“A Brief Passion”
A passion can pass,
In a twinkle of an eye,
A leeward glance,
A breath and a sigh,
Inhaled fragrance,
With luster of jade,
Horizons of memories,
That never fade.
Sanford R. Bender April 19, 2021
A brief passion
A lull in the battle
My drawings of Cathedrale Notre-Dame d’Amiens from the thirteenth century were drawn while researching Gothic architecture, and how cathedrals in France were being constructed with arches, vaulted ceilings, flying buttresses, and stained glass windows. After drawing the horizontal and vertical lines of the structure with straight edge and triangle, I soon became entranced and astonished by how consecutive arcs drawn with a compass established a rhythm that appeared to dance gracefully across the page. The visual motion of the arcade struck me deeply as being musical, my other passion. The original guitar composition, “A lull in the battle”, inspired by medieval music, is what I imagined as being evocative of an exhausted knight pausing from battle, only to reflect and mourn a bygone romance.
Elephant Concert
“Elephant Concert” originated during an animation course that I participated in in the early 1980’s. The original film was created with colored paints on celluloid. The story was about an elephant man who plays his cello while sounding the clarinet-like melody through his trunk. The unappreciative audience soon becomes unruly and resorts to heckling as an expression of their ignorance.
The original music was played on violin and clarinet. The current music composed for clarinet and guitar heartily welcomes an improvised or composed violoncello part to play along with the guitar and clarinet.
The emotionally upset performers quickly make their exit from the intolerant city. The elephant man leaps upon his bicycle and pedals furiously as his companion, the violoncello skips alongside.
The duo finally finds consolation after a well deserved rest in the countryside. Their appetites will soon be appeased as they gaze into the aromatic delicatessen that will soon be opening for business.
The Sand Dollar
The Sand Dollar
Walking around the curve of beach
The light house still far to the west
Out over seemingly endless dunes
An infinite distance reminding me
Of the poet who observed that
Beyond mountains
Were more mountains,
Soon after my companion turned back
I accepted the futility of continuing
But in my turning around
Circumventing the ocean’s horizon
Looked down upon a treasure trove of shells
Glittering beneath my feet,
There in the curls of seaweed
I found a sand dollar
Smooth and round
Ten pine like needles radiating
The image of the moon
Which would soon appear
Over the darkening sea
Not from where I came
I played banjo more than guitar for a while since I especially enjoyed its mirthful and spontaneous independence. This instrument could provide enlightened commentaries on the most tragic and haunting occurrences of lost love, betrayal, revenge, murder, and perhaps even evoke valor and the emergence of integrity.
This music for guitar with slide and five-string banjo is reminiscent of traditional ballads travelling from place to place like fairy tales with subtly changing variations over a common theme; only to alight into my own imagination as another powerful resource fueling my creativity.
The Soul of an Elephant
This gestural sketch of an elephant was one of a series that I drew during a trip to an elephant resort in Thailand. After learning about Asian elephants and their symbiotic relationship with humans, our small group was led to an athletic field where the elephants would play soccer. Not only could I ride atop an elephant beforehand and feel its lumbering but graceful rhythms; I could even experience its earnest attempt to perform successfully for human entertainment, and then even perceive its ultimate humiliation. Otherwise, the elephants were treated well, and when left to roam in the jungle at night, could retain their integrity and be wild.
This improvised instrumental for two guitars with its changing rhythms, recurring melodies, pause, and cascading cadence to a major seventh chordal resolution reached perfection in its understatement and brevity. It seemed appropriate to accompany the sketch delineating an elephant’s triumph over any perceived fallibility in a game devised by humans.
Moon Cats outside my Window
I awoke just after midnight to a most supernatural music outside my window as cats appeared singing under a full moon. That is what I imagined when I listened back to the music I was composing with tracks of guitar, slide guitar and harmonica. The painting of the nocturnal scene was finally realized two and a half months later from drawings in my sketch book. Whereas an irate neighbor may react to this lunar concert by lunging for a garden hose to spray amidst a torrent of profanities, I was drawn deeply into this feline world of sensory agility and mindfulness for which the music was my portal.
“Moon Cats from outside my Window” is composed and performed in three tracks for acoustic guitar, acoustic slide guitar, and harmonica by Sanford Bender.
All is well
The declaration that “All is well” would pertain to a specific event since it certainly cannot apply as a universal world perspective at all times. I composed this music as a mantra to emerge out of a difficult dilemma for which I could not change the outcome. The guitar duet brought to me a sense of peace in recognition of life’s inevitable flow. Once, I drew a barred owl in less than a minute’s time as the nature rescue center bell was heralding its imminent closing. In that moment, I sensed that the owl and I were both “well” despite previous traumas that had limited our abilities to fly gracefully in the twilight.
“All is well” composed and performed with two acoustic guitar tracks by Sanford Bender
Riding into the Starlit Night
Since I don’t go to the park until later in the afternoon, I am often there riding my yellow bicycle back to the car as dusk sets in. I quicken my pace as the inky blackness settles around me, and the few farmhouses and barns are left behind. Gazing up into the lofty pines upon hearing the distant hoot of a great horned owl, I begin to perceive myriads of stars glittering above me. The music in my mind that I hear that evening may not arrive until another day. But, the melodies and rhythms have already embellished my soul, and like the stars, will gradually reveal themselves in their delicate splendor.
Along the Corn Furrows
I was in Tyler Park near my home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania on a cold, wintry day. The sun was low in the sky and the bare trees and knobby remnants of corn stalks evoked the music I had recorded a few days earlier…