Daniel Rieppel & Bill Holm Documentary

(upbeat curious music begins) - [Narrator] On this episode of "Postcards."

- My meeting with Bill Holm is one of these pivotal moments of my life.

I met Bill Holm when I was 17.

Yeah, I walked into Bill's house and it was just teetering, literally teetering with books.

In fact, Bill used to say, "The books are the only thing that're keeping the walls up."

And it smelled of cigarettes and last night's whiskey.

And I thought, "Man, is this my joint.

This is how I want to lead my life."

Bill and I, I mean, I bet we spent at least 300 or 400 hours playing four hands together.

(bright music continues) - [Narrator] "Postcards" is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms, a retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Wyndham, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar, showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music, plus your favorite hits, 96.7 Kram, online at 967kram.com.

- But let's have something else.

Let's do this wonderful thing for each other.

Let's prove that we can have civilization even here.

(emotional operatic vocalizations) (radio static) (scanning radio channels) - [News Presenter] Hollywood essayist Bill Holm died Wednesday at the age of 65.

He was a teacher, a translator, and a world traveler.

But no matter how far he ventured, Bill Holm always ended up back where he started from, the town of Minneota in the southwest part of the state.

- Bill Holm was the most famous Icelandic American poet.

"Boxelder Bug Variations" and particularly this poem, "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death," is, I think, among his greatest contributions.

He was a great teacher at Southwest Minnesota State University.

And he made thousands and thousands of friends, because people instantly were gravitated towards him.

- I was a student at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, doing music education.

And so much of what singing is, is you're singing poetry.

So to have a resident poet among the faculty, Bill Holm this legendary figure, with the big, bellowing voice who walked the halls.

- You could tell that I was not likely to be a success as a farmer.

- He was kind of like the mythic creatures of Iceland.

He was like a giant, or a giant elf.

- [Dr. Rieppel] Bill Holm was a complete giant out here in the prairie.

Born in yellow medicine township, he called Minneota his home.

And summed up so much of what prairie life was, and what it meant.

- Bill, I greatly admire Bill for, you know, he was a local boy, who made good and went out and did things.

And it really inspired me.

I thought, do you know, if he's from here and if he can go out and make a career in the arts, I can too.

And I just admired Bill and I went to all his readings and I audited his class sometimes.

But in 2009, Bill passed away.

And ever since then, Dan and I have been throwing around the idea of setting some of Bill's poems to music, as a musical tribute.

So finally, it only took a global pandemic for us to find the time in our busy schedules to really get it together.

So Dan found this incredible composer.

- He invited me to his house for brunch.

He said, I'd like to commission you to write a song cycle for this epic poem, of Bill Holm's.

- Bill's greatest poem cycle, "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death" - "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death."

- "Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death," arguably his masterpiece.

- [Dr. Rieppel] It deals with all the subjects that Bill loves most.

- [Ryan Ross] All his philosophy on music- - And the themes of life and death, and how we spend our time here on this planet.

- Here we are now in Iceland, in October 2022, giving the Icelandic premiere in Bill's ancestral homeland.

So, you know, we're very excited, to be here and to do this piece.

(birds chirping) (waves rippling) - SMSU is the youngest university of the state system, and the smallest.

We've always been know as one of the most avant-garde universities.

And, I'm very proud to be part of that faculty.

My meeting with Bill Holm is one of the pivotal moments of my life.

I met Bill Holm when I was 17.

Yeah, I walked into Bill's house and it was just teetering, literally teetering with books.

In fact, Bill used to say, the books are the only thing that're keeping the walls up.

And it smelled of cigarettes and last night's whiskey.

And I thought, man, is this my joint.

This is how I want to lead my life.

- And of course, Rieppel has been a great gift.

He's full of beans, full of ambition, full of enthusiasm.

And aside from his powers as a pianist he's an awfully good conductor.

