Unexpected Music
Welcome to my random musings about the world, on a weekly-to-occasional basis.
Where we are: We’re hiking and mountain-gazing in Mayrhofen, Austria, a small town in the Tyrolean Alps.
Unexpected music
One day last week, we set out to find an umbrella shop in a different part of Vienna. At one juncture of the (ultimately pointless) trek across town, we were threading our way through a crowded subway station when we passed a busker playing the cello. I slowed down, enjoying one of my favorite songs—Time to Say Goodbye. A handful of people were gathered in front of the cellist, and I hovered behind them, wanting to stay, but not wanting to lose sight of Lee. A voice joined the music, and I realized it was one of the passers-by, an older woman with a grocery bag and a purse. She seemed to not know all the words, but on the bits she knew, her voice soared, gorgeous and perfect and strong, amplified by the acoustics of the station. It was an impromptu concert in the subway station, and I couldn’t tear myself away. It was just so Viennese.
Traveling is a multi-sensory experience, and unexpected music makes up some of my most precious memories.
In northern Vietnam, we rode a ski-lift (because we love a good ski-lift), wandered around on a mountain-top, then took the day’s last lift down. A group of young people in traditional tribal costumes had been giving a concert, and we wound up in the same gondola with them on the way down. We tried to communicate, using our few words of Vietnamese, their few words of English, and a lot of sign language. Unprompted, they suddenly just broke into song, youth and mountain air and cultural pride winning out over the awkwardness of the moment.
We’re riding the ski-lifts here in the Alps, too, but because of Covid, we generally have a gondola all to ourselves. We open the windows and listen for cowbells. They’re everywhere, and they sound nothing like I expected. No hollow metallic clanking, these bells. They’re more like wind chimes, a light tinkling sound, each with its own sweet melody. As we sailed over one group of cows, listening to the surprising music of their bells, Lee said it was like a symphony. It was—a symphony that is somehow just part of the scenery.
I visited a working Dominican monastery in Florence, known for the frescoes by Fra Angelico. A group of a dozen or so monks entered in front of me; I was a little disappointed, because I had hoped the museum rooms (which occupy about half of the complex) would be mostly empty. The big-name museums in Florence were all pretty crowded, and I was tired of navigating the hordes and stressing about Covid. I had hoped a minor museum with fewer people would be a calming respite. I wandered through the ancient cells, each one with a unique masterpiece on its walls, intended by Fra Angelico for reverential contemplation, but there I was, five hundred years later, ogling at their beauty. I was taking pictures and trying to stay out of the way of the touristing monks, who seemed to be everywhere. I finally gave up on the cells, and went into the manuscript room. It wasn’t what I was there to see, but it was almost empty, and there were benches. The windows were open, letting in a cool-ish breeze, and I wandered from cabinet to cabinet, looking at massive books, each opened to a page of ornate script, heavily ornamented with the beautiful monastic art called illumination. You know, super-fancy colored writing? These pages were five, six, seven hundred years old, and the colors were as vivid as if they’d been painted last year.
Anyway, I was bending over one of the cabinets, and I heard a low, clear song, sort of like the Gregorian chant I used to play in the background when I was in graduate school. I glanced at my watch; it was noon, on the dot, so I assumed it was one of the daily prayers, in the active part of the monastery. I couldn’t see out of the windows, but the service was probably just below. It went on for a minute or two, the song dropping off, then starting up again, but something was odd, acoustically. It seemed to surround me, coming not from the window, but from the air around me. I started moving around the room, trying to figure out where it was coming from.
It was one of the touristing monks, standing in a corner, singing the music that was printed in one of the ancient manuscripts. I sank down on a bench, all thoughts of lunch and thirst and tired feet forgotten, and listened to that music, brought back to life by a man in a white robe, carrying on a tradition that had lived on in that building for more years than my puny brain can comprehend. It was a moment.
In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia (a city we fell hard in love with), a young American woman working in a wine shop told us she had come to the country for the polyphonic singing. Having no idea what polyphonic singing was, we were a little bemused by the idea of a Boston millennial deciding to live in the Republic of Georgia. Then one night, I was making a snack in the kitchen of our apartment, when I heard this otherworldly singing. Truly—it sounded like angels. Clear, perfect a capella harmony, like I’d never heard before. I turned off all the lights and called Lee to come to the window. In the courtyard below, a group of thirty or so were having a supra, a feast, and the men were singing. It was extraordinary. I can’t explain polyphonic singing; you’ll just have to look it up. And trust me when I say that to stumble upon Georgians singing amongst themselves is a rare pleasure.
If I’d been in a hurry, or unwilling to stop talking and listen, or if I’d had headphones on, or been too engrossed in my own head, I would’ve missed all of those moments. It’s like a symphony, Lee said. That’s true of bird song, the rush and tumble of a stream, the daily rhythm of the call to prayer, children playing in the schoolyard. You only hear the unexpected music if you slow down and listen.
Take care,
Lisa
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