Part I: The Right Ghost Knows How To Get Those Frequent Flier Miles through the Portal of Imagination
You never know where you are going to meet your favorite musician, especially if he was in the afterlife by the time he became your favorite, and especially if you are still hurting because of the death of your previous favorite musician, who you knew for more than twenty years and STILL ache for grief – and then, they were born in the same year and died two years apart.
Linda Anne Kotcher (1938-2015) lived long enough to know she had musical grandchildren, that I had taken all the love and skill that she had given me and poured it into my students. I am a pianist and composer of great skill because of many great teachers, but she brought it from me while I was still a child, and without her, there is no me doing music anywhere. She also was a fabulous visual artist … and, I grew into that in time as well, in fractal art.
Fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, dedicated to Linda Anne Kotcher – a fractal amethyst, her favorite gem
Kurt Möll (1938-2017), basso profundo, is the only musician to ever comfort me for her loss. I became aware of him on my Don Giovanni discovery arc as the greatest Commendatore EVER around 2019, but he became my favorite musician in 2021. It took me a little while to realize why something in his singing, which I love, hurt me so much … I had come to know enough about his life so that not-so-old grief for Ms. Kotcher was touched all over again when THEN I found out Herr Möll also belongs to the ages.
Today, my music students are in my church's children's choir – once 20-strong before Covid-19, we have rebounded to an average of 8-10. That is enough for right now. My older students are now grown men and women exercising their genius in the world. Like Ms. Kotcher did for me, I gave them the very best start I could, and I am giving those I am with the very best start I could … with everything I have.
The trouble therefore really started when I saw the one video of Herr Möll teaching. The patient love and encouragement he imparted to his student there touched me more deeply than even his magnificent singing.
I knew then that he, and Ms. Kotcher, and I understood what it takes to bring the genius out of younger human beings … the love, the friendship, the intimacy, the trust, the total commitment, the lack of competitive feeling that sometimes arises between generations as we get older and realize we must leave our greatest ability and then the world itself behind... I am now 42, and just beginning to understand the very beginning of knowing physically that I shall not be here, doing what I am doing, always.
But there was nothing of that last concern in Ms. Kotcher, who poured into me, and nothing of that in Herr Möll ... and that is why it hurt me so, for in my life, such a mentor may never be found again.
Yet aside from that video, and reading and watching all the interviews I could, my acquaintance with Herr Möll was strictly in the world of art and imagination, so when Q-Inspired said it was possible to meet one's favorite musician in one's imagination, I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a chance. My church had once hosted a gospel choir from Germany, so given the unlikeliness of that, but that it had indeed HAPPENED, there was a connection possible in an existing location. Maybe, just maybe... and then, last Sunday, the portal of imagination opened...
Fractal art by the author, Deeann D. Mathews
Part II: The Visitor
Last Sunday, the children went from Sunday School to mini-dress rehearsal with me, and then to service and into the choir. We had two services that day, and they were expected to sing at both. At the first, I noticed a visitor … an old White man in his Sunday best always stands out in a Black church, and he was a big one: six-foot-forever and a half, perhaps just a little stooped, and about as broad as you would expect, although I could see he had thinned with age. He was at about that age in which elders remember there was trouble between the races greater than what we have today, but the kindliness and humility of his spirit stopped the thought in everyone. Then I knew him, because that smile was always getting ready to peek out EVERYWHERE he ever was, even to late old age.
I knew him, and, to my utter shock, he knew me -- he looked for me, met my gaze, and smiled with a gentle nod of recognition before sitting down where the usher directed him.
Time to recognize the visitors … the old man stood up and smiled and announced himself, his heavy German accent still charming with such a booming and yet soft, warm voice.
“Meine name ist – Verzeihung – excuse me – my name is Kurt Möll, and I am visiting from … ah … the German delegation of die Kirche im Himmel, come to see my colleague in music Frau Deeann Mathews.”
