London Philharmonic Orchestra’s decision to appoint a writer-in-residence for the 2024–25 season reflects, as I wrote last week, a deepening engagement with listeners. An investment in words for “people [who] want to know more,” LPO Artistic Director Elena Dubinets said.
Inaugural writer-in-residence Jeremy Eichler’s season essay, “Moments Remembered,” is now available, and I’m struck by the ways it aligns with recommendations in my program notes writing guide. Specifically,
• It embraces clarity and avoids specialist terminology and jargon, opting instead for engaging prose that draws in readers. The use of literary analogies (e.g., Proust’s madeleine) to convey complex ideas about music’s capacity to evoke memory and emotion is particularly effective.
• Without getting caught up in analyzing musical content as a traditional program note might, it references specific periods, composers, and styles as a means of highlighting the season’s thematic throughline and showcasing the historical and stylistic breadth of the repertoire.
• It balances personal views and concrete evidence. From Jean Améry’s critique of Holocaust accounts to Thomas Mann’s view of music as inarticulate speech, Eichler invokes opinions without imposing them on the reader. Meanwhile, remarks on Beethoven and Mahler stabilize the note with historical events and context.
In short, Eichler’s essay elaborates on the season’s core concept, “Memory,” while piquing the curiosity of all readers and preparing them to experience them as, in his words, “something greater than the sum of their parts.”
Moments Remembered: Journeys at the Crossroads of Music and Memory
Is music the ultimate medium of memory?
Ever since the mythical poet Orpheus retrieved his beloved Eurydice from the underworld through the magical power of his song, music has been summoning souls, bridging time, and raising the dead. Its ability to trigger flights of memory is a phenomenon many people still experience: think, for instance, of the song that pops up on the car radio and, like Proust’s madeleine, instantly calls to mind a moment or experience that took place years or even decades earlier.
Yet as so many works presented across the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2024/25 season will illustrate, it is not just we who remember music. Music also remembers us.
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