Richibi’s Weblog

    “Geranium” 

 

         Odilon Redon

 

               _______

 

               

we’re reaching the end of November, with

only three sonatas to go, which will be 

devoted to Beethoven’s last three, they 

exist in their import, impact, beyond 

whatever’s been since, or before, 

recorded

 

if Beethoven’s Hammerklavier was a 

treatise on the physical possibilities 

of a piano, its breadth of tonal range, 

the scope of possible volumes, soft,

loud, not to mention its ability to, in

one instrument, play all the scales,

his following three sonatas, evolved

from the physical to the metaphysical,

“To be, or not to be”,  he might as well

be asking, much like Shakespeare

 

there’d been metaphysical works before,

Bach’s cantatas, Handel’s Messiah, but

this metaphysics was of another order,

there’d been a revolution in France, the 

Christian God had been there even

made illegal, Christians sent to the 

guillotine, see Poulenc’s formidable 

Dialogue of the Carmelites for proof

of that

 

Beethoven’s prayer, his evocation, in

his last three works for solo piano, 

were to the Entity that might, or might

not be, out there, “To be, or not to be, 

that [remained] the question”

 

the miraculous is that Beethoven, with 

profound humility and respect, notes 

that are clear, concise, and 

straightforward, confronts the Entity 

with nothing but his unadorned self, 

at a loss in a sea of meaning, even 

suffering despair, presenting, as an 

argument the evidence of his life, 

his art, his manifest and irrevocable 

being, much as a flower would, 

could it speak, no more, admittedly, 

no less, but nevertheless a flower, 

see above, and there is, Beethoven 

says, glory in that

 

here’s his Opus 109, listen, enjoy

               

ponder 

         

             

R ! chard