A world without gravity

"...He returned to the clarinet, whose emotional range, from the riotous to the stately, he had not suspected when he was younger. He found a good teacher, an older gentleman, patient, intuitive and funny.

The man told Henry that the only native talent needed to play music well was joy.

Once, when Henry was labouring on Mozart's clarinet concerto, the teacher interrupted him and said, 'Where's the lightness? You've turned Mozart into a heavy, black ox and you're ploughing a field with him.'

With that, he picked up his own clarinet and produced a burst of music that was so loud, clear and brilliant, a wild storm of gyring notes, that Henry was stunned. It was an aural version of Marc Chagall, with goats, brides, grooms and horses swirling about in a multicoloured sky, a world without gravity.

Then the teacher stopped playing, and the sudden emptiness in the room nearly sucked Henry forward."

Page 20, 'Beatrice and Virgil, a novel' by Yann Martel, Author of 'Life of Pi', Winner of the Man Booker Prize
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Marc Chagall - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Chagall

Au dessus de la ville (Above the city) - http://www.art.com/products/p10278035-sa-i853147/marc-chagall-au-dessus-de-la-ville.htm

Image taken from Google Images. Most of his paintings are in there.

Yann Martel: "He collaborated with Omar Daniel, composer-in-residence at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, on a piece for piano, string quartet and bass. The composition, You Are Where You Are, is based on text written by Martel, which includes parts of cellphone conversations taken from moments in an ordinary day."