All photos by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, from Oct. 28, Nov. 4, and Nov. 5
The way I was raised:
- In victory, be humble and gracious.
- In defeat, see previous answer
In this election year, this easily translates to "walk in love and light toward all, no matter what." I'm politically independent, and that does not really have any pull nationally ... so I have no side. My fellow citizens in blue and red are not my enemy anyhow over political party ... there are fine people and there are bigots in both.
There are millions of heartbroken people today in my nation. There are millions of people inclined to gloat, which means that it does not actually matter who is elected in terms of the health of the United States in the long run ... because a nation with hundreds of millions that has high tens of millions that feel completely hated and hate-filled toward another high tens of millions will never heal. As Abraham Lincoln quoted from no less than the Lord Jesus Christ, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
I have strong opinions about the outcome of the U.S. election. But I also know what my calling is: show the hurting ones love and light ... and many of the gloating ones, seeking vindication but really in no better practical position that they were on Monday, are actually hurting too.
Everyone needs hope, and of course, that comes with its companions faith and hope. Some people feel hopeful today, and others are in despair ... the holidays too will soon end, and then the reality of life will settle back in ... the election cannot change the economic and technological changes that are going to leave many people behind.
The problem is, it's not 1954. It's 2024. Entitlement to the idea of what we may or may not have had in the 1950s is no way to think as a country into the future, and the election outcome has not changed the fact that this is how high tens of millions want to try to meet the future.
The reality is, neither side sees a future substantially different and better from the past, and the only thing that can change the minds of those who think it is the end of the world and there is no future worth having now is hope.
I don't have all the answers. I'm an intellectual, and an artist, and enough of a historian to know that even offering hope to people that others want to see as inhuman chattel for their vision of empire, large or small, can be dangerous. Both the Negro Spiritual and Schubert tell me that ... and like them, I was given music ... and I was given it to acknowledge what is for many, and what can be, in the light, for all ...
This is a good time to introduce another bass who I am getting to know through social media ... like Eric Hollaway, Kevin Maynor is an African American bass with a heart as deep and large as his voice, and he also because of his total life inspires and calms me. He, like Kurt Möll, is a man whose caring you can watch in his life, and hear in how he sings ... he pays attention to deep matters when he sings in German ... his take on "Das Thal" is only exceeded to me by Herr Möll's ...
... and also in English, in the great songs of our own heritage.
The more deep and caring bass singing one has around one's self in troubled times, the better!
Of course, I am listening to my favorite bass ... another full circle ... a time of autumn sadness and grief were the perfect time for Brahms's Four Serious Songs ... and that is how Herr Möll pulled me into Brahms's lieder, and then into all the rest ... just kept popping up on YouTube for now three years like, "You see, there was more to Brahms than you knew ... and while we are on that subject, let me reintroduce you to Strauss and Verdi who you also cannot stand, and remind you of Schubert and Haydn who you knew from childhood, and all this Mozart and a little bit of Beethoven over here you haven't heard, and yes, there are at least 35 good seconds in Wagner, and oh, have you met Loewe and Bruckner? You are going to need all of your old German friends in music, and many new ones -- and since you take me as the first of the new, let me be the best friend I can to you."
Three years later, I return to Brahms's Four Serious Songs ... the futility of material life because of the unavoidable reality of the grave ... the fact that because of what happens because of injustice in the world, it seems better at times for those who never were born here ... how death is bitter to those in the midst of life who still have their hopes and dreams, but is sweet to those in misery the earth can no longer relieve in any way ... that takes care of three of four songs. Brahms was preparing himself for the grieving of his dear friend, Clara Schumann, at very near the end of his own life ... he took the words of Ecclesiastes and Sirach (in the Catholic and Luther Bibles) to express his own heartbreak.
But there are four serious songs, not three. There is an answer to all this, and Brahms knew it as well as I do. He had been taught about the "Love Chapter" of the Bible in childhood just as I learned of it, and for the last of those songs, and the last of all his songs, he set that to music ... and that was where I began in November 2021, returning to all the riches of the German half of my musical foundation ... faith, hope, and love, for hope must have its companions ... and to where I return, in a full circle.
Now, just where to do this? I had one idea, but the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past had another.
