When Tripping Out On a New Composer Overlays an Autumn Memory with Bliss(Zdenek Fibich, Franz de Paula Roser, Strauss, Schubert, Beethoven, Rachmaninoff)

The discovery of Zdenek Fibich's beautiful "Selanka," or Idyll for clarinet and orchestra, took me to another world all on its own ... almost seven minutes of bliss, and easy enough to make seven by just sitting in silent gratitude for the discovery ... reminiscent of Beethoven in his gentle pastoral mood, and also Richard Strauss in his ecstatically lovely "Das Tal," but with colors and shades all Fibich's own ...

This reminded me of an autumn walk that was a glorious accident of discovery ... a missed turn going to Elk Glen Lake from the southern side of the park put me on course for Mallard Lake instead, at its most glorious moment of the year, with colors all its own... I glimpsed it afar off and realized my mistake, but decided to press on... an early push to new horizons that presaged the course of this year...

The nice thing about going back in time through fiction is that one can choose a companion for a solo walk ...

"Frau Mathews, it would be my pleasure -- what a glorious follow-through to an understandable mistake!"

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past overtook me on the path, having walked down from 25th Avenue where I had missed my turn. He was in a mildly iridescent hunter green sweatsuit like the color of Mallard Lake far below, trimmed in the gold of the tree sitting there like a massive living sculpture.

"Well, I reasoned here that I might as well go on -- still along the same bus line, so I wouldn't have to walk back that much further, although from here it was not obvious how I would get there, there being no direct line in sight... ."

"So often you have seen me as a mentor, Frau Mathews ... I trust you utterly as a guide for me, although of course I will walk on the outside by the dropoff."

"I thought of you and my grand old soldier as I looked down there, and stayed away from the edge -- neither of you need to warn me any more -- I have internalized it," I said.

"That is his enduring legacy for you," he said. "I am just the echo, and shall be content to be silent because there is no need for me ... except perhaps to sing for joy!"

We had a long way to walk ... so that was a welcome addition!

"I understand that you have made another musical discovery of the week that corrects a misunderstanding of my era," he said.

"Yes -- 'Der Teilung Der Erde' was attributed to Haydn when you recorded it, but we have discovered since that it was actually written by Franz de Paula Roser because Schubert's handwritten copy of it has been found," I said.

"I am glad that is cleared up -- we knew it might not be Haydn in your wee girlhood days, but we did not have that other clue," he said. "So! I shall now sing a work of Roser, in which the resources of the earth are divided to all its classes of peoples except the poet, representing the artists of the world, who is so busy writing poems that he is late!"

"You snooze, you lose!" I said.

"That is almost exactly what Zeus tells the poet," the singer said, "for dreaming too long before acting, but, there is a consolation: heaven is still available!"

Eleven wonderful minutes thus passed by as we walked on ... more notably downhill, the noise of the boulevard by the park fading as the hill rose above and a park road became visible below...

... and his voice filled up the valley with its golden warmth, bouncing merrily across his highs and lows over the course of the song ... just when I didn't think he had a higher or a lower note ...

"Show off," I purred, and he grinned outright as he kept on singing and we kept on walking.

At last one road met another, and it was downhill some more, deeper into the valley, but I had to pause for a moment ... his singing had moved me to tears for its beauty and joy in this new discovery. Out came his ethereal handkerchief, and then I realized he too was in high emotion ... singing never calmed him down, after all ...

"You thought I would hold back because of an audience of just one, meine liebe Dame? Hardly! I am choosing -- there is a lesson here -- I am choosing the one who has chosen me to sing these songs again and add to the beauty of her memories of this lovely day! To enhance, to adorn this beautiful walk through die Erinnerung -- oh, yes, and gladly, and I am not finished! I am not finished!"

His voice went up and grabbed that high note again in its exaltation.

"Since you have brought us to this precious valley, we shall consider it ours since no one else has yet pressed here on foot this morning, and there is a favorite song of yours about a valley -- Strauss's 'Das Tal!'"

So he filled up that valley again as we walked in, and got us to a point that it took a good long time to come from bliss to realize we had gotten quite a way down the road, but there was no lake in sight.

"Uh oh," I said. "Unless ... unless we are somehow to the other side of it ... I remember reading that the lake is not passable at all seasons because the bank is short on the southern side and sometimes floods ... maybe we are to the north of it now, and we are looking at the backside of that golden tree... but if so, the path should be across the road somewhere. There is only one way to find out!"

