THE MUSIC BOX
February 27, 2022
Melinda Coffey Armstead, piano
Prelude: Soft and Silent and Slow Descends the Snow . . . Arthur Benjamin
Reverie . . . Claude Debussy
La Neige danse (The Snow Is Dancing) . . . C. Debussy
La Cath dral engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral) . . . C. Debussy
Offertory: All Creatures of Our God and King . . . arr. Larry Shackley
Postlude: Blest Be the Tie That Binds . . . Hans Nageli
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind . . . Thomas Arne
Today’s music speaks to the wonders of wintertime enjoyed in other places. To the purity and quiet of a gentle snowfall at evening and blue diamond glitter in moonlight. To the dazzling white that transfigures the morning and stuns you with pleasure when you awake, wondering in a fluttering heartbeat whether heaven has arrived.
Full disclosure: You budget an hour a day to put on and take off your winter wraps to go anywhere. But plan not to go, as your car won’t start, and even if it does the snow plow has already buried it, so it won’t move. And if you stay home you can run the water occasionally so the pipes won’t freeze and burst. Water cascading somewhere inside your house when you return is a sound never to be forgotten, assuming you can get there.
But it is worth the trouble to go outside, just to watch the breathtaking ballet of cars in graceful rotation, imbued with the beauty possible only in a really massive object on an icy street, under the ballistic control of nature, she having lost interest in the screaming driver. From a passenger’s point of view the effect is, if possible, even more riveting. Later a pack of trolls will spread salt on the streets, so that automobiles and shoes will be ruined.
Put aside your envy. Someone has to live here.
RLA
