| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Massimilla Doni by Honore de Balzac: not; but he is the first singer who ever satisfied me. I shall not die
without hearing a /cadenza/ executed as I have heard them in my
dreams, waking with a feeling as though the sounds were floating in
the air. The clear /cadenza/ is the highest achievement of art; it is
the arabesque, decorating the finest room in the house; a shade too
little and it is nothing, a touch too much and all is confusion. Its
task is to awake in the soul a thousand dormant ideas; it flies up and
sweeps through space, scattering seeds in the air to be taken in by
our ears and blossom in our heart. Believe me, in painting his Saint-
Cecilia, Raphael gave the preference to music over poetry. And he was
right; music appeals to the heart, whereas writing is addressed to the
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Three Taverns by Edwin Arlington Robinson: Would not have heeded where she went.
And if she thought it followed her,
She may have reasoned in the dark
That one way of the few there were
Would hide her and would leave no mark:
Black water, smooth above the weir
Like starry velvet in the night,
Though ruffled once, would soon appear
The same as ever to the sight.
The Dark Hills
Dark hills at evening in the west,
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Paradise Lost by John Milton: Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low--
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began:--
"I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
Paradise Lost |
