Awake

Far too early to get up, I was suddenly wide awake, my thoughts on that days blog post, what I'd said, should say, could say better. Back, side, other side, knees up, knees straight. Nothing was unlocking me into sleep again.

A bright idea about drawing! Should trying it when its light. No, let's try it now: tracing pictures on notebook pages laid on my bright phone screen. Aah! A little tricky avoiding the zoom in and out, but it works. Proportions and perspective captured.

Now sleep. No sleep. Finish the drawings? Open the blog? What? Music!

And so I called on you, Czech composers Petr Eben and your Suita Balladica for Cello and Piano of 1955. There in the darkness, I followed the deep-voiced instrument as it went through every kind of mood--long and lyrical, jaunty, troubled, elegaic--until finally, sleep.

What I hadn't realized was that in this piece you were reflecting on your years of internship as a boy at Buchenwald. Indeed, you wrote about it, 'It is a remembrance of the dead in mass graves and...a testimony of the wonderful faith of human beings. Faith and hope cannot be killed, the spirit cannot be defeated by external events.' The immense musical output of your long life spoke often to this point.

But I was just someone wanting 40 more winks, and loved the company of your melodies. So it is especially with music, I think. The deep structures of feeling the composer tries to depict or grapple with in music become just sounds to soothe would-be sleepers. And yet, I'm touched by this piece, return again and again to it. The movements, Introduction and Dance, Mazurka, Elegy, Toccata, are in just right order and of just the right length. Now I know better why I like it.

Did you know you would spend time with such as me? You wrote and sent out into the world something which hasn't yet exhausted its influence. Dark bedrooms, or concert halls, like an angel you'll visit anywhere to minister.Whether we sip at what you offer or immerse ourselves in it, the offer remains the same.

This colloquy of cello and piano is designed like a seed pod for reproduction and dispersal. Even our casual words can have long lives, but this was built to last...and last it has. You offered a lot, Mr Eben, and I've taken a little, and perhaps a little more. You wouldn't have thought of me, but you knew how speech from the heart works.