music

Music can name the unknameable and communicate the unknowable
~ Leonard Brenstein
In the end I think of music as saving grace for all humanity
~ Henry Miller

Music is well said to be the speach of angels, in fact nothing among the utterences of man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite
~ Thomas Carlyle

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything
~Plato

A painter paints their pictures on a canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence
~ Leopold Stokowski

See deep enough, and you see musically; the heart of nature being everywhere music
~ Thomas Carlyle

Music is the shorthand of emotion
~ Leo Tolstoy

Music was invented to confirm human lonliness
~ Lawrence Durrell

Without music life would be a mistake
~ Nietzche

Music expresses that which can not be said on which it is impossible to be silent
~Victor Hugo



The first time I heard Andrea Bocelli sing was with Sarah Brightman as a duet and the song was Time to say goodbye The song came from the radio, and I had no idea who the singers were, and since it was almost all in Italian I did not understand a word of it. I have always listened to the radio expecting a message from heaven. Some sound or words that would shake my foundations.

The music was so beautiful and the voices so majestic and soaring that I found tears welling up in my eyes. I had no idea what I was crying for. It was just uncontrolable. Was it deep communicating to deep? I remember as a child when the wind was high and blowing fiercely there would be a singing in the telephone wires. The wind which is just a movement of air drew a sound out of the wires, and so it was with me, some sonic resonance plucked a chord deep inside me that I did not know existed.

Perhaps it was about sadness and loss, or perhaps a deep yearning to be connected once again in a fresh way with all of my family. Music has always had a powerful effect on me, in that it stirs up my emotions. There is nothing much I can do about it. I have observed my children taking sidways glances at my face, and wondering if their father is going to start crying when listening to a particular piece of music.

Long ago I decided that if I ever got the opportunity to listen to Andrea Bocelli live, then I would do it. He just happened to be singing in Helsinki on my birthday on the 19th of November, so I went to see him. It was magical. He did three encores and received a standing ovation. The applause was thunderous and it was agumented by the noisey stamping of feet from 10,000 people. He finished the night off with a heartbreaking rendition of Time to say goodbye with Doriana Milazzo



So what was it like

It was like completing some code and getting a programme to work
It was like a thousand small birds fluttering inside your heart
It was like a dance on a sandy beach
It was like winning a penalty shootout
It was like having brown eyes in a blue eyed family
It was like snowboarding on powdery snow
It was like finding cloudberries in the forest
It was like knitting a pair of warm woolen socks
It was like eating new potatoes that you have grown yourself
It was like telling a story and making everybody laugh
It was like blushing when told you are loved
It ravished my soul.