Something I Wish Had When Teaching

The Ballad of Baby Doe

Always through the changing of sun and shadow, time and space,
I will walk beside my love in a green and quiet place.
Proof against the forms of fear, No distress shall alter me.
I will walk beside my dear, clad in love's bright heraldry.
Sound the battle's loud alarms, Any foe I shall withstand.
In the circle of his arms I am safe in Beulah Land.
Passion fades when joy is spent, Lust is lure for gold and crime,
Beauty's kiss is transient, Love alone is fixed in time.

Death cannot divide my love, All we sealed with living vows.
Warm I'll sleep beside my love in a cold and narrow house.
Never shall the mourning dove weep for us in accents wild.
I shall walk beside my love, who is husband, father, child.
As our earthly eyes grow dim, still the old song will be sung.
I shall change along with him, so that both are ever young.

The Ballad of Baby Doe, by Douglas Moore and John Latouch (1956)

My 30 Year Singing Career

If one is considered to be a professional once they are paid for their services, then I made my "professional debut" at age 11 when I began touring through Connecticut with a troupe of Irish dancers.  No, I didn't dance (and don't ask me).  My job was to give the dancers a break while I sang a set of Irish songs and later in the program a set of Broadway tunes.  God, can you imagine an eleven year old singing "Climb Every Mountain" or "You'll Never Walk Alone" along with several other inappropriate  selections?  How obnoxious I must have been!  I continued performing for close to thirty years until I felt that public school teaching, along with the lack of consistent practicing (if practice doesn't make "perfect" it certainly makes "better"), was beginning to take a toll on the reliability of my voice. What I could easily do in my 20s and 30s was becoming more difficult and I knew that I couldn't do both well much longer. It just seemed that when I was in the mood to practice I didn't have the time and when I had the time I wasn't in the mood. The decision to stop singing came in the middle of a recital which was going quite well.  I had peaked and it was only a matter of time, in my opinion, that my voice would begin to decline.  Why not just end with this recital while I'm on top?  With the exception of a wedding commitment I had a couple weeks later, I cleared my calendar of future engagements and "turned off the pipes" for good.    Shown below is a scene from  my  junior high school musical in 1967 at Our Lady of Victory School in West Haven.  I have no memory of the name of the show or any of the music but I'll never forget my character's name:  Herr Sforzando . . . an eccentric opera singer.  

Thinking of my dad . . .

It seems impossible to believe that it was thirty-four years ago today that my father died suddenly at the age of 55. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him and realize how lucky I was to have had him in my life for 26 years. He was the finest man I have ever known.

George J. Hawley Sr.

March 11, 1924 - December 5, 1979

Hop Brook Lake Recreation Area

As Monet could never stop painting his water lilies and haystacks, I cannot stop phtographing the 500+ acres of Hop Brook Lake. This has turned into my morning walk and I look forward to it each day. The one morning I did not bring my camera two magnificent bucks crossed my path and stopped around 20 feet away watching me watching them. If only I had my camera!! I realize that several of these views are repeats but I just cannot resist the ever changing colors. The best things in life certainly are free. Joyce Kilmer said it best: 

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Beethoven: The Grosse Fugue Revisited

Beethoven:  The Grosse Fugue Revisited 
(Transcribed by James Furman to include brass and singers)

Eric Lewis, Conductor

Manhattan String Quartet:
Eric Lewis, Violin I
Roy Lewis, Violin II
John Dexter, Viola
Judith Glyde, Cello

Westconn Brass Quintet
Joseph Grasso Jr., Trumpet I
James Cahill, Trumpet II
Lawrence Huntley, Horn
Howard Williams, Trombone
Andrew Rogers, Tuba

Alumi Vocal Sextet
Vira Czerny, Soprano I
Jessie Landsberg, Soprano II
Cynthia McCorkindale, Alto
James Maroney, Tenor I
William Smith, Tenor II
George Hawley, Baritone

Beethoven:  The Grosse Fugue Revisited is a transcription which includes a vocal sextet and Brass Quintet in addtion to the original String Quartet.  It was completed on May 21, 1980.  The Manhattan String Quartet, the Annapolis Brass Quintet, and the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble premiered it on July 29, 1980 at Art Park, Buffalo, New York.  Furman's reaction to Eric Lewis' commission is stated vividly in the following letter:

When you (Eric Lewis) suggested that I transcribe Beethoven's monumental Grosse Fugue, I was albaze with excitement.  As I touched this mighty opus (and I might add with great humility) there was a deep sense of pride for the confidence placed in me to appoach the "black hole" of musical creativity.

No one dare change a note of Beethoven! The fundamental Point d'appiu of the string quartet remains intact, with its motor force illuminated by a brass quintet and vocal sextet.  These added dimensions inevitably provide a color option to the original state.  A larger performing community now fortifies existent conversations with dramatic input articulating despair and triumph.

There are motivic seeds which give birth to the abstraction of words from Shiller's Ode to Joy, while other literary references inspire passages from his Das Lied von der Glocke.  At times, Beethoven's built-in pointillism triggers my imagination toward sound spectra associated with twentieth century procedures, such as microtones, glissandi, slow and fast vibrati, pointillistic punctuation, klangfarbenmelodie, flutter tonguing, rapid repetition of a pitch, a la electronic wailing,etc.

The late quartets, Op. 132, 130, and 131 form a grand arch with the Grosse Fugue as the central force.  These quartets are a paradox of their time, but the Grosse Fugue has added dimension of prophecy which anticipates sound concepts of the twentieth century.  The Grosse Fugue embraces a past, conventional fugal concept, but transforms it into a seemingly unbridled and sometimes gentle freedom.  It transcends its own time barrier, containing the pathos and anxiety of the Romantic spirit.  It enters the twentieth century like a super rocket exploding with cosmic wisdom.

In retrospect, I closed as I began my visitation, with a prayer.

-James Furman

The only thing worse than being alone is being with someone and wishing you were alone.