Permanent Art

I attended a concert last night at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine at 112th Street and Amsterdam Ave. It’s an incredible structure, started in 1882 and scheduled for completion in 2026! The Pittsburgh Chorale and Washington & Jefferson College Camerata Singers were the featured artists. One of the pieces on the program was Beethoven’s Fantasia in C Major for Piano, Orchestra and Chorus which utilized a small orchestra of musicians from the Manhattan School of Music. (My fellow New England Conservatory alumnus, pianist Antonio Fermin, whom I met several months ago at an informal NEC event, was the featured pianist and he played beautifully.) The piece was written in 1808. It got me thinking about whether any buildings being built now or any music being written now will still be around in 130 to 200 years.