Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle Response

Saint-Chapelle: Paris, France

After Ana did her poetry response on Evening Concert, Sainte-Chapelle, I was inspired. I started thinking about this poem, and the more I read it, the more I fell in love with it. Ana opened my eyes to look at this poem and read it with a different, analytical perspective. I don’t think the person in the poem is someone who just went into the Saint-Chapelle and heard the music, but rather, he or she was in the orchestra itself. My reasoning for this lies in the third line, “we rustled into place.” I could imagine this very well; the musicians rustling their music and getting into place—it creates an imagery that makes this poem seem very realistic. Also, he refers to the violins as “his” a lot. In the line “our violins were cased in thin but solid sheets of lead” I think he’s saying that the music is so strong it cannot be contained in regular sheets of music—that it’s so vivid it takes a form so strong hardly anything can keep it together. Also in this line of, “until our beating hearts…” I relate to this line in a personal way; when I play my violin, it sometimes feels as if my heartbeat aligns with the beat of the music.

      I loved absolutely loved how John Updike used Vivaldi in his poem: he is one of my favorite composers. I picture The Four Seasons (Vivaldi’s most famous piece) playing in the background while all the colors of the cathedral light up the atmosphere. It’s convenient to know the background knowledge to this poem—like that Vivaldi has a smoother; more connected style, whereas Brahms has a short, staccato and frantic touch to his music. Overall, I feel like this poem read very smoothly, and I loved it.