A few days ago, a man carted his piano 5,000 miles to play a musical “hello” to Ukrainians fleeing from the war raging in their homeland. Who listens to music in the midst of suffering? Attending to peaceful music is something I usually do in contented, calm surroundings, not as one of the world’s newest war refugees. In this context, does music soothe anybody’s woes?
Being greeted with music can be a joy. Especially after days and weeks of hearing bombs burst, buildings collapse, children weep, and listening to your teeth gnash and heart beat in fear and anguish. CNN, Euronews, Reuters and others ran news items about Davide Martello, known as Piano Man, welcoming Ukrainian refugees at the Medyka border crossing into Poland. This raised two questions in my mind. First, does Davide Martello really believe he is doing something worthwhile? And second, did people actually stop to listen to the music?
Martello, of Italian ancestry but living in Germany, certainly believes he is doing good to our sick world. He has played his piano to promote peace through music in other situations such as in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 2013 and in Donesk, Ukraine in 2014 (Reuters, 2022). Obviously, he cannot stop war, but he can and does promote peace. Davide, my hat goes off to you, sir, and I send you a great big warm hug!
The answer to my second question is an emphatic YES! People not only stopped to listen, applaud, take pictures (Euronews, 2022) but even to spontaneously participate in the music making (Reuters, 2022). This information is in direct contrast to the events in the Joshua Bell Subway Experiment in which people did not break their gait to stop and listen to Bell, one of today’s foremost concert performers, as they rushed to jump on their trains while he played classical music for them on his $3.5 million dollar Stradivarius violin (Weingarten, 2007).
Reuters reports that Davide included John Lennon’s “Imagine”. Also, that a woman shared the keyboard with Davide and played Queen’s “We are the Champions”. This woman and Davide could not communicate orally because of the language barrier but, she used a few words in English and gestures to tell him that she had not slept for three days. And yet, tired and probably hungry, when she reached the safety of Poland, she took a moment to sit down at the piano to make music. Moreover, another woman even sang along to the song “Volare”.
Some may argue that making music does not change or erase the evil in the world or that it’s a silly waste of time given the context. Perhaps even that Davide should take up arms instead and fight the invaders or give those refugees food, water, and blankets. Nonetheless, Davide is giving those evacuees what Schopenhauer, the XIX Century philosopher, called “The food of the soul”. In these terrible times we must not forget that we are Spirit having a human experience. Music vibrates with Spirit. These are the “good vibes” which can be felt in the best and the worst of times.
Having answered my two questions about Piano Man, I can only send those anonymous souls fleeing from their worn-torn motherland my very best wishes. To Davide, my deeply felt desire that, as is proposed in Lennon’s “Imagine”, he may keep on playing and dreaming of all the people living life in peace!
