My front yard has become a home to tents, trucks, a dumpster, wood chips and the musical choices of a team of construction workers as old single-pane windows and their separate glass storm panels are removed from my house. Andy and I had combination windows installed in our previous home and had intended to do so in this one, but hadn’t yet gotten around to it. This meant that when we first moved here, we changed out the windows seasonally, always fearing that dropping one glass storm panel in the process would leave us without adequate protection from winter weather. Last spring, I had only five storm windows removed, so I could get fresh air only through those few openings all summer, and I was never able to crack a window for fresh air in the winter. Now that is all changing.
During this process, I have been listening to music flowing in through the openings in the side of my home. Music I would have chosen to listen to decades ago but hadn’t heard again until now. Music that carries with it memories of other times and places. Almost every song on that playlist brought to mind a picture of where I was or what I was doing at a moment from my past. At first, I wasn’t aware of the pictures forming in my mind, but as I continued listening without engaging in other distracting activities, I began to think about the power of music to bring long-forgotten events back to life. These events are sometimes as simple as driving a car on a country road, sitting at a window in New York City, or listening to a concert with someone special. This musically inspired memory-retrieval process was something I had always been aware of but had never given much thought to until now.
I have been aware of this phenomenon while attending Monadnock Chorus programs, Monadnock Music concerts or some of the Met Live productions at Peterborough Players. It happened again recently, after I returned from Canada, when I attended the Monadnock Music gala, where guests were treated to both opera and classical music. Both musical genres carry pictures of the past for me.
Years ago, when living in New York City, I shared an apartment with three other women, one of whom was the first cellist with the American Symphony Orchestra, then conducted by Leopold Stokowski. I was fortunate enough to attend rehearsals at Carnegie Hall and to live in an apartment building filled with Juilliard-affiliated classical musicians who gathered to play in our apartment. There are many classical musical pieces that bring back memories of events and conversations that took place in that apartment, at rehearsals, at concerts at the Cloisters, or even on the street corner at 115th and Broadway.
The same holds true for opera productions. I attended Metropolitan Operas at the old Met when standing-room tickets were $5, and you could move down to unfilled seats during one of the breaks. I saw many renowned opera singers who gave me a love for the music, drama, acting, and the passion inherent in opera. Again, hearing favorite arias brings back memories of those who originally sang them when I was in attendance. I hope the same will happen for those newer works I’ve heard during recent Met Live productions at Peterborough Players. I know I will remember the soprano, Andrea Baker, who represented Raylynmor Opera at the gala event. She ended her performance to standing-room applause, as did the Monadnock Music quartet headed by music director and cellist, Raphael Popper-Keizer.
This weekend I attended a Peterborough Folk Music concert featuring Paul Klemperer in Harrisville. As if anticipating this article, he spoke about the power of music to bring forth long-stored memories. At the outset, he mentioned Rahsaan Roland Kirk, the inspiration for the first piece he played for the audience, and asked whether anyone had seen him in person. Just mentioning his name brought back a long-forgotten event that took place in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That was the first time I heard Mr. Kirk perform, and the intimate setting and power of the music gave me my first appreciation of this form of jazz. Attending concerts such as those Deb McWethy, founder of the Peterborough Folk Music Society, has put on for the last 30 years is another of the bonuses of living in the Monadnock region.
Before I left for a few weeks in Canada in early August, I housed some of the Andy’s Summer Playhouse staff visiting from New York. One of the people staying here was Marina Pires, an actress, playwright and composer from that city who wrote the script and music for this year’s final musical production. She composed the music while here, and those of us living with her were treated to not only her Brazilian-influenced songs, but also her voice as she sang the lyrics to the pieces she was writing.
Her presence here also brought other memories. In the past, one of my relatives lived in Portugal and during our various trips to the African continent, we always stopped in Portugal on the way to Africa and back, sometimes for months. It was during those trips that I began collecting Portuguese music. Later in life, I was invited to travel with a friend to Brazil, and I again collected music from that trip. When Marina arrived, we began talking about the music of her country and Portugal while I unearthed several old records that had been gathering dust for years. Again, I relived some of the events from my past as we listened to those recordings.
I now wonder if there will be future times when certain rhythmic beats will remind me of the weeks when Marina’s music filled this home.