Losing It
Ministerial Meandering
Losing it
Jake Runestad is a contemporary composer, still in his thirties, who has written some stunning pieces. One is called ‘Please Stay’, and is about the apparent epidemic of suicides that engulfs us, and stresses the importance - the unique value of each and every human life. In his many works he has also set to music a letter, written by Beethoven (and rendered into a poem by Todd Boss), found fourteen years after his death, in which Beethoven tells of his rapidly approaching deafness to his friends. But the letter was never sent; it was found amongst his possessions after he died.
It is a lesson to all of us. It speaks from the soul of a man whose connection with the world was through his compositions, which he would soon no longer hear. Despite his deafness beginning in his twenties, he died at the age of 56 of an undiagnosed illness, the characteristics of which lead me to suspect he had a perforated bowel from cancer.
Runestad’s piece of music, ‘A Silence Haunts Me’, is difficult to hear - and not because it is faint, but because it is not for the faint-hearted. It challenges us to empathize with losing what might be our most precious sense. I know that for most of us, we fear losing our sight, but knowing so many people who struggle to hear, and being a musician myself, I fear losing my hearing probably even more.
The lyrics of the piece tear at us, as Beethoven screams into the impending silence, with strains of some of his most famous compositions echoing in the piano accompaniment. Unfortunately, to my taste, the stomping refrain of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ also impinges sotto voce on this composition, smacking of jack-booted Nazi parades in my mind; but I suspect I may be an exception in this regard, as so many fête this inclusion in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
That aside, Runestad’s music is more than just notes; it is a piece of drama, particularly when conducted well - and there are several fine versions of this work to be found on You Tube. The invention needs to be felt as much as heard, and eyes kept on the conductor and pianist, as well as ears attuned to the subtleties of the music. For me, this piece succeeds because of the story it tells - much more than the notes on the page, which are, to a degree, predictable - but satisfyingly so.
I confess to being a little jealous of the imagination that created this piece of art, but am more than content to admire from afar, and hope that some of you will also be moved.
Philip+