By Eric Nicholson
I ease into my air-conditioned seat half an hour before the start wondering if my insatiable appetite for revelation will be satisfied and I'm not completely alone as there are divine voices in the air and I get to thinking about mundane truth musical recipes and cooking times you know really Mahler's yelling eat my score it's one great hymn to all existence but also a grenade thrown into a genteel afternoon dinner party you know I said my lip hurts it really hurt when I bit into that apple after breakfast it's a heavy burden when you eat of the fruit of the tree the after-taste is something else and well it's time to tell the truth I couldn't stop blowing my nose loudly and it kept running and must have made my skin raw there like can you see its not very nice not a great look and it made me realise there's no way we can be dukkha-deniers today and I've even heard it said that the act of cooking is a symbolic representation of the contrivances of a corrupt and sinful mind and if you really want to assault your guests' noses prepare some fermented shrimp paste no your nose mouth and ears are doorways into Gustav's kitchen how come we can't go searching for small epiphanies no they come unannounced yes then I thought of Schopenhauer really how he literally thought that art was the only redeeming factor of being human how being human was mostly unremitting unending angst and disappointment aha but what about the superhuman concoction here quite a recipe yes six movements where six oracles speak to us summer marches in what the meadow flowers tell us what the creatures of the forest tell us I like to think of all of the creatures we share the planet with I mean we actually evolved from a piece of microscopic protoplasm after all I don't consider it's considerate to hack off the fins of millions of sharks and let them sink to the bottom of the sea just to satisfy an appetite for shark-fin soup but please don't dismiss my concern as being the ravings of A Highly Sensitive Person and I know we share seventy percent of our DNA with a banana yes I deeply consider what the dark night tells us what the morning bells tell us what God tells us or if you're an atheists what Love tells us I mean how many thousands of miles does a wandering albatross fly in a year consider this is nothing to how many hours this guy spent cooking up this paean to all existence his daily battle with the mundane hand to mouth life set against the mountains and rivers telling him and all of us the story of how the first humans the first very first humans here listen drumbeats after Homo erectus maybe Neanderthals conjured up demons and deities possessed by god-knows-what a muse inspiration no no no don't mention that word to anyone you love dancing round a leaping fire it's not a conspiracy theory like the moon landings how else do you explain this creation the first movement takes up half the whole how else explain the Sistine Chapel for Christ's sake and what about that 40,000 yr old reindeer antler with five holes bored into it I mean it's like finding a piano on the moon how come these hairy bipeds communed with the eternal voice listen at all times of the day and night I mean it's like they were in a Quaker Meeting but not if you are a Zen Buddhist because then you wouldn't differentiate between the mundane act of washing the dishes and the sacred musicians coming onto the stage in ones and twos although the two harpists have been there all along ah yes yes yes here's the trombonist who'll play that haunting solo in the first movement he'll add very very strong flavours throughout no doubt aha he's stretching his arms stretching slowly reclining like Bacchus but not blowing yet at least I can't hear any flatulent horn-like tones and I said to her surely you know the young woman peeling the apple in a spiral alludes to the human effort to free the spirit from its material envelope really and also look how often an apple appears in religious paintings as a symbol of temptation or the story of the fall and what about the snake and everything even if you don't believe I know it's some story and do you know what she said she said I wouldn't recognise a spiritual reference if it assaulted me in the middle of an adagio I don't believe it really I mean it's twenty five minutes in length you know when a school motto jostles for attention we seek the truth with a capital T again and again even in these temperature-regulated rows of seats Pythagoras Plato and Buddha even allowed countless lifetimes I know in which to smooth out discords cymbal clashes and false starts besides most of the string section are tuning up now but there's no no sign no sound of the heavy guns only swelling discords washing over passages of truth sounded like the end of the world then did you hear the thunderclaps yes and no matter what she's going through I think the octopus would be the best option yes she said she enjoyed the pesto pine nuts and sun-dried tomatoes and when all's said and done the string section really do harmonise reassuring melodies and it's a subtle peppery flavour yes yes now the trombonist plays his opening bars the idea-fix of the first movement leaping from ground zero to the sky in succulent sevenths very much like it's very like the incubation of a wandering albatross's egg the gestation of musical fiends themes you mean no think how he must have toiled pushed and heaved before a breakthrough before a naked monster a naked twisting ornamentation something demonic danced a dance of joyful death a movement of spiritual darkness but that's not something to bring onto the dining table or into polite conversation like we had before I think therefore I am the butchered beast is a reviled object or words to that effect and like she said its bloody carcass reminds us of death but you know how the closest blonde harpist is running her fingers up and down the strings well that could be symbolic of all our journeys don't