Monday, August 5, 2013

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. 

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