Thursday, May 10, 2007

Took a walk in the woods just outside my place after night had fallen. The chilling wind blew, but sounded like a laugh of derision. The trees, with their crooked branches, forming a haunting silhouette with the starless sky as their backdrop, seemed to be whispering with one another, pointing their hands in mockery...

The Schubertian cry... I heard it in my head. The angst and the pain. I felt it. Ich habe genug! A heartwrenching scream!

A period of momentary silence. The wind stopped blowing and the leaves stopped moving. I had managed to come out of the woods after wandering in it mindlessly. How much time had passed? I didn't know. I guessed nothing mattered anymore.

How fitting. Just like the Schubertian introspective moments...

How apt. Floating around, floating around. Despite coming to the perfect cadence in bars 190 and 191, there isn't a sense of rest. Until the descending D minor arpeggio to the A minor chord. Seems to suggest a resignation to the harsh realities of life.


The imitation in the cello part seems to symbolise the slight aftershocks. And with a last breath, it rises up 3 octaves within two bars, sweeping everything away. Such poetry in the music. Reminds me of a poem by Emily Brontë...

It is too late to call thee now
I will not nurse that dream again
For every joy that lit my brow
Would bring its after-storm of pain

Besides the mist is half withdrawn,
The baren mountain-side lies bare
And sunshine and awaking morn
Paint no more golden visions there.

Yet ever in my grateful breast
Thy darling shade shall cherished be
For God alone doth known how blest
My early years have been in thee!

Just as the poem ending with a nostalgic exclamation of the beautiful past, the music is puntuated with the two last two chords with a nostalgic yet exaltant fortissimo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Such beauty in the harmonic and melodic structure, I only hope I can do justice to the piece by being the best accompanist I can be.. Looking forward to working out the mountain of duets with you! :D Godspeed.

Anonymous said...

1Cor 10:13.

fits the whole wandering in the woods thing.. ;)

good to see u in church. sorry ar, i left before i could say hi.. so er.. HELLO! hehe.. see ya broz..