Beautiful Song Of The Week

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Whenever it comes up in conversation that I endured almost a decade of piano lessons as a child, people often get a wistful look on their faces, before saying something like, “Oh, it must be so great to just be able to sit at a piano and play.”

But strangely enough, lots of the memories I have of learning to play the piano involve things other than the actual sitting-and-playing part. If you were lucky enough to take piano lessons, perhaps you’ll know what I mean. Here is a brief run-down of some of my strongest memories of taking piano lessons:

• I remember the wrinkles on my piano teacher’s hands.
• I remember the face of the kid who had his lessons right before me.
• I remember the sound of the clock ticking during my exams.
• I remember scales.

For some reason, I really liked practicing scales. No matter how hard the pieces were that I was supposed to be learning, the scales never changed, and I loved that predictability. I could remember where the sharps and flats were. I could visualize them before even playing the scale. Maybe that’s why I love this song so much; it reminds me of the comforting up and down of playing scales.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The wandering time signature. I’m tempted to count it as regular 4/4, but because the notes in the right hand are sometimes grouped in fives, and sometimes in sevens, I keep losing track of where the downbeat is. It makes me feel a bit musically inept, as if I’ve just tied my own shoelaces together.

2. The vocal clip. The grainy old voice that urges us to memorize the spaces in the treble clef is a great contrast to the clear, echoing notes in the piano.

3. The subtle thuds that fade in as the song nears the 2-minute mark. Like a racing heartbeat.

Recommended listening activity:

Sitting on a swing and turning around and around until you can’t turn anymore…and then letting yourself spin.

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If you’re looking for reasons to take an interest in the American composer Harold Budd, you’ll find two in the opening sentences of his Wikipedia entry. First, it states that he was raised in the Mojave Desert. Second, he was “inspired at an early age by the humming tone caused by wind blowing across telephone wires”. Now I don’t know about you, but anyone who’s raised in the desert and spends their youth transfixed by the wind blowing over telephone wires is a person I’m up for learning about.

And I’m glad I did, because Harold Budd is an intriguing guy. Apart from being a fascinating minimalist composer with dozens of albums to his credit since the 1970s, he’s worked with the likes of Brian Eno and U2, and taught at the legendary school CalArts.

This song is taken from the 2003 album “La Bella Vista”. The album is intriguing in itself, in that Budd was completely unaware that it was being recorded. Famed U2 producer Daniel Lanois was hanging out at Budd’s house when Budd decided to play a bit of piano for his guests. Lanois surreptitiously recorded Budd’s improvisations, and the result was “La Bella Vista”.

Oh, and Wikipedia also notes that Budd once composed a “long-form gong solo”. If you’re not intrigued by that, you will never be intrigued by anything.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The way he wanders along the keyboard makes it feel aimless.

2. The way he keeps the damper pedal down makes it feel endless.

3. The way he plays so lightly makes it feel effortless.

Recommended listening activity:

Yawning so hard that your toes point and tears come to your eyes.

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This song is taken from a 1991 opera written by Glass, which was based on a 1950 French film by Jean Cocteau, which in turn was based on the ancient Greek myth of Orpheus. Which goes like this:

Orpheus was a poet, musician, prophet, and all-around good guy. His wife was tragically bitten by a snake and died in his arms. In his grief, he sang such beautiful music that some nearby nymphs said something like, “wow, you’re talented! You should totally go to the Underworld and see if you can charm death with your songs and get your wife back!” Flattery is an intoxicating thing to a musician, so he decided to do it.

Sure enough, Orpheus sang so beautifully that he charmed the horns right off Hades. He agreed to give his wife back, but on one condition. (Isn’t that always the way it is in myths? They can’t seem to ever do a good turn without sneakily adding in conditions.) The condition was that as Orpheus walked up from the Underworld, his wife behind him, he was prohibited from looking back at her until they were both up and out. If he looked back, the deal would be off.

You can probably see where this is going. He walks out to the edge of the Underworld, and is so darned excited to see his wife alive again that he turns around…forgetting that they both had to be up and out before he was allowed to turn around. His wife, just steps from safety, disappeared, this time forever.

A few thousand years later, Philip Glass wrote this simple and lovely piece of music.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The constantly downward-moving scales in the right hand. I can only assume this is supposed to represent Orpheus descending to the Underworld, but it sounds so pretty, it kind of makes the Underworld seem like a nice place.

