Music for Good Friday
There were a number of candidates to share today. I have chosen this one because although it is not religious - it is very much spiritual and also fits very well with the next couple of choices in that the music ends with some sort of spiritual uplifting.
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Finding music serendipitously is a great way to expand your own personal 'repertoire' and hopefully this series of posts will do that for some people. For others they will be reminders - and for me, I realised when listening to this in preparing the post that I had forgotten just how special this recording is, so this was a great reminder for me. Again this was a serendipitous find - I bought this LP very much for the recording of Gundula Janowitz singing Richard Strauss' Vier Letzte Lieder - I guess it is likely that will feature in a future post!
Coupled with that on this recording is his tone poem Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration). If you are not familiar with this the music then I would encourage you to look up after you listen to it the story behind the music - I can provide a link or two which help. I say after you listen because for today it may be better if you use your imagination and let the music take you to whatever place it does.
The moment of Death is about two thirds of the way through and is marked by the sounding of a gong. From there to the end is one of the most sublimely beautiful depictions of the soul rising to Heaven that there is in music - on one of the YouTube videos that I looked at there was a comment by someone who was a professional musician with many orchestras saying that this is one of those pieces that in every performance leaves you close to tears and eternally grateful for the gift of performing such music.
The harmonies are wonderful throughout - but especially as the piece reaches its climax. I know that the way that music affects each of us is different - but I find this very moving every time I listen and by the end am both feeling much more peaceful and uplifted in spirit.
This recording starts VERY quietly - when I used to play it to someone for the first time it was always fun to watch them jump when the first loud note came - for those old enough to remember these things the thump on the bass drum was loud enough to make the needle jump on those record players that were not such high quality
Hope this is a good choice for today.
