Year of Wonder

Despite listening to Radio 3 most of the time, in the house and in the car, mainly because I do not like people wittering on in the background, I do not know very much about classical music. Even though I sometimes think – that piece was really good - and I might look it up, I do tend to stick to what I know and that applies even more when I decide what to go to hear at a concert. So, when I read about this book, I thought it would be very good, as it gives a piece of music to listen to for every day in a year and I thought it would introduce me to a wider range of listening. 

By coincidence, the day I ordered a copy Knottman2 blipped books he got for Christmas and there it was - Year of Wonder. So we are both, along with lots of other people no doubt, listening to whatever Clemency Burton-Hill has chosen. Now Knottman2 does it the easy and most sensible way – he looks the pieces up and streams them to listen to. I do it the hard and least sensible way – I use the search facility on iTunes to find the tracks, either from my own downloaded music, or if that fails, then from the iTunes store where I can purchase the specific track. So I am building up a playlist and even intend burning these playlists onto a CD. The reason we are not all digital, as it seems everyone else is, is to do with the attachment we have to our music system and our huge collection of CDs and the weakness of our internet which means streaming of anything is not something we do. 

Anyway, this was all a preamble to the real point of this blip – the piece chosen for today is a cello and piano movement from Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. This is a work that I love and play often; I think it was hearing it for the first time that made me realise that there was more to classical music than I had thought. It is an astonishing work, made all the more astonishing when one remembers it was written and performed in a German prisoner of war camp in 1941 and hence the unusual combination of instruments, they were all they had.

Do we need any more of a reminder, today of all days, that it is much better for all of us to be friends and working together, rather than enemies at war. 

The chosen track – Louange à l’éternité de Jesus is achingly beautiful. Listen and wonder – a few moments of peace on a day of frantic chaos and hostilities.