David Griggs-Janower
To the Griggs-Janower family and all of us assembled who grieve David’s loss, on
behalf of Albany Pro Musica, our deepest condolences.
Paige, Katy and Michael have asked me to share with you some poems by two of
David’s favorite poets and offer some thoughts on what David wrought in Albany
Pro Musica and how Albany Pro Musica acted upon David, a tall order in a few
minutes. Further, they urged: “We’d like to keep it upbeat!”
In the spirit of the humor we all know David loved, here’s a little story I wanted to
tell David. A Methodist minister friend told it this way: A ‘Mafioso type’ came
into a piano bar in Manhattan and approached the pianist. He said: “Aaaay, can
you play ‘Strangers in the Night’ in 5/4 time?” The pianist hesitated, “That song
isn’t in 5/4 time.” The ‘Mafia dude’ said, “Sure it is. Listen! [belted out] Strangers
in the f’ing night…”
David would have liked that one, don’t you think?
But on to the poems.
Around 1998 David took to having the poetic text of a piece of music read aloud
before the piece was sung. We did this first with a Dylan Thomas poem, “Fern
Hill,” set to music by John Corigliano. We performed a number of pieces with
poetry by Christina Rossetti and William Blake, particular favorites of David.
We have chosen a handful of poems from these two prolific poets to share with
you, poems that speak to David’s passions - for foreign lands, for introspection,
for love, and … for music.
Laughing Song
William Blake
When the green woods laugh, with the voice of joy
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.
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When the meadows laugh with lively green
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily,
With their sweet round mouths sing Ha, Ha, He.
When the painted birds laugh in the shade
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread
Come live & be merry and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, Ha, He.
Song
William Blake
Memory, hither come,
And tune your merry notes;
And, while upon the wind,
Your music floats,
I’ll pore upon the stream,
Where sighing lovers dream,
And fish for fancies as they pass
Within the watery glass.
I’ll drink of the clear stream,
And hear the linnet’s song;
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And there I’ll lie and dream
The day along;
And, when night comes, I’ll go
To places fit for woe;
Walking along the darken’d valley,
With silent Melancholy.
Remember
Christina Georgina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
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From A Pageant and Other Poems #21
Rossetti
A host of things I take on trust: I take
The nightingales on trust, for few and far
Between those actual summer moments are
When I have heard what melody they make.
So chanced it once at Como on the Lake:
But all things, then, waxed musical; each star
Sang on its course, each breeze sang on its car,
All harmonies sang to senses wide awake.
All things in tune, myself not out of tune,
Those nightingales were nightingales indeed:
Yet truly an owl had satisfied my need,
And wrought a rapture underneath that moon,
Or simple sparrow chirping from a reed;
For June that night glowed like a doubled June.
From Verses
Rossetti
Time seems not short:
If so I call to mind
Its vast prerogative to loose or bind,
And bear and strike amort
All humandkind.
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Time seems not long:
If I peer out and see
Sphere within sphere, time in eternity,
And hear the alternate song
Cry endlessly.
Time greatly short,
O time so briefly long,
Yea, time sole battle-ground of right and wrong:
Art thou a time for sport
And for a song?
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How to describe what Albany Pro Musica has become in the 33 years under
founding director David’s leadership in 300 words or less?
Put simply, he built what one close colleague described as a model community
chorus.
Always a glutton for work, David searched tirelessly for new music. He would
often say: “Only because WE are doing this piece is our audience going to hear it!”
He wanted the experience of choral music to be exciting, fresh, enlarging for
singers and audience alike.
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Never satisfied, he drove his singers to practice, practice, practice, evidencing
impatience at our short comings. But his drive for excellence infected us, imbuing
us with the passion he felt for the music. “Sing, sing with heart,” he would exhort .
“Lots of choirs can sing with technical perfection. We can sing with real feeling for
the music.”
About that perfectionist streak, I had the good fortune to work with David as his
board president for several years. We met over coffee, or lunch, with considerable
frequency. No matter how much effort I made to be on time or even early, he was
invariably at our meeting place before me, generally buried in a book. Read, learn,
read, learn, and laugh - his modus operandi.
Our time together building the organization became my avocation. Like most
community choruses, APM started with a board made up of singers. The board
gradually evolved into the strong community and singer board it is today. Though
surely not easy for David to relinquish some control of APM to the board, he also
realized that, for Albany Pro Musica to have the life beyond his tenure it will most
surely have, he needed to enable the organization to achieve definition separate
from him.
For all he brought to the lives of every one of us who worked with him and knew
him as friend and colleague, we singers brought stuff to his life, too. Turns out he
couldn’t make music without musicians. He valued the ensemble we have become
and learned to nourish it. Paige, Katy and Michael worked their magic, teaching
patience. I believe he grew to love us for what we realized together. We sang with
heart because it became our second nature to do so and because we knew, we
know, that the music we make is beautiful, powerful, and universal in its ability to
communicate our humanity.
Upon learning of David’s passing, Melinda O’Neal, APM’s first guest conductor
right after David was stricken, wrote to my husband and me: “APM, David’s pride
and joy, will continue to be an impassioned instrument for art and for community.”
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Please allow me an end note in a short poem by Siegfried Sassoon entitled:
Everyone Sang
Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill’d with such delight
As prison’d birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.
Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away… O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Margery Whiteman
APM singer, 28 years
APM Board of Directors
Friday, August 30, 2013
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