Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Sarah Connolly, Christopher Hogwood, and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment perform “When I am laid in earth,” from Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. This production was staged by Wayne MacGregor at Covent Garden in 2009:
(This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation. One does not have to know anything about Dido and Aeneas to be moved by her lament for him; anyone who has ever lost someone knows what Dido is expressing. And there is, finally, a deep and mysterious paradox here, for while such music makes one experience pain and grief more intensely, it brings solace and consolation at the same time.”
Oliver Sacks, “Lamentations: Music, Madness and Melancholia” (courtesy of Maria Popova)