Stacy Horn

Please excuse the “by Stacy Horn” thing. I’m experimenting with a Google search tip. So yesterday I was in the NPR New York studios for an interview on the show Airtalk with Larry Mantle (thank you Airtalk and Larry!!). I discovered long ago that even though you’ve spent years researching and writing about a subject, and your every waking moment has been dedicated to thinking about this subject, when you put on those headphones and someone asks, “So tell me about your book,” your mind sometimes goes:

“I wrote a book. Right. Well, what about it? Where to begin. Oh God. There’s so much to say. Pick one. [Blank] Just one point. [Blank.] Think. [No.]” And so on.

Now I always bring notes. Usually I just need to glance down to pick a direction for my answer, sometimes I’ll read a quote I like. Here’s what that looks like.

This is Bryant Park behind the main branch of the New York Public Library. It’s across the street from the NPR studios and I passed through it on my way to my interview. Such a lovely place (thank you Dan Biederman and the Grand Central Partnership, who restored it).

I made a Spotify playlist of the music I write about in Imperfect Harmony and it looks like my publisher has solved my technical difficulties. If you go to this new link the music should be playable now. I also put together this page with links to YouTube videos of the same pieces.

A German Requiem
Written by Johannes Brahms from 1865-1868

The Chichester Psalms
Written by Leonard Bernstein in 1965

Messiah (The Lift Up Your Heads chorus.)
Written by George Frideric Handel in 1741

Toward the Unknown Region
Written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1906

Mass No. 11 in D Minor, aka Missa in Angustiis
Written by Joseph Haydn in 1798

Ave Maria
Written by Franz Xaver Biebl in 1964
The version written for men’s voices.
The version written for men and women’s voices.
(I’d be curious to hear which you like better.)

Missa Simile Est Regnum Coelorum, the Agnus Dei II
Published by Tomás Luis de Victoria in 1576
I really love this one (which you can tell when you read the book).

The Last Invocation
Written by Randall Thompson in 1922
This is a link to an album in the Apple store, so you’ll need to click on The Last Invocation.

Memoranda
Written by Dylan Chan in 2005

Let us Cheer the Weary Traveler
Written by R. Nathaniel Dett in 1926

O Magnum Mysterium
Written by Morten Lauridsen in 1994

The Peaceable Kingdom, the Ye Shall Have a Song chorus
Written by Randall Thompson in 1936

Water Night
Written by Eric Whitacre in 1995

Fate and Faith Songs
Movement 1
Movement 2
Written by Britlin Losee in 2011

Requiem, Dies Irae section, Lacrimosa chorus
Written by Giuseppe Verdi in 1873
This version of the Requiem was conducted by Herbert von Karajan, who makes a brief appearance in my book. He’s absolutely mesmerizing to watch. To see him go nuts, click here. He’s conducting another section from the Verdi Requiem. (I love this requiem. Okay, I love all requiems.)

A picture I took at the end of one of our concerts. I’m giving myself symbolic applause for putting this page together.

… as a participant. “To sing in a choir is the quickest, surest, and best way to become intimate with music, to get close to the seat of its emotional life, where its heart-throbs can be felt and heard; to ‘experience’ it … to hold communion with its gentle saints and glorious heroes …”
– Henry Krehbiel, a 19th century music critic.

I was searching around for pictures to use for a presentation about singing I’m giving later this month at the Observatory in Brooklyn when I found this photograph.

The caption reads: June 1940. An all-day community sing in Pie Town, New Mexico. 35mm nitrate negative by Russell Lee for the Farm Security Administration.

I tried enlarging the image to see what they’re singing but it’s not clear. My guess was Handel’s Messiah, that’s what it looks like. With singing you’re not just looking at a masterpiece, as you would when you go to a museum, you become the masterpiece.

This is why I love Twitter. I get news via Twitter first, but it’s also where I just learn about cool stuff. Like these new singing nuns. New as in not Sister Luc Gabrielle aka Sœur Sourire, best known for the song Dominique. Oh Jesus. I just read the Wikipedia entry about Sister Luc Gabrielle. Her later life was terrible. She left the church and killed herself when she was 51. “Citing their financial difficulties in a note, she and her companion of ten years, Annie Pécher, both committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 29 March 1985.”

Moving on, Michael Lorenz puts the myth about Mozart’s burial to rest.

And finally, Walt Whitman reads his poem America. That was just a few of the interesting things that were brought to my attention via Twitter.

Bleecker prepares to attack, Finney gets ready to defend. On man, the top of my desk used to be the same red you can see around the side. I wish I had to energy to sand it down and re-red it.

I almost missed them. I fell asleep and woke up a minute before they started. Luckily, I live close to the river and I could just run up to the roof and watch them from there. But when I came back downstairs and saw on tv how great they looked from the river I made a vow: next year I will go out and watch them from the street.

There’s a downside to that, especially if it’s hot, and when the fireworks are on the east side it’s very hard to find a spot where your sightline isn’t blocked in some way. But I will always remember the fireworks for the anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge. I was able to get right down on the river, to be almost underneath the display. I’d never be able to do that now, post 9/11, but I might be able to experience something like that night. The fireworks were mind-blowing and they were right there. Everyone around me, we were all just so happy and blown-away, surrounded by explosion after explosion of color and beauty. I was young and excited by my life (I still am mostly, but I have worries now that I didn’t then). To be right down in the midst of this glorious display, it was a metaphor for how I planned to live my life.

It wouldn’t be the same of course, but I think I could have something like what I had that night.