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Bach, Bartok and the War in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CLASSICAL BLOG
Last month, the Vega String Quartet, artists-in-residence at Emory University, played a program of J.S. Bach and Bela Bartok — a six-part series that concludes this Friday, March 23 at Emory’s Schwartz Center
Under the subject line: “A grateful member of Friday night’s audience,” John Matthew Bishop sent this email to the Vega members — which was then forward to me by Emory pianist Will Ransom:
Here’s Bishop’s letter:
“Dear Vega,
As musicians, you regularly find yourselves standing before a sea of faces. After Friday night’s Bartok performance, you all stood before an audience and bowed. I was in that audience, and as we looked at you and you looked back at us, I found myself imagining that our positions were reversed.
I was looking out into a sea of faces and wondering what forces in their lives had conveyed them hither; what brought them to this place of all the places in the world. on this night of all the nights of their lives? That old woman, there, who was she? That young guy — why was he here? If I were inside his head, inside his heart, what would I feel him feeling right now?…
I am a machine-gunner in the Marine Corps. Not too long ago, I returned from my first tour in Iraq, and I will be going back in a couple of months for my second tour. I came home to Atlanta this weekend to visit my family and friends, and also to get a much needed infusion of inspiration. Although the two great loves of my life are literature and music, I am very busy these days and cannot give these pursuits as much time as I would wish — our business in the infantry is war, and tragically business is very good these days.
I’m stationed at Camp Lejeune, a huge Marine Corps base on the swampy, remote coast of North Carolina. As in most military towns, while enormous pick-up trucks, strip-joints and tattoo parlors flourish in great abundance, classical music doesn’t thrive so easily! My days are spent preparing to return to Iraq, my nights are spent thinking about returning to Iraq.
While I believe one can find beauty everywhere and that all experiences, whether painful or blissful, ought to be welcomed by an aspiring writer (that’s me!) as creative fodder, I cannot but lament these ugly circumstances. So when I came home to Atlanta for the weekend Friday, I was very excited to see that Emory had a resident quartet that would be performing Bach and Bartok. Only $20 and I could experience some of the greatest beauty humanity has ever brought forth into existence! So at 7:45, I sat down and waited for the show to begin.
I feel that I am already waxing longwinded in this email, so I will simply say that your performances — all three of them —were so wonderful, so profoundly wonderful. The impassioned, possessed ferocity with which you delivered Bartok’s String Quartet No. 5 — oh, I wish you could have felt my heart pounding! And the Bach — over and over, my eyes drifted upward, irresistibly, spiritually buoyed. I was utterly transported, and even after I left, I could hear your sounds in my head into the early hours of the morning.
I just wanted to thank you in the most heartfelt way I could for this great gift. If I could, I would attend every one of your performances. I fear that sometimes people lose sight of how much their talents and passions enrich the lives around them —perhaps because we do not often enough tell our fellow human beings how arresting, how exciting, how medicinal their work is. I hope that all of you realize that every time you play, you touch the lives of those around you, and it is a healer’s touch, one from which gardens spring forth in barren hearts.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! “
— John Matthew Bishop
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