Monday, May 12, 2003
Accidental Beauty
There I was wandering around Mainz (nothing new there, certainly) and found myself getting closer to the Mainzer Dom. As I got closer to the red sandstone Romanesque cathedral I heard the unmistakable sound of the organ. When I write "organ", some people picture in their mind something that Casio or Kurzweil built out of circuit boards and molded plastic. Other more perspicacious people may envision a jumble of pipes and stops and dials. But for me, an organ is an instrument around which a cathedral is built.
There are actually three organs in the Mainzer Dom, which surprisingly isn't unusual. Cologne too as three organs, for example. Each ostensibly has the same purpose, but they usually only fire up the Gran Mal (boy do I like that name!) organ for special occasions and concerts. The other organs are usually used for accompaniament, as they are not in the same GALAXY in terms of their volume or gandeur. Singing in accompaniament to the Gran Mal would be like humming during a hurricane.
Well, I happened upon a concert in progress. Concerts in the Dom are usually SRO events and unless you get there AT LEAST an hour in advance, plan on standing throughout the performance. After having visited the Dom countless times to wander through the ancient halls, this was the first time I'd heard the Gran Mal fired up and emoting like... like... um, help me here, I'm out of similes. Imagine 40,000 years ago when the natural dam between the Atlantic and what was to become the Meditteranean suddenly gave way after a particularly powerful earthquake. Now imagine that wall of water a mile deep and 25 miles wide hurtling into this giant depression where you are standing. The wind and the roar and the shaking of the earth throws you to the soon-to-be-inundated earth and you don't even bother running or hiding but instead watch and hear the wall of watch approach. Now imagine that this roar is accompanied by the eruption of Krakatoa to the east and the breakup of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antartic to the south and from the North a huge conflagration of Giant Sequoias rends the air. And finally, just imagine that this huge cathedric volume is encompassed by the almost perfect sonic reflector of stone and has a measured echo of 8 seconds. But this is not the sort of echo that you'd imagine from a canyon. "HELLO...Hello...hello....ello...lo....o..." The echos are close enough that the sound SHIMMERS. It vibrates and bounces into the corners of the choir stalls and the corners of the transcept and up into the celetial nave where the swallows dart about... and then it comes back dispersed and omnipresent. I defy anyone to close their eyes and pinpoint the organ's location. It's EVERYWHERE.
The big difference between the Gran Mal and the organs used for accompaniament and for services can be expressed in three words; BIG DAMN PIPES. The largest is a pipe that you could easily crawl into and is maybe 60 or 70 fee long. The EFFECT of this mammoth resonator are tones that can not be heard but if you put your skull against the naked stone of the cathedral (which of course I DID for the duration of the concert, looking like a exhausted homeless person), you can.
I walked into the cathedral just as Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" began and...
wow
I've heard the piece a hundred times and even heard a trio of expert accordian players in Cologne do a decent rendition of it, but after have heard an excellent musician playing the Gran Mal in Mainzer Dom, I'm not sure I'll be able to listen to it again without being transported to 12 May 2003 in Mainz.
Don't depart this life without having heard an organ.
There I was wandering around Mainz (nothing new there, certainly) and found myself getting closer to the Mainzer Dom. As I got closer to the red sandstone Romanesque cathedral I heard the unmistakable sound of the organ. When I write "organ", some people picture in their mind something that Casio or Kurzweil built out of circuit boards and molded plastic. Other more perspicacious people may envision a jumble of pipes and stops and dials. But for me, an organ is an instrument around which a cathedral is built.
There are actually three organs in the Mainzer Dom, which surprisingly isn't unusual. Cologne too as three organs, for example. Each ostensibly has the same purpose, but they usually only fire up the Gran Mal (boy do I like that name!) organ for special occasions and concerts. The other organs are usually used for accompaniament, as they are not in the same GALAXY in terms of their volume or gandeur. Singing in accompaniament to the Gran Mal would be like humming during a hurricane.
