| A long-lost friend, unfamiliar with the whole “Desert Island” disk thing, told me that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was the most popular selection in her search of “Desert Island Disks” across the Internet (she also made me aware that this game has been played since the 1940s). That was fine, I told her, except I can hum the whole thing inside my head, so why would I need that?
She challenged me and I proceeded to hum the opening bars of each movement. I’m no genius but I honestly have that entire symphony locked in my brain. That and everything recorded by the Beatles (pretty much); oh yeah, and Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” and while I’d include the Ninth and every Beatles album and “Kind of Blue” as favorite albums, I wouldn’t take them to my island since, as I’ve said, they’re locked in my head, accessed any time I want to hear them. Even the “White Album” (with apologies to Karl), I can hear every note, I can hum them — there’s no use to keep them on the island with me.
In fact, I wouldn’t go with Beethoven at all, even though the Third Symphony (“Eroica”) is a huge turn-on, probably my favorite, after the Ninth. Eroica = Love but it is ‘Eroica’ in the Greek sense: Erotic, sensual, all-encompassing, obsessive, it is love that my Catholic upbringing tells me is wrong.
So it must be right.
Beyond the stentorian
“Bum, bum bum, bum bum bum
BUM bum bum beginning in the first movement, Beethoven reels it in, capturing every sordid thrust of what should be, a memorable experience. While the second movement takes us through every caress, every rise and fall, it is in the third movement where Beethoven reveals his not-so-coy meditation on the post-orgasmic glow, the joy of affection in that moment of appreciation, the exchange of wit and whew. Beethoven had it down without having to resort to vulgarity or anything you’d want to hide from your children. And in the fourth movement, well, he has it down pat as far as, we’ve had a cigarette, some time to talk, and now it’s time to get back to the nasty.
Needless to say, the Third is not on my list, either. Not that I have it committed to my memory but, well, I don’t need that kind of frustration alone on my island.
No, it is Gustav Mahler’s Fourth Symphony that will go to the island with me. The first movement is about complete revelation, Satori, being in the moment and completely aware. It is sad and exultant at the same time, as if chronicling the life of a past king while celebrating the birth of a new one. It is (despite the reticence of my earlier statement), the most erotic music ever composed (after the Third, which is second only to the overture to Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”). Ravel’s Bolero be damned.
Mahler’s Fourth is music made to drive though the mountains only because it is an appreciation of heights, on all levels. The second movement begins with horns to remind us of those heights then softly brings us back to our perspective, observing from a distance, in awe. Moving through the trees (or, in tandem with our paramour), awe becomes our next step to Love — if even in the moment. Mahler is brilliant here, capturing what we’ve all felt, the ephemeral sensation of complete love in the moment with no regard for any other moment in our lives. Dangerous as much as it is ecstatic, Mahler realizes that simple moment in time and captures it perfectly. We’re transported, despite our best intentions and rationality.
Caught up in the moment, the third movement allows us to consider the future with the person we’re with; it is a wedding march, plain and simple. It extends our thoughts to their logical conclusion, walking down the aisle, hand in hand before a priest, hundreds of friends and relatives witnessing the event. Yet, despite the strong opening, the movement grows tentative, timorous, shaking like the leg of a reluctant bride beneath soft silk. Despite the magnificent opening and definitive closing, there is a bittersweet taint in its totality.
The fourth movement clinches it, capturing the darkness of a trap, the mountains closing down around us, swallowed by an avalanche. A tribillant flute tries to walk us out, slowly, trudging through the snow and cold, with horns calling us to safety but, really, we’re hosed. Dead. Frozen and done in this life.
Or so it seems. Towards the end, the strains that brought us here — either to make love or watch the tops of mountains — return to bring us back, not in redemption or damnation but to remind us where we started. There is a flash, a moment of light where we can be redeemed. It is just a moment and Mahler reminds us that the knock of opportunity is almost silent and fleeting.
I love that: being reminded of the mistakes that brought me to this place and my sliver of a way out. The only way out taps lightly and only once. A perfect selection for our island.
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