I just read the Daniel Felsenfeld essay "Rebel Music" in The Norton Field Guide to Writing. From the title, I thought that this would be about some kind of alternative music, and, in a way, it is, but not the kind most people think of when they say "alternative music": it's about a moment when Felsenfeld first heard a piece of music that literally changed his life, and that piece was Beethoven's Ninth symphony. I gotta quote him:
"It unrolled from the small speakers, this big, gorgeous, unruly beast of a thing, contemporary, horrifying, a juggernaut that moved from the dark to unbearable brightness, soaring and spitting, malingering and dancing wildly, the Most Beautiful Thing I Ever Heard" (641).
After this, he was on the road to becoming a composer, when he had never considered that before.
Growing up, I heard all kinds of music. My parents, especially my father, loved music, had season tickets to the Lyric Opera when they could afford them, and went to a variety of concerts to which they started bringing us as soon as we could appreciate them. What I'm getting at is that there was never a time in my life when I wasn't used to hearing classical music, but I had my own mini-epiphany with music, too, although I am not a musician of any kind. I was 15, I think, when I was riding in the car with my dad. I don't know where we were going. The radio was on, and a piece came on that I had heard before, but this time I really heard it. It was Debussy's Clair de lune, and it remains the most beautiful thing I ever heard. I have to admit that this wasn't in any way rebel music for me-- my parents liked it, so I wasn't rebelling against them, and I didn't care enough about what my friends thought was good music for it to be rebelling against them.
Anyway, it's part of my massive Iheartradio.com playlist, and I smile every time it comes on, once every couple of weeks or so. I also stop whatever else I'm doing, and just listen. Maybe that's what makes it qualify as what Felsenfeld calls "dangerous sounds": it takes over and demands you experience it.
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