Attended a piano recital last night - Francois du Toit, Professor of Music at University of Cape Town, and acclaimed concert pianist. It never ceases to amaze me how, first of all, someone wrote the music and secondly, another person can translate those lines and symbols into a sound that is literally music to our ears. It is another form of written language. A note from an instrument is given a name and placed in a particular place on two sets of defined lines, and that representation of a sound is recorded for posterity. Genius at work.
The works of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn were composed and played on instruments quite different to the modern-day piano, and I would be interested to hear how the music differed, in a kind of New School, Old School comparison such as we hear on the radio today for remixes of the songs from our youth. I suppose the transition from basic piano to advanced model was a little like the electrification of the guitar, and the increase from 5 octaves to 7 octaves must have given the composers a huge scope for adding drama to their music with the deeper notes and lighter, more fanciful interludes at the higher end of the scale.
It was a virtuoso performance, attended by hundreds of middle-aged to elderly people, and as I mentally compared it to the rather aggressive and repetitive rappers at the other extreme of the music spectrum, I felt saddened that such a large proportion of humanity might never have the opportunity of appreciating music that truly is a gift from and to the soul.
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