(piano music starting) - Bill and I, I mean, I bet we spent at least 300 or 400 hours playing four hands together.

He was such a devotee of this art form.

And it's an art form that is vanishing quickly, because I don't know why.

Because it's a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

It's just the most fun in the world.

And our team was called Big Guys with Grand Pianos.

(audience laughing) And part of the draw, if you will, was to see if we both could fit on the same piano bench.

(piano music starting) - I think one of the reasons they picked me is because all four of us have a Southwest Minnesota connection.

I grew up in Laverne, Minnesota.

And so I think they thought I might have a good sense of things that Bill might have appreciated.

I grew up on a big cattle farm.

My dad was a farmer and a commodities broker.

And my mother was a very fine pianist.

She was very sophisticated, she had a great sense of style.

That's my mom when she was young.

This is her piano.

So it's a- - Beautiful.

- Prized possession.

But they, from a young age, always nurtured music in my life.

Sometimes when I'm playing, I'll put her picture up there.

I write what's called art songs.

Very simply, it's just the marriage of poetry and music.

It's a collaboration of a singer and a pianist.

Both parts are equally as important.

- I love Martha's writing.

And she taught voice for many years, and she knows the nuance of the voice.

But it has been challenging, because when Bill wrote he didn't have the thought of setting it to music.

So it can be challenging to find where the poetry will fit in the voice.

And also, there's a lot of quotations in this piece.

- So Bill himself used a lot of composer names in the in this poem.

(film reel engaging) Bill mentions some specific Haydn pieces and then he mentions Bach and Beethoven and Schoenberg and Brahms, and Shostakovich.

No, not Shostakovich.

Rachmaninoff.

And, so I did use quotes from all of those.

This is one that I used an existing piece, that's very profound as well.

(slow somber music) (moving piano line) And then the voice comes in and the pit, so it's almost verbatim the piano part is Haydn.

- It's been a real challenge to get them all to gel together.

But Martha's done a stunning job.

- I just mess around, you know?

'Till I find what I want.

So, you know, if I'm writing about water, I might have... (bright lilting tune) I might have a lilting six-eight.

(bright music continues) And then I always write down the right hand first.

And leave my left hand there.

Otherwise I'll forget, as soon as I lift my hands up.

- [Interviewer] Can you help me define what is classical music?

- Oh my gosh, I have to think for a minute.

(classical music playing) That is such a big question.

Let's find some Bach.

(scrolling through options) The Goldbergs.

Well classical music is like an umbrella term, for many different time periods in history.

Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic.

It's classical because it's not rock, and it's not jazz, and it's not...

Classical music is timeless.

I mean, think about it.

We're still listening to music from 400 years ago, with the greatest of love and affection.

That's pretty amazing.

(PA bell ringing) - The semester started a few weeks ago here at SMSU.

That's always kind of an explosion of activity.

I have been practicing the song cycle again, getting it ready, polishing it.

Martha Helen Schmidt and I have sat down and gone through some things, revised some things that we thought maybe could work better.

It's always a challenge to try to be a performing musician while you're a full professor.

But, Ryan and I are very excited to perform in Reykjavik.

- Yes, I love Iceland.

(Martha laughing) (waves crashing) (broad ethereal music begins) - [Dr. Rieppel] Well there have been many emails going back and forth, and phone conversations as well about how to prepare for this concert.

It was difficult to find a venue at first but we are going to be performing in the Free Church in Reykjavik.

Beautiful little sanctuary, used often for these kind of events, chamber music, and what would be called leider abhind, evenings devoted to art song.

So it'll be a perfect venue for that.

(piano music resumes) Don't look at me when that happens!

- I won't, I promise.

- I wouldn't mind trying the 15.

- You wanna do that?

The Wagner (indistinct)?

(flipping pages) You mean the- - The Rachmaninoff, the Rachmaninoff.

- Oh yeah, number nine.

- Number nine.

- Number nine, number nine.

