How sweet the moonlight / Inwardness

"How sweet the moonlight" as performed by Andreas Scholl, countertenor.

From THE MERCHANT OF VENICE OST, music composed by Jocelyn Pook.

For some reason, this kind of singing moves me more than the extreme paroxysms of emotional outbursts in opera arias (give me Ombra mai fu any day over, say, Isolde's Liebestod).

My dear friend Miko (whom I fondly call "the best oboist in the Philippines") and I share this common love for Baroque/Renaissance music and the corresponding style of singing. Whenever we sit down for lunch or coffee together, we inevitably end up singing to one another excerpts from our recent musical discoveries. 

Some people find such music "boring" because "it's too simple."  On the contrary!!!! SO MUCH emotion is present even in one sustained note, except that it's subtly expressed and not as "in-your-face" as bel canto arias with fits of conniption present in the madly wavering vibratos.

Oh well. De gustibus non est disputandum.

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I was thinking that this relates to "love" as well... how some girls demand heroic acts from their suitors, that if they were in a fairy tale they'd say: "Kill me this dragon! Conquer me a kingdom! If you DO love me, prove it."

Then there are those who understand the inward nature of a love that has decided to make duty its highest challenge. For is it not a thousand times more difficult for one to conquer the dragons of boredom and infidelity day in, day out, than to seek to climb mountains, and swim across oceans to prove one's love?

Today we put too much value on external manifestations of love. I've known a couple of girls who choose their boyfriends based on the "sweetness factor," i.e. the number of times he calls them up in a day, the dozens of romantic text messages, the requisite chocolates and flowers. And not a few of them obsess over meanings, as in "if he gives you yellow flowers then you're more of friends than lovers... if he gives you red ones then he's quite passionate about you..."

And they can argue forever on the issue of quantity-versus-quality... chocolates-versus-flowers... when-is-it-a-date-and-who-should-pay-for-dinner and honey-he's-not-that-into-you-if-he-does-this-and-that and so on and so forth...

What kind of a love is it when the girl constantly has to ask the boy to "prove his love?" As if the number and greatness of these deeds is directly proportional to the degree of his regard?

And what kind of love is it when there is jealousy? Like poor Mitya who imagines the worst of his lover Grushenka and thinks that the instant his back is turned, she bestows her sweet favors on no less than his father. But even if this were so, he'd be willing to forgive as long as she begged and promised prettily that this was in the past, that he was her one true love from now on. For isn't jealousy a mark of the absence or lack of trust?

Why am I rambling on about relationships? Maybe it's because I came across the blog entry of an ate of mine from CMu, and found out that she's already engaged. :) She writes down her love story, and it is antithetical to soap-opera-plots. She has love, pure and simple... sans the frills associated with the courtship period but not necessarily meaning that it is any less romantic. And I am so happy for her!

I  am striving to develop the ability to go past the superficial, to look beyond the decor, to the essence of things (whether it be in Music, Love or mundane objects). Someday,  I hope to overcome my prejudices and be able look past the outward shell of people, and love them unconditionally AS THEY ARE... as He does.