I keep thinking that I’m going to come up short with the Independence Day Project—there have been a few countries recently that have left me scrambling until the last minute to find a poem that I can use. I’ve been writing entries ahead of time recently, as the next month or so has a few days with three or more countries celebrating on the same day. I’m trying to write two a day this week, at least, so I can get ahead. I look back on the quiet month of April… Which is not to say that I miss those days. Now is the perfect time for me to spending so much time on the project. I’m getting so used to searching and writing, that when it gets to the end of January next year I won’t exactly know what to do with myself. (A second round? A new project?) There are days, though, when I feel independenced-out. Usually when I’ve been reading about genocides and especially cruel colonial practises.

In the mean time, yesterday I went to hear some music at the Kennedy Center—taking advantage of the free performances at the Millenium Stage again. Two violinists from the NSO (Natasha and Zino Bogachek) and a pianist (Darya Gabay), a program of chamber music. Looking up the violinists, I find they've recorded a CD of Telemann's sonatas for two violins. I wish they had played Telemann... I hadn’t heard of any of the composers before hand, and so I was hoping there would be some contemporary music—unfortunately not. I’ve looked up the composers since, but I didn’t need to really—it was clear that Ysaÿe, Moszkowsky and Sarasate were all late Romantics, caught up in the trend for nationalism. Fine. There are some good pieces of the genre—I find it hard not to get into the spirit of Sibelius, for example. But these were lesser composers (hence, I suppose, them being unfamiliar.) For the most part I found myself playing the game I haven’t in so, so long: unfolding the piece ahead of what was being played. Once I’d figured the sound-world they were in, it was alarmingly easy to see where the works were going most of the time. I sometimes think that my entire music degree has somehow slipped out of my memory, but then I go to something like this and realize that, no, it is simply dormant.

Still there were some really nice moments. In Ysaÿe’s (he's the chap in the picture)Amitié I loved a moment when one violin played a scalic passage and then held a note, and the second violin came in on the same note—not immediately heading into a scale, but holding the same note, as there was a subtle shift from one violin to the next. I think this is typical of my reactions, though—I find myself responding to the stiller moments, find the climax so often in the quietness of a single note. And I know that to get that impact, you need that creation of a thick texture in order to pull back. I think it was that in these pieces the thick texture was so typical, and the moments of freshness only came through in stillness.

It also made me realize that I always find the slow movements too short. That a typical four-movement work will have only one slow movement, and then it will be over quickly: apparently it’s only meant to be a palate cleanser so you can dive into more displays of virtuosity. I measure a lot of works by their slow movements—I think that is why I always return to Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time: every movement is wonderful and complex, but the fifth and eighth movements are transcendental: they seem to lose track of an absolute sense of metre and move into this other place. I am still waiting for a repetition of that first real profound musical experience I had as a student at the conservatorium hearing the fifth movement of Messiaen for the first time in concert class, played from memory by the best cellist we had. I’ve had two complete musical experiences since then, but I guess it’s like a first kiss. It can’t be recaptured exactly.

It’s so nice, though, to find that this thing that was such a huge part of my life for so long is still there, and it still takes up the same amount of space inside me, however much it isn’t the current focus. And listening to these pieces last night, jotting down descriptions of moments that interested me, for what seemed right, or what seemed wrong (wrong words, but hopefully you get the sense of what I mean…) I felt again that I would like to try writing music again. I’ve long wanted to write a piece for flute, with “an occasional second flute,” and I realized last night that I wanted another instrument in a lower register for a counterpoint. Perhaps I will use piano, perhaps cello or viola. It’s something to think about. Though it’s so strange to find myself thinking about—I don’t have any manuscript paper, and I’m going to go looking for some in the next few days. I’ll see what happens.

As for today—who knows? I have some student writings I need to comment on this afternoon, and then I may dash off to a free film, or another performance at the Kennedy Center, or I may even go see a film that I have to—horrors!—pay for. 2001 is showing at one of the Smithsonians tonight, but I have already seen it on the “big screen.” So—maybe I’ll wander down to DC’s good cinema and see one of the new films I’ve read about.