Awe & Beethoven
And the night my dad showed me the way
Dear Beautiful Friends,
It’s the first Beauty Hunter post of 2023, and let’s dive right in, shall we?
In last year’s Salon for Beauty Hunters, we explored awe as a resilience tool. And what do you know, my inbox is pinging with notes from past salon-ers and friends alerting me to this New York Times piece, How a Bit of Awe Can Improve Your Health.
Check out this snippet:
“While many of us associate awe with dramatic, life-changing events, the truth is that awe can be part of everyday life. Experiencing awe comes from what Dr. Keltner has called a ‘perceived vastness,’ as well as something that challenges us to rethink our previously held ideas.”
Awe really is everywhere, if you define awe as the thing that makes you point and say/whisper/scream/shout/announce, LOOK! For example, driving back from skiing yesterday, my friend Suzanne and I were in deep conversation when the Olympic mountain range came into view as we drove westward home.
So there we were chatting away: jabberjabberjabberLOOK!jabberjabberjabber. It was a cloudy, windy day and who would have expected this beautiful profile to be stretching its arms over the land? We had to acknowledge it while staying in our convo.
Here’s a photo from last summer. A group of swimmers walking to Colman pool in Lincoln Park, shouted LOOK LOOK LOOK to each other—as if we might NOT be able to see what was spread out along the horizon and poking us in the eye, practically. Humans are so damn cute. Awe is so damn insistent.
Let’s get to Beethoven.
My dad, who is off on his next great adventure, had a subtler way of shouting LOOK! (or OH MY GOD, which is what I say when I’m surprised by a full moon, scaring the bejesus out of my husband).
When I was about twenty, and home from college on a break, I sat with my dad while he watched a televised performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 (the Emperor’s Concerto; in the video, above).
The second movement starts slowly and gorgeously with a strings-dominant melody. At about 1 min 40 seconds in comes the piano, as lightly as a jewel thief. It’s the most simple melody line, one note after another; no fancy footwork, no fingers moving at the speed of sound. Just one piano key followed by a second, a third and so on. I was probably half-listening when my dad clucked his tongue and sighed, “Sublime. Absolutely sublime. Tatyana, this music is so sublime.” I leaned forward and said the word to myself. “Sublime.” My dad had this bass-baritone voice (former opera singer) and he was easy to listen to.
That night, thanks to my dad, I fell in love with the second movement of the Emperor’s Concerto. The simplicity and the immenseness of the music cracked me open to wonder. How could it be that this man, Beethoven, a cranky, spiteful man, who experienced chronic pain; a musical genius who was losing his hearing, a man who was spurned by every woman he ever loved—how could this guy produce such goddamn beauty, such sublimity?
I played this video (above) of the Emperor’s second movement for a study group last fall because A) I will play this for anyone who will listen, and B) I wanted to show how omniscient and unconditional beauty is, no matter what the circumstances of life. I did this over Zoom. After the music ended and I stopped screen-share. I waited for someone to say something. Was I crazy? Was it just me who loved this? After a short lull, in came my favorite response:
“HOLY SHIT!”
And that, my friends, is awe.
Watch the video of Lang Lang playing this sublime piece; look at his expression, doesn’t it say everything?
Here’s to more awe in 2023—simple, sublime, daily-life notes of wonder. If just for a moment of taking ourselves off our minds. XO
The NYTimes article is based on a new book called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life
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