Harry Jaffa opens A New Birth of Freedom with a review of the election of 1800. That election was, like its predecessor in 1796, one of the most contested and partisan in American history. Unlike its predecessor, the 1800 contest resulted in power changing hands for the first time under the Constitution. The electorate that was prepared to allow John Adams to continue the Washington presidency for four more years decided in 1800 to throw Mr. Adams and all his minions out in favor of a new administration under Thomas Jefferson.

Jaffa points out that throughout human history, when one group of partisans takes power from another, the losers have suffered imprisonment, forced exile, confiscation, or execution. The losing faction in Rome or Byzantium, in the English Civil War, in the French Revolution and the Russian, and in countless other political fights had one or more of those fates visited upon them. Even in the less bloody American Revolution, many American Tories fled to Canada or to Britain and did not return. Yet, after the election of Thomas Jefferson, the losers returned to their law practices, printing presses, and businesses to continue the same partisan activity that had led their opponents to victory at the polls in 1800 .

Jaffa tells us that this was the first time in human history that such a thing had happened. He contrasts this world-historical event — the peaceful transfer of power – to the storm that broke when Lincoln won the election of 1860. Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union, their “de-ratification” of the Constitution. The “Great Secession Winter” witnessed the most dramatic transition of presidential power in American history. Six of the seceding states had formed the Confederate States of America in February 1861. Even before that, partisans of the rebel government had been seizing federal property, including military installations, arms, and port facilities while the Buchanan administration looked on. Buchanan had developed a detailed rationale to explain that while the states had no right to secede, the federal government lacked the power to prevent them if they tried. When Lincoln took the oath of office, a rival government was operating within the borders of the United States without interference by the departing administration.

The transition from the Lincoln presidency to the McClellan administration, had it taken place, might have been nearly as dramatic. In the summer of 1864, Lincoln believed he was going to lose the November election. His Democratic opponent, George McClellan, wanted to restore “the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was”. The Constitution prior to the Thirteenth Amendment permitted each state to make its own decision about the legality of chattel slavery within its borders. The Union had been built on a series of compromises that had kept the South’s “peculiar institution” in place in fifteen states. During the 1860-61 transition, Lincoln had rejected a compromise that would have extended the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean. The practical effect of the compromise would have been to protect slavery south of that line. McClellan’s proposal was to end the war and reunite on a basis that would implement the failed Compromise of 1861 as the Compromise of 1865.

When General Sherman captured Atlanta at the end of August 1864, Lincoln’s election prospects brightened. But had he lost, he was prepared to act aggressively to make it virtually impossible for his successor to reverse the Emancipation Proclamation and stop the momentum then building toward a constitutional amendment that would abolish slavery. He would be defying the will of the voters, true, but in the cause of the paramount moral issue of his day.

Something like the reverse of that situation occurred after the 1932 election. Hoover is known as a “do nothing” president, but there are historians and economists who think his problem was that he was a “do something, anything” president. Calvin Coolidge said that Hoover, his Secretary of Commerce, had advice for him every day of his presidency, “all of it bad”. When a sharp economic downturn began in 1930, Hoover was ready with a prescription of high tariffs, increased taxes, and jawboning to keep wages high. The resulting economic contraction caused a massive rejection by the electorate at their next opportunity. The man who won 40 of 48 states in 1928 carried six states in 1932. But Hoover remained a man of action during the transition. As a banking panic began to spread in early 1933, he saw an opportunity to implement deposit insurance, a long-standing goal of progressive politicians in both parties. The problem was that Franklin Roosevelt was opposed to deposit insurance. He did not like giving assurances to bank managers that they had no need to worry about the safety of their depositors’ money. FDR avoided Hoover’s snares, although deposit insurance was de facto adopted in March 1933 and fully in place by June 1933 when Roosevelt, once in office, was outflanked by his own party.

