It's good to be back to my home turf....
I've just spent several wonderful, incredibly stressful, highly enlightening days under the thrall of "The Tudors Conference" in my capacity as the grad assistant for the Center for British and Irish Studies. The conference, by all accounts, was a big success -- things were smooth, people showed up, and I felt like I'd gotten really lucky. Our keynote speaker, Michael Hirst, was not only a joy to work and interact with, he proved to be an incredibly engaging and thoughtful speaker. I was also especially impressed with the CU humanities faculty and our collaborators from the Denver Art Museum and the University of Wyoming -- they were so gracious and they, too, treated their presentations as we musicians treat a performance. They brought their A-game. They made it their business to say something relevant and exciting, and to truly communicate with their listeners. I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of the fine group of people who made this conference happen.
In the face of all the multifaceted knowledge and the extremely smart people I spent the last few days with, I definitely started to feel like a dumb musician. These folks not only knew a lot about their own field of expertise, they knew a lot about one another's....and a fair amount about mine, for that matter. Without the comforts of my own people reminding me of everything I know and know how to do, it was easy to begin to feel that I don't really know anything, that I'm not doing everything I can, that I haven't put time into being a cultured and well-informed person. And, to be sure, there are so very many, many things I want to know more about. I want to be a person who can talk intelligently about art, who knows why people compare Hitchcock to Bach, and who has read all the important books that smart people are supposed to have read. It seems like I'll need a lifetime to come close to hitting those marks.
But, now and today, I realize I am just one person. I've chosen a path that is almost bizarre in its specificity, and I am telling the truth when I say I love it with all of my heart. So, while part of me recognizes that I've sacrificed a lot of breadth for the sake of depth and feels sorry not to be able to say I have both, I am also grateful that there is time and opportunity to stretch out and grow more, and to benefit from the knowledge and experience of people whose depth lies in a different place than my own. Though I feel a little stung by humility in saying it, I am forced to believe my own sermonizing: the path from the known to the unknown is respectable in its own right when one chooses to travel on it, regardless of their specific trajectory.
That being said, I'm making this week's assignment a little different -- in loving tribute to this past weekend's subject matter.
All levels:
Find a copy of the 1998 film "Elizabeth" and watch it...it's worth your while and a little bit of cash, I promise. You can rent it on iTunes or Amazon for $2.99.
In the final scenes of the movie, there are two very famous pieces of music that are played -- neither of which are contemporary to the time of the movie itself, but both of which are incredibly evocative and probably readily recognizable to you:
Nimrod from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
Introit from Requiem by W.A. Mozart
After listening, proceed to the linked scores and spend a little time each day this week reading through the various voice parts of the Mozart and the familiar melody of the Elgar (note that when the G-sharps start showing up in the Elgar, it's probably a smart idea to use A-do, and when they are canceled out, to switch back to D-do). After spending some time with the scores, spend a little time reflecting on their function in the film. Do the scores alone evoke the same kinds of emotion when you're dealing with them on their own terms as they do when you consider them in the context of the film? Have these pieces changed for you after both studying them and hearing them in this context? Would you have chosen different pieces of music for these parts of the film? If so, which ones?
Enjoy, my friends!
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