Obituaries
Obituaries
C. Michael Ehrhardt Remembering a Musical Legend orrest H. Cook, a faculty member at Thacher from 1912 to 1946, wrote the famous Thacher Litany of good things: listing the 10 best smells, the nine finest sights, the eight best sounds, etc. Among the best sounds were listed pleasant, familiar things like singing orioles, rain on the roof, a running brook, a nickering horse…but it included something inegmatically named “Walker.” I would propose a change, since “Walker” doesn’t mean anything to me nor suggest any sound at all. I would substitute “the sound of a symphony orchestra tuning up; before a concert.”
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David Marsten, CdeP ’62, speaks about C. Michael Ehrhardt opening the world of classical music to Thacher students
This sound was new to me when I was a Smut at Thacher in 1958; but by my senior year, it was already a treasured moment of recognition, offering the excitement and promise of a new performance. Even after 40 years, this sound does not fail to elicit a thrill, even when a most familiar program is scheduled. And it was C. Michael Ehrhardt who introduced me to the world of classical music. “Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of Heaven we have below” (Joseph Addison’s “Song for St. Cecilia’s Day”). I must be honest…it was not always the excitement and majesty of classical music that was my primary interest. We students would tolerate the music with sufficient politeness. The real inducement was: (first) that we would escape the School and go all the way into Santa Barbara to hear a concert; and (second) the possibility that Mr. Lamb and Mr. Ehrhardt (the drivers of the two carry-alls) might stop after the concert at Denny’s where we could get a milkshake and a cheeseburger. Add to this, one exciting evening one of them got a speeding ticket—the whole outing offered exquisite promise. I did not know it at the time, but the symphonic music I heard at these concerts was capturing my soul while I was merely thinking about my stomach.
by David Marsten, CdeP ’62
week we got into Johann Sebastian Bach, listening to piano fugues and glorious choral episodes. By the third week we were into the life and the music of Ludwig van Beethoven…and we would remain there the rest of the year it seemed. This was Mr. Ehrhardt’s moral and spiritual center. To him all music built up to Beethoven…and subsided thereafterwards, (but, of course, he was open to the newer sonic worlds of Schoenberg or Stravinsky). In fact, in the early 1950s, Mr. Ehrhardt coached and presented at Thacher Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols—one of the first schools in California to perform it. (It has become an acknowledged Christmas classic along with Handel’s Messiah. Michael wrote to Britten regarding some liberties that he had taken and begged his indulgence; and Britten responded that he was always glad to have his works performed…and hoped to visit Thacher someday, maybe during his next trip to conduct in Los Angeles. Britten actually came one Thanksgiving (when everyone was gone) and said he was disappointed that he couldn’t meet Michael and hear his chorus…but he also revealed that he was much happier riding a horse than attending a cocktail party.
Choral singing programs depended upon the strength of the student forces for that year. Some years there only seemed to be a few voices other than droning basses, while other years produced a finely balanced glee club that could tackle serious masterworks. There was also a select group of the finest four singers within the various voice ranges—the best of the best—who formed a quartet called “The Honeytones” (during my tenure this might not have been a tonally accurate description). We had great fun singing barbershop quartets and rather silly stuff. (I did not realize at the time but this would be my apprenticeship to singing motets of Heinrich Schütz and Tomas Luis Victoria with the Harvard Freshman Glee Club!) Music was not merely Beethoven but came in I knew nothing of classical music before at- many forms and styles. Nothing excluded, all tending Thacher: singing hymns at chapel, the was to be enjoyed. ballads in the Yale songbook on Tuesday evening singing, and even the class songs (with C. Michael Ehrhardt sometimes could also be the Upper School purloining the “Anvil Cho- mischievous: one work he wrote was called rus” from Verdi’s Il Trovatore)…all of this was “Prayer”—a musical setting for words by one of the graduating seniors. Apparently one of new to me, as well. the faculty members did not approve of Beginning with a tabula rasa in our freshman “Amen” being sung at the end of a hymn…so year, C. Michael Ehrhardt led our class through C. Michael couldn’t resist but write a sevena course described as Music Appreciation. The fold “Amen.” “Wasn’t that naughty of me?” first class dealt with Gregorian Chant and work he confided…yet he added, “it sounded good of minnesingers and troubadours. The next and the boys loved it.” page 74
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