overgrown paths
03Dec09
Purely by accident, in the mid 1990s, I bought a CD of Janacek’s Piano Works. It’s just possible that it was playing when I was browsing in the old Music Discount Centre on Ludgate Hill of a lunchtime. For economy, it was packaged in a cardboard sleeve on the Harmonia Mundi label; I associated them with early music and had had a lucky streak of enjoying everything I’d bought from them, sight unseen, as it were. That probably clinched it.
Despite what I now know of its relative lack of grand melodic themes cf. Rachmaninov and relative inaccessibility to early audiences, I soon found I really liked it. I’d dream that if I were to have kids, and they ever played piano, they might play this.
Before I met the Janacek, there were times in my twenties and even thirties when, feeling particularly mortal, I’d console myself that I’d at least played some (if not all) of a Mozart horn concerto. And, to be accurate, the slow movements of a couple without obvious error. I even won that competition in Yorkshire when just 12.
For that momentary brush with the hem of the musical gods’ raiment I always thought that I could count myself blessed: it was not fame nor fortune but it was a quantifiably better condition than most people in human history might have hoped for. Even within my own extended family, the only other person to have reportedly graced the public with musical performance was a bugler in the Northampton Boys Brigade. With my horn I’d somehow defied, if only for a little while, a more philistine destiny.
For reasons that are very complicated, I stopped playing the horn aged 18, two years after the only available teacher in the district moved away. I continue to dwell on this fact because of my faith that it may well illuminate the difficulties we all face in adhering to the protocols necessary to succeed in a complex discipline; we need a better understanding of fallibility if we are to create robustness.
The consequence of my giving up the horn (or was it the horn giving up me?) was that both metaphorically and neurologically some musical pathways became sadly overgrown; I lost that knowledge of music “from the inside”. More recently, however, when I took the horn out and went through the warm-ups recommended in a manual that I acquired back in 2001 during an earlier attempt to reopen those paths, I reached a top B: that is, the B above third line C. There was even a hint (though not a full tone) of top C itself. Whether it is just over the summer holidays, or a period of 25 years, the extent of that overgrowth will be different: your mileage may vary (or YMMV, as they like to say on Twitter).
As a technology of inspiration for mid-life extension, Janacek would command a five-star review. A spiky character, his career was marked by relative obscurity until he was around 50, whereafter it took off. Unusually for a composer, his work got better and better until he died. I’m just about to start reading his biography, The Lonely Blackbird.
Oh, and before I forget, the music shop called today to say that the sheet music for On An Overgrown Path has just arrived.
Following VIII. Unutterable Anguish, is IX. In Tears.
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i see There was even a hint (though not a full tone) of top C itself.
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wow after two years the only available teacher in the district moved away.
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most of the time accidents bring bad lucks but in some cases it proves to be lucky as in your case.
music is your passion and you shouldn't give up that.
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Your experience show how much you love music…
You should not give up…
"The Lonely Blackbird" sounds interesting…
Hope you will enjoy reading Janacek's biography…
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music is immortal…
everyone love music…
Janacek is really an inspiration for music lover…
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It's good to have some passions in life like that. I've always regretted not learning to play any musical instruments when I was a kid. I guess there is still time though
your talk shows how much you love music and also that you are big fan of janacek…
if you really love music then dont give up…
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music is the most interesting topic that any one could find to discuss about. this is a quite interesting discussion about the role of music in your life. your transitions in the field of music is quite touching……
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These songs are the basis of the first volume of On a path covered. christian christmas poems The compositions are designed for harmonium, was first published, christmas day poems this cycle had increased to nine parts and were intended for the piano rather than the harmonium at a time.christmas greetings poems
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