Today I heard a friend of mine play op. 118 (here by Murray Perahia) by Johannes Brahms. It was mainly excerpts form it, since he was still working on it. I love Brahms, he is among my favorite composers, but I didn't know this opus. As my friend told me, it seems op. 118 and 119 are the last pieces he wrote for piano, and they were dedicated to Clara Schumann (I haven't checked this out precisely, I'm just going with what my friend said). They are so beautiful, so painful.
Brahms did know about loneliness, about love, about the pain of loving, about the heart of the world. In his music in general, I feel the great epic search for truth, for the ultimate meaning, but also the great sorrow of humanity. Our own incompleteness, which we seek to fill with the presence of another human being, with another person whom we may never find, whom we seek all our lives. We seek desperately, as Brahms sought, with anguish, with pain, but also with hope. We hope that, in the end, the world will make sense to us, that time will forgive us and grant us eternity.
We try to make our best of this world, to get as much as we can from it, to live life, but there are always obstacles to this. In the music of Brahms, I see this despair, this hopelessness, but I also see some undeniable hope, or some hope for hope, some deep deep yearning for light among a world of darkness.
A poem, by Jorge Luis Borges (this is the second part, full version in Spanish here)
1964
II
I shall never be happy. Maybe it doesn't matter.
There are so many other things in the world;
any single instant is deeper
and more diverse than the sea. Life is short
and even if the hours are so long, one
dark marvel stalks us,
death, that other sea, that other arrow
that frees us from the sun and the moon
and from love. The joy that you gave me
and took away from me must be erased;
what was everything must be nothing.
Only the faint pleasure of sorrow remains,
that vain custom that draws me
to the South, to a certain door, to a certain corner.
---
A little extra gift, my favorite orchestral piece by him:
Johannes Brahms - Tragic Overture op. 81
Brahms did know about loneliness, about love, about the pain of loving, about the heart of the world. In his music in general, I feel the great epic search for truth, for the ultimate meaning, but also the great sorrow of humanity. Our own incompleteness, which we seek to fill with the presence of another human being, with another person whom we may never find, whom we seek all our lives. We seek desperately, as Brahms sought, with anguish, with pain, but also with hope. We hope that, in the end, the world will make sense to us, that time will forgive us and grant us eternity.
Johannes Brahms
We try to make our best of this world, to get as much as we can from it, to live life, but there are always obstacles to this. In the music of Brahms, I see this despair, this hopelessness, but I also see some undeniable hope, or some hope for hope, some deep deep yearning for light among a world of darkness.
A poem, by Jorge Luis Borges (this is the second part, full version in Spanish here)
1964
II
I shall never be happy. Maybe it doesn't matter.
There are so many other things in the world;
any single instant is deeper
and more diverse than the sea. Life is short
and even if the hours are so long, one
dark marvel stalks us,
death, that other sea, that other arrow
that frees us from the sun and the moon
and from love. The joy that you gave me
and took away from me must be erased;
what was everything must be nothing.
Only the faint pleasure of sorrow remains,
that vain custom that draws me
to the South, to a certain door, to a certain corner.
---
A little extra gift, my favorite orchestral piece by him:
Johannes Brahms - Tragic Overture op. 81
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