"Come away to rest with me a while, Frau Mathews, to a place of peace. It has been a long election year to Tuesday, and although you are looking after everyone else as you are so beautifully inclined to do, it is necessary for me to remind you, as one who is a little lower than an angel but slightly higher than a cricket --."
I laughed.
" -- as a herald of the kindness of the Love Above me, toward you, that your feelings matter as well. I have been delighted to see you attending so well to your peace."
"I have learned three years of lessons, mein Lehrer. All things came in time."
"Indeed. Not a moment too soon, or too late ... but first refresh yourself a bit ... ."
"Oh, we are doing these big, tall, basso profundo sized pears now, eh?" I said.
"I know this contralto profundo who had to let some people know that she is not going to let anyone turn her around ... or, as she sang it far better with that big booming high B and low F sharp 3 ... ."
"That's a big, big voice, Frau Mathews. It requires a big pear for a hill walk after such stress as you have had."
"This is not how I fully intended to get back to music, but, I gotta take care of my people," I said.
"And you just discovered how to use Audacity for virtual studio work too ... I was so tickled last week to watch you voicing an alien angel for Alien Art Hive, and still work me in there... but you just can't conceive of a happy ending without bass in it!"
"Even that amazing piano improv up higher -- when that bass REALLY begins to thunder, that's when you on the upper end start heading toward A major!"
"Well, you know, I'm getting myself surrounded with loving older basses."
"Mr. Kevin Maynor is a marvel of a voice and a person! You ought to take a living operatic bass as your favorite -- and let Q-Inspired hear much more of him!"
"Still trying to ease back off into a quiet permanent retirement, I see, even though you know: ain't gonna happen."
"You and that strong grip of yours ... but that is all right ... since you have latched on, then you will have to go with me to the top of Alamo Square's sunny western side."
"Look, in three years, you haven't taken me anywhere that would hurt me, so, let's go!"
Before my second bout of Covid, I had not spent as much time exploring Alamo Square Park, but I had walked through it many times on my way to other appointments. I made a point to do that: the brief refuge helped.
I reconsidered while in that thought my beloved five basses: Jerome Hines, Martti Talvela, and Kurt Moll in their legacies, and Eric Hollaway and Kevin Maynor while they yet live ... what had they provided to me but wonderful moments of refuge as I did what I was called to do in the world, over and over again, even as I had chosen my walks, over and over again? To gain refuge ... and perspective on the world from there, from above its busyness and going concerns ...
Another memory ... I had not long started walking again in a cool November when I began to bring my earbuds and time my walks to Herr Moll singing through three of the Four Serious Songs. Before that, back to the spring, I had been listening to different motivational folks on YouTube ... but with the passage of six months, some of their content choices had begun to tell me I was not going to be safe with them in the long run. With the passage of a year, it was clear.
But in the meantime, the voice I knew from Commendatore was unchanged ... for Vier Ernst Gesange, as it is in German, you could not have found a more weighty voice but perhaps Gottlob Frick, except that he didn't leave a recording where YouTube has yet found it ... and that might have been too dark to bear anyhow in those first three songs ... if one might imagine the abyss itself, in its absolute blackness, singing beautifully of all the grief it knows from souls that perished in despair ... I like to think Herr Frick was very wise, and spared the world that!
Not that the voice of Herr Moll is not also utterly black, but is also spangled with the Milky Way for light -- all that's best of dark and bright, and to my overwhelming surprise because Commendatore as a role only drops a few hints, mind-bending in beauty. I had to stop walking with the recording because after a while I wasn't sure if I was getting around the blocks or the blocks were getting around me ... and then putting it on to go to sleep just delayed me getting any rest for another quarter-hour ... not until the very last note would he let my ears and my mind go!
But in those night listening sessions, with the city quiet, did I figure out what was captivating my mind and bidding for my heart in that voice ... the same sincere earnestness as Commendatore, for discussing life and death in an even more serious way ... this was not a libretto, but Scripture, and the reverent, careful handling went up by that degree.
There also was careful use of that immense voice to highlight key portions of the text and express all the things that go with grief ... the sadness, anger, weariness, even that level of thinking that comes out to if death is good enough for the beloved, it is better than being in the world for the one grieving.
