In the concert hall, each motionless listener is part of the performance. The concentration of the player charges the electric tension in the auditorium and returns to the playLIer magnified. I like the fact that "LISTEN" is an anagram of "SILENT". Silence is not something that is there before the music begins and after it stops. It is the essence of the music itself, the vital ingredient that makes it possible for the music to exist at all. It's wonderful when the audience is part of this productive silence.
~ Alfred Brendel in "The New Yorker" 4/1/96 thanks to B. Stockard
For a full day and two nights I have been alone. I lay on the beach under the stars at night alone.... Beauty of earth and sear and air meant more to me. I was in harmony it, melted into the universe, lost in it, as one is lost in a canticle of praise, swelling from an unknown crowd in a cathedral. I felt closer to humankind, too, even in my solitude. For it is not physical solitude that separate us from others, not physical isolation, but spiritual isolation.
~ from A GIFT FROM THE SEA by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
