One night at least a month ago, perhaps two, I was browsing in my 22,469 mp3 files*, looking for some classical piece to listen to before bed--something no more than fifteen minutes or so in length, and not overly intense or demanding. This album caught my eye: not the image, but the words "solo viola."

The dates on the files tell me that I acquired this album in 2007, probably for next to nothing. But I had never listened to it. I had barely heard of Max Reger, and had only a vague idea that he was an early 20th century composer. But I do like the viola quite a lot, so I gave it a try, half-expecting it to be half-listenable early 20th century hostility to the ear.

What a happy surprise! The first suite is in G minor, with four movements. The first movement is slow and somberly melodic. It immediately put me in mind of Bach's cello suites, and I have no doubt that Reger meant that it should. The second movement begins energetically and tunefully, goes to a section more like the first movement, then back to energetic. This was definitely interesting and not at all inaccessible music. I listened to the whole suite, which is only a dozen or so minutes long. I liked it, and returned to it the following night, and then again, and with every hearing I only liked  it more. 

I went on to the second and third suites, and over a period of weeks I must have listened to all of them at least half a dozen times each. As of this moment I think I like the third one, also in a minor key (E minor) best. But that may change the next time I listen to one of the others.

I don't suppose these suites measure up to Bach's. I don't know that Reger expected them to, though, as I said, he surely must have been inspired by them and intended the association. Perhaps they're not as profound and complex. But they do possess a similar atmosphere. Rather than flail around trying to describe the music, I can offer you the opportunity to hear it for yourself, thanks to YouTube.

The suites are perfect for the sort of occasion on which I first discovered them, a quiet time when you want to hear some music that's interesting and thoughtful but not dramatic and stimulating. Or long. They're like a late-night conversation with a good friend, reflective and unhurried, sometimes lively but not contentious, and not without humor.

For the first several hearings of all three suites, I listened to the recording I have, the Kobayashi one pictured above. It's a strong, even forceful, performance with very clear and close sound. Then I began to wonder about other performances, and thanks to Idagio I had a number of choices--though the suites had been unknown to me, they are well-known and well-regarded enough that there are a fair number of recordings to choose from. I liked this one best. It's more lyrical than Kobayashi's. 

The question now, obviously, is: what other music by Reger would I like? And would I like it as much as I like this? That would be nice.

* Exact count (maintained by the software, Media Center from J. River)

Today, November 22nd, is St. Cecilia's feast day (and also that other day that many of us remember). Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern observes the occasion with Dryden's "Song For St. Cecilia's Day," a wonderful poem which you should read. Read it twice, actually: once slowly and perhaps haltingly for comprehension, making sure you've straightened out the sometimes complex or roundabout syntax, then again with a natural flow. It's not so much about St. Cecilia as a brief history of the cosmos, from birth to death, in terms of music--really. That last line is wonderful.

The poem made me recall that Handel wrote an Ode For St. Cecilia's Day, which I had never heard. Well, now I have, only once, but that was enough to show me that it will be worth getting to know better. Here, plucked from YouTube's initial offerings and without knowledge of the ensemble, is the second movement, containing the first stanza of the poem. The first movement is an instrumental overture. 

I'm downright amazed at the way Joseph Bottum and Sally Thomas keep putting out these wonderful posts at the rate of five a week. The poems are always at least interesting, and the commentaries are both erudite and sensitive. As I think I said last time I mentioned the site, it's a continuing education. You should subscribe, preferably a paid subscription, but you don't have to have that in order to read it. 

I've been putting off writing this post, even more than is accounted for by my normal level of procrastination. The reason, upon examination, was pretty simple: I didn't want to write it. And the reason for that was, similarly, more than is accounted for by my normal laziness: I didn't know what I wanted to say. And the reason for that was that I don't like the book as much as I had hoped and expected and indeed wanted to do, and am reluctant to damn with faint praise the work of a novelist whom I consider to be a great one--or, I have to admit, to put in the work of sorting out the good from the bad, what works and what doesn't work, in the novel.

This is a sequel to The Wild Orchid, in that it's a separate volume, but, as with the three volumes of Kristen Lavransdatter and the four of Olav Audunsson, the two are effectively a single story, the story of the life of Paul Selmer up to a point well into middle age. I wonder why it stopped there, instead of going on until the death of the protagonist, as in the other two novels. And I speculate that perhaps Undset herself may have recognized that the story was not succeeding in the way her massive medieval stories did. 