There are even shades of different grief for the things Brahms wrote of: grief that death spares no one, grief over the injustice of the world, grief over all the plans of men that come undone because bitter Death will not wait ... and then the acknowledgment that to those in great misery from old age or great sickness or great injury (to the mind and heart also), Death can provide relief. That last shade highlighted the difference between my own dying relative and myself, so that when she passed in January 2022, I understood. There was no "what if?" necessary, because Herr Moll had explained it all to me through three of the Four Serious Songs two months in advance. No death since under such circumstances has hit me quite so hard ... he bridged the gap for me in a way no one else could.
Earnestness and deep compassion, and the empathy to understand people's stories and care enough to make others understand ... what I had heard briefly in Commendatore had borne out in three of the four songs. The fourth -- I didn't catch up to it right away because I was not at all ready for his virtuosity to break out -- I still am never ready for him to just be singing overjoyed vocal hopscotch at the end over two tenths and an eleventh and then just throwing on a third up further just to give the baritones a day off as a basso profundo --.
"Overjoyed vocal hopscotch? Your mind, Frau Mathews! Your mind!"
I had gone so far down memory lane I had forgotten he was walking in the spirit with me in the park, and apparently my more vivid thoughts had come through to him. He was so tickled ... peal after peal of that glorious voice in merry laughter just changed the generally somber mood in the park ... it was like the sunshine just hit a higher level ...
... and I realized ... in 2021 he literally had illuminated the path from grief to full recovery, in light of a deliberate decision to center faith, hope, and love, with love as the greatest. I did not know the extent to which I would need to walk that path yet ... and 2022 and 2023 would teach me ... and I also would learn much from the sensitive singing of Alexander Kipnis of these same songs ...
... but in 2024, I would make it all the way to the end of the journey to recovery ... just in time to be fully prepared for the election matters going into 2025. Now, I might not have realized that, except that my favorite musician's legacy was just that consistent and had opened up so many other avenues to reinforce that same lesson ... and then we got to where we were walking and I looked back at this:
He had still been laughing to that point, but his face turned instantly to alarm as he could not know the rush of thoughts and emotions that had come over me that had caused sudden tears ... he wrapped his arms around me instantly, his eyes searching my face ... and so he was dazzled by my sudden smile.
"To see you in tears of joy, Frau Mathews," he said gently, "is more than I could have hoped for today."
"You are here in Q-Inspired today so that you could see them, and know from me: I know what I am to do, and have known in 2022, and 2023, and now, and for 2025, no matter what happens, because you echoed Him Who called me to walk joyfully in the light, and all the faith, hope, and love in it, and to share that with all others I am called to -- you sang to me even how to do it through grief, in 2021, through Brahms Four Serious Songs. My own ancestors started me on the road ... and you were given to come alongside me from the German side of my musical life when I needed that echo in my second language too ... danke, mein Lehrer! Danke! Für alle drei Jahren -- Danke!"
From alarm to dazzled shock to overwhelming joy -- it was a good thing we were in such bright sunlight, he lit up so brightly.
"Gern geschehen, Frau Mathews, mit alle mein Herz ... ach, meine geliebtes Blumenkind ... that you would choose me to sing of all others that could, of greater and more famous name than mine, these three years ... and that you returned to singing in this time, to use your great, deep voice to show that same faith, hope, and love inside your heritage of music and let it ring in these times -- ach, meine liebe Dame, danke ... for a thousand times to eternity, that you let me be a part of your journey back to your own singing and composing and healing, I also thank you -- ich auch danke dir ... ich auch danke dir."
We sat there for a long time in perfect happiness ... the sun began to hang lower in the sky ... the days are shorter now, and the time has changed ... but the wind was light, and between the sun still in front and his arm around me I felt no chill. He had invited me to rest ... and there was no hurry, although, with his impeccable stage timing, he knew precisely what he was doing, just on a bigger stage ... I saw him looking intently at where the sun was before he spoke again.
"You are blessing all around, Frau Mathews, so I will follow your example, three years in, and bless all around, as soon as I can get my heart into my grip and out of my throat ... ."
