Piano Forum | "Prelude to Life" -- Improv

Goldentone might have said it all: "No other music like yours."

This is one of my favorites, and I am amazed that this was posted already a year ago, that this would have been the time I listened to it, and that the impression I have now is based on the memory of that first experience. I still remember the basics of the response I would have made but didn’t - and know that I should have responded just to draw attention to what should have received more attention. But then it’s entirely possible that it made great impact on others who like me did not post on that day. You can only know by what you see, but with 28 downloads, and what I know your music produces in me, I’d say there are many more thoughts and appreciations then what you see.

I was working with a tenor on Benjamin Britten’s Winter Words op. 52, at the time you recorded and posted this, and so my mind was set on that last song, “Before Life and After.”

“A time there was--as one may guess
And as, indeed, earth's testimonies tell -
Before the birth of consciousness,
When all went well.

None suffered sickness, love, or loss,
None knew regret, starved hope, or heart-burnings;
None cared whatever crash or cross
Brought wrack to things.

If something ceased, no tongue bewailed,
If something winced and waned, no heart was wrung;
If brightness dimmed, and dark prevailed,
No sense was stung.

But the disease of feeling germed,
And primal rightness took the tinct of wrong;
Ere nescience shall be reaffirmed
How long, how long?”

Attached below is Britten’s setting (specifically this is from a recital with Peter Pears and Britten in Snape, Maltings 9/22/72). Now your improvisation is much more positive, but I see a kinship in both musics being born out of eternity. It is in Britten’s expression of Hardy’s poem, and it is in whatever you may be expressing. The amazing thing is that I had not even contemplated your title, “Prelude to Life” until now, but all my thoughts sprang directly out of the music you were creating.

There is also an ethereal wonder to this music that is comparable to that of Olivier Messiaen's, who also expressed eternity deeply in simple terms. I think he would have been impressed with this piece.

I hope I’m not off base by constantly bringing other composers and music into feedback and discussion of you’re profoundly unique music. I don’t find anything derivative about what you do. It is you, and it can only come from you (“no other music like yours”). I have a great relationship with a large range of classical music, and this music is a part of me to the extent that sometimes I feel I can only attempt to express what I think through it. This might be my short coming, but you can take some pride in your music having a relationship with music history, and that your expression can have a kinship with other music you may or may not have even experienced in your life. I guess it’s part of the human experience.