An die Musik

Yesterday I ate lunch outside on the sidewalk to enjoy yet another beautiful spring day. While I ate, I read from my book on 19th century German lied. Yes, I'm a music geek. While I read an account of Brahms singing his own Vier ernste Gesange shortly after Clara Schumann's death, I became overwhelmed. Apparently, the gruff exterior he wore as a front to hide his tender heart came down and his hoarse voice choked with emotion. It's no wonder sometimes I feel as though Brahms wrote for me. Sometimes I feel like I know him, or at least know how he may have felt at the time he wrote a song. This is the true power of music: to convey feeling, emotion, the human condition. Sometimes this occurs on a grand scale, and sometimes it's a subtle comunication between men living centuries apart.

At any rate, I had trouble controlling the tears running down my face as I ate my sub and continued to read.