One thing about getting older (I'm not yet ready to talk about getting old) is that your habits show more. The idea of turning into a crinkly ball of hide-bound habits can lead to the fear that you're not really growing, just getting more accustomed - and crotchety. Fortunately there are moments that put the fear to rest, if only for a moment.
One of those moments concerns an interpretation of music. I grew up listening to Switched-On Bach, a wonderful album of pieces performed on the Moog synthesizer by Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos. I still love it, it truly is a great recording. The second track is "Air on the G String," a popular piece by J.S. Bach that's often found in weddings everywhere. Carlos plays it straight through, from beginning to end, from A to B, with characteristic confidence and charm. And as a kid I thought nothing of it except "This is cool."
When I heard another recording of the same piece years later, a few things went through mey head. First, of course: Oh, I love this piece. Then: the clarity of the surface was not quite like S-O B (heh-heh, get it? SOB). Also, the sound - Carlos used more reed-like tones. And it works very well. Other thoughts: the dynamics could be better...
...and then the musician repeated the first part. And I discovered: it's supposed to be played this way! And then the second part was repeated! "Air on the G String" has an A-A-B-B structure: simple, so elegant.
I'd played piano for 7 years, and percussion for about the same, but I hadn't realized the importance of repetition in music. The reason, I think, is simple: There was no rewind button in Bach's day - so it was worked into the system. And it still is, of course. A drumbeat is a rhythmic motif repeated continually, and it keeps a band together. A chorus weaves verses together.
Or, as in this piece, you get a chance to really appreciate the musical phrases; they don't just pass you by, you can take them in and remember them, savor the notes. In that respect, the parts are like soup - they get better the second time you heat it up.
So, pace Carlos, I wish they could've let you record it the right way, doing "Air" to the fullest. The move is understandable, though. Making an album has certain challenges: you're limited by the medium to how much you can play. CDs can hold almost an hour and a half, which is gigantic compared to vinyl. One LP can get some 20-24 minutes per side, tops. So I imagine they had to decide whether to record longer pieces or more - and the choice was more. In this one respect, I think the album is flawed.
Switched-On Bach is still one of my all-time favorites, and always will be, but somehow it's nice to have observed the imperfections of things known youth. What's actually nice is, I don't mind that; I even like it.
When you're a kid, you know somehow that the world's been around a lot longer than you have. And somehow the world had authority: it was big. So grown-ups are perfect because they've been around - that's why they're the teachers and you're the student. When you grow up (and that takes some of us a little longer than others), you realize that grown-ups aren't so perfect. Never were, maybe never pretended to be. They've got problems, and the world has been fucked up pretty much always. But those things and people you loved then and now, you discover you didn't love them because they're perfect. You love them for what they are - and now, probably even more. And once you realize that, being human isn't so bad after all.
2 comments:
I think there's more to repetition than just the lack of a rewind button. There is an aesthetic pleasure in hearing how the end of a section leads back to its own beginning, and sometimes how (in sonata form) the variations resolve back into the original theme, but perfected. If it's done just right, it's almost impossible not to say "Aaaahhhh..." when you hear it, almost like people watching fireworks.
I agree with you completely - something about the logic of a continuous musical system, to get geeky for a moment. A finely developed theme and variations does touch off feelings of the beautiful and sublime. And a really funky rhythm just wants to keep going, shaking its thang: call it an infinite game.
The idea in this post highlights one aspect of repetition: you can't re-cognize something unless you re-turn to it. It suited my purposes, that's all. Qualifying the statement would have just made the prose clunkier than it already is, I think.
Your point seems to ride on the need for repetition: a theme can't be developed until it's been laid down at least once. That's how the variations can be appreciated - by playing off the theme.
To appreciate the theme alone, without appeal to variations, there's nothing to play off of, so a second hearing is needed. Hence the da capo, or da segno, or whatever.
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