I was born in Maryland and spent my first thirty years living there, first in the Appalachian Mountains, then on the Eastern Shore, and later in suburban Washington. After a year in South Carolina, I moved to Georgia in 1977. I soon met another park ranger who worked in Florida. She was a wonderful woman who became my best friend. then my wife, and soon the mother of our three children. I spent over eleven years working in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia, and on the moss-draped sea islands nearby before moving to Atlanta.. In 2007, I retired from the National Park Service and a career dedicated to preserving and interpreting resources and themes in the cultural and natural history of the United States. It was a most rewarding experience. Today, I enjoy living in the rolling hills and woods of the Appalachian Piedmont east of Atlanta.
Today we commemorate the births of two creative forces in the worlds of literature and music. First is William Faulkner, who was born on this day in 1897. He was a world-famous writer and favorite son of Oxford, Mississippi. His fiction explored the character of the South in a string of novels and stories predominately over a twenty year period beginning around 1920. This work earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. Faulkner went on to win two Pulitzer prizes and National Book Awards for his later novels and short stories.
Faulkner in 1954
Faulkner has never been an easy read for me.. His complexity and detail, along with the run on sentences and page long paragraphs, makes the experience as challenging as the analysis of his characters. Having lived over four decades in the Deep South, I can appreciate in my own small way the 20th century Southern personality Faulkner captured. Folks here were different then. Now that regional character continues to change with a changing South. It is an interesting overlay.
Our second subject is, John Rutter, the British composer who celebrated his 75th birthday yesterday. He is deeply appreciated in the U.S. and Britain for his many choral and other compositions, for his work as a conductor and arranger. and as the founder of The Cambridge Singers. Some classical music critics, mostly in Great Britain, find his compositions to be a bit simple, repetitive, and stylistically confused. Others place him at the top among 20th century composers. I have to side with the latter appraisals. The melodies are generally simple, the harmonies beautiful, and the style affords a perfect balance of music and message. Furthermore, choirs of all sizes and skill levels perform his work to appreciative audiences everywhere. If popularity is any indicator, John Rutter's music will be enjoyed for a long, long time.
Here is the opening canticle, "O All Ye Works of the Lord," from his 2015 composition, The Gift of Life.
Sources
Photos and Illustrations: Faulkner photo, Carl Van Vecten Collection, United States Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
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