The second piece from Charmes, by Federico Mompou, is an incantation for penetrating the soul (…pour pénètrer les âmes.) As I mentioned in my first post about Charmes, each of the six pieces that form it is a little magical spell which should bring about the desired effect on the listener. The first piece’s intention is to alleviate suffering (…pour endormir la souffrance), in the case of the second piece, the intent is to penetrate the soul.
While this specific piece may not have the desired effect on all listeners, especially on those that dismiss Mompou’s music as lacking substance, I think every one of us, in particular those of us that are musicians, has had music touch their soul at some point. That is the attraction that Charmes has for me, each of the six pieces embodies a magical effect that music in general can have on a person; this approach towards composition gets to the heart of why we make and listen to music. The second piece in particular also affects me as a performer; to penetrate the soul is what we all should try to do each time we play for an audience.
Every musician I know has a story of one of those moments in which music penetrates the soul. Most of the time, that moment is one of the turning points which convinced them to devote their lives to music, or playing a particular instrument. It’s not just a piece of music that does it, I believe that this magical moment is deeply connected with a particular performance and that it cannot happen without the relationship between interpreter, composer and listener. When this connection between all three happens, it’s an amazing feeling, like butterflies in your stomach, like a tingling feeling all over, a moment of intense emotion that leaves a glow which is slow to fade away and that can be felt again by recalling the music that caused it. I can’t do justice to what it is, but everyone should have felt it at one time or another; it’s as is the sound of the performance stops being something external to which we listen and becomes a part of you, it takes over you for the time the music lasts.
This kind of connection is much more intense, and happens more often, in live performance. I was lucky enough to have an amazing piano teacher, Galina Eguiazarova. She had stopped performing by the time I studied with her but, in the middle of one lesson, she played the entirety of the second movement from the third piano sonata by Brahms for another student and me. If I had to choose one particular moment that exemplifies how music can touch the soul, that would definitely be it. It’s tougher to find those experiences on recording, but when it happens it is that much better because you can hit the rewind button and listen to it one more time. There are five recordings that are very close to my heart because at some moment of my life they had that effect on me; an emotion of great intensity, beyond merely enjoying a piece of music:
Krystian Zimmerman playing Chopin’s second piano concerto:
Leonard Bernstein conducting Mahler’s first symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic:
John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (which is one of the first things I wrote about on this blog):
The first Brahms piano trio, with Julius Katchen, Joseph Suk and Janos Starker (another of the first entries on this blog):
Bach’s fourth English Suite by Murray Perahia. I couldn’t find a video of this on YouTube, but you can listen to a sample on Amazon, and definitely buy the album if you don’t have it.
2 Comments
Being a music major doing undergrad studies, I do have to agree, there is a turning point for a musician something momentary in their lives that makes them do the insane: pursue it. It makes them push past through all the tough-love discouragements from parents, peers, teachers (musical and non musical!) and somehow after all that, they do it. To me, I think that the decision made is not always based on a performance that was amazing and spectacular.
Simon Tedenschi said he was inspired after watching a boy with cerebral palsy bang on the piano. I was inspired to get into music education after I spent a year with a horrible music teacher, I felt motivated to make things better! (funny the institute I go to is full of teachers who say “I don’t care what you say, we are musicians we are ALL going to teach sometime in our lives!”).
The worst can be just as inspiring as the amazing, it’s the PERSON who has that connection and emotion that propels them to be a musician.
Being a music major doing undergrad studies, I do have to agree, there is a turning point for a musician something momentary in their lives that makes them do the insane: pursue it. It makes them push past through all the tough-love discouragements from parents, peers, teachers (musical and non musical!) and somehow after all that, they do it. To me, I think that the decision made is not always based on a performance that was amazing and spectacular.
Simon Tedenschi said he was inspired after watching a boy with cerebral palsy bang on the piano. I was inspired to get into music education after I spent a year with a horrible music teacher, I felt motivated to make things better! (funny the institute I go to is full of teachers who say “I don’t care what you say, we are musicians we are ALL going to teach sometime in our lives!”).
The worst can be just as inspiring as the amazing, it’s the PERSON who has that connection and emotion that propels them to be a musician. :)