SERENADE TO MUSIC

Many, many, many moons ago, as a young man in my twenties, I was confused and anxious   I sought answers on any number of subjects wherever I thought I could find them.  My greatest source was of course, books.  But there were somethings that books could not tell me.  In my search a few times I contacted psychics.  I remember the first psychic I ever contacted. Now, I am by nature a highly sceptical individual so I was unsure what she had to offer me.  But I was also very interested in the esoteric sciences (Edgar Cayce, Theosophy, the Ancient Wisdom, numerology, astrology, ESP, and other manner of psychic phenomena) at the time.  Curiosity spurred me on. 

When I contacted her I spilled no beans, I waited for her to speak to me.  I answered no questions as to why I was calling (she actually did not ask, either),  I remember she said she had to "tune in" to me.  She took a moment and the first statement she made was, "I see you wearing headphones."  This immediately got my attention!  At the time I was not driving, I took public transportation and walked; I could not be seen without my walkman and headphones.  "And everywhere that Thomas went, his walkman was sure to go!" I loved music and had been listening to music since I was a child.  Back in the 70s we had one of those enormous stereos that was literally a piece of furniture like a chest or cabinet.  I used to sit on the side of it listening to easy listening music (yes, easy listening music).  I took in The Carpenters, Johnny Matthis,  Helen Reddy, Montovani and his Orchestra, and many others.  Then in 1979 a few years after my mother re-married my second step-father, a military man, we were stationed in Germany.  At the time we had two television channels in English and one radio station in English.  In search of music I started checking out the German radio stations and heard classical music for the first time-and I was hopelessly smitten at 11 years of age. 

After the initial statement of the psychic, that she saw me with headphones, she said that I was" intently listening to music, intently as if you were getting something from it." She said I was deriving "something subliminal" from the music.  It was at this point that I realized my relationship with music was something magical, that what I felt when I listened, though it refused to be dragged into words, was something deep inside me.  Subsequent readings from her did not prove as fruitful or worthwhile but I often reflect on what she gave to me anent music.  It has made my relationship with music all the more special now that I know it affects me so deeply.

There is a piece of music in the classical repertoire by Ralph Vaughn Williams called Serenade To Music.  The orchestral version with Vernon Hadley and the London Phiharmonic Orchestra is one of those pieces that takes me to another place.  The original version was scored for orchestra and choir.  In this version, one of the verses runs thus:

  I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

The reason is, your spirits are attentive –

 The man that hath no music in himself,

 Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,

 Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;

 The motions of his spirit are dull as night

And his affections dark as Erebus:

Let no such man be trusted.

 "The man that hath no music in himself...let no such man be trusted."  My sentiments exactly.  As much as I would like to consider myself special, I believe music has the same effect on all those who are attracted to its sweet sounds.  How else to explain why so many can be brought together so willingly under its delicious strains?  People come together for few reasons but music is one of the reasons we do come together.  And when we do we forget who we are, our travails, and submit to the music.  It speaks to us each, individually answering some special need we have, opening some lovely space inside us that no other person, place or thing can manage. 

 British orchestras have exceptional string sections with few rivals, particularly when they perform pastoral music, a genre which hearkens to the bucolic life of shepards in the country side. Vaughn William's piece is just such an one.  Another of my favorites is also from Vaughn Williams, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis-a sombre, long, rambling orchestral piece.  After the initial outburst of the orchestra it settles down with a violin solo that evoles into a quartet.  The orchestra and the quartet start a conversation, back and forth it goes until it reaches a glorious climax and then retreats. Toward the very end two violins emerge from the fray with the sweetest sounds, the most exquisite harmony anywhere in the repertoire.

Music is my salvation. Were it not so, I  hazard to guess what sort of person I would be; what else I would use to calm my tempestuous inner life and a strong but rampant mind.  I don't know why people succumb to alcohol and drugs when there is music.  It provides me a high that I cannot reach through any other means-a spiritual high that stretches beyond the reaches of the mind.   There is nothing like great music. It is truly God's serenade to the soul, his little lost child in a far away country.  He reminds us oh, so subtley by whispering to us in a language that by-passes intellect and reaches for that spark hidden deep inside us.  This is something only a serenade to music could accomplish!