the Valley of Virginia

Wednesday, July 6

Again, multiple paths beckoned. After a while, I ended up on U.S. 460, headed up the New River Valley through Giles County, Virginia, and on to Blacksburg, Roanoke, and I-81, a road I once knew well.

The interstate parallels U.S. 11, one of the oldest roads in America. It was the route followed by settlers down the great Valley of Virginia toward the west, meeting up with the Wilderness Road of Daniel Boone across the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky. By the 1860’s, it was the Valley Pike, a well-maintained road that became the focus of Jackson’s Valley Campaign. The Blue Ridge Mountains lie to the east; the Allegheny Mountains to the west. The Valley was the breadbasket of the Confederacy until Phil Sheridan and his Federal soldiers burned it in the latter stages of the War, under orders from General Grant, leaving not a farmstead untouched.

Those days still seem close in this part of Virginia, and nowhere closer than the town of Lexington. I stopped there to pay my respects to that great Episcopalian, R. E. Lee, and his friend, the Presbyterian deacon Thomas Jackson, both of them buried there. Jackson taught at the Virginia Military Institute, by all accounts not much of a teacher. But when the war came, he mustered a regiment from the town and its environs. He recruited and trained four other regiments, all from the Shenandoah Valley and the mountains to the west. Under his leadership at the Battle of Manassas, they earned a name etched in the heart of every son of the South: the Stonewall Brigade. At the Lee Chapel on the campus of what is now Washington & Lee University, one can view the memorial book from the Brigade. A majority of the men perished in the war, their great Commander among them.

Later, I visited his grave, a few blocks west of the campus in the old cemetery. I had nothing for Jackson beyond my respect, but others had left small Confederate flags -- and lemons. He loved them, and could often be found sitting on a rail fence in his battered cast-off VMI cadet's hat and ill-fitting ragged clothing, thoughtfully sucking on a lemon as he pondered some problem of strategy or battle.

I love Jackson, that uncouth genius of the hill country, with his stern Calvinistic vision of Divine Providence. But I wish I were more like Lee, the Episcopal gentleman from the banks of the Potomac. He bore the Light of Christ through the defeat at Gettysburg, the slow death of his army in the winter of 1864-5, the day at Appomattox, and beyond.

In the museum under the Chapel, I read General Order #9 in his handwriting, one of the great documents of American history. Lee was not a man of words, but in these few sentences he gave hope and honor to his defeated nation. I followed the tour through the Chapel, with its portraits of Washington and Lee, the two greatest Virginians; I saw the front-row pew where Lee sat erect for daily chapel before going downstairs to his office and his duty. I went across the green to his church where he was Senior Warden, seeking to lead church as well as college and a generation of students through the dark aftermath of war.

During this trip, I have also stood by the river where Ulysses Grant spent his boyhood. Grant is harder to admire than Mr. Lee; troubled by depression and drink, he was a failure at most everything he tried, including the Presidency. But he was stubborn. Others would have retreated from Vicksburg, or after the Wilderness, or Spotsylvania Court House, or Cold Harbor. Not Grant.

Lee respected him and so do I, most of all for his graciousness at Appomattox, a spirit that began to heal the nation, as Lincoln had hoped:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding....

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan -- to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

An errand to the East

Monday, July 4: Independence Day

There are innovations for this trip East, one I have made a score of times. I departed in leisurely manner on Monday instead of rushing off on Sunday afternoon. Quiet and productive Sunday afternoons are precious, and rare during the academic year; I treasure them. I completed my packing on Monday morning instead of Saturday afternoon; I ate a solid Monday breakfast at home, sufficient for me to nibble bread and fruit as I drove the rest of the day; I visited with my wife instead of rushing off without conversation.

I took the Basic Route that I have most often used: I-74. This would give me a good sleeping place at the Indiana rest area at milepost 150, between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. It was an easy and comfortable drive through the agricultural heart of America. I arrived at the rest area in time to finish Evensong before dark.

A large sign proclaimed “No overnight parking or camping,” causing me some unease. But no one awakened me; I had a restful night's sleep and was ready to roll by 4 am local time.

Tuesday, July 5

The early start allowed me to sail around the Cincinnati Beltway before dawn, eating a chunk of bread as I drove. The first light of day and the onset of heavier traffic arrived about the time I stopped for fuel at New Richmond, on U.S. 52 upriver from the city. I drove a few more miles to Point Pleasant and the rest area by the Ohio River, across the highway from the birthplace of Ulysses S Grant. I watched the morning light come to the river, and took an hour's nap to let the morning fog clear.

It lifted, a little. But the sun did not break through until well into the day. I drove most of the way southeast to Portsmouth with the river a mist-shrouded presence on my right.

There is an old-fashioned highway rest stop near Portsmouth at Sandy Point, about a hundred miles upriver from Cincinnati. I sang Matins there, with slow progress through the Sefer Tehillim making the Office extend beyond an hour.

