A NOISELESS, patient spider,
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I mark’d,
where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated;
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Mark’d
how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding,
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It
launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself;
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Ever
unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.
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And you,
O my Soul, where you stand,
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Surrounded,
surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
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Ceaselessly
musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them;
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Till the
bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold;
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Till the
gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
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—Walt Whitman, “A
Noiseless, Patient Spider”
We all know the image:
the half-crazed violinist who in his empassioned frenzy pops a string and yet
continues playing till the end, the grandest of grand finales, his toupee
bouncing from side to side. What makes him go so crazy? What makes him give of
himself entirely to the music, to the sounds he is producing, forgetting the
world in order to do so?
I have played music,
but I would not call myself a musician. When I watch truly amazing musicians, I
marvel at their performance not just because the melodies and harmonies they
produce are so beautiful, but because I have played just enough to know how
much effort, time, practice, and dedication must go into such a performance.
And, even though I will never play at the level of the greats, I nonetheless
feel a certain kinship. Because I understand the dedication to an art form, an
act of creation and performance, that borders on ludicrous obsession but is
nonetheless essential to one’s existence.
Certainly each and
every violinist has his or her own particular reasons for perspiring and
working himself or herself into a frenzy while performing. The caricature I
have drawn does not do justice to the diversity of violinists. But all would
share, I believe, an intense commitment to their art that goes beyond the
mundane and enters a realm that could be called spiritual—a realm that encompasses
what Walt Whitman might call the “Soul.”
Strings tie things
together. They are tendons, ligaments, filaments. String theory posits that on
the quantum level, matter is not a set of self-contained points but rather a
set of tiny strings, each one vibrating at its particular frequency, to voice
its part in the grand symphony that is the universe. If this is the case, it is
no wonder that we feel a bond with those around us when we join together to sing
hymns in a temple of worship, or our fight song at a football game. There is
something electric, primordial, and bonding about listening to and
participating in live music. When string instruments produce the music, it is
not only their strings that vibrate, but also the air, the atmosphere, and
something deep within us.
Orquesta Àrab de Barcelona
Recently I have
experienced this communion through music. Under the moonlight and against the
backdrop of arabesque architecture, the Orquesta Àrab de Barcelona gave the
pleasant Sevilla night its fusion of Eastern and Western sounds that at once
entranced with its exoticism and contented with its familiarity. Mohamed
Soulimane focused our attention quickly with peppy notes he played on his
electric violin.* Sergio Ramos (“el mejor Sergio Ramos en toda España!” Soulimane
proclaimed) got us moving with his rock percussion. Mohammed Bout assumed a
very proper, upright stance and moved his hands delicately as he sang in
Arabic.
The concert was
sponsored by the Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo, which seeks to bring
together the Catholic, Jewish, and Arabic cultures of the Mediterranean. In
Sevilla these three cultures have historically been very present. Even
though today there is a church on every other corner and a different virgin
processes through the streets almost weekly, the tall Cathedral tower that
everyone uses to get their bearings, the Giralda, is a relic of the old mosque
that has been subsumed into the Catholic architecture; the river that is the
lifeline of the city, the Guadalquivir, derives its name from the Arabic for
“Río Grande” (“Big River”); and the old “judería” or Jewish neighborhood, is
now part of the labyrinthine tourist trap called Barrio Santa Cruz. On the one
hand, Catholicism and its traditions are sacred in Sevilla, and on the other,
so much of the city’s distinct flavor stems from cultures that are held to be
exogenous and foreign (as if Catholicism were not exogenous). That the Orquesta
Àrab de Barcelona delighted a packed audience with its fusion of music and
cultures illustrates that at least in some circles, Sevillanos are eager to
embrace the multicultural presence in their city.**
Catalan, Spanish, and
Arabic comingled that night, as did ancient and contemporary sounds, young
people and the elderly. At the end we all sang along to a song that went
“Allah, ho, Allah!” (“You don’t have to say Allah if you don’t want to, but you
won’t get a rash if you do!” Mohamed Soulimane told us) and afterwards we asked
for more. The dancing began; Soulimane called a young woman and a pregnant
woman up to the stage and they happily showed off their Moroccan-flamenco
fusion moves. With music and dance combining, the electric strings and vocal
chords that had been vibrating and searching all evening struck their mark, and
for at least a time, we were all in this together.
