Random Thoughts: Musicological Pastiche

By Alex Bergman

Its a wonder to see this magic happen again and again: I find myself spellbound by music. Could words explain the mystery of that? Perhaps. And if I tread carefully and keep alert, I wont miss a simple miracle: the words, committed to paper, suddenly make the prosaic passage of a manuscript come to light. Grow warm, convey the ineffable, and liberate the tender soul of art that dwells in the infinite beyond the cryptic surface of a musical score.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 29, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524687991

Alex Bergman

Alexander Nayberg was born in the tiny town of Korosten in the then war-ravaged Ukraine in 1945. Both his parents were freshly demobilized. He had got a good education: the Music School in Kiev, Kiev Music College, Moscow Gnesin Academy of Music, and post-graduate studies at the same place, despite having to break the barriers erected by the fiercely antisemitic Ukrainian and--to a lesser degree--Soviet officialdom. In October 1979, finally getting the permission to leave the Soviet Union, he, a couple of month later, immigrated to the United States. He taught for eight years (part-time) at the University of Pittsburgh.

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© 2017 Alex Bergman. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse 04/28/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8800-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-8799-1 (e)

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The basic features of classical music manifest knowledge of the tragedy of human existence, acceptance of human lot, courage, and clarity.

Hermann Hesse

It’s a wonder to see this magic happen again and again: I find myself spellbound by music. Could words explain the mystery of that? Perhaps. And if I tread carefully and keep alert, I won’t miss a simple miracle: the words, committed to paper, suddenly make the prosaic passage of a manuscript come to light. grow warm, convey the ineffable, liberate the tender soul of art that dwells in the infinite beyond the cryptic surface of a musical score.

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I have no burning desire to plunge into lengthy discussions of determinism. Nonetheless, I’m sure it’s Historic Necessity that creates great figures who, in their turn, mold history. Such was the case with Bach. All German medieval ethos led to him, forged him, spoke through him. All the artistic stimuli, ambitions, and dreams of his, as well as all previous generations converged in him, spoke to him, bloomed in him. On this teeming legacy, Bach built a musical masterpiece I stop before in awe.

Der Bach in German means the brook. It was Beethoven who said: Not the ‘brook’ his name is, but the ‘sea’!

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Seeing music? At first, this looks like nothing more than a metaphoric expression. But do not spatial analogies that arise, when we perceive music, seem to us quite natural? Why do we often speak of convexity and vividness of parts, of melodic outlines and profundity of texture, of its background and foreground. of the perfect and beautiful geometry of the score? Why do many expressions of the musician’s argot come not from acoustic but from optic sensations? Why does even the view of written music tell us a great deal of the spirit and value of a composition?

The Shakespeare’s Sonnet comes to mind:

"O, learn to read what silent love hath writ.

To hear with eyes belongs to love’s fine wit."¹

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Why do you, opera, fascinate me so much? What did transform you into such an enticing form? How could I explain your quaint charm, lovely irrationalities, sweet conventions? Why do you lead me into the land of romance, chivalry, beautiful illusion? How did you bring me to kneel beneath your spell? Why—whether it’s the lure of the stage or biting political tirades—do you strike me with your endless enthrallment? Why does even the dust of your stage with its seductive and disturbing bouquet, induce in me a sense of the approaching beautiful?…

But enough questions. For do they really require answers before the half-effaced engraving on your Temple: Oh music, thou yieldest but to love, yet is not love a melody?

I sometimes marvel: why does the famous Andante from Mozart’s 21st piano concerto—popularly known as the Elvira Madigan concerto—evoke in me that pungent sense of the unattainable ideal?

Why does the shamanic power of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy throw me into an unnamed rapture? Why, having heard the peculiar timbre of a small band, a distinctive rhythm with the emphasis on the weak beat, and the not-tempered intervals of a swaying tune, do I transfer myself into the time of World War 1? Or why,