SOURCE: “The Southwest Eternal Echo: Music in Death Comes for the Archbishop,” in The Arizona Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1966, pp. 5-18.

In the following essay, Giannone examines the significance of music in Death Comes for the Archbishop.

I

One can only concur with E. K. Brown's judgment that Death Comes for the Archbishop “is the most beautiful achievement of Willa Cather's imagination.”¹ Here, theme strikes a perfect balance with technique. The Nebraska novels and the early short stories convincingly render the novelist's two worlds of pioneering and art and dramatically assert her positive faith in a triumphant human spirit. But in these works where Willa Cather seems very much at home with her materials, one does not find a comparable control and confidence in her treatment. She experiments a great deal with point of view, structure, and characterization; but no defined, assured mode emerges. As Cather's craft and style...