He then stifled a sob of deep emotion, and Alamo Square shook to the bottom because the ground picked the infrasonic element of his immortal voice.
"Now, see here, sir, knocking folks down with an earthquake is one way to get a captive audience, but ... ."
That sob turned around into another merry peal of laughter, but after that he told me: "I am a little German villager, born in 1938. I am an old German -- that anyone should even want me to stand on the side you do, at a time like this!"
"Actually, I'd take a wise old German any day instead of -- well, that's another story and you don't need me to tell it, because Konrad Adenauer is the first chancellor you remember -- anyway, yes, I'm keeping you in with Hollaway and Maynor and also your fellow amazing King Marke, Morris Robinson, now -- you can't escape, so forget it!"
He lowered his head in mock resignation, but his two eyes shone like stars and his smile blazed out a moment later --
"I don't know how you think I'm going to get those first three songs out now," he purred. "I had such a hard time in mortal life getting into grim moods for the stage because I was so happy to be where I was so often!"
"I can help you," I said, "for you said in an interview that every art song is an opera sized for the chamber, and of course, every opera must have its scene set correctly. The Four Serious Songs are therefore an opera in four acts, sized for the chamber ... and we all know that you know how to handle yourself in that kind of situation!"
"Yes, but you also see that I needed those overgrown vocal hopscotch moments at the end far more than anyone knew --."
I was gone laughing!
"I don't know why you think I'm going to not pick those things up if you put them out there," he purred, with a huge smile. "Your youthful naivete is charming in its persistence even in these troubled times!"
But maybe that was another thing ... finding space to still be trusting, and believing, and safe -- and as I had that thought, quite suddenly, he blew out a great breath and became serious.
"I do follow your opinion, Frau Mathews, in that for your nation, the fact that your nation remains without hope of reconciliation among millions is the greatest danger, and the election outcome has not changed that. The "Untied" States, should that occur, is a known danger to itself, and now also to the world at large. But the scene is set now for you to do the work of consolation, and reconciliation where it can be done ... and this is why you were actually called apart in 2022 and 2023, so that you could be here, now, at this moment, with so many of your fellow creatives of the same mind.
"Walk in the light, Frau Mathews, as you have been doing, and walk with those of the same mind. I would say that your life may depend on it, but this is always true. The abyss of despair does not require a political event to open up -- you refused it for two solid years, and so built the strength for now. Mr. Maynor in particular is an example that you should study ... and you need not neglect your fellow altos, and maybe throw in some sopranos of the same mind. Mr. Maynor has Trilogy Opera that he founded, and there are wonderful voices and hearts around him. You are a wonderful composer and arranger, Frau Mathews. You need supportive community even beyond Hive. Consider deeply -- well, I suppose between bassos and contraltos, I don't suppose there is any other way than deeply --."
I laughed.
"Not at all -- and I hear you."
"You have from the beginning, and I thank you. You have my eternal gratitude for that -- du hast meine ewige Dankbarkeit, Frau Mathews! I shall rejoice in seeing you, in divisive times, perhaps have your next true circle of fiends and creatives revealed!"
"Perhaps there was no other way," I said. "I have to be with people who sense all the gravity of the times ... for depth and height, for darkness and light ... and perhaps, this is the moment for such people to show themselves to each other."
"Perhaps it is, Frau Mathews. I have said to you that you were called out for a reason, just in time ... but I have said enough. Now, I am of a mind to sing."
And nobody ever sang like he did, when he was of a mind to do it. He gathered up every broken heart within earshot with every nuance of grief without offending anyone who might be celebrating ... his voice was so beautiful and his singing so finely tuned -- even in mortal life, and the approximation of it in immortal voice differed by degree: he effortlessly overpowered the noisy gap of Divisadero Street, so that from Golden Gate Park some distance to the west, he was heard. I know that because his local fanbase came running!
"Y'all, K.M. Altesrouge is doing a mini-recital at Alamo Square Park -- get up here, now!"
I can't find it in my heart to blame them -- I've been glued to that voice for three years!
When you give the greatest German basso profundo from the great beyond eighteen solid minutes to sing over a quarter of the city as sunset approaches ...