The 2016-17 interregnum has been one of the most dramatic in my lifetime. We had barely adjusted to the idea that a candidate who received one percent of the vote could demand a recount when we learned that the CIA had issued a press release outlining Russian activity during the 2016 election. The President who assured us before the election that the decentralized nature of our electoral processes immunized us against foreign hacking decided after the election to impose sanctions on Russia as payback for their role in arranging for the publication of stolen Democratic National Committee emails. Reports of the impact of fake news damaging to Mrs. Clinton were followed by the leak by an unidentified agency of 36 pages of salacious but unsourced and unverified information about the private life of Mr. Trump and the alleged nefarious activities of his aides.
The drama of earlier transitions derived from events of great historical importance then unfolding. What is the substance driving the drama we witnessed during the interregnum of 2016-2017? Like 1800, we will have a peaceful transition of power after a bitterly contested election. The potential for exile or expropriation of the losers exists only in the imagination. Unlike 1860 or 1864 the survival of the republic is not hanging in the balance. The economy is not in crisis as it was in 1932-33 (or in 2008-09, but in that case the Bush administration’s bailouts were done in coordination with the incoming administration). Many people are afflicted with a generalized sense of unease and distemper and there seems to be a widespread feeling that things are bad because they could be better, but the underlying social and political realities do not justify the transition melodrama now ending, possibly to be replaced by melodrama of a different kind.

When the southern states were faced with the reality of Abraham Lincoln’s election, the impulse to secede was tempered by voices that counseled caution. Alexander Stephens, soon to be the vice-president of the Confederacy, argued to the Georgia Convention in January 1861 that the South’s best course was to stay in the Union. The Democrats had a majority in the Senate. Lincoln would need southern votes to take any action, even to confirm his cabinet. The door would be opened for compromise. Leaving would give the Republicans a free hand.

It was good advice, drowned out by the pounding of hot blood in southern ears as they absorbed the insult that the nation had elected a man who had the bad taste to state plainly that slavery was evil. Opinions hardened, tempers flared and in the end a potent emotional reaction overcame prudence.

May I suggest, respectfully, that the reaction to the election of Donald Trump has some of these same characteristics, that the emotions of the moment are overcoming the better angels of our nature that Abraham Lincoln invoked in his first inaugural address? May I go further and suggest that too much energy has been devoted in recent years to silencing critics, to suppressing honest debate, and now to boycotting the side that had the gall to win a round? Oliver Wendell Holmes said that a constitution is made for people of fundamentally differing views. The corollary was stated by Abraham Lincoln in his July 4, 1861 address to Congress: “when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided . . . there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections.”

German Romantic poets have been fortunate – putting aside that they are all dead – to have had their work immortalized in song.  German poetry flowered at a time when the powerhouses of Austro-German music took time out from the heavy work of composing symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and piano sonatas to focus immense talents on the creation of Lieder, miniature compositions in which a poem is set to music.

Mozart and Beethoven set songs, but it was Franz Schubert (1797-1828) who established the Lied as a distinctive product of Austro-German music.  He set over 600 poems for voice and (mostly) piano accompaniment.  You can get a sense of how Schubert worked his magic by listening to An die Musik, which runs about two and a half minutes, or if you prefer something a little less somber and philosophical, try Die Forelle[1], which runs less than two minutes.  As a newcomer to most of this music I have been particularly taken with Auf dem Wasser zu singen, which you can enjoy for an investment of less than four minutes of your time.

German has produced beautiful poetry, which is (to me at least) a surprise In light of the guttural sounds of which the language is capable, and considering the stiff and formal stereotypical image of the German character that many of us carry in our heads.  In an essay[2] in which he skewers the German tongue, Mark Twain puts satire aside for a moment to make the point:

There are some German words which are singularly and powerfully effective. For instance, those which describe lowly, peaceful, and affectionate home life; those which deal with love, in any and all forms, . . . ; those which deal with outdoor Nature, in its softest and loveliest aspects — with meadows and forests, and birds and flowers, the fragrance and sunshine of summer, and the moonlight of peaceful winter nights; in a word, those which deal with any and all forms of rest, repose, and peace; . . . and lastly and chiefly, in those words which express pathos, is the language surpassingly rich and affective. There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. That shows that the sound of the words is correct — it interprets the meanings with truth and with exactness; and so the ear is informed, and through the ear, the heart. [Emphasis in original.]

