Posts Tagged ‘Schoenberg’

Dear One, going through my albums the other day, I found that I had Piece Heroique by Cesar Franck on vinyl; I had thought I would need to buy it on CD. I found I had his Piano Quintette on vinyl; I had already bought the CD (no loss). I’m listening to the quintet now, thinking of it, thinking of you.

What’s the difference between you and music? Music wrote the Universe, the Universe wrote music. The two of them together wrote the two of us.

Music is the standard: it is venerable old rules and principles that your ear can hear. Your piano tells you this whenever you play it (an altar, no less). However much you or I may deviate from its teachings, its pronouncements, there it is, in our ears and brains, telling us what is true. Love itself must bow or at least nod its head in recognition as this truth in sound passes by.

Franck fought. Brahms persevered. Schoenberg battled. It is up to us, and to the rest of the world, to make their efforts worth their efforts.

I hope the big sky has been good to you. Do you think I don’t still love you, even after all? There are not enough as if!s in the world to respond to that thought. But if I don’t have you, I do have Franck and Brahms and Schoenberg: they’ll take care of me in your absence; and they’ll take care of you, too: the truest you, who lives in their notes.