The Taffy Pull

There's nothing like a lush, romantic melody to make me miss my dad.

My father was usually found at a live performance any given evening past 8 o'clock. It wasn't hard for him to find excuses to attend performances. In San Francisco, for instance, over the last ten years of his life, he lived in an apartment building where his stereo blasting was unwelcomed, and so he satisfied his musical cravings by simply going out to his music rather than bringing it in to him. His concert-going habits were well caricatured in my family: his ironic pride in rarely attending a performance until its end, his intolerance for unwrapping candy (especially by his child date... me!), and his penchant for closing his eyes to listen more intently. This last quirk embarrassed me to no end as a child. I was convinced people would think he was falling asleep. Now, I do it myself.

So I think of him whenever I go into a concert hall, naturally. But last week, attending the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, it was more than just the familiarity of the cushioned seats and wooden acoustical panels that made me think my dad was near. I do a lot of things and go a lot of places that he did or would have loved, but I don't usually feel his presence in the way I felt it last week. 

The second half of the program was the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony, a work with which I was unfamiliar but was confident I would love. My dad and I shared a passion for the Russian romantics, and he had signature phrases for translating the power of the sound into words: "sexy" was a favorite, and highest praise was given to things that "have melody". (His bitterest criticism was for music with no melody.) The "taffy pull" was his favorite way to describe music that builds and builds, forever elongating phrases and drawing out a luxurious melody until it reaches an exquisite breaking point. The Rach Second Symphony had all of these desired elements.

It was in the third movement that my dad sat down with me in that hall and lent me his melodically-tuned ears to that taffy pull. At a funeral I attended several months ago, Elder Russell M. Nelson, one of the Twelve Apostles in my church's leadership, mentioned that family and loved ones can not only be with us but guide us from the grave, similar to the effects of the Holy Ghost. I was particularly moved by this statement, as the funeral was on the anniversary of my dad's death a year before. I know there are many things in which my dad would love to be guiding me from the grave -- as he loved doing in life -- and I've felt refreshingly free from those expectations in the time since his death. And yet, I do cherish those moments when I feel he's just being with me -- something he had trouble doing in life -- and not judging me for what I am or am not doing. The third movement was one of those moments.

As the violins milked the most they could out of their romantic phrases and pointed to the end of the movement, I felt the beauty my dad so often felt when he was listening to the music he loved. Music was spirituality for him. It was more powerful than religion and it spoke to him in a language he could understand better than any church rhetoric. Music was exquisite beauty, and beauty was exaltation for him. I heard the beauty in that concert, and as the violins finally faded, I felt my dad pull away too, promising to be back for more taffy pulls.

Comments

[Andrea Holley]

I love this Neylan! I have, at times, felt my mom with me too. I love those short moments.