Rediscovering Sidney Lanier
This post is by Emily Schweich, a sophomore Broadcast Journalism major.
As Gran Wilson jogged through the streets of Baltimore, an unusual statue caught his eye. A man perched on a rock, holding a notebook and pencil. In a relief behind him, the muses of poetry and music walked along the shore as the sun set.
This man immortalized in bronze was flutist and poet Sidney Lanier, a Georgia native who came to call Baltimore his home. Appointed the first flutist of the Peabody Orchestra in 1873, Lanier also lectured at Johns Hopkins University and was known for his poetry depicting the beauty of the south. He battled tuberculosis throughout his life and died at the young age of 39.
Throughout his life, Lanier fought criticism and illness, but he prevailed over pain and continued to write art and poetry. Wilson found Lanier’s strength inspiring.
In a creative presentation at the Gildenhorn Recital Hall on September 26, School of Music associate professor Gran Wilson recounted Lanier’s brief but prolific life. Wilson, a natural storyteller, was accompanied by a chorus of four readers who recited excerpts of Lanier’s poems, letters written to his wife and reviews of his performances.
Paul Heins accompanied Wilson’s narration on the flute and piccolo, playing both Lanier’s own compositions and Civil War-era songs to accent important events in Lanier’s life – such as making his first flute at age seven, playing music in the cupola at Oglethorpe University, enlisting in the Confederate Army, meeting his wife and abandoning his law career to pursue bigger dreams.
Throughout his life, Lanier fought criticism and illness, but he prevailed over pain and continued to write art and poetry. Wilson found Lanier’s strength inspiring.
“I think of Sidney Lanier every day,” Wilson said, jokingly recalling his own first encounter with the artist. An unfortunate high school football game against the Sidney Lanier Poets in Alabama left Wilson with a serious knee injury and crushed his dreams of playing college football. But when Wilson rediscovered Lanier through that statue in the city, he began to know him as more than an imposing football player – as an inspiration.
Drawing parallels between his own life and Lanier’s, Wilson demonstrated how Lanier is and can be a role model for today’s artists. He left the audience with these words that Lanier wrote: “Let my name perish – the poetry is good poetry and the music is good music, and beauty dieth not, and the heart that needs it will find it.”
Wilson will also be presenting a free lecture, Sidney Lanier’s “Science of English Verse,” Thursday, October 3 at 7PM.