Sunday afternoon’s concert was mostly a sublime mountaintop experience- but I have to relate a really funny story which occurred behind the scenes after the concert had already begun. As I made my up to the balcony to listen to the excerpts from Vivaldi’s Gloria, which opened the program, Dr Jim Ripley (the boss) waved for me to come over to where he was seated. He was working on his remarks about Mr. Noble which would occur right before the Rutter, and he wanted to quote the text to Tchesnekoff’s “O Lord God” – which has been Nordic’s concert finale for as long as I can remember. Jim was a tuba player at Luther, but even so he knew the opening words and the passage which says “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live” – which impressed me – but he had no idea what the other words were.
With all the confidence in the world, I took the program which was scribbling on, started writing words – and almost immediately hit a block. “Help thou me, and give ear to my prayer? cry? call?” I was pretty sure it was “prayer” – but then I hit another snag and another and another- and suddenly I had this creepy feeling that I was dishonoring my good name as a former president of Nordic Choir. How many times have I sung O Lord God? I have no idea. I would have thought the words would have been seared into my being to my dying day. To be fair, I’m pretty sure the basses don’t sing all the text- there are some stretches where we’re grinding out long pedal points while the rest of the choir has more words- but that is a very very limited excuse which does not begin to explain why I couldn’t come up with more of the text. Of course, it didn’t help that Vivaldi’s Gloria was being sung in the background, but still. . . . Not being able to come up with the words to O Lord God would be like Jim Ripley not being able to hum the melody to Stars and Stripes Forever (the Luther band’s big encore piece.)
Then I spotted some dear friends of Mr. Noble’s – George and Cathy Gentes – Luther grads from the early 1970s who teach high school music in Illinois and who have come up for most of his Carthage performances and for several of our spring tour concerts. They were here again, and as I saw them emerge at the top of the stairwell, I thought to myself “Hallelujah! Mr. and Mrs. Gentes will know!” So I hopped right over to them before they could sit down, whispered my problem, handed them the paper, and waited for them to fill in my many blank spaces. But it turns out that they weren’t much more successful than I was at tuning out the Vivaldi Gloria, although they filled in some blanks. (George actually started to conduct in mid-air, imagining it being sung by his high school choir, which shook loose a few more words.) Then we brought in the big guns- their son Aaron, who graduated back in ’98 and who should have had this whole piece on the tip of his tongue. No, not quite, although he nudged us a little closer to the finish line. Finally, we had some semblance of the words kind of almost nearly sort of, and I went back to Jim with my tail between my legs, still feeling rather displeased with myself for not being able to rattle off those words like the Pledge of Allegiance.
In the end, when Jim got up to say his remarks with Mr. Noble at his side, he got completely choked up reading the O Lord God text – there were several long pauses as he struggled to collect himself and continue – so much so that by the time he got to the “I will sing to the Lord” part, it was hopeless, and he actually handed the paper over to Mr. Noble for him to read the rest. Which he did.
I will sing to the Lord as long as I live and praise my God
while I have my being. Hear my prayer. Help thou me and give ear to my prayer? cry? call? song?
But I know the next part! Glory to God ! Glory to God !
Those words are so powerful – and when you hear them recited by someone who is 85 years old and still making music in such remarkable fashion and touching countless lives in extraordinary ways, it makes you so incredibly grateful to have been one small little sliver in that rich legacy. And the experience made me realize that being able to rattle off the lyrics verbatim doesn’t matter nearly as much as living out the meaning of those words.
At least I sure hope so. Because if there is a quiz before we’re admitted into the heavenly choir of Nordic Alums, I am in trouble!
pictured: George and Kathy Gentes and their son Aaron, as we huddled in the stairwell of Siebert Chapel, trying with all our might to remember the words to “O Lord God.”