Wednesday, December 15, 2021

Willa Cather's The Song of the Lark

"She would live for it, work for it, die for it; but she was going to have it; time after time, height after height. She could hear the crash of the orchestra again, and she rose on the brasses. She would have it, what the trumpets were singing! She would have it, have it--it!"

Jules Breton's Song of the Lark
Thea Kronborg, the heroine of Willa Cather's novel The Song of the Lark, is in Chicago and has just heard an orchestral program beginning with Dvorak's New World Symphony and concluding with music from Wagner's Ring Cycle.

And well, what then? She gets it.

Thea grows up in a small town in rural Colorado in the late 1800s. The big city is Denver--not that big at the time--and the bigger is Chicago. The family background is Swedish. Her father is a minister, rival to the Baptists across town, and she's in the middle of a mess of children. Her parents are good people and are good with her, but she needs to get out, to get to the big city, and even they recognize it. She takes piano lessons from the washed-up Wunsch, a drunkard, but once a solid German musician, who knows she has a gift; the town doctor, Howard Archie, saves her from pneumonia; Ray Kennedy, a brakeman on the railroad, plans to marry her when she gets older; the Mexican community in town--Spanish Johnny, Mrs. Tellamantez--loves to hear her sing.

Still the challenges are hard: she's a girl, in the 1800s, lower middle class at best, born in the back of beyond, 'hating a world that let her grow up so ignorant.' If she didn't have her gift--of a voice--even her intelligence, her solid grounding in music, wouldn't have been enough. And if she didn't have people looking out for her--Dr. Archie, Ray Kennedy, Wunsch, her parents--she wouldn't have made it either, she would have died on the way, either literally or figuratively. But she does, and she does.

So: it's the story of a girl becoming an artist, a Künstlerroman. (Or should it be Künstlerinroman?) What's the formula to success? (In case you wanted to know.) Early training--though her Hungarian piano teacher in Chicago tells her she didn't start the piano early enough to become a great concert pianist; support from those around her; luck; talent, naturally. Hard work, of course.  Thea's considered a bit of a grind by most everyone around her:

"A growing girl needs lots of sleep, Ray providently remarked.
Thea moved restlessly on the buggy cushions. "They need other things more," she muttered.
But she also has to be strong. Thea gets various things from the men in her childhood: her father is learned, the town doctor looks after her, her music-teacher, but from her mother she gets her 'constitution,' and that's a crucial ingredient. In Mrs. Kronborg's case, her strong constitution means that she can bear seven children, raise them, and never be sick; it plays out differently in Thea's case, but she, too, has incredible stamina.

It seems Willa Cather regretted the title. Lark-song ended up suggesting twittering small birds to most, but Cather didn't mean that: she was thinking of the painting by Breton. There's a solidity to the farm-girl in the painting and that was what Cather wanted to convey.

The last element to come to Thea was a certain self-knowledge. She goes to Panther Canyon in Arizona and lives in an Anasazi cliff-dwelling until she achieves the necessary confidence and self-awareness. Panther Canyon is Walnut Canyon (near Flagstaff) in disguise:


Walnut canyon cliff dwellings

And so she becomes not Thea, but Kronborg, a major opera singer.

I went through a bit of a Willa Cather phase twenty years ago or so, and I read the novel then. It's a great novel, and I was glad to reread it. At the time, though, I figured it was basically autobiographical, with a change of art from writing to opera for dramatic purposes. (Also the love object changed from a Frederica to a Fred because Cather would have felt she had to.) And that's not entirely wrong--there is a lot of autobiography in the book. But what I didn't know, until I read Alex Ross' Wagnerism earlier this year, is that's not all there is. Quite a lot of Thea Kronborg is drawn from the actual Swedish-American opera star Olive Fremstad. Cather wrote a fair amount of journalism, especially early in her career, reviewed several of Fremstad's performances, and later wrote an extended profile of Fremstad. The two became friends. Also Alex Ross, who would know--he's the music writer for the New Yorker--thinks that Willa Cather actually knows quite a bit about opera. I'm sure that all went past me the first time--and kind of did again this time, though I tried to think about it more--because I don't really know anything about opera. 

Anyway, a great novel, and I'm glad I put it on my Classics Club spin list

14 comments:

  1. i've had good intentions (sorry) about reading Cather but haven't followed thru... but since i love opera and am a former musician (classical type), i can no longer fudge... i'm off right now to Abebooks to order a copy. tx for the inspirational post!

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    1. Some of them, including this one, are at available at Gutenberg. Not that I'm the one to ever stop anybody from buying a book...no moral credit there...

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  2. I will definitely read more Cather in 2022. She's on my list. I think I first read her too young and was put off by the prose. I have since read My Antonia in my dotage and thought it was brilliant! In some ways, reading really is like developing a muscle.

    I have a New York Public Library collectors edition that I thrifted which contains The Bohemian Girl,O'Pioneers and A Lost Lady so that is where I will probably start.

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    1. I'm thinking about A Lost Lady pretty soon myself, while I'm in the zone. I've never read it & I put it on my classics club list.

      I remember O Pioneers! as pretty great. I'm not sure I even know of The Bohemian Girl.

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  3. I've been locked out of commenting on blogger blogs lately so let's see if this works.

    This Cather book sounds fascinating. I've had it on my shelf for years and love the title. I did think of a bird though but something welcoming and relaxing. I though it could have coming of age themes in it.

    Thanks for sharing your excellent review. Like your other two commenters, Cather is going on my list for 2022, at least one novel.

    Ok, please work .... posting .....

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    1. Success! Glad your commenting is back. It's a total mystery why it doesn't work when it doesn't.

      It's a great novel.

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  4. This has Anasazi scenes? Why did nobody tell me when I wrote about "The Professor's House"? Maybe nobody knew.

    I guess I should read this one sometime.

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    1. It's a good one, and the Anasazi stuff is actually pretty important here, too, at least psychologically to Kronborg. And some good description.

      I probably actually went up to Walnut Creek the first time I read it.

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  5. I like this novel, too, especially the parts set in the Anasazi ruins. Cather is a good writer, but I feel like she's underappreciated.

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    1. I feel like her reputation has moved up some, but probably not as much as it should.

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  6. Like you I have had wonderful times reading Cather beginning in my pre-teens with My Antonia which is still my favorite.

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    1. I was past my pre-teens by the time I started--even though that was twenty years ago... ;-)

      Still she's pretty great whenever you get to her.

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  7. I haven't read any of Cather's books but of I do get to read something it would be this one. Hope you g=have a very Happy Christmas, Reese. Enjoy your cool Canadian weather. We hit 38 degrees C today.

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    1. I think this would be a good one to start with, though several others of hers are pretty great, too.

      And Merry Christmas to you! 38C--it's summer, I guess, but still that's hot! We're at 0, with flurries, so it is looking a little Christmas-sy.

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