Hey, Fish...you wrote, "One of my favourite classical pieces used to be The Moldau by Smetana..." Used to be. Hmmm. That's interesting to me. It used to be one of my favorites when I was in my early twenties. No longer. I don't listen to that one anymore, and, if it's on NPR, I tend to turn it off. Same with others, too, like "The Nutcracker." Not that I would mind going to the ballet with a couple of grandchildren to show them that first, magical joy--but, no. Certain of the warhorses don't do much for me anymore, but others have held on since first hearing. Tchaikovsky wasn't too crazy about "The Nutcracker" either, from what I've read, and wasn't happy that people associated that work so strongly with him at the sacrifice of other works he knew had been better in his judgment. Don't have any idea how Smetana judged his "Moldau." I've heard a few musicians talk about being sick and tired of playing Dvorak's "The New World Symphony," including my daughter, but I still like that one a great deal.
And Boronia: I was very lucky. When I was a small child, I heard "Moonlight Sonata," the famous second movement, in some television broadcast of an old movie. I heard probably eight bars of that music--raised in a home of Blue Grass music and Big Bands--and I knew in that sonata I'd found myself. Instant recognition of who I was--and I was very, very young. Not that I don't appreciate other kinds of music, but they're more like meeting different kinds of people who are charming for different reasons. In classical music (term broadly applied here), I'm connected directly to whatever touches me most deeply. And it's pretty great getting to hear people talk about whatever touches them most deeply in music, no matter what the style is. It's the enthusiasm people show for music that I love.
One thing's for sure: A lot of these classical works I love hold up well to multiple hearings. I choose a movement of something remarkable each week for my kids at school (K-5) to listen to at the beginning of each music lesson. It usually lasts between 7 and 10 minutes--whichever movement I choose. Anyway, that's about 29 classes a week for me, and 29 hearings of whatever I've chosen, usually six times a day for that chosen movement. I've found that to be one of the biggest perks of my profession--the excuse to listen to orchestral or chamber music repeatedly and to become very intimate with it by the end of the week. The new things I hear in these multiple hearings really do make my introductory comments to the kids at week's end a bit richer than the ones I'd made at week's beginning. And what a gift to hear the commentary of small children upon hearing these works for the first time! I had one small child last year named John. His were ears listening always for timpani. If there was a timpani section at all in anything we listened to, his whole face would lighten up, he'd catch my eye, smile, and point to the speakers. I knew he'd just heard the timpani, and for some probably deep spiritual reason, they always spoke to him. I told his parents they might consider gving him drumming lessons.
Beat regards,
WW
