Essay

Dear readers,
theokwek has decided to take a break from the travel commentary and will tell you about Washington D.C. another time. Boy, aren't we looking forward to that!!?

Anyway, in the meantime theokwek has posted us an essay about a concert he went to last week. Apparently, the concert's star's blog is linked to the Straight Times. See under Lee Voon - pro pianist. Well, here's the essay and it's entitled The True Spirit of Music.

Recently, I attended a piano recital by Lee Voon, one of the friends I met when I embarked on the Asian Pacific Children’s’ Convention in 2005, and her mentor Ong Lip Tat, widely known on the Arts scene as one of Singapore’s few child prodigies, as well as an outstanding teacher, albeit with an unpredictable temper.

Being the student, Lee Voon played first. As the guest-of-honor commented in his address, the program chosen for the day was indeed a very difficult one for a girl her age, but her fingers moved with much dexterity and wowed the audience with their flowing, bubbling melodies. Her amazing technicality was sustained throughout the four pieces which she performed, and drew floods of applause.

After the intermission, Mr. Ong took his turn on stage and performed another three pieces. These had a subtle difference in character with his student’s masterpieces, and reflected a more somber and reflective tone compared to her livelier caprices. The second piece, he said in his introduction, was dedicated to his late teacher, who shaped his foundations in music before he left the nation to study. As he took his seat the hall fell into a hush, and with his first chord everyone sat ramrod straight in their seats. Without so much as tremors of his fingers, he proceeded to play, wordlessly, a moving eulogy to his teacher. As his gifted digits raced across the keyboard from lower to higher registers and back, all were left awestruck at the emotion and grace of the music. Few mortals, it seemed, could extract such power and feeling from an instrument, and shape it thus skillfully into the mold of his heart.

This brought to mind a striking line which I’d heard on the TV serial Legend of the Condor Heroes the very night our String Ensemble left to perform in New York. The line was: “The highest level of swordsmanship can only be attained without the sword, and swordsmen who have attained this level will fear none who wield weapons.” A similar line, was included in the martial arts movie Heroes. Indeed, the highest perfection of an art is without the instrument, and music lies not in the keyboard or violin, but in the soul.

This was what enabled the great composers to hear in their minds the power of the orchestra, and set it to ink, thus welding the key for future maestros of similar passions to direct musicians in playing out the same emotions that lay in the composers’ hearts. With every true musician lies a similar heart – whether classical, baroque, jazz or rock – one that embodies the spirit of music, a soul that has become one with the music, that no emotion cannot be expressed by the power of notes, forming music in the mind before it is released in the instrument.

What about myself? Had I this melodious heart, or one of unfeeling stone? Over time, through years of sweat and tears, and patient guidance, has my playing found that level? I do confess that many a time my violin is musically dead, and I play only dry notes, without the life-force of music. But I do hope that as I tread this path that all musicians before me have taken, I will be able to quench the drought in finding the magical inspiration that brings life to music, and music to life.

In this quest, therefore, young musicians such as Lee Voon and I still have a long way to go. But I hope – and pray – that it will not be fruitless.

We return tomorrow with another travel post. Till then, adeiu.
the Straight Times Editor