Where Does Music Go? It Lives On In Our Bodies
The story of a duet, making music with people we love, and how that experience makes music eternal.
By Sean Bailey
Published
"Why do that? Everything is dedicated to you anyway.” — Schubert, upon being teased by his pupil and muse Countess Caroline Esterházy about not dedicating any of his pieces to her.
Elation: my heart pounded in my throat as the rest of my body erupted with joy. I’ve always had stage fright. Despite performing in public with some frequency since I was young, I always manage to have a case of the nerves. The performance wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t matter. As the final chords dissolved into applause, I was consumed with an overwhelming sense of warmth and delight.
It was Valentine’s Day, and “Heart and Soul” was the encore to an eclectic program of classical music, jazz, and opera that my partner and some friends put on for a few dozen people at a boutique in the Upper East Side. All of the pieces were supposed to have something to say about love, or the loss thereof, but the theme was really just a pretense to gather loved ones together and make some music — and an acknowledgment that nobody actually goes out on Valentine’s Day proper in New York.