He might have been describing the poem “Gestillte Sehnsucht” – “Stilled Longing” – by Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866), which Johannes Brahms set to music in the early 1880s.

In the first of four verses, the poet places us in a woodland scene at sunset.  After stopping to note the wind whispering through the trees and the soft song of the birds, the poet gets down to the real business at hand, an examination of his emotions.  In the second verse, he addresses them directly.  How long will you feelings of longing persist?  When will you rest?  When will you sleep?  The remaining two verses tell us that these feelings will go on his whole life through.  I feel, therefore I am.

Each verse has six lines; the last two lines of each verse are a refrain that explores the meaning of those whispering winds and birds.  Each appearance of the refrain provides a slightly different answer as the poem unfolds.  So powerful are the poet’s feelings that he never takes time to identify the object of his longing.  For all we know, it might be nothing more than a serving of schnitzel mit nudeln, and poems to food are not unheard of (e.g., Robert Burns’ “Ode to a Haggis”).  But from what we know of the Romantic poets, the longed-for subject is likely to be a fair member of the opposite sex.  Still, it would have been considerate to let the reader in on the secret.

Brahms wrote his song for contralto, viola, and piano, an unusual combination.  It is one of two for the same forces written for his friends Joseph Joachim, a famous violinist and violist, and his wife Amalie, born Schneeweiss[3], (“Snow White”), a noted contralto.  When the couple had a child, a boy whom they named Johannes, Brahms composed a lullaby for contralto, viola, and piano, intending to distribute the parts to the two Joachims with himself at the keyboard.  That song, Geistliches Wiegenlied (“Spiritual Lullaby”), was not published at the time of composition.  Later, the marriage went on the rocks when Herr Joachim accused Frau Joachim of infidelity, apparently without evidence or reason.  Brahms wrote a second song for the same voice and instruments, perhaps hoping to repair the marriage of his friends.  He published the two songs in 1883 as his Opus 91, designating the later song – Gestillte Sehnsucht – as Opus 91, Number 1 and the lullaby as Opus 91, Number 2.

Brahms conceived the song in A-B-A format, or more accurately A+ refrain – B + refrain – A + refrain, which meant that the poem had one verse too many.  He jettisoned the third verse and set verses 1, 2, and 4.

The song opens with an extended introduction by the viola accompanied by the piano, which hints at some of the melodic riches ahead.  After nearly a full minute, the contralto enters and sings the first four lines of the opening verse to a melody of round autumnal ripeness.  The two lines of the refrain are set to an ambling rhythm, lightly syncopated, that ends all three verses.

The mood changes with the second verse.  The emotions accompanying the poet’s address to his feelings generate shorter phrases and an unsettled melody until the refrain returns us to a place where we can breathe more freely.  Even so, echoes from the storm inside the poet’s breast turn the end of the refrain to a minor key.

The final verse returns us to the sunset-tinted melody of the first.  At the end of the refrain, the viola, which has conducted a dialogue with the contralto throughout, works with the piano to take us home.  Just before the final note, the viola and piano hit a dissonant chord, which is resolved as the piece fades to silence.  Perhaps this was Brahms expressing his hope that the discord in the Joachim marriage would be resolved equally harmoniously.  (It wasn’t.  They divorced.)

The song is so ravishing and there are so many lovely voices singing it on record that a listener would not go wrong by selecting the first version that YouTube throws out or the first download that Amazon suggests.  I have listened to every recording I could find.  Music lovers are truly fortunate to have so many beautiful voices available to sing such a moving song.  My clear favorite is a recording made in 1939 by Marian Anderson, accompanied by William Primrose, viola, and Franz Rupp, piano.