Paul seems to have been born around 1890. The Wild Orchid ends in 1914, with him in his twenties, recently married, with a baby and a successful business, and the Great War having just broken out. The Burning Bush begins two years later. Norway is not directly involved in the war, but it's having an adverse effect on his business. His marriage, which we could clearly see was going to have problems, is having them. Through the first book he was on an intellectual and spiritual trajectory which was clearly toward the Catholic Church, and I was mildly surprised that he did not get there. Part of the reason was an intense love affair which tended to push everything else, including his career, aside--he had expected to become an academic, but had given that up in part so that he could marry the girl, only to have the relationship end abruptly. 

I say the affair was "intense," but for the most part I didn't really get that sense of it. And that points toward what is, for me, the central problem with the novel (in which I include both volumes): it never really caught fire for me, and one important reason is that Paul always seemed to me a bit of a cold fish. We we are told that he is quite passionate in that first love, but to me he generally seemed a bit detached, a bit overly rational. The reader--this one anyway--seems to be looking at the affair from the middle distance: we see what's going on, but we aren't close to it. We don't really feel what Paul feels. Or at least I didn't. The same is true of the depiction of his marriage, though there is more justification for it there, as he has more or less blundered into marriage to a young woman whom he doesn't really love. And in general his family and other relationships seem marked by a certain coolness and distance. 

He does, fairly early in the second volume, make his way into the Catholic Church. And it becomes the center of his life even as it creates problems for him, especially with his wife and other family members: one in particular, a cousin named Ruth to whom he is close, laments that he seems to be lost to the family. His faith and his determination to live it as thoroughly and honestly as he can never seriously falter; I add "seriously" because he is tested, and given to understand how far short he still falls. 

I'm afraid I'm making this sound more negative than I would like. It is an interesting story, and I did enjoy it. I never had any sensation of having to force myself to continue. The situations that arise toward the end do become quite moving. Certain facts about the events of the first volume are revealed, showing them to have been tragic instead of merely ordinary difficulties and mistakes, and the occasion of vast regret.

But I can't describe this duology or evaluate it without having those two masterpieces standing beside it and making it look comparatively small. While the central drama of Paul's life may not have the tension and impact it should and no doubt was meant to--or that either Kristen's or Olav's have--there is a great deal along the way to interest the philosophically and religiously inclined reader. Much of that involves the fairly frequent more or less abstract discussions of the Catholic faith, and the not at all abstract bearing of that faith on the crisis of modern secular liberal civilization.

And lesser in both number and significance, but still interesting, are glimpses of the way the world looked from Norway in the early 20th century. Here is Paul's wife, on hearing that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was likely to cause a war: "Pooh! They have such heaps of archdukes down there that it can't matter so very much."

[There should be a picture of the book's cover here, but Typepad's image insertion feature isn't working. You can see it at Cluny Media's site.]

---

ADDENDUM, a day later

I've just re-read the chapter in which that "occasion of vast regret" occurs, and I see that I haven't really been fair to Paul, or to the book. It is very powerful, as well as profound. Paul at that point in his life is certainly no stranger to the deepest passions.

This really should have been a day-after-the-symphony post. The Mobile Symphony played on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, and the program consisted of this work, Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony, and a contemporary work by a composer I'd never heard of--not that whether or not I'd heard of him says anything very significant, but contemporary classical music is, in general, not on the same level as what we call "the classics." 

I wasn't exactly on fire with enthusiasm for the concert. I knew this concerto (generally known as the triple concerto) existed, but as far as I could remember never heard it, or had much desire to hear it. My reaction to the idea was "that must be a ponderous jumble." Moreover, as I've had more than one occasion to remark here, Beethoven, great as he is, is not the composer I love most. But I did plan to go, especially as we have season tickets, so there was no decision to make about whether the concert might be worth the price or not. 

Then came a terrible discovery: the Alabama-LSU game, which I knew was on Saturday, would be a night game. I had to choose. When I mentioned the conflict to my wife, she seemed to think it pretty straightforward that the concert would and should lose. But I was undecided, and I could always go alone, if she didn't want to. The game might even still be in progress when the concert was over. 

I really couldn't get excited about hearing a Haydn symphony, even one of his better ones. Poor Haydn--everyone likes him, but few seem to love him dearly. Nor could I get excited about the contemporary piece. So I thought I should listen to the triple concerto and see whether the prospect of hearing a live performance of it was attractive enough to tip the balance.

