A little trip to Rochester

The King's Singers; Kiri Te Kanawa, guest; City of London Sinfonia; Richard Hickox, conducting

I have suffered from wanderlust for years. Even when attending first and second grade I would have this curiosity to see other lands, big cities, the ocean, mountains, even a different town one county over. Even to a point where I secretly wished that we would move; move to a different house, move to a different state, anyplace different. This yearning for travel didn’t come from a sense of dissatisfaction with the location of our home. I just knew, at the ripe age of six or seven years, that I wanted to travel, to see new things that I had never seen before … to encounter first-hand hard proof, before my very eyes, that the universal landscape didn’t consist entirely of endless rows of corn.

One day in June of 1976, after attending swimming lessons that morning, my sisters and I came home to find out that we were to take the bus to Rochester, MN, to visit our Aunt J., Uncle A and our cousins R. and T. for a week. A WEEK! No parents! Just we three kids on an adventure in a bus – IN A BUS! – along the cornfields of Minnesota. How in the world was I going to get through the next few weeks with this kind of excitement pumping through my veins?

Well, the answer to that question came with the date of departure: July 5, 1976; the day after our nation celebrated its two hundredth birthday. I had more than a touch of the patriot in me as we approached Independence Day 1976 and I suppose I got caught up in all of the pomp and pageantry of parades, special church services, picnics and fireworks. Our trip of a lifetime occurred almost as an afterthought; but, indeed, an exceptional afterthought. On Monday morning, Mom and Dad put us on the bus and our journey of a million miles began.

Aunt J. and Uncle A. picked us up at the bus station in Rochester and we commenced with one of the most refreshing weeks I had ever experienced. We had picnics, we went to the races, we rode bikes, we toured the Mayo Clinic, we played with our cousins and we made new friends. And through it all, I began a love affair with the city of Rochester because, at this point, Rochester represented every place in this world that I wanted to visit. But best of all, the icing on the cake, J. and A. didn’t drive around in a car … they had a VAN! On the following Saturday, I felt like a million bucks riding in FIRST CLASS in a VAN (!) along the cornfields of Minnesota, westward this time, to go home. My baby steps out into the world satisfied, for a while, my wanderlust.

My sister K. graduated from SDSU in 1985 and, following a summer job in Alaska, got a job in Rochester, MN, working at the Mayo Clinic. For the first few years, she had an apartment. Then she found this awesome place. One of the Mayo brothers had built a tiny two-story study that stood separate from the main house on the Mayo estate. It sat back in a canyon a few miles drive out in the country from the city of Rochester. I loved coming to visit her, especially around Christmas time.

During one such visit, she left me at this magical house of hers while she went to work, and I wrapped presents. Not wanting to wrap presents in silence, I raided her Christmas CD collection and found The King’s Singers’ Christmas album called “A Little Christmas Music”.

So many of the Christmas albums that famous ensembles or artists release come across as just another take on the same old material. But this group has invested an enormous amount of time in preparation for this album. The arrangements are creative and well thought out. They play off the title of the album, referencing the English translation of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”. “A Little Christmas Music (Medley a la Mozart)” includes snippets of Mozart melodies, specifically the Alleluia from “Exsultate Jubilate” and the main theme to Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 330. Comedy laces the entire project, but quality never gives in. The City of London Sinfonia assists them on a few numbers, most notably the last track which combines Patapan with Bizet’s rendition of Farandole or “March of the Kings”.

Fun comes at a price. Somebody has to pay. My father turned forty-six on July 3, 1976. He and Uncle M. baled hay that day. Late in the afternoon, my cousin D. drove out to the hayfield on his motorcycle and Dad asked if he could go for a ride. After going for a quick spin he returned to the hayfield and slipped on some loose hay, fell and broke his collarbone. Dad spent all of the next few weeks with his left arm in a sling. The best laid plans … yada, yada, yada.

Credits: To Aunt J. and Uncle A, for reprieving a young boy of his hopeless case of counter-homesickness (where you’re sick of home) and providing him with the hope that some of the world isn’t cornfields.