Most of the singers who present this piece have big operatic voices.  Their training and inclination is to project their voices to the back of a large hall.  The concert hall approach is out of place when the singer is asked to interpret a quiet moment, a poet alone with his thoughts as the setting sun bathes a forest in its glow.  Using high notes to shake the rafters seems to be second nature to many operatic singers, but to my ear the method doesn’t work when it comes to music as intimate as Gestillte Sehnsucht.  This criticism applies particularly to Marilyn Horne, Janet Evans, and Ann Murray.

The second line of the song is a key point for distinguishing the back-of-the-hall ladies from the others.  The line reads: “How solemnly the forest stands!”  The singer is asked to begin the line on a high note.  It seems that for many singers, a high note is a loud note.  But a quiet moment in which the poet is awed by the beauty around him should be presented to the listener at something less than full operatic volume.

Another tendency is to overwork the second verse, where the poet in his anguish addresses his feelings of longing.  In too many versions I hear instead Sieglinde running through the forest in Act Two of Die Walküre.  As the curtain comes down on Act One, Sieglinde is preparing to commit the dual sins of adultery and incest with the twin brother with whom she has just been reunited.  When I say “preparing to commit” I don’t mean that she is standing in front of a mirror a-wishin’ and a-hopin’.  If at the original performance the Act One curtain had come down a minute later than it does, the opera would have been banned by the censors and the world would have been denied the remaining twelve hours of the Ring cycle[4].

Once Act Two is underway, Sieglinde, whose longings were so recently un-stilled, is racing through the forest wracked with guilt.  As the old saying goes, commit incest in haste, repent at leisure.  That’s the emotional pitch of Sieglinde at that point in the drama.  That level of emotional turmoil is over the top in Brahms’s song.  Yet so many singers of Gestillte Sehnsucht overdo things that I have developed an informal “Sieglinde Index” to evaluate them.  I can’t listen to a recording when the Sieglinde Index starts to red-line into the “High” zone.  That leaves out Iris Vermillion (who I wanted to make my favorite for the sake of her name), Alice Coote, even Kirsten Flagstad (one of the greatest Wagnerian sopranos, superb in this song apart from the four lines in question).

I have come back repeatedly to Marian Anderson, Kathleen Ferrier, Jessye Norman, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Angelika Kirchshlager[5].  Ms. Norman offers her powerful voice – you sense that she could use it to engrave cold steel if she wanted to – in the service of an introspective performance.  Her Sieglinde Index is moderate.  She has so much power in reserve that she can hit her high notes without strain and without excessive volume.  As against that, she is a dramatic soprano, not a contralto.

Kirchshlager’s performance is outstanding, with a moderate-to-high but still acceptable Sieglinde Index.  Unfortunately, she takes the song at a speed I feel is too fast.  Von Otter’s performance likewise is beautiful.  She adopts a moderate tempo, about halfway between the fastest and slowest performances.  Her Sieglinde Index is acceptable.  And both of these superb singers are mezzos, not contraltos.

Anderson and Ferrier were both true contraltos.  My objection to Kathleen Ferrier’s performance is that, like Kirchshlager, she is too fast.  She moves through the song in some five minutes, where singers such as Anderson and Norman take more than seven.

Anderson’s reading of the song is superb.  Her musical bearing is restrained, patrician.  The emotional content of the music flows out of her without any need for embellishment.  What she provides is less an interpretation than a rendering.  Her accompanists are equally fine.  This most musically reserved performance is also for me the most moving.  She makes the song her own by simply presenting it, not selling it.  The 1939 sound is much better than I would have expected and does not get in the way at all.

It is impossible to listen to Marian Anderson without thinking of her compelling personal story.  We can take pride in the enormous racial progress our country has made since Ms. Anderson’s time, but the vicious stupidity that characterized so much of the treatment she experienced is shameful.  She was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1897.  Her musical talents were first noticed through her church.  When she applied to the Philadelphia Academy of Music, the admissions clerk refused to accept her application, saying “We don’t take colored.”

