We are all caught up in a terrible rush; the rush of modern society. We scurry as so many frantic mice from point A to point B, to point C, ad infinitum. There are no pauses; there is no time to be had for the smelling of roses, as the rush is an unstoppable machine. All this rush produces a relentless background cacophony. Car horns, phone calls, the ping of a text, the drone of a television – the noise is ceaseless and seemingly impossible to drown out.
How does one stop? How does one resist the machine that pushes the world forward at a blinding speed? How does one find solitude and stillness?
. . .
A secluded path. On one side the path is lined by a forest of birches. It is winter and their leaves have fallen, exposing pale skeletal branches. Snow falls heavily, steadily, but gently. It thickly blankets everything in white, obscuring the path and creating a haze before one’s eyes. The only sound is the soft rustle of the wind and a faint tune which is carried on it from afar. Perfect stillness permeates the scene, and a solitary figure wanders down the path, wonderfully isolated from the rush and the cacophony.
. . .
Untempered silence, too, is overwhelming. It is just as loud and pronounced as the most frightful din. Sound is required to find the stillness of silence. Music – a perfect sound: a gift that transcends the noise of the Earth; that seems sent from the pristine silence of space.
. . .
When I first experienced this stillness, I was overcome. Not in the way that one is overwhelmed by the force of a cacophony or an oppressive silence; but in the way one’s breath catches as they emerge through a clearing and find themselves beholding a breathtaking view. Mozart’s music fell upon me as a fine silver rain falls upon the Earth, acknowledging and soothing its burdens. The piece was the second movement of his 27th piano concerto.
It begins with only the piano; a simple, unassuming melody. I had heard the piece before, but never really listened to it. At first, I thought little beyond “this is quite pretty – one can always rely upon Mozart for a nice melody”. The orchestra comes in, reinforcing the piano and lifting the music; I began to realize it was very beautiful. The orchestra dies away and once more there is nothing but piano. The notes come, so simply, so softly. But in their humility there is something more riveting than life's most brazen fanfare; in their quiet something that rises effortlessly above the pandemonium of the world. In the piercing clarity of those notes, there was finally a pause in the rush, and in that pause the cacophony was for a time silenced. Perfect stillness captured in those infinite phrases of music.
. . .
Listening to Mozart’s melody is like viewing the world through a euphemizing lens. Such music is too beautiful, too pure, too unfathomably good to have ever known ugliness or evil. Through this lens, one is allowed a momentary glimpse into a world unfettered by corruption and pain. A perfect and still world; beautiful, pure, and good just like the music that created it.
. . .
A solitary birch-lined path; it is snowing and the strains of crystal piano notes are carried on the wind. I have finally found that place, at least for a moment; relief from the rush for a brief yet undying moment. A moment of quietude, a moment of transcendence, a moment of beauty, a moment of stillness.