“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays
The crashing sounds of crumbling stone permeates the air as I watch the massed French civilians tear down the walls of the hated Bastille; in the background, the violins from Beethoven’s Third Symphony struggle to be heard against the rest of the orchestra, symbolic of the revolutionary ideals fighting to escape the confines of French absolutism and monarchy.
I stand at Napoleon’s side as he surveys the open green fields before him, while the horns from the Scherzo section echo in the air. I watch as his army floods through Europe, spreading the ideas of the French Revolution, accompanied by a building crescendo — Beethoven’s tribute to the ideals of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity behind the Revolution. Then, as the mournful melodies of the funeral march movement flow through the air, I’m transported to the island of St. Helena, where I look upon the deathbed of Napoleon, the great conqueror finally vanquished.
As the final blast of the symphony sounds, I open my eyes and find myself in the living room, a pair of headphones covering my ears and an open Beethoven CD case next to me.
For a long time, I thought music was just music; notes were just notes, there to be played. A melody was born from the genius of the composer — nothing more. However, as I became a better musician myself, I began to realize that these God-like figures were in fact very human. They had felt huge pride when their pieces won accolades and honors, and sorrow and frustration when their pieces foundered or careers declined. Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the greatest 20th century Russian composers, suffered depression and had to receive hypnotic treatment when the premier of his first symphony failed. I felt pity for Johannes Brahms when I learned that his pants regularly fell down in the midst of conducting. I learned the stories that revealed some of the greatest triumphs and the deepest insecurities these men held.
The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I began studying Russian and German so I could read the letters and manuscripts of the composers I loved. These original texts — untouched by the possible blight of incorrect translation or overly-aggressive interpretation — provide deep insight into the historical causes behind the world’s best-known musical works. By reading the annotations, I have a far clearer understanding of the stories that birthed and powered the melodies we know so well.
I resolved to bring the music I played to life by fully understanding it. I had been playing Diabolic Suggestion, a piece by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev. My technical performance was quite good, but I felt it lacked emotional depth. I began to read about Prokofiev’s own life. He grew up in Russia and was considered a compositional genius; he immigrated to the United States but then returned to Soviet Russia, where he became a prisoner, restricted to composing only in a “socialist-realist” style.
I then began to re-evaluate my playing style to fit Prokofiev’s dark attitude toward his home country. Every time I played the piece, I remembered how Prokofiev viewed his confinement in Russia as a physical and creative limitation, and I tried to reflect this sardonic tone in my performance. The piece’s deep, punctuated notes became the dark chuckles of the government. The crawl of held chords echoed the creeping pace of Russia’s economic and technological advancement. The crashing and colliding scales, with those harsh staccato octaves in the background, embodied the confusion of the Russian people, stirred by forces they did not grasp. Finally, I had found the interpretive depth that I sought.
Without understanding the history behind the music that we play, musicians cannot truly play the piece to its fullest. Now, every time I play a piece, I always try peer behind the notes and look at the stories hidden in the music.
Written in October 2013 for college applications.