Writing About Music

Someone once said (and I'm about to botch the quote) that writing about music is like trying to dance about poetry.

Yes, well, sometimes you have to.

I wear headphones constantly at work, because it's the only way to stay sane with all that background noise and my audial-sensitive brain. So I wind up thinking about music a lot. Today I asked myself, "What music do I really love, and why?" The answers were surprising to me, and surprisingly detailed. Here's my off-the-cuff list, with explanations:

The Man from Snowy River (Soundtrack): Especially Jessica's Theme, the title theme, and The Mountain Theme. I grew up on the movie, which I will always associate with my mother and the ongoing love affair with horses that she and I share. Beyond that, the music is sweet and wild as mountain flowers, with a trace of sadness and strength under pressure. It is music that knows the pain of life, but plays anyway. I think that's why I love it so.

Chariots of Fire (Theme): This piece has fascinated me, ever since I first heard it as a young teenager. First of all, it has a wonderful percussion rhythm. Second, it is that rare thing: a gentle excitement, a shimmering energy which warms but does not burn. Third, it's mostly piano, and I'm a fool for the piano. Fourth, it is associated in the movie with running along a beach--which, in my mind, ranks right under a trail ride on horseback in the top five favorite activities.

Armageddon Suite (Part of the Armageddon Soundtrack): I've never seen the movie, and the piece is all instrumental, but there's this one moment when they cut loose with an electric guitar rift that seems to know everything about guts and glory and the kind of death that Greek heroes long for. It's an Achilles rift, and that's why I love it.

Little Organ Fugue (by Bach): Perhaps it's wrong to say so, but this piece is just plain cute. I love the small melodies that twine round one another and seem caught up in a breathless whirl. It is the sort of tune that I could imagine my Longaevi dancing to.

Messiah (by Handel): What is there to say? It's Messiah. I once sat through a 3.5 hour performance of this at the Kennedy Center, and I'll never be the same now that I've heard it. This right here proves that there is a God--who else could have put such a thing into Handel's head?

Godspell (Musical Score): Well, I've had two brother star in it at different times, so it's another childhood thing by now. But more than that, I find it beautiful. I was reading along in Luke this morning, and suddenly struck against a passage that is in Godspell, and I thought to myself, "wow, I guess it's really true that every line in that play is taken from Scripture." I fell in love with By the Willows from my first hearing of it, and wept at O God, I'm Dying. Day By Day is another favorite, but what can equal the song at the end, the song of Christ's return?--Prepare Ye the Way.

Fiddler on the Roof (Musical Score): I loved the Matchmaker song as a child. I love the Sabbath Blessing song and Sunrise, Sunset as an adult. Hebrew music fascinates me. Augustine believed Hebrew to be the language of God, the one language uncorrupted at Babel. I don't know if he's right, but there is something profoundly--I would say uniquely--otherworldly about it.

Cinderella (Musical Score, Rogers and Hammerstein): Oh wow, yes. From In My Own Little Corner, through Do I Want You Because You're Beautiful?, all the way down the line to Why Would A Fellow Want A Girl Like Her?, Impossible, and The Prince Is Giving A Ball... magic, magic, magic. We called it "The Magic Cinderella" when we were little. The words are clever or tender by turns, the music unparalleled. This is right up there with Les Miserables among my favorite musicals.

Moon River (sung by Barbara Streisand): When I was a little girl living on a farm in Virginia, I had a secret place, an almost-island formed by a bend in the stream, with two small and graceful willow trees, and a quantity of Queen Anne's Lace. This song always reminds me of the afternoons that I spent there dreaming beside the brook (which was my Moon River), spinning out my future adventures. They always involved flying horses and my brave brothers, armed with spears, rescuing me from some fearful giant. At the end of each adventure, we would come home to our heavenly mansions (for these adventures always happened in the hereafter) and celebrate.

Tchaikovsky (you know, the 1812 Overture guy): In any of the art mediums, I find that there are very few Romantics whom I can bear, but the few that I do love are very dear to me. Tchaikovsky won my heart with his Sleeping Beauty, which I imbibed with Disney as a child, all unwitting. The more I know of his music, the more I love it. It is passion mingled with reason.

Select Scottish Instrumental Music: I'm picky, but again, profoundly attached to a few pieces and bands. There is so much bad celtic music floating around, and so much that is merely sentimental, that I find myself digging very deep before I hit something that sounds real to me. I was at a Scottish festival a few years ago in Kentucky, and there were two bands there who made me feel that I was in a Narnian dance, the sort that the dryads and fauns hold in glades at high summer. Again, they were like the song that Tumnus played for Lucy on her first visit to Narnia. It is hard to describe; there is something so wild and abandoned about it, but at the same time piercingly lovely, fierce, and full of firelight. I always know it when I hear it, but I could not tell you who wrote or played it. It is not the sort of thing that belongs to anybody, except perhaps the falcons and highlanders.