A Little Moment I Still Don't Get

Caspar David Friedrich

If you go through some of my other posts, I may or may not have already posted this painting. I would apologize, but this piece is fantastic. I’ve had a slight obsession with it since I’ve found it. The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Caspar David Friedrich is my favorite painting. It has been an inspiration that has helped me understand what I love about the fiction I read, watch, play, and create. My own little molten pearl.

There’s a story in this piece of a man walking out of his life with all that it has given him and stepping out into the obscured. He can’t know what’s ahead of him, and yet he’s here. And not in an Indiana Jones jacket mind you, or some kind of uniform. The Wanderer is in a collared jacket and carrying a gentleman’s walking cane, but is the “Wanderer” and not the “Gentleman” or the “Doctor.” I didn’t want him to fit in this obscured world. He looked more ready to walk down a street than he did up a mountain side. But Friedrich put him here.

To me, the Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog is an acceptance of wonder, danger, pain, awe, and death for the sake of knowing what is beneath the fog. The Wanderer is looking down on a whole new experience that he can’t truly understand from where he is. But, he doesn’t turn away. He seems to be taking it in. It’s a very important moment, but I haven’t quite figured out what it means or why it means something to be beyond the above.

But, not fully understanding it doesn’t mean that I haven’t tried to recreate it. When I watch movies, I look for character’s experiencing that same thing. I explore it in my own writing and let other people read over these moments to tell me if what I’ve come up with makes sense. I’m really hoping I figure out what I’m trying to get out of it soon.

A True Story of Edgar Allen Poe's Grave

Black Cat

When I was young my family took a long trip, and at one point we made it to Baltimore, Maryland, which is the burial site for writer Edgar Allan Poe. My dad went to Poe’s grave alone, and saw something that still gives me chills whenever I hear him talk about it.

The Black Cat SynopsisIn Poe’s story the Black Cat, a man who was once the most benevolent caretaker of animals becomes a terrible enemy to them. He consistently abuses them— even his favorite black cat, whom he mutilates and kills. He does feel a little remorse, and he adopts another black cat. He eventually tries to kill this cat, too, so he grabs an ax to kill it but his wife stops him. He buries the blade in her skull instead. Then he tears down part of the cellar wall so that he may hide his wife in a hidden fireplace, and after patching it up notices the cat must have ran away. The police come to search his house and find the woman’s body only after they hear the screaming of the cat from behind the sealed wall.

My OpinionPersonally, I love reading Edgar Allan Poe. I believe he is a brilliant writer and I think he has a unique way of seeing into the darkest recesses of human nature. Nonetheless, the Black Cat is not a story I really enjoy reading. Not only do I find it highly disturbing, but I know that this tale has found its mark in me due to my father’s experience with Poe’s grave.

The Real GraveMy dad left the hotel and located the small church with the cemetery next to it. Poe’s grave wasn’t hard to find, and as he stood looking at it he heard someone come up from behind. He turned, and standing there was a hunched old man with wild white hair.

“Want to see the real grave?” he asked. “Then follow me.”

Hobbling, he took my dad behind the church, explaining that the other headstone was there for tourists. The second part of the cemetery my dad was led to was overgrown and looked like something from a horror film, but what added most to my dad’s amazement was the giant black cat sitting on top of one of the headstones. The old man pointed the grave out as belonging to Poe. The cat stared at my dad with glowing yellow eyes for a few moments before slinking away through the grass. The old man left, and my dad stood there for some time in silence. He likes to collect souvenirs wherever he goes, and he decided that the ultimate prize from our vacation would be a stone from the top of Poe’s grave. As he reached down to work one from the dirt, a sudden feeling of intense anger and hatred filled his body. He jerked his hand away and stepped back. The feeling still lingered, and he left the cemetery quickly.

My dad’s experience has stuck with me, and I can’t help but imagine that the ghost of Poe and the black cat in the story watch over his grave together.



Image Credit: Pinerest.com "Grave Protecting Scary Fast Solid Black Cat" saved from Kelli Guest

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Ever since I was a young kid, I can remember singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing every December around Christmastime. Along with the other classic Christmas hymns like Joy to the World, Silent Night, and, my personal favorite, The First Noel, this song is one that I love to sing repeatedly every holiday season to help me feel close to Jesus Christ as I'm celebrating His birth. I can recall many times where I was either singing it in church with the rest of the congregation, hearing other people perform it as a special musical number in church, or even getting to sing it with my school choir for a winter concert during my senior year.


