In this post there will be mention of heroin, sex, deserts, cars and any other pseudo idiom I revert to in bringing my point across about a certain song or artist. Because right now I am two bottles of an especially deep, tobacco-flavored red deep, am losing more money than I care to admit in the Asian markets and yet while listening to this particular piece I am not really thinking of it in any way. In fact, I have to remind myself to actually look at the screen every once in a while even if my fear of margin calls are vanquished by this beautifully hypnotic example of tonality.
Right now I am down three thousand, in two minutes I could be up ten grand. However just as markets can swing in minutes, even seconds; one's mood can be transformed by the one minute and fifty seven second Adagio. It will probably sound familiar to some, it was used in the film, an excellent film "Master and Commander" and since then has been used in a few others. The initial feel is that of sitting in church waiting for the Marriage Ceremony to begin (since I am a single, male, thirty one years old I have no idea what the name of that particular piece is but you know of which one I am referring), it sounds like that song. But in its entirety it is not that or any other wedding song. This song, especially the beautiful run that begins at 1:21, makes the song and to me it makes Corelli.
In those last thirty five seconds Corelli transitions from every other classical composer in their banality, standardization and general malaise then brings forward the reason why music was invented: To capture an emotion so complex that words would never suffice. Thirty five seconds to harness the horror of a battlefield hours after the fight, thirty five seconds to lower as casket into the grave in some shady grove in the rolling hills of West Virginia. Thirty five to describe a baby exiting the womb and taking its first breath, a graduation ceremony, two people strolling by the reservoir in Central Park, a craftsman in Shanghai constructing hand made shoes and waves breaking through the lighthouse of the Normandy Coast. Listen to this song and make your own images, I guarantee you they will all fit, all of them. And think about that for a second, how universal such an idea is....that is the definition of great classical music.
It is all there, and the most judicious course of action I could ever grant one is to cease with the hyperbole and let the reader draw his own conclusions. As stated before words are quite inadequate to explain such precision and pulchritude.
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