Music for Meditation - Mozart and Marcellus
March 1st, 2020
By Mark George, President and CEO
Even in the best of circumstances, the COVID-19 crisis makes us feel unsettled and stressed. I find that at certain times of the day, even when I haven’t been “working”, I am exhausted, just from the mental and emotional effort of carrying on. Meditation can help and sometimes I use music as a way to meditate. So I thought I would occasionally recommend a piece of music just for this purpose. Find a comfortable chair or lie down, turn on a smart speaker or put in earbuds, and just try your best to listen.
My first recommendation is the second movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto. I picked this particular movement and recording because if reflects the wisdom of a mature Mozart and the mastery of some amazing musicians. The work has a quality of calmness and tranquility with a tinge of sadness. The melody and harmony are so simple as to be profound. Listen for the velvet tone of the clarinet, which seems to be heard even in the silence between phrases. Listen for the amiable quality of the strings, supporting the soloist, and sometimes rising to take the lead. The movement unfolds in three sections, a theme, a different theme, and a return of the original theme with variation. But you do not need to know or think of any of that. Let the music inhabit you for 7 minutes and 45 seconds and at the end, you might feel like you understand life a little better.
Adagio (7’ 45”)
Cleveland Orchestra
Conducted by George Szell
Robert Marcellus, Clarinet
Robert Marcellus had a celebrated career as an orchestra musician, soloist and pedagogue. He recorded this concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra in 1963. It was released in 1983 as part of the CBS Records “Great Performances” series. Marcellus was a professor of clarinet at Northwestern University from 1974-1994 and before that served as principal clarinet of the Cleveland Orchestra from 1953-1973, under the direction of George Szell.
Szell, who was born in Hungary in 1897, conducted the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death in 1970. He was a task master who demanded from his orchestra an uncommon rhythmic and musical precision. In addition, Szell had a superior understanding of musical phrasing and architecture, which resulted in orchestral performances that had the intimacy of chamber music.