The music for Hark! The Herald Angels Sing was created by Felix Mendelssohn, a well-known composer from the Romantic Era, with the lyrics being penned by Charles Wesley. Living from 1809-1847, he has composed many piano pieces and even made an overture for A Midsummer Night's Dream. I've definitely performed a couple of his other pieces in choir as well as this one. But even though his other works continue to be performed today by choirs, orchestras, and pianists alike, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is probably one of his more popular compositions that is still known in the mainstream world and that I can still remember by heart.


With December just around the corner, it's pretty likely that you'll soon hear some different versions of Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. Many of us know this song very well and have fond memories with family and loved ones tied to it. As you listen to it this approaching holiday season, I hope you can find as much joy in it as I do allow it to touch your heart with it's beautiful melody and lyrics.

The Immensity of Space

Something Big: Hypothermia

When I was much younger I attended a Boy Scout camping trip into the mountains with my fellow ward/troop members. I did not enjoy the outdoors a whole lot, but I was optimistic that this would be a good trip. I had my friends and even my father attended as one of the adult leaders. On the mountain, my troop got caught in a terrible storm that was both heavy and cold. I had not brought all the proper rain gear I should have, and as such I got hypothermia and had to be carried off of the mountain by my comrades and some of the medical team that was at the base camp. While we waited for the medical team, I realized that in some ways, man is completely helpless to nature. That is what was irrational to me, why would we go out in such conditions? How was I so fragile?

Something Broken: Mental Health

Members of my extended family and several people close to me personally, including myself in some degree, struggle with issues of mental health. Since early childhood, I had always believed that everyone could simply be happy if they did the right things in life and followed God's laws, and while that may be true for the next life, there is no way to ever guarantee happiness in this life. The idea that many of us are afflicted by real diseases and conditions that prevent the simple states of happiness or calmness breaks my heart and puzzles me to this day. 

Something Artistic or Man-made: The Lamb

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-mSmEfLmZc

John Tavener's choral adaptation of the famous William Blake poem, The Lamb is bewilderingly beautiful. The way that John composed the notes for the different parts is far from conventional. Instead of writing simple counter-melodies and harmonies, Tavener inverted the notes of the melody with seemingly complete disregard for the key of music it would end up resembling. The link above includes a professional recording of it, but the time I best resonated with this song is when I had the opportunity to perform it in my high school choir. I had never before experienced so much beauty from something that, from a theoretical standpoint, made no sense at all to me. 

Something Mysterious: The Immensity of Space 

In one of my classes here at BYU, my professor stopped his regular lecture to show us a video of some of the deep space images produced from the Hubble Telescope. The video included music that inspired wonder, but the music seemed like nothing in comparison to the images displayed. 

Earth was lost to the size of our galaxy, and then the galaxy lost amidst a wash of other galaxies in such a manner that perplexed me more than I can describe with words. What was out there? If space really is infinite then is there no end to what could be out there? When I watched this video I felt like I was having an out of body experience viewing places and spaces that I would never, ever be able to visit, and seeing so many planets and stars that mankind may never be capable of reaching or really learning about. 

Image Credit 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwirw_6V5cXeAhUI2oMKHSCfApIQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.space.com%2F25303-how-many-galaxies-are-in-the-universe.html&psig=AOvVaw0JHHhbD32kucBq3mRZ3bxv&ust=1541800656385252

The Lady of Shalott's Final Moments

My first contact with this painting was nearly five months ago. I was studying for a final with a friend and a passerby exclaimed that she loved that screensaver! My friend’s screensaver was a picture of the painting of the “Lady of Shalott.” They had a surprisingly intense conversation about the painting and then moved on with their respective lives. This struck me as a powerful interaction about a painting that I had never experienced. It confused me how they could feel so strongly about a painting that was more than a century old.

That evening I searched the painting online. I sought to understand how they could have such strong sentiments about this painting. I love stories, I love understanding “The Why” behind people’s actions. I am generally not a fan of ambiguity and personal interpretation. I prefer the absolute truth.

"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse 1888

During my research, I learned that this painting was created to supplement a powerful poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I also learned that John William Waterhouse loved painting women right before their deaths. This appeared to be a vulnerable moment. I learned the story I wanted, and the painting suddenly struck me at a much deeper level. The Lady is dying for breaking a curse. In her last moments of life, she chooses to experience the life she has not been able to enjoy by leaving her tower and venturing out on a boat. Her face expresses a mix of deep emotions including fear and sadness, but I would also argue satisfaction and even pleasure.

