Human creativity is, as yet, an
imperfectly understood process. It usually involves the random
intersection of the thoughts of two or more individuals who,
comparing disparate views and logic structures, suddenly stumble on
a harmonious combination that compels a creation.
In this
instance John Craven, allegedly an expert in floating cities and
marine technology, is invited as one of the plenary speakers to the
first 'Ocean Cities' conference in Monaco. Also present at the
conference is Kathy Beuzard. She has been employed as the
Conference Coordinator and the efficiency with which she carries
out this coordination is persuasive that she is a trained and
experienced coordinator of technical conferences. These two
individuals had never met except on bureaucratic forms of the
conference.
There is a banquet on the penultimate day of the conference and Ms. Beuzard has the difficult political task of seeing that each plenary speaker is seated at an appropriate table. Unfortunately, the always late but not yet late, John Craven is tardy in his arrival. The result is that the 32 year old Kathy Beuzard is paired at dinner with the 71 year old Dr. Craven. One can only presume that the generation, knowledge, and interest gap between these two individuals is centuries, if not light years apart.
It happens that Craven has had an extensive musical background, his father a composer of classical music and songs and his son a successful singer on the operatic stage. It happens that Ms. Beuzard is an accomplished professional musician whose expertise is in the playing of the viola. Soon the dinner conversation shifts to music and a discussion of the unity between the viola and the contralto voice and the unity between the cello and the baritone voice. Craven describes an arrangement he has made of the wedding hymn "Oh Perfect Love" This is an arrangement for string quartet which features baritone-cello duet and baritone and cello solo passages. Miss Beuzard is appropriately scornful. What kind of a wedding song is that which has only a man singing. All wedding songs should feature a male singing for and on behalf of the groom and a female singing for and on behalf of the bride or is it a male singing to the bride and a female singing to the groom or whatever. In any event Craven agrees that he has been male chauvinistic and proposes that the arrangement be revised in collaboration with Ms. Beuzard. A photographer is present and takes, by chance, a 'candid camera picture' at the time Craven is describing his version of the song.
Initially, Craven writes a new verse which highlights the role of music in a true love relationship. Ms Beuzard responds with an 'entwining melody' duet between baritone and contralto for that particular verse.
Now this process was initiated without any thought of any specific wedding in mind. Thus it is to Dr. Craven's surprise that one Matthew McGuire informs him that, on Valentine's day, he has proposed to Sarah Craven, daughter of Dorothy and John Craven and that she has accepted. The wedding will take place on January the 4th 1997.
Sarah has seen a discussion of the wedding song on the world wide web and is concerned that the revision was prepared with that event in mind. She loves her daddy and thinks that her brother is a great singer but she wants to make an independent choice of the events in the wedding ceremony. She is assured, as she is now assured, that ego's will not be bruised if the song is not the right song for the wedding as envisioned by bride and groom. On that basis she is willing to consider it and almost immediately she expresses a legitimate concern that some of the words of the original hymn are not appropriate for this couple. (Yes indeed, Sarah and Matthew, as egalitarians, are not going to "kneel before any throne"). Thus the first modifications of the text have now been made and we are ready to put the next iteration of the arrangement on the web and in the hands of Kathy Beuzard for the next step in the creation process. Therefore, and subject to minor or major modification the arrangement is as follows.
The arrangement opens with solo cello playing the cello motif as intro followed by a viola cadenza that leads into the first verse. This will be a duet between baritone and cello with modified words as follows:
Here follows a very short instrumental bridge between verse one and two. Verse 2 is a contralto viola duet to the following words:
The last verse reverts to the hymn/chorale form. In its minimalist form Baritone and Contralto sing in unison with string quartet. Alternatives include choir or chorus with string quartet, piano or organ and in maximum form the last verse is sung by the congregation with full string quartet, and organ. For Royal Weddings a full symphony, but, in any event the fourth verse musical crowd must not intrude on verses one, two and three. Here are the words
Several philosophic items. First illuming is a word - archaic and therefore poetic, it fits into the meter and you can use it in Scrabble. Second nothing in the totality of these words makes any theological or religious commitment although each listener can easily read into the words his/her own dogma. Remember the glorious unknown morrow is unknown. It could simply be the retirement years before death or it could be the continuation of life through children or through some form of reincarnation, or the continuation of life in some heavenly realm or the continuation of life through lasting works, including this song, its poetry and its story.