I was pleased to read Bret Stephens' recent column in praise of Willa Cather’s masterpiece, “My Ántonia.” Here is the essence of what he had to say:

“My Ántonia” is an education in what it means to be American: to have come from elsewhere, with very little; to be mindful, amid every trapping of prosperity, of how little we once had, and were; to protect and nurture those newly arrived, wherever from, as if they were our own immigrant ancestors — equally scared, equally humble, and equally determined. That’s the “real America.”

That is precisely the story of my mother’s side of my family.

Her grandparents were illegal immigrants and extremely poor when they arrived in the USA. They had fled oppression in the Austro-Hungarian empire, her grandfather a deserter from the imperial army. They disappeared under cover of darkness from the town they had lived all their lives. They boarded ship using assumed names. Terrified because they faced certain execution had they been caught trying to leave, they could not risk carrying any luggage. They sewed what money they had into the linings of their clothes.

By luck or Providence, they were not closely scrutinized at Ellis Island. They made their way to north central Ohio where they lived obscure, upstanding lives. They never learned English. They worked hard, reared a fine, bright and loving son (my grandfather) and ended their days with a small farm of their own.

This epic story lingers still in the memories of millions of contemporary Americans. It is the story at the heart of "My Ántonia,” perhaps the most beautiful of all American novels.

The main character’s story, though woven into the broader story of immigrants making a life in the New World, is itself mundane and could easily have been rendered as a tawdry morality tale. Ántonia is an immigrant girl who, after being seduced, impregnated and betrayed, triumphs wholesomely, humbly yet resoundingly. Here is how Àntonia is depicted near the end of the novel:

"She still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”

Cather achieved what Flaubert had done with "Madame Bovary" and Tolstoy with "Anna Karenina.” Like those two celebrated authors, she deliberately chose a hackneyed, maudlin, potentially salacious story and then blessed it with a depth of insight, a breadth of empathy and a style of writing that is plainly beautiful, never ‘artsy.’ Her prose is ‘plain spoken’ in the best sense. Like a still life by Chardin.

She wrote a half dozen other masterworks: "O Pioneers," "Death Comes for the Archbishop," "The Professor’s House,” “The Song of the Lark,” "Shadows on the Rock,” and "Neighbor Rossicky” (published in a collection of three short novels under the title, “Obscure Destinies”). I’ve read these books, multilple times. I mean to read them again one of these days.

These books were of the greatest importance to me when I was in my twenties and early thirties, endeavoring to construct, note by note, chord by chord, phrase by phrase, my identity as an Ohio composer. In those days my artistic aim was to write a body of music that would be, to my part of north central Ohio, what “My Àntonia” and “O, Pioneers" were to Willa's corner of Nebraska. It was a high-minded aspiration and it served me well. When you’re a young artist and the future seems filled with limitless possibilities, that’s the time to reach for the stars.

Eventually, though, I moved on, as did Cather. "Death Comes for the Archbishop" takes place in New Mexico. “The Song of the Lark" in Colorado. "Shadows on the Rock" in 17th-century Québec City.

Her theme, however, remained the same: people striving to establish a micro-culture for themselves, a little world that is authentically their own, in which they and their loved ones can thrive, and in a setting where there is scarcely any culture at all, no existing cultural foundation nor any traditions in support of such a struggle.

It’s a universal theme for Americans, isn’t it? Aren't we all struggling, even now, to fashion for ourselves and our loved ones an authentic life in which we can thrive?

For 45 years, Jo and I have hung in our kitchen this quotatio, framed and hand-calligraphed:

Good cookery,
a cottage that is a home
not a plaything,
gardens,
repose.
These are first-rate things
and out of this first-rate stuff,
art is made.
—Willa Cather

Those two sentences are a credo. In a few, spare, well-chosen, plain-spoken, homely words — “first-rate stuff!" — Willa evokes a lifestyle, an openness to the inspirations that may arise from things humble and near to hand, and a commitment to the highest artistic standards.

In the Cather creed on our kitchen wall, power-lust, venality, money-grubbing, flamboyance and all other such fevers are nowhere to be found. Good health abounds..

I have tried my best to order my life accordingly. I think I’m living more closely to that ideal now than ever before, here in our “cottage that is a home not a plaything," in a state of repose, with good cookery almost every day. The gardens are nothing much yet. We’ve only been here since January. We are at work on them daily and in time they will flourish. Willa would approve.

I am not alone. My dear friends at Mt. Auburn Presbyterian and at “Leaves of Learning” (the school where I joyfully teach — and gosh, how I miss teaching during the summer break!) and many of you, we all make the same attempt, whether or not we’ve read Willa Cather.

Which brings me to the music I want to share today. It’s my “Homage to Willa Cather (Harvest Hymn & Harvest Dance), played the musicians for whom I wrote the piece and to whom it is dedicated, cellist Terry King and pianist John Jensen. Click on the link above.

To see a PDF of the score, click on the link above.