Shostakovich!

Last night, after the frisbee game, K and a friend of his and I went back to K's place and ended up listening to the entirety of the eighth quartet (one of my favorite pieces in the whole world). What an experience! Having failed to listen to any "classical" music post 1750 for the better part of a year, the dissonances and rhythms were so fresh and striking all over again. It was as if I'd never heard the piece before even though I knew what was coming. Re-experiencing the languid sorrow of the first movement, the heart-racing fear of the second, the subversion of the third, the terror of the fourth, and the resignation of the fifth, brought my heart back to places I hadn't visited in a long time. I loved every second of it. And I loved seeing K and his friend both go through their own versions of the ecstasy I was feeling. To see the expressions on their faces when the harmony crunches itself up into a place you never expected it to go, a place you didn't realize music could go. To see the shock in K's features when the lone violin note is interrupted by the banging-on-the-door/gunshot themes, the dawning comprehension when I pointed out the name-theme and when he identified it later on his own. That was pure joy for me. I love music theory, I love science, I love explanations, but I don't want to know Shostakovich's secrets. Somehow, he does things with harmony that no one else can, things I don't understand, can't replicate on my own. He moves masterfully between dissonance and consonance, milking the expressive power of both. He is one of my favorite composers and I had forgotten about him. How happy I am to be reminded!