Asher Kelman The New York Times Reports on the Poem
an excerpt of Hiawatha by Longfellow
Should you ask me,
whence these stories?
Whence these legends and traditions,
With the odors of the forest
With the dew and damp of meadows,
With the curling smoke of wigwams,
With the rushing of great rivers,
With their frequent repetitions,
And their wild reverberations
As of thunder in the mountains?
I should answer, I should tell you,
"From the forests and the prairies,
From the great lakes of the Northland,
From the land of the Ojibways,
From the land of the Dacotahs,
From the mountains, moors, and fen-lands
Where the heron, the Shuh-shuh-gah,
Feeds among the reeds and rushes.
I repeat them as I heard them
From the lips of Nawadaha,
The musician, the sweet singer."
Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
"In the bird's-nests of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoofprint of the bison,
In the eyry of the eagle!
for the entire poem, look
here.
an extra hint is the sound of the blue bird
"From the tree-tops sang the bluebird,
Sang the bluebird, the Owaissa,
"Chibiabos! Chibiabos!
He is dead, the sweet musician!"
Asher Kelman The Poem: "Hiawatha"
Asher Kelman The Native Americans
Asher Kelman Minnehaha, "Laughing Water"
So who would write a major musical composition for an entire orchestra and include themes from Negro songs and suffering, the dances around the campfires, the cries from the teppees, the voice of the bluebird and robin, the sadness on the death of Laughing water? What would this mean for us? What person would have interest in all this and turn upside down notions of modern music? Who could come after Beethoven and Brahms and redefine majestic music in this continent?
