CONIECTO

Another late night concert: a magnificent Russian choir sang Rachmaninov's Vespers and the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom tonight at St.Mary's.

The name of the show wasn't a joke: actually, the two huge chandeliers with real candles (not fake ones!) of the Cathedral were used. The voices sounded astonishing in that space, the whole atmosphere was magic, but... I have never ever, since my arrival in Ireland, assisted to a performance with such a noisy and unrestless audience! Caughs, sneezes, feet moving on rough surfaces, chairs... For me, the music had something sacred (even if I only understood a few words, the original ritual was the Orthodox Christian one, which is so familiar to me!) and when the lady beside me touched me with her arm, I almost fainted. Another lady had a coughing crisis and finally decided to leave the Cathedral, but she came back and started again...

In the second half, I succeeded to focus on the music ... magic voices! I was transported so far by the flow of music, that I found it really difficult to come back when the applauses started. I wanted to stay in that extatic state for a few more minutes!
The conductor offered some additional pieces that pleased the audience maybe more than the main program - and the evening ended in ovations...

I was thinking again about my schoolmate who was struggling to understand my preference for classical music. He asked me how did I actually get to like it - and I remember answering: "by listening to it, again and again". Of course, it's difficult to listen to something you can't stand in the first place. But he went home, followed my advice, and after one week only, he came to tell me he began to enjoy some of the Beethoven's works.

My guess is that we need a minimum of affinity - and then it's a process of fine tuning - by listening to the piece again and again, you get to resonate with it, and once there, you start to enjoy its energy, its flow... you become one with the music! When we were in school, we were told that we have to learn to understand the music... I doubt it was about understanding... reasoning... brain... music is meant for the heart - you either feel it, or not!

Anyhow, wonderful evening!