{"id":1529,"date":"2008-12-12T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T06:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1529"},"modified":"2008-12-12T07:58:55","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T13:58:55","slug":"poetry-friday-to-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1529","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: To Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I heard Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D Minor (2nd Movement). This piece of music pretty much stops me in my tracks every time. I think it’s transcendently beautiful. It also always reminds me of the scene in the film adaptation (from way back in ’86) of Mark Medoff’s<\/strong><\/a> Children of a Lesser God<\/strong><\/a><\/em> in which James Leeds, played by William Hurt, is trying to describe that exact piece of music to his girlfriend, who is deaf, played by Marlee Matlin (for which she won the Oscar, damn skippy). Knowing that he loves the piece, she’s put the record on, walked into the room, and signed, “show me the music.” He tries, but he can’t quite find the words, so to speak. <\/p>\n

And then that<\/em> reminded me of the scene in Philadelphia<\/strong><\/a><\/em> (from not so far back as ’93), in which Tom Hanks’ character is asking Denzel Washington’s character if he’s ever heard Maria Callas sing La Mamma Morta<\/em>. And the music moves him so much that he stands up with his IV drip to listen and tries to describe it and lets the music wash over him and the camera’s swinging around him slowly and then red washes over it all and the filming is just so GORGEOUS and it makes me cry so hard like a blubbery fool that the first time I saw it in a dark theater, I thought I’d BUST<\/font>. <\/p>\n

Same for that Children of a Lesser God<\/em> scene. They are both so moving in that here are two mere mortals trying to capture the very ineffability of music. Valiant efforts, indeed, but can we really do that? <\/p>\n

Well, Rainer Maria Rilke<\/strong><\/a> tried. I’m always drawn to those poets and authors and musicians who try to articulate the inexpressible, who venture out beyond all words into that mysterious realm. And Rilke is rather the master of all that, yes? Those two cinematic memories—brought to me by a serendipitous moment of Bach on public radio this week—invited Rilke’s “To Music” to mind, which has always been one of my favorite poems. “Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps: silence of paintings. You language where all language ends.”{*} Ah. Sublime. <\/p>\n

So, for my Poetry Friday entry today, that poem is below — followed by the scene from Philadelphia<\/em> and the scene from Children of a Lesser God<\/em>. (For the latter, you must move up to minute 6:38 in the video footage, as that’s the scene in particular I’m talking about. This was the only version of it I could find online, but you can skip everything before 6:38.)<\/p>\n

“To Music”
\nRainer Maria Rilke<\/p>\n

Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps:
\nsilence of paintings. You language where all language
\nends. You time
\nstanding vertically on the motion of mortal hearts.<\/p>\n

Feelings for whom? O you the transformation
\nof feelings into what?—: into audible landscape.
\nYou stranger: music. You heart-space
\ngrown out of us. The deepest space in<\/em> us,
\nwhich, rising above us, forces its way out,—
\nholy departure:
\nwhen the innermost point in us stands
\noutside, as the most practiced distance, as the other
\nside of the air:
\npure,
\nboundless,
\nno longer habitable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object>
\n{Again, for <\/em>Children of a Lesser God, move the arrow up to moment 6:38-ish for the specific scene I’m talking about.}<\/em> <\/p>\n

The Poetry Friday round-up today is being handled by one of my favorite people, Elaine Magliaro, over at Wild Rose Reader<\/strong><\/em><\/a>. Enjoy. <\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

* That poem was translated by Stephen Mitchell. In another volume of his poetry I have, translated by J.B. Leishman, he writes: “Music: breathing of statues. Perhaps: \/ stillness of pictures. You speech, where speeches \/ end…” That translation gives an all-new meaning to the Children of a Lesser God<\/em> piece, but that’s a post for another day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I heard Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in D Minor (2nd Movement). This piece of music pretty much stops me in my tracks every time. I think it’s transcendently beautiful. It also always reminds me of the scene in the film adaptation (from way back in ’86) of Mark Medoff’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-friday"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}