Renaissance Family

The Strange Music

~ G. K. Chesterton

 

 

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,

But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,

Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,

Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall,

In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;

Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,

Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light

Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;

Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,

Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,

Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.

But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear,

I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

***

Piano practice is coming along quite nicely. A few rondos rattle around in my head all day. I hum some Edna Mae* drills while buzzing about the kitchen. One of the sweetest sounds on earth is that of your child playing a musical instrument I reckon.  Even the simplest of tunes played faultingly makes me beam with pride. The neighbours may not agree, but to me it is a joyful noise.  With the exception of 'The Entertainer' which is cringe-worthy and so not in keeping with our Renaissance family ideals.  How did that get on the program?

Image 1: Madonna and Child with saints and donors by Gerolamo Giovenone, 1527.

From the Italian Renaissance exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Image 2: Edna Mae Burnam* (1907-2007) Dozen a Day series for piano.

Piano

 ~ DH Lawrence

SOFTLY, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see

A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song      

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong

To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside

And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour 

With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour 

Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast

Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

***

Oh my gawsh.  Guess what we just bought?

An ebony Yamaha upright acoustic piano.

I'm beside myself with JOY.

At last.

After years of a hired keyboard, then graduating to a hired digital piano from the fabulous local Canberra institution, the Young Music Society, it is time to graduate to the Real Thing.

I love the sound of my children practicing the Fred Flinstone cartoon theme, Brahm's Lullaby, Cockles and Mussels and London Bridge.  I love the grand, imposing and cultured appearance of the piano as a piece of furniture.  Now I will hear its authentic sound reverberate through the house and up the street.

The laboured rhythms of scales repeated.  The daily dozen exercises and the moaning that sometimes goes with it.   

We have the spot marked out with blu tack and sticky labels.

It should be here within a week or so.