LISTEN TO ME

LISTEN TO MUSIC. PLEASE.

(Sivan Magen performing part of Grandjany's Rhapsodie)

To the ordinary listener, this song is just another standard of the harp repertoire. But not to me.

This song changed my life.

I was in the 6th grade. I had been playing the harp for about a year and enjoyed it. But I never would have anticipated what would happen to me when my mom took me to Wallenberg Hall at Augustana to see Julie Ann Smith play a harp recital.

I don't remember what happened before or after the performance. But I remember the performance. Vividly. 

I remember how I sat there, mesmerized. I remember how everyone in the room disappeared as she played. In my mind, it was just me and the harpist, as she spun a new world in the air around me with her music. My imagination stirred. I've never experienced anything like it before, or since then. The music was potent, intoxicating. My soul caught fire, and I could see my life unfolding before me in a flurry of strings. The she played Grandjany's Rhapsodie and I knew.

I wish I could truly express to you what I felt that night, because any words I employ fall flat compared to that unspeakable passion. But why waste time wishing? I could actually invite you to one of my recitals and let you experience a taste of it.

That's the wonderful thing about music. It captures even more of the world, emotions, of life, than words or any other form of media can express. Music can provide more than enough inspiration, motivation, and cause for anyone to pursue his or her passions and goals. Think I'm exaggerating? Sure music is great, and my life-story is cute enough, but there is no real power there.

So let me tell you another story of music that changed the world. A young boy, 15 years old, goes to see Wagner's Opera, Rienzi, and his life, and soon the world, is changed forever.

"Commenting to Otto Wagener, a confidant, about a performance of Rienzi in Weimar, Hitler emphasized, to Wagener's astonishment, that this work was "a special favorite of mine." He recalled a performance of Rienzi that he attended with a friend, the budding musician August Kubizek, and that he came to consider as epoch making in his life. "In that hour," he is reported to have said, "it all began." 

What, precisely, began in that hour? His enthusiasm for Wagner? This is improbable, since Hitler had seen Lohengrin earlier, when he was thirteen. More likely, what began was the elaboration of a particular fantasy triggered by Wagner's Rienzi, namely, of becoming the leader of the Germans and restoring Germany's greatness, just as Rienzi, the last tribune in medieval Rome, had attempted to do for the Romans. Tellingly, in the aftermath of his Rienzi experience, Hitler declared, "I want to become a people's tribune." The significance of this youthful experience of the fifteen-year-old Hitler at the Linz Landes theater can hardly be exaggerated.The first indication of the opera's impact may be seen in Hitler's admiration in Mein Kampf for Karl Leuger, the charismatic mayor of Vienna (1897-1910) and the epitome of a modern populist leader. It seems safe to assume that through Wagner's Rienzi, Hitler recognized the "genius" of "Dr. Lueger." Wagner's opera awakened Hitler's political sensibilities to the advantages of charismatic, as opposed to traditional, forms of leadership. A lesson he evidently internalized and heeded for the rest of his life."

This excerpt from Hans Rudolf Vaget's article, "Wagnerian Self-Fashioning: The Case of Adolf Hitler," shows another life that was changed by music. The change music made in Hitler resulted in some of the greatest atrocities known to man. I hope this will remove any doubt you have of the power music possesses.

Music can be dangerous--the inspiration it holds can be used for great evil, as demonstrated by Hitler. But...

Music can also save lives. Music can give us the strength to stand up and fight against injustice. Music can comfort. Music can bring joy.

 Music can inspire us to chase dreams which will truly make the world a better place. 

So listen. You can find everything you need to sustain you, if only you hear the right song.