... strange and beautiful things can happen ... all kinds of people found their moment to feel their feelings in safety for three of those four songs, and see they were not alone ... for who has not known grief? Beyond politics and its disappointments, back to humanity ... that was the path he had highlighted, and he illustrated it while also being the world's biggest ham ... the way that man played up to a live audience and played it like the cello he also had loved and thought he would play in his youth as his contribution to music ... but I can't talk about him because I was just sitting there and my face was telling him the message was being received and doing its healing work ... any performer works with the crowd, but if there is someone there who loves him, deeply, and understands the deeper message and is going with him on the entire journey... on this day I was in sight, and his eyes lit up every time they passed me.
Now he was smooth as his butter-smooth consonants, and did not ever fix his gaze and so did not spot me out, but there were some people in his fanbase sharp enough to hear that there was a difference. The shine of his voice was so bright and warm toward the end of the third song that one felt the assumption that Brahms also set to music more than once ... death was not even the end, but the beginning of stepping out of a troubled world into one of only love.
But Brahms had not stopped there ... he had set up his fourth act perfectly ... and his interpreter likewise was ready for it and sang until the sky out-blushed the ladies in the fanbase ...
... and started looking for some lipstick because the Salesforce Tower looked right for the job ...
... but then just contented itself to bloom like a rose in the late evening sun, for the joy and love he was expressing was bigger than any single individual could claim as its sole possession. This was available to us all...
... and by the time he caressed that last line with his voice in any language, one could feel that love was the greatest ... he just put it all out there for us, and it just settled in around us.
It was quiet for quite some time ... and then, inevitably, the applause began ... I was glad to be in that standing ovation as he bowed and bowed and smiled and smiled, and dealt with the autographs and all that ... I started out toward home in a roundabout way, knowing there were eyes watching ...
"This was different -- he always sings joyfully, but since the summer it has been different -- I wonder if Herr Altesrouge has left his heart somewhere in San Francisco, because he is looking so much younger and more radiant lately!"
Some mystery is good for a handsome old singer's business ... so I made my way down and around the hill in good time, and he walked off in a different direction but then walked around a corner and flashed to me, as he can do in this stage of his existence, and we came over the top of the hill again with Lone Mountain radiantly illumined in the last of the light...
... and then down to my home.
"As ever, sir -- what pain?" I said.
"You did so much of your own internal work to prepare for this time and be ready to turn even more into walking in and sharing love and light that I did not need to do much," he said, demurring the compliment only to have me act like a boomerang --
"After three years of hard work, you mean!" I said, and he laughed as we walked up my stairs -- but his intellectual reflexes to throw that boomerang back were sharp.
"That three years of hard work that you did, Frau Mathews -- I'm just a permanently retired old bass that sings occasionally on YouTube and Hive, glad to know that my voice can still be of help to you and others."
Now I was sick and tired of him throwing this boomerang back at me, so I threw it out again.
"I cannot imagine how much work you put in, being born in 1938 as a German, to leave the legacy you did -- so just accept that three years of that applies with me! I'm claiming it anyhow!"
"Has anyone ever told you how adorable you are when you are stubbornly intent on just blessing somebody?"
Well, he won because I can't catch a boomerang while laughing!
"I keep telling you that you put your work in," he purred, "and I love how you forget that in arguing with me you are arguing with yourself, because you don't engage in self-congratulation! That is good and well, Frau Mathews -- it speaks well of you -- but can I encourage you to just acknowledge the facts? It is a lesson for another day about why this is difficult for you ... but I am willing to laugh you into just acknowledging who did the work that you were called to do ... and I will concede that a portion of my life's work is available for you to claim as helpful."
"Sie gewinnen ... you win," I said with a smile.
"And now you do not have to be unhappy about some of this week's election results after all!"
It was good he was there ... I would have rolled down the stairs and up to my alto seat on high laughing on the spot!
"But no, your work remains before you to do," he said as he wrapped his arms around me as I laughed. "Walk in the light, Frau Mathews, and laugh as much as you can! All is not lost, and there is much to be gained, even though it may come with difficulty -- and now, those who would make the right community with you will also be standing forth so you can see each other! Take every good opportunity there is, and redeem the time -- you are already and you know how! Keep going!"
