I wanted to commemorate 9/11 today and played Syrinx at the Aero Memorial to World War I aviators of Pennsylvania killed in action. The setting is a park on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, bordered by the Franklin Institute and Logan Circle. I played in the corner where two sides of a stone bench converge. Inscribed on the bench are the following quotations, which you can see in the video after I play Syrinx:
“Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.” – Stephen Spender
“Death makes no conquest of this conquerer
For now he lives in fame though not in life.” – William Shakespeare
Paul Manship, sculptor
Touching, Mimi, thank you.
(I didn’t know the Spender quote was there. It’s from “I Think Continually of Those Who Were Truly Great,” other lines of which Gene used in the August 4 libretto.)
Thank you, Steve. I like the Spender quote a lot. That’s interesting Gene included his poetry in your “August 4.”