Everyone has a piece, or pieces of music that they remember the very first time they heard it, them and know that life will never look and be and feel the same again. I know many many people will share my experience of hearing for the first time and knowing that they’ve been allowed by this conduit of magic to glimpse into a tiny, endless, huge expression of the meaning of life itself. It is THE piece of music for me. Four strings, a bow and wood can do that???? Needs a magician to write and a magician to play.
I listen for the 15 minutes and I feel ( my own personal view others will have an entirely different opinion ) – this is it – life – it’s raw, difficult, sometimes overwhelmingly, traumatically impossible, sadness beyond sadness – to be dealt with because if it is faced there is ……..what? not sure but facing it is paramount and failure is all part of the process. It tells me that EVERYTHING worth doing in life is about facing up, caring ( how? for whom – family? the possibilities are endless and so easy to fall short ) and WORK – working alone or with others – I’m so privileged to have my time now to make my art for most of my time – small part of my week going back to my other 20 year old passion for information sharing and understanding at the Citizens Advice Bureau. That music always has something to tell me about how to gather together and carry on full of joie de vivre.
Then find joy – a sale, to someone from Paris who tells me that her mother who is a poet will love ‘Swifts’, wow and all the other people I’ve spoken to about art and life – at my sunday stall wow.
I’ve heard JS Bach’s Partita No 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, Ciaccona, for solo violin played by lots of violinists and I can hear how they each have their own take on it. The latest magician is Alina Ibragimova – really a supreme magician – still on iplayer BBC Proms. I used to watch climbers, free climbing crags when I had my brief, intense and hugely enjoyable encounter with climbing in Northumberland, very safely roped on and just used to think the free climbers, without any safety net, were from another planet, well Alina Ibragimova is a free climber.