I was the only person in the building who knew the visitor had just said he was visiting from the Church in Heaven. No wonder he knew “Twelve Gates,” the Negro Spiritual, when it came up next. A whole bunch of members of the African American delegation of the Church in Heaven had prepared him for that one – he expertly clapped those huge hands on the two and the four and stomped that big right foot on the one and the three, boomed that bass line perfectly, and had a grand time … but he had always enjoyed whatever music he was involved in, so that still fit. It also fit because my church had clapped and stomped along with a gospel choir from Germany in his earthly lifetime -- so indeed, the portal of cross-cultural musical appreciation had been opened for a while on our end too!
I didn't even stop to think about all the elders from my church, sitting up in Heaven telling Herr Möll about me – you would think people would have better things to do in Heaven than that, after all … but I also had a choir to conduct, coming up. I had to focus. I was there for God, and for those young people … my students, all looking to me for direction to be the best that they could be, in a country too quick to count them out. But to me, they count for EVERYTHING, and with me, others can see that as they learn to see for themselves.
Herr Möll smiled from ear to ear as the children stood up to sing, and then got right into rejoicing with everyone else as the children sang their hearts out … no more just “kids” in an old church, but a vital part of its life and joy and fellowship, to be affirmed as such to the glory of God Who keeps sending younger people to replenish the earth.
Deacon Fitch, our adult choir's only bass, said to Sis. Rally, right afterward: “That visitor – he's got the Spirit – if he joins, we gotta get him in the choir!”
I didn't even bother to mention that there was no way Heaven's choir was going to give up one of its finest basses at this point. Yet I knew Deacon Fitch recognize a man like himself, who felt what he felt and believed what he believed, and was not ashamed. I had seen that in Herr Möll too in his performances, and what I loved in Uncle Deacon Fitch, I had always loved about Herr Möll.
My pastor cares about the young people too – another wonderful old man – and always brings his sermons right down to their level on the second Sunday, which helps everybody get it, including a visitor whose English is like my German now: a lot forgotten, but still workable on a basic level. I could see his mind working, and then a huge smile whenever comprehension came to him … as ever, he radiated joy and warmth.
Talk about an awkward situation: how was I supposed to introduce the great bass from the great beyond after service? I was not going to get “this is my colleague” out of my mouth – not with a man 43 years my senior and arguably the greatest basso profundo of the second half of the 20th century. So, I introduced him as Mr. Kurt Möll, operatic bass, master teacher, peer of my piano teacher Ms. Kotcher. He smiled warmly at this show of respect, and kept smiling while he won over everyone he met. He had been asked once by August Everding in an interview about who of the temperamental directors and personalities in opera he found difficult, and he had flatly said: “I did not have any difficulty with any of them.” I could see why. One would as soon fight with the welcome might of a beam of warm sunshine on a winter's day in Germany – some things are just not done!
Deacon Fitch had once sang “The People that Walked In Darkness” from Handel's Messiah, so when he and Herr Möll met, they talked a long time about music, and the two old men quickly came to like each other immensely. I knew that would happen. I also knew Uncle Deacon Fitch did not take me as second to any musician in the world, and so had to tell Herr Möll about all the things I had done. I was so embarrassed, but …
“So have I, Deacon Fitch, also heard,” the older bass purred, retaining his German grammar in English with the second verb at the end of the sentence. “Frau Mathews is my kind of musician. She brings to the people all that she has.”
I remembered then … someone had commented on YouTube that as great as Herr Möll was, whenever he was not on tour, he had come down the street and around the corner to the neighborhood singing club, and fit his bass right into the common German folk songs … he was available for music not just to those who could pay for opera tickets, but to everyone in the neighborhood. He had also declined certain taxing roles for bass in opera so he could keep his voice in its fullness for German lieder, simple yet lovely storytelling songs of the German people, most often for solo voice.
Deacon Fitch went on, and on, and on … and, with the infinite patience of one who has eternity ahead of him, Herr Möll just listened and smiled and kept purring: “So have I also heard.”
“Sister Deeann...”
One of my students needed me at just that moment, so I had to excuse myself, and when I returned, Herr Möll was alone.
“I'm so sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” I said.
“I have all the time in eternity,” he said, with a smile. “It was no trouble.”
“Um – well, I'm just going to ask it – according to what we believe as Protestants, how are you even here, Herr Möll?”
He laughed … that deep, resonant, rolling sound that had turned a operatic villain into an utter crowd favorite … into the star of the show ...
