largo

Published June 25, 2014 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette


largo adj., adv. Music: a slow and stately tempo; a direction to the performer.  Also a movement or passage at that tempo.

     When I was a young woman studying the flute, I relished the largo movements in the baroque concertos I learned.  Composers like to use flutes for the bright, happy, skipping, flighty, racy sounds in orchestral music, but speedy technique was never my forte.  What I love about my instrument is its breathiness, its sound, that it comes from my core going through its core.  Even in grade school while I was first learning to play, what people admired was my tone.

     Largo movements allow a performer to focus on tone, but the tempo is human in another way:  at 45-50 beats per minute, they move at the pace of a heartbeat at rest.  They’re reflective, thoughtful, peaceful movements, but deliberate.  They’re going somewhere the way a meditation is going somewhere even though the meditator may be sitting in place.  They arrive at the end without strenuous activity; they arrive at the end regardless.  Like we all do. 
     I was pleased to find harmonious definitions in my Spanish dictionary.  “Largo,” the masculine form, means long, free, or liberal;  “a lo largo de” means alongside of, or along.  “!Largo de aqui!” means Get out! (presumably “of here.”)  “Larga,” the feminine form, is used as a noun to refer to the longest billiard cue, but as an adjective or adverb, it means the same as the masculine form:  long, free, liberal.  “A la larga” means “in the long run.”
     It was from a gut-level understanding of the underlying meanings of the musical term largo that I chose it as the acronym for Lindsay Advocates for Responsive Government Organization (or if you prefer, larga, Lindsay Advocates for Responsive Government Association.)  Through the lawsuit we brought against the Dollar General II proposal, LARG(o) represented all those people who stood to be damaged by the City’s unwillingness to consider anyone but the developer’s and the landowners’ interests. 
     In attempting to focus on the process by which such decisions are made, LARG(o)’s lawsuit pinpointed areas where the City’s lack of responsiveness made them vulnerable to legal action.  It was a turning point, even if only a pinpoint, against the widely held sentiment that “It’s always been this way - you’re not going to change anything.”   Meaning, they’ll do what they want, regardless.
     Heads up:  things here in Lindsay are changing, even if at glacial speed.  With the help of more involvement from people in the community, those changes will better reflect the needs and wants of the people who live here.  This is a largo movement, slow and stately, steady, unstopping, moving at the pace of a heartbeat at rest.  In the long run, responsive government is what we will have.  You can bet your sweet, sonorous quarter notes on that.

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Trudy Wischemann is a musician who writes.  You can send her your favorite largo movements c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.