A WORLD WITHOUT MUSIC

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4 2nd Movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7oFdFqtB4
Daniel Barenboim conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Imagine a world without music.

Imagine a society in which music is banned. There are some regimes that impose such bans. There are other regimes that decree only certain types of music, all else being outlawed.

A world without music is one thing. A world where the sound of music has been deliberately removed is far worse.

I was listening to this Symphony last evening on the radio – the 2nd Movement – and it moved me.

The ground beneath me seemed to move and my spirit groaned and then soared as this incredible composition moved, swirled, cascaded and rose up ever higher with each score.

A host of people all moving as one on that great stage, following the baton, the exquisite movement of the hand.

My heart pulled. It seemed as if I would be turned inside out. Where did this beauty, this creativity, this spontaneity and rhythm come from?

Just how is it that these sounds can be written on a score as seemingly meaningless strokes and dashes, notes, quavers, semi quavers and nocturnes only to be then, as a collection of people gathered together and as the baton raises, become one being, at one with the Universe?

Such incredible sounds the world over – as beautiful as each other - regardless of culture.

Music has power and spontaneity that men in high places when unsure of their security can desire only to ban for fear that it may otherwise unseat them, that the people over whom they rule, or worse still whom they subjugate, will themselves move as one, with that same spontaneity. (See footnote)

Take for instance Finlandia, the Voice of Freedom of the Fins and thus banned for a lifetime by a regime that has long since gladly gone.

The threat of imprisonment, beating or worse, if heard listening to it on some foreign western broadcast or, on pain of death, to dare to listen to the most feared station of all, the ubiquitous BBC, yes even today in this 21st Century.

If music be the food of love, so wrote Shakespeare.

I would go one further. Music is food for the soul. It gives us expression and purpose; sentiment; comfort and confidence; a link to friends and family, loved ones far and wide; periods of our lives long since passed and with which the music now is the last remaining tenuous link and which gives us our memory.

As an editor, I would always encourage my creative design team to reach inside themselves; to go right into the innermost depths of their being. In a way the Editor is literature’s equivalent to the Conductor of an Orchestra. Nothing but the best is acceptable. And I'm constantly inspired by just how creative the human spirit is.

The great Arias, choruses, symphonic sounds of the very host of Heaven on the one hand; on the other hand of equal beauty, sometimes more, the artists and performers of popular music – two pieces alone come to mind by Enrique Iglesias, Addicted and California; and three equally beautiful popular songs that never cease to inspire me, Break and Born by Stephen George Edwards of New Zealand and Ambitions by Joe McElderry of South Shields, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Here is true freedom. Here is the freedom of young people to express themselves. Never stifle the young people, for they are a nation’s future, our future, our security, our freedom. And as they come to understand this freedom, they will not give it up lightly, but will guard it jealously to hand to their children with equal conviction.

All types of music bring tears of joy and the ability to make me re-examine myself, no less than when I listen again to a great Psalm or Choral work or Gregorian chant; so never allow music to be stifled.

And do not restrict oneself to local culture. Experience the rich variety of music of all cultures without exception.

And if, God forbid, society ever moves to imposing a total ban on some form of music then resist it with all your might. Let not the greatest sounds and groanings of the soul and spirit be silenced by the petty prejudices and bigotry of simple minded men and women who seek only to impose their own outdated irrelevant interpretation of religion.

Let us never fall prey to these petty dictates that would rob us of our freedom to listen to one of the most awesome acts of the creative spirit – our music.

La Fontana
Blackpool
29 March 2010

I wrote that sentence a year ago. Tonight, as I prepare this final proof for the publisher, we are witnessing popular uprisings throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and in particular in Libya. The people do indeed rise as one, and whenever they do, dictators tremble for they know it is only a matter of time, before they will be brought down. If they are fortunate they might be allowed to live quietly in exile; if they refuse to yield, then a People motivated by a quest for freedom and democracy, what we in the West so take for granted, will take the law into their own hands. That is never good, for terrible retribution will be meted out, and this should never happen. 21 March 2011 Ian Bradley Marshall Liverpool

www.ianbradleymarshall.com