Concerto of Deliverance

Concerto of Deliverance

In her 1957 book Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand gives this description of a concerto:

"She sat listening to the music. It was a symphony of triumph. The notes flowed up, they spoke of rising and they were the rising itself,
they were the essence and the form of upward motion, they seemed to embody every human act and thought that had ascent as its motive.
It was a sunburst of sound, breaking out of hiding and spreading open. It had the freedom of release and the tension of purpose. It swept space clean, and left nothing but the joy of an unobstructed effort. Only a faint echo within the sounds spoke of that from which the music had escaped, but spoke in laughing astonishment at the discovery that there was no ugliness or pain, and there never had had to be.
It was the song of an immense deliverance."

The Concerto of Deliverance is a central theme running through the book. For decades, readers have only been able to hear that concerto in their imaginations.

That all changed on July 4, 2004. For an acquaintance of mine here in Calgary, Monart Pon, merely creating the symbol of the concerto in his imagination wasn't enough. He wanted to hear it. He wanted to play it on his CD player.

So, he commissioned the composer John Mills-Cockell to compose the concerto of deliverance, and the result is now available. I'll be picking up my copy early next month (I know Monart, so we'll probably meet face-to-face and I won't have to pay shipping charges), and at that time I'll post my own review. From what I have heard so far, it's pretty damn good.