I am quietly streaming Scriabin’s complete piano sonatas while I’m working on my laptop. Me and PDFs and Keynote and Word and my head full of decades of technical stuff. And Scriabin.
From nowhere a passage muscled itself from background to fully occupying my consciousness. Stopped me dead cold. I could do nothing but listen. It brought to mind Evie’s funeral, and Hal’s anguish. And then, the music released its grip and allowed me to return to work.
Music can make me weep. Misere does it. So does Ebben? Ne andrò lontana.
And that ancient opera recording (1910s? 1920s?) that I have sought for decades now. Heard in the car, on KUSC and played by Jim Svejda I would guess. A Sunday night. I remember that. A soprano, an old, tinny, scratchy recording, all of the musicians long dead of course. I often wonder who or what I heard that night.
But a few minutes of piano that can command front and center of my consciousness at its will? That’s a first.