“Erste, mein kind – first, my child," he said, as his huge voice rolled over me like a wave of warmth, "remember how we are acquainted. You know me mostly from the realm of the imagination. This is a Q-Inspired Community production of the imagination! You are the director!”
“Oh, right – I forgot – we are rather in your realm of things, and you have played a ghost before. I loved your Commendatore, above all others.”
“I know,” he said, and smiled. “Because you live a holy life, no fear you need have.”
He put out his hand, and fully smiled that smile that keeps peeking through in my favorite production of Commendatore from the Met.
“Dammi da mano im pegno!” he playfully demanded, in the key moment from that most famous scene – “Give me your hand in pledge!”
I thought about it...
“I have to be back here for the kids in the second service,” I said.
“You have my word, Frau Mathews.”
Since I am a contralto, I matched notes with bass Samuel Ramey as Don Giovanni: “Eccola!” or, “Here she is!” as I gave Herr Möll my hand. I was very relieved that the church floor did not open up with flames shooting through, I must say.
“As it says in your King James Bible,” Herr Möll gently rumbled, “ 'the way of the wise goes upward, that he may depart from hell beneath.' ”
The ceiling opened instead.
“You are young enough my daughter to be, but also with the rights of any young woman I have just met, Frau Mathews,” he said. “It is cold up there, it is still winter in Germany as well, and we must travel fifty-one years in five minutes. May I put my arm around you, for safety?”
“Yes, you may,” I said, and he wrapped his long arm around me. “Thank you for asking, Herr Möll. I suppose few women would have ever refused you.”
He chuckled, a pleasant rumbling from deep in his chest.
“At my age now?” he said, and I laughed. “I am still young and handsome only where we are going, Frau Mathews!”
Part III: From Opera House To Opera House
Munich, 1972 … I wasn't exactly on a sight-seeing tour, but from altitude, Germany was something to see … how West and East Germany were so different in their recovery from World War II was obvious. I thought of asking Herr Möll how he felt about it, but, he was descending rapidly with us, so I figured I should let him concentrate on getting the right roof of the right opera house to open for us.
We landed just off stage behind the curtain at Munich's National Theater, and I recognized soprano Reri Grist and tenor Donald Grobe, also in their youth and getting ready back stage.
“Oh, this is the 1972 production of Die Schweigsame Frau, by Richard Strauss,” I said, “and you're about to go out and sang 'Wie Schön Ist Doch Die Musik' … I used to listen to you sing that to get to sleep on troubled nights … by the time Sir Morosus was asleep, I generally was too.”
“It is very beautiful,” he said. “I was 34 in such a deep and demanding role for one so young … and you saw yourself in me here, still young, but with the depth of soul necessary to carry the responsibilities put before you since your early thirties, although yours are more serious in your community. You carry a very heavy load for the elders and the children well – so have I, Frau Mathews, heard.”
“By the grace of God only,” I said. “A lot of nights, I have needed this.”
“Then enjoy, in person,” Herr Möll said.
“What I am trying to understand is how you are all mixed up with me when you are into silent young women,” I said, and he heartily laughed, so much so that 34-year-old Herr Möll poked his head out on the other side of the stage, grinning, hearing his own joy in stereo-surround-soul sound.
“Sir Morosus was just a role!” Herr Möll the aged cried merrily. “But me with my Ursula – mein Frau Möll? Silent? Ha!”
His long, fond laughter rolled like happy thunder over everything and everyone, and everyone around began smiling … and then I thought, perhaps this is why joy pervaded the performance so much …
… and why it was so easy for the other singers in that scene to act like they adored old Morosus, because they shared in the joy of the singer in the role. Herr Möll perhaps had carried them all, at just 34, with his joy.
I just listened and wept as part of the live audience for Herr Möll in his youth as he sang … what a privilege, and an honor! I'm not sure there was a dry eye in the house anywhere in that audience. Yet I was exhausted, not feeling well that day, and here was my favorite lullaby … I cried myself right to sleep, and my immense ethereal companion, not troubled with the weakness of age in his present state, just picked me up and held on.
“Oh, I am so sorry – and then what time is it – I gotta get back.”