I picked a performance more or less at random from the many available on Idagio: Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Berlin Philharmonic under Guilini. I wasn't much taken with it; it seemed ordinary, Beethoven in his less inspired moments. I asked Terri, my classical music guru, about it, and she was unenthusiastic. She's also an Alabama fan, and said, given that MSO program, she would opt for the game. I wavered. I consulted Dave Hurwitz, editor of Classics Today and author of an enormous number of YouTube videos. He pronounced it "Beethoven's dullest major work" (click here for the video), and with a sort of well-if-you-really-must attitude recommended this recording:

So I listened to it, and this time I liked it much more. But I had to decide, and a situation had come up in which we could help out another couple by giving them our tickets. So we did. Decision made.

A couple of days later I listened to the concerto again--that's three times, which is my minimum for expressing anything close to a definite opinion about any piece of music. And my definite opinion is that I like it, quite a lot.

I'm very happy to be able to say that it's not ponderous and not a jumble, and most definitely not dull. It's really a very engaging work, as a matter of fact. It is a bit on the lighter side for Beethoven; in fact I would call it sunny. Of course there are sunny moments in many of Beethoven's great works, but at least in the symphonies they often seem to me a bit heavy-handed, as if they aren't really representative of the composer's real mood or temperament. 

One certainly might imagine--as I did--that the combination of three "solo" instruments and orchestra would be a muddle, but what we really have is almost an alternation between a string trio and a full orchestra. When the trio plays, the orchestra mostly slip into the background, and the conversation is mostly within the trio, not between the trio and the orchestra. And the trio sections are delightful.

It's Opus 56, which I guess makes it more or less mid-period. The Third Symphony is Opus 55, and, with its stormy heroic grandeur, is a pretty striking contrast. (I should admit here that I am not the greatest of enthusiasts for the Third.) The concerto definitely doesn't sound "early," in the sense that, say, the early piano sonatas do, as if they aren't yet Beethoven in full voice. And yet it has that lighter quality of some of the earlier work. At several points I found myself thinking that the feeling--not really the sound as such, but the vibe--is Mozartean. Yet there isn't that frothy quality which a great deal of Mozart's music has. More solid, you could say. The Fourth Symphony is Opus 60. I haven't heard it for many years, but it's a more modest affair than the Third and Fifth, and from what I recall I think this concerto may have more in common with it than with the Third. 

The structure is a little unusual. The first and third movements are roughly equal in length, in the fifteen-minute range. The second is very short, less than five minutes in most performances, and consists of a very beautiful largo for, mainly, the violin and cello, which only lasts three minutes or so. That's followed by a sort of prelude to the third movement, which then follows without any interruption. One could fairly say that it's a two-movement concerto, except that the largo is left behind completely in the rest of the very energetic, but not heavy-handed, smile-inducing final movement. 

If you don't know it, give it a chance. 

Do I regret skipping the concert? No, not really. Even though I didn't attend, it caused me to get acquainted with this work, which I might very well never have done at all.

Alabama won, very decisively. Surprisingly so. 

It occurred to me just now as I was typing it that I could quibble with the title of this anthology. The date refers to the lives of the poets included, not to the dating of the poems. The oldest of the poets, Paul Mariani, was born in 1940. So I doubt that any poem in the book was published before, say, 1965. But there was certainly Christian poetry published by American poets between 1940 and 1965 (and after, of course)--Robert Lowell's, for instance. So I could quibble, but I won't, because that would be petty and obnoxious. It's probably a scholarly convention and I'm revealing my ignorance. Please consider this as a pedantic clarification. Not to be confused with a quibble.

The title might come as a surprise to anyone without particular interest in both Christianity and poetry. That person might be unaware that the two have had anything much to do with each other over the past eighty years or so. And it certainly is true that most poetry that has met with any kind of positive reception in the literary world at large is either non- or anti-Christian, as is the case with literature in general. Another sort of person, one interested in poetry but not Christianity, might assume that the category of "Christian poetry" would include only or mainly devotional work, and probably not be very good. 

The first person would be mistaken, the second person very mistaken. These poets--and, implicitly, the editors--have all, consciously or instinctively, grasped the correct answer to the question, discussed to the point of being tiresome, "What is Catholic/Christian literature?" The answer is not "Christians writing about Christian things" but something closer to "the world seen through Christian eyes." In general this means that the eyes are those of a Christian, but even that isn't necessarily the case; they may belong to someone who is not Christian but is capable of seeing the world that way. Some of the poets here have a fairly loose connection to the faith: Andrew Hudgins, for instance, says "I'm not sure I would invite myself to the party" of Christian poets. But he has a poem called "Praying Drunk" which begins "Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk."

Many, perhaps most--I didn't attempt a tally--write from clear and definite belief. Some write explicitly about questions of faith, some about pretty much anything that concerns them. Robert B. Shaw, for instance, writes about "Things We Will Never Know":

What became of Krishna
the blue-point Siamese
strayed circa Nineteen
Fifty-five in Levittown

....

