Music as Meditation 

with a concern for healing

     My experience of Music as Meditation is one of nourishment and healing. I hope that others find it so as well. Last August while traveling I learned that a young woman I know faced a cancer diagnosis. She is undergoing a rigorous treatment designed to save her life. This treatment will make her sick in the short term. I learned of her misfortune because a team of people came together to offer their support--and no wonder--she is a generous person with a beautiful and open spirit. I know her from her work at an area pre-school where I watched her teach needy young children with patience and love. This month's Music as Meditation is offered with an explicit concern for her healing--and for the healing of all of us. I trust that our concern for her health while we are engaged in the practice of playing and listening to music may bring her some comfort--if only because she knows we wish her well. I will make a collection basket available in case you want to give a monetary contribution to Jen's Friends--the local organization who is helping this young woman and others faced with cancer. 

     As an antidote to the troubles life is throwing at all of us, I have been playing Beethoven. That composer certainly faced his share of calamity: he had an overbearing father and he knew that one day he would be unable to hear the music he created. I'll play two Beethoven Bagatelles. In response to my intense study of Beethoven's C sharp minor piano sonata (called the "moonlight" sonata) I am composing one of my own. I will share some excerpts from this new sonata on Sunday. I'll play some violin or viola as well--as those particular resonances offer me healing every time I draw the bow across the strings. I hope many of you can join me in this Music as Meditation. If you cannot attend but you would like to make a contribution to Jen's Friends, here is a link. 

Halfway from one Meditation to the Next One

I've been meaning to get in the habit of posting my programs from Music as Meditation events. It sometimes takes me many days, however, to dig down through the pile on my desk to find the actual wooden surface beneath all those papers.  Posting the program from October 1, allows me to highlight my plans for the program on November 5. That Meditation will include another Beethoven Bagatelle that is quite Haydn-esque along with more Chip Davis and some new notes from a Piano Sonata I seem to be composing these days. I hope you can join me. 

Music as Meditation

Sunday, October 1, 2017

Open fifth resonance and its outcomes on the violin Ellen Schwindt

And Bob Dylan—a poem by Mary Oliver

C diminished rising and its arrival at E flat major Ellen Schwindt

Interlude I Chip Davis

Bagatelle 1 from Seven Bagatelles Ludwig van Beethoven

composed 1802

Two tonal poles: The beginning of the middle Ellen Schwindt

Sonata in D Major Hob. XVI/24 Franz Joseph Haydn

to Nikolaus Esterhazy composed in 1773

Allegro

Adagio

Presto

Improvisation on Childgrove Ellen Schwindt

Improvisation on Hymns from Summer Suite Ellen Schwindt

A fast return Ellen Schwindt

Many Happy Returns of the Day

Welcome to this day, the beginning of a third season of Music as Meditation. Today's program seems to be about returning. I began working on the Haydn Sonata that is the centerpiece of today's music as a way to experience order in the world. Jospeh Haydn wrote music with precision and detail and still somehow lots of room for interpretation. It is indeed ordered and predictable, but full of humor, vivacity, sorrow, and joy. This music was a perfect antidote to a year full of surprises. Practicing it seemed like a way to reestablish order in life on a daily basis.

As a young person, I played a lot of Haydn and other baroque keyboard music. There was one particular volume of music I checked out from our local library repeatedly. I enjoyed the well-organized harmonies and the clear subdivision of time that made up the music. I still enjoy it, so in that sense playing Haydn is also a return. I find much

more in the music now, however. And perhaps in that way it is like a return as well, because in my experience, when I return to a topic well-loved, I usually learn something new. I hope returning to the baroque era is equally rich for you.

The picture on my new Music as Meditation card is also a symbol of return. It is Pequawket Pond. Please share some of the cards if you'd like to help spread the word about Music as Meditation. Please let me know what you think as well. You can reach me at ellen.m.schwindt@gmail.com .