With a name like Wagner, one would wonder why I would have any preoccupation at all about St Patrick’s Day. Wagner sounds anything but Irish. However, on my mother’s side, she was part Swedish (Jernstrom) and part Irish (Marron). I may have inherited the “Swedish arthritic joints” (so says the Irish side of the family), but I was heavily influenced by the Irish side. I have a great interest and love Irish Traditional music and have followed a number of Irish traditional bands so much so, that when Irish Americans try to claim the Greatest hits of Bing Crosby as authentic Irish music, I turn up a snobbish nose.
These two piano song/prayers were composed for two people I loved and admired. The first one is for Bob Murphy, the husband of my cousin Greta. He was a good man, a loving man who placed his relationships with his family and friends above everything else in his life. Bob, sadly, passed away around this time of year, several years ago.
As you listen to the music, note that Irish influence in the jig at the beginning and the end of the song. The middle part is pure Viennese, Beethoven.
This second song was composed for my mother-in-law, Rosemary Ahmann. Rosemary, like my mother, was half Swedish (Burg) and half Irish (McNeeley … my maternal grandmother, and Rosemary’s mother must have been rebellious, incorrigible Irish girls, marrying these Swedish men at the turn around 1900).
As with all unions between the Irish and some other culture, the Irish side always trumps the other culture. So it was with Rosemary. She was more Irish than the Emerald Isle itself.
I loved her dearly. Sadly, she died suddenly on January 4, 2018. In her honor and as a prayer for her, I composed this song. Like the one I composed for Bob Murphy, it had as Irish jig as it opening and ending melody, with a Viennese influenced melody sandwiched in between (a wee bit like sticking sausage and sauerkraut between 2 pieces of Irish Soda bread … only more palatable).
