Personally, my knowledge of classical music in general is small. I own many classical records and CD which I never listen to. I am enthralled by any classical performance and regularly go to concerts. Mostly this is for the shear acoustic beauty and wonderment that transpires. I listen to classical music like I watch the Grand Canyon, unsurprised, in awe, and without a hint of looking for the deeper meaning of it. The orchestra bows, and I’m done. I have very little tolerance for most of the dialog that transpires afterwards, invariably pretentious, over analytical, and sometimes pure bullshit.

Having said that this conversation really had a deep effect on me, the interview was fantastic, so many great points about music and humanity were made, and of course credit to where credit is due, talking to a genius of any sort is often enlightening. It hasn’t made me dust of my Mozart records, I wish it did, but it was a great interview with a fascinating person.

This interview is yet another reason following Open Source is a good idea, Thanks.

Take for instance recent publicity efforts by orchestras to attract new, younger audiences. While I think these efforts are well-intentioned and do absolutely serve a purpose, it may not be enough. Because whether or not they know it themselves, aficionados are bottom-up folk. They go to concerts because of the music – the “too much…too…too much”-ness Sir Colin feels, or the “wrestling with unfamiliar sensual emotions” that nother experienced. Perhaps this publicity can draw in new listeners, and perhaps the occasional one will be converted into an aficionado, but I am not convinced that this is a lasting solution. What we need are bottom-up solutions, such as re-invigorating music education in schools. (On a side note, I do have sympathy. However, my sympathy thinks that classical music audiences have continued to dwindle since 1993, the year Mr. Holland wrote the article.)

But back to Sir Colin’s wonderful time-capsule keeper. I continue to struggle with his lingering question, “It’s a bad business, and what can poor little Mozart do about that?” What can music really DO? This is still a perpetual, gnawing question for me – yes, still, despite having played, and felt to my core, and cried, and lived through music. And though Sir Colin did not have an answer to his own question, I am not happy to sit with this despair; any enlightenment is appreciated.

The new “Open Source,” in its free range and its need to please or pander no one, is the best speech show available. As Christopher has moved from television, to one public radio show, then to another, then to the net podcasting, one could, unkindly, make the case that he is moving to a smaller and smaller demographic, in marketing terms. But the message, the content, and the skill is refining immeasurably. Anyone read “The Rise of Silas Lapham” recently?

And thank you, Christopher, for eliciting Sir Colin’s knitting as a theme.

Beginning this conversation with the Piano Concerto 23 was apropos…the discourse invoked the unhurried mood of the second movement – Adagio in F sharp minor (which I just read was Mozart’s only composition in this key).

So I second Hurley, a time-capsule keeper for sure. An exquisite dialogue between two men who will never be authorities on this music…they respect it too much for that.

Chris asked Mr. Davis about being supple and pleasant in his conducting and I was fascinated to here him answer “well that’s another way of how you get along with people, isn’t it?” To hear him equate conducting musicians with relating to regular people makes me appreciate this art form (that I too often shy away from, fearing an infection of elitism) so much more. How is it possible that a man whose name starts with Sir, strikes me as not having an elitist bone in his body?

Sir Colin Davis description of the Piano Concerto 23 will remain with me:

“An aria of comprehensive melancholy…which is untouchable. And the consolation of that little serenade in A major in the middle is almost too much…too…too much for me anyway.” (The last phrase is spoken through a melancholy chuckle)

I was at that concert the other night and as I sat and listened to the Piano Concerto live, I felt pings in my chest, and I literally froze up. It was as if Mozart was exposing me to everyone in that hall…hey man, that my insides your playing with up there! Somehow he dug up and chewed on that moist bone of emotions that I keep hidden so well…even from myself. Paradoxically I felt brotherhood – here is the great Mozart confiding in me (with ardor) that he has felt the same helplessness in matters of the heart.

But then he went beyond me – way beyond – and delicately wrestled with unfamiliar sensual emotions in the way Dostoevsky eloquently wrestles with ideas. It’s not that I don’t have the capacity to feel and think like these men, it’s just that I haven’t looked deep enough yet, and that’s their challenge, they’ve knocked the ball into my court.

“Why I love music so much is that they bring all of these sides of themselves and the world and everybody else, into a sense of order. The thing about Mozart is that it is supremely ordered, and within that security of the order he can express anything he wants.” – Sir Colin Davis

It’s occurs to me that a good conversation can provide “that security of order” as well, enabling one (such as Sir Colin Davis) to “express anything he wants.” And considering that so much of music can be described as a conversation…well it all starts to make sense.

Thank you for this gesture, Christopher Lydon and Sir Colin Davis.

(And when it comes to Mozart, I too am “totally in a state of belief.”)

This extraordinary conversation should be required listening for any young or not so young artist contemplating a life as a conductor or even as any kind of performer. It should probably be required listening for every political candidate presidential or otherwise. Sir Colin’s example of a life lived as conductor, clarinetist, voracious reader, generous mentor and teacher, fertile parent, prolific knitter, planter of trees and wise teacher to us all, is a testament — a testament that a properly interdisciplinarily “examined” life is a very good way indeed to spend a life.

Sir Colin goes to the essence of the treacherous quicksands that lurk around the phenomenon of success and even of seeking success — the toxins that can come with looking in the mirror and saying, “Oh how pretty!” without a generous helping of irony or skepticism or something.

One of the great unspoken topics in the conversation at which I was hoping that Sir Colin might make more than a feint — Ted Heath, British Prime Minister in the early 70′s and an accomplished organist and conductor was one of those “men” who knew a thing or two about Mozart. There have been such people ( one thinks of Ehud Barak, Israeli PM who failed to reach a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace, or the Polish pianist-composer-Prime Minister Paderewski or Vytautas Landsbergis, musicologist and conductor who presided over Lithuanian independence from the USSR) who were able to consider the wisdom of Mozart and Elgar alongside the daily hubbub of political life but didn’t really manage to do very much (with the possible exception of Landsbergis) as political leaders.

If you live in Boston or within possible distance whether by air, rail, road or flying carpet, run to get tickets for this Dream of Gerontius this weekend. There will be no greater performances of this supremely universal monument until Simon Rattle turns 80.

Conductors used to be taught that they have to lead, that they have to tell the musicians what to do. Sir Colin seems to suggest that the most potent variety of conductorial, artistic or just simply human engagement…. might possibly be LISTENING — a kind of active listening that carries a more transformative essence in itself than possibly any act of assertion with a view to establish anything for anyone. The best conductors have always been the great empaths who put their efforts in the service of the empowerment and facilitation of individual and communal expressive powers of the great artists in the community which is the orchestra or opera company.

Thank you Christopher and thank you Sir Colin Davis for sharing this precious window into what you so tenderly call ” this little Kingdom.”

George Mathew

New York