Saturday, September 19, 2015

Mozart's Jupiter

Just back from a run with Mozart in my ears. Last movement of his last (41st, Jupiter) symphony. What a piece of music this is! Listen closely and you can hear the Romantic period bursting right through the Classical form, mowing down the guard rails with its energy and passion.

Bold, contrapuntal, complex — the sound comes from so many different directions that it feels like the inside of my head will explode, that my earphones must be smoking as I jog along sedate suburban lanes.

But they're not, of course, and I try to maintain a poker face, offering no clue to the musical miracle taking place between my ears,  to the near dissonance at minutes 5:40 and 8:40, to what some describe as a "cosmic" coda.

Instead, I exert every effort not to air-conduct as Mozart carries me surely from the first clean melody all the way to the exuberant and triumphant finale. Every time I listen I'm enlarged, calmed, emboldened, amazed.




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