Grading concert reports, part deux. Of course, I have more hilarious student quotes to share, but now isn't the time for that. This assignment of theirs is actually making me realize some pretty important things.
For the past 10 years, since I first picked up a clarinet in the 7th grade, I have always been a member of a large ensemble of some sort, usually a symphonic band. Ten years of intense ensemble work, everything from beginning band in junior high to the nationally-acclaimed Stetson University Symphonic Band. My experience as part of the Stetson band is something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I can't even count the number of times I was moved to tears by the music we were making, both during rehearsals and concerts. I bawled like a little girl at the end of my final band rehearsal in my senior year, knowing that going into composition, I would probably never have such intense musical experiences as a performer ever again. I really poured my whole emotional self into performing that music, and now for the first time in 10 years, I don't have any sort of outlet. I also took a lot of inspiration from the pieces we performed and the emotions they evoked. I'm beginning to wonder if my lack of ensemble participation is contributing to my dry spell of creativity. Ultimately, I feel a giant hole in my life that needs to be filled by the sort of cathartic musical experience only a large ensemble can provide. If next semester goes well enough and I think I can handle it, I'm going to talk to the conductor here and see what sort of time committment is involved in both the symphony orchestra and the wind ensemble. Yes, I already play in the New Music Ensemble here, and it's a lot of fun, but it's very small chamber music work. And ultimately...as much as I admire and enjoy the music of Cage and Reich, it just doesn't grip my heart the way Strauss and Maslanka and Lauridsen do.
Of course, the choice of program for the concert these kids did their assignment on is particularly poignant. Check out the selection:
Wagner, Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman): Overture
Strauss, Concerto No. 1 for Horn and Orchestra
Mahler, "Adagietto" from Symphony No. 5
Strauss, Death and Transfiguration
The first two pieces are wonderful and dramatic, but the last two...well, they're two of the most emotional pieces ever written. Adagietto was written about Mahler's longing for his future wife. The story goes that he gave her the score when he proposed to her. The conductor described it as him "pouring his heart out in strings". Death and Transfiguration was written when Strauss was only 25, and describes a man who lay dying with his life flashing before his eyes and his eventual death and ascension to heaven. As Strauss himself lay dying so many years later, he told his friend that dying was exactly as he had written about all those years ago. Powerful stuff. It makes my chest swell just thinking about it. I need to have these experiences again, I have to have this part of my life back. I'm not content to merely sit back and listen, though experiencing music live from an audience perspective is a different and wonderful experience in its own right. I need to play again. Soon.
