April 9, 2006
"Her touch has lightness and subtlety, yet she plays with crisp clarity and, when called for, robust sound."
A description of Condoleezza Rice, in an article that's all about her playing the piano. Her fans hit that sentence and imagine it also describes her political aptitude.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
4 comments:
Thank you for the link. What a fascinating article.
Do you suppose there's something about law and music that makes these musicians play well together?
I was intrigued by how she loses herself in the music and how she sees it [love of music] as a tool for diplomacy.
There's a string quartet that plays weekly in a house just up the street from mine. It is divine to walk by on a warm summer evening and hear the sound come from the open windows.
I wonder if Condi's neighbors can hear the quintet?
This piece points out that some, at least, who stalk the corridors of power are also cultivated people. It's encouraging that there are those who, busy with seemingly important lives, would seek to retain their humanity by giving themselves occasionally to something greater.
In this case it's serious music.
And not just any music. It speaks volumes that Secretary Rice and her friends favor Brahms. By turns passionate, tragic, playful, wistful, elegiac, serious, but not above an occasional good joke, Brahms’s music is, above all, music for adults. Young people and the emotionally stunted can never understand him. Brahms is the music of Experience. His music is suffused with warmth, yet is serious and reserved. It is intellectually rigorous and often of the most difficult technical character, but there is little bravura display for its own sake. Everything is subsumed into creating an emotional landscape, often complex and heart-rending.
Listen to Brahms. If you’re new to him, try his Third Symphony. Just listen to Brahms. If you’re sensitive or ready or perhaps lucky, you may never be the same.
All I will say about politics is that the fact that the Secretary of State of the United States plays Brahms seriously and aspires to learn his Second Piano Concerto is simply amazing.
Post a Comment