Driving the bleak arteries of west mid-town, I hear an installment of "Musicians in Their Own Words" on Morning Edition. Cynthia Phelps, principal violist with the New York Philharmonic, speaks about the role of the viola section in shaping the sound, pace and texture of the orchestra.
Phelps calls herself a mediator. The spot ends with her saying, "I try and create a balanced middle ground. It really resonates with the way I am as an individual."
It's deeply pleasing to hear someone else say this, the same thing I feel about my role as an editor. I had never bothered to imagine that a musician might see herself this way.
Earlier in the piece, Phelps describes the opening of the second movement of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, in which the celli get the melody but the violas control the pacing and mood. She plays a lick of the cello part, then a recording of the actual piece begins.
This is music that too few people know, a rich swath of velvet melody, really much more singable than the first movement. (This is, I guess, the flashback, the tune you're humming just before Fate knocks on your door.)
So, yes, the celli are perfect, and now I'm listening for the the violas, watching the highway's yellow lines. Concrete walls and exit ramps, the overcast sky--this all is the empty theater for the music. After the opening duet, the full orchestra comes in and still--this is the Philharmonic, of course--the music is just as tender as before. At the last note of the phrase, where the music swells and holds, then drops as lightly as an eyelid, I am done in. I get teary and choked up.
To be honest, this probably has as much to do with my own sense of failure as a musician as it does with the actual music. Still, it's beautiful, and I need beauty. And it's powerful; all music is, the most powerful thing I know.
Phelps unabashedly acknowledges that one of the reasons she likes being a non-melody-getting viola player is that she has control at the base of the music. This control is not a dictatorship, though, because the power of music is a collective power. I think I could write more about this, but I'm not going to now. This post was just supposed to be about that one note.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Hot ... Now
On impulse, I stopped by the donut shop yesterday, shortly after 2 p.m., meaning to quickly get a donut and leave.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
When I stepped through the doors, the burgeoning heat of afternoon sun through all the windows and heat still radiating from the now-quiet ovens slowed me down. I saw that everything was slow.
Behind the counter, a man mopped the same tiles over and over, in long flat oval pushes of a mop. The women in front of me in line carefully read the signs listing the price of donuts, and read them again. One of them asked a question about the price of donuts. The clerk listened, then thought about his answer.
When at last he brought the boxes of doughnuts to the woman, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners in a slow smile. The smell of doughnuts, like a boa, wound around my throat and I was breathless. The doughnuts on trays beneath the glass case became, almost imperceptibly, browner.
I paid for my purchase in exact change and laid the coins into the palm of the clerk in separate piles, dimes and quarters. His skin was warm and dry. I folded the top of my doughnut bag one more time and left.
Little Thoughts on Music
Folk music Music that folks can sing or play from memory.
Folks The down-home people, the people in the cereal aisle, the people with a little hole in the elbow of their favorite sweater.
"Folk music" has come to have a musty smell. It supposedly lives only in church basements on Thursday nights when the banjo players and the singing family from the hills come to town to fiddle around. But I think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen is truly a folk musician.
Folks The down-home people, the people in the cereal aisle, the people with a little hole in the elbow of their favorite sweater.
"Folk music" has come to have a musty smell. It supposedly lives only in church basements on Thursday nights when the banjo players and the singing family from the hills come to town to fiddle around. But I think that, for example, Bruce Springsteen is truly a folk musician.
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