I’ve been thinking, over the past several days, about the purpose of the arts.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, they stimulate the economy to a greater extent than almost any other entertainment form in proportion to dollars spent.\u00c2\u00a0 But, there is much, much more to it than that.<\/p>\n
I’ve been working on Kryzstof Penderecki’s Cadenza<\/em> for solo viola over the last couple weeks, and it’s such a tragic piece of music.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s based upon the motivic cell of a descending minor second (two adjacent keys on the piano keyboard), a soft sigh, not of pleasure, but of almost unutterable pain.\u00c2\u00a0 I think of what Penderecki lived through in Communist Poland, of Shostakovich and Stalin, of those young students putting their lives on the line in Tehran.\u00c2\u00a0 I think of the relatives of Air France flight 447, who may never be able to bring the remains of their loved ones home.\u00c2\u00a0 It makes me profoundly sad.\u00c2\u00a0 But working on something like the Cadenza helps me.\u00c2\u00a0 I know that in my sadness, however far in magnitude it lies from those who are enduring unimaginable pain, I am not alone, and that there are artists sensing the mood of their times and expressing it through their music.\u00c2\u00a0 And other artists are recreating their utterances and making them whole again.\u00c2\u00a0 And audiences are going to the concert hall and experiencing the collective catharsis that makes mankind ultimately still redeemable.<\/p>\n Then, I turn to the Clarinet Trio<\/em> of Johannes Brahms.\u00c2\u00a0 What sublime, autumnal, easy, profound music this is.\u00c2\u00a0 There is melancholy in it, of course, Brahms’ great love was unrequited, and his life was often a lonely one.\u00c2\u00a0 But his music is so deep.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to fall into it and be lost in his beautiful, long melodic lines on the one hand, and in his sometimes frustrating harmonic figuration posing as melody that still manage to express so much despite their abstract nature.\u00c2\u00a0 In late Brahms, I see a man who is looking back and the entirety of his life, taking stock, and saying that in the end, everything is ok.\u00c2\u00a0 Beauty conquers all.<\/p>\n If we let it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been thinking, over the past several days, about the purpose of the arts.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, they stimulate the economy to a greater extent than almost any other entertainment form in proportion to dollars spent.\u00c2\u00a0 But, there is much, much more to it than that. I’ve been working on Kryzstof Penderecki’s Cadenza for solo viola over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Iu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12454,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/08\/oh-captain-my-captain\/","url_meta":{"origin":2758,"position":0},"title":"oh captain! my captain!","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 8, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Today has been a long day of grief, resurfacing memories, and of music, above all. I auditioned for the Oregon Symphony in May of 1995. I played my first two rounds, and then came the finals. There sat the great man himself. James DePreist. The Maestro. Jimmy. He asked me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7085,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/27\/holiday-mix\/","url_meta":{"origin":2758,"position":1},"title":"holiday mix","author":"Charles Noble","date":"November 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It's Thanksgiving weekend, which for most orchestras and ballet companies marks the beginning of the onslaught of holiday programming. For the Oregon Symphony, that meant the Von Trapp family singers (the great grandchildren of the captain and Maria Von Trapp) at the Schnitz last night. We head down to Salem\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/12\/iStock_000004826253XSmall.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7321,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/02\/15\/renee-fleming-program-set-for-portland\/","url_meta":{"origin":2758,"position":2},"title":"renee fleming program set for portland","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Soprano Renee Fleming's program for March 13, 2012 has finally been announced. The conductor is Ms. Fleming's own, Sebastian Lang-Lessing. I'm most excited about two of the selections: Ravel's Sh\u00e9h\u00e9razade, and Korngold's Marietta's Lied from Die Tote Stadt, two of the most beautiful pieces ever written for voice and orchestra.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "programming"","block_context":{"text":"programming","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/programming-music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/ReneeFleming_2_orig_credit_Decca_AndrewEccles-300x399.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/04\/11\/when-will-the-dam-burst\/","url_meta":{"origin":2758,"position":3},"title":"when will the dam burst? …","author":"Charles Noble","date":"April 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The following are my own musings on the state of the institution for which I work, and that I have no knowledge of any information that would be considered confidential. I feel like the Oregon Symphony is poised on the edge of a precipice this week (not that this is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}