Musicalings

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a pause is worth a thousand notes.  

There's something almost magical about the way that perfectly placed moment of silence can stop us dead in our tracks and make us yearn that much more for the music we're about to hear.

My favorite pause in music occurs right before the final iteration of the theme in the "Great Gate of Kiev" from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition.  This swaggering theme makes its final appearance after a a flurry of furious notes in the strings build up a well of tension. That brief moment of relief has a way of just capturing all that nervous energy and transforming the final turn of the main theme into the most exhilarating and empowering melody you've ever heard. 

While a great composer can write the perfect pause, it still requires a gifted conductor to pull it off with devastating effect.

The best I've ever heard that Mussorgsky pause performed is in a recording by Eduardo Mata and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.  Mata was a dashing and eclectic conductor who brought a unique, but always intriguing, vision to everything he conducted.   (Unfortunately, his life was cut short in a tragic plane crash sixteen years ago.)  I can't find a mp3 of that recording to post here because it's out of print, but there are a few copies available through Amazon.com.  

For more great examples of the use of silence in music, check out this article by the always entertaining Jan Swafford at Slate.com.  The first example in Jan's article is perhaps the most famous pause in music - the pause at the end of the "Hallelujah" Chorus from Handel's Messiah.  But don't take Jan's word for it.  Hear that moment live.  The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra performs Handel's Messiah on December 20 at Clowes Memorial Hall, the second of our two Christmas concerts on the classical side.