Every family has a storyteller. Or else, a story about a storyteller who touched their lives. Growing up, it was my father who told the stories. My mother told almost none, even though both of my parents clawed their way through the same Depression with similar challenges.
But, in my mother’s case, she came from a family where you didn’t air your dirty laundry. In fact, you didn’t air any laundry. Daughter of impoverished Jewish (Russian-Polish) immigrant parents whose fortunes in the U.S. did not fulfill the dreams held back in the Old Country, her goal as an adult seemed to be to forget everything that happened when she was young.
When asked about her childhood, she would say “Go read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.” I have read it, of course—many times. And it helped. But, oh the stories I wish she would have told me. All too late now.
On the other hand, my father, born in the coal camps of West Virginia, could not speak without telling a story. It’s a good thing I had only a child’s understanding because some were pretty wild. For example, the one about his distant aunt who, despite success in Vaudeville, drowned herself in a rain barrel when she was discovered to be in the family way. To be honest, I thought he was making that one up, but after he died, I found a fragile newspaper clipping that confirmed the story.
Of course, most of his stories were less drastic, like the time a cousin ate a whole pot of beans. (It isn’t just the Tide-Pod generation that does stupid things, although today’s stupidities seem far more lethal.) Or, the time he sat up all night with older musicians in Bluefield, honing his ability to sing Jimmie Rogers’ tunes. Later, in New York at the height of the Depression, he would play at “holes in the wall” and make 8 dollars a night (!), which eclipsed his 8-dollar-a-week job at New York Scientific, embalming animals for science labs. That job, of course, netted a bunch of crazy stories, but I’ll spare you those.
Then there were stories from the Second World War, where he served as a photographer. One of my favorite is quite benign: the time my mom took a train to see him in Louisiana where he was stationed. They went into New Orleans and found a restaurant, but didn’t much like the food. It was Antoines! My mom kept the menu, and others back home filled her in on what she’d not understood about the cuisine. She delivered this story rather haughtily, I might add—all to emphasize that “fame,” in and of itself, means little. (Personally, we love Antoine’s—its food and its fascinating history.)
So much of the Arts is basically storytelling. Tuesday night brought another pre-concert talk at our gorgeous Meyerson Symphony Hall for one of my favorite ensembles: The Dallas Winds. On the program was a piece called Picture Studies (2012), a modern-day version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition composed by Adam Schoenberg (no relation to the 20th-century avant-guardist, and can you imagine how often he has to explain that!).
A highly successful American composer, Schoenberg’s lyrical, yet riveting music lights up with optimism and energy. And in this case, he turned his creativity to express his delight at the rich collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
People who don’t know this museum are astonished to learn of its holdings. Schoenberg, then a composer-in-residence at the Kansas City Symphony, soaked up that collection and then decided to illuminate a selection of works and their artists in vivid, often lush, musical vignettes.
I wish you could have been seated with me behind the percussion section for this work (my favorite place to sit). No fewer than seven percussionists play the full gamut of percussion instruments, from the traditional ones you’d expect (gongs, triangles, timpani, drums, bells) to tables full of special effect instruments, as well as crystal water classes (creating serene, eerily beautiful harmonies). At one point, there were four players using violin bows to coax extraordinary sounds from instruments ordinarily played by mallets.
Well, that piece definitely tells as visual story. Then there was Rimsky-Korsakov’s colorful Capriccio Espagnole—more proof that Russians, along with the French, have a special key to understanding the Spanish musical soul.
Finally, a trumpet concerto by Alexander Arutunian (1920-2012) that was knocked out of the park by virtuoso Ryan Anderson. That work manages to tell a different type of story. Emanating from a gifted Armenian composer whose life reflected the harsh realities of being a “Soviet” composer during the worst of Communism’s excesses, it reminds us how much joy could be expressed at a time (1950) when every composer in the Soviet fold had to buy into the myth of Soviet identity and a crippling style known as Socialist Realism.
Truth be told, it’s hard to find any piece of art—ballet, sculpture, song, poem—that isn’t telling a story or at least hinting at one. People who love the arts rejoice in experiencing stories, whether overtly expressed or quietly underlying what is heard or seen.
Stepping back from the Arts, remember that we are all creatures of stories. We come from stories and we create them. Never undervalue your stories, even if they merely involve the day you forgot to put plates and cutlery in the picnic basket when trying to impress your future in-laws. In the hands of a good storyteller, that flub makes just as good a story as the time a car skidded off the road in the midst of a midnight blizzard and you and your friend rescued the occupants.
Best of all, tell the stories to your children and grandchildren. You may think they won’t receive them. True, you may have to accustom them to hearing your stories, if it hasn’t been part of your pattern. But once you open up the legacy of your life, and your ancestors’ lives, and place it gently in their hands, they have something that matters. And something only you can give them.
All of the classic children’s books in the world, no matter how wonderful, cannot convey what your own stories do. Stop and think back to hearing the real stories that beguiled and astonished you in childhood. Close your eyes. See the faces and hear the voices. Yours is now one of them.