Guitars among the Ruins and the Glass
Two weeks ago was the
Guitar Festival in Sevilla. On Wednesday I accompanied a friend who studies
guitar at the conservatory here and saw Lorenzo Micheli and Javier Riba perform
some of the most beautiful classical guitar music I have ever heard. Before the
yellow-lit Roman ruins of the city housed in the Antiquarium of the Plaza
Mayor, in a glassed-in concert hall that reflected light from everywhere, they
elevated the guitar to a place it does not always occupy. I do not always think
of the guitar as a classical instrument, but rather as a versatile, portable
instrument that almost anyone can learn to strum. As an instrument, it is not
often taken seriously. A cheap guitar is affordable, and you can play a song
knowing only three chords. The guitar is often the instrument of the poor and
of the undedicated men who want to pick up girls. Even when played well, the
guitar does not always coexist alongside the elegant violin or the austere
cello. But this concert reminded me that the guitar should be taken more
seriously. Micheli and Riba treated their guitars as if they were Stradivarius
violins,*** and the sounds they coaxed from them were, in my opinion, more
lovely than what could be coaxed from a violin. There is just something that
gets me about the guitar, more than any other string instrument. And to hear it
played in Sevilla, where the guitar is an essential element of the city’s
identity, was to feel a humming connection to the city’s core.
Gray Beards and Fresh Faces
In the last concert of
the festival on Saturday, a cohort of men in their forties and upwards
introduced the four top finalists of the weeklong competition. The finalists
were young men in their early twenties at the most, who played in ways that
stunned me as much as their teachers had on Wednesday, if not more so because
of their young age. After the intermission, students from the esteemed
Fundación Cristina Heeren, a flamenco school, performed flamenco guitar pieces
with palmas (hand claps). The concert, held in a traditional music hall, was in
many senses a bastion of form and convention. It was beautiful and moving, and
I felt privileged to mingle with such great artists afterwards at the
wine-and-cheese gathering.
But art does not stay
within an institution. And Sevilla’s art is found all over, not just in concert
halls that charge entrance fees. At 2am that night on a side street off the Alameda, one
of the most hopping bar neighborhoods, the
classically-trained musicians I was with stopped and listened to the impromptu
flamenco jam session that had been struck up. Humble young people with
piercings and tattoos strummed bulerías, alegrías, and tientos, sang with their
faces contorting, and clapped out palmas. There, amongst the cobbled shadows,
was another face of Sevilla. Another set of artists, friends, seeking to
express themselves, to unite their souls for a time, to launch strings out into
the world and hope they catch somewhere.
This is
what I’m searching for, maybe what everyone is searching for: connections. String
vibrations, literally and metaphorically, are at once distinctly individual and
intensely communal. If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear
it, it has made vibrations, but technically no sound. For that, an ear is needed. Vibrations need ears to make
connections. Especially in this year, I am searching for human connections,
connections across time and space. Connections between 1500s Sevilla and 21st-century
Sevilla. Between the Cajasol concert hall and the flamenco singers on the
streets of the Alameda. Between America, Asia, Africa, and Europe. I am seeking
to find them, to forge them, to understand them. I do this by writing. I write
to find my own particular rhythm of vibration at which to hum in order to play
my part in the harmonious symphony of the universe.
*Perhaps this music is tailored to Orientalist-trained Western tastes; nonetheless, I found it beautiful.
**The concert took place at the Fundación Tres Culturas
in the Cartuja, the large site of the 1992 “Exposición Universal” that
commemorated the 500th anniversary of Columbus’s “discovery” of the
Americas. The foundation is on Calle Max Planck, just off the Avenida de los
Descubrimientos (Avenue of Discoveries). The Cartuja is a rather ugly,
industrial area that nonetheless created space for cultural activities and
provides a testament to the city’s 1992 embrace of many different cultures. The
Expo brought with it a massive transformation and beautification of the city,
including the creation of a riverfront walkway and the proliferation of “zonas
peatonales” (“pedestrian zones”).
***Riba’s guitar was indeed 113 years old and had been
played by a famous guitarist way back when.
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