I crossed paths with many special people during my reunion weekend, but I am especially glad that I had the chance to share a few moments with one of my favorite Luther profs, Dr. Bartlett Butler, who taught Music History and directed the Collegium Musicum. He spotted Marshall and me at the Saturday morning homecoming parade and made a point of crossing the street to say hi- and I am glad he did because I didn’t recognize him at that distance. He is quite a bit more frail than he used to be and no longer sports his distinguished-looking goatee, but a lot of his spark is still there. We had only a very little time to talk, but it felt so good to be able to say thank you to him- very likely the last word of thanks that I will have the chance to speak to him.
I am so grateful that I sang for four years under Weston Noble (three years in Nordic and one year in oratorio choir) and so much of what I know about choral music is from that experience. . . but I also take pride in the fact that I sang all four years for Dr. Butler as well. His group, Collegium Musicum (which means “musical colleagues”) was an ensemble of approximately 20 singers specializing in music of the Renasissance and early Baroque. I sang in Collegium all four years – and I’m glad I did because I felt like I learned so much which served me well when it came time for me to direct the Chamber Singers at Carthage.
I walked into Luther with a really big, operatic-ish voice, so it was a most beneficial challenge for me to sing in a group which demanded more delicate singing. (It was the vocal equivalent of Hulk Hogan doing a pirouette.) It was also HARD music- intricate and full of surprises- and for someone like me who prided himself as a blue ribbon sight-reader, it knocked me down a peg or two. And of course it is a tremendous kick to be part of a relatively small group where each person’s contribution really matters in a way which isn’t quite true with bigger choirs.
Perhaps most importantly, by singing under both Mr. Noble and Dr. Butler, I learned first hand that there’s more than one way to effectively lead a group through rehearsals. Mr. Noble was amazingly efficient, like a surgeon doing painstakingly precise work and not wasting a moment or a motion. Dr. Butler was much more spontaneous and unpredictable – even flamboyant – and through the course of a rehearsal, Dr. Butler would seem to sweat off ten pounds with all of his running around. Both were brilliant musicians- both got wonderful results – but they could not have been more different as directors. And I count myself so fortunate to have sung under both of them. And certainly my style as a choir director is some sort of crazy quilt combination of Noble plus Butler, with a twist of John Windh thrown in for good measure.
Dr. Butler was a bit maddening at times. (Aren’t we all?) As a classroom teacher he was amazingly brilliant but rather prone to long, involved tangents – and he took so much time in the first semester and a half of the course that the half of the course was a frantic blur spending thirty seconds on Brahms because we expended so much time on Sweelinck and Buxtehude. He was also a sensitive, nervous man with a fragile ego. I still remember the Sunday morning when he took me aside after church at Good Shepherd (where I was organist) to tell me that his wife thought that the harmonizations I used for playing the psalms were “too sweet.” I still chuckle that Dr. Butler obviously felt strongly enough about this to say something to me about it – but couldn’t quite bring himself to express this as his opinion and had to pretend he was speaking on behalf of his wife. It bugged me at the time but now I look more charitably upon that exchange as an example of Dr. Butler trying to couch his criticism in a framework which would make it a little less painful for me to take it in – and maybe a bit less painful for him to deliver it.
I still remember one day when I was FURIOUS with Dr. Butler because he held us way overtime in rehearsal. (We were on the eve of a concert and needing extra time.) Rehearsal was supposed to go from 5:30 until 6:30 – which gave us just enough time to sneak into the cafeteria before it closed at 7- but this particular day we kept rehearsing until well past the caf’s closing time. I was SO angry and when I met Marshall in the union he said he had never seen me so angry before. (If you want to make Greg Berg mad, deny him food.) We ended up walking to his folks’ house, and his mom made us the world’s most delicious turkey sandwiches and all was right with the world again.
Fortunately, 99 percent of my memories of Dr. Butler are entirely positive ones- and the most sublime musical experiences I had under him are still resonating within me all these years later. And I am so glad that our paths crossed this weekend so I could tell him one more time – and almost certainly for the very last time – how much I appreciate what I learned from him and how much of a difference it has made in my life, ever since. I only wish that I had fully appreciated him then. I obviously appreciated him quiet a lot or I would not have given so much time and energy to Collegium – but it’s really only now that I see how much he had to give and I wish I had spent many more hours in the doorway of his office, learning as much as I possibly could. And I wish I had not joined my peers in referring to him back in those days (behind his back) as “Bart” rather than as Dr. Butler. I think we may have called him “Bart” in order to make him seem a little less intimidating to us. But in fact he deserved to be called Dr. Butler. And no one on that campus gave more unstintingly of themselves than he did. And I’m glad that I had a chance to tell him so in a last Thank You.