Julia Hartwig – Mindfulness of Listening: The Poet's Reflections on Music and Time

Abstract

The paper titled Julia Hartwig – Mindfulness of Listening. A Poet's Reflections on Music and Time presents the art of sound as an inseparable companion of Julia Hartwig as a poet and music lover, who particularly favored Baroque music. Music also serves as a constant point of reference for reflecting on the most important matters, including reflections about time and the human existence immersed in it. In Hartwig's worldview, mindfulness is one of the most important categories. It must accompany the understanding of music. Mindfulness should be considered a prerequisite for aesthetic experience; without it no bond can created between the listener and the musical piece being played; without mindfulness all events, including those of an acousmatic nature, are random and introduce unsettling chaos. In her poetry, Hartwig, not a musician herself, observes artists performing, and trying to understand them by speculating about them. Delving into the biographies of others tames the incomprehensible and, in its own way,reduces the distance between the listener and the artist. Hartwig's poems referring to music, often by directly mentioning the composer's name, are an expression of affirmation of the art of sounds, but also, consequently, an expression of affirmation of categories as fundamental as beauty and goodness, which endure and bring hope.