“Rest, mein kind,” the great bass ordered, gently but firmly. “It is now half three, 4 July, 1972.”
“Half three” – halfway to three in German parlance, or 2:30 – exactly fifty years, eight months, and eight days before the service I had to get back to.
“I gave you my word, Frau Mathews. I will have you back on time. I was a teacher also. Ich verstehe dich, sehr gut.”
He understood me, very well … it was at that point that I realized who he actually was … what role he was playing.
“Well, you as a composer would write that kind of opera and lead role for me in this situation,” he purred in response to my thought. “You are a highly focused, orderly woman. You don't go with any man anywhere, just going to go. Of course there is a purpose, and you understood Dickens' Christmas Carol while still young, so you know what it all means.
“I am the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, Frau Mathews. What can only be done from Frau Linda Kotcher's side of your musical life, I now to do have come.”
I shook all over at that, and I am not a small woman, but Herr Möll was just that much bigger, and if a ghost can pick you up, best believe he can hold you (as poor Don Giovanni found out, too). He carried me right to his own dressing room.
“Kurt,” he said to his younger self there, “they are still clapping. Go bow again, many times.”
Younger Herr Möll obeyed himself instantly, and older Herr Möll put me in his old chair.
“You never complain of being overworked and underpaid, Frau Mathews, because that, you do not see,” he said. “You love your people … but you need rest. You are not yet due in the alto section of the choir where I now sing.”
He improvised a text to Brahms “Lullaby,” a tune I hate from hearing it too much from an out-of-tune music box in babyhood … but he fixed that right up and I was gone!
“Go to sleep, junge frau, so devoted to service,
Go to sleep, junge frau, sleep right on, good rest enjoy ...”
I woke up at the Metropolitan Opera in the early 90s, with Samuel Ramey and Ferluccio Furlanetto singing the “Ah, Signor!” scene from Don Giovanni.
“Oh, the Commendatore is coming next!” I said.
“Yes, mein kind,” Herr Möll purred from the chair beside me in our private box, floating right above the stage. “Now, you have watched every version of this scene you on this YouTube thing have. You come back to this one. Why?”
“Herr Möll, seriously, do you hear yourself?”
“Every day for 85 years and counting into eternity,” he said, and chuckled. “Of course, I know I have a voice, but to me, I am just Kurt, and remember: I know things about my performances that most do not. This was not my best acting. The march of time on a performer in a more technological period, aging and forgetting – I struggled with close-up cameras at every angle!”
“But even that was beautiful – I love to see you smiling as you just enjoy the other singers – and that big eye sparkle and near-smile as you put up that high E, knowing that you have that low D in your back pocket, just waiting to shock the crowd!”
Herr Möll's eyes sparkled just as they had in the performance, and then he rolled into the laugh of joy he had withheld then.
“Guilty as charged, mein kind! I had too much joy, that day, from being with my dear colleagues at their best, and so glad to be able to share with them every note in the greatest scene for basses in all of opera! That was a happy day for me, one of many!”
“You just had so much joy bubbling over when you were singing – it was often said in comments that it was hard for you to play a truly terrifying villain because of this,” I said.
“A man cannot do everything well,” he said with a smile. “Lack of villainy is a failing a wise man accepts!”
“Indeed,” I said. “I wish more people had that failing! We need more joyous people, and joyous singing!”
“You have a favorite joyous moment of mine, do you not?” he said.
“Rollen im Schaumenden Wellen,” I said, “from Haydn's Creation.”
He started laughing yet again.
“That is a good one – oh, that is a wonderful memory!” he said. “Das is gut! Das ist wunderbar! – oh, wrong aria -- you know with age, the mind like Der Wanderer becomes!”
We laughed about Franz Schubert getting dragged into a conversation he was nowhere in! But then Herr Möll snapped his fingers, and the scene instantly changed – and there Leonard Bernstein was conducting the stormy D minor opening of the aria from the Creation, while Herr Möll in early middle age stood waiting his moment – and of course came in on time and sang all those quick and rolling notes that had gotten him the nickname “the human contrabassoon,” his rich purring tone and unusual flexibility for a deep bass shown to best advantage … and then, the D major sunshine came out, the virtuosity gave way to a simpler tune, and he could not stop smiling as he sang!
