When you look at the score, at the parts, this music is actually astoundingly simple. Not even accidentals, and yet it sounds so beautiful. The pictures presented alongside the music in this video are rather appropriate: they show how a handful of simple rules have created all the variety and beauty of the observable cosmos.
The deeper we look beyond the depths of space, we come closer to the beginning of our creation. The birth of what we are in it's sincerest and colorful form. The truth. As mankind's obsession with becoming all powerful and lovers of invention, we stopped looking to the skies when the lights on Earth spread a blanket across our skies, obscuring the truth of what we are. Just a small portion of the wonders beyond our milky way. We now look downward, into small screens hoping to see more out of life. We look to ourselves and to narrate the lives we've never come to meet, that 'wonder' and 'hope' and 'miracles' have become virtually meaningless concepts when it is the only thing we need to discover who we are.
There is hope, there are miracles. There is beauty.
What deep and profound insight into the human condition this composer has. The terrible loss of a single human life should shatter and shake us to the core like this music. Life can be so hard yet so beautiful, so connected yet disconnected at the same time. We all know love is the single most important thing we can have and will ever have in life yet that is not reflected in how we conduct and organize our societies.
I heard someone describe the end of this piece as the musical equivalent of flatlining. Each musical line slows and drifts into unison and fades in one final somber chord. Marvelous
I'm not sure any piece of music will express as well the idea of being utterly bereft. It is the song sung by the heart of a people who have gazed up in horrified astonishment and seen their sun die and their world grow dark. Which, coincidentally, is the same thing one feels as one comes to grips with the idea of being left in a world that no longer has a dear loved one in it.
so emotional. intense. I dance to this often. the build up (alas, I'm not a musician so don't know the proper terms) of music perfectly mirrors the overwhelming feelings inside, I cannot keep still. Sudden silence, eternal peace.
Emily Dickinson said it best:
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
This song is amazing. The first time I heard it was in class where we were told to lie down, close our eyes and feel it. I was crying by the end, and I didn't even know what the song was about!
"transcends time and place to poignantly unite the two extremes of the human condition: desolation and hope" - such exquisite poignant music, just beautiful.
Is this death and life expressed in sound? Waves of intense overlapping sound, regenerating, rolling on and on. And there is the most subtle crescendo throughout the piece, leading to a final supremely intense chord that goes on so long it alters your breathing. Stunning.
The images really depict the other-worldly programmatic idea that this music presents. It feels like the music is taking us somewhere, but each of us will ultimately arrive at a different destination. The piece is unique to you in your own life and your own mind. Enjoy it the way you see fit :)
This piece perfectly captures the pain of loss. It reminds me of the moment you receive news of a tragedy: first the shock, then the pain seeping in slowly until it becomes overwhelming. I imagine someone slowly falling to their knees. Stunning.
Just listened to this piece tonight conducted by Tõnu Kaljuste at the National Auditorium in Madrid.
It was magic.
The silence after it was something i don't think i'll ever hear again.
