Musical Love Affairs
The Year of Aesthetics №49 2022–11–10
Mercutio: I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes, By her high forehead and her scarlet lip, By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh And the demesnes that there adjacent lie, That in thy likeness thou appear to us!
Romeo: But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
We are all lucky Cassanovas! ~NNT
This ain’t no Mud Club or CBGBs this ain’t no foolin’ around! ~ Talking Heads
I fall in love with music in the moment, it is visceral instead of cerebral. My favorite musician are love at first sight, I am a Romeo of music, I fall hard for my favorites usually captured by a tune on the first hearing. I am in love at first sight, and I am completely enamored. Like Casanova and unlike Romeo, I don’t fall out of love but seem to trail musical loves as I move on. I see my love of music and bands I have fallen in love makes me the luckiest of Romeo/Casanova. Falling and love and being promiscuous is my musical modus operandi.
The bands above are easy to love, they are very complete bands with no weak links. Each one just overwhelmed me and encompassed me. I am still in love with them all. I loved them all at first sight.
Scruton wrote about building up to great music, but in my experience I just found the sounds of these groups attractive, it was awe and in the heart and not the head. I am working on being more discerning, but I do like that I just fall in love with music. With these bands above I have picked appart their songs and have a deeper long lasting love for their work and talent. I can never really able to be sold on bands or music, I love and I hate yet I do not know why and am torn, as Catullus said so well . I am lucky, I was introduced to Talking Heads very early, and I was a kid when the Police emerged. I saw Margo Timmin sing on SNL and heard PJ Harvey in the movie the Armature. One song in on all these bands I was in for a penny in for a pound.
Piano has always been a love, the grand compositional instrument, which covers rhythm and base line and a melody line. My favorite composer of jazz and piano is Monk who fills and rhythm lines are better than most composers melodies. His melodies and arrangements of standards is the height of American composition. I heard Bill Evans as we hunted for pianos and he was the one who tempted me to want to play piano most. Wang just stuns me and she loves music I love like St. Saens and Gershwin.
When I moved to Chicago Daniel Barenboim was the CSO Conductor. I subscribed to the symphony and loved his tenure. He is my conductor, I love his work on choral and opera his conducting of Verdi Requiem and Mozart Cosi Fan Tutte. His piano for four hands with Argerich are wonderous. I was in love with his approach again at first sight. Maybe I am the most Romeo-esque with his work I just have found no conductor that I love as much.
Renee Fleming sang at the first opera I ever saw she sang the countess, this was her emergence into the opera world. I have been captative of her talent she is the voice of Strauss for me which is the highest complement I can give to a singer . Again I was around for Philip’s and Netrebko's emergence and I have seen both of them sing live. Netrebko has been my favorite musician since I first saw her in Il Puritani, the consummate actress, singer in both comedy and drama. She is the great Verdi soprano of our age, but like Fleming a interpreter of Mozart par excellence her Don Anna is without rival. Philips was stunning and often sings unique repertoire I am always looking for new performance from her. Yes I fall for Soprano’s I consider myself lucky…
My most recent moment of musical passion is Hania Rani. I am captivated by her solo piano acoustic work as well as her synth sound and her duets and popular composition for ensemble. She is a phenomenal player, and her compositional skills put her firmly in the rank of the Avant guard.
I do feel like after I have the initial crush of a new band or musician that I do start discerning and looking for reasons to love their work. Is this post hoc or just getting to know the ones that astound you. I am not sure if I had a good base and had access to good music from the begining. Scrutons thoughts on music and discernment are by a very wise and musically talented philosopher, while I take a more visceral approach I have his arguments in my ears.