Why did Lester leave the Church

Why did his wife leave  him
Why didn't she leave him sooner
What made him drink like that
How much did the children know

Who built Stonehenge    Why

Notice the absence of question marks--these are not really questions, but items in the list named in the title. Only in the last of a dozen or so four-line stanzas does the poem hit us with one that affects us directly and personally, and, obliquely, hint at one of the Big Questions which Christianity poses to us all. 

Technically, the poems are all over the place. There are a good many poems in traditional forms, a good many in free verse. Some take what I think of as the typical approach of the contemporary lyric poem, which is a close look at some fairly small thing or event, usually implicitly, sometimes explicitly, suggesting some larger application or concern. Jeanne Murray Walker's "Little Blessing for My Floater" is one such. Some begin with a wider narrative or meditative scope, like David Middleton's "The Sunday School Lesson":

The room was full of thirteen-year-old boys
Unhappily constrained by polished shoes,
Bow ties, oiled hair, and orders against all noise,
And one eternal hour of Good News.

Some take on the big subjects directly, like Dana Gioia's "Prayer At Winter Solstice":

Blessed is the road the keeps us homeless.
Blessed is the mountain that blocks our way.

More than a few are funny, like Marilyn Nelson's "Incomplete Renunciation," which would have to be quoted in full for you to get it, and though it's only a dozen or so lines I probably shouldn't do that.

What they all have in common are skill, imagination, and a consciousness of the depth of the human condition. That is an echo of a definition of religion given long ago by the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich: "the dimension of depth in human life" (quoted from memory, please excuse any inaccuracy). It's a very poor and inadequate definition of religion, but it's certainly an aspect of religious consciousness. And there's not a poem here which doesn't possess it.

I think my taste skews a bit toward the older poets, those within a decade or so of my own age. But it's only a skew; there are some fine poems here by younger and much younger poets. James Matthew Wilson, for instance, who is very prominent on the Catholic literary scene these days, was born in 1975, which though it makes him young in my eyes puts him well into middle age. The last half-dozen or so poets in the collection are the age of my children. This sort of thing has been disconcerting to me since people of their age began to take on significant roles in society, and continues to disconcert me as I slip further along into irrelevant old age. 

Lovely cover, too, don't you think?

Each poet's entry is preceded by a page or two of biography and excellent commentary by the editors. (Personally I prefer to read at least one of the poems, then the commentary.) These are not credited so I don't know which editor wrote which introduction, assuming one of them didn't do them all; I didn't notice any difference in style or approach among them, but then I wasn't looking for it. I am impressed by the amount of work that went into this collection: there are several dozen poets, and most of them have published multiple books. To have read all or most of these carefully enough to choose the poems and write the introductions was a massive labor, no doubt one of love.

Sally Thomas and Micah Mattix are both deeply knowledgeable, careful, and sensitive readers. Sally is an excellent poet (and fiction writer), as I noted here a couple of years ago, and also the co-proprietor, with Joseph Bottum, of the outstanding poetry Substack Poems Ancient and Modern. Michah Mattix is poetry editor of First Things and the author of a popular literary-cultural Substack called Prufrock. I have to admit that I don't read Prufrock, but it isn't because I doubt what seems to be a widely-held regard for it, but because it is, at least in part, a sort of clearing-house for items of literary interest, and I already feel that my reading attention is so painfully fragmented that I can't deal with another set of links. (I've gone so far as to install internet-blocking software on my computer to limit my ability to browse compulsively and shallowly when I'm supposed to be working.) 

So if you have much interest in the subject, you probably need this book. And while I'm at it, let me recommend Poems Ancient and Modern at least as strongly. Poetry is my chief literary interest now (a return to my teens and early twenties), so I do read every post, which is to say every poem, there, even though there is one every weekday, and I sometimes, or often, get behind. It's a continuing and pleasurable education, even for someone who has what is probably a more-than-usual acquaintance with poetry, beginning long ago with an undergraduate degree in English and several semesters of graduate work. What I just said about the team of Sally Thomas and Micah Mattix holds for Sally Thomas and Joseph Bottum. Their tastes and knowledge are extremely wide-ranging, and they have featured a number of poets of whom I had next-to-no knowledge, and a few of whom I had never heard at all. Mehetabel Wesley Wright is one of these. You'll find both the poem and the biography at that link interesting: yes, she was related to John and Charles Wesley, as their elder sister. Unhappy marriages seem to have run in the family.