National Perspective: Nature as Muse

SPILLVILLE, Iowa — Here, the fields of corn and soybeans go on forever, and here the road into town makes incongruous turns in a territory whose byways are defined by 90-degree angles. Here, in the mere course of a magical summer 132 years ago, a community, a composer and classical music were transformed.

Spillville is a speck on the map, home to 372 souls living 25 miles from the Minnesota line, otherwise unremarkable unless you consider that it is where pioneers from Bavaria busted the stubborn sod the year after rebellion coursed through Europe in 1848; where former Czech serfs streamed the year the Republican Party was founded; where Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller and Guy Lombardo played in the Inwood Ballroom in the big band era; and where today town leaders hold an annual Masopust festival, which you might think of as a Czech Mardi Gras.