Today’s #resound11 prompt: “Earlier this month we revealed our theme song. Today, share with us the song you would like to be remembered by. Share with us your exit song. Is that a little too personal or deep for you? Why not share with us the song that helps you leave 2011 behind and ring in the new year?”
No, the song isn’t too personal, but the reasons behind my connection to it might be. My song is Uri Caine’s arrangement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection”: Mov. 4, “Urlicht. Sehr feierlich, aber schlicht”:
All I will say about it on a personal level is that the title of the complete symphony, Resurrection, is very appropriate to the events of the past year. Urlicht or “Primeval Light” suggests a sense of waking up to something that’s always been there. Like a dawn that’s been waiting to happen. Titles aside, the music kills me every time I hear it; it’s one of the few pieces that can bring me to tears.
Who knows why this happens? I know that music written in major can sometimes make me sadder than anything written in minor. There is also something in Mark Feldman’s violin solo that reaches deep to I-know-not-what. On that front, there is something about the audacity of this solo, or the audacious instinct that at some point granted Mark Feldman or Uri Caine the internal permission to do such a thing to a canonical piece of music, that also digs deep inside me.
The piece is also short. It reminds me of some things I tried to do with music in 2010 and 2011 that are brief and to the point. In 2012 I want to reach a bit further and have some more successful large scale ideas. I want the pendulum to swing in the “complex/long” direction. Of course, I have to find ideas that need this treatment. If they don’t, they will continue to be short and sweet.
Blah, blah, blah: manifesto. Basically this song comes out triumphantly, goes through some serious shit, then ends calm and centred 
