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by
James Rhodes
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July 28, 2017 - November 6, 2019
But the unassailable fact is that music has, quite literally, saved my life and, I believe, the lives of countless others. It provides company when there is none, understanding where there is confusion, comfort where there is distress, and sheer, unpolluted energy where there is a hollow shell of brokenness and fatigue.
There is an addiction that is more destructive and dangerous than any drug, and it is rarely even acknowledged, let alone talked about. It is insidious, pervasive and at
epidemic levels. It is the primary cause of the culture
entitlement, laziness and depression that surrounds us. It is an art form, an identity, a way of life and has a bottomless, infinite...
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Our society, our businesses, our social constructs, habits, pastimes, addictions and distractions are predicated on vast, endemic levels of emptiness and dissatisfaction. I call it self-hatred.
We are all in a world of pain.
love him even more because he got reviews like this one from the New York Times: ‘The House of Bondage of normal key relations is discarded. He is a psychologist of the uglier emotions. Hatred, contempt, rage – above all, rage – disgust, despair, mockery and defiance legitimately serve as models for moods.’
One broke a finger while playing it live.
And yet, despite being a walking, talking car crash, he was aggressively prolific –
The slow movement encapsulates perfectly a life too short-lived – funereal and dark, tinged with hope and an insight into the infinite potential of genius.
It is a devastating reminder of just how much we have missed out on by his dying prematurely at the age of thirty-one. Stupid syphilis.
There was a piece of music that Bach wrote around 1720 which was described by Yehudi Menuhin as ‘the greatest structure for solo violin that exists’. I’d go much further than that. If Goethe was right and architecture is frozen music (what a quote!), this piece is a magical combination of the Taj Mahal, the Louvre and St Paul’s Cathedral. It is the final and longest movement of his second (of six, of course) partita for violin. It is a set of variations (sixty-four of them, I counted) on a theme that drags us through every emotion known to man and a few bonus ones too. In this case, the
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No wonder classical is so fucked. A single piece of music has dozens of extra little pieces of information attached to it, none of which is important to anyone other than me and the other four piano-mentalists reading this.
When his first wife, the great love of his life dies, he writes a piece of music in her memory. It is for solo violin, one of the six (of course) partitas he composed for that instrument. But it isn’t really just a piece of music. It is a musical fucking cathedral built in her memory. It is the Eiffel Tower of love songs. And the crowning achievement in this partita is its last movement, the Chaconne. Fifteen minutes of shattering intensity in the heartbreaking key of D minor.
Imagine everything you would ever want to say to someone you loved if you knew they were going to die, even the things that you couldn’t put into words. Imagine distilling all of those words, feelings, emotions into the four strings of a violin and concentrating it into fifteen taut minutes.
ee cummings wrote that ‘to be nobody-but-yourself – in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting’. Beethoven lived that every day of his goddamn
The trick is to do whatever you want to do that makes you happy, as long as you’re not hurting those around you. Not
to do what you think you should be doing. Nor what you think other people believe you should be doing. But simply to act in a way that brings you immense joy.
walking beside one another in love, rather than falling.
The hardest lesson I’ve learned is to relax and simply enjoy what is happening today, trusting that if I’m doing the right thing then the right things will happen in their own time.
Are we that fucking stupid and incapable of living without definitives or corners or edges?
The two books I was given that day were about the body and mind’s response to trauma (Waking the Tiger) and the inner child (Homecoming). I know. Pass the bucket.
creativity is, for me, one of the most profound ways through trauma.
‘Find what you love and let it kill you’ Guardian Culture Blog, 26 April
Manageable chunks of time, focus, discipline, honest work.
If that’s your thing then play fifteen minutes of it alongside Brahms and Chopin because, well, they’re Brahms and Chopin and no matter how genuine your love of Stockhausen and Birtwistle, we both know there’s no real competition there.
Treat every meal/outing/walk/talk together as a first date with someone you are desperate to impress. Worry about what to wear, get anxious about whether
Give. Give all of the time. Give until you are exhausted and then give some more. When she’s driving you nuts and you just
