THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
WONG MING YANG U6B2
WONG MING YANG U6B2
Lean back, relax, watch the fluttering curtains and
feel the soft caress of the midnight breeze on your cheek, let the
mellowness and beauty of the still night envelop you in all its
loveliness and majesty…. The symbolic crash of the opening chords, the
brilliant rush into the exposition of the symphony, the meticulous
articulation of the long, bony fingers of the virtuoso in a rippling
concerto cadenza, the intense frown of concentration on the brow of the
violin maestro as he surges through a pizzicato passage, the
sweet, bird-like trill of the piccolo, the metallic tom-tom of the
timpani, the nostalgic faraway call of the French Horn, the delicate
chime-like ring of the lament of the trombone, the clicking of
the castanets, the firefly darting of the white tip of the conductor's
baton, until the very, very last note has died away from a forte-fortissimo
to nothingness…. you sit through them all, completely entranced and
enmeshed in the vice-like grip of the fierce, compelling, intoxicating
and passionate music. You shed a silent tear and whisper grateful,
humble thanks to God for such priceless, irreplaceable blessings.
Music is a long-accepted form of entertainment,
pleasure and education; music is an expression, a way of living, life
itself; music is the food of love; the symbol of our hopes, aspirations,
dreams, which may soar as high as the skies or plunge into the abyssmal
depths of the seas, the despair, agonies of parting, the sadness and
gloom of the dying, and death. What better time is there to speak of
music than now, when this world of ours, throbbing with life, sees
science, technology and civilisation scaling new peaks and conquering
former insurmountables, when Man has begun a take-over of the once
inaccessible moon, when babies are born in test-tubes, when
computerization threatens to replace man, when extinction of the human
race by new gas and chemical warfare is not impossible, when the first
strains of sweet melodies have soared in the skies above in the dizzy
and rapturous heights reached by the Apollo 11 spacecraft?
Appreciate the values of music. Listen, and allow
your emotions free rein and your imagination unlimited scope and
discover the hidden depths that music can penetrate. You begin to
understand the necessity of aestheticism which provides a release valve
from the pent-up feelings of a mad whirlwind, the relentless and
disastrous rushing of today's world. You delve into the hearts of
composers and musicians long dead and gone. Their memories linger with
their immortal melodies still affecting us as much as our ancestors. You
strengthen the bonds, ripe with age, between this modern generation and
that of our forefathers, you understand what you can do to music and
what it can do for you. You realise the parallelism of history, great
events and music.
Man and his Music are related closely. "Music is the
idealization of the natural language of our emotions." It is more than
Nature; it is "Nature's essence." The appeal of music is universal;
one's response to it is also universal, and could hardly be more
strongly felt. True, music appeals more to some than to others; certain
types of music arouse more feelings, than others, but the 'right' music
and the appropriate time have the desired effect. It has the power to
stir human and animal feelings, to calm and comfort, to excite and
exhilarate, to crush and drown.
Then compare the music of Bach, Handel and Scailatti
to that of Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms,
Tchaikovsky, Bartok, Debussy, Ravel, Britten, Kabalevsky, and so on.
The colourful, ornamental, theatrical, polyphonic Baroque period of Bach
and his contemporaries seeks to arouse musical feelings by its fineness
in artistry and delicacy. Beethoven finds it difficult to control his
intensity of feelings in his compositions and his tremendous bravura
passages with interspersed pianissimo effects provide a
convenient insight into his fiery and unpredictable character. This
musical genius was the creator of masterpieces which are today still
considered as among the finest of all ages. The Romantic composers also
sought to express their feelings in music - Schumann composed such
pieces as Soaring and Whims, which reflected the depth of
his love and the height of his Passion for Clara Wieck, and his music is
full of jumps and leaps and bounds. Ravel and Debussy, with their maxim
- "to name an object is to sacrifice three-quarters of that enjoyment
which comes from guessing bit by bit", established the school of
Impressionism, where allusive vagueness and atmospheric sensations were
used to create musical interest. Chopin, in his fierce nationalistic
pride, composed Polonaises and Mazurkas in honour of his native land and
so did Bela Bartok, the Hungarian composer whose music has a definite
folk song lilt. But, unlike the harmonious blendings so skillfully
contrived by these classical composers, contemporary writers have only
succeeded in creating discordant harmonies and melodies, which do not
merge or enrich each other, but collide, rebound and clamour for
recognition.
This is a trip into the fairyland of music, where a
myriad of songs, operas, symphonies, concertos, overtures, sonatas,
waltzes, suites, string quartets, oratorios, cantatas, nocturnes,
études, preludes and others await you. "Let no such man be trusted" was
said of the man who has no music in his ears. Are you so deaf that you
cannot hear, so blind, oh so very blind that you cannot see? So very
cold that you cannot, absolutely cannot feel?
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