Music, muziek, musique, musica

 

What or who would I be without music? Would I even want to know that person? Would I recognize myself?

As a child and teenager I played the piano,  until I moved to Amsterdam and found myself without one. Gradually, I became a listener, the person who enjoys, and hums along.

I appreciate, and yes, sometimes judge and choose music by performers who give their soul and you can feel that they do.   No pomp. No showing off, although I respect the time, effort, and discipline that make these performances possible.

I rather be transported than impressed. I want to “feel” the composer and the composition. I want to “feel” every musician, even the little triangle in the back of the orchestra. 

YouTube is my friend. I love simply browsing, or searching for forgotten pieces of pieces never heard before. My favorite is looking for different performances of the same piece of music. Each performer and conductor brings his/her unique interpretation. Each performance reveals the flexibility, the soul space of the composition.  They show me how much freedom lives within the notes.

I believe in writing therapy, art therapy, and of course music therapy. They have the power to comfort, heal, inspire, awaken memories, and express, each in their own very particular way.   

They help me make sense of life.

I want to use these pages to share my musical findings with you, my treasures, my musical friends who bring so much joy to my life. 

Do you hear what I hear? Which one is your favorite? And why?  

                                           --------------------------------------------------------

Following is my reaction to a live concert in Seattle, in 2008.                      

    Classical music has been part of my life from before I was borne. It has come along with me through the decades as a faithful, familiar companion.

    When I was a child we had radio with only four stations to choose from to catch a concert or a performance here or there. As technology progressed so did I: LP’s, big reel tape recorder with hundreds of hours of music and ultimately the wonder of all wonders: the CD.

    How spoiled we are with the Compact Discs’ immediate availability of performances and interpretations of the greatest in the field brought to us through the most sensitive sound reproduction systems.

    That perfection set my expectations for a life concert of an amateur philharmonic orchestra a few weeks ago. The venue was an old church, pews and all, no visible arrangements for acoustical adjustments and the podium was too small to hold the orchestra comfortably.

    The lights dimmed. The conductor raised his baton and as the first tones rolled of the podium I tumbled into the warm embrace of Beethoven’s violin concerto.  The wooden planks of the podium and my proximity to the players pulled me into the very breath of the orchestra.

    Beethoven’s presence was palpable. The music was bringing him back to life. I imagined how he must have lived for a performance, how he must have marveled as the musicians replayed his fantasy, the orchestra at his fingertips, a living, breathing instrument itself.  I could hear his intentions for each instrument and how he had harmonized them in that ocean of vibrations and wind called Orchestra. His urge to sweep each unique sound into the melody as it ebbed and flowed through crescendos, felt unstoppable.

    How well he must have known the limits and limitations of each instrument and in this case the violin to take us deep into their glorious realms. 

Ah!! Maestro indeed!!!

    He anticipated and created the space for players and listeners alike to submerge in his creation and join him there hundreds of years after his death! How in tune he must have been with his own soul to connect with ours now!