Music soothes the savage beast

Boy, that daylight savings time was a killer this morning, wasn't it?  For those who have to get up early, which is bad enough, it's a senseless change forced on our body clocks every spring.  John declares (and I know this is true since I've lived with him for 20 years) that he will be grumpy for the next three weeks until he "gets used to it." But he never does, really.

He wasn't grumpy yet on Sunday, because we were at Seattle Opera in the 10th row main floor watching La Boheme, my favorite opera.  He bought the extravagant tickets as a Christmas present-- usually in Benayora Hall we sit up on the third tier peering down on the stage, which is fine too, but it's fun to be in the ritzy section sometimes, no binoculars required.

La Boheme is the most beloved opera for all the right reasons, and it's been called a "gateway drug to operatic addiction."  This was true in my case; I've been listening to it my entire adult life and it's the only opera I know so well I can take or leave the English subtitles.

During the last scene change they left the curtain open while the opera education director explained what was going on.  In this picture they are hauling off a snowdrift. Maybe they got this idea from the live MET broadcasts, but it was also family day at the opera and there were some activities for kids during the two intermissions.  There's usually just one intermission in this relatively short opera, so our only complaint was the extra break chopped up the emotional flow of the story.

We had a nice time.  We came home afterwards and ate leftover roast chicken, which was probably better than any meal you can get at a restaurant near the Seattle Center.

Then last night we watched a Netflix movie called A Late Quartet, not be confused with Dustin Hoffman's new movie called "Quartet."  It was more about the suppressed emotions and competing egos of the group than the music, but was entertaining in a melodramatic way.

A few weeks ago this poem called String Quartet came across on the Writer's Almanac.  For people like me who like to talk (and unfortunately, often interrupt) the poet does a good job of  describing the experience of a string quartet as a perfect "conversation."

String Quartet
Carl Dennis

Art and life, I wouldn't want to confuse them.
But it's hard to hear this quartet
Without comparing it to a conversation
Of the quiet kind, where no one tries to outtalk
The other participants, where each is eager instead
To share in the task of moving the theme along
From the opening statement to the final bar.

A conversation that isn't likely to flourish
When sales technicians come trolling for customers,
Office-holders for votes, preachers for converts.
Many good people among such talkers,
But none engaged like the voices of the quartet
In resisting the plots time hatches to make them unequal,
To set them at odds, to pull them asunder.

I love the movement where the cello is occupied
With repeating a single phrase while the others
Strike out on their own, three separate journeys
That seem to suggest each prefers, after all,
The pain and pleasure of playing solo. But no.
Each near the end swerves back to the path
Their friend has been plodding, and he receives them
As if he never once suspected their loyalty.

Would I be moved if I thought the music
Belonged to a world remote from this one,
If it didn't seem instead to be making the point
That conversation like this is available
At moments sufficiently free and self-forgetful?

And at other moments, maybe there's still a chance
To participate in the silence of listeners
Who are glad for what they manage to bring to the music
And for what they manage to take away.