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Inside the Music

Inside the Music

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Brahms showed up in my classical queue this morning,. Not just any Brahms but the Symphony No. 1 — which happens to be the first orchestral piece I played as last-chair string bass in the Central Kentucky Youth Symphony Orchestra. I had only started learning string bass a few months earlier and didn’t have the hands for it, but I did my best to keep up with the runs and shifts.

My stand partner, Greg, helpfully penciled in “a la fakando” on a few of the more difficult sections, and fake it is exactly what I did. Every so often, Mr. Ceo, our fiery conductor, would scream “basses” and stare, it seemed like, straight at me. But I kept my head down and for the most part escaped humiliation.

Besides, it was worth it to be even a small part of such music: the swelling strings, the triumphant brass. In the heroic final movement, during the most lyrical sections, the basses only played pizzicato, but I put my heart and soul into every pluck.

This morning, walking and listening, I was back there again, not just listening to the music — but inside of it.

Waltzing Along

Waltzing Along

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A ho-hum evening after days of cloud and rain. A walk that’s uninspired, plodding. The houses hold no surprises, and the clouds are uniform, without color or texture.

The music in my ears is plodding, too. Tunes heard too often. A switch to news makes little difference.

And then my ears hit the jackpot, a change of tempo. It’s a waltz. Not an obvious one or a schmaltzy one,  but I’d recognize 3/4 time anywhere. I find myself counting 1,2, 3; 2,2,3; 3,2,3.  Almost hypnotic, that beat. And liberating, too.

It’s like a transfusion. I pick up the pace, I loosen the shoulders. My arms swing more freely by my side. And soon I’m on the downhill slope, toward home and dinner.

Can’t Stop Listening

Can’t Stop Listening

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The La La Land soundtrack is colonizing my brain. After seeing the movie twice and listening to songs on YouTube, I bought the album on iTunes so I could blare it from my laptop while cooking dinner.

But the music didn’t stop when I turned off the machine. I hear it in my head when I’m brushing my teeth or waiting for the bus or taking a walk. I hum it under my breath. I tap my feet at my desk.

Last evening, I played the soundtrack while bouncing on the trampoline. That may be the best use yet for the music, which seems to carry one urgent message. Get up and dance! Turns out, I’m not the only one who feels this way.  And the lyrics say it all:

I hear them everyday
The rhythms in the canyons that will never fade away
The ballads in the ballrooms left by those who came before
They say we got to want it more…



(Photo: Wikipedia)
The Russians

The Russians

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We’re hearing a lot about Russians these days: What do they know? What are they doing? How much influence did they have over our recent election?

But the Russians I’ve been thinking about have nothing to do with Putin.

They’re the Russians whose music has thrilled me since I was young. To listen to them after long absence is to think of Dad and his record collection, the albums of Khachaturian, Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov. Dad air conducting while their music blared on the stereo.

I came upon two Russian pieces on my iPod the other day: a Prokofiev piano concerto and Shostakovich’s Festive Overture.  Big, fresh, urgent — these pieces have great hearts and big sounds. I felt Dad’s spirit in them. I walked faster. And I smiled.

(a hill that seems vaguely steppe-like)

Ancient Music

Ancient Music

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“Joy to the World”: 1719.

“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”: 1739.

“O Come, All Ye Faithful”: 1751.

“The First Noel”: 1823.

“We Three Kings”: 1857.

The music we sing at Christmas has been around for a while. I think of this especially with Advent carols like “O Come, O Come Emmanuel, which traces its origins back to the 12th century or earlier.

These are ancient chants, tunes that link us to generations of worshippers and carolers.

It’s one part of the season that never changes, the words and melodies we learned before we could read, ribbons of song that tie us to the past, that carry with them the promise of hope fulfilled.

Messiah Singalong

Messiah Singalong

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I feel like I should be writing about the 75th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, but am filled to the brim with the music we made last night at the Reston Chorale Messiah Singalong.

It was cold and rainy but the church was almost filled. I found the altos, sitting on the left in the back, and struck up a conversation with Annette. “We’re doing Beethoven’s 9th in the spring,” she said. “You should audition.”

