Brahms and John AC4CA

Early in the morning, it scarcely gets above 20 degrees C here. Getting up at 5 AM this morning, I went to the entrance approach and pulled the weeds spreading among the lawn and low hedge of azalea. Tiring work. Not so tortuous as in the midsummer any longer, though. Cool breeze was flowing on me.

Talking of fall, I could never forget Brahms. I guess I have written this same phrase in this season here for many times. It's still the season for his music.

I have read an interesting article on Brahms by Walter Frisch, a professor of Columbia University when he wrote it. It is titled as Musical Politics Revisited; Brahms the Liberal Modernist vs. Wagner the Reactionary Conservative, which was first published in NY Times in 1995. He had been the president of American Brahms Society for a long time. Compared with "Meister Singer" by Wagner, Brahms' "German Requiem" which was composed in the same year late in 19th century is a humanistic music to console listners not based on Christianity dogma. Wagner was a composer of populistic conservatism, as Frisch concluded. Brahms was endorsing Jewish people in Austria while Wagner was a nationalist, which Nazis has later taken advantage of for political propaganda. This aspect of Brahms was surprising to me since I thought he had been regarded as a conservativist, musically as well as socially. Now I could understand why his German Requiem sounds far from the ordinary requiem in Christianity. It has sounded to me as if an atheistic music. But it is still soothing the minds of listeners.

Another article regarding Brahms attracted my eyes was here;

 https://interlude.hk/on-this-day-3-april-johannes-brahms-died/?fbclid=IwAR2CWekZ8T49iYnY-Aa7Ng93pPkgfjsbfY5SApICabRJ9U5Hqy7REHBwKnQ

This paper describes how he has lived the very last time of his life and how he has taken the fatal illness as it was even though the doctor on charge tried to deceive from good will. It is impressive he has accepted it as it was. In his 4th symphony, I could hear an attitude of reconciliation with life despite of passion to live. I believe he has lived as he expressed his spirit in this great music. 

Lastly, this is a medical paper speculating the cause of his death. From the former article, we could guess it had been the liver failure due to liver cancer. This paper speculates it was a neuroendocrine tumor and its metastasis to liver resulting in liver failure. Episodes of interchanging ravenous appetite and nausea seen in the last years of Brahms made the author hypothesize as written above. Brahms was