My Master hath a garden
Full-filled with diverse flowers,
Where thou may'st gather posies gay
All times and hours.
Where nought is heard but paradise
bird,
Harp, dulcimer and lute,
With cymbal and timbrel,
And the gentle sounding flute.
O Jesus, Lord, my heal and weal,
My bliss complete,
Make thou my heart thy garden plot,
True, fair and neat,
That I may hear this music clear,
Harp, dulcimer and lute,
With cymbal and timbrel,
And the
gentle sounding flute.
~
Anonymous
While
I have been trying to process the passing of my friend, Raymond Martinez, the
words of this anonymous Elizabethan poem sang themselves through my head, and
suddenly the enormity this sorrow became clear to me, even dear to me –
But,
of course, I must explain. (You knew that was coming.)
I
don’t quite remember what year it was that I first met Raymond, but it was at a
concert of French Baroque music in West Marin; other singer friends had invited
me to come hear the program. I remember that when Raymond sang his solos, it
was spine-tinglingly beautiful. And the inevitable duet, trio and choruses. I was
introduced to Raymond after the concert, and we chatted for a while and then I
was swept along to the reception. Before long, Raymond said, “You know, you should come sing with us.” And
that was that.
That
was that. For years and years and years, I would show up and it was “Oh,
goodie!! I get to sing with Raymond, again!” And it was always a delightful
time, whether it was sublime or ridiculous. We shared so many musical experiences
that were sublime [Purcell: I was Queen Dido and Raymond was Aeneas, and it was exquisite!] or ridiculous [if you weren't there to see Raymond, dressed in a toga-esque costume with breastplates, head topped with a ten-gallon hat, make his grand entrance for "Oedipus Tex" roaring in on a forklift at Toby's Feed Barn in Point Reyes Station, you missed a singularly triumphant moment of ridiculousness in the annals of chamber opera], or even a somewhat disconcerting mixture of
both, I can’t begin to catalogue them. But Raymond remembered all of them, and
as the catalogue of your history with him expanded through time, so did a small,
highly personal language develop between you and he. Heaven help you if you sat
or stood near him during rehearsals, because he was a merciless sotto voce jester to whatever comedies
evolved in the rehearsal process. He had the most deliciously wicked sense of
humor, and he was always pushing the envelope of what he could successfully pitch
into the room. Many were the times when I could feel my face burning red, as I
struggled to keep myself from exploding with inappropriate laughter. Raymond would
toss a cue word, a code phrase or a little sound from the personal language over
his shoulder toward you; each of these was a golden thread woven, by means of the
shared history, into the ever-unrolling carpet of fun and music.
One
might think, reading this, that Raymond was frivolous, but no. Raymond took
everything seriously, though he might not always be willing for people to see his
serious side. There were glimpses of it, and it was revealed through intimate
conversations.
Seasons
came and went. Flowers of all kinds came in and out of season. But singing was
always in season. We sang church services, memorial services, sunrise services
for Easter, and midnight services at Christmas. Summer festivals; winter
concerts; Sunday afternoon salons; the odd pick-up gig, here and there; and
weddings. Raymond sang at my wedding, along with three other beloved
colleagues. Someone else has written about how welcoming Raymond was to
everyone he made music with in ensembles; music was never about competition,
always about collaboration. Singing and musicking, the moveable musical feast,
always and ever in season. And where there was music, there was Raymond, your colleague,
confidant, collaborator, even co-conspirator in and of beauty—and fun! And when
he wasn’t singing, he was taking in the opera, the symphony, friends giving
recitals or concerts, edifying trips to museums of every kind [one day, as I was heading into the Legion of Honor, I heard my name called—there was Raymond! He'd already seen the exhibit and was waiting for a friend to come meet him for lunch. "Come this way— I know a terrific spot for getting pictures with the bridge in the background" So, I followed him. Indeed, it was a breathtaking spot, and he pulled out a film camera and snapped me with the bridge. Then his friend arrived, and after introductions, they went on their way, and I went on in to see the exhibit].
He
loved nature; hiking; places of both cultivated and uncultivated beauty. God
only knows how many miles he walked during his lifetime. He loved architecture.
Life was all about being immersed in the ever transforming and informing
experience of beauty. The back garden at Crescent Avenue was his hortus conclusus, a personal cloister of
shade and green. He tended that garden, for as long as he was able, like it was a shrine, and shared it with
friends as often as he could. As much as he loved this private sanctuary, he
loved to happen upon beauty everywhere, and I truly mean everywhere.
Raymond
may not have been all that handy with a computer, but his favorite piece of
technology was the digital camera a singer friend gave to him. The right size
to shove in a pocket, he was always prepared to experience and record his random
encounters with beauty. Many of the subjects of the resulting photos were
transformed into his superlative artwork, known to most of us through his
business, Watercolors of the World. The last time I saw him, he told me about the
condition of his health, asked me to pray for him, and then sought to soften
this horrible blow by pulling out his camera and showing me the snap of an unbelievably gorgeous spray
of flowers on a tree and a photograph of his latest painting, a giant succulent
or cactus he saw in Golden Gate Park. “Do you know what species this is?” He
asked me. I didn’t know. He knew far more formal names of plants than I did; he
had to tell me that white flowers I’d photographed were freesias, not crocuses.
But knowing the proper name doesn’t make the aroma of blooms sweet; they manage
that on their own, whether we name them or not.
So,
this brings me back to the Elizabethan poem. Those words were positively singing
themselves through my head this morning, and I realized that Raymond, colleague
and confidant, collaborator and co-conspirator, had also been the master
cultivator, and of a garden much larger than the one at Crescent Avenue.
Raymond spent his life cultivating a very great garden of friends. You and I,
dear friends, each of us is a unique flower in Raymond’s garden; family, singers,
poets and instrumentalists, all of us are in that great garden!
I
think we can honor our friend Raymond’s memory best by being continually in
season, blooming to bursting, and spreading, far and wide, our joyful noise of
sweet and ever sweeter music.
©
2016 by Elisabeth T. Eliassen
