The bitter cold weather of December has arrived.

The death of a child is a difficult thing to experience. I have not lost any of my children, but I have had nightmares where I have. A dream like that is enough to keep me awake for the rest of the night.

19th century German poet Friedrich Rückert lost two of his children to scarlet fever. He dealt with his grief by writing a set of 428 poems on the death of children. Composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) selected five of these to set for voice and orchestra. This is the fifth of the set, titled “In diesem Wetter” (In this Weather). Mahler’s genius of composition lets you feel the blowing winds, the stinging raindrops, the anxiety of a parent whose child is lost forever, and, at the end, a sense of peace and acceptance.

In this weather, in this windy storm, I would never have sent the children out.
They have been carried off, I wasn’t able to warn them!

In this weather, in this gale, I would never have let the children out.
I feared they sickened: those thoughts are now in vain.

In this weather, in this storm, I would never have let the children out,
I was anxious they might die the next day: now anxiety is pointless.

In this weather, in this windy storm, I would never have sent the children out.
They have been carried off, I wasn’t able to warn them!

In this weather, in this gale, in this windy storm, they rest as if in their mother’s house:
frightened by no storm, sheltered by the Hand of God.

 

Humans love to categorize things. It’s not a bad thing – it helps us predict what will happen when we come across something new. For example, if I come across a new life form, and it looks like a plant, smells like a plant, and acts like a plant, I might assume it’s a plant, and therefore, it probably won’t jump up and eat me. On the other hand, if I meet a new life form that looks like a tiger, smells like a tiger, and acts like a tiger, it’s probably too late to run, because that tigeresque creature has already thought that I look like food, smell like food, and act like food.

So how does this affect music? You probably know Leonard Bernstein from his “West Side Story“. You might also know he was the longtime conductor of the New York Philharmonic, one of the top orchestras in the world. People today are still arguing whether his pieces are “Musical Theater” or “Opera”, “Classical” or “Pops”, “new musical territory” or “borrowed from other musical genres”. So then they start calling this music “Crossover“.
Oy vey.

His Broadway Show, no, Opera, no, piece “Candide” is based on the story by Voltaire. The overture, below, has clear, singable melodies (like musical theater) and complex rhythm, harmony, and masterful orchestration (like opera.) And, no matter what it looks, smells, or acts like, it won’t eat you.

Music has been around for thousands of years. Actually, tens of thousands of years. Maybe it’s too bold of a statement to make in my first blog post, but I’d like to think that the ability and desire to organize sound – to make music – serves as one of the greatest milestones in human evolution.

This new blog, I suppose, is nothing new. We’ve been doing this for 40,000 + years. Amazing, though, that we are still fascinated by music – in fact, you could say we can’t get enough. Music is everywhere in our modern lives, from formal events like church or graduations, to casual things like shopping or even sports games.

Claudio Monteverdi‘s (1567-1643) opera “L’Orfeo” (1607) was not the first opera ever written, but it is the earliest opera written that is still performed today, 400 years later. (a mere 1/100th of 40,000 years – the dating of the earliest musical instrument found). The overture is pure rock-and-roll: 8 bars of loud music, all in the same key. No development. No tricks. Just rock, and repeat. After the overture, a sweet aria, in which a character called “La Musica” sings:

I am Music, who with sweet accents can make a troubled heart to be at peace;
I can set ablaze even the coldest of minds with noble anger or love.

A fitting beginning for the Fine Art of Listening. Thanks for visiting!

How about them Harry-Potter robes, eh?