Always before on my drives Eastward, there was haste; Mother was waiting, begrudging the hours I lingered on the way. My principal purpose in this trip is unchanged: a visit to my parents. But this time, they are in no hurry.

From the West Virginia line, my path was in doubt: the quicker way through Charleston and Beckley on the interstates, or the more enjoyable way down State Route 10 through Logan and the coalfields of Wyoming County, along the Guyandotte River? It seemed a choice of little import, but it did no harm to ask: “Lord, which should I take?” As soon as a sense came to take the quicker way, a rebellious voice urged me to indulge myself with the scenic route. It was a surprisingly intense struggle over such a little thing.

I arrived at my destination in the mid-afternoon, hungry, tired from the traffic-choked highway, low on fuel. A perplexing two hours followed, in which my options for sleeping in the car evaporated – not the truck stop, which was defunct; not the Wal-Mart parking lot, which was posted; no campgrounds closer than a state park a half-hour's drive away. I got back on the road and drove there, just missing the 4:00 closing of the campground office. There were a few sites available and I could claim one, as the sign on the office door indicated. But I could not leave until I checked out and paid the next morning at an undisclosed hour.

I returned to town. Now I was facing the prospect of the florist closing for the day. I went there, bought a bouquet of daisies with five minutes to spare, took it to the cemetery, and found myself too agitated for a proper visitation. I left the flowers with water in the bronze vase, and headed for the funeral home. Eight months have passed, and there was no placard on the headstone with Mother's date of death.

It was obvious that the secretary of the funeral home did not want to see me, this unshaven old hillbilly in T-shirt and jeans, not with dressed-up people arriving for a wake and staring at me. The secretary told me that the placard was the family's responsibility, not theirs. I clearly remembered otherwise, and said so. She called Mr. S., the proprietor. He said that he would take care of it and send us a bill, and got me out the door as quickly and quietly as possible.

I still had no place to park my car. I drove across town and registered at an old motel that had been there since my childhood. I balked at the price: $60.61. But it proved to be a fine clean room where I slept well, did Pilates in the morning, showered and shaved, and ate breakfast in a plastic chair outside my door, watching the end of a morning rain shower.

The lady at the desk was young, blonde, and pretty, with “West Virginia teeth” as I have described elsewhere – crooked, two of them missing, the others tobacco-stained. She and her husband (who came over to introduce himself as I ate breakfast) bought the motel and are trying to make a go of this old landmark, now surrounded by big chain motels. May God bless them in this endeavor, in its way a battle against the Principalities and Powers.

Finally, I could slow down. After registering at the motel, I fueled the Honda, considering how the “little” decision of which route to drive through West Virginia had proven to be not so little. Had I taken the other road, I would have arrived too late to deal with the funeral home, too late to buy flowers that day.

I wish I were more attentive to the “still, small voice.” And I wish that I would do what it says when it comes. The Collect for next Sunday applies:

O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

After some thought, I drove to a local cafeteria where Mother and I enjoyed many luncheons until the final years when it became too hard for her to go out. I had a splendid dinner of vegetables and their fine Soft Rolls and Cornbread, finishing with a $10 tab, a stack of nine vegetable dishes and two bread plates.

At last, I made it to the graveside, the daisies blowing prettily in the evening breeze.

What does one do after driving a thousand miles to visit a grave? More is needed than flowers and a quick prayer. I sang Evensong, followed by the Burial Office (Rite One), with three readings, Psalms, prayers, and the Committal service. Yes, they have already been committed to the earth and to God's care. It nonetheless felt right to do it again, for I continue to commit these my parents into the Hand of God.

[To Be Continued]

Acoustics, chamber music, and congregational song

Our parish recently hosted a chamber music festival, as mentioned in the previous essay. The church was filled to overflowing for three concerts of music. The first night was centered on the Quartet for the End of Time; the second featured the music of Webern and Schoenberg (“Verklärte Nacht”); the third consisted of an evocative Tenebrae by Osvaldo Golijov and Schubert's quartet “Death and the Maiden.” The musicians praised us as a venue for chamber music, especially in terms of acoustics. Most musicians find it rewarding to play or sing in the room, as do I.

Why?

Arthur H. Benade, in “Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics” (1976: Dover reprint 1990), comments: “Singers and instrumentalists enjoy performing in a reverberant environment.... Their confidence is heightened by such surroundings and so, as a matter of fact, is their accuracy in achieving the desired pitch relationships...” (p. 286). When the room has a sufficient reverberation time, the sound from a first note lingers long enough to overlap with a succeeding note. A musician unconsciously uses this overlap to gauge the intonation of the second note in relation to the first; it is as if the two notes were being played together rather than successively. The overlap need only be in the neighborhood of a half-second, though the longer the overlap, the better in terms of intonation.

