Before reading this, give this movement a listen. This is Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, 2nd movement, as conducted by Herbert von Karajan (my favorite version):
This, in my opinion, is one of the saddest, most haunting, and most powerful pieces of music I have ever heard. Listening to it, I mean really listening to it, never failed to bring tears and deep feeling.
This morning, after I showered, I decided I really needed to hear Phish’s Wading in the Velvet Sea, which I did while I started to dress. IIt had been in my head ever since I woke up this morning, and when that happens, only a listen will help, I’ve found. You can skip this one, if you like, but here’s the song in case you are curious and/or unfamiliar:
I had left Rhythmbox (my audio player on my computer in my office) on random, and my computer decided that the next song it would play would be Beethoven. You know, the piece I embedded at the top of this post. And I heard the first note. And I froze.
That very first note has a way of transporting me to a place deep within me, and I was helpless to do anything except listen. I was helpless to the power of this piece of music to evoke, within me, all of the beautiful, terrible, and heart-wrenching pain of which I am capable, and transforming this pain into a transcendent experience.
If you don’t know the story of this symphony in context of Beethoven’s life, then let is suffice that when he finished this symphony, Ludwig van Beethoven was nearly completely deaf. I cannot imagine the internal struggle and pain that a person, especially a musical genius, must have gone through upon losing the ability to hear. The effects were pronounced, and Beethoven was forced to take a back-seat to playing and conducting, as a result, and yet he wrote two more symphonies after this one! Including the famous 9th Symphony, of course.
Nonetheless, we can all, perhaps, sympathize with that pain while listening to that piece of music. For me, at least, there is a sense of profound sadness and loss within those notes, but also there is a sense of hope, I think. That hope, buried within sadness, peeks through like a shy puppy during a thunderstorm, afraid and trembling, but capable of forcing a smile onto our lips as well.
And as the piece ended, the emotional resolution left a ghost of those feelings on me for my ride to work, and even resonated into the rest of my busy morning. And here I am, sharing with you.
That’s all I can express, right now. Writing, for me, is an expression of hope and a desire for understanding and intimacy, but recently my life has been an orchestra of painful notes, with a phrasing of hope, now and then. This is a note of hope, but one surrounded by pain, anger, and loss. I hope to return to writing more consistently, soon.
I urge you to listen to the 7th symphony, in whole. This time, start with the first movement, which is wonderful on its own, and listen to at least the first two movements (I think the second two are not as good, but still worth the listen).
Skepticism, Properly Applied 