You haven't even begun to hear me go on and on and on about music. :-)
The other night, i went to go see the Elgin Symphony Orchestra with my mom. The school I'm going to in the Fall (Judson!! Woo hoo!!) sponsored the event, and I was invited, along with all the other upcoming music students/music scholarship people to come and meet some Judson students and faculty, and to enjoy a beautiful performance...for free as well. The feature of the night was a beautiful piano concerto by Grieg. It was from the Romantic era (Which is my favorite era in music...music majors...or...anthropology majors too I guess...holla!!) so I was like super excited to go. The pianist was completely amazing. The orchestra was beautiful. The piece itself was completely stunning.
I always go to the symphony, no matter where it's at, half expecting to have fallen out of love with music in the time since I last heard a really good classical piece performed live. I walk into the room, take my seat, and wonder if I'm going to spend the next two hours waiting for it to just be over with. I am always, indisputably, terribly wrong. From the second I walk into the auditorium, and look around at the lights down low, and hear the low murmurs of the crowd that has yet to settle down, and watch the symphony tuning up their instruments, see the lights on the stage, I begin to get tingles down my spine. When the 1st violin comes out and plays that first note, to tune the rest of the orchestra, my heart perks up a little. And then the music starts. And all of a sudden, I find that I am sitting at the edge of my seat, falling gracefully up and down with the music, my heart breaking, and swelling, and breaking all over again. I watch the orchestra play their instruments with such passion, and see the way they've obviously connected to the piece they're playing. I think I kind of fall in love with them too. As the piece crescendos and decrescendos, strong, and beautiful, I find that music has once again enraptured me and stolen my heart away. I realize that I have fallen in love with the thing I've always loved all over again.
The final piece was written by an early 20th century composer. At the turn of the century, many people thought that the symphony, that classical music was a pleasure of the past. This was the age of the automobile, of electricity, of the future! No one would have time to sit around and listen to a piece of music, or a 30 minute to an hour long piece of music at that. This composer felt quite otherwise. He wrote the symphony played to prove to the world that the symphony, that music at it's very core, could never be eliminated. The world was proved wrong upon the uprising of his piece. I imagine that as they heard this symphony, it beckoned them to the other symphonies, the forgotten ones. I'd imagine that they sat in their seats, waiting for the orchestra to start, waiting to see what all the fuss was about, and found, as the music crescendo'd and decrescendo'd that they, once again, much like myself, were completely enraptured, by the music filling the room around them. Music, once again, had stolen hearts, had started dreams, and proved that it unshakable.
The piece was titled "The Inextinguishable". The composer titled it this because he wanted to, in one word, communicate that music is life, and that nothing, no turn of the century, no new invention, no revolutionary object, thing, or era could ever eliminate this fact. Music is the inextinguishable. There is no argument about it.
So, I just want to close by saying that I can run a million miles, win a thousand races, buy a hundred new pairs of gym shoes and the like, but no matter how much time goes by, no matter how my heart changes, music will always, to me, be the unquenchable desire that burns within in, the passion that moves me, the life long friend, and the inextinguishable.
(My new 2 mile PR is 16:13:04!!)
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