Friday, 22 April 2022

What love of music means

There is a short story by Willa Cather (1876-1947) named "A Wagner Matinee". In it a man in Boston gets news that an aunt of his is visiting him to claim a small legacy left by a relative.

He remembers the time he spent as a boy with her & her family at Nebraska's remote homesteads. She, as a girl, was a music teacher at the Boston Conservatory, when she met & married her husband & settled in Nebraska. She taught her nephew Latin, Shakespeare & music on the little parlour organ, after her hard farm work. There was no radio.

He was seeing her again after 30 years, an elderly complete farm woman. After her law work, he takes her to a Wagner matinee, knowing her love of music. She listens enthralled, saying at the interval, "Have you been listening to all this ever since you left me?" reproachfully.

At the end of the concert, even after the hall has emptied, she continues to sit, with tears streaming down her cheeks, saying "I don't want to go back!" to the hard life of the remote homestead in Nebraska.

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