Music, movement, breath, beauty

Wow.  Isn't this gorgeous?  This interactive media feature in the New York Times shows how conducting works with the musical director of the New York Philharmonic.  With very cool videographics from the Movement Lab, we can see the invisible lines and waves he makes with the tips of his fingers and the swoops of his hands.  We see him crouch and lift, bend and nod, as he explains what he his trying to draw out of two classical pieces.  I especially like the way he explains the draw of the note (how it finishes) and anticipating the arrival of a new instrument.

Classical music can be so  supremely beautiful.  At my trip to the Kennedy Center last month to see a special concert of the National Symphony Orchestra, I was so enchanted with how classical music just holds you.  There is something in classical music where the individual sounds of the dozens of instruments and an odd hundred musicians swirl in the air, blend, and become one beautiful sound.  I remember trying to just listen for the strings or the woodwinds, and it is a difficult task, as they become indistinct from one another as they fill each corner of that magnificent hall.