Two incidents underscore the depth of her talent.  After the Academy turned her down, she sought a private teacher.  She auditioned for a voice coach named Giuseppe Boghetti[6].  This was a man who earned his living by evaluating voices in the cold-blooded way that a baseball scout might evaluate a curve ball.  As she began to sing for him, the beauty of her voice overwhelmed him.  He broke down in tears.  Some years later when she was touring Europe, Arturo Toscanini heard her sing and told her that a voice such as hers is heard once in a hundred years.

Yet when in 1939 her supporters tried to arrange a concert at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., a private venue owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, the DAR refused to book the concert.  They could not abide an African American singer on their stage.  The DC city government had a hall available but refused to offer it because it did not have segregated bathrooms (which believe it or not was a code violation, like having bad wiring).  The Colonial Dames – P.G. Wodehouse’s name – did finally allow her to sing at Constitution Hall in 1943.  With bombs falling and the future of American civilization at risk, it was easier for them to look past the racial divide, apparently.  I was curious whether the DAR was still in existence.  I found an active website that announces that they welcome members – those who can trace their ancestry to a participant in the American Revolutionary War – of all races, creeds, and colors.  Mazel tov.

Her treatment and her response provide important examples for our time and place.  When she was denied admission to the Philadelphia Academy, denied the opportunity even to apply, she did not go off to her safe space.  She showed more tenacity in the face of genuine hostility than many of our contemporaries display in the presence of real or imagined micro-aggressions.  She squared her shoulders, developed her talent, and brought her gifts to appreciative audiences all over the world.

She was magnanimous.  When she finally performed at Constitution Hall in the middle of the Second World War, she took the stage and she sang.  If she felt a desire to lecture the audience in the manner of the script-readers of Hamilton fame, she overcame it.  Her nobility of character and talent contrasted with the base stupidity of those who had denied her a forum.  Her detractors live in footnotes in the story of her life.

She had a successful concert and recording career, first in Europe and eventually in her native country, but her operatic work was limited to the minor role of Ulrica in Verdi’s “Masked Ball”.  Perhaps the lack of an operatic resume is why she sings this song with such intimacy, without projecting drama to the imaginary back row of the theater.  That can’t be the entire explanation; any number of great operatic performers were also superb singers of Lieder.  In this instance, the singer and her accompanists made artistic decisions that fit perfectly with the mood and tone of the song.  It is a measure of the achievement of the composer and the musicians that the full beauty of the song is revealed by a performance that holds so much power in reserve.

[1] I was listening to different performances of this song on YouTube the other day.  I like to read the listener comments.  One person said that he would love to have a particular female singer standing on his washing machine.  I don’t expect to understand every nuance of listener comments, but this one went right by me.  The mystery deepened as other comments talked about washing machines and dryers.  The light dawned when one commenter said that she was “blown away” when she first heard the song.  It’s what her Samsung washer and dryer play at the end of a cycle!

[2] “The Awful German Language”.

[3] Joachim had converted from Judaism as an adult, but even so his family objected to the marriage because the bride wasn’t Jewish!

[4] “Wagner’s music is much better than it sounds.”  Mark Twain

[5] There are a number of unusual arrangements of the song on YouTube.  Some of these substitute a cello for the viola.  I don’t think the cello works here, but this hardly matters because the singers in these versions tend not be up to the song’s demands anyway.  An exception is the German mezzo Angelika Wied, who provides a near-perfect rendition of the song that in my opinion is ruined by the substitution of a cello for viola – it’s the instrument, not the performer.  Other novelties substitute the cello for the voice.  One YouTube commenter: I never liked the lyrics anyway.  Another try is to substitute a string chamber orchestra for the piano.  The most intriguing novelty approach I found was a rewrite that substituted a male baritone for the contralto and a clarinet for the viola.  That version almost worked.  The problem with all of these novelties is their presumption.  Brahms knew what he was doing.  He doesn’t need help.

[6] He was born Joseph Bogash to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents.  A trip to Italy convinced him that he could improve his prospects in the music business by italianizing his name.