Well, I happened upon a concert in progress. Concerts in the Dom are usually SRO events and unless you get there AT LEAST an hour in advance, plan on standing throughout the performance. After having visited the Dom countless times to wander through the ancient halls, this was the first time I'd heard the Gran Mal fired up and emoting like... like... um, help me here, I'm out of similes. Imagine 40,000 years ago when the natural dam between the Atlantic and what was to become the Meditteranean suddenly gave way after a particularly powerful earthquake. Now imagine that wall of water a mile deep and 25 miles wide hurtling into this giant depression where you are standing. The wind and the roar and the shaking of the earth throws you to the soon-to-be-inundated earth and you don't even bother running or hiding but instead watch and hear the wall of watch approach. Now imagine that this roar is accompanied by the eruption of Krakatoa to the east and the breakup of the Ross Ice Shelf in the Antartic to the south and from the North a huge conflagration of Giant Sequoias rends the air. And finally, just imagine that this huge cathedric volume is encompassed by the almost perfect sonic reflector of stone and has a measured echo of 8 seconds. But this is not the sort of echo that you'd imagine from a canyon. "HELLO...Hello...hello....ello...lo....o..." The echos are close enough that the sound SHIMMERS. It vibrates and bounces into the corners of the choir stalls and the corners of the transcept and up into the celetial nave where the swallows dart about... and then it comes back dispersed and omnipresent. I defy anyone to close their eyes and pinpoint the organ's location. It's EVERYWHERE.
The big difference between the Gran Mal and the organs used for accompaniament and for services can be expressed in three words; BIG DAMN PIPES. The largest is a pipe that you could easily crawl into and is maybe 60 or 70 fee long. The EFFECT of this mammoth resonator are tones that can not be heard but if you put your skull against the naked stone of the cathedral (which of course I DID for the duration of the concert, looking like a exhausted homeless person), you can.
I walked into the cathedral just as Bach's "Toccata and Fugue" began and...
wow
I've heard the piece a hundred times and even heard a trio of expert accordian players in Cologne do a decent rendition of it, but after have heard an excellent musician playing the Gran Mal in Mainzer Dom, I'm not sure I'll be able to listen to it again without being transported to 12 May 2003 in Mainz.
Don't depart this life without having heard an organ.
Sunday, May 11, 2003
The Most Aggravating Thing
I read recently of a petition for those inventions that we find the most aggravating. Hmmm... good question. It seems to me that you can either have one rarely occuring, but VERY aggravating thing or one that is less aggravating but much more frequent.
The frequent aggravation is more, well, aggravating than the infrequent one. The most aggravating thing that I must contend with are cylindrical shoe laces. Whomever came up with the idea of a shoelace with a circular crossection should die cold, alone, unloved, broke, horny and with an unscratchable itch. It is patently impossible to keep such a shoelace tied unless you double tie them like a child's and then you can't untie THOSE without picking at the loops.
Growing up we used the flat, retangular cross sectioned shoelaces that stayed bound. They worked. But I suppose some brilliant bean counter somewhere calculated that he could same as much as one thousandth of a cent per gross by creating CYLINDRICAL shoelaces! What a boon!
In a recent fit of aggravation, I wildly NAILED the loops to the tops of my shoe after they'd come undone for the nth time. I actually finished the job on both shoes before the pain registered. Have you ever felt a 16 penny nail crunching the tendons, ligaments and bones of your foot? Not recommended. But BY GOD those shoe laces stayed put! The doctors even considered amputating my foot rather than try to free those shoelaces. The good news is that I wear slippers now (which HAVE no shoe strigs) while the swelling goes down.
I read recently of a petition for those inventions that we find the most aggravating. Hmmm... good question. It seems to me that you can either have one rarely occuring, but VERY aggravating thing or one that is less aggravating but much more frequent.
The frequent aggravation is more, well, aggravating than the infrequent one. The most aggravating thing that I must contend with are cylindrical shoe laces. Whomever came up with the idea of a shoelace with a circular crossection should die cold, alone, unloved, broke, horny and with an unscratchable itch. It is patently impossible to keep such a shoelace tied unless you double tie them like a child's and then you can't untie THOSE without picking at the loops.
Growing up we used the flat, retangular cross sectioned shoelaces that stayed bound. They worked. But I suppose some brilliant bean counter somewhere calculated that he could same as much as one thousandth of a cent per gross by creating CYLINDRICAL shoelaces! What a boon!
In a recent fit of aggravation, I wildly NAILED the loops to the tops of my shoe after they'd come undone for the nth time. I actually finished the job on both shoes before the pain registered. Have you ever felt a 16 penny nail crunching the tendons, ligaments and bones of your foot? Not recommended. But BY GOD those shoe laces stayed put! The doctors even considered amputating my foot rather than try to free those shoelaces. The good news is that I wear slippers now (which HAVE no shoe strigs) while the swelling goes down.
