music and times

I was merrily taking a cartographic tour of good old Champaign-Urbana on my first day at work today (more on that later), when music began playing spontaneously at the back of my mind. I am more than familiar with the phenomenon, and have spent many an idle moment reliving some of the best times of my life to the accompaniment of the soundtrack associated with them; but I was never so alive to the impact UIUC has had on me as when I realized just how many soundtracks I associate with my time there, each characterizing a different aspect of it - overwhelmingly pleasant. Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu played as I flew over Hendrick House, so to speak. It was a favorite piece of a certain Matt F., and I was immediately carried back to freshman year, when I could hear him play it in the music room adjoining the gym. Matt F. had rather a formidable technique, and I would strive to practice till I reached his level. I never did, of course. I find that summers in different places have their own distinctive fragrances, which is what makes summer seem so pleasant in hindsight, even if it was oppressively hot at the time. Illinois was no exception. There is, of course, Chopin's Allegro de Concert, which I associate with nights during Welcome Week, when my roommates and I would walk down Green Street to the Union. There are Liszt's Douze Grandes Etudes Nos. 4 and 8, which take me back to late-Spring 2012, when I had just started running. Paul de Schlozer's Etude in A-flat, Chopin's Military Polonaise, and a host of other pieces remind me of the second semester of sophomore year, when I would walk through the snow-covered parking lot on the way to the CS building in the winter or when I began exploring new parts of residential Urbana on my runs when the snow began to melt. The smell of melting snow soaking into the hitherto frozen earth below is something quite special. Rachmaninoff's first Sonata and Liszt's Vallee d'Obermann are associated with the end of junior year, when the onset of spring felt unusually pronounced after the severe winter, and A. and C. were graduating. The warlike third movement of the Rachmaninoff reminds me of my walks through the Six Pack on the way to the ARC to swim - a substitute for running that thankfully proved short-lived. There was comparatively little music in senior year. There was comparatively less insouciance and defiance as well. Georgia Tech so far has had no music associated with it, but for some reason I associate last semester with the not unpleasant smell of potpourri of which I got a faceful when I came home for Thanksgiving. Who knows what the point of this entry was? I certainly don't. But Leo Ornstein's absolutely beautiful improvisation in the middle section of the Fantaisie-Impromptu is growing the louder in the background, which means something, I'm sure.