"As much as I chide you about your exploratory nature, Frau Mathews, I confess that I do find this year's boldness exciting!" he said as we went down the bank and across the road to see if there was a passage to the southern shore. "This reminds me of the first 'Aus Heliopolis' by Schubert ... you know that the character makes it to where he is going in 'Aus Heliopolis 2,' but there is the moment in the first song when the character, in a cold, northern city, learns of Heliopolis, the city of the sun, and desires to go ... but in a world of cold conflict there is no easy, ready path. No one has time to know the way except a heliotrope ... who encourages the character to walk in the light he has and go toward it ... for in the light, peace and hope and the right deeds will be done!"

"That sounds an awful lot like what you have been encouraging me to do all this time," I said, "and at last, having walked away completely from the affairs of the past, I understand that's what it costs ... and it is worth it."

"I sang for you the second 'Aus Heliopolis' before the first, because you were in the teeth of that climb then, Frau Mathews ... but now, like in this walk, we can go back and consider ... I have saved this song for this year, and long have I waited ... so long ... but you are weeping already, so I had better wait until we find out if the southern shore can be reached and is passable. Clear eyesight may well be needed to not be in the lake!"

He was about to go to another level ... he was glowing up so much in those shadows that his clothing was shimmering like the lake itself ... but the light was welcome because the path was dark until at last there was light ahead ...

... and indeed, the recent rains had brought the lake up, but it was still two inches below the bank as we began to make it into that light ...

... and then we were there, the promise of what I had seen far above and quite some time ago fulfilled ...

... but hardly finished, for we were still deep in the shade, and did not know if the lake was up further along the southern bank.

"It does not matter now, Frau Mathews -- I will carry you if need be -- you shall not be denied this beauty in full!" he cried.

So we went on, and as we went it brightened up and dried ... the ground was rising a little, and while the darker lower end may well have been flooded at some point in the previous weeks, this felt good and solid to our feet.

Across the lake, a second sculpture of living gold appeared that I did not see from the higher view ...

... so on we went into brighter hues, now certain we would make it at least to the eastern end ...

By this time, my companion looked as if a sunbeam was following his every move and caressing him ... he was pacing himself by walking, but he was thinking of what he was about to sing, and how long the journey had been, and how he had cherished the sure hope of this moment, and himself walked by faith -- still being human and therefore unable to see the exact future when I would get to the point of being ready -- but when hope and faith were fulfilled ... well, he had sung of it in Brahms's very last song ... what remained there was love.

Yet he was pacing himself, stewarding the immense stirring within him for the proper time, allowing the beauties we were witnessing ahead of us ...

... and also along the other side to add layers of bliss ...

"I am taller than you, Frau Mathews, so I can see the lay of that far bank a little better than you ...

... and I tell you have seen nothing yet of glory here ... and heard little enough yet ... but as we keep walking ... keep walking ... ."

Already, his voice, shimmering with ecstasy even as he spoke, seemed to be rolling waves of gold ringing like warm bells ... for a moment we walked under the stars, the trees of gold rivaled by golden aurora on a midnight spangled with the light of the Milky Way, and it seemed even as my vision cleared to the day again...

... things had changed ... there was more glow, and this continued as we turned at last around the eastern end...

... where for a moment we were charmed to find a little seasonal brook proceeded from the lake flowing to the east ... in other words, it was in controlled overflow...

... but then turned around to be flooded with the light that had gotten over the trees and was pouring bright gold into the brook and all over us.

My companion could not withstand it any longer -- the sudden flush of light after our long walk reminded him of the moment in "Aus Heliopolis II" when at last the character completes the last long climb and arrives where he is meant to be, in the company of the humble and the great, to partake in that life ever more in the sunlight -- and so he burst into song there, his voice now filling the valley in a way befitting the power of that bright, abundant light!

And yet, he was hardly finished ... that had just bought us time ... he seemed to have carried that sunbeam back with him into the shade covering the easternmost point ...

... after which, the waters seemed to begin to change ... lovely they had been as mirrors, reflecting the gold of the northern bank along with the blue of the sky ...

... but now they began to shimmer like emerald, like all the gold of the day with the blue of the sky was settling into the waters ...

By this time, gravity was quietly giving up on my companion ... he was walking on air ... but he looked over at me, struck breathless, with the water very near to my feet, and settled right back down immediately and put a steadying arm around me.

