Bloch Again

This morning's Sunday School lesson is on Ecclesiastes. To get in the mood, I put on Bloch's Schelomo while I was preparing to cook biscuits.

Our household is very in-sync with the music today. After the climax that's followed by a flutey section that always reminds me of a startled flock of birds after a gun blast, Danny (our cat) joined in by drumming on the corner hutch. To hear his tapping, and to see him spring into action at that precise moment, added to the mysterious and spiritual mood of the moment. Something about Danny's involvement made me think of Martin Buber (I seem to remember that he wrote a bit about his cat in I and Thou) and about moments of being on the razor-thin edge between the spiritual and the mundane, of moments when real encounter with that which is beyond us seems very near.

A while later, as the music reached its final climax, the tea kettle also reached its highest-pitched whistling.

Older post on Schelomo

I can also never think of Schelomo without thinking of Stephen Kates. I think the first concert Kathy and I attended together included a performance of the piece with Mr. Kates and one of the Peabody orchestras. I believe this was the first time I realized I was hearing someone put their classical and beautiful abstract technic into the service of such a raw and splenetic expression, sometimes even disregarding (or maybe I should say "transcending") those concepts of supposedly "good playing." Mr. Kates transcended my idea of being a classical cellist and become some sort of deeply human folk musician, connected with something ancient and authentic, seemingly grasping the infinite depths of meaning the music was meant to convey. The proper way to play at a concert seemed to have no relevance to him as he played (yet his performance was great through and through), and I think "the right way to play" was also the farthest thing from all of our minds in the audience as we witnessed this extraordinary event.

A YouTube link to a bit of Schelomo and photos by Bloch

Speaking of Bloch, some of you might recall that this blog was originally called "Blog About Bloch." That silly title came from a silly discussion with my organist cousin about the idea of opening a French-Romantic-pipe-organ-themed hot dog stand in Jackson, NC that would have been called "Franck's Franks." Neither of us had the money or motivation to throw away on such a business plan that would have had no chance of success, but the conversation got me thinking about writing a "Bloch Blog," which sounded fun since it sounds a little like "blah-blah" although the music of Bloch is very far from blah.