On the other hand, in a really “large” acoustic with many seconds of reverberation, “there is an upper limit to the rapidity with which tones can follow one another and still show a relationship. This is because in rapid playing the remnants of several earlier tones may ... confuse the auditory picture.” It is not a problem for vocal polyphony of the Renaissance, which is thoroughly at home in such an acoustic. Nor is it a problem for a large part of the organ repertoire. The music of Franck and his successors in the French nineteenth and twentieth (and twenty-first) centuries is at its finest in such surroundings. Bach, Buxtehude, and Distler, on the other hand, are often less successful.

Reverberation time is traditionally related to room volume: large room, large acoustic. When architecture is honest, this relationship holds. But dishonesty is possible. The Chapel at Duke University is a fine neo-Gothic edifice, seating well over a thousand. It looks like a European cathedral. But for decades, it sounded more like a suburban living room. It felt dishonest as soon as one walked in the door; there were no echoing footsteps, no acoustical clues that this was a large space. The ceiling was covered with “Akoustolith,” a material that was used to mimic stonework and dry up the acoustic for the benefit of the clergy. The story is that Dirk Flentrop, a noted Dutch organbuilder who was contracted to build a new instrument for the Chapel, arrived from Europe in 1968, walked in the door, clapped his hands once, listened, said “This will not do,” walked out, and flew back to the Netherlands. (This essay glosses over the incident, which may be apocryphal, but describes the issues involved.) Flentrop would not build an organ unless the acoustics were improved. So, for almost a year, scaffolding worked its way through the Chapel as workers sprayed sealant over the “Akoustolith,” making it more reflective. I heard the room before and after, and the difference was remarkable; the reverberation time was increased from about three seconds to eight seconds. Once the acoustic matched the size of the room, Flentrop returned, built a fine instrument, and the Duke Chapel stands as one of the finest venues for music on a grand scale in the Southeast. Something like the “Resurrection” Symphony of Mahler or the Verdi Requiem would be magnificent in that room.

But it would not be a good place for a string quartet. In those days, the resident quartet played in the East Duke Music Room (now the Nelson Music Room), a fine old high-ceilinged room that seated about three hundred. Its reverberation time was around one or one-and-a-half seconds.

That happens to be about the same as our parish church. When empty, the reverberation time is around one second, and probably about two-thirds of that when full. For chamber music, this is ideal. There is sufficient reverberation for accurate pitch relationships, and the musicians can play or sing rapidly without fear of “outrunning” the room.

Congregational song is a form of “chamber music.” When we sing, we are a group of people who must listen to one another, and tune our voices to one another based on what we hear in a manner akin to a string quartet. In a large acoustic such as the Duke Chapel or the Basilica of Saint Louis, congregational singing is less successful than it is in a room such as our parish church. Even at the pace of a congregational hymn, the notes “outrun” the room, and it becomes difficult to maintain a rhythmic ensemble among people spread across the space. As a singer out in the nave, one hears plenty of sound, but it lacks coherence. “Drying up” the acoustics, as was done at Duke, does not help, for the people are still spread across a large space. In fact, it does not even help the clergy. Listening to a sermon in a large “dry” room is akin to listening to the radio. The sound is obviously artificial, disconnected from anything human. Even in the most resonant of rooms, a sound system which takes account for the precedence effect, first described by the physicist Joseph Henry in 1856 and which Benade outlines on pages 202-205, allows the preacher to be clearly understood and still perceived as a human being. But the preacher must speak speak slowly and distinctly – like the musicians, she must avoid “outrunning the room.”

A very large acoustic is less than ideal for congregational song. It is nonetheless better than the opposite extreme, often found in American churches: the dry room, swathed in carpet and padded pews – or nowadays, padded stadium seats with cupholders. In a dry acoustic, singers lose confidence. They cannot properly hear one another, or even their own voice. Churches with such an acoustic often compensate by having songleaders, equipped with microphones and backed by a “praise band.” The congregation can then sing along with the amplified music, each individual in relative aural isolation and subjugated to those “up front.” That is quite different from the community built by listening to one another as a congregation. The latter is more challenging, but more indicative of our standing in the Body of Christ. A room of appropriate size for chamber music proves to be a space which encourages such singing.

An abridged version of this essay appears in the August edition of our parish newsletter. For further study, I highly recommend Benade's book, alongside the classic text in the field of acoustics, “On the Sensations of Tone” by Hermann Helmholz (1877: Dover reprint 1954). Benade gives more attention to room acoustics and the construction of musical instruments, especially wind instruments; Helmholz more to the production and sensation of musical tone, especially the human voice and the physiology of hearing. His book is a primary source; in much of the book, he is writing of his own experiments and discoveries. In a footnote on page 273, Benade described Helmholz as one “whose name is as famous in acoustics as it is in optics, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics.” He was a pioneer in all of these areas, one of the great physicists of the nineteenth century.