The Might of Baroque

It is almost a cliche, crying to music. Through stories and films we have been told about the might of music and its effect on emotion.

Few kinds of music have made my emotional state crush into sand, powerless, as Baroque has, even more so with such ease.

I recall when we saw the Brandenburg Orchestra perform the Brandenburg Concertos - during the cadenza, considering I was not familiar with the Brandenburgs at the time, I watched Paul Dyer's hands work furiously along the keyboard of his harpsichord, and I wept (with much control) in silence... Only the fact of the hall being filled stopped me from choking with trembling sobs of awe.

The same can be said of Monteverdi's works including L'Orfeo. The opening scene, sweeping movements of light, shape and texture makes my teeth grind as I fight to keep my eyes dry. The other day all it took was to hear Emma Kirkby sing Handel's Messiah and I totally lost it.

It is a reminder, really. As we are so small in comparison to stars in the sky above, so we are in comparison to the genius of composers almost half a millennium ago.It is an appreciation for the genius of our kind, what genius it is that such astonishing brilliance could be created, never to be matched again even now, five hundred years later. Just when I think that I have become desensitised to Baroque, an experience occurs to remind me, in spite of the knowledge I have gained over the last few years, that I have only just wandered in knee deep.

I have a long way to go, but the journey will be powerful unlike any other kind of music I have ever been presented with in my life. The colour is only new, texture only recently experienced, timbre only just absorbed.