Basile, a cantor and historian at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, talks about his book, as well as, the Pontiff’s visit to St. Patrick’s in 2008 and Cathedral life in the days immediately after 9/11.

Here is the podcast.

Even though I’d been to the Botanical Gardens dozens of times, I did not know anything about Enid A. Haupt. While I was waiting on line across from a carefully constructed model of the Statue of Liberty, I read that she was an avid horticulturalist and through her philanthropy she saved the Botanical Gardens from being demolished. However, she was also editor and chief of Seventeen Magazine. Publishing is everywhere!

Soon the lines dissipated inside the heart of the conservatory and we were free to mill about looking at the amazing creations out of twigs and bark that make up New York City landmarks.

One of my favorites is the Edgar Allen Poe house, which I remember seeing as a little girl when the exhibit was outside. I love the way the gnarled porch wound around the house and small berries framed the windows. I’ve never been to the actual house, which is located on the Grand Concourse and East Kingsbridge Road.

This year, my friend’s daughter saw the train show for the first time. It’s always great to see how children react. Life is still magical for them and she loved watching the trains weave around Yankee Stadium, the New York Public Library, and of course, St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

I myself am always amazed at the bridges that are so carefully constructed. The Brooklyn Bridge is as stunning as a well-crafted miniature as it is in life-size stone.

If you are interested in reading more about the landmarks of NYC that are brought to life at the Botanical Gardens, I would suggest All Around the Town: Amazing Manhattan Facts and Curiosities, Second Edition by Patrick Bunyan for great snapshots of information.

However, if you’re the focused reader, looking for a lot of detail on individual landmarks, I would suggest picking up Intersections: The Grand Concourse at 100 for a look into the area the houses one of our greatest American Gothic writers or Brooklyn Is—Southeast of the Island for the restless prose of James Agee that captures the spirit of the borough.

For our digital reader, I’d suggest Fifth Avenue Famous: The Extraordinary Story of Music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Salvatore Basile. Just out on the Kindle, as well as the Nook and Sony Reader, Sal Basile explores the colorful history of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Merry Christmas!
Katie Sweeney

In Hits: Philosophy of the Juke Box, author Peter Szendy analyzes “Imagine” and other popular songs. He probes the ever-growing and ever more global phenomenon of the hit song. The hit song, Szendy concludes functions like a myth, a force of repetition that grows by force of repetition. After reading this book, one can no longer avoid realizing that music is more than a soundtrack: It is the condition of our Lives.

Hits: Philosophy of the Juke Box will publish in July 2011.

Monday, November 29, 6:30 p.m.
New York Public Library
Mid-Manhattan Branch
455 Fifth Avenue (at 40th Street)
Talk and book signing
(as part of the exhibition Three Faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam)

Monday, December 6, 6:00 p.m.
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
40 Lincoln Center Plaza
Talk and book signing
FORGOTTEN SHOWBIZ: New York’s Extravagant Sacred Music Scene in the Gilded Age—
And How Tossing Out the Ladies Ended it All (as part of the exhibition Life Upon the Wicked Stage)

For more information on Salvatore Basile and his book, visit his blog . The blog contains ruminations on everything from cookbooks to the publishing process of Fifth Avenue Famous.

The site also includes a blog , updated frequently by the author himself. The blog contains ruminations on everything from cookbooks to the publishing process of Fifth Avenue Famous.

Check the site for updates and information!

And it’s true–Basile’s book chronicles feuds between music directors and Cardinals, post-Vatican II changes to liturgical music programs, and vast shifts in music style. The stories behind the music are just as dramatic as the famous organ housed inside the cathedral.

Says Maureen McKew in her review, “Whether your interest is music, New York history or you simply love an inside story, you will really enjoy this book…I enjoyed [it] so much that I read it from cover to cover in one night.”

Not quite.

Easter crowds on Fifth Avenue outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City, 1904. (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

I tried an experiment, asking a number of people to complete the phrase, “Easter _____.”  The two most frequent responses were “eggs” and “parade.”  Those answers make sense: Zoroastrians were painting eggs for their springtime “new year” celebrations some 2,500 years ago, chocolate eggs have been around for more than 150 years, and those dissolve-the tablet-in-hot-water egg decorating kits have been staining kitchen tabletops since 1893.  As to the parade, New York seems to hold the patent.  Back when the Herald was first jeering at those splendid and absurd customs, New York’s Easter was celebrated in fairly sedate style . . . except that a new outfit was considered indispensable, and many people invariably took a turn after church in order to show off.  By the 1870s, when a number of the city’s wealthiest churches were clustered on a ten-block stretch of Fifth Avenue, the number of fashionable types increased exponentially and the post-church promenade had turned into an eye-popping event.  By the mid-1880s, the New-York Tribune was using the phrase “Easter parade.”  It stuck.

Pussy Willow Easter Bonnet

Then I asked some singers to complete the phrase “Easter _____.”

There wasn’t a response, at least not in words.  Instead, a sticking-out of the tongue enhanced by a faint strangulation noise, rolling of the eyes, groans, a shaking of the head, a sigh.  Singers are thinking of the music, which asks a lot.  Even a century ago, when things were couched in much more genteel terms, Harper’s admired the Holy Week music heard in New York but acknowledged that the city’s organists “should be credited with phenomenal powers of endurance in that they survive the ordeals of the season.”

