A Fantasy of Favorites

I'm soaring in a vast dark space...A light a bright flare of creation ignites and shoots above the horizonless enormity of emptiness....And another voice enters and the two twist and gyrate, writhing about one another in a lovers' embrace...Sparks fly from their passion play. Voice after voice joins until it is a glorious cacaphony, ordered yet just verging on mass confusion and tiptoeing the bounds self control. A last voice; The Bass, voice of God booms above the rest....does it shout? NO, It SINGS along with the symphony of the stars; dancing in their passionate delight of the night that so gloriously offsets their crystalline light.
These images are born in thought as I sit with my ear buds in and my player playing Virgil Fox's renditon of Bach's Organ Fugue in G Minor.

And now, the scene shifts. A glorious and opulent hall, where the voices of a great crowd explode into the echoes of silence. Hallelujah! The Lord God Omnipotent reigneth! The king forgets about his itchy wig and for the fact that he's sat for hours now listening to this debut....He leans forward, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. And he, the king, cannot sit in the presence of this genius...nay, in the presence of God Omnipotent...without conscious thought he rises to his feet...and is oblivious to the fact that the entire assmbly is too, on their feet--on their toes, straining to absorb every delicious droplet of sound. Spirits soar in unison at the majesty of God and the genius of Handel. Hallelujah!

The last scene: the concert hall is filled with a low buzz of anticipation....what would this madman virtuouso do tonight?? What would he do to send them home glowing in the light of amazement or reeling in the throes of mockery and humerous outrage?

The lone figure paced, with shoulders hunched against his fear, in the wings, as he stared out at the instruments tuning and settling into position in their seats. Strains of the music he'd heard for months in his head--constantly waking him, leaving him no peace til he'd captured the notations began to twitter as they tune...The bass rumble of Jesu joy of Mans' Desiring muttered by the bass soloist; the soaring flight of the final climactic convulsion of sound. Would the marks he'd scrawled on the paper reflect the chaotic cadence which had endlessly played in his head?? He didn't know for sure. Would he be booed and laughed off of the conductor's block?? Fear gripped his bowels....Regardless, the time is....NOW,

Onto the stage he burst and without pausing for applause that he could not hear to subside, he grabbed his baton and they were off. By the fourth movement he had their full attention....But he himself was simply lost in the sounds of the piece that were booming in his own mind...The real music which detonated and soared about the concert hall was lost to him. He'd insisted that they play the conclusion at full volume so that he could at least feel the satisfaction of the vibrations of tympany....the chorus began the culmination which built into several intense levels of joyful tension which teetered on climax and then just as the anticipation became unbearable, it backed off only to build again and again to new unimaginable heights...Till at last, in a glorious outburst of passion and joy with the choral voices winding with the voices of the orchestra until all was glorious riot of sound. finally joining together in the ultimate explosion of delight...

For a second there was a stunned silence as the orchestra ceased in completely drained exhaustion and joy. Beethoven, threw down his baton in utter defeat. They hated it. He knew it. He was the mockery of tomorrow's headlines.
He stormed from the stage without casting a glance in the direction of the audience who had by now let out a shout of joy and approval...
Their applause rocked the concert hall and Beethoven wondered from the wings, whether it was thundering outside. The concert master hurried to the wings and gripped him by the arm and guided him again to center stage where the audience was going mad in paroxysms of approval littering the stage with flowers, money, jewelery...anything they had to offer this masterful creator of a new paragon of excellence. A new manifestation of genius.

... And Beethoven went home still locked in his silent world....never having heard the beauty of his creation or the sounds of their cheers....And died very soon after. But now....the stars still sing the Ninth Symphony in the heavens...and maybe he can hear it from where ever he now is. I hope so. Because he deserves the joy that this piece has brought to me and to millions of others in the centuries since.