My ethereal old companion sang along with his younger self in the D major section – talk about stereo surround sound – and rolled his white-haired head in joy in exactly the same place he did on the video. He just kept smiling after the music faded away, just as he had in the video, and I did not disturb him until he was ready to speak.
“It is as your father Herr Mathews says: when your work is what you love, it is not work,” he said. “I was so blessed, so deeply blessed. To sing for my family's living! I was blessed! To sing such true things! I was blessed! How could I not be overjoyed!”
“Ich verstehen ihnen, sehr gut,” I said, using the more formal term to say I understood him, because of his much greater age.
Herr Möll smiled.
“You were well taught and raised,” he said. “Yet is the road long for you, and yours. I know why you keep walking.”
He snapped his fingers, and we were back at the Met, with Samuel Ramey and Ferruccio Furlanetto jumping at a particularly heavy knock on the door.
“Why this scene, so much?” he said.
“That's a whole different Q-Inspired post in the future,” I said, “but, in short, this is the story of God's patience, and God's judgment – it is the whole Christian story in a nutshell. The offer of redemption is real … but so are the consequences for refusing it. The Commendatore is not an agent of vengeance, but of mercy, and of course, mercy refused is what opens the depths of hell – but even the most wicked man will get every opportunity there is, so that when he ends up where he is going, it is clear it was his choice.”
“Brava,” Herr Möll said. “You remain the A student, Frau Mathews.”
I got up and curtsied, and he laughed.
“By even that reckoning, this is still not my best,” he said.
“Not your fault, though – you made it work for everybody, but still: how are you dragging him to hell if you're not from there?” I said. “That and the double statue – no, no, no.”
“You would a taxing opera director make,” the great bass said with a chuckle. “There is precision in your mind and iron in your soul, Frau Mathews – no nonsense from us temperamental operatic grown children you would have!”
“Guilty as charged, Herr Möll,” I said. “But yours is the best sung, in my opinion, and although you are pretty static as a statue – which I suppose you should be – your rendition is one of three in which the singer in the role convinced me that he understood the gravity of the message. Of course, nobody opened the pit as convincingly with the low D like you did, and by comparison to you, Mr. Ramey looks small and frightened as he should. Yet there is nothing of the vengeful guest here. Your Commendatore is majestic and compassionate, as a messenger from Heaven should be. Your host dying is not something you want to see happen, and it comes through to the end. ”
“Which is why you have a stone grip of your own,” he said gently, “unwilling that anyone you are called to perish unless they insist.”
“It's a John 3:16 thing,” I said. “God does not want that either. I believe in Him, totally … so I don't think John 3:36 makes Him happy any more than it makes me, although it is inevitable for the Don Giovannis of the world.”
“Grimly, sadly inevitable,” he said. “Even with me forgetting about all those cameras for a few moments, that I remembered.”
Part 4: The Ghost Of Musical Greatness Past (Compassionately) Lays Down the Law
Herr Möll snapped his fingers at the end of the “Commendatore” scene and stopped the action, and instead of listening to the bright finale of the opera, we sat in solemn silence for a long time.
“You are now only 42, mein kind,” he said, his bass voice very gentle. “It must be difficult, in your generation, with such responsibilities and deep eternal concerns, to live.”
“It is,” I said, “and all of you who are old enough to understand are leaving or have left me. Some left as reprobates, daring that terrible end. Most left as saints, and there are a few who I do not have the peace of knowing about for sure.”
Herr Möll considered this, his face showing the deep compassion that lay behind his interpretation of the Commendatore.
“But it is not a matter of age, mein kind. It is a matter of being called. The young often die. I was born in 1938, and because of the war, many of my age mates in Germany died. I lived because I was meant to live. I did not choose that. I lived because One much greater than we are chose. So it is with you. You are called, Frau Mathews. Only those who are also called will understand. As for leaving, we all must. You remember how I made you an admirer of Brahms, do you not?”