The situation hasn’t changed with the years.  The run-up to Christmas may demand a lot from a singer, but Easter—more precisely, Holy Week—demands it in more concentrated fashion.  At St. Patrick’s Cathedral, choristers will be asked during that week to participate in as many as nine services and eight rehearsals.  (Some of that singing takes place at the altar, which by Easter Sunday will be surrounded by a sea of lilies.  Guess who’s allergic to lilies.)

But exhaustion and hay fever notwithstanding, it’s worth it. 

The history contained in Fifth Avenue Famous shows that St. Patrick’s musicians have willingly dealt with stress, exhaustion and long hours for over 125 years, in an effort to heighten the experience of Cathedral visitors.  (Then again, one story tells of the 1880s violinist who got up at the end of a pre-Easter rehearsal, smashed his instrument into pieces, tore off his jacket and shoes, and ran out of the Cathedral.  He was ultimately taken to Bellevue.  Maybe not all musicians have dealt with the stress that well.) Written by

Salvatore Basile, author of Fifth Avenue Famous:The Extraordinary Story of Music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

♬♬♬

The obstacles were forgotten as the evening went off with its expected solemnity and musical polish; but in addition, there was the kind of crackling excitement that New York usually experienced at a Broadway opening night. More than an hour before the doors opened, a long line of ticket holders stretched down 50th Street, and Fifth Avenue itself was packed with a mass of people hoping to get in. …An astonishing crowd of 7,000 (reported the Sun) pushed inside to hear the event; another 5,000 people were turned away.

This was an impressive crowd of concert-goers, even by today’s standards. The past 80 years has done nothing to dim the enthusiasm of music lovers; in fact, their zeal has only grown since the early days of radio. This past week the South by Southwest Music Festival took place in Austin, Texas. Now in its 23rd year, the festival has swelled from several hundred registrants to 12,000, with fans descending on the Texas capitol every March to hear thousands of acts spread out over 80 venues over 4 days. Its an epic event, bringing together passionate music lovers, industry professionals, and up and coming musicians from around the world. The result is a pulsing community of innovators, each seeking out the most creative, most groundbreaking, and most energetic music the scene has to offer.

This is the link that bonds the music of St. Patrick’s Cathedral to the secular music of today–the passionate community of those who make music and those who love music, who are always searching for something new and beautiful to inspire them.

 From Salvatore Basile comes Fifth Avenue Famous, the story of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and its music–a stirring monument to one of the most iconic Catholic churches in America. 

 For another look at Catholicism in New York City, check out Catholics in New York: Society, Culture, and Politics 1808-1946 edited by Terry Golway. The book, copublished with the Museum of the City of New York, is a synthesis of rare images and essays that study the growth of the city’s largest Christian denomination. 

Moving back across the pond, we have Ireland’s Art, Ireland’s History.  Síghle Bhreathnach-Lynch, Curator of Irish Art at the National Gallery in Ireland, takes one of the first in-depth looks at how art has shaped the history of Ireland as a nation and a people. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, one of the most revered poets of all-time, spent the last years of his life in Ireland. Hopkins in Ireland illustrates the man’s legacy both through his words and photos taken by the author, Michael Flecky, S.J., showing the places memorialized in his poems, journals, and letters. 

Want more? Here are a few more titles:

The Other Bishop Berkeley: An Exercise in Re-enchantment

Victor Herbert: A Theatrical Life

To Bear Witness: A Journey of Healing and Solidarity

Fordham: A History and Memoir, Revised Edition

But the other part of the celebration centers on St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  From the moment the Cathedral had been built—the first one, far downtown on Mott Street—its commemoration of its patron saint became linked with all of the other ballyhoo.  And when a new St. Patrick’s arose on Fifth Avenue, the parade, and the festivities, followed.  Now, the image of the St. Patrick’s Day parade swirling past St. Patrick’s Cathedral is one of the holiday’s most iconic sights.

There has always been a grand celebratory Mass held at the Cathedral early in the morning on St. Patrick’s Day—a pull-out-the-stops affair with full choir, after which everyone ventures out to watch the parade begin.  Interestingly, though, just about no one gives much thought to the music: ever since the 19^th century, press accounts have run along the vague lines of “the choir sang, accompanied by the swelling tones of the organ.”  Once, in the 1970s, a new Mass setting was crafted for the occasion by a noted composer who had converted to Catholicism.  The single comment came from a bishop who celebrated the Mass: “I don’t think there’ll be any conversions today.  I just hope we don’t lose any.”

So there you have it—after exhaustive research, it turns out that the St. Patrick’s Day Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral is less of a high-powered musical event than Christmas or Easter.  But if it isn’t flashy, it’s appropriate: suitable to the occasion, a prelude to the spirited party waiting right outside its doors and a part of the larger picture of the Cathedral’s music-making that takes in all the events of the year.

The full story of music at St. Patrick’s and its relationship with the city is told in Fifth Avenue Famous, a chronicle which captures the humor, vibrancy, and occasional heartbreak of people who devote themselves to providing the musical score for some of New York’s most important spiritual moments.

Join Fordham Press for the official launch of Fifth Avenue Famous on Thursday, May 13, 2010 from 6 pm to 8 pm in the Lowenstein Building’s 12th Floor lounge!