Saturday 8 February 2020

Music and Memory




Music and Memory:

For the last 2 weeks, out of over 9.500 titles, I have been editing and completing a music playlist for streaming purposes, one for classical music and one for Jazz. 

All my favorites, one after the other, continuously playing in an endless, uninterrupted stream: the joys of modern life, somehow always new, always exciting, thanks to random-mix mode. 
And thanks to this accomplishment I am rediscovering music I had not heard for ages, music which quietly went into oblivion on my cd-shelf, music I forgot the existence of, music I had lost myself in, music I would have metaphorically died for, music I thought I couldn’t live without and then forgot, music strongly attached to situations, events, people, episodes and phases in my life. 

Now, under a downy warm blanket, I lie on my couch and listen again to sounds almost forgotten. Mahler’s 9th, for example, the last slow, 25 minutes long, movement with its heartrending climaxes and its long, almost unbearably bittersweet fading out of this world. So many memories go with it, so many emotions and ghosts rise up from the depth of the past. 

Different times, different ages, they all are still there and even though I knew they were, was aware those memories must still exist somewhere, must still be encrypted in my brain, now, with the help of this music, they are as easy accessible as if they happened only yesterday. This is, among other spells, the magic that music is capable of. Music creates markers in the memory encrypting process. As do other strong tools: taste, smell, touch. Or color. 
It seems our brain uses our fundamental senses to help memorize, store, anchor and retrieve events by simply attaching sensations to them. 

Bartok is coupled with The Shining and early adolescence,  Ligeti’s Requiem with Space Odyssey and a very curious 12 year-old self and a certain person. The Preludes by Debussy make me think of, relive, re-feel, my moods, my joys, my despairs of a time in Nuremberg; Rameau, Satie and Mompou bring back a specific phase in Berlin (as does David Bowie), Bach makes a lost, dear dead friend return, Poulenc recreates the moment of a significant artistic insight. 

This is how I imagine and wish for, old age could be, the long afternoon of my evening of life. Given that I then will still have the necessary mental capacities, this is not an unattractive outlook. Recline on your couch, simply turn on the music and let your life pass by. It’s not them but me who plays “Our Song”!


#robertfaeth, #painterinBerlin, #painting, #art, #bookblog, #bookreviews, #literaturelover, #poem, #poetry

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