Don't Stop the Music

I love classical music. It moves me deeply, it inspires me.

Recently, I have been volunteering in the office of our regional symphony orchestra. The orchestra is struggling to stay afloat financially, and already has had to cancel a concert scheduled for its fall season. This makes me sad.

When I started to write this post, I tried bemoaning what appears to be the loss of so much classical music in the face of ear-jarring, spirit-jarring heavy metal and other "rock" music. But I'm no expert on this, and it all sounded too negative.

Then I outlined a post on the benefits of classical music, such as the healing properties of music as described in Don Campbell's popular book, The Mozart Effect. Again, I am no expert, and didn't want my post to be shallow.

The late Dr. Kenneth G. Mills used to speak about a scientist at Johns Hopkins -- Dr. Donald Andrews -- who noted that if one could put on a special set of earphones to listen on an atomic level, one would find the center of the atom not solid, but rather a tone. I find this image delightful, this and the idea that the very essence of things is vibration, or Sound ("In the beginning was the Word. . . .").

With that, I decided that the best things I can say about music, especially classical music, are from my own heart and soul. I wrote the following poem in a state of elation shortly after hearing the Toronto Symphony Orchestra perform in October, 2005. Even such a prominent orchestra as the Toronto Symphony suffers from financial woes, and I gather that at one point before 2005, it was thought that the orchestra might come to an end. Then a new and talented music director, Peter Oundjian, came on board and the orchestra was reborn.

So today -- in celebration of the wonder and spiritual nourishment of classical music -- I offer "See the Music," and dedicate it to the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra and all the other local orchestras large and small, which have so much to give as educators, healers, and supporters of their listeners' souls.

See the Music

Bows in perfect unison

Stroke the air: up, then down, then up again,

Moving together like grass stalks in the wind --

The wind . . . blowing

Through oboes, through flutes,

Stirring the orchestra in wide circles,

A tap on the drum, a puff through the horn,

Waves of music,

Ripples of themes,

Swirling and spreading,

Tossed from violin to cello,

From clarinet to brass,

Weaving, spiralling.

The conductor, captain of his ship,

Breasts the wind,

Enwrapped in its exhilarating swell,

And, exquisitely focussed, all move like dancers,

Hands and arms, lips and throats,

Swept and breathed through --

"Making" the music? Being the music

From atoms to cells to sinew and bone,

Crooning and carolling,

High and deep,

Beating and thrilling at the power of this wind

That soars and sings

And rings the tones of even the stars . . . and beyond.