On Finding One’s Mentor Dead

This post was originally dedicated to finding information about my musical mentor, John Von Spreckelsen. What I found was that John died in San Francisco in January, 2008. The old axiom, “be careful what you wish for” certainly held true in this case. That is, I received disturbing details in response to my open appeal for information about John. For the first time in the history of my blog, I was forced to remove a posted comment because of its personal content. I apologize to the poster of that comment, because he/she was also the individual who provided details about John’s death.

As a child, I first met John when he, one Sunday, visited and performed in our church. I believe that John was visiting a church-family, with whom he was friends. John had one of the most beautiful tenor voices I had ever heard. I have distinct memories of John singing “I’ll Tell The World (That I’m A Christian).” However, I’m not sure that memory was from that initial encounter, or a later one.

John was then Minister of Music and organist at an Episcopal church in Selma, I believe. Also, he taught private music students in piano, organ, and voice. To my musical development it was significant that John was a composer and that he was a wonderful improviser. My musical life was changed by observing and hearing him transform hymns and gospel songs into his own musical creations which were things (creations) of beauty. He had at least one published composition, “Little Willie Evergreen.” My family performed (another story) a version of Little Willie Evergreen that my mother arranged for our family ensemble.

My family developed an ongoing friendship and appreciation for this gentle, dear man that continued actively for years. During these years, I traveled to Birmingham (Pinson) several times for lessons from John, during which he assisted me in my quest to learn to improvise. He instructed me that: “When you are improvising—there is no such thing as a mistake…” At the time, I had much trouble understanding the depth of that statement… However, over the years I have been able to understand the permission to explore afforded by embracing that axiom.

Several years after I graduated from Samford University, during the period I remained to Birmingham before returning to Huntsville, I challenged myself to audition as piano soloist in the annual Birmingham Symphony auditions. During that time I took extra lessons from my former piano professor at Samford, Witold Turkiewicz. Shortly before the audition, I went to visit John for an extended weekend, during which he coached me on the pieces I had chosen: Mendelssohn’s “Capriccio Brillante” and Cesar Franck’s “Symphonic Variations.” I spent a great deal of time in preparation, but was not a winner of the Auditions. Nonetheless, I gained a great deal from my study of these two pieces (pictured) that I intend to eventually record as part of my goal to record every significant musical work I’ve ever played.

I lost touch with John completely after he sold most of his Selma home’s contents, including his beautiful Kawai baby-grand, and moved to San Francisco. In the early days of the Internet and America Online, I made a number of phone calls to “Von Spreckelsen” phone numbers I had found (online) in Ohio. I eventually contacted a family member, who told me that they also had lost John. I feared he was dead—but, was unable to find him in the Social Security Death Index.

Sometime in the late 1990’s, John called my parents out of the blue… His health had deteriorated because he was one of those–unlucky enough to have been afflicted with “post-polio syndrome.” As if his first 1950’s battle with polo had not been devastating enough, the second occurrence left him significantly weakened. For the next couple of years, John and I continued to talk by phone at least semi-annually. It was during this time that I asked John for permission to record “Little Willie Evergreen.” He enthusiastically approved my request. It was several years before Roberta and I recorded our arrangement of Little Willy Evergreen in 2008 as part of 2008’s Christmas Project.

Sometime about 2006, John moved from his apartment in San Francisco and I lost him, again. I was able to finally reach a friend of his who told me that John had come out of the hospital after a serious illness. I asked his friend to help me to know his progress. Since that time, I was not able to contact John, but now know that he is gone…