I first heard the song 32 years ago, sung by a beguiling Slovakian soprano (well past her prime) who stared at me incredulously: “You do not know Dvorak’s bea-uuuu-ti-ful “Songs my Mother Taught Me? Wvat is de matter with you?”
With lightning speed, she plopped the score onto on the rack of her ivory-keyed grand piano for me to play. “I sing it for you. You want English? German? I sing it for you in Russian. What do you want? Quick, tell me!”
I got all three. It was easy to sight read, flowing gorgeously from the opening motive. By the second rendering, I decided it was the most beautiful song I’d ever heard. The succinct text describing the steadfastness of a mother’s love, set to a luminous melody tinged with Gypsy color, proved again that a fine song is greater than its parts.
She taught me many songs in those afternoon sessions long ago. I sat at the piano, while she stood in the crook of the piano, dressed in beautiful brocade suits, holding a handkerchief in her perfectly manicured hands. She paid me embarrassingly well to accompany her as she sang to me and to her companion-caretaker, who crocheted in the corner and kept the tea flowing. Her voice carried only a shadow of the great soprano she had been.
Patiently, she explained why dees song can never be forgotten. She was right about this one, for Songs My Mother Taught Me has been revisited by each generation since its composition in 1880. Charlotte Church, for example, has made it a signature tune. Instrumental stars like Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma include it on their albums. And if you search YouTube, you’ll find renditions for nearly every possible combination, including accordion.
It’s the perfect song for Mother’s Day. Share it with your mom, or sit quietly (tissue in hand) and remember the unfathomable love that your mom, grandma, or whatever woman mothered you, tried to pass to you. It’s the love that we strive to give to our children.
Songs my mother taught me,
In the days long vanished;
Seldom from her eyelids
Were the teardrops banished.Now I teach my children,
Each melodious measure.
Oft the tears are flowing,
Oft they flow from my memory’s treasure.
*The video haas been updated.
