Gears Grinding Grimes Poem by gershon hepner

There are gears that are grinding, not meshing, and causing
much pain in our lives as we head towards goals
we’ve not set for ourselves, and we drive without pausing
to places that beckon like distant Sheols
whose rules don’t allow, once we’ve made our arrival,
return to the places we’ve left, so we stay
till the gears stop their grinding, and all thoughts of survival
disappear like the sunshine in which we made hay.

Inspired by an article on “Peter Grimes” (Peter G. Davis, “In Pursuit of Britten’s Hated Outsider, ” NYT, February 24,2008) , which opened at the Metropolitan Opera with Anthony Dean Griffey as Peter Grimes in a performance attended by Zachary:
I had an opportunity to see for myself how contentedly situated Britten was when, on a two-week assignment in 1967, I reported on Decca’s recording sessions of his parable opera “The Burning Fiery Furnace” for High Fidelity magazine. Seen in retrospect, that may have been one of the happiest periods in Britten’s life. He still had his health and composed prolifically, honors rained down on him, he was enjoying a settled domestic life with Pears at the famous Red House just outside town, and he busily made music everywhere. The Aldeburgh Festival, which he and Pears founded in 1948, was flourishing and had just acquired a state-of-the-art concert hall: the Snape Maltings, a renovated brewery with magnificent acoustics. Recording sessions on the opera proceeded smoothly, a BBC crew had arrived to film a television documentary on Britten’s life and work, and the queen was scheduled to open that year’s festival and dedicate the new hall. Unlike Grimes, Britten seemed to fit easily into the community despite his natural reserve. The townspeople I met, many of whom could have stepped right out of “Peter Grimes, ” might have been slightly in awe of their famous neighbor, but everyone seemed proud he was among them, and they all looked forward to the free preopening concert Britten was giving just for them at the Maltings. Watching Britten at work recording his music was endlessly fascinating. As a conductor he could have coaxed music from a stone. The small children’s chorus clearly adored him and rehearsed their part in the opera until they sang like angels. Pears was having trouble with one tricky ascent to a high C flat until Britten said, “A new edition, immediately, ” and penciled in a few changes to accommodate a voice he knew like no other. John Culshaw, the legendary producer of Decca’s Wagner “Ring” cycle, was in charge of the sessions, and Britten worked closely with him to devise the elaborate stereophonic movement heard on the finished disc. No, Britten was hardly Peter Grimes, although he had full knowledge of the darker side of the society he lived in and the darker side of his own nature, and he wrote it all into his music. Leonard Bernstein once remarked that a piece by Britten may often seem decorative, positive and charming until you really hear it. Then “you become aware of something very dark, ” he added. “There are gears that are grinding and not quite meshing, and they make a great pain.” No words better describe “Peter Grimes, ” which for Britten turned out to be more of a purge and a letting go than an autobiographical statement. After writing that masterpiece he was free to live with himself and his neighbors in a society where he knew he belonged, and to make his incomparable contribution to 20th-century music.

2/29/08