"It is here like that one place in Beethoven's Opus 109 variations," he said, "where it suddenly shimmers so that your heart quivers in your chest."

I nodded, and buried my tear-streaked face in his broad chest, having looked as long as I could -- it is a good thing that moment in Opus 109 goes by just twice and swiftly, or I would have died of beauty at age 17 ... and any year since that I have heard that fourth variation in Opus 109 ...

Apparently, someone out there is as messed up behind that fourth variation as I am ... cut a whole recording of Daniel Barenboim playing it to start it there ...

... but of course, the whole movement is shot through with moments like that ... it also nearly kills me before the return of the theme, and there's no setup for that but hearing the theme itself, so, we will invite the great Mitsuko Uchida to play it all ...

It is a good thing the view from the northern bank is not quite as overwhelming as the opposite, though still in emerald glories and incredibly lovely.

My companion kept his arm around me and paced me carefully along there because he knew I needed that calmer time -- still heralding what was to come, but perfectly positioned, because at just about the time I realized that the gold of the northern shore was not mirrored on the south, and that the view was out of sight for the moment ...

.. we walked right into it, the gold and emerald glories suddenly combined ...

... and the scene flooded with all the light and warmth that patch of earth and water could possibly ever hold ... at least before a certain ethereal bass, looking at me in absolute heights of bliss, could get his voice back ...

In the shock, four years of my life passed before my eyes ... the actual day of that walk had been November 22, 2025. Four years before that, almost to the day, I was walking just around the nearest blocks on a very cold day, feeling the death of my aunt approaching ... I had returned to walking in 2021 after a year off in the pandemic ... but this was a gray day and a gray moment ... November 18, 2021 ... but I had decided to give Brahms another chance in his Four Serious Songs, which I knew he had written after Clara Schumann had the stroke of which she would die... and I had done that because I had found out my favorite Commendatore had recorded them ... my beloved bass Kurt Möll had walked off with my heart to the point that I was willing.

Thus that day of grief was filled, as I walked, with beauty from which I could gain truth to help me understand that my aunt was weary of life, and ready to go home to where, hope and faith being fulfilled, she would at last rest in love on high. The third of Brahms's songs in that set, sung with such deep, warm compassion about the way death brought relief to those to whom life had become a burden, helped me see things from my aunt's perspective ... Herr Moll explained it all that day, and as I listened again and again to those songs, my understanding deepened to meet the grief that would come when she died on my 41st birthday in January of 2022.

But that was the first of the losses of 2022, and as much as it comforted me to listen, there was climbing to be done, because everyone I was going to lose wasn't going to die -- I had to start leaving, over, and over, and over again.

Meanwhile, I pressed in walking in my city to where people like me aren't generally found -- too Black, too fat, too woman to not fear being alone -- while completing the parallel journey that had been going on for a decade of losing 98 percent of what I thought was community, online and off, through 2025. About 12,000 of those people are still alive ... I had to leave them all, in smaller increments as time passed, but each leaving a compounded devastation.

Yet one must climb certain mountains to access certain high, sun-drenched, golden, and peaceful mountain valleys... I had to go through all that to get to a life that can be at peace and rest, and filled with those things that are truly priceless. Even the pain ... the necessary pain of walking through the last years of my beloveds ... on Sunday we sang the favorite hymn of my grand old soldier and I kept the alto harmony together through my tears ... even the pain, purged now of the waste of dealing with foolishness, is priceless, being love dealing with the reality of human mortality.

The memory of those tears unlocked more in that light ...

... but of gratitude, and joy, to be able to endure, and enjoy, life in such clarity and beauty of light ... it was indeed worth all that I had to give up!

I felt a handkerchief being pressed gently into my hands from behind me ... the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, in his humility, had moved out of sight behind me so that my full range of vision could be filled with this scene. But he stayed close, because the lake was very high and I was close to the edge, and when I covered my face with his handkerchief and sobbed, he closed his arms around me from behind to make sure I did not stumble into the lake. He stayed there, doubtless glowing up tremendously, but content only to add his golden voice to the scene as he regained control of his own emotions ... subtly vocalizing, making certain he had control of his voice again.

