While in isolation, he finished a piece that had been commissioned. I suggested to him (via Facebook IM, it was a no-visitors situation and talking on the phone was too tiring) that he might want to take his condition as an opportunity to rest for a bit, but apparently he wasn’t having it.
This seems fitting for someone whose inspiration was Brahms' Requiem. That was, after all, a piece written in the midst of Brahms' own struggle with depression following the loss of his mother and his musical mentor, Robert Schumann. I suspect that Brahms' composing of the Requiem mirrors his own process of mourning for his lost ones. It is, after all, a requiem for the bereaved, and not for the souls of the departed.
Brahms' Requiem is a powerful piece. I used to get goosebumps while practicing it with the college choir - especially "Denn alles Fleisch, est ist wie Gras," which starts out super heavy before the later part becomes really fun to sing with a lot of challenging intervals.
Never did get a chance to perform it with the choir. Had to drop the extracurricular and get a job to pay rent, but it was still a great experience to be able to learn the piece from the inside.
I really enjoyed "The Waking Sun."
While in isolation, he finished a piece that had been commissioned. I suggested to him (via Facebook IM, it was a no-visitors situation and talking on the phone was too tiring) that he might want to take his condition as an opportunity to rest for a bit, but apparently he wasn’t having it.
This seems fitting for someone whose inspiration was Brahms' Requiem. That was, after all, a piece written in the midst of Brahms' own struggle with depression following the loss of his mother and his musical mentor, Robert Schumann. I suspect that Brahms' composing of the Requiem mirrors his own process of mourning for his lost ones. It is, after all, a requiem for the bereaved, and not for the souls of the departed.
Brahms' Requiem is a powerful piece. I used to get goosebumps while practicing it with the college choir - especially "Denn alles Fleisch, est ist wie Gras," which starts out super heavy before the later part becomes really fun to sing with a lot of challenging intervals.
Never did get a chance to perform it with the choir. Had to drop the extracurricular and get a job to pay rent, but it was still a great experience to be able to learn the piece from the inside.