# Memorable musical experiences



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I’ve had times where I’m listening to a piece and something happens which makes a permanent memory of it. 

For example, I was listening to Toscanini’s recording of the slow movement of Beethoven’s 3rd symphony when Civil War re-enactors a mile away shot off their cannons. There’s something evocative about hearing that funereal piece in the South, in an old recording, with cannonfire in the distance.

There was another time I was driving through the country when fall was in full blaze, and I was listening to an orchestra playing Ravel’s Pavanne, totally awash in color. 

Another memorable moment was when I was driving at night in an unlit highway in the rain, listening to the opening of Bach’s first cello suite, just blackness and raindrops and the rhythm of the cello.

Have any of you had experiences like that?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Driving through a thunderstorm once to the first movement of Mahler 3 was epic and something I won't soon forget!


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I have rather non-impressive musical memory and I often forget melodies and motives which I've just heard. When I've listened to Wagner's Tristan und Isolde for the first ime I couldn't recall motives from final aria which moved me so much but I got some feeling inside of me which was caused by it - I got tears in my eyes and some overwhelming feeling of longing didn't give me peace and I was asking myself how the music can resonate in me so deeply and "be" in my soul while it is not in my head as I don't remember it. That was quite a experience. 

The other day I went to live performance of Marriage of Figaro to find out if I am in love with one of singers. The performance was about to begin and they started to play overture when singers rushed on stage to perform some kind of ballet (it was original idea by director, whatever) and when I saw her I lost my breath and started to feel fervently, after few seconds of great confusion and fright that I'm going to collapse I was all like O LA LA I'M FREAKIN' DYING and I stood up to leave, the door was just next to my chair - when I got out to the hallway hysterically loosening my tie the woman from the crew saw me and apparenly was like O LA LA HE'S FREAKIN' DYING OVER HERE, MAN and terrified by my evident state asked if I need to drink some water but I was like NO, LET ME DIE OUTSIDE and I got outside, leaned against the railing all trembling and for something like ten minutes I was catching my breath, to eventually calm down and find out that fortunately or unfortunately I'm not going to die. Since then, hearing Figaro sends weird kind of chills down my spine.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

Aramis said:


> The other day I went to live performance of Marriage of Figaro to find out if I am in love with one of singers. The performance was about to begin and they started to play overture when singers rushed on stage to perform some kind of ballet (it was original idea by director, whatever) and when I saw her I lost my breath and started to feel fervently, after few seconds of great confusion and fright that I'm going to collapse I was all like O LA LA I'M FREAKIN' DYING and I stood up to leave, the door was just next to my chair - when I got out to the hallway hysterically loosening my tie the woman from the crew saw me and apparenly was like O LA LA HE'S FREAKIN' DYING OVER HERE, MAN and terrified by my evident state asked if I need to drink some water but I was like NO, LET ME DIE OUTSIDE and I got outside, leaned against the railing all trembling and for something like ten minutes I was catching my breath, to eventually calm down and find out that fortunately or unfortunately I'm not going to die. Since then, hearing Figaro sends weird kind of chills down my spine.


You really are Berlioz. She is your Harriet Smith. Come up with her _idee fixe, _go write a massive symphony with a really intense program, and she'll marry you.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

One night last summer I was practicing the second movement of Beethoven's "Tempest" sonata and it was raining very lightly outside and there was thunder in the distance. And I listened to it while I played and then I went outside and laid on the lawn in the rain thinking about the sonata and the left hand's distant-thunder-like octave motive and felt perfectly at peace.

Another time, I was on an overnight flight to Paris and was listening to the final movement of Sibelius' 5th Symphony as the sun came up over the clouds.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Meaghan said:


> Another time, I was on an overnight flight to Paris and was listening to the final movement of Sibelius' 5th Symphony as the sun came up over the clouds.


I have a plane flight coming up. I have to remember to put that on as the sun hits the silver wings!


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

There are negative memories too. 

Back in the 80's or early 90's Nashville had a terrible ice storm that put the power out for a week or so. It started late at night. The neighborhood was very dark and quiet except for the cracking of tree limbs all around us and the sizzle of electric wires coming down, the occasional boom of a transformer blowing. I'm weird enough to have actually enjoyed it as long as no one was hurt, but eventually my wife and I wanted some news, some contact with the outside world.

I had a little Walkman radio (to give you an idea how long ago this was). There was nothing on FM, but because AM travels farther at night I was able to pick up an AM station, maybe from Kentucky. It was playing some country song, but I was desperate for news. I thought I'd wait it out. The song whined its way through a sob story about how the farm was about to be lost, and the useless dust rising behind the John Deere tractor. When the chorus came with swelling sobs, " Darlin', in my next life I'll be yore hero . . ., " I ripped the headphones off, flung the Walkman across the room and watched it break into several little pieces with a satisfying crunch. 

We read by candlelight the rest of the night.

To this day when I hear country music I think of that ice storm.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I remember lying in bed resting on the weekend when Diana, Princess of Wales, died in that car crash in Paris with Dodi Al-Fayed in about 1997. The radio was on next to my bed, and they announced that she had died & played Ravel's _Pavane for a Dead Princess_. I thought it was very apt, poignant, and given that Ravel's pieces for me give a more detached & "objective" vibe, on this occassion, that piece spoke to me with so much more emotion than ever before. So ever since, when I hear that piece, it takes me back to that moment & it makes me think of Princess Di & the tragedy of her dying so young, etc...


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Memories NOT associated with music are much easier for me to find as I somehow seem to attach music to any and all things in my life; even if it's not playing in the background, it's in me head.

My favorite memories are from creating star shows and making the soundtracks and hearing the final mix over and over as I lay the vocal track over the music track. Then, of course, came the actual production of the show inside the dome when the master soundtrack was finished and coordinating the images to fall on specific cues and musical notes. 

So many wonderful memories linked to music!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Weston said:


> There are negative memories too.
> 
> Back in the 80's or early 90's Nashville had a terrible ice storm that put the power out for a week or so.


I remember that. Moving from California, it was my first winter in Tennessee. That was quite an introduction to the Volunteer State.

Back then I was invited to Louise Mandrell's house for a friend's wedding shower, and when we arrived, the power was still out. I appreciate her opening her house despite the circumstances, but I could tell she was a little harried. I met her as she left her freezer, which wasn't working, and her first words to me were, "Do you know how to cook a duck?" I had to laugh; forget the pleasantries - we have frozen birds to save!


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