Brahms

I was very late in warming up to Brahms. Perhaps one needs to achieve a certain age or maturity. I guess I always considered him superfluous to Beethoven, which was, ironically, his lifelong fear.

Or, perhaps, all I needed was to know something about the man. Brahms was a genius. The quality of his compositions is second to none. Not Bach, not even Mozart. Because he was so self-deprecating, he only allowed highly perfected works to see the light of publishing. So, not only is his output of exceptional quality, it is exceptionally consistently so.

His music tends to be weighty. This might have been part of my delay. He was a man who experienced addictions and heartbreak. Well into middle age, he fell completely in love with the daughter of his friend Robert Schumann. She was in her teens at the time - a hopelessly impossible attraction even for that time. Later he composed a masterpiece - the Alto Rhapsody - and gave it to her for a wedding present. Imagine getting a full blown, for the ages, masterpiece, full of passion and longing from, basically, your uncle for a wedding present.

So, he came by the depth reflected in his music naturally. But the real worth of the music, and the thing that took me so long to recognize, is how clearly it reflects a man who has come out the other side. His requiem, for example. It has been described as "a work that seems to tell us, with the utmost civility and compassion, that dying is neither the most frightening nor the most terrible thing a human can do". Here is a man who is at peace with what is, including himself.

Tonight was the going-away party for the DeWetters. Over 300 people attended. The usual ladies (thank you, thank you, Georgia, Katherine, and Nancy!) did a wonderful job organizing it. Tracy, a relative newcomer to St. James, put together an exceptional video of goodbyes, well wishing, and remembering. It was a perfect goodbye celebration.

So, when I came home afterward, I was at a loss about what to do with the evening. Upon a bit of consideration, Brahms was perfect.