you think I know it's a bit of a cliché and even sensual and definitely has a liquid red-wine taste not that I'm synaesthetic or anything she has a nerve spending all day in the kitchen and serving up such a mishmash of well what how could you describe it and then there was the thing about public transport and going on an electric bus which broke down before it left the bus station and how to get there with all of the musicians on stage and the timpanists pounding skins as if tomorrow doesn't exist well it doesn't does it really all there is is the present moment this moment yes a moment a moment ago not long ago a man spilled some of his beer as he shuffled along a row I know and now he's laughing just in time I expect the floor will be slippery unless there is a drying off period before the conductor emerges from the wings it can't be long now do you agree with me you'll think about what I've said won't you because the violinist with the pig's head is taking part in a black mass and the spilled porridge alludes to the proverb he who spills his porridge can't pick it up again meaning that what's done can't be undone and the lobster alludes to rebirth as it sheds its shell its carapace every year renewing its appearance and of course the commode in the painting is a reference to the undignified fate of so much food the dancing goat a symbol of sin and gluttony but we needn't be ashamed today and can enjoy a modest banquet for example sun-dried tomato-basted pheasant would be the piece de resistance preceded by oysters like we had last time yes and you know what they say about oysters they didn't have any effect at all at least as far as you were concerned that's not fair and you did go on and on about on about the melody of exotic vegetables fit for a queen I think or was it a princess you said and they were an accompanying dish at least served on separate plates does that mean they were a side dish I don't mean like starters but more like how chapatis are served in ancient Rome wine produced a state of ecstatic inebriation that was considered essential and engendered a blissful union in the participants who were of course all philosophers and a woman not to be seen except as a courtesan or lyre-player as I was saying a blissful union with the transcendental yes yes yes that sounds good really good out of this world that's not the right word and sets my pulse racing especially the sound of the eight French horns imitating the farmyard grunts and wheezes of you know how you have to use a saw and chopper to get into a pig and the industrial assembly line of the slaughter house doesn't always present an uplifting sight or aroma and we could see the patriarchal progress of industrialisation leading inevitably to the processing of people I mean actual human beings if you think of the Quartet for the End of Time for example it doesn't bear thinking about really you know what I mean but how could you like not be not be moved by such sublimity thinking of the circumstances of its composition and each inmate wondering if human history could be divided up into pre-1914 and post-1914 not to mention camaraderie conflict clashing chords and the shortage of nutritional food which can also be thought of in non-literal terms such as would you willingly knowingly eat a bowl of vomit like for your breakfast that is what I mean by symbolic the news is so depressing especially first thing after you've cleaned your teeth and everything's going into your mind I mean sense-impressions could be thought of as food in this symbolic sense be careful what you put into your mind be careful what you practice in your daily life but also think about what becomes a habitual kind of thought laying down actual chemical markers in our neurons that's it not that I'm a brain surgeon or anything and I can't even claim any particular achievements in the field of human slaughter but that's where music can sort out the lows and the highs and rise to the occasion in the sense of triumph over human suffering for instance that man who spilled the beer who knows what secrets lie embedded chemically-speaking do you know what I mean we not only don't know a lot but we don't know that we don't know a lot of stuff and it may not suit our taste and there isn't an inevitability about any of this but the conductor any conductor of this symphony of like war and peace I've never actually read it have you no has to shed light on every hidden corner of the human condition I know or narrative or at least he should have danced with his own shadow if he wants to do the music justice married heaven and hell so to speak in his own life integration some say yes descent into the underworld some say but you know what I mean so that he can praise in spite of Nietzsche's amor fati doesn't the mezzo sing about this really and not be afraid of getting his baton bloody or slow in conjuring up a plate of calf's head grouse or the poignant song of a nightingale after dinner speeches being another string to his bow because he was a violinist first and foremost well before he became a conductor like Barenboim I know he was a pianist but you know I know yes yes yes I remember the one he told on more than one occasion the one about the egg in biblical exegesis which you see depicted in a lot of religious paintings which stands for life maybe with a capital L or at least new life a new birth and you don't need to be a believer to see how it refers to a kind of hope or psychological transformation or even resurrection but I don't believe you need a sacrificial god or a redeemer I mean that was dealt a final blow with Nietzsche's three infamous words wasn't it his best after dinner speech of all time that's the kind of message that will come to pass because at the moment time flies and I want you to savour the divine mezzo in what movement is it the fourth or fifth anyway before the long numinous redemptive hymn-like finale you'll think about what I've said won't you