Just as I was looking at my driveway and wondering if I could risk ice skating down it in order to walk, a friend called to say she could be there in an hour if I was free to get out into the fresh air with her. As she was getting out of her car a while later I was caught as always, by what a beautiful looking woman she is. I call her a grown up gifted kid. She is a dancer and a potter and a scientist, as well as an educator and creator of learning experiences for children in her summer camp setting. Best of all, for an afternoon walk, we start a conversation as if we had never left off the one we were in three months before. Like many of the friendships I have treasured over the thirty years I have lived here, I knew her first as a parent of her two children. They spent third and fourth grades in my classroom.
She asked me about what I was finding in the file drawers that I am sorting in preparation for moving. I found a manuscript , hand written, of a song by Sibelius. My mother played the piano for the conducting class of Antonia Brico. Mother and Antonia had a deep relationship and I can only surmise that Antonia gave the song to mother as a gift. Brico, herself, had a long and abiding relationship with Jan Sibelius. In a Christmas letter of 1937 she describes her visit with him and her thrilling concert conducting his 2nd symphony in Finland. I showed the manuscript to the second hand booksellers who were evaluating my books and they immediately initiated a correspondence with the Sibelius library in Finland. No, the song was not written in Sibelius’ hand but it was written in the hand of his son-in-law. Yes, the song was published but the version I had was slightly different. They would be very interested in receiving a copy for their library. The booksellers sent a copy and are looking to find an interested party for the original. The best part of this story was when the booksellers, both musicians, played the song on my little harmonium and we all sang it. I had not even thought of finding out what it sounded like before they had proposed to play it. It is a beautiful song, and it sounds like him. There is something very mystical about echoing the life of my mother in this way. It is hearing and feeling the echo of a time I lived as a ten year old when Antonia Brico was my Tanta and I was taken into the musical world my mother occupied. I keep wondering when and why Antonia gave the song to mother. The song is called A Hymn To Thais.