Herr Möll extended his hand again, and we walked together backstage … which turned into a music studio with Cord Garben sitting at the piano. He was opening up his copy of “Four Serious Songs,” Brahms's last song cycle. Brahms had written that knowing that his friend Clara Schumann was dying, and also that the day of his death neared also. I had discovered that not knowing I would need it … it had come to me to prepare me for the death of my last living aunt, also born in 1938.
Miss Kotcher – my aunt – Herr Möll himself – !
“This is too much!” I cried, but I forgot the ghost's stone grip – for a moment, he transformed into the mighty Commendatore, for the matter was that urgent.
“You dare not, Frau Mathews!” he thundered.
At that point I had no idea why people said his Commendatore was not frightening, because, up that close, his commanding voice shook me to my soul in its power.
“You must accept the due of age, perhaps too soon in your generation's eyes, but what you are looking for in older people, you now are. This must you accept! No one who is called can escape. When I let you go, the One Who called you will still not. So: dare you not, Frau Mathews!”
Yet before me, a door opened -- there was an escape -- but was there? Many had tried THAT door, and found a passage to despair, not to freedom and peace. Some had returned, older, sadder, forgiven but damaged beyond repair in their mortal lifetime ... others had not returned at all. I knew better than to run out on the truth -- so I dared not. I dared instead to accept the truth, and to walk in it.
The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past instantly returned to his kindly old man form, his face showing his intense sympathy and joy. His strong hand released my wrist, and his strong arm went around me to hold me as I trembled.
“I heard of your virtuous courage,” he said. “Just hold on, Frau Mathews, and if you cannot, there is One greater Who will hold! We must all this way pass -- but not alone!”
Cord Garben played the introduction to the first of the Four Serious Songs, and then Herr Möll sang, literally wrapping the tangible, black-velvet depth of his voice around me in a supportive embrace as all the grief I had been quietly dealing with for years overcame me. That grief would have killed me ... except it was not possible to die in the midst of the embrace of such beauty … every note and every skilled turn of that voice … every bit of the sorrow, the rage, the despair, the exhaustion, the moments of nearly falling apart, the moments of cracked brightness in which the thought of being dead is thought to be better, the only joy left in which to be eased of the pain of the world in such loss … he got every bit of it right in the first two songs ...
… but when it came to number 3, “O Death, how bitter you are!” and its strong protest contrasted in its second section with,”O Death, how good you are!” the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past gave me a new perspective … he began that song as that robust young man of 34 and aged before my eyes all the way to 79, and let me see what those 45 years had done to him and taken from him. I had thought about it before, in studying Genesis 3 … yes, death was part of the curse of sin, but to be dying forever in a sinful world, growing weaker and weaker... so instead God blocked the way to the tree of life, so the curse would not be too heavy.
Herr Möll's voice became even more tender, giving me time to understand … Ms. Kotcher and my aunt and many more had suffered much before the end, and I saw my own relatives and church members going through much … but if you knew the Church in Heaven was real, and that you had a place there, why would you be afraid to go? Deacon Fitch said this to me often, and so did many of my relatives.
Herr Möll paused after song 3 for a little while, and wrapped his arms around me instead of his voice.
“Mein kind, hear, see, and understand.”
“I love my beloveds too much to be selfish about it … but it is so, so lonely.”
“I am human as you are. I know exactly what you mean … but, mein kind, how can you ever alone be? Think about it! What does I Corinthians 13 actually mean?”
That was the text of song no. 4 … and suddenly I remembered the ending.
Part 5: From Happy Ending to Happy Ending, With One More Someday To Come
Herr Möll released me and returned to the form of his early middle age, 45 to my 42, holding his music as he went to the piano to speak with Herr Garben. Their German was a bit too fast for me to keep up, but I had a feeling from Mr. Garben looking at me that Herr Möll was doing his Deacon Fitch imitation ... and then I knew!
“You gotta be kidding me!” I said. “Herr Möll, I can't play that – there's no way without months of practice – not for you! It's gotta be perfect, for you!”
Herr Garben started laughing and Herr Möll put his smiling head in his immense hand.
“Maestra,” Herr Garben said, “if I have been sitting here playing from your memory, surely you can sit here and do the same!”
He sat back down and he and Herr Möll began improvising a short television theme from the 1970s, with Mr. Garben getting all the modern band sounds out of the piano while Herr Möll boomed “Imagination!” while I laughed at myself.