2. The left and right hand switch places briefly at 2:40. The left hand starts doing a descending scale while the right imitates the repeating chords that the left had been doing. It doesn’t last long, and I’m not sure what it’s supposed to represent. But it’s nice.

3. Repetition. Some people hate Philip Glass for being so repetitive, but I find it hypnotic and calming. It’s actually great road-trip music if you’re the driver and all your passengers are asleep.

Recommended listening activity:

Not looking back.

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Since June is graduation time, I’d like to nominate this song for valedictorian of the 20th century. I know the 20th century graduated a while ago, but things like this are easier to think about with the benefit of a decade’s hindsight.

The piece is simple enough: a string section plays a soft, slow sequence of chords. A trumpet “asks a question” in a completely unrelated key. A flute quartet “answers the question”. The trumpet repeats the same question several times, and each time, the flutes’ answer becomes more and more jumbled and frantic. Finally, they give up, and the trumpet’s question is left unanswered. The strings, meanwhile, seem completely unconcerned, and resolve in a nice little cadence.

So what makes “The Unanswered Question” the best musical representative of its century? Well, first of all, it’s very different from most music that came before it. Composed in 1906, many of its modern elements foreshadowed what was to come in 20th century music. In fact, it was so ahead of its time that it wasn’t publicly performed until 1946. Despite taking a while to catch on, it was still relevant enough at the end of the century to be included on the movie soundtrack for the pre-millennial classic “Run Lola Run” in 1998.

And if you’ll allow me to get philosophical for a second, I think that the 20th century was a jumble of contradictions, a collage of the best and worst of human kind: progress vs. world war vs. civil rights vs. environmental destruction vs. technological innovation. With a bit of creative listening, I think you can hear those contradictions summed up perfectly in this piece.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. Loud vs. Quiet

2. Calm vs. Frantic

3. Harmony vs. Dissonance

Recommended listening activity:

Sitting in the quietest part of the biggest library you can find.

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Q: What is an “Arvo Pärt”?

a)      A compact car

b)      A German fighter plane from World War II

c)       I think I bought one of those from Ikea once

d)      A popular but racy style of Norwegian bathing suit

You earn a million points if you answered, “none of the above! He’s an Estonian composer who’s all kinds of awesome!” And if you didn’t know that, it’s okay. After all, unless you live in Estonia, it’s doubtful that you even know where Estonia is, never mind who their most prominent composer of sacred music might be.

As Pärt was beginning a career as a composer, he was bursting with ideas, but a bit starved for inspiration; because Estonia was occupied by the Soviets, he wasn’t able to listen to any music from the outside world, other than a few illegal records he managed to get his hands on. Eventually, in 1980, he fled his homeland to live in Vienna. He wrote this piece shortly before leaving.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The title. Translated, it means, “the mirror in the mirror”, which conjures up images of the never-ending corridor of mirrors you see when two mirrors face each other. A hypnotic mental picture for a hypnotic song.

2. Tintinnabuli. I didn’t just make that word up, and it has nothing to do with this guy. It’s Pärt’s own compositional technique, in which two voices interact; one repeating arpeggios on the tonic, while the other moves diatonically up or down the scale. He used this simple concept throughout his career, and the results are soothtastic. (And yes, that one I did make up.)

3. The occasional low notes on the piano. They anchor the wandering arpeggios, and give the song the hint of power that it needs.

Recommended listening activity:

Adding ten minutes to your lunch hour.

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I first heard this song a couple of years ago at a choral concert close to where I live. I had never heard of the composer or the song, and I was blown away; it was one of those great and rare moments where the hair on the back of your neck stands so tall that it almost dislodges itself from its follicles. I challenge anyone to print off the lyrics, listen to the song, and think of a loved one who has recently died.  If you’re not a sobbing wreck by the end, you have no heart.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The dissonance. Eric Whitacre is what you might call a modern-choral-pop composer, and I mean that in the best possible way. While some modern composers seem to write with the dual purpose of making the music incredibly complex and entirely unlistenable, Whitacre picks his spots perfectly, using dissonance to make his cadences all the more satisfying.

2. The lyrics. Originally, Whitacre had wanted to use a Robert Frost poem, but copyright problems forced him to change course. The lyrics are by Charles Silvestri, and depending on which internet source you believe, they were either written for a young boy who couldn’t fall asleep, or for a soprano whose parents died within days of each other. Either way, they’re simple and evocative.

3. The end. If the choir performing it is skilled enough, the effect is perfect: this world fades away and silence creeps in.

Recommended listening activity:

Visiting a cemetery on a sunny day and finally being okay with it.