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A Eulogy for Thomas Burton Dunn (1925-2008)
Church of the Redeemer
Baltimore, MD
15 November 2008
Good morning. My name is Tom Hall. I am a musician who lives here in Baltimore. The reason I am a musician is because I had the great good fortune, at the age of 20, to meet Tom Dunn. That was 33 years ago. Tom was as old then, as I am now.
For me, and for many people here and around the world, knowing Tom Dunn was a life changing experience. I am one of perhaps thousands of musicians whose approach to music, whose understanding of how music works, whose notion of what music can be, has been shaped indelibly by Tom. It is an honor to call him my teacher. It is a blessing to call him my friend.
Tom was a musician’s musician. This is perhaps the highest tribute any of us in our profession can pay to a colleague and a mentor. Anyone who rehearsed and performed with Tom came away from that experience enriched in more ways than can be counted. His talent wasn’t merely prodigious, although it was certainly that. It was also ineluctably aligned with a vast understanding of history, an eager appreciation for the nuances and subtleties of human expression, and an insatiable inquisitiveness about the world around him. So, to say that he was a great conductor almost misses the point, because it simply doesn’t encompass all of the insight, the imagination, the original thinking that permeated his performances. He was, of course, a tremendously gifted conductor. But his performances were never about him. They were always about the music. They were about, as he used to say, leaving the music better loved, and better understood.
He has left so much music for so many of us, better loved and better understood, that his imprint on our profession will be felt for generations. As a keyboard virtuoso who delighted and inspired congregations and audiences in the smallest of churches and the grandest of cathedrals. As an editor who coaxed and cajoled and scolded and celebrated some of the finest composers of our time. As a performing writer and scholar whose groundbreaking discoveries and precedent-setting work help set the stage for a wholesale re-thinking of how to discern a composer’s intent. As a teacher, who understood so magnificently, the frangible dynamic between an experienced, worldly artist and a bright-eyed wanna be. We all wanted to hear what he heard. To see what he saw when he gazed at a score. To know what he knew. To be able to do what he did. None of us, of course, are able to do what he did with the authority and grace with which he did it, but those of us lucky enough to have studied and worked with Tom had the invaluable opportunity to observe a truly great and selfless artist. This is a gift we will all cherish for the rest of our lives.
As self deprecating as Tom was, he would probably blanche at being described in such glowing terms.
He was the worst driver I have ever known. How it came to be that he was granted a driver’s license in the state of Massachusetts will remain one of the great unsolved mysteries of our time, and the story of his taking his driver’s test, with Dan Pinkham in the back seat, will remain one of the great stories of all time, which only he could tell. The only thing more harrowing than Tom behind the wheel was Tom in front of the stove, attempting to cook something. It didn’t happen often, but when it did, it wasn’t pretty.
His puns were occasionally so painful, that people had to seek medical attention. But who else do we know, who could, in the course of one evening, hold forth on performance practice in the music of Bach, the shortcomings of the American highway system, the jussive subjunctive in Latin, and a particularly wacky guest on the Jerry Springer Show. The range and scope of his mind were staggering. But it’s not just his mental or musical virtuosity we’ll remember. We’ll remember the warmth of the welcome we received from him and David in Boston, and Palo Alto, and Baltimore, and Bloomington. The tenderness of his heart. The willingness to help.
As much as he knew about and appreciated history, Tom was always an engaged and enthusiastic futurist. And he has prepared us for our future by showing us what it means to be a generous person and a gifted artist, a caring friend, and a brilliant intellect, a mentor and a mensch.
Christopher Smart in Jubilate Agno, Rejoice in The Lamb, wrote,
For the trumpet of God is a blessed intelligence
And so are all the instruments in Heav'n.
For God the Father Almighty plays upon the harp
Of stupendous magnitude and melody.
For at that time malignity ceases
And the devils themselves are at peace.
For this time is perceptible to man
By a remarkable stillness and serenity of soul.
The malignity of Tom’s heart and Parkinson’s disease has ceased. And we are left to rejoice in his blessed intelligence, the stupendous magnitude of his artistic gift, and the indispensable dimension that he has brought to all of our lives, and the lives of thousands and thousands of people who have delighted in and admired his work. As Christopher Smart says,
…from the hand of the artist inimitable,
And from the echo of the heavenly harp
In sweetness magnifical and mighty.
Ruht wohl, Herr Professor Dr. Dunn. Ruht wohl. Rest well.
Tom Hall is the Music Director of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society.