“All right, all right,” I said. “Let's do this – just please don't add me to the recording!”
Herr Garben laughed as he got up.
“The recordings were done when you were merely two years old!”
I sat down and took few deep breaths … .
“No lack of courage,” Herr Möll said gently. “I am ready whenever you are, but in no hurry.”
I turned to the proper page in the score, looked at the size of my hand compared with what Brahms had written, and then gave up being worried and just plunged in. The first notes came out right … and so did all the rest as Herr Möll and I joyously romped through the first section of I Corinthians 13, where it describes how you can have all the tongues of men and angels, do all this and that and even sacrifice your life, but without love it is nothing!
Second section: right up my alley with its relaxed tempo and rolling triplets … the first piece I had wanted to play was Beethoven's “Moonlight” Sonata, and I am ever at home in similar settings. Herr Möll smiled broadly at me when we got there, for he knew I was now in my element … but as he sang I realized I was getting the same lesson again … even tongues fail, and prophecies cease … almost all things have their time, and then pass away … ALMOST all things, but not quite, as I remembered the reprise of the first section: “These things remain: faith, hope, and love, these three, and the greatest of these is love!”
Herr Möll had gone into middle age form for a good reason – he winked at me and smiled as we started the third section, because he was going to show off – “bleibet, hoffnung” – skipping those tenths like they were mere thirds, and then went up there and nailed that high F like he was a baritone or something for “Liebe” before coming back down on “diese drei,” and back to the gentle triplets for the end: “Aber die Liebe ist die Grösseste unter Ihnen – die Liebe ist die Grösseste unter Ihnen!” That last was so warm and tender that I at last understood what he had been leading me to understand, all along. “These things remain: faith, hope, and love, these three, and the greatest of these is love!”
At last it was all over. I stood and curtsied to Herr Möll as he bowed to me, and Herr Garben clapped and clapped.
“That, Maestra, was not for the recording,” the great pianist said as he took my hands gently. “That was for you – a warm up for what is far greater, 40 years from now in your time.”
Herr Möll checked his watch.
“To have her back on time – my word I have given. From the opera house and studio of the imagination to her real work for the people, Cord – we now must go.”
Herr Garben, here as the Ghost of German Pianistic Greatness Few Really Know About Past, squeezed my hands gently.
“Keep doing what you are doing,” he said. “It means as much as what Kurt and I ever did here, and to those you serve, much more. Keep going, Maestra. You are not alone.”
The ceiling opened. Herr Möll wrapped his arm around me, and we were off, 40 years back to San Francisco in 2023 in four minutes … but once there, Herr Möll paused with me atop a patch of fog.
“I understand the fog here in San Francisco has a German name,” he said.
“Herr Kurt, meet Herr Karl; Herr Karl, meet Herr Kurt,” I said, and he laughed so that down in the street, we heard one person ask another, “Were there thunderstorms predicted for today?” Whereupon the thunder immediately got louder... but then Herr Möll composed himself, and the fog became solid under our feet so he could let me go to count on his fingers.
“We set now the matters in order,” he said. “You grieve many losses, mein kind, and you work very hard and alone in your generation. That is a hard place in which to be. Yet, you are called. It is the only place for you to be. You believe that you are called by …?”
“Faith,” I said.
“Next: you are now middle-aged, meaning that you give what to both your elders' legacy and your students' futures?”
“Hope,” I said.
“And you do all this with … ?”
“Love.”
“So, what remains?”
“Faith, hope, and love, these three,” I said.
“And by faith you know that God is …?”
“Love.”
“So, love is …?”
“The greatest of all.”
“Sehr gut – very good!” he said. “You are still the A student, mein kind!
“This know and understand: everything of this world, after its time, must pass. But, Frau Linda Kotcher – she poured into you her love, and brought forth what you now have to give to others. We met in the realms of imagination, but you listened carefully, and I was able to pour into you also, as I poured into my own students.
