In his semiautobiographical novel Theophilus North, published two years before his death, Thornton Wilder’s alter ego Theophilus North may have provided the best explanation of the significance Wilder believed music had. As an important part of cultivating the human spirit and mind, music is not “what we call music” but “the whole vast realm that’s represented by the Muses.” They are a “school of the sympathies, of the emotions and passions, and of self-knowledge” (Eighth Day 594). Starting in early childhood, Wilder played violin and piano, studied voice, and sang in a choir; and at Oberlin College he learned to play the organ. All of his biographers have noted his passion for music, but it has received relatively little attention in Wilder scholarship. We hope to change that with this special issue on “Wilder and Music,” intended to inspire further scholarly investigation.We invite you to start with “A Musical Memoir,” reprinted from the May 1964 Ratcliffe Quarterly, in which a distinguished American conductor and educator, Mabel Daniels, the only recognized female American composer in the early twentieth century, offers a rare and intimate glimpse into Wilder as “a lover of music.” She recollects her musical adventures with Wilder during their “golden years” (1926–36) at the MacDowell Colony and their ongoing correspondence into the early 1960s. As she marvels at Wilder’s “profound knowledge of music,” she notes the musicality of his writing style in his novels, pointing to his use of music as topic and theme, shaping his language and imagination—all awaiting more scholarly analysis.We also reprint a brief article (with a new Afterword) on “The Long Christmas Dinner: From Page to Stage,” which Wilder’s nephew Tappan Wilder wrote for the program of The Long Christmas Dinner opera and play at Lincoln Center in December 2014. In it he illuminates the significance of this one-act play in Wilder’s oeuvre. The 2014 performance marked the resurgence of interest in Wilder as a librettist and recognition of his contributions to the history of American opera. Wilder collaborated with Paul Hindemith on The Long Christmas Dinner opera and with Louise Talma on The Alcestiad opera. In 2006, J. D. McClatchy wrote the libretto and Ned Rorem composed the music for the opera adaptation of Wilder’s Our Town.The next six articles trace the history of The Long Christmas Dinner as it was transformed into a successful opera. We start with the libretto Wilder wrote for Paul Hindemith’s musical composition, followed by Janie Caves McCauley’s discussion of “The Great Mill-Wheel of Time: Thornton Wilder and Paul Hindemith’s Collaboration on The Long Christmas Dinner as Opera.” Owen Brown, the founder and artistic director of Bread & Wine Theatre Company in St. Louis, Missouri, offers an initial scholarly assessment of “A Comparative Analysis of the Opera Libretto of The Long Christmas Dinner and the Play.” He explores the themes of time, death and memory along with the questions of dramatic structure and theatrical conventions in the playscript versus Wilder’s opera libretto, further revealing Wilder’s mastery of form.In “Making Time Musically,” Joel Haney, professor of music at California State University, Bakersfield, discusses Hindemith’s use of formal and rhythmic innovations to emphasize Wilder’s themes of intergenerational continuities and duality of perspective.The intricacies of the creative process and collaboration are revealed in “Forging an Opera: The Wilder/Hindemith Correspondence.” This selection of twelve letters (all but one previously unpublished) shows how Wilder’s expertise in music and opera complemented Hindemith’s composition process, as well as demonstrating the significant role Gertrude Hindemith played in facilitating communication between the two artists.To indicate the international interest in The Long Christmas Dinner opera, we include two reviews by Janie McCauley of a 2009 production in Paris, France, and a 2014 production in Estonia. Both previously appeared in The Thornton Wilder Society Newsletter, which is no longer in circulation, and few have access to copies. The reviews are of particular interest for their details about how the opera was staged. McCauley’s third review considers the Bridge Records CD of the 2014 American Symphony Orchestra performance of the opera at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall.That Wilder’s polymath genius continues to inspire other artists becomes clear in Lincoln Konkle’s analysis of “Our Town Reincarnated: From Play to Opera—and an Interview with Librettist J. D. McClatchy.” Konkle compares Wilder’s original script with McClatchy’s libretto to demonstrate the literary value of changes and transformations in the process of adaptation. In the 2008 interview with McClatchy, we get a glimpse into a creative process that transformed Wilder’s classic play into an opera.The three Performance Reviews in this issue remind us of the ongoing relevance of Wilder’s plays in our current sociopolitical and cultural moment. In her review of the outdoor production of The Matchmaker at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, New York, Mary C. English situates the directorial choices made by Davis McCallum in the context of the play’s long history and discusses how the director and actors used the farce and slapstick humor in this comedy to explore “important philosophical questions about money and security, love and happiness, and the fragility and temporality of life itself,” leading the reviewer to make new connections to Our Town.Robert C. Ketterer reviews the recent concert reading of act 3 of The Alcestiad as part of the IN Series in Washington, DC. After a thorough introduction to the themes and history of the play, he deems Wilder’s libretto and Talma’s music in act 3 a powerful example of an “ambitious and all-but-forgotten collaboration from two important artists of the twentieth century.”Jeffrey Ullom reviews the recent production of Our Town at the Cleveland Play House, the longest-operating regional theater in America. He praises the stage design and special effects and thoughtfully considers Mary Zimmerman’s direction of the actors as it works or clashes with Wilder’s characters in this classic play.We will continue our exploration of Wilder and Music in our next issue by publishing Wilder’s libretto for The Alcestiad opera and Mary C. English’s analysis of the original playscript in comparison to his libretto. We will also be pleased in our next issue to welcome Stephen J. Rojcewicz Jr., a longtime contributor to the Thornton Wilder Journal, as an editor. Steve brings a wealth of knowledge about all things Wilder.Finally, we hope the articles in this special issue on “Wilder and Music” will prompt more scholarly work and new submissions we can include in coming issues. Exploring Wilder’s writing continues to reveal new insights if we approach reading it through new lenses such as music. After all, as Wilder had Simon Stimson instruct his choir singers in act 1 of Our Town, “Now look here, everybody. Music come into the world to give pleasure.—Softer! Softer! Get it out of your heads that music’s only good when it’s loud” (Collected Plays 166).
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