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Today has been one of those blissful, and rare, English summer days, temperature in the upper 70s, warm enough now to sit outside in the garden at dusk and listen to the blackbirds singing. The blackbird’s song comes to me from the garden, to my left. To my right comes the sound of Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio.
It’s a recording I taped from the radio more than 25 years ago, from a broadcast of a concert I attended at St John’s Smith Square, London – Peter Frankl (piano), Gyorgy Pauk (violin), Ralph Kirshbaum (cello).
In 1984 my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Over the following three years I used to get the train up from London to Manchester, most weeks, to go up and see her. She was being cared for by my brother and my sister-in-law. I had one of those cassette Walkman monstrosities – shaped like a brick with an attachment you used to fasten to your belt. On the train journey up I would take, for reading, Jane Austen and, for listening, tapes of Kathleen Ferrier, Madam Butterfly and the “Archduke” Trio. The trio and Madam Butterfly (Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Bjoerling) lasted precisely the length of time of the train journey from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. Kathleen Ferrier thus was saved for the journey home.
It’s the long slow movement of the Beethoven that pierces me most deeply. For me this music is personal and specific. I hear in it the portrait of my mother, of her soft, gentle character, and of a depth of feeling she never allowed herself to express. It’s the cello part, written simply by Beethoven so the Archduke could play it, which carries all the subterranean feeling of this movement, the inexpressible part – the piano and violin carry the outward expression, the part we comprehend.
Since my mother died, in 1987, I have played this often, like tonight, and it still has the same power to move me.
I listened to Madam Butterfly too recently. Oddly there was nothing there. Although I listened to it so often, in those days, and much as I love the opera still, in it nothing is fixed of my mother.
I will never be able to say the same of the “Archduke” Trio.
They forecast rain for the rest of the week.
It’s a recording I taped from the radio more than 25 years ago, from a broadcast of a concert I attended at St John’s Smith Square, London – Peter Frankl (piano), Gyorgy Pauk (violin), Ralph Kirshbaum (cello).
In 1984 my mother was diagnosed with cancer. Over the following three years I used to get the train up from London to Manchester, most weeks, to go up and see her. She was being cared for by my brother and my sister-in-law. I had one of those cassette Walkman monstrosities – shaped like a brick with an attachment you used to fasten to your belt. On the train journey up I would take, for reading, Jane Austen and, for listening, tapes of Kathleen Ferrier, Madam Butterfly and the “Archduke” Trio. The trio and Madam Butterfly (Victoria de los Angeles and Jussi Bjoerling) lasted precisely the length of time of the train journey from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly. Kathleen Ferrier thus was saved for the journey home.
It’s the long slow movement of the Beethoven that pierces me most deeply. For me this music is personal and specific. I hear in it the portrait of my mother, of her soft, gentle character, and of a depth of feeling she never allowed herself to express. It’s the cello part, written simply by Beethoven so the Archduke could play it, which carries all the subterranean feeling of this movement, the inexpressible part – the piano and violin carry the outward expression, the part we comprehend.
Since my mother died, in 1987, I have played this often, like tonight, and it still has the same power to move me.
I listened to Madam Butterfly too recently. Oddly there was nothing there. Although I listened to it so often, in those days, and much as I love the opera still, in it nothing is fixed of my mother.
I will never be able to say the same of the “Archduke” Trio.
They forecast rain for the rest of the week.
6 comments:
What a poignant memory, OF, sweet and sad and powerful with longing. I connect Beethoven with my mother also. We used to listen to the Fantasia together, I had it on a reel to reel. Anytime I hear it unexpectedly I burst into tears. I find it extraordinarily powerful and evocative and full of mood changes.
Mum died in 1971. Also cancer.
XO
WWW
Lovely wonderful writing David. I associate music with my parents but not classical--I came to that on my own. But my mother, how she loved to dance; her 1st son is like that--I love to get out with a lovely lady and boogie up a storm--I call it dancing the walls down :-)She used to grab hold of my brother or me and put on Glenn Miller and dance with us a lot. She adored it and we learned early on never to be embarrassed about dancing with one's mother. At church dances in the basement of the elementary school I attended there was one priest she loved dancing with--dad had this big grin on his face and waited till she was 'available' and took her hand and they dance beautifully together. Memories--lovely things eh?
Beau
Hmm! There is no doubt that music has the power to move and can become imprinted with our deepest memories. Even as a 'pro' (so-to-speak) this sometimes happens (ironically, my biggest fear when making music my somewhat meagre living was that daily exposure might diminish this effect).
I don't know how it works, but all sorts of bits of music - cheap music, highbrow music - fuses itself onto something inside us that makes it so much part of us we can't shake it off. It might be "Apple Blossom Time", a Glenn Miller tune (I love Glenn Miller -"Chatannooga Choo Choo") or a choral piece (Cann Base 1: How about Stanford's "The Blue Bird"; that makes me ache). Maybe it isn't always the quality of the music, but rather its association -like mine with the Archduke and my mother; WWW and the "Green Green Fields of Home". I don't know the pyschology of it, but Noel Coward was right. There are songs that just reduce us to tears.
Ache--Barber's Adagio does that for me--when I returned from the war--I was home for maybe a week or so, i turned on the radio to a classical station here--I badly needed that and on came the Adagio which reduced me shortly to a streaming face--the aching beauty of it began my healing, I think, looking back--I played it so often in those following days along with Mozart's string quartets. And Annie was there for me as she always was--so prescient, so fine-tuned to my many moods in those early days--just holding not speaking just being there. Yes music will pierce you to the core and make up for so much that is wrong--deliquescing it away. Far away.
Beau
Beau - Yes, the Adagio is a heart aching piece, isn't it. Do you know Barber's violin concerto? It has a lovely slow movement that is the equal of other more popular violin concertos, like Bruch's.
David
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