Tasmin and transcendence
Oct 22, 2011
2 Feedback Comments
Something happened during tonight’s show.
Something which doesn’t happen every time we go on stage. Something which, for me at least, might only truly happen a few times a season.Towards the end of the slow movement of Elgar’s autumnal epic Violin Concerto, I felt that special sensation of time stopping, of the music taking me, and everyone else in the hall to places far removed from Bedford St. That strangely contradictory state of a very personal response, within a collective experience. Just occasionally, music can be so perfectly conceived, and so ideally delivered, that mere observations of skill, individual technique, and interpretation become meaningless. We become part of that great shared transcendence that music allows us. Just for a few moments, we leave everything behind us. Not in a Classic FM–music–as–tranquiliser type way, rather active than passive, as we experience together something beyond the quotidian.
The great American trumpet player, Wynton Marsalis, talks often of how music “brushes the dust of the day from our shoes”. Just sometimes, it can achieve much more than even that.
Patrick McCarthy
Principal Trumpet No. 2
2 Feedback comments
Christina
I am sorry I missed it – I\’ve heard Tasmin before, performing just with a pianist, and she was captivating… you\’re right, you forget where you\’re sitting, who you\’re with and just listen with everything you\’ve got.
Gabriel
I was there and loved it Patrick. It was a passionate performance. Tasmin was engulfed and surrounded by the music and gave a virtuoso performance that really captivated. You are right, only music can do this, and live music at that, when you can watch in real time and experience something so totally fresh. Your trumpet player was right and I have also heard it put a different way - “Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Either way I went home feeling cleansed - if not a little sore from applauding too hard and for as long as you all deserved - and that was for quite a while. Bravo!
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