Reflections from Tanglewood

You expect,

With a name like 

“Tanglewood”

Chaos and mess

And vines and dark woods

And twisting paths. 

Instead there is 

Total order

Calm

And loveliness. 

Sweeping green lawns

Manicured gardens.

Rows of clipped hedges

Form an organized maze. 

Hidden within are

Tributes to musicians past

(Mostly men) 

A beautiful house

With wooden floorboards

And painted walls

And images of musicians past 

(A mix of men and women) 

In the centre of the sweeping grounds

A giant pavilion

The summer home of the 

Boston Symphony Orchestra

World famous

Top notch

Leader in its field 

Thousands of people surround the structure

They have come with picnic blankets and chairs

And baskets full of food

Wine and cheese and chocolates

Even glasses filled with wild flowers

And you sit in the field

On a warm summers day

And the sky grows dark

With threatening clouds

The bell rings

Once, twice, three times!

The concert is about to begin!

And the sky opens up

Sit in a field during the fall of summer rain

Without an umbrella

Rain on your skin

Grass beneath your body

Sky above your head

The feeling of liberation 

The storm passes by

The sun is warm

And dries your skin

The concert commences

Stravinsky’s “Fireworks” Opus 4

Brings unexpected tears

Yo Yo Ma and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto

The sound is perfect

You can hear the bow scratching across the bridge

It is overwhelming 

The accumulative hours of practise

Of the players of the orchestra

Are astounding to imagine 

Imagine all the players as children

Drilling scales in their living rooms 

You are transported to your own living room

More specifically

The living room of your grandparents

To be more precise

Down the hall, to your 

Grandparents’ bedroom

Far away in Sydney

Twenty years ago 

You would wake up and go into their room

And Abuelo would have 

ABC Classic FM playing full blast on the radio

And you would dance to the music

And make him smile

You never talked about the composers

Or the history of the music

But the notes are as part of your legacy as your own blood

(Music passed down through generations

From your mother teaching ballet

Whilst you sat fetal, and later in a pram

Earlier: Abuela and Abuelo at concerts in Manila

Earlier still: Great-Abuelo fetal in Shanghai

While his father (great-great Abuelo) played violin)

And you, four generations later 

Sitting in a field in Massachusetts

As a counselor in music

The history of notes

Imagine being in the theatre when Stravinsky premiered 

The Rites of Spring

The boos and hisses! 

Now, high art 

The tangled web of family and history and influence 

How we came to be 

Where we are

Is orderly when viewed from a distance

Melodic lines able to be traced

Emphasized

Harmonized with

Made discordant 

And written into

Music

The end.