the beauty and glory and sadness of the world in a single chord progression

it feels appropriate for me to mention at some point in time my continuous crush (or perhaps one-sided love affair) of many years with sergei rachmaninoff. i was a sophomore in highschool the first time i listened to his music - really listened, put my heart in and let it fill gaps and listened. i was working on a stack of chemistry homework, trying my hand at stoichiometry, when suddenly elements and notes combined in the tragically beautiful melodic lines of his third piano concerto. it was the first time i cried while listening to music. it was the first time i wanted to reach out and touch the composer and thank him for having exhisted.

it was rachmaninoff that took me through my freshman year at byu, when a kind classmate lent me a cd called RACHMANINOFF PLAYS RACHMANINOFF (titled, appropriately, in caps on my itunes playlist). it was rachmaninoff on cello that i listened to, weeping, on a meadow in the alps a year later, while the snow breezing from off the peaks caught the sunlight and radiated it in rainbows all around me. it was rachmaninoff that made me alive, that pulled me out, that made me weightless and wonder, like mary oliver,

"oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?"

i wish i could trumpet him across the planet to the few his presence has not yet graced, and proclaim that his is the power to capture the beauty and glory and sadness of the world in a single chord progression.

meanwhile, i'll just sound off on this lovely blog that he is my composer crush of the hour, year, and (quite possibly) eternity.



(excuse the home video taping - this is his sonata for cello and piano in g minor, op. 19 - andante played by an israeli cellist)