The Power of Music

Two weeks ago we went to the home of friends for a dinner party. Gwendolyn played her usual social butterfly role, and behaved magnificently for a nine-month-old through visiting, appetizers, and the main course. But by the end of the meal the sedentary habit of adults was taking its toll. Gwendolyn began to fidget, fuss, and grab for everything breakable on the table.

Then our host introduced the string trio that would play for our pleasure between the main course and dessert. The three high school students (also brothers and sister) played with great expertise on violin, viola, and cello. They performed a set of classical pieces: Handel, Beethoven, and Bach. The melodious strains, that might as well have been played by seasoned professionals, floated through the chambers of our hosts' home.

And the music rapt our daughter. For the entire set, Gwendolyn stood in Sara's lap, listening to the notes, her eyes moving from one set of strings to another. The movement of the musicians' hands captivated her. Occasionally she would squeal with joy, then look at one of the adults around her with a big grin, as if to say, "Are you watching this? This is awesome!" In a moment, however, her eyes would return to following the fingertips that flew across the vibrating strings. I think it was as much a treat for the adults to see Gwendolyn enjoy the music as to hear the music itself.

As for me, when I was not watching my daughter soak up the sound, I was transported to a place I rarely visit. The liquid joy of the violin's notes took me back to high school and college, coming into the house unannounced and hearing the cascade of notes falling from my dad's bedroom. During those years he had begun to take up the violin again--after many years sacrificed to medical practice--and I could hear the reveling in his playing. He did not play as someone frantically trying to master a score; he did not play as a student trying to impress a jury. He played as someone discovering the emotion behind every note, as long-parted lovers would reminisce over a meal together.

The violin, and especially its rendition of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring, swept me back to my father and moved my soul with memory. As Gwendolyn performed her own happy vocal arrangement for the piece, I wept for love and loss. It was a moment I could not have anticipated, though every time I see a violin I think of Dad. The music spoke in a way that remembrance alone could not. I re-lived the deep quiet of the house, the sound of mellifluous notes drifting down from upstairs, the dark blue carpet on the steps that carried the songs like a slow waterfall, the ache and strain of the final notes that rang from my dad's whole body as he danced with the movement of the bow. And I found myself in a different kind of joy.

Praise the Lord for the power of music!

~emrys