Midnight oil burned from a chandelier within Sage Chapel, spreading an iridescence across the stained-glass windows that cut starkly against the somber night. I was shuffling past, making my way through campus, when I caught the faint whimper of a melody. At first, I mistook it for the wind humming, or the crickets whistling, or my own desperate mind imagining the live music that I so desperately craved since the outset of the pandemic. But the whimper grew to a hiss, which built to a hum. I was now certain of what I was hearing. Stoked with curiosity, I crept across the courtyard and pressed my ear to the door. The grandiose voice of the pipe organ filled the empty pews.
Leaning against the door, I listened as the anonymous musician ascended the manuals and pedals. They attacked their instrument in sudden bursts, climbing upon harmonious phrases, shooting notes high into the rafters. On occasion they stopped abruptly, letting the resplendent tones reverberate within the chapel walls. Then, with the same vigor and conviction as before, they assailed the keys once again. Rolling arpeggios and quavering octaves washed over the room, seeping through the walls into the moonlit night where I stood hanging on every note. My secret serenader put on a remarkable performance.
This might have been the most intimate, personal concert that I have ever been to. As the lone audience member, every beat and bar were my own individual indulgences. Conversely, this was also the most distant of performances. The performer, after all, was oblivious to the very fact that they were performing. Nonetheless, the barrier between us was bridged by the resounding howl of the organ, which permeated the wall and burrowed deep into my bones.
Gently, the organist lifted their finger off the final key, relieving the organ of its eternal duty and releasing me from its captive lure. Reentering reality, I became conscious of how ridiculous I looked to the passersby. I had stood for fifteen minutes with my ear glued to a doorframe, wide-eyed and smiling. Soon thereafter, I realized how emphatically more insane I would appear to the organist, who might walk through that door at any moment. I collected myself and slipped softly back into the night from which I came.
I will admit that I felt a bit creepy leant up against that wall, soaking in the live music like a moth to a porchlight. Then again, no concert in the era of COVID has followed a conventional format. We’ve swapped theatres for drive-ins, Lincoln Hall for a tent pitched on the Arts Quad. Seeing this, I’d like to believe that my midnight eavesdropping was not the most eccentric manner in which someone has pursued live music over the past few months. Anyhow, the lengths that we’ve all gone through to chase live music only proves the essentiality of the medium. Like a note perpetually pressed upon an organ, our desire to see a show will never dissipate.
