Wright's Writing

On orchestras

 

The image of an orchestra playing the third movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony brings tears to one’s eyes. Imagine a multitude of musicians playing in such exquisite synchronicity that they are one being, one supra-human being, composed of sounds as humans are composed of cells, a being that exists only in its self-expression, that vanishes when the instruments are put down but is vitally alive when they are picked up, that is the pure movement of a divine mind externalized. Imagine the cooperation, the sensitivity, the feeling for the sublime without which this being could not exist. Imagine the discipline necessary to submerge oneself so completely in collective harmony....