On Musical Space

a Passage

A group of chamber musicians recently played Brahms at our local community house. How very pleasant it was, to listen to music in a room with windows stretching ceiling to floor, and the Spring day so immediate all around us, that it was easy to forget we were in a room. Yet, it would be false to suggest there was not a veil made from melody and harmony, beyond which no perception of the day could follow. A night, through which nor moon nor stars shone, but for all that exhilarating rather than frightening. There was the cello sonata in E-minor. The cellist played this without music, with his eyes closed—after all it is not sight that is needed to navigate those black and grappling seas. He played with all the resolution of a captain long used to weathering his bark through unearthly storms; and the sonata finished, I felt I looked upon an ancient Mariner, calm after the frenzied telling of his tale.