- Oh that's not the one, but yeah this number.

(operatic singing) - Sorry I think we're off.

I got off.

- Yeah.

- I waited too long.

- [Dr. Rieppel] Let's just try, can we try from measure four?

- Yeah, yeah that's good.

- We are really anxious for the production to be just as perfect as possible.

- You repeated that verse I think, that's what you did.

- No.

- Yes you did.

- No.

- Yeah.

- I guarantee you I didn't do that.

- Okay.

Well, it's a real mixed bag of emotions, you know?

It's really incredibly exciting to see this project come to fruition and to be in Iceland.

But I think we've all experienced something, a loss of someone.

(piano music resumes) - [Dr. Rieppel] Iceland was Bill Holm's centering point.

Soon after I came on the faculty in 1998, he purchased the house is Hofsos, Iceland.

And his house is named Brimnes.

When he bought Brimnes, and he always referred to it as that, he started spending most of his free time, any free time he had, and certainly all of the summers in Iceland.

Both Ryan and I went to Hofsos, to spend time at the house.

- [Ryan Ross] I never thought quite thought that I would be here in Iceland, giving this premiere of this work, and then getting to go up to take a pilgrimage up to see Bill's house.

- Oh, I know that one.

(piano music resumes) It's quite a special thing.

Well, we hope to be back and do another concert up in Hofsos one of these days, we'll see.

(piano music resolves) Of course he was almost entirely Icelandic, in terms of DNA makeup, and he was very proud of that.

He loved the independence of thought that the Icelanders represented.

- [Martha Schmidt] Icelanders love their books.

They love to read, they love poetry, they love authors.

- [Dr. Rieppel] They have the claim to be the longest surviving democracy in the world, which is true.

And Hofsos is one of the great immigration centers, from which Icelanders then went to either Canada or the United States.

- Icelandic Immigration Center connect or help people who is looking for their background, their roots, whose ancestors left Iceland from 1870 to 1910 or so.

There was a terrible cold time period in Iceland.

So, people left, just to try to find a better life.

People in Iceland were starving.

They're not starving anymore, so.

(sitting down at desk) Here I can show you here how it works.

Here's a list of people who left, and there's the name of the farm they left, and the year when the left, and the name and dates and the place they left from.

And the name of the ship.

And where they end up.

So, some pretty good information.

- My own Icelandic ancestors, who had been living, I suppose on salt cod, and hard tack, living on farms so poor that they could hardly grow enough hay to feed a few sheep or one cow, came to the new world, a vast, alien territory awaited the new settlers to North America's Midwest.

- [Ryan Ross] Well, immigration was central to Bill's output as a writer.

- [Martha Schmidt] He comes from Icelandic immigrants and a lot of them moved to Minneota, Minnesota.

- [Dr. Rieppel] That part of the state could not be more different from Iceland itself.

There are no volcanoes in Minnesota.

There weren't medieval sagas being written around the corner.

There are no grand vistas, except for the horizontal grandeur that Bill Holm often talked about in his writing.

But Minnesota was its own thing for a long time, much like Iceland is its own thing.

- [Ryan Ross] Iceland's connection with Minnesota is very prominent, and it was so important to Bill's life as well.

I mean, he could trace his roots right back to Hofsos.

- Here's a little history of of Hofsos.

This is 1989, and this was a situation when I start to rebuild a little town.

And even you see the house of Bill Holm here.

My feeling for one of the houses here was this would be a really good house for someone who was sitting and writing poetries and whatever.

So I sold Bill this house.

And almost every day we'd sit and meet here, just two really good friends.

When he woke up very early in the morning, he'd walk over the bridge here, to show me or read for me what he was writing.

So I was used to be the first one who heard what he was doing.

I am really proud of this.

- And, I think for Bill, he himself, in a sense reimmigrated to Iceland.

For him to come here was a consummation of something that he grew up with, this idea that you could go to a different place.

