Diamond-Cut Life

My favorite tagline ever belonged to the Portland Opera: nights of passion, no regrets in the morning. I actually wrote today’s post (written in the past, but in the present tense) during a concert of the Portland Symphony Orchestra, but the principle of the passion-tagline rings true across the board: the arts make our lives richer and juicier. They’re not necessarily cheap . . . . but they yield richness.

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I grew up in a family that was committed to music despite a modest income. My older brother and I played the trumpet and my younger brother played the trombone. The trumpet is the loudest instrument in the orchestra, and the violin the most similar to the human voice. Tonight, at the Schnitzer Auditorium, I count three trumpets and almost two dozen violins. In my brass chauvinism, I reason that it must take that many human voices to stand up to the trumpet, the instrument that announced royalty, the bold intermediary between the Sun King and the peasantry.

The violins, a great flock of birds all still and poised on the ground, launch into flight at the cue of the conductor. Their voices are initially shy and abashed but they can only hold that prim face for so long before they start breaking out and running amok. They get exuberant, agitated, they have many running quarrels with each other which the conductor finally silences with a curt, angry gesture. The first violin reemerges with a solo tale of lost love and wonders, and his fellows tentatively join in and discuss in a series of softly dissenting murmurs.

Their dulcet arguments end and now the brass players, the bad boys, come onstage and take their seats, like predators at rest, the big guns, the top of the food chain. They sit with instruments down, poised and still, not wasting emotion on all the querulous, whispery rumors wafting in the air that the strings propagate, the trivial flotsam and jetsam of the strings. Now they rise and speak, but subside quickly, their statement made with minimal force.

The violins tear the air in return with thin-voiced violence, a hundred words for every one the brass uttered, and the first chair lacerates it with detailed, ultrasonic delicacy. The conductor resolves the fray this time with a flap of his hand, like a god dismissing the mortals. It’s not the last he’ll hear from them, but it’s enough for now.

I’ll post Part II of Nights of Passion next week.

photo courtesy of jordanfischer

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