The Worship of Sound

Thursday evening, I saw the local professional orchestra perform Beethoven's 9th. I blush to admit that I'm a 40 year-old trained musician who had never heard a live performance of B9 before... although I've worn out several copies of the 1972 Solti/Chicago S.O. recording. It was an incredible evening.

What made it even more so was the surprise I experienced in the first half: Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna for choir, organ and orchestra. I didn't really look at the program before I walked in. My mind was wrapped around B9, and being that I didn't recognize Lauridsen's name, I figured it would be a piece that I would simply tolerate whilst I waited for the (real) Maestro to take the stage. But the Lux Aeterna washed over me like a storm after a drought, and I found my self literally in tears by the second movement. I hadn't been that taken with a piece since I discovered the Brahms Requiem.

The Beethoven was... well,being quite familiar with the work I didn't think there would be any surprises. And there weren't... up until the 4th movement. And I'm not sure I would use the word "surprised"... It's more like one might feel when seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time after seeing it in photos or on television: I wasn't prepared for the splendor. Again, in the coda of the 4th movement, I found myself in tears. If the man had written no other notable work in his lifetime, this one effort alone would have earned him his immortality.

It's funny... two years ago I visited Beethoven's grave in Vienna. I worked myself up on the trip over listening to his music on my iPod... but when I got to the grave site I didn't break down like I thought I would. I was kind of numb. Thursday, I finally understood why. That little plot in the Central Cemetery of Vienna was just a carved stone with some dirt; beneath it was the remains of a mortal shell. The Maestro himself no longer lingers there. He was a musician, after all, (maybe the greatest of us) and graveyards are... silent. But Thursday night, I had the reaction I thought that I should have had standing at his grave... overcome with the sensation of trying to perceive the universe all at once. Indeed, that is where the Maestro lives... in every bow stroke, every column of air that resonates through a wooden or metal tube.

I keep saying that I'm an agnostic... but I do know that if God does exist, this is what his voice sounds like.