Once I took a class in Humanities. It was basically history as told from the point of view of the artists, musicians, sculptors and writers of each period. I loved learning about the comparisons between Raphael and Michelangelo; between Bach and Beethoven; between Shakespeare and Bacon. All these I had expected and understood. However, there was something that happened that I was not expecting.
Music has always been my livelihood. I eat, sleep and breathe music as regularly and as naturally as I eat, sleep and breathe. One of my earliest memories consists of my seeing the instrument I wished to learn and making a commitment to myself that I would learn it when I was big enough to lift it. I was singing before I was talking in sentences and I taught myself the piano just for the fun of it when I thought no one was looking. I listened to any music I could get my hands on, and I got my hands on a pretty wide variety of music, considering we had no CDs, no computers, no i-pods, no DVDs, and not even any movies to rent! Still, my Mother had a great collection of vinyl records that would rival any CD collection of today. My mom loved music; all kinds of music. There was not a single style of music that was left out of her collection. From Baroque to Classical to religious to pop to country to bluegrass to rock to jazz to folk to local; You name it, she had it and I listened to it.
I was like a starving man who had just discovered food. I couldn't get enough. Every spare moment I spent listening to something. I listened to the radio on various stations so that I could keep abreast of new music. I listened to oldies so I could find out what my parents liked. I even listened to the music in the doctor's office because I just couldn't let a piece of music go by without listening to it, at least a little. I wanted to know about every composer, every artist and every piece of music.
I didn't realize at the time that I had bitten off more than I could chew. It would take hundreds of years to listen to all the music that has been written in this world. So, when I had to take a humanities class in order to get my degree, I was happy to revisit many of the wonderful pieces of music that I had listened to in my relatively short life-time. The teacher was interesting and entertaining so as I went to class I felt lucky to be there and looked forward every day to the things he would teach.
One of the things I quickly discovered about the class was that I had listened to nearly every piece of music that he was introducing. It wasn't that it bothered me, but I did get comfortable in the class because I pretty much knew what to expect. There was little he could do to surprise me musically, because musical surprise had become a rare thing for me.
Then one day, it happened. The teacher began his presentation with the usual historical background of music and art that we were studying that day. I sat listening with interest but nothing more. Then, as he reached the first listening example of the day, the teacher's voice began to quaver. He was speaking softly and lovingly of this piece of music and I was definitely intrigued. He did not give his usual cheerful commentary, but only talked softly, even reverently, of the music he was about to play. Finally he played it. Our teacher wept as he listened, and for the first time in his class, I wept over the music. It was beautiful beyond words and beyond anything I had ever heard before. This, I decided, was the best thing I had ever heard. Then, I distinctly remember feeling cheated; cheated out of nineteen years of not hearing that music. “Why had someone not shown me this before?” I thought. This kind of beauty isn't a luxury, I decided; it's a need, like food.
The Pilgrim's Chorus from Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner was the music he played and it has become musical bread and water to me. This and many other pieces of great music have fed my soul and satisfied my hunger for beauty and symmetry in a world where ugliness and chaos are not only the norm but are heralded as a 'new beauty'. But that emperor has no clothes, as far as I'm concerned. He walks naked in the streets and secretly everyone is laughing.
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