William Gass - Middle C

I could say simply that the Concerto for Orchestra is an appeal for peace, but that would make it sound simpleminded, and this piece is anything but. It is a mingling and clashing of competing kinds of music, the instruments that play them, and the totalitarian contexts within which large ensembles necessarily require their musicians to perform. A violin or cello concerto brags that, for a change, the rest of the world revolves around this one violin or cello and its simplest string. [….…]

This is only true of the genre, of course, instances vary. [….…] So, in the Concerto for Orchestra , various instruments enjoy their moment in the sun; turn and turn about, they are allowed to lead; and an ideal community is, in this way, imagined; one in which the individual is free, has its own unique voice, yet chooses to act in the best interests of all others. [……] The problem is: how to save Difference without making its members only frivolously different, like taking your tea in a glass instead of a cup.

The materials of a work of art, my dears, appear first as simple differences but then begin to migrate into oppositions and into pairs. For instance, the cleeks and buzzes of insects in the night, each with their own scratch on the face of darkness, sidle alongside the clarinet’s happy candy like ants to a melt of chocolate — apparently an enemy of our pleasure. No matter how pure a note is, when singly sounded, we realize its man-made character and its preordained place in that confectional box, the musical scale; whereas we trace nighttime’s clatter back to the cricket, who is broadcasting its lust, first in one direction, then in another, with sharp chirps like the crepitations the locust makes by bowing its legs vigorously back and forth upon steadied wings to signal its presence and advertise its need. [……] The action is called crepitating . I shall inscribe it. [……] These little wails of music, or bits of ragged scrape, are seeking a companion, a connection, even if only momentary, but always so they may give more sense to their sounds and make more of meaning’s music. Bartók composed many such dark concerts; arrangements of notes for a time as lonely as we fancy we are when we wake suddenly to find only “middle” occupies the night.

Now cast your eyes upon the palette that modern circumstances have placed before the composer, all pertaining to the nature of any singled-out sound or insect’s whir. There is the instrument that is its source, as the cricket’s is of its, and any messages that may be traced to it, for instance, the call of a bullfrog or the whistle given girls; there is the placement of the instrument in the pit, on the platform of the concert hall, or for solo or ensemble performance in a historic chamber; there is the choice of size and shape the musician must give his note (fat or thin, loud or soft, crisp or slurred) and the qualities of sound that can be expected from each of a hundred sorts of instrument; moreover, to be accounted for, there are the relations this note has with other notes (those that precede, those that follow, those that suffer or enjoy simultaneous existence); consequently the sounds collected in polychords, clusters, skeins, runs, motifs, themes, as well as all the other groups of notes that are treated as an entity — clouds of notes, cascades, fistfuls, snivels of notes — and all those with whom it shares rhythmic relations; repeated notes, notes that have been given a dominant position, those who satisfy subordinate roles, compositions in keys and styles and size, that have historical associations, reflect common customs, or reveal well-known intentions. Cast eyes and cry: too many and too much; take away this hive of opportunity, this surfeit of choice, and let us retire to simpler times when such a plethora was not recognized, our eardrums were not African, and our serious intentions were pious.

The next time you enjoy — say — a kiss, think of it for a moment as a moist slur of notes, and the experience showing up in your consciousness, as well as that of your companion, when your lips touch, is a chord of a chorus in a world of cacophony. All that laughter? That bad? I had to say “kiss” to wake you. How about a spoon in hot soup? Opposed palms coming together in a clap. Anyway, when Béla Bartók composed his celebrated concerto he was taking a musical world, like the warring one outside his studio, in all its prolixity, conflict, and chaos, and trying to resolve those factions in a triumphant chorus for a triumphant close.

Listen to that. We have arrived at our station. The noon bell rings across the quad. You may scuffle out. Our time is up.

I haven’t seen Mother. I haven’t seen her anywhere — Joey said not quite aloud because he no longer wanted to hear his voice — her face must be hidden in her flowers; but I shall have to see her soon enough, and suffer her shock, and the scorn in her speech: anger before despair. He felt he had a cork in his throat. A sweat, this early in the day, that wet his underarms, served to oil his apprehension.

There were several scenarios that would fit this faculty meeting, and he had endured them all. Why bother with this one, played out in the provinces? It ought to close before opening, since all its conclusions were foregone. Joey had no curiosity about which version would most match the performance the ticket holder had purchased.

Joseph walked slower than slowly; you might say he waded up the street toward a pickup truck that always seemed to be parked in the shade of a tall fir tree, night and day, all seasons the same. It reminded him of the Bumbler; how it had served him, as poor at the wheel as he was; and how steadfastly this example sat in front of its house, ready to run, but never asked. Lucky wheels that no one wanted turned.

The Bumbler, exercising its associative powers, charmed him by returning Miss Spiky, her mullet, and her Billy Bear to his consciousness. He heard her voice — he always heard the singers, it seemed, since Mr. Hirk introduced him to them — she who was one of the good witches of Urichstown, and he fondly remembered — he always heard the high notes, it seemed like, since Mr. Hirk played them on his machine — her brazenly advertised attachment to a child’s toy. Hazel Hawkins — that was she. Maybe, just maybe, Billy Bear was a substitute for a child she had lost. He hadn’t thought of that. But should have. Funny, he felt genuine with her, precisely because she was also putting on a show. To his surprise, he laughed, then snatched it back, as if he’d let fall a naughty remark. How much astonishment could this hour entertain?

It must happen every day: men, women, boys being taken between officers to a judge; or men, women, soldiers, sent to their death, cameras catching them now that the police had, or victims of gunfire spewing from a speeding car, or simply the shower curtain that’s drawn upon a rain of shame. He now knew what fear was: strings of feeling tied into a numbing knot.

Professor Skizzen labored past a piece of broken curb that always marked, for him, a point halfway to or from his classroom, night and day, all seasons the same; except that when he returned, on the other side of the street, it was a cluster of telephone poles weathered to a pale gray that gave his position away. The clump had a slight lean. The way they might have grown in their original woods. The professor felt he had worn this path and won its naming, now that it had become the last half mile of his academic life, and was otherwise unpleasant only in the worst snows and a few winds. A little sign might be enough: Fake’s Walk. The real difficulty was that after his arraignment he would still be alive. To have your name on something beside a shop, you had to be rich and probably dead. And even death would not prevent people such as President Palfrey from his calamities: the short path between Languages and the Science Building was called Snow Way.