Temporal-Spatial Descant
There was much that captured my wonder and amazement during a walking tour of the Old Town portion of Tallinn. It is a different experience, coming from a place where the oldest structures are slightly more than a century old, to see structures which have stood for a millennium. A tremendous encircling wall, which once protected the citizens, has now been repurposed in many ways ranging from tourist shops to apartments to stalls for street merchants to sell woolen goods. In our small group, I was most often the one in the back, having stopped to take a picture of various features and sights that I knew I could not fully take in immediately but nevertheless hoped to process later. This spot, in particular, caught my attention at multiple levels though, at the time, I couldn’t quite articulate why.
At first glance, we see some delicious examples of geometry — arcs, angles, and parallel lines. But there are more parallels here. The musical term “descant” refers to a voice above other voices. The wooden railing is, in two ways, a descant relative to the steps. Temporally, the railing is newer (higher in the time-line history of this setting), having been placed there within the last few years whereas the masonry is many centuries old. If we regard the arc as the bass, providing support for the steps, which are the melody, then we may see the railing as rising above and almost crowning the melodic steps.
The resulting multi-voice harmony contributes to a rich experience. It took me two and a half years to get around to mentally processing this image and, having done so, I now appreciate it even more.
Photo of the Week
2007.09.17
