It is slow and soft, the first movement—
the right hand sweeping in smooth triple meter,
the left hand singing against it.
Minor, the key, and mysterious
the melody, slow, it is slow and soft,
a walk through moonlight.
What is it that sometimes rises in us,
this urge toward crescendo, toward swell?
I feel it in my hands as they move
across the stoic keys, an urgency,
a reaching toward climax, a pressing
insistence, as if to sing louder is to sing
more true. But over and over again,
Beethoven reminds us, piano, piano,
his markings all through the music.
Oh beauty in restraint. It is soft,
the moonlight, a delicate fragrance,
it is heart opening, the tune,
it is growing in me, this lesson in just
how profoundly the quiet
can move us. And the hands,
as they learn to trust in softness,
how beautifully they bloom.
How lovely. Favorite lines:
“Minor, the key, and mysterious
the melody, slow, it is slow and soft,
a walk through moonlight.”
Wish I’d learned to play the piano and beautifully as you played this poem.
This music was played at our 60th wedding anniversary concert, and your poem evokes the peace it spread throughout the hall. I feel it again, and have to thank you, Rosemerry, for putting it into words–no small achievement.
Oh this comment makes me soooo happy. Thank you for these words I do so profoundly feel the sonata every time I play it (um, every day a couple times? I am obsessed with it).
Happy anniversary! What an achievement sixty years. I open my arms to you, r
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 at 9:59 PM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “Sonata”
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