The Power of Music
Music | covid | vandalism
Music is powerful. The evidence is everywhere. You don’t need me to show you the receipts.
At the weekend I conducted powerful music: Kaprálová’s Suita Rustica and Janáček‘s Taras Bulba. I commend both works to the house. I commend, too, the orchestra I was working with.
The joy of a Rehearsal Orchestra course lies in the creation of something from nothing. The participants are nearly all non-professional, which of course doesn’t mean they’re not skilled (the level of non-professional music-making in this country is extraordinarily high, which in itself could be the subject of another post or two). To attempt to play this music, even in an informal setting, takes a certain kind of bravery, the kind of gung-ho approach to success and failure that has seen England’s Test cricket team thrive in the last year. Let’s have a go. What’s the worst that can happen?
We start from scratch, work on the music as intensively as our brains can manage, play it to a non-paying, invited (and therefore, we hope, sympathetic) audience, go home. Sometimes, extraordinary things are achieved. This weekend, or what I remember of it, was no exception.
At some point on Sunday, I forget exactly when, I began feeling grim. The sharp tug in the sinuses, the draining away of energy, the feeling that you need to lie down right now and stay lying down until everything goes away.
But music, as I say, is powerful. And conducting has its own mystical force. The physical exercise might be part of it. But while I jokingly say that conducting is merely “waving your arms in time to music”, or “standing in front of a group of musicians in the hope that music will happen”, (and without wanting to get all woo about it) all I can say is that on Sunday afternoon, while standing in front of a group of musicians, waving my arms, I felt, if not well, at least not completely unwell. If I’d expended the same energy going for a jog, you would have had to scrape me from the gutter.
When I stopped, of course, it was all I could do to negotiate a speedy route to the car and thence home and thence to bed, where I remain.
Music is powerful. But it’s not powerful enough to turn a positive covid test negative.
Sleeping and sneezing, I find, are my new hobbies.All praise to televised sport, as good an accompaniment for a doze as anything.
In between snoozes I’ve spent some time being properly furious about vandalism, both societal and cultural.
Here’s a petition. I’d love you to sign it. Don’t know if it’ll do any good, but it’s worth a try.