Optical Illusion

Nano opera

Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on, looks at a pine tree and he sees: in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist.
Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses off, looks at the pine tree and sees that there is no one sitting in the pine tree.
Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on, looks at the pine tree and again sees that in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist.
Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses off, again sees that there is no one sitting in the pine tree.
Semyon Semyonovich, with his glasses on again, looks at the pine tree and again sees that in the pine tree sits a peasant showing him his fist.
Semyon Semyonovich doesn’t wish to believe in this phenomenon and considers this phenomenon an optical illusion.

Charms, Daniil Ivanovič. Optinė apgaulė. In: Nutikimai. Apsakymų ir apysakų ciklas. Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2007.

Music that seems to have no form always attempts to find its shape in the eyes of those who do not understand it. What is there to understand? Nothing. There’s no need to understand, because that is inappropriate. It’s inappropriate because it’s difficult to enjoy it. If a composer managed to explain why he must go in one direction or another while creating, it would be very easy to conceal it. On the other hand, it’s also important to “sell”, that’s why all kinds of formatting instruments are made up to help music get a shape. But the sale chokes in that moment where we all live according to some order that creates a deaf form and possesses a self-propelled buying power.

An idea that has a shape can express many things. However that leads nowhere, like most other available ways. It would be suitable to ask a rhetorical question, “Perhaps?” Meaning, perhaps for the path not to be so sad, all that it needs is love. Who knows how to understand that love. It’s got many shapes. Or none at all. Even the written words have a shape, except we don’t see it, don’t understand it. We don’t need it. It’s a paradox of the cultured world that emerges out of misunderstanding, when aggression becomes possible at the same time as we want to express what’s in our hearts. Naturally, even aggression can be expressed and it would certainly be acceptable. Question is, who needs it? Or another question, and another one… perhaps really it’s not the question that’s needed but simply being? The joy of existing? Or joy without any inner monologue?

Finally, I will add that laughing needs to be done carefully. Laughter is not someone’s vital ingredient. Important – the word is similar yet variable – to choose low priority modesty as denominator, because only, maybe definitely “not only” that leads to sincerity.

Composer Leonardas Pilkauskas

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