By Rylan Daniels
Rylan playing third seat from left (Rylan Daniels)
I have been playing the cello for nearly seven years, and it wasn’t until over a year ago that I realized my playing could soar if I stopped worrying about playing the right notes. Of course, good music can’t exist if you just do away with the sheet music and play whatever notes you feel like. Music’s true magic–especially in classical music–lies in the story and emotions it conveys.
I believe there are so many people who feel that classical music is not for them. It’s not because they inherently aren’t a classical music person, but because they have not experienced the full picture of listening to classical music. It’s like watching a movie without sound or subtitles, you’ll get the gist of it, but you’ll never understand the full story.
Recently I attended a Cape Symphony performance where the headlining performance was of the “Symphonie Fantastique” by Hector Berlioz, preceded by a brand-new piece called “Turbulent Flames” by Jessica Meyer. Instead of jumping straight into the music without any direction for the audience, Meyer provided the audience with insight into her inspiration: fire and its untamed nature. She explained how specific aspects of flames’ behavior shaped her composition, adding depth to the listening experience.
For Berlioz’s “Symphonie Fantastique,” guest conductor Alyssa Wang introduced the audience to the story behind the five-movement masterpiece. The work tells an autobiographical tale of Berlioz’s obsessive love and descent into a self-destructive spiral. Through sound alone, Berlioz conveys scenes such as a ballroom waltz, a nightmare of his deepest fears, and a hallucinatory vision of hell. What I found amazing is that for both works, I followed each part of the narrative as vividly as if it were playing out on a screen. By providing the motive, feelings, and reasons composers have for writing music, you are provided a completely immersive listening experience compared to if you weren’t provided with any context for the piece.
To me, music is the most beautiful form of communication. It can convey love, hate, loss, ecstasy, longing, excitement, a journey, a relationship, a story – all without saying a word.