Music Lessons

As we move on to the Victorians, a moment to say "Adieu!" to the Romantics. I'm always so taken by that last stanza of "To Autumn," even though I'm never quite able to articulate its power and meaning fully enough -- I feel its truth more than I understand it sometimes, you might say (I think of Stanley Plumly's great line regarding those moments when we experience "a hearing just ahead of knowing"; this can happen with both poetry and music, when they speak/communicate something specific to us, but something we can't quite pin down or articulate). In any event, I'm fascinated by the fact that it seems to be nature's music (lambs bleating, gnats choiring, hedge-crickets singing, red-breasts whistling, swallows twittering) that, above all, has something to teach the speaker. What and how music teaches is, I guess, the big question. It reminds me of a wonderful quote by the great composer/musician, Daniel Barenboim: "Music provides the possibility, on the one hand, to escape from life and, on the other hand, to understand it much better than in many other disciplines." Do you agree with that, I wonder? It's easy to buy into the part about escape (how many of us turn to our iPods when our airplane hits some turbulence, for example, or when we need to unwind after a taxing day, or when we need to keep ourselves motivated during a workout, etc.), but in what sense do you think music helps us to understand life better? Somehow answering that question might help attune us to the mindset of Keats's speaker in that serene and yet foreboding final stanza ...