I really appreciated Paul's previous two blogs. When I heard the performance, I immediately sensed the appropriateness of the music to our journey these past months.
While driving home from golf this noon, I heard the end of Haydn's famous trumpet concerto, and immediately remembered Dad playing the main theme on his cornet in Wadsworth. I don't know if he ever got to perform the final movement with the high school band or whether he picked the melody up by ear or from books of famous themes, but I was impressed.
My mind then flashed back to Dad playing the cornet one evening in Wadsworth. In my memory, Grandpa and Grandma Kreider had come over (they lived next door) and we stood around our dining room table as Dad played "The Holy City" by memory, unaccompanied, perfectly and so musically. Goodness only knows when he had last put a mouthpiece against his lips or seen the score. I remember that he was pleased that the high notes worked so well at the climax, and his mother just beamed . . . she loved music.
By comparison, I played cornet in the Wadsworth middle school music ensemble and it was a disaster. In the course of the year, I got braces on my teeth, and since I could only get higher notes by pressing the horn harder against my teeth, my career in brass instruments was quite short. I knew I could never compete with Dad.
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This blog is a common sharing location for the five Kreider brothers and our families, descendants of J. Robert and Virginia. We hope our families will upload and post photographs, news, humor, recipes and anything else that might be of interest to the rest of us, for all of us are the authors of this family blog.
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2 comments:
Wonderful story! We had to get our talent from somewhere. I'm sure Mother has it too but never got the chance to find out. When she was very young she used to pretend to play the violin using a yardstick for the bow. Maybe that's why Paul and I "chose" to pursue that instrument :) I'm encouraging her to try it now. There is a Senior's Music program where lessons can be had. The way I figure it, if Mom can conquer the computer, it's only logical that the violin could be next!
Is "The Holy City" a stand alone song or part of a larger cantata? I recently read a copy of the centennial history of Hesston College and it referred to the choir performing The Holy City cantata every two years as an honored tradition. I don't know if they still do that now but they were doing it from the early 1900s until the 1950s at least. Perhaps Bruce sang in it? I couldn't help enjoying the reference to the justification for establishing the college as being the need to stay away from the too liberal Bethel College in Newton and also the need to be far from the evil influences of cities such as Wichita.
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