I’ve been thinking a lot about life and mortality of late. If you read Colin’s tribute post you will know that our mother passed away at the beginning of the month.

In the latter years of her life, she began to struggle with immobility and problems with her legs that left her walking with a walker, and then later essentially confined to a wheelchair when she wanted to get around. Even worse, she was diagnosed with dementia, which became so pronounced near the end that she did not know any of us. She was always happy to see us and could recognize our names when told, but she always forgot them immediately. I was never quite certain she made the connection between the names she knew, the people before her, and those she had raised to adulthood.

The one thing that defined my mother other than family was music. Mother was an excellent pianist, playing for various choirs and church congregations for many decades. Though I know it undoubtedly happened at some time or another, I do not recall attending a single church service when she did not play the organ. It was an intrinsic part of her life.

One of the last times I ever saw my mother, I heard her before I saw her. My brother and I had gone to the care home where she was staying, and as we were walking down the hall, we heard her playing the piano. Mom was hard of hearing, blind in one eye and not seeing well in the other, and her fingers cramped easily, but she sure knew the hymns and could play them from memory. The fact that it was August and she was playing Christmas hymns amused us, but we both recognized her playing and could have done the same under any circumstances. Then, when we left her that day, we returned her to the piano, and by the time we exited the building, it was filled with the wonderful sounds of Joy to the World yet again. It is a memory I will treasure always.

Due to scheduling conflicts and the wide dispersal of our family, we’re not holding a memorial until the 21st of October. As part of that memorial service, I will be singing Going Home with the members of my quartet. That is the subject of my post today.

For those of you familiar at all with classical music, you will know that Going Home was taken from the largo of Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, or the New World Symphony. It was composed in 1893 when Dvořák was living in New York City serving as the director of the National Conservatory of Music of America. It is beyond dispute his most famous composition.

The song Going Home was adapted from the largo by Dvořák’s pupil, William Arms Fisher. He took the melody and added lyrics in 1922, publishing it soon thereafter. The song then became popular in the 1970s, and is often used at funerals and the like.

I have two versions here for you. The first is a lovely a cappella men’s chorus, where the harmony sometimes branches off into seven parts. The second is by Norwegian Soprano Sissel Kyrkjebø, more often known simply by her first name. Both are beautiful.