My Dearest Ruth
21V; Martín Benvenuto, conductor
The commissioner has sole performance rights until 1/1/25 and sole commercial recording rights until 1/1/26.
DURATION
6’45”
INSTRUMENTATION
SSAA treble choir, piano
There are solo vocal versions available as well; click here for vocal options.
TEXT
Martin Ginsburg, the husband of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
YEAR COMPOSED
2013 vocal edition; 2023 choir edition
COMMISSIONER
Jane Ginsburg and James Ginsburg in celebration of the 80th birthday of their mother, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; the treble choir edition was commissioned by 21V; Martín Benvenuto, Artistic Director.
ORDERING SCORES
Theodore Presser Company
The music will be available after 1/1/25.
NPR STORY FEATURING RBG READING MARTY’S LETTER
National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg ran a segment on Cedille Records’ “Notorious RBG in Song” CD, featuring excerpts from Stacy’s My Dearest Ruth interwoven with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaking the text. Click on the image to the right; the excerpts begin at 5’21”.
PROGRAM NOTES
by James Ginsburg
The letter on which My Dearest Ruth is based was my father’s last written statement. My parents celebrated their 56th wedding anniversary in my father’s room at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Wednesday, June 23, 2010. The following day, my mother called to say Dad had taken a turn for the worse. I flew to Baltimore the next morning (Friday) and met Mom at Dad’s room. The doctors came in and told us there was nothing more they could do — the cancer had progressed too far. All this time, Dad kept repeating one word: “Home.” So we made arrangements to bring him back to our apartment in Washington, D.C. While collecting his belongings from the hospital room, Mom pulled open the drawer next to Dad’s bed and discovered a yellow legal pad on which Dad had written this a week earlier:
6/17/10
My Dearest Ruth –
You are the only person I have loved in my life, setting aside, a bit, parents and kids and their kids, and I have admired and loved you almost since the day we first met at Cornell some 56 years ago.
What a treat it has been to watch you progress to the very top of the legal world!!
I will be in JH Medical Center until Friday, June 25, I believe, and between then and now I shall think hard on my remaining health and life, and whether on balance the time has come for me to tough it out or to take leave of life because the loss of quality now simply overwhelms. I hope you will support where I come out, but I understand you may not. I will not love you a jot less.
Marty
I should note one factual error: my parents met 59 years before the date of this letter, not 56. Obviously, Dad had their 56th anniversary in mind. We chose to keep the number 56 in the song.
My sister, Jane, and I commissioned Stacy Garrop to adapt the letter and set it to music as one of three songs by different women composers to be presented in 2013 as an 80th birthday tribute to our mother, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Soprano Patrice Michaels sang the premiere at the Supreme Court with pianist Dana Brown on Saturday, April 6, 2013.
-J.G.