“Frau Kotcher's time and my time have passed now, but in your time you are here, and you are something even more to your students than we were to you. You are their companion from cradle days in life and godliness, a second mother, teaching them of the love of God and the love of music, pouring into them all the love from eternity, all the love from your elders, all the love that Frau Kotcher, and finally, me, latest of all, have poured. Love is the greatest, and from generation to generation, it remains.
“It is, mein kind, your time. You live by faith, in hope that before you, love still remains – because it does. Love is not lost behind you. Love is ever before you, and will meet you, as you do that to which you are called by Love, Himself. It cannot otherwise be.
“Finally, because the One Who called you loves you, you do not need to do more than you are physically capable of doing. You are mildly ill today, are you not?”
“Yes,” I said, “Yet I do know the One Who called me said, 'Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' I am still learning not to do too much.”
Herr Moll's face and voice took on the aspect of a stern father – when a man who smiled that much turned that smile upside down, that was a frown worthy of the even larger frown in his most serious voice!
“It is well and over time for that thoroughly to be learned,” he said. “You are not to fill that alto seat in the heavenly choir section before the time, Frau Mathews. See to it that you rest.”
When the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past drops the bass in his voice – I hadn't heard a drop from already low to ridiculous like that since he sang “Seid Fruchtbar Alle,” right there at the very end...
… and I knew that the Voice he had represented there was being represented again... a reminder to continue to work on not overworking.
“Yes, sir,” I said, just about the only thing to say should the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past, with his whole ethereal six-foot-forever-and-a-half stature, ever lean over you and give an order, all the way down to that low D on "REST."
His sternness dissolved into all the paternal love there was behind it, and he reached his long arm around me again as the fog parted and the roof of my church opened beneath us.
“I gave you my word. We are here. It is your time, Frau Mathews.”
Half an hour later, the children's choir was singing again, the elders were rejoicing, and the house was full of love and praise … and a certain old German bass kept clapping expertly on the two and four, effortlessly rolling through the beat changes right next to his new friend Deacon Fitch, who was shouting in his joy. The slightly older bass stayed through the end of the service, and put the bass in expertly on the Doxology.
“We still have some to-go plates downstairs, Brother Kurt,” Deacon Fitch said to Herr Möll.
Herr Möll smiled and his eyes sparkled.
“Thank you,” he said, “yet have I … ah ... a specialized diet now. Frau Mathews, however, may want one. She has not eaten.”
“Right,” Deacon Fitch said. “I'll drive you home, Sis. Deeann, and I'll put a plate in the car for you.”
He went, and I smiled and translated the lines out of the “Commendatore” Scene: “He who dines on the food of Heaven has no need for the food of mortals.”
“Another, more serious quest has drawn me below,” he finished, and then added, “a quest now complete, and, since you are living a holy life, we have a happy ending until you come at the right time to your alto seat in the Church in Heaven.”
On the stairwell, my stairs went down to street level … but the ceiling opened, and his stairs went up.
“Lebewohl, mein kind, he purred as he tenderly put his immense hand on my head. “Live well, my child, until it is time for you to blend harmony with me in the Church of Heaven. Tell Deacon Fitch I am saving him a bass seat, too.”
I gave him a hug, and cried a little … but I understood it all better by then. He was in no hurry, and embraced me warmly until he sensed I was ready to let go.
“From Frau Kotcher and me to you – it is your time, mein kind. Stand in your place. Let the legacy of faith, hope, love, and music, through you to the next generation, continue!”
“I will, Herr Möll – you have my word!”
I walked down the staircase and he walked up – he almost backed up, but then said, “No. I need first to ask Sammy Davis Jr. how to tap dance backwards up a flight of stairs!”
His laughter and mine blended in a preview of eternal alto and bass harmony until I reached the bottom of my stairs, and he, not quite at the top of his, sang out one last time, running the gamut of his high F sharp all the way down to his low D in a great arpeggiated D major chord: “Lebewohl, mein kind!”
“What a wonderful old saint Brother Kurt is!” Deacon Fitch said while driving me home. “I hope he comes this way again!”
“He may not,” I said, “but he said that he's saving us seats in the choir he's in, whenever it is time for us to come that way.”
“You know I would love to do that, but we are just so busy around here and in the community right now.”
“Oh, he was very clear about there being no hurry … we'll get just our work done here, and get over there with him, after while.”