Lyric Fest's "Music in the White House'

In August 1914, on the verge of the First World War, Woodrow Wilson asked a noted harpist to play at a White House dinner attended by representatives from one of the European alliances. Afterward, according to the harpist's memoirs, he asked her to join him on the portico, where she played while he thought. Wilson asked her to play Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes and, to her surprise, started singing with her. He sang several songs, she records, in a "clear tenor voice."

That anecdote was one of the many surprises that ran through the narration delivered by WHYY's Tracey Matisak during Lyric Fest's program of "Music in the White House." Many U.S. presidents were more musically sophisticated than their public images indicate. In the section devoted to Lincoln, Matisak referred to Negro spirituals and The Battle Hymn of the Republic, both of which would have seemed natural choices to represent the music played at the Lincoln White House during the Civil War. But it turns out the Great Rail Splitter was an opera lover. So we got to hear a 30-year veteran of the opera circuit, bass Kevin Langan, sing an aria from Gounod's Faust.

The other selection devoted to Lincoln reflected not only his taste but the musical culture of his time. The guest choir, the Chamber Singers of Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges, sang "How lovely are the messengers who bring the gospel of peace," from Mendelssohn's Saint Paul— which was sung by a local choir when Lincoln's body arrived in Springfield.

Coolidge blew his chance

The program included one item that wasn't sung at the White House. Calvin Coolidge wanted to invite Paul Robeson but he was advised it wasn't politically expedient. Coolidge lost his chance to hear a great bass sing Old Man River, but Lyric Fest included it on the program anyway, with another rendition by Langan.

The germ of the program was a book: Music at the White House, by Elise Kirk, a scholar who spent more than ten years piecing together the history of music played at White House social events and ceremonial occasions. The result was a variety show that spanned two centuries of musical history, featured 34 numbers by 25 composers, and reflected the tastes of men as varied as Thomas Jefferson and Ronald Reagan.

Soprano Randi Marrazzo sounded especially good singing Handel's Angels Ever Bright and Fair and pieces by Grieg and Debussy. Mezzo Emily Bullock got things off to a good start with two songs from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and kept up the pace with selections that included works by Mendelssohn and Gilbert and Sullivan. Soprano Takesha Meshe Kizart delivered a passionate, lyrical performance of the Verdi aria sung by the first African-American to sing at the White House.

Regimental hangings and raunchy frontier ballads

Soprano Sally Wolfe ranged over a repertoire that included an aria by Bellini and the female half of the You Is My woman Now duet from Porgy and Bess. Mezzo Suzanne DuPlantis did a moving Take Care of This House from Bernstein's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and baritone John Packard turned Danny Deever into a high intensity first act finish.

Danny Deever was a Teddy Roosevelt selection. I'm not surprised that our most militaristic president liked songs based on Kipling poems, but I find it odd that he requested a stark depiction of a regimental hanging.

Andrew Jackson's selection, on the other hand, looks, at first glance, like the kind of raunchy frontier ballad a rough frontier president could be expected to favor. But Man is for the woman made, as the scabbard for the blade is, in fact, a song by Henry Purcell.

The finale was a moving America the Beautiful, sung by the entire cast and chorus, that brought the afternoon to a symbolically fitting conclusion. The presidency plays an important role in our national mythology, but a democracy can't be a solo performance. The United States is a chorus in which everyone has a voice, and its significance, like the words of Catherine Lee Bates's poem, extends far beyond the political realm.

America the cosmopolitan

The narration noted that White House events featured more American music, particularly jazz and spirituals, as the nation developed. But it seems to me the program reflected another important aspect of American culture: our inherent cosmopolitanism.

Isaac Asimov once argued that English has the largest vocabulary of any language because it includes all the words in other languages. When we encounter a useful word like élan or gung-ho, we grab it and turn into an English word.

You can say the same thing about the U.S. We're a country created by men and women from every corner of the Earth. We can claim, by inheritance, any aspect of any culture that strikes our fancy. Brahms and Gounod are just as American as Duke Ellington and John Philip Sousa, in the same way pizza and bagels are just as American as fried chicken and corn bread. It's all ours, and all Americans get to develop personal menus that are just as quirky and eclectic as the tastes of the Americans who've temporarily occupied our most famous residential address.