Moscow State Symphony by Courtney

I had been looking forward to this concert ever since I was accepted into Onstage and the wonderful musicians and composer didn’t let me down. In the first song my ears heard the most accurate representation of water I had ever heard. I could visualize the water trickling and flowing from a mountain brook. As the song continued the water took on a fearful form, that of an angry tempest rather than a bubbling brook. Then as the song ended I was once again reminded of the soothing calmness of a trickling, mountain spring, but what also came to mind was what I thought nymphs would sound like. The light and sweet sound reminded me of an enchanted forest.

The second song pulled before my eyes Tom and Jerry. The music made me chuckle a bit, because it sounded like a cat and mouse game. The cat tiptoes to the corner, then stops and looks, the mouse is minding its own business, and the cat continues its hunt on tiptoes and so on... The third song was one that had me lost in my own thoughts. It reminded me of leaving one’s homeland or a place one most loved. I thought of when I left Greece, and my family there. Although it is a sad memory there was still hope in returning to my life back in America.

This performance was my first ever instrumental concert other than those I have attended with a particular theme, thus restricting my ability to create my own images. For example I have listned to James Bond instrumentally but my mind already associates images with those certain sounds. With this concert I learned how powerful music is all by itself, without visuals. If there is no visual such as in musicals, operas, movies, TV ads, TV shows, then one’s mind creates and image to accompany the sound. That is an amazing characteristic of plain, old, instrumental music. It has the power to evoke moods, emotions, and pictures in one’s mind. I thoroughly enjoyed the concert like I knew I would, but I also learned a great deal about the affect instrumental music has on me.