Midweek Musings & Musicale

     It's the sort of weather outside that makes me want to don a long, flowing, hooded cape and flit through the woods à la Meryl Streep in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Gray and gothic. Damp and dreary. But, to me, very romantic.

     I suppose my idea of romance is somewhat peculiar. Many people find bluesy jazz played on a saxophone romantic; but every time I hear a saxophone, no matter what kind of music it's playing or what kind of sax it is, it always sounds to me like a giant kazoo—which I find romantic not at all. It's the snotty classical musician in me.

     On the other hand, I find baroque music incredibly romantic. The final duet of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea is to me some of the most romantic music ever written (despite the utter depravity of the two characters who sing it, Nero and Poppea). This performance by Marie-Nicole Lemieux and  Philippe Jaroussky is simply sublime.

 

     I remember when we did a production of Poppea at HGO—not the most recent one; I'm referring to one in, I think, the late '90s. I had for years been playing/coaching Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, even Gershwin—there was one Dido and Aeneas stuck in there, but mostly it was a steady diet of 19th- and 20th-century lushness and bombast. I was so happy when Poppea came along! While I was studying it, translating the text and listening to recordings, I had the sense of being musically cleansed. And when I listened to the final duet, I wept. I had forgotten how much this music moved the very depths of my soul. Baroque music was my first love; ever since I was a little girl it affected me like no other kind of music could, not even my beloved Mozart or Chopin. There is a purity in it of the blood and bone, beyond mere flesh.

     When I returned to the Church, I began listening to Gregorian Chant. I realized at the time that chant was enjoying a revival of sorts; people were listening to it to be soothed and "zenned." While I recognize that there is some validity in that, I also think people who listen to it in that way miss its true power and beauty. Gregorian Chant is first and foremost the voice of the Church in song. It is the raising of the human spirit to the Holy Spirit, the praise of the soul to its Creator, the heart's expression of love and adoration for its Redeemer, and of veneration towards the Mother of God. It is spiritual in the most religious sense.

 



 

     I have been a musician all my life and have always known that early music in particular put me in touch with my own soul. Perhaps I also knew, deep down beneath the layers of secularism I had built up during my Houston years, that what I was getting in touch with was really the Trinity dwelling within. Perhaps that's why I find early music so romantic. Yes, faith is romantic. It is, in fact, the ultimate romance.