering 8 was principally written for myself. It was not done as an act of narcissism. Rather, I had written all this other music for others, I wanted one specific song I could call my own.

As I was soaking up the musical influences from the Baroque Period to the Modern Period of music, one composer I truly admired was the 20th century German composer Paul Hindemith. He did not follow strictly the atonal school of composition that Schoenberg and others like Schoenberg had established. Rather he dipped into all the musical influences from the past and present to establish his own style.

Dissonance was as much at home in his music as consonance. His piano music from Ludus Tonalis, was a particular favorite of mine. It was in the style of Hindemith in which I wrote this Psalm Offering. I would compose more in this style, particularly Psalm Offering 1 Opus 2. Though I initially played this at home, as I developed more and more into a liturgical musician, I began to use this short little piece of music as a prelude or a post-communion meditation at Mass. It remains for me today, one of my favorite compositions for piano. It is in three part, ABA, form.

Here is the homily I gave this past Sunday at St Wenceslaus in New Prague.

Because my dad’s work caused us to move a number of times, my family lived in quite a few homes. My favorite house was on Parkview Ave overlooking Como Lake in St Paul. The street was built on a hill with my house located at the bottom of the hill. Behind the house was an alley, equally hilly.  When I was 10 years old, one of the favorite activities us neighborhood kids had was to sweep all the sand and dirt into a big pile at the bottom of the alley. We would then ride our bikes to the top of the alley and race down the alley as fast as we could, slamming on our coaster brakes the moment the rear tire of our bikes hit that pile of sand and dirt. This would send our bikes out of control, skidding and careening usually into the hedges that lined either side of the alley at the bottom of the hill. This is what we called fun. Bruised and scraped, we would sweep the sand and dirt again into a big pile, ride our bikes up to the top of the alley and do it all over again. As I raced down that alley, it was if my guardian angel, Fred … from the time I was a kid, I have always thought my guardian angel’s name was Fred. He looks a lot like and has the disposition of Fred Mertz from the TV show “I Love Lucy” … Anyway, as I raced down that alley it was if my guardian angel, Fred,  sat on the handle bars of my bike, white knuckled, and screaming at me to not be so insanely stupid, while at the same time, trying to protect me from harm. As a parent and grandparent, I look back on that time and am utterly aghast at the sheer stupidity of what I did as a kid. Amazingly, aside from the scrapes and bruises and an occasional bloody knee, not a one of us kids suffered any serious injuries from this insane fun, something I attribute to the guardian angels riding all our handlebars.

In the readings today, think of the prophet Jeremiah, St Paul, and Jesus fulfilling the same task as my curmudgeonly, loving, guardian angel, Fred, warning us not to do something insanely stupid. Today, we are asked the question, “Whom do you trust?” We are given a simple A or B choice. Do we trust A) God, or, do we trust B) something other than God. The other can be anything from other human beings, political ideologies, wealth, abundance, fame and the like.

Jeremiah cuts right to the chase. He says if we trust God we are blessed. However, if we place our trust in anything that is not God, then we are cursed. St Paul tells the Corinthian community that if they trust only in human wisdom, they are not saved. Our trust must transcend human wisdom and seek instead the wisdom of God. Jesus, in his sermon on the plain, like the prophet, Jeremiah, calls all those who place their trust in God, Blessed. However, those who trust only in the things of this earth are doomed.

Those who are “Blessed” are those who are happy or fortunate in the sight of God. Jesus numbers those who are poor, those who are hungry, those who are mourning, and those who are persecuted among the Blessed of God. Why? Because the poor, the hungry, those who mourn and those who are persecuted know how much they must rely on God in order to get through every day. They have and possess nothing. The only thing they possess is God’s love for them.

Throughout all holy scripture, we are told that only in God will we find true happiness. Wealth is very fleeting on earth. Fortunes are made and lost in a heartbeat. Everlasting wealth can be found only in God. The food and the drink we consume on earth only satisfies us for a moment. However, the food and drink that God provides for us will last for eternity. While some turn to alcohol, substances, entertainments to distract themselves from the losses they grieve, it is only in God we can find the consolation and comfort we seek. The terrible hurts that are inflicted upon us by meanspirited and cruel people cannot be healed by throwing those who persecute us in prison or in seeking to hurt them in return. The only place in which to find any refuge, healing, and peace from the deep emotional, spiritual, and physical harm we have suffered is in God who loves us beyond all love. To sum it all up, all for which we long as human beings can only satisfied in God.

This is why Jesus says, “Woe to you”, who are rich, “Woe to you” who seek self-gratification in food, drink, fame, and all other pleasures of life. If we trust that our happiness is found only in the stuff of this earth, we will find that our happiness will be limited to only the here and now. Hence, Jesus’ words to the rich, and all who seek happiness in self-gratification, “You have already received your consolation.” Happiness will be denied them for eternity.