It was a warm and welcoming thing to say — especially since I’d yet to sing a note — and it made me feel instantly at home. And “at home” is the way I continued to feel as we made our way through the familiar choruses: “Glory to God,” “His Yoke is Easy,” “For Unto Us a Child is Born” and, finally, “Hallelujah.”

It wasn’t just the words and melodies, so ancient and true, it was being an alto, part of a group and a section. It was fudging the runs of  “And he will purify” with 20 other voices to fudge along with me. It was belting out “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” with the fervor of a community chorus, knowing that this scene was being enacted in church basements and concert halls around the country.

It was singing “And he shall reign forever and ever” — and wanting more than anything for the music to go on that long, too.

Brahmsian Coda

Brahmsian Coda

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The skies were stormy and the air was leaden, but the legs needed to be moving and the W&OD was right there. So on the way home from work yesterday I slipped off my jacket and necklace, laced up my running shoes and took to the trail.

The music was beside the point when I started. I knew that movement alone would work its magic. So I let my little iPod do its own thing. And what it did was play Brahms.

He’s my man, of course, but I don’t turn to him like I used to. He is a bit, well, heavy. And you have to be in the mood for him. But I was, and he delivered.

It was the last movement of the First Symphony, which my high school youth orchestra played the year I joined. Brahms is not easy, especially when you’ve only just taken up the string bass. My stand partner wrote “a la fakando” beside the notes of one especially difficult run. Let’s just say I did little for that piece but provide a low hum.

But being part of an orchestra that could play such music was enough to explode my adolescent brain. And now, when I listen to Brahms, those early memories of music-making create a powerful listening experience. I was lucky that the final moments of listening happened in the car, after the walk was over. There I could air conduct to my heart’s content.

It was a very good walk, with a perfectly Brahmsian coda.

Rain Song

Rain Song

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The rain began before I woke up. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t think it would sing to me. A pitter-patter, yes. But not this other sound, this low ping. It’s as if someone is tuning a cello or plucking a piano string.

And it has a steady and distinct pitch, too. I hum it, walk over to the piano. Could it be an A? Always a good first try; a million tuning orchestras can’t be wrong.

But no, it’s not an A, or a C or an F. Better try some black keys. And there it is — a B flat — or at least my out-of-tune piano’s version of that pitch.

Were I of a more mechanical bent I would worry about what’s making this sound. I would check for leaks or breaks. But instead, I listen. I let the rain sing its song.

(Waiting for Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden to arrive and tune in the large golden concert hall of Vienna’s Musikverein)

Every Valley

Every Valley

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The world doesn’t go away just because the holidays are here.  Even the most stubborn optimist must sometimes remove the rose-tinted glasses.

Mine were most decidedly not on this morning as I was working in a quick run before the rain started up again. When the mostly all-carols classical station switched over to a sedate Haydn number I switched my little iPod mini from radio to music. I needed a Messiah fix!

“Every valley shall be exalted,” sang the tenor. “And every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” At “crooked,” he warbled between notes. At “straight” he rang out true and bold.

I thought of all the souls these words have comforted through the centuries. I thought of how they were comforting me this morning. Every valley exalted. Yes!

Mozart’s Jupiter

Mozart’s Jupiter

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Just back from a run with Mozart in my ears. Last movement of his last (41st, Jupiter) symphony. What a piece of music this is! Listen closely and you can hear the Romantic period bursting right through the Classical form, mowing down the guard rails with its energy and passion.

Bold, contrapuntal, complex — the sound comes from so many different directions that it feels like the inside of my head will explode, that my earphones must be smoking as I jog along sedate suburban lanes.

But they’re not, of course, and I try to maintain a poker face, offering no clue to the musical miracle taking place between my ears,  to the near dissonance at minutes 5:40 and 8:40, to what some describe as a “cosmic” coda.

Instead, I exert every effort not to air-conduct as Mozart carries me surely from the first clean melody all the way to the exuberant and triumphant finale. Every time I listen I’m enlarged, calmed, emboldened, amazed.