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Posts Tagged ‘Schumann’

A Letter Sent Back in Time to Schumann

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on June 29, 2025| 10 Comments »


 
 
I wish you could have heard it, Robert,
your Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major played
tonight in a home in the San Juan Mountains.
I know you heard it many times—heck,
played by Clara and by Mendelssohn—
but I think you would have loved it tonight,
the way the cello resonated through the old
wood floor and into the soles of my feet,
the way my husband smiled through
the whole scherzo, the way birdsong
filled the silences between each movement,
the way the whole evening was cradled
by the scent of evergreens and the low pink glow
of the sun. It was exuberant, Robert, the kind of ecstatic
beauty so desperately needed now when humans
turn against each other so quickly.
We need something “splendid, full of vigor
and freshness” just as much as you must have
back in 1842. I wish you could have seen it,
the way the audience rose to our feet,
thrilled by the music, the musicians, the night.
I wish you could have heard it, the applause,
the ovation. I wish you could read this letter
while you’re in the sanatorium, wondering
what it was all for. What do any of us know
of sanity? You wouldn’t believe what the world
is like now. But I know, Robert, one way to deal
with the ache of the world is with beauty, and friend,
it’s still happening, the craziness and
the drive to find hope in music. It’s still
happening, your music in rooms small and grand.
It’s still happening, the agony, the love.

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After Reading Owl’s Letter of Evie’s Bike Accident

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on December 30, 2013| 1 Comment »

“It is so sweet,” the song says,
“to jest with songs and with hearts
and with serious combat.”
I do not know the poet,
Emanuel Geibel, nor have I played
Schumann’s Der Hidalgo, Opus 30 No. 3.
But this is what I turn to, Evie,
when I hear you are in Room 879.
I found the text first. “I am always ready
for love or for a fight.” Of course
I would think of you then, you who are
both lover and fighter,
fiercely, equally at the same time.

If I could, I would sit beside
the hospital bed and hum lieder,
hum so I would not mispronounce
the German. Better yet, I would bring
your electric piano to your room
and plunk at the keys in my awkward way
so you could hum along. As the Hidalgo says,
“I sing outside many a grilled window,
and I mock many a knight with an insolent song.”

Surely the pain is a knight worth mocking.
Surely we could conjure up ample insolence
even as we praise the graying winter sky
beyond the window glass, praise the birds
winging past the frame that neither of us
(but your husband) could name, praise
the music of heartache and blossom and loss,
and praise and curse the passions that lead you
to the roads you love.

“Tomorrrow,” says the song, “I shall carry home
flowers or wounds.” I would always wish
for you flowers. Acres and acres of daffodils.
Red buds at the end of your drive. Magnolias
throwing their blossoms into your yard.
But here, the wounds. You have known them before,
and still off you go, as Geibel writes, “off, then,
to adventure!” To adventure, Evie,
to adventure! Oh damn. To adventure! The wounds.
To adventure! Your pelvis. Your clavicle. Your ribs.

One morning, while I was still in sleep,
you came to wake me, humming, and cupping
in your hands a dark and bitter delicious brew.
How I would love to come to you now
with something dark and delicious, something
I knew could make you smile, something
satisfying to warm you, rouse you, though we both
know how bitter it is.

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Liederkreis, Opus 24

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 17, 2013| 1 Comment »

Cosi e’, se vi pare
(That’s the way it is, if it seems that way to you)
—Italian saying

Under my fingers,
the chords are familiar,
allegretto, in 2/4 time.
I lean into the ritardandos,
swelling the passing tensions,
failing to remember to exhale.
The lyrics, perhaps because
they are in German,
are beautiful. I can forget
that they speak of sleepless
nights and helplessness,
and dreams that languish
unfulfilled. My voice drifts
into the rafters. What
do I know of dreams?
There is so much I do not know.
Even this life I call my own.
What do I know of it?
Who taught them to sing,
the birds in autumn?
Who taught them to dance,
the leaves? Tonight, I do not see them,
the shadows my voice moves through
as I follow the staffs in front of me.
Nor do I think of translation. Nor
do I think of who is listening,
nor of who is not. For now,
there is Schumann and Heine,
there is this voice that is borrowing me,
there is this song that says
it must be sung.

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Two Simple-ings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 8, 2013| 2 Comments »

still blooming
that apricot tree in my
rearview mirror

*

playing Schumann
for forty minutes
it’s the only news

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