I wish you a Happy Easter, whatever your persuasion.
Yesterday we went to a performance of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in a beautiful church with, as was revealed, great acoustics. It was a beautiful spring day: the sun shone, the thermometer rose to exceptional heights and a light breeze played its invaluable part.
This is for us a yearly occurrence. Oh we’ve got a digital copy at home, but a live rendering has something special that no dvd, cd, blue-ray or whatever can convey to the senses. It’s what I call a fourth dimension, well perhaps a fifth. Concert-goers of whatever fraternity know what I mean.
Of course it is classical music and not to everyone’s taste I know, but one ought to try it before casting an opinion even if it perhaps could cause some resentment. This piece always brings me to tears of what could, I suppose, be called euphoria, or the feeling that all animals get when the day’s is just about all one could wish a day to be, whether as potential food or as predator. One doesn’t care; in that moment of recognition all is as it should be. In these sobering times an afternoon of release from worldly paranoia in whatever form is more than welcome.
The church was fully packed with devotees crammed into pews where six or at a push seven could sit. They had thoughtfully provided cushions to avoid the worse agitation from the hard bare wood. Worshipers don’t have to be comfortable in the presence of the Almighty.
We sat quite near the orchestra which brings one into a rather intimate contact with the musicians and singers. They seemed on the whole to be rather unemotionally involved though perhaps they’ve just learned to concentrate on the piece at hand; too much emotional involvement could cause a frog in the throat or a misplaced finger at the wrong moment. Anyway they’ve done it all before, probably hundreds of times, so their level of personal involvement may also be a tad reduced by the sandpaper of time.
I won’t go into details though there are marvelous choral passages, magical musical interludes, and exquisite passages painted on the canvas of the mind by the brush strokes of solo instrument and voice. Then there’s the heart rending climax which makes one believe that Bach really knew what God was all about. He’s still telling us.
As far as we were concerned it was a magnificent performance and we didn’t stay around for a third opinion. Wiping our eyes we headed for the nearest café terrace for an unearned beverage to restore our somewhat shaken and stirred inner beings.
Now Vangelis is oozing from the loudspeakers with his El Greco, which I find to be about the only music that is tolerable while writing, and for me a definite stimulant.
Well I hear the outside world calling again, so I’ll have to leave it here probably at just the right moment.
Have a good one.
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