MARIA: A SONG AND A STORM

MARIA: A SONG AND A STORM
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Until September 20, the name Maria evoked a poignant song in West Side Story. It was sung by Tony, a Caucasian and (reluctant) member of the Jets gang, and Maria, the Puerto Rican sister of Bernardo, gang leader of the Sharks. Their sentiments expressed love, hope for breaking down ethnic and social barriers, and wishes to create a world that was free of prejudice, hate, and violence. Leonard Bernstein’s music allowed Tony to declare through song that Maria was the “most beautiful sound he ever heard”.

On September 20 a different Maria appeared on the landscape. Following her turbulent predecessors Harvey and Irma, Hurricane Maria brutally devastated Puerto Rico. She left death, destruction, and a humanitarian crisis in her wake. The 155mph sustained winds and roar of the waves and storm surges were the cruelest sounds ever heard for millions of residents of the island. The fury of Mother Nature was ruthless and widespread.

A previous disaster made landfall in America on November 8, 2016 with the US Presidential election. The 45th leader of the free world now provocatively fuels storms with rhetoric at home and abroad that threaten national and world peace and security. Denying climate change warnings, Mr. Trump chooses to label cataclysmic storms such as Maria “fake news”. One has become accustomed, though not immune, to Donald Trump’s gross lack of understanding and empathy. Life-altering and life-ending hurricanes are not protected from his falsifications.

From the comfort and protection at his luxurious golf club Bedminster, Mr. Trump savagely politicized human tragedy. Desperate pleas for help from Puerto Rican Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz were experienced by Trump as personal criticisms. The President of the United States blindsided residents of Puerto Rico by blaming them for their unpreparedness when he tweeted... "They want everything to be done for them... when it should be a community effort." His self-centered response to disaster relief cries bypassed the realization that a lack (or slow) of response for aid could possibly result in genocide.

The message in the song Maria in West Side Story and the lessons gleaned from Hurricane Maria lead me to make some comparisons regarding love, restitution, hate, rage, and destruction - comments about Mother Nature and human nature.

The libretto and music in West Side Story evoke psychological storms and social dramas that unfold both within individual minds and between two ethnic rival gangs on the upper west side of New York City . Bernstein’s music aurally portrays tensions between the Puerto Rican Sharks and the Caucasian American Jets gangs with the restless musical interval known as the tritone (originally called the “devil in music” in the Middle Ages due to its tonal ambiguity). The tritone, (musically comprised of three whole tones) is introduced to our ears and minds in the first notes of the opening measure of West Side Story as a warning of discord. It is used strategically throughout the show as a reminder of tension. You do not need musical training to feel its impact.

Musical and social resolutions (and lack of resolutions) of hatred, mistrust, shame, and violence witnessed between the Sharks and Jets (and also within their minds) give rise to the perils of unresolved conflict. The tenderness between Tony and Maria aurally express longings for cultural and ethnic harmony.

In a 1986 speech to his alma mater, Harvard University, Leonard Bernstein’s words addressed these perennial topics and foreshadowed our current political and meteorological climate. Referring to the “enemy,” Bernstein declares:

“I had never before been so aware of the metaphorical being, The Enemy;

.... At one point I suddenly realized that this is the way the world lives, is practiced in living –

existing in terms of an enemy. It’s exactly the target that Jesus aimed at

all his life, and Buddha too, and Freud; and Gandhi and Martin Luther

King: trying to make this invisible creature unnecessary.”[1]

Bernstein’s views on compromise between intractable philosophies, cultures, and internal emotional enemies are conveyed musically in West Side Story years before his Harvard address. The diabolical and ambiguous tritone and other musical techniques powerfully illustrate through sound these enduring themes embedded in history and society, in our emotions, and through our relationships between people and countries. West Side Story’s manifest message is bold and its latent message is timeless. It speaks about Marias that come into our lives and shores and deserve respect and repair.

Those who are familiar with West Side Story know its tragic ending. Tony, killed in a rage by Chino, dies in Maria’s arms and is memorialized by the discordant unresolved tritone. One hopes that a vision of courage to heal cultural chasms exemplified by the warm hearts and music of Maria and Tony ultimately will triumph over the cowardly dark heartlessness of Mr. Trump as the residents of Puerto Rico struggle to stay alive.

This article is dedicated to Saudhi Adelina Ramirez Silver, Saudhi Maria Ramirez, Mario Ramirez, and Bruce Silver.

The writer is author of “Melodies of the Mind” (Routledge Press, 2013) and “Managing Stage Fright: A Guide for Musicians and Music Teachers” (to be published 11/30, Oxford University Press). She is a contributing editor to Clavier Companion. Visit her blog at www.julienagel.net and OUP.com where she writes about stage fright, career choice, and music lessons as life lessons. She is a graduate of The Juilliard School, The University of Michigan, and The Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute and is in private practice in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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[1] Oja, C. and Horowitz, M.E. . 2008, Introduction: Something Called Terrorism. Speech given at Harvard University, Fall, 1986 by Leonard Bernstein, The American Scholar. P. 71-79.

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