cold enough for snow

I have been thinking about Scarlatti, my great-aunt's funeral and the snow (an entire inch has fallen on London, preoccupying the city).  A singular collection, but matters have a habit of coming together in unexpected ways. 

As regular readers of twang twang will know, I am learning this Scarlatti sonata and a week into it   considered that Scarlatti is in a world of his own, entrancingly and infuriatingly weaving around the borders of the musical establishment.  Entrancing, because the sonatas fizz with an energy that is the more intense because of their individuality;  maddening if you are trying to make musical decisions with the weight of conventional classical training behind you.  Sutcliffe admits in Scarlatti's Keyboard Sonatas that he has spent many hours at the piano gazing at his Scarlatti scores, hoping for inspiration to strike.

I was similarly waiting gloomily for a bolt from Apollo this morning.  The F minor sonata is emotionally enigmatic.  A spidery melody passes between treble and bass, decorated by small motifs that threaten to distract from as much as they support the tune.  The dissonances are particularly intense, but in their dissonance are ambivalent, and this intense ambivalence reaches its high points in strikingly deliberate delayed voice leading (bars 20-21 and 59-60).  The mood of the music shifts constantly, from the hushed and taut to the delicately wistful;  a more impassioned statement, then a relaxation into the relative major;  again a more agonised build-up, another relaxation, and a final seven bars that could crescendo or diminuendo, I haven't decided which.  All these emotional variations are contained within a structure of impeccable design and economy, heightening the intensity, and also reinforcing the sense that here is a world in minature, complete.

I had plenty of time to arrive at these observations as it took an hour and a half to eradicate an uneven second finger, and then I looked out of the window at the snow.  And I thought about my great-aunt's funeral, last wednesday, where it also snowed as we processed from the church to the graveyard.  The cemetery is on a hilltop overlooking a valley, and the snow falling gently and silently made everything look even more beautiful, particularly in the eyes of everybody assembled there, for it had snowed at the same church when my great aunt walked out of it on her wedding day, fifty years ago.  As we lowered her into the ground the sun came out, and so the world was white and bright, as well as sad.

The bright snow, and the primeval inevitability of the committal ("We therefore commit her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in the sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life") suddenly brought home how co-existing and conflicting feelings define our most important human experiences.  When someone dies the universe is no longer the same, but all around others are alive, as before:  the world has changed forever, and it has not altered at all.  And your own grief is mixed with complicated other emotions, and an overwhelming realisation that, no matter what you do, nothing can bring them back, and nobody can tell you where they have gone.   There are few words for that, even for a wordy type like me.

Sometimes I want to stay forever, for a moment, on that peaceful hillside, still with my great aunt amid the whirling snow.  A world is contained in the handfuls of earth we pick up and scatter down, and, as in Scarlatti, we stand at the edge between what we know and do not know.  The brief sonata ends, hoveringly, and stretches into the silence.

Comments

[John Ek]

Scarlatti.. AHhhhh. :)

[Loxias]

Hm, here is a seriously interesting and soberly touching post.

I have never listened to any Scarlatti. I've wasted my life on Bach and Beethoven, among others. ;-)

I think I will seek him out after this, though.

[pb]

I too sought out Scarlatti after your post, whom I didn't previously know very well. Turns out he's a weirdo! (a good thing) What a creative musical mind. Helen, between Scarlatti and CPE Bach, you've got juicy stuff to pluck!

[hanna]

'sometimes I want to stay forever, for a moment...' expresses it beautifully, Helen, they are all the few words you need.

[hanna]

'sometimes I want to stay forever, for a moment...' expresses it beautifully, Helen, they are all the few words you need.

[hanna]

'sometimes I want to stay forever, for a moment...' expresses it beautifully, Helen, they are all the few words you need.

[John S.]

Death robs us of speech. Nothing we can say, and you said it beautifully. It's only because we can love with all our hearts that our hearts can be broken, and everybody's is, eventually.

[Lisa Hirsch]

Thank you, Helen.

[Helen]

Thank you, guys.