¶ … Song from the Sound of Music
Shakespeare began the story of Twelfth Night with the line "If music be the food of love play on." Though, in the play, the Duke of Illyria, Orsino, asks for a surfeit of music in the hope that an overkill of love will help him overcome his infatuation for Olivia (Shakespeare, 1.1, 1-18), the line has now become immortalized as audiences have tended to read a wealth of meaning into it. The popularity of the oft-quoted line is hardly surprising given experiential knowledge of music as one of the greatest pleasures of life. Indeed, music sensitizes and heightens all kinds of emotions and moods, ranging from the sentimental, philosophical, and maudlin to the sensual, ecstatic and peppy. But more than anything, the real power of music lies in soothing the soul by enabling a sense of connection to a universal consciousness. The title song of The Sound of Music captures this basic essence of the power of music in its lyrics, music and overall harmonious sound composition.
In many ways, the biggest and most grandiose composer of music is Mother Nature herself. This is a self-evident, elementary truth given the soothing effects of the sound of the waves and the ocean breeze; the melodious chirping of the birds; the tinkling of streams and brooks; and all the sounds of the night. Even the tempestuous fury of a storm resembles an orchestra taking the notes of a music composition to a fever pitch. In fact, it can be said that the very fundamentals of music are drawn from nature or universal consciousness, since the scale of nature includes everything from the universal and sub-atomic to human behavior and consciousness (Wikipedia,...
In fact, listening to the song today arouses a sense of alarm that currently human kind is running the risk of destroying that very connection with all the environmental damage, which is taking place. Consider, for…
