I do not much like how I am feeling, even if I do not understand what I am feeling. I do not like the conflicting thoughts in my head. Nor do I like how deeply unsettled I am. So, even though it turned out I would be going alone to the symphony at the location I do not really know, I went.
I wore my pearls. I wore perfume. I wore lipstick and feminine clothing and my jeweled butterfly clasp in my hair. I felt wretched, so I tried not to look so.
Thankfully, this time the valet parking was actually in place. So nervous was I about finding the music center on the campus by myself, I arrived 30 minutes ahead of the concert. However, that was still not early enough for the plethora of handicapped parking out front. I do not know ... do not remember ... if I have ever valeted my car before. I don't think so. It was hard to hand over the keys. Mostly, because I left Maggie (my GPS) in the car and knew if something happened to her I would never get home. And, a little bit, because I do wonder what will happen if my car dies before I do. There simply is no way I could afford to buy another car.
Having brought my Kindle, I made my way to my seat and set to reading.
While I am still in love with Hanson, I think, perhaps, I could love Samuel Barber more and he's way, way, way too young for my liking. After all, the man was born in the last century!
The Fort Wayne Philharmonic played Barber's Symphony No. 1. Best 20 minutes of this year, I would definitely say. Twenty minutes of pure bliss and pure peace and nothing but beauty. I marvel, really, at the Creator God is. I mean, He created a brain that could envision and understand how dozens of instruments playing together could sound. God did this. He created a brain that, still, is more sophisticated than any computer, than any technological advance in all of history. A brain that, to all our vaunted science, still remains much of a mystery. And, tonight, I was reminded that He created a brain that could envision an orchestra playing even though the ears attached to it were deafened. Yes, Beethoven came later.
What I found most extraordinary about Barber is that he completely and utterly won me over to brass. Now, I have been teetering on that move for the past two concerts. I mean, remember the tuba last time? And remember how Hanson showed me that a French Horn could be so beautiful?? But, tonight, I found myself hungering for more of Barber's masterful weaving of brass and string. Frankly, I would have been deeply, deeply, deeply happy had the orchestra simply repeat their performance instead of playing the second piece of the first half.
Something that came to mind, as I read the program notes, was that Barber wrote this work in 1936. The world was about to fall into an abyss of original sin magnified by hatred and jealousy and a longing for something that was other that what was resulting in the murder of millions and torture of more still. But in 1936, America had its first building completely covered in glass. Our first masked hero in a skin-tight costume appears on the scene. The marvel that is the Hoover Dam is completed. The Triborough Bridge in New York opens. Jesse Owens wins the 100 meter dash at the Berlin Olympics. The US Men's basketball team wins its first ever Olympic tournament. The Dust Bowl is coming to an end and the success of the New Deal leads President Roosevelt to a landslide victory and second term. A cripple so powerful and so engaging and such a profound leader that few remember his handicap. Things were looking up, as America was climbing its way out of the Great Depression.
Berber was just 25 when he wrote his first symphony. He was young and extraordinarily talented and literally had the world at his fingertips. He would go on to win two Pulitzer Prizes in music. His second symphony, written during the war while he served in the Army Air Corps, distressed him so much that he destroyed it. Later, scholars pieced the score back together. But could you imagine trying to piece back together Van Gogh's Starry Night? I wonder what Samuel thought of the world between his first symphony and his last composition.
I also wonder what it must have been like to be seven years old and composing your own music. The minds God creates.
And then there was the second piece. SIGH.
Yes, for me, Joel Puckett is everything I loathe about modern orchestral music. I didn't even have to look at the program to know that he is still alive. He is. Younger than I am, in fact.
There is this wonderful moment in the movie Jurassic Park where Jeff Goldblum says, "...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should."
