Dissonance

We're rolling, once again, towards school, and all seems well. We've got warm chocolate chip cookies for your classmates, the sun is raining down on us, Eric Coates' The Three Bears Phantasy is on the radio, and I'm thinking about the stretch of Frozen that we watched this morning.

And then suddenly, Cleo speaks up, from her car seat: "I think you'll be the first one in our family to die."

Um. What's that? I mean, you're probably right - and, indeed, you then calmly explain that I'm the oldest, and so probably have the shortest time left to me - but, really? That's what you're thinking about?

But, hey, I understand. Or at least I can try to. Five days ago, Anthony Tommasini published a lengthy piece in the Times on musical dissonance: a condensed history and typology, in essence, of discord, instability, and sudden changes in color. And one of the points that emerged is that dissonance has often been valued by composers, precisely for its jarring qualities. Or, as he put it:

"Romantic-era composers loved to milk and savor moments of dissonance to enhance the emotional impact of a crucial turn in a piece. Schumann, for one. An example I love comes in 'Ich kann's nicht fassen, nich glauben' ('I can't understand it, I don't believe it') from Schumann's song cycle 'Frauenlieben und Leben' ('A Woman's Love and Life'). The woman singing is almost incredulous that a man she desires seems to have chosen her. 'Let me die in this dream,' she says. Sure enough, there is a foreboding in the suspenseful, poignant music of the song, especially at the end, where a short melodic piano phrase repeats three times, each time slipping up to a slightly higher top note. That final melodic peak is enhanced by an achingly dissonant chord full of inner tension that demands harmonic relief, relief that eventually comes as the phrase, and the song, ends quietly."

Well, then. I'm not Schumann. And so, dutifully literal, I suggest that the very fact that we don't live forever is what makes life special. This fifth birthday that we're so excited about? It wouldn't carry quite the sheen if we had an infinite number of birthdays. And so on. But, really, Cleo has already said all that she had to. That air of dissonance recasts the glamorous morning, which now seems, frankly, laughably beautiful and incredibly improbable. Harmonic relief? Perhaps not. But, yes, there will be cookies.