In contrast with my first experience where I did not understand this piece, I have grown to love this painting. This painting typifies the Romantic period. This displays a full range of emotion expressed by the face of the Lady of Shalott. The colors in the painting are a contrast of light and dark that creates a focus on the Lady while also displaying the dark gothic or difficult emotional state that she is in. It expresses both a fear of death, desire for the unknown, and releases a tone of fatal reverence as one would feel I the presence of a dying loved one. 

Image credit: John William Waterhouse "The Lady of Shalott" 1888. By Plum Leaves licensed under CC by 2.0

The Mountain King and I

For me, music is has become part of who I am. It can both reflect my mood and shape it. I have played the piano since I was five years old and although I have much less time to practice now, I have come to find it relaxing. Over the past couple years my love for romantic/classical music has grown immensely. One of my favorite pieces is In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg. 

I'm not sure what initially drew me to this song, the melody itself is relatively simply as it is mostly a growing crescendo of the original refrain, resulting in an epic climax that brings the piece to an end. Perhaps what draws me to it is in the name itself, the imagery of what is happening in this hall of the fantastical Mountain King. I have always been drawn towards worlds that are fantastical in nature and this piece is a musical story, providing in its own way another world to delve into.

And all of that was before I learned about the whole story, about Peer Gynt and Edvard Grieg. Peer Gynt is notable by itself as a romantic play with the beginnings of modernism. It follows the peasant anti-hero Peer from his downfall to his redemption. It is nationalistic in that it is a call back to Norwegian heritage and story, while also providing social commentary in a satirical way. But it is Edvard's music, which was created when the author, Henrik Ibsen wanted to dramatize his poetry, that really remains with us today. The dramatic contrasts in pieces like the In the Hall of the Mountain King with its nearly imperceptible beginnings to its swelling end is powerful and helps tell a part of the larger drama that plays out across the 90 minutes of music made for Peer Gynt.

For me this piece represents exploration, into new genres of music as well as into new parts of our lives. Although I had been practicing and performing music by comparable composers of the time, this was one of the first romantic pieces that i really enjoyed listening to. It also reflects how life can feel, at first we may be very quiet, trying to explore and understand more without making to much of an impact. Then something changes, for better or worse things have changed and it will not be the same. This can be both good or bad, the music and life leaves that up to us to decide. 

Frederic Chopin: Accessing the Heart

Frederic Chopin, looking ever so cheerful

Emotional expression through music has always seemed rather mathematical to me. When you want to feel anger, you listen to loud, harsh music. When you want to feel love, you listen to sweeping, sweet tones. When you want to feel patriotic, you find majestic, triumphant marches. To be happy, you listen to music in a major key, to be sad, you listen to the minor. It all seems very simple. 

About a year ago, I had an experience that changed all of this. I had been exploring classical music as a companion to literature; I wanted to read with accompaniment but without distraction, and Impressionist and Romantic piano music seemed to do the trick. In the course of my searching, I stumbled across an artist named Frederic Chopin, whose name I had heard dozens of times, but whose work I had never sought out. Chopin was a child prodigy on the piano. In fact, his virtuosity was such that he hardly ever explored any other instrumentation in his compositions. Solo piano works comprise almost his entire corpus.

At the time I discovered Chopin, I was reading a book called Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina is a novel centered around love and heartbreak and follows the story of the eponymous character as she navigates the consequences of adultery. When I began to listen to Chopin's work while reading this book, I suddenly felt my emotions at the events in the story begin to swell up. My mild annoyance with certain characters or actions was fanned into a passionate bonfire when I immersed myself in pieces such as Op. 28, No. 15, or Nocturne in C-Sharp Minor. 

 

Through this experience, I began to realize that music can act similarly to a window in a wall. The more empty space there is, the greater amount of wind that can rush through. Sometimes, the quietest and simplest of pieces may not necessarily reflect my emotions the best, but I discovered that those pieces can have great power in accessing them. 

Curious what could have inspired such perceptive melancholy, I researched a little into Chopin's personal life. I discovered that he was often ill and died at a relatively young age, thirty-nine. In addition, he was known for having a turbulent love life. I guess circumstances like those almost seem stock for a Romantic-era composer, but the raw emotion in his pieces tell me that Chopin was a true Romantic, filled with passion and blessed with a talent to express that passion through music.

Image Credits: in the public domain, licensed through CC