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 50th 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.
