Tuesday, November 2, 2010

the unanswered question

i love this piece of music with its blues-edged tinges, its hovering, expectant, gently mournful interweavings that sit in my own sense so well beside the fragile and vivid shadings of the leaves now fallen from the trees.
the trees - stark now against the pale grey of cool mist-filled mornings and the pale silver of cloudy days.

6 comments:

Tess Kincaid said...

Exquisitely haunting. My daughter includes several Ives songs in her vocal recitals.

Reya Mellicker said...

Oh man. Charles Ives. I can't think of a better composer for Day of the Dead.

The San Francisco Symphony performed his fifth symphony once upon a time - a most complicated piece in which there's an orchestra, another orchestra below stage (playing something different) while the "stars" (a string quartet) play their own music up in the balcony.

You would think it would have been cacaphony, but it was beautiful! Exciting. I'll never forget it.

Thank you!

Okie said...

gorgeous

refreshing

haunting

calming

lovely

steven said...

willow - i first heard the music of ives in my high school years and i couldn't connect because it felt like so many musics side-by-side and now when i hear it it's like life, the threads somehow connecting and bouncing off each other even as they amplify each of their own stories through the other threads' telling. steven

steven said...

reya i'm so thrilled to know you have heard ives' music live. i've not had that experience yet. scratchy vinyl, super clean cds and headphones and radio are my experiences. in the cleanlight of autumn and the deep dark of morning and early evening. the sad and the happy and the blue and the grey skies, ives' music pulls the dicord and concord into one beautifu statement for me. i'm glad you came along for the ride. steven

steven said...

okie you know you know. those are words that tell of the moments of this music. threads on the loom of telling much of the whole story of a time and a place. what a brave guy ives was. steven