CW 1: Orchestral Music

"What is best in music is not to be found in the notes" ― Gustav Mahler

This week has been quite busy with New Year's Eve and everything else. Well actually it just felt busy but in retrospect I didn't do much. However, the one recurring thing this week was orchestral/classical music.

As a true Viennese at heart I obviously felt obliged to watch the annual New Year's Concert by the Vienna Philharmonics on January 1st, which is always a wonderful start to a new year. When they start playing the "Radetzky March" at the end of the concert, you just feel such motivation and hope that it just makes you want to go out and conquer the world.

But aside from the obvious, listening to a lot of orchestral music this week made me think back of when I was about 15 and I started playing in the orchestra of the neighboring town of where I grew up. At first didn't quite get the hang of it. There were a lot of people I didn't know. The orchestra didn't have a particular age group so you would have some kids being dropped off by their grandparents, students arriving late, coming from the "big city" and adults who would rush to rehearsal after an exhausting day of work. After a while, this mix of people that at first I thought was too random to work in any way, was really fun to hang out with. I wouldn't consider them my friends or anything but it was fun for the rehearsals and the time being. Being part of that orchestra, with all those random people taught me a lot. Not just how to put myself out there and integrate myself into a group of complete strangers but it also showed me how having one thing in common can lead to great connections and experiences. A time came, where we had an "important" performance at the opening of some open air theatre in another neighboring town. So, our "conductors" decided to organize a three-day orchestra camp at some hotel about an hour away so we could spend the days rehearsing for that concert. Again my insecure and rather distanced self wasn't sure whether to attend that camp. Three days with a whole bunch of people I only saw once a week for about an hour and didn't really talk to. I didn't know if it was just a waste of time, especially in the middle of graduating. But I went and until today I am really happy that I did. I spend the drive there talking to the girl who played the first violine. We had so much in common. I shared my room with the girl who played the cello, who as it turned out was just starting her studies at my current university and was studying what I wanted to study too. During rehearsals I would laugh a lot with the woman who played the second saxophone and the woman who played the French horn, making the rehearsals so much fun. And the best part of it all, was when we would play the whole music piece and everyone would give their best. The feeling of what we had achieved as a group and the captivating sound that would push us to perfection was incredible. So incredible, that I often was smiling like an idiot which would prevent me from actually playing the saxophone and messing up. Just imagine you're sitting in the middle of an orchestra, everyone's hitting the notes perfectly and a masterpiece like "He's a Pirate" by Hans Zimmer blasts through the whole room. That feeling is simply breathtaking. 

So you see, orchestral music is just a whole other level of amazing music, especially if you hear it live. But aside from this awesome feeling when hearing it live, I have made the experience that listening to classical music while studying makes me be highly productive. In fact, I am listening to a 4 hour classical music video on YouTube just now, as I am writing this. Just the other night at 2am in the morning when I managed to overcome my inner demon and start on that uni project I was listening to a piece by Gustav Mahler, that a friend had (sort of) recommended and it made me feel some sort of inner peace and at the same time it made me feel hopeful which then lead to me being extremely focused on the task. So far, whenever I really had to concentrate on something I would listen to movie soundtracks, which in my opinion is the closest you can get to classical music nowadays. Obviously, Mozart, Strauss and Haydn can't publish new music, so the people we rely on are Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard or Justin Hurwitz. These people are just masters at what they do. The perfect harmony between so many different instruments and sounds, combining it with different rhythms to create a certain mood or feeling and doing it in such a subtle and elegant way is just incredible. Think of movies with some of the best scores and think about what they would sound like without that. These ridiculously talented people have such a unique gift...

...and it's always a pleasure to listen to what they have to say.