Finn Upchurch
Have you ever listened to a piece of music so passionate that it brought you into the heavens? Do you know what it means to be brought to tears by the sound resonating through the concert hall’s bones? Through yours?
I sat in the Center for Performing Arts, here on campus, and listened to just a small portion of Maslanka’s Symphony No. 4. Now, I enjoy music. I listen to it regularly and use it as a means to fall asleep, to dance, to smile. I use it to enjoy life. But this? This was different. I could feel my heart racing in time with the notes and I couldn’t see anything but the performers on the stage. They moved with a passion that I had hardly seen in anyone. The conductor moved his arms with the strength of ten and if you looked closely enough, you could see the sweat dripping down the side of his head. All of the performers bounced and bobbed in rhythm, even when they weren’t playing. The conductor turned his head to look at different sections every once in a while, and I could see his smile, brighter than the sun. I watched my friends pour their souls in the music and, as only a listener could, I sat in awe of their talent.
The careful precision matched with the leaps and bounds of passion in Maslanka No. 4 wasn’t the only thing to make me nearly cry. It was the way that I could see all of my friends in the percussion section running back and forth, watching the conductor, and pushing their hair out of their eyes. It was watching my clarinet friend deftly move her fingers across the keys of her clarinet. It was watching the trombonist grad student that I look up close his eyes in careful concentration. My friends and their talent took all of the known universe’s glories, captured it into a small, bright ball that was white-hot, and handed it to the audience members sat before them. It was like holding a star and cradling it close to my chest. Reaching for the heavens had always been a faraway goal – one that I would have never hoped to achieve – but this took everything we know about the universe and threw it at me with blazing force.
As I listened, the universe whispered in my ear, “Listen. Listen and touch the stars because this is what you are made of.”
I was made of stardust from the farthest galaxies and of dirt from the smallest anthill. The clouds, the dirt, and the stars all reached out to me, speaking in a language that was older than the entirety of humanity. I was always reaching for stars when I was younger…
But no longer was I wishfully reaching. I was running! Running through the stars, the galaxies, the planets, the mountains, the grass, everything! I could feel the wind on my cheeks, turning them red from cold. If my breath had not been taken away by the sheer awe of these musicians, I would be laughing and yelling. I wanted to shout out and cry from joy. No, not joy. Elation! I wanted to leap from star to star, run from mountain to mountain, dive from the farthest star to the deepest sea. I wanted to confess to the world that I am alive. Alive with the breath being torn from my chest! I can keep running forever, keep loving forever. I can live life to the fullest without any hesitation and experience everything. I am alive in this life, damn it, and I’ll live to the fullest!
My thoughts turn to the people onstage once again. The piece slowed down and I feel like I can almost breathe again. The gentleness of the bells has washed over the stage and the audience. I can breathe again. And then the fanfare – the trumpets and horns and tubas and organ and trombone and every instrument – is close to sending me back to the heavens. I close my eyes to try and process the sounds and the feelings, I can feel goosebumps run up and down my arms. Tears are close to falling down my cheeks from pure emotion. Every intake of air from the musicians makes me focus on them. The conductor moves like he’s creating life itself, which is no easy feat. I can count the beats that he’s giving the band from where I sit in the fifth row. Maybe the sixth? Wherever I’m sitting, I am close enough to the stage to see everything. I can see the symphony that these musicians are creating in my head. Life bursts through the seams of the building and wraps around the pillars, the seats. With every downbeat that the conductor gives, I can almost see the energy coming off of him in waves, supplementing the life that my friends are creating. It’s electrifying and uninhibited by the outside world.
And then it’s over. The piece was finished. Had it already been eighteen minutes? There was a moment before everyone started standing and applauding. There was no breathing and no whispering from the audience. I couldn’t hear anything but the last note lingering like stars linger after exploding. Seconds passed like eons. And then the spell was broken over me and I stood like shot, whooping for my friends. It took everything in me to not jump and yell for them like I was some hooligan. While I was very much happy that the performance had gone well for them, I couldn’t help but miss the feelings that their playing had elicited in me. It was euphoric, being so full of life and soaring through the universe. The earth and stars had never been closer than in that moment where I was floating through some sort of heavenly purgatory. I leave the concert hall on shaky legs, looking like a newborn foal. I still can’t catch my breath, even as I talk to people in the lobby of the Center for Performing Arts.
As I get ready to go home, I keep thinking that I can’t let this intimacy go. This kind of intimacy is found in everyday life, but here, in the afterglow of the concert, it feels different. It’s bigger, more amplified, here. The bones of my body had quivered with every note and inexplicably, I was reminded of love. How was I reminded of love in the moments that felt so precious? Was it the soaring, grandiose fanfares of the brass and percussion or the quiet, delicate moments of the flutes and bells? I had watched these musicians create something that made love near tangible. I stood outside, breathing in the fresh air to try and clear my head, perhaps gather my thoughts. Love that’s tangible, that’s real, feels so rare in this world. This piece not only gave love a tangible form, but it also gave it a face, a voice, a body, and a name. I know this name and I know it well. The quiet whispers of the universe are suddenly understandable. I know what they were saying.
“Love,” they had whispered in my ears. Then they had sung like bells echoing off of the walls of a church. They told me to fight for my love and my right to love. The whispers had reached deep into my very being and filled it with music that was created from nothing but air and passion.
In the cool September air, I take a deep breath and let it out. I’m left with knowledge that feels too grand for someone like me. The universe’s whispers should be left for the great minds of scientists, artists, philosophers, and musicians who can express it in ways that make sense for people like myself. My ride pulls up into the circle drive. As I open the door, I think to myself that I’m left floating on a little rock in the middle of a galaxy, chasing that feeling of euphoria and love until I hear the next piece.