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Wed, 6 Dec 2000 01:03:59 -0500 |
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Yes, the Mozart G-minor quintet is enormously right for it captures both
one's most elegiac mood and the aching beauty of life itself.
More: at this time my wife of 44 years may be dying and suddenly I feel
emotionally crowded, even put upon by a superb Beethoven quartet and heaven
spare me a 'clanging' or demanding symphony, however wonderful to hear
at other times. I find myself tempted to repeat and repeat one or two
Schubert songs, e.g., "Gretchen am Spinnrade," "Der Leiermann," opera arias
of longing, the Brahms Clarinet Quintet or the Tchaikovsky Trio, and an
early Dvorak known to me as a boy growing up out in the Pacific where I all
but wore the 78s out on a handcrank Brunswick portable, the Quartet in E
Flat Major, Op 51.
Plato was right to fear music for among the arts it so subjective and
it speaks to our deepest sentiments. Music is, concurrently, strangely
vaporous in terms of modern efforts to 'nail down' just how the strong
connection between our feelings and music is formed.
Best regards,
Whitney H. Gordon
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