BY KLAUS DÖRING
THE Sound of Music is a 1965 American musical drama film produced and directed by Robert Wise, and starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, with Richard Haydn, Peggy Wood, Charmian Carr, and Eleanor Parker.
The film is an adaptation of the 1959 stage musical, composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. Its screenplay was written by Ernest Lehman, adapted from the stage musical’’s book by Lindsay and Crouse.
Based on the 1949 memoir “The Story of the Trapp Family Singers” by Maria von Trapp, the film is about a young Austrian postulant who, in 1938, is sent to the villa of a retired naval officer and widower to be the governess to his seven children.
Music – from the Greek “mousikos” and pertaining to one of the nine muses in Greek mythology – is the art of combining sounds or sequences of notes into harmonious patterns. An insipid and dry explanation, isn’t it?
Can you imagine a life without music? I can’t! It would be such a monotonous and boring world. I don’t talk about the musical “mayfly” or the so-called “musical-nine-days wonder”. Music doesn’t only Groove and Techno. Some of them didn’t even survive three days as a music wonder.
We have greater riches in different kinds of music, especially when we talk about classical music. Let’s go back to the Middle Ages, the Renaissance (which means “rebirth”), the Baroque Age, the Classical Period, and the romantic era up to 1900. The Western tradition has its origins in the chant tradition of the Early Christian Area.
I already developed my own passion for music when I was at the age of four, and started playing piano. I was blessed and happy being able to host a radio show with classical music – broadcasting from Davao City. I learned that many readers of this column also belong to my avid listeners.
The church reformator Martin Luther (1483-1546) explained it as follows: “Many times, when I was in terrible darkness, I prayed – and I listened to music, which delivered and refreshed me!”
The German poet and composer E.T.A. Hoffmann said 1801: “If you start to be simply speechless, music can take over.”
And Classical Master Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), without doubt one of the true and just awesome Western composers, narrated: “Music is the utmost revelation than all wisdom and philosophy!”
A simple melody can make us feel happy, sentimental, smiling or crying.
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