Easter Peanuts

Tchaikovsky: 1812 - Marche Slave; Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; Russian Easter Festival Overture; Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra; Neeme Jarvi, conducting

I don’t think that I could claim a favorite Peanuts character. Each personality varies so sharply from the others. Of course, everybody loves Charlie Brown. You’re supposed to. He’s the master of ceremonies. He’s the “every man”. Very few people in the world can’t relate to Charlie Brown.

The others, though, possess traits and foibles much too exact for broader appeal. Not everyone can hang with Lucy’s crabby exterior. Not everyone can cope with Sally’s hang-ups with school. Snoopy shuns responsibility of any kind to live the “Walter Mitty” life. Schroeder’s preoccupation with music almost makes him a single issue character, except that he plays catcher on the baseball team. Peppermint Patty can have low self-esteem one moment followed by unbounded and unfounded self-confindence. Frieda loves cats … and where do you go from there?

I like Linus. Yeah, the blanket … I know. All of the characters are smart. But we have in Linus an intellectual, who has the same amount of intelligence as the rest of the gang, but has thought things through a little further.

“Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!”

“Sure, Charlie Brown, I can tell you what Christmas is all about. Lights, please.”

In the comic strip, Linus proves to hold the gift of prophecy. He philosophizes beyond his second-grade level. And, as an authority on “Queen snakes” and “chicken birds”, he has acquainted himself with nature and comes across as probably the “greenest” temperament in the strip.

Charles Schultz’s genius with Linus lines up here: with intellectual property can come an “ill at ease” with religion. There can’t be just one guy that brings presents and candy for all the good little children only once a year. Thus, he banks his beliefs in accessory “messiahs”: The Great Pumpkin and The Easter Beagle. And his convictions in each festive entity spike the closer he comes to the holiday that they embody.

I recalled today one of the strips where Linus stares out the window for a while, gets an idea then hurries to Lucy. “Why don’t we round up the gang and go out to sing pumpkin carols?” Oh, good grief.

Christmas and Easter stand at even par, as far as religious significance is concerned. Easter might even have a mite stronger emotional charge, what with the death of Christ on Good Friday. But the secular aspect of Easter doesn’t make a dent in the secular free-for-all of Christmas. I can only think of “Easter Parade” by Irving Berlin and “Peter Cottontail” by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins for secular Easter songs.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff wrote his “Russian Easter Festival Overture” between 1887 and 1888 and programmed its premiere in St. Petersburg; oddly enough, in December of 1888, not at Easter. The tunes used in this fifteen-minute long masterwork come from the Russian Orthodox liturgy, reproducing the solemnity and mystery of the evening of Passion Saturday and the jubilant celebrations of Easter Sunday morning.

Perhaps the greatest expression of Easter morning sentiment comes from the “Hallelujah” chorus of “Messiah” fame by G.F. Handel. Cousin W. has pled the case that I post one of her favorite renditions of this chestnut. She immediately voiced her concern that it may show too much irreverence for Easter Sunday. I think it shows too much irreverence on any day. So I might as well post it today. It gets my younger sister’s shoulders rolling.

Credits: To Linus, for his ability to draw security from an object that never had any security to offer in the first place.