That is exactly how I felt about the flute and clarinet concerto. UGH. See, in Berber's work, I was marveling at exquisite music the flutes were making. Now, mostly, I felt like I was in a Lewis Carroll novel. I, the ex-literacy professor, expert in children's and young adult literature, loathe Alice in Wonderland. It it too chaotic. I do not like how it makes me feel. The concerto was worse. If it were not the height of poor manners and blatant disrespect to the musicians, I would have fled outside until the piece was over. I truly, at one point, was rather worried about myself.
What boggles my mind is that, after the concert was finished, several people around me were gushing about the concerto. They thought it was the best piece of the evening. Huh??
Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C Minor was the second half of the evening. Just to let you know, the last performance, a four-hour one, has Beethoven's Ninth Symphony as the second half of the evening. SIGH.
What I recognized, what I hummed along with, was actually only the first movement of Beethoven's symphony. The other three movements were new to me. If not actually new to me. I disremember if I have ever heard this piece at any of the concerts I went to in my past. Whether truly new or not, I savored his brilliance and beauty. Another piece written in a time of great conflict and uncertainty. And, yet, really all I can think about is how in the world can a man imagine how so many instruments will sound and then write such a score.
What must he have felt when he realized his hearing was deteriorating?
How could he continue to write once he was totally deaf?
Was music so engrained in his being that ears—the means by which music is encountered and perceived and received—were no longer of any consequence?
When I read the program notes or even descriptions of music elsewhere, I really cannot follow what is being said. There is too much cant for me to comprehend meaning. Sometimes, really, when I try to follow current "theological" ... wars ... in comments on posts, such is the same. So many particular words and phrases exclusive to the profession are used that this "simple folk" cannot understand. And yet listening to Beethoven's music, I do not think it matters much whether or not I know what an interpolated scherzo section is. I feel the same about ... well ... I was going to quote some phrases, but that would mean going back to online places I have left.
You know, for all the complexity of the Apology to the Augsburg Confessions, I happen to believe the only real difficulty of it is presentation. By that I mean incredibly long paragraphs and even longer lines of thought without breaks for the reader. At the end of the day, if you take those long paragraphs and break them down—the way that you do when you diagram a sentence—they are not complicated. Nor are they above the common man. Yes, there are some historical references and references to factions of the Church (such as the Donatists) that provide contextual meaning, but even without that the help of those contextual clues, the overall meaning is clear. Christ crucified. For you. Because you can't. Period.
At the Embassy Theatre, I am privileged to sit behind the president and CEO and next to a board member. By privileged, I mean that those rather nice folk have spent the season explaining things to me. Tonight, the president sat down next to me for the second half of the performance. So, I finally asked the question that has been lingering in my mind all season. Yes! He told me the real name of that instrument that fascinates me so (I had picked it incorrectly in my Googling): the contrabassoon. I came home and tried to read about the instrument, but quickly became lost in all the musical cant. What struck me as I was floundering through the words was that it really didn't matter. The photo matches what I have been watching and sounds coming out of it are what matters to me. Not the technicalities of the instrument and how those sounds are produced and what they are termed.
I wonder if others see the Christian Book of Concord as cant or as plebeian. For me, it is the latter. But I do wonder. I wonder if, for others, it is cant.
This week, I received my subscriber packet for next season. It is still a marvel to me to see $0.00 as the price for my tickets. Surely, a thank you letter to whomever is sponsoring the second season for all new subscribers this year is in order. Each time I go to the symphony, I am blessed with the good gift of classical music. Next year, no matter how ill I am, I am not going to miss any concerts. I, also, am not going to give up any of my tickets.
I may know nothing technically about music, but I do know that it is a gift to be treasured. And, tonight, it made me think about how, even though there is so much popular theological cant that I do not understand, my Good Shepherd has given me a pastor who is teaching me the pure doctrine and a deaconess friend who is ever so generous in giving the sweet, sweet Gospel, but who is also immensely skilled at translating that sweet, sweet Gospel into Myrtle speak. Plus, well, she doesn't mind if she has to do so again. And again. And again.
Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!
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