5 More Questions
Feb. 14th, 2007 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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a_belletrist
1. What single piece of music has touched you the deepest, and why?
For sheer intensity and the length of time it has been in my life, I would have to say “The Hallelujah Chorus.”
Which probably seems like a strange choice for a self-described heretic – but it has always touched me deeply.
I was fortunate enough to have been raised in a church with a vigorous music program. Our Sunday choir had between fifty and sixty people in it, and we had many talented instrumentalists as well. Woodwinds, strings, brass – even handbells (which I played throughout my teen years) – were frequently part of our services. Each Christmas we put on a performance of “The Messiah” with a 100 voice choir and 30 piece orchestra. My mother sang in the choir, and for years she soloed with “O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion.”
I probably attended my first performance in the seventh grade – which is the year everything important in my life started to happen. I was a musician as well as seriously reverent child, and I was utterly overwhelmed by the grandeur of the music. The fact that it was performed by people I knew and loved, in the large, gothic-style sanctuary, made it even more emotionally intense.
Our choir director tweaked the order of the music. The last song (before the “Amen”) is supposed to be “Worthy is the Lamb” – but Dr. K put the Hallelujah last, with only a breathless heartbeat or two (his arms still raised as everyone quickly turned the pages of their music) between the last note of Lamb and the opening crash of the Hallelujah. Even thinking about it now I get tears in my eyes. That first time, as everyone stood around me, I stumbled as I got to my feet – utterly overwhelmed.
For the next decade, until I had finished college and moved away, I attended both performances of The Messiah every year. Twice I participated: once singing and once playing my clarinet in the orchestra. When I sang, I was afraid that I would miss the full magnificence because I was performing. I was wrong. It was even more amazing from the midst of the choir.
Every year I attended, I sat in the front row and made a point of being the first person to stand. Every year the music brought tears to my eyes. I made it back at other times after that, but never managed to keep the old tradition of both performances each year. But every time I have gone, I’ve wept.
Sometimes the tears have due to my feeling of isolation and estrangement from the community I had once been so intimately a part of, and my loss of the ardent, innocent faith of my childhood. Sometimes it has been with gratitude in my belief that this music does express something eternal and true. Sometimes it is simply for the love of the people – fewer now than in decades past, and all of them older than I am comfortable acknowledging – who loved me as family as I was growing up and still welcome me back.
I remain convinced that they sing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in heaven.
2. What is your fantasy vacation or retreat?
For my fantasy vacation: I am enthralled by images of the tropics, particularly those that involve the water and sailing ships. I hate flying, but if I had the chance to fly south, I would.
My fantasy retreat, on the other hand, is a cabin in the woods where I can write and walk and have a fire and be alone in the green and the silence.
3. If there was one single thing you could change about yourself, large or small, insto-presto, what would it be?
No question: to have a strong, flexible body of the ideal weight for my height and frame. I want to be in great physical shape. It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life, and what I would most like a quick and easy fix for.
4. What single thing/person/aspect would you like to invite into your life right now?
I continue to struggle with my lack of entrepreneurial spirit, so that’s what I want. I want to be excited by the prospect of putting my skills on the market, of connecting with people and offering my services, of feeling good about knowing that I can provide a valuable, desireable service that people would be willing to pay for.
5. What is your favorite childhood memory?
This is hard! I was blessed with an idyllic childhood, and lots of great memories of things like camping with family, visits with cool relatives, fun with friends, and etc. There’s also the question of how to define “childhood.” I tend to cut it off at 12, which is the point at which I consider my life as a true individual to begin.
Hmmmm. . . . This is slightly perverse, but my favorite story to tell about my childhood is being court martialed by my Girl Scout troop, which I shared on LJ a year ago in this entry.
a_belletrist1. What single piece of music has touched you the deepest, and why?
For sheer intensity and the length of time it has been in my life, I would have to say “The Hallelujah Chorus.”
Which probably seems like a strange choice for a self-described heretic – but it has always touched me deeply.
I was fortunate enough to have been raised in a church with a vigorous music program. Our Sunday choir had between fifty and sixty people in it, and we had many talented instrumentalists as well. Woodwinds, strings, brass – even handbells (which I played throughout my teen years) – were frequently part of our services. Each Christmas we put on a performance of “The Messiah” with a 100 voice choir and 30 piece orchestra. My mother sang in the choir, and for years she soloed with “O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion.”
I probably attended my first performance in the seventh grade – which is the year everything important in my life started to happen. I was a musician as well as seriously reverent child, and I was utterly overwhelmed by the grandeur of the music. The fact that it was performed by people I knew and loved, in the large, gothic-style sanctuary, made it even more emotionally intense.
Our choir director tweaked the order of the music. The last song (before the “Amen”) is supposed to be “Worthy is the Lamb” – but Dr. K put the Hallelujah last, with only a breathless heartbeat or two (his arms still raised as everyone quickly turned the pages of their music) between the last note of Lamb and the opening crash of the Hallelujah. Even thinking about it now I get tears in my eyes. That first time, as everyone stood around me, I stumbled as I got to my feet – utterly overwhelmed.
For the next decade, until I had finished college and moved away, I attended both performances of The Messiah every year. Twice I participated: once singing and once playing my clarinet in the orchestra. When I sang, I was afraid that I would miss the full magnificence because I was performing. I was wrong. It was even more amazing from the midst of the choir.
Every year I attended, I sat in the front row and made a point of being the first person to stand. Every year the music brought tears to my eyes. I made it back at other times after that, but never managed to keep the old tradition of both performances each year. But every time I have gone, I’ve wept.
Sometimes the tears have due to my feeling of isolation and estrangement from the community I had once been so intimately a part of, and my loss of the ardent, innocent faith of my childhood. Sometimes it has been with gratitude in my belief that this music does express something eternal and true. Sometimes it is simply for the love of the people – fewer now than in decades past, and all of them older than I am comfortable acknowledging – who loved me as family as I was growing up and still welcome me back.
I remain convinced that they sing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in heaven.
2. What is your fantasy vacation or retreat?
For my fantasy vacation: I am enthralled by images of the tropics, particularly those that involve the water and sailing ships. I hate flying, but if I had the chance to fly south, I would.
My fantasy retreat, on the other hand, is a cabin in the woods where I can write and walk and have a fire and be alone in the green and the silence.
3. If there was one single thing you could change about yourself, large or small, insto-presto, what would it be?
No question: to have a strong, flexible body of the ideal weight for my height and frame. I want to be in great physical shape. It’s something I’ve struggled with all my life, and what I would most like a quick and easy fix for.
4. What single thing/person/aspect would you like to invite into your life right now?
I continue to struggle with my lack of entrepreneurial spirit, so that’s what I want. I want to be excited by the prospect of putting my skills on the market, of connecting with people and offering my services, of feeling good about knowing that I can provide a valuable, desireable service that people would be willing to pay for.
5. What is your favorite childhood memory?
This is hard! I was blessed with an idyllic childhood, and lots of great memories of things like camping with family, visits with cool relatives, fun with friends, and etc. There’s also the question of how to define “childhood.” I tend to cut it off at 12, which is the point at which I consider my life as a true individual to begin.
Hmmmm. . . . This is slightly perverse, but my favorite story to tell about my childhood is being court martialed by my Girl Scout troop, which I shared on LJ a year ago in this entry.
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Date: 2007-02-15 05:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-15 04:42 pm (UTC)