![\"music\"](\"http:\/\/52.86.15.65\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/music.jpg\")
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A giant finger reaches from the sky and plucks the golden string that sets into motion the rhythm of the city from\u00a0ocean to bay.Music spills from the doorways of windowless clubs where unknown bands sweat in obscurity.\u00a0\u00a0 Elsewhere in the city, six hundred people float upon the jazz guitarist\u2019s plush and intoxicating tunes.\u00a0 At a bluegrass festival in the park, friends congregate under a floating orange orb ready to live out once again the blissful spirit and sounds of their younger years.\u00a0 The bass beats from an idling car deliver painful sound waves\u00a0that feel like marbles dropping on my eardrums.\u00a0 Silent melodies declare themselves in the movements of roving young men who drift down sidewalks, wires sprouting from their ears.<\/p>\n
In this weekend of music my husband and I find ourselves in the symphony hall thanks to the generosity of a man who infused the\u00a0symphonic beat into the souls of my sons, using every tool at his disposal from the tiny tinkling triangle to the mighty marimba.<\/p>\n
Unlike many of the others who are also there, for the first time I\u2019m about to see the man who is often referred to only by his initials.<\/p>\n
We come dressed in jeans and tuxedos.\u00a0 We are old and young.\u00a0 We are nimble and we are crippled.\u00a0 The throng moves slowly through the doors and up the stairs.\u00a0 I slip off to join the seemingly endless line for the ladies\u2019 restroom where biology and Mahler\u2019s absolute demand for our undivided attention sends us scurrying.\u00a0 A few moments later my cell phone vibrates.\u00a0 Abandon the line, my husband warns.\u00a0 The lights are dimming.<\/p>\n
He walks onto the stage like the celebrity he is, elegant and silver-haired, a man whom one could imagine in the salons of Versailles.\u00a0 Certainly if you saw him at your local Starbucks you would take a second look and say to yourself, this man must be someone.<\/p>\n
He sets into motion the celebration of life that is Mahler\u2019s third symphony.<\/p>\n
With his wisp of a baton he could be carving the wing of a butterfly on an ice statue.\u00a0 At other times he appears to paint a canvas of life with the colorful notes of his open hand.\u00a0 When his arms reach skywards, face tilted up, eyes closed, he looks like a man who has been touched by divine inspiration.<\/p>\n
The music grows and swirls and growls and whispers.\u00a0 I imagine the orchestra to be a corporeal being.\u00a0 The percussion is the heart, the strings become the nervous system, the brass is the tendon and muscle, the woodwinds are the skeleton.\u00a0 The man with three initials is the mind that integrates and directs the movements of all.\u00a0 No one part can function without the others.<\/p>\n
Surely we should wrap the feet of these men and women in silk so they never touch the ground\u2013 they who hear and deliver the notes to the rest of us.\u00a0 It seems impossible that they will go home to ordinary lives and routines.<\/p>\n
Music is what our higher selves aspire to and what our most base selves descend to.\u00a0 It is our release from boredom\u00a0and suffering and our means of expressing joy.<\/p>\n
Well into Mahler\u2019s Symphony No. 3 come the lyrics from Friedrich Nietzsche, famed German philosopher and poet.<\/p>\n
Deep is the pain!<\/p>\n
Joy deeper still than heart’s sorrow!<\/p>\n
Pain says vanish!<\/p>\n
Yet all joy aspires to eternity…<\/p>\n
Our day in the city has come to a close.\u00a0 We return home to live out the rhythm of our own lives.\u00a0 We play it by ear and, on occasion, we\u2019re out of step.\u00a0 The pain is sometimes deep, the joy is even deeper.<\/p>\n
Music is joy.\u00a0 Music is eternal.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A giant finger reaches from the sky and plucks the golden string that sets into motion the rhythm of the city from\u00a0ocean to bay.Music spills from the doorways of windowless clubs where unknown bands sweat in obscurity.\u00a0\u00a0 Elsewhere in the city, six hundred people float upon the jazz guitarist\u2019s plush and intoxicating tunes.\u00a0 At a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":347,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathrynberlabooks.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}