Life is serious, art is serene

 

Dear friends of piano music,

“Life is serious, art is serene” (Schiller, Wallenstein's camp, prologue)

As is well known, the so-called “seriousness of life” begins with school enrollment - a topic that concerns me a lot right now, since my son started school yesterday. This “seriousness” seems to be missing in the years before starting school, a (hopefully!) carefree and free time without any obligation comes to an end, a paradisiacal state of imagination, curiosity, and purposeless play.

It is always associated with a little sadness and anxiety when a phase of life comes to an end and a new one begins. I would have wished he had a better start than this so-called “normal operation under pandemic conditions”. In my own life there have been a few episodes or sections that may be irrevocably over. For 13 years I worked (part-time) as a church musician, i.e. led a church choir and played the organ on Sundays and feast days. I must admit that it has not always been easy for me to listen to a Protestant sermon every Sunday. The word is of great importance in Protestantism, the sermons are correspondingly long and even the pastor is familiar with the phenomenon of the so-called “preaching sleep”. Unfortunately, I was never able to practice this because I mostly worked in modern churches where the organ was right in front of the altar. What did I envy my colleagues with the beautiful old organ lofts, which were unobserved during the sermon and were able to take on noiseless sideline activities ...

But there were also pastors whom I liked to listen to. But above all one sentence that actually occurred every Sunday after the announcement of the deceased is burned into my memory: " Lord, teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." (Psalm 90:12) Today's Brahms Waltz is to be understood in this sense - beautiful, but far too short. Fortunately, you can play it over and over again.

Kind regards! Kerstin

Johannes BRAHMS Valse in G sharp minor Op. 39 n° 3: https://youtu.be/FFUBf6dDUBU