I recently attended a concert by the wonderful Takács Quartet and, as is not unusual for me, listening drew correspondences. Three things came together in my mind:
- Movement 3 (Lento) of Bartók quartet No. 2 (the recording in the link is not Takács, unfortunately)
- The Ursula LeGuin short story “Imaginary Countries” (it’s in The Unreal and the Real but I’m sure it can be found elsewhere as well)
- Recent events in Syria.
I wept as I listened. I am often a weeper, particularly at musical performances, but this was some heavy-duty weeping even by my standards.
I have some sense of what this set of correspondences is about, but I don’t think I’m able to capture it in words, at least not yet. So instead, I will simply leave this list here.