Chaconne

So I finally started on the Mozart violin sonata in E minor (kv 304). It is a beautiful piece, although a bit dark at places. It was composed in 1778 in Mannheim and Paris- on which trip his mother died and he fell in love with the Weber sisters. Well, I am doing so well on this piece so far. It almost feels like I cannot play as quickly as I used to on the faster notes. If I could just stop grappling the neck of the violin!

There is an interesting article in the Washington Post about the social experiment in which Joshua Bell played at a D.C. Metro station during a Friday morning rush hours. I wish I were there! I would have recognized him for sure! He is pretty cute, but no, I never tried to get his autograph after his performances in Boston. Maybe I should do that next time, Heehee. I don't want to comment on the outcome of the experiment, but rather talk about the piece he played twice during that 45 minutes, first and last- Johann Sebastian Bach's Chaconne. I never heard him playing it in concert, or in recordings. To be honest, I was surprised that he played it in the subway station.

I finally want to write this down- maybe also because the tragedy earlier this week, and all the human tragedies there have been, are, and will be.

This piece is what finally pushed me over the edge- meaning start learning violin as a hopeless adult with no prior music instrument training =(. What an extraordinary piece of music! How could I describe it- it is everything about life itself. 博大精沉。Quoting Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Clara Schumann: "On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind."

Not a word of overstatement. The first time I heard it- I didn't know what had hit me. All I knew was that I felt like something started swelling up inside of me, filling up my chest. That deepest core of me was struck by something so powerful, yet so gentle and warm. Tears just streamed down my face. For a long while I couldn't grasp what was happening to me- it was a totally overwhelming and humbling feeling. It was by no means the tear of sadness, although yes part of the music is very sad. It was a total understanding without the need for any words. Yes, you can hear such suffering, such sadness in the music, but then there is the total embrace of such suffering life has to offer, there is the deepest empathy for other human beings despite the darkness human beings can harbor, despite the vulnerability and pain this empathy for others can bring. There is the hope. JSB was a devout, religious man; I am not. I guess you can try to extract some religious meaning from this secular music he wrote, but it is irrelevant here. The one who wrote it 300 years ago, the one who played (recorded) it 30 years ago, and me at the moment, had the total understanding in that 14 minutes of music.

Later I found out that some said Bach wrote the Chaconne after the sudden death of his first wife, Maria Barbara during his trip to Karlsbad.

Sadly, I don't think I will ever be able to play it. It is simply way too hard. But in a way, I am already grateful that it was written, some could play it well, and I can feel it.