MUSIC BOX
Melinda Coffey Armstead, piano & organ
Prelude to Worship
Prelude in F-sharp major WTC I . . . J. S. Bach (1685-1750)
Barcarolle Op. 59 . . . Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
Offertory
Romance Op. 118 No. 5 . . . Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Prelude to Prayer
Waltz in A-flat Op. 39 No. 15 . . . J. Brahms
Postlude
Fugue in F-sharp major WTC I . . . J. S. Bach
The Second Music
Now I understand that there are two melodies
playing, one below the other, one easier to hear,
the other
lower, steady, perhaps more faithful for being less
heard yet always present.
When all other things seem lively and real,
this one fades. Yet the notes of it
touch as gently as fingertips, as the sound
of the names laid over each child at birth.
I want to stay in that music without striving or cover.
If the truth of our lives is what it is playing,
the telling is so soft
that this mortal time, this irrevocable change,
becomes beautiful. I stop and stop again
to hear the second music.
I hear the children in the yard, a train, then birds.
All this is in it and will be gone. I set my ear to it as I would to a
heart. by Annie Lighthart
