a memory of music on new year's eve

Alex on Lake Baikal

Alexander Schreiner, the longtime Tabernacle Organist who retired 30 years ago, proudly displayed a tapestry of an organ on the wall of his South Temple apartment. He told me that organ produced the best sound. Now as 2007 draws to a close, I'm also hearing strains of music that exist tonight in memory and imagination.

Among the melodies are It's a Boy Mrs. Walker, It's a Boy from the Rock Opera Tommy, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, and Ring Out Wild Bells. Back in 2004 I posted this entry and tonight I'm listening with deeper appreciation of music, text, bold ideals and a creator to make it all possible:

"Ring Out Wild Bells by Alfred Tennyson includes eight stanzas, not just the three I've sung for years in the hymn with music by Crawford Gates. Here's the complete poem.

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night,
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.