"Ach, mein geliebtes, goldenes Blumenkind, to be witness to you now seeing this view of your life ... so many people will gaze upon the place of light from a long way off, and admire it ... so many people will come to even to the southern shore, and admire it, and so many want that admiration, but all without the long, patient walk to be in this fullness of light. On November 22, the day we are walking through your memories in, you left home not knowing the journey you would be on. A missed turn meant you could not go where you intended, but, having glimpsed all you could of that light, you pressed to it, and this is your full reward ... and this is the walk that sums up your journey from 2022 until now, when you did not let what you could not do prevent you from pressing to the life to which you are called, except ... ."

There was a flash of motion in front of us -- more mallards of Mallard Lake arrived!

The beauty of this place was intense, and there seemed to be no end to more that could be added, except that there was no bench to sit upon.

"There is no bench, or ruined castle, or monastery here, for this is not for you the highest point to which you will rise. I have seen further onto the shore where you have yet to come, and I can tell you for certain: you still have seen nothing yet of glory here, and heard little enough yet, but as you keep walking ... keep walking, meine liebe Dame, and as you go, you will receive more and more of these deep, bright glimpses along the way that you are walking... and when moments are dark and difficult along the way, they will shed their light into your memory and encourage you."

There was another lesson here ...

"In November, in real life, you could not stay here and consider for as long as you would have liked, for there is indeed no bench here ... the walk was very long, and the actual bench is back along the road. You knew you had to walk back there and rest before heading to the bus, and the morning was getting on ... but here today in fiction, you have all the time to consider, and even standing, you will not get tired, for you are being upheld by one who can echo the everlasting arms of the One Who calls you, Who never tires. Sometimes, in life, all you will be able to do at passages is to walk and stand, but remember, in the way in which you are called, you will be upheld in both."

"O thou good and faithful echo," I said, and leaned my full weight into his strength.

We stood there a good long time, and at a certain point he chuckled.

"Frau Mathews," he said, "I feel so at home and so well I forgot you don't have eternity quite the way I do yet, so I must soon let you go, but before then I have promised you a song ... we look back from where you came, and glimpsed here and beyond ... briefly to remember those cold climes you did your best to warm with your own love, but then were told to climb out, with full devotion ... so you could be here ... here, in every sense of the word ... with even brighter horizons yet to see."

The ethereal master singer took a long moment to gather himself, and then, at last, sang Schubert's "Aus Heliopolis."

The valley at last overflowed ... even up to busy Lincoln Boulevard, far above, when stoplights stopped traffic, people heard and marveled as those in the less traveled portions of the park did for a quarter-mile around at the song of love they could not understand except that it could be nothing else ... and they were half right. He was the echo of Love Himself, singing in delight over a beloved having come to the place of blessing meant all along for her, past the turmoil and confusion out from which she had been called and had obediently climbed ... and he poured his entire great heart into being a faithful echo.

As for me, I was versunken in terms of Brahms ... the waves of gold and emerald on those warm depths of midnight black went up over my heart and then my consciousness ... somewhere floating I remember having the thought that there was no way he should have been catching me by surprise at this late date, but his interpretation of "Aus Heliopolis" is just one of those moments of mastery for which there is no preparing because there is no accounting for just how much he loved being the messenger of love and light, giving the sound to why there was no need to stay in darkness when love and light are far, far better. This is notable across his repertoire, and standing out among those notables is "Aus Heliopolis."

Now, of course, on the non-fiction side of the fourth wall, I do mundane things like walk back to the bus stop, and I have learned that since the presence of extreme natural beauty can have me giddy and wobbling, I don't generally combine the most beautiful music I know of with these scenes in the wild. But in terms of putting this post together, I started in bed, discovering the music of Zdenek Fibich, and that music reminded me of this particular walk, and thus I ended up walking through it again in memory while picking music to match ... and so "Aus Heliopolis" being yet another knockout stunner worked out ... I was already in the right place to be put into dreamland by way of the Knockout Zone!

So, on the fictional side, the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past completed his singing, and then just picked me up and carried me along a helpful sunbeam right home through the window that sunbeam was coming through, and left me there asleep with my face in that gentle light.

"Schlaf gut, mein goldenes Blumenkind," he purred, "im Licht."

Sleep well, my Golden Flower Child, in the light.

My computer was still on, so he reached over and put on Rachmaninoff's "Svete Tikhyi," which could be translated either "Gladsome Light" or even "Gentle Light" ... and let the St. Petersburg Chamber Choir set me to even sweeter rest. He thus, in his deep humility, left the final bass note of the day to my favorite oktavist, Vladimir Pasyukov.