Why is this? When our lives are filled with abundant wealth, and every whim and desire is satisfied, we have no need of God. Our wealth, our abundance, our own self-gratification becomes our gods. The psalmist warns us in Psalm 135, “The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but do not speak; they have eyes but do not see; They have ears but do not hear; nor is there breath in their mouths. Their makers will become like them, and anyone who trusts in them.”

In their song, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, even the Beatles grasped that true love cannot be bought. Remember the refrain of the song? “Can’t buy me love, everybody tells me so. Can’t buy me love, no, no, no, no!” Money cannot buy us consolation and comfort when we are devastated by grief and loss. All the food and drink in the world cannot satisfy us if we can only receive nourishment through a feeding tube. When our final illness confines us motionless in a bed, all the wealth and abundance we have will not save our lives. This is why in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus warns us, “For what shall it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mt 8: 36).

To be disciples of Jesus, we need to understand the true meaning of happiness. True happiness is comprised in placing all our trust, all our love in God who created us. Or, as Jesus says in the Great Commandment, love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our strength. If we do this we will find everlasting happiness and contentment in our lives. If we do not, it’s as if we are riding our bikes down a steep alley and as we slam our brakes on a pile of sand and dirt we are hurled into everlasting disaster. And there will be no guardian angel by the name of Fred riding on the handlebars to save us from the disaster awaiting us.

At this time of year in 2014, as I walked to my car on a cold, winter day I heard high in the branches of the black walnut tree a cardinal singing. Tired of winter, it was a sound of hope. A cardinal singing in the branches, pitchers and catchers reporting to Fort Meyers, are signs of hope we, who dislike winter so very much, cling to at this time of year.

As I reflected on how much the song of this little bird gave me life that day, my mind was drawn to the one person in whom I always find hope, warmth, and joy … my beloved, Ruthie. Here is the poem I compose about her back then.

INTERLUDE: Ruth 2

The long, barren winter
silent but for the wind,
drifting snow across frozen
roads, fields, and hearts.
Winter sounds as barren
as the landscape,
the creak of walked upon snow,
the slip and the thud
of bodies on icy pavements,
the restorative slaps to body parts
iced in the bitter cold.

In the midst of this frozen despair,
a lone, beautiful sound floats
from bare branches above.
The Cardinal sings like Caruso,
a song of Spring yet to come,
warmth, and sprouting seeds,
yes, and even mosquitoes,
a harbinger of anticipatory miracles,
all this in that floating February aria.

As I long for the Cardinal’s song,
so I yearn to hear your voice, my bride.
At the sound of your voice,
my heart leaps and springs,
as surely as did our children
in your womb.
Your voice is life,
it sustains me in life’s wintery moments,
a harbinger of joy, of hope
of always something better,
something beautifully eternal.
Of all the greatest music composed,
your voice is the most beautiful to the ear.

© 2014. Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.

I am not very keen on the season of winter. My dislike for it is pretty much akin to almost the level of hatred … almost. Then, last evening, I was reading a book of poetry, entitled “Dog Songs”, by the poet, Mary Oliver, and came across the poem “The Storm (Bear)”. The poem reminded me of our two Great Pyrs, Floydrmoose (a play on Fliedermaus), and Henri. These were two massive dogs who loved the winter weather, especially following snow storms. They would leap and prance and rub themselves in the snow. It was great play for them.

THE STORM (BEAR)

Now through the white orchard my little dog
romps, break the new snow
with wild feet.
Running here running there, excited,
hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins
until the white snow is written upon
in large, exuberant letters,
a long sentence, expressing
the pleasures of the body in this world.

Oh, I could not have said it better
myself.

(c) Mary Oliver, “Dog Songs”, Penguin Books, New York, New York 10014

In today’s readings, Isaiah is called by God to be God’s prophet. In the Gospel, Jesus calls Simon Peter, James and John to be his disciples. As we listen to both accounts, those who are called by God become fearful. It is not because Isaiah was scared of God, or that Simon Peter, James and John were frightened by Jesus. What scared them? In God’s light, they beheld their own sinfulness. They became clearly aware of their shortcomings, and their inadequacies as human beings.

This is not isolated to those “holy people” from the past. This is something that is consistent with all who have felt called to serve God. I remember weeks before my ordination to the Permanent Diaconate, the major question that I pondered very seriously was whether I was worthy enough to be ordained to serve God and the Church. Deeply aware of my own shortcomings and knowing that they were not going to be erased magically by the Archbishop’s laying of hands, was I worthy to be a servant of Christ in the Church? I reflected on a portion of St Paul’s 2^nd letter to the Corinthians in which he writes about a “thorn in the flesh” he wished God to take from him. The Lord replied to St Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” St Paul concludes, “I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses,in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ;for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor: 9-10). What ended up most important to me was not whether I was worthy enough to be ordained. Rather, in spite of my weaknesses, God deemed me worthy enough to be ordained.

You and I were not perfect when God called us at our baptism. God calls us just as we are. Like Isaiah, Peter, James, John, and Paul, we seek to serve God, well aware of our own brokenness. Let not our own sinfulness get in the way of our serving God and serving those whom called God has called us to serve. Rather, may we come to realize that which was spoken to St Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”