And that's why it's so important, I think, that we're here.

(bustling city noises) (piano playing) (operatic vocalizations) (operatic scales continue) - [Martha Schmidt] The performance in Iceland was so special, and you could see the Northern lights that night, so that was magical to begin with.

(indistinct overlapping chatter) There were friends of Bill's who were also friends of Dan's, and there was a woman named Wincie, who set the whole thing up.

Before the concert even started, a choir came processing in from the back.

(choir begins singing) Singing to her.

They kind of surrounded her a little bit and sang a bunch of songs, including Happy Birthday in Icelandic.

(audience applauding) (Happy Birthday playing) (singing in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) The first half the program, they read some of his poetry.

Marcie Brekken, his widow, read some that was very moving.

- This is the kind of thing that Bill loved.

(audience laughing) The fish is half her size.

Soon, she will eat part of it, in order to grow old and wrinkled.

And with luck, half remember the pleasure of catching something wet and slick and still alive, surrounded by those who adore you, just for being alive yourself.

(bright upbeat music playing) (indistinct singing) (singing in foreign language) - Bill was a lover of people.

All kinds of people, young and old as we have learned.

And, not much of a fan of politics.

And in September of 2001, he wrote this poem.

It's called "An Early Morning Cafe."

107 stories into the air, the windows on the World Cafe served pate and poached salmon.

To diners, staring over Manhattan.

But early this September morning, the sommelier and maitre d' were still asleep in their far away flats.

Only the sous chef and banquet staff had arrived, to peel the shrimp, trim the artichokes, and wash the leaves of the escarole.

Simple work with your mates in a quiet, early morning cafe is a pleasure.

Jokes, mild complaining, a hummed tune or two.

When suddenly a berserk machine decides to murder a building with fire.

Like a badly shot elephant, the 106 stories holding up your peeling knife and lettuce dryer wobbled and shook a little while.

But when flames melted the bones, it all tumbled down on top of itself in a gray heap.

Shrimp, artichokes, escarole, 50,000 bottles of elegant wine.

And you yourself.

Unless you lept out one of the windows of the world to finish with imaginary wings the flight to the city of angels.

Humans so riddled with hate, they turned from men to bombs.

Smashed the girders under your cafe, though they'd never met you.

To murder you for the glory of God, with your apron still smeared with shrimp guts.

It was always thus.

Tried to kill an abstraction, by murdering a building from the air.

But all you kill is Bob and Edna and Sully and Rodrigo and Meme.

A building is only a set of artificial legs, to hold up human beings in the air.

And an airplane, only a sheet of folded paper.

But 50,000 bottles of good wine and a hundred pounds of fresh Gulf shrimp and Bob and Edna, and all the rest, that is something real.

If you think you've bagged the one truth, and that truth wants final sacrifice, then you've stepped outside the human race and your plane will not land in heaven, wherever you think it might be.

Heaven is an early morning cafe, wherever you are.

(gentle soothing music begins) (Anna singing operatically) (singing foreign language) (operatic singing and piano continue) (Anna continues singing) (Dr. Rieppel continues playing piano) (emotional operatic singing continues) (piano music slowing and resolving) (audience applauding) (bright curious music playing) - [Narrator] "Postcards" is made possible by The Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Additional support provided by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen, on behalf of Shalom Hill Farms.

A retreat and conference center in a prairie setting near Windom, Minnesota.

On the web at shalomhillfarm.org.

Alexandria, Minnesota, a year-round destination with hundreds of lakes, trails, and attractions for memorable vacations and events.

More information at explorealex.com.

The Lake Region Arts Council's Arts Calendar, an arts and cultural heritage funded digital calendar, showcasing upcoming art events and opportunities for artists in West Central Minnesota.

On the web at lrac4calendar.org.

Playing today's new music plus your favorite hits, 96.7 kram.

Online at 967kram.com.

(bright music resumes) (bright music fades out)