2011.08.26 — Star Wars, Schumann & a fushigi*

I find particular enjoyment from fushigis when they involve music. Surprisingly often I've had them when I'm driving a vehicle. This is one of those in an backwards/backhanded sort of way.

This one begins with me in my automobile on a rare for me Friday household chore run around 10:00 am. I turn the radio to CBC-Radio2 and after about 8 notes I think, this is Mozart's Queen of the Night aria And it is a beautiful version . Next to come up is William Walton's Symphony No. 1, 4th movement.

Clip from CBC Playlist

I don't know this piece, probably because whenever Walton has entered my ears my eyes have tended to glaze over and my fingers reach out and change the station. And so it happens this time too, and I change to a local edgy blues-pop rock station.

Alas, I get bored with that now forgettable tune too and flip back to CBC-R2, from which Walton is still playing. As it drags to its end I think about why it is that I find the romantics like Schumann to be rather boring — something about Walton strikes me as 'romantic' although I'm not sure if that is how he is technically classified. With Walton in my ears and Schumann in my thoughts it strikes me that there is an equivalency between how I react to this kind of classical music and how I react to the treacly sentiment that is frequently expressed in American movies and TV. Like Spielberg, I think, and his relationship with John Williams, especially the Star Wars series.

As I'm thinking this the Walton movement comes to an end and the host chats about the upcoming 'music that rocked your world' segment, in which she shares the e.mails or voice mails of people who disclose the singular piece of music that changed forever their relationship with music. Well, to my amusement the e.mail read by Julie Nesrallah is from a man who described how

John Williams' scores to Star Wars 'rocked his world'. And the writer even specified a particular movement or scene, Hyperspace.

This is a tiny fushigi, but a distinctly amusing one, because I was surrounded by music I do not particularly enjoy.