Divinipotent About October Music

"A painter paints pictures on a canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."
~ Leopold Stokowski

Today is one of those rainy, windy days that — along with crisp, bright days — are so typical of autumn in the Northeastern U.S. The sunlight seems to be stuck on permanent dusk, and with the temperature in the low 50s, the chill settles into your bones.

On days like this, mother and her music come to mind.

She was a slender, ethereal woman with a deep and occasionally surprising spiritual streak. (Example: Although she was a devout Roman Catholic, she once called her sixth daughter in the middle of the night to discuss reincarnation.) She adored music, especially classical compositions with vast dramatic sweep and a tempestuous back-story. She played it herself on her beloved Steinway — her long fingernails softly clicking on the ivory keys — and also listened to it on her wooden, top-hinged, console hi-fi.

On days like today, as that music echoed through all three floors and every room of our rambling house, as the trees outside the window swayed in the wind and leaves swished this way and that in soggy heaps, Divinipotent Daily liked to imagine she was living in a Brontë novel.

So here's looking at you, mom. Welcome to some of the sounds and imagined melodramas of Divinipotent Daily's childhood. (Please click on the links, since embedding video is a skill not yet acquired.)

"Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."
~ Ludwig van Beethoven

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Concerto No. 2.

Franz Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

Antonin Dvorak, Symphony No. 9, in E Minor "From the New World" (Opus 95)

Ludwig van Beethoven, Moonlight Sonata Mvt. 1

Frederic Chopin, Nocturne Opus 9 No. 2