Thursday, July 01, 2010

Such a lovely Dream...



Towards the Hour of the Wolf, not knowing that I dreamt, I found myself in the living room of a house I had never been in before--it being, methought, my friend Walter's house; he having gone to bed, while I sat up for a bit with the lights out, not wishing to keep him up. In a far corner of the living room, stood a shadowy, bat-winged Taskin harpsichord, to which I was helplessly drawn--for the Muse was on me, and, sleeping household or no, I must needs play out the exquisite tunes and shifting, melting harmonies that rose in my mind. But trying my best to be as quiet as I could, I played only in the marvelous, silvery upper register of the sweetest-sounding clavecin in the world; using as few notes as possible, and allowing the harmonies to fill in with suspensions, rather than striking the notes all at once. On and on I played, till suddenly in the dream I felt Walter's hand on my shoulder, and heard him say, "Very nice!"

With a not unpleasant start, I awoke--still thrilling to the gentlest, prettiest music I'd ever heard--and moved with somnambulant sureness to my computer, where I opened YouTube, and typed in "François Couperin, Pièces de Clavecin. And the very first selection was Ernst Stolz (of whom, shamefully, I had never heard before) playing the very piece, 'Les Lis Naissans' (which, to my knowledge, I have never heard, nor played before), that I had just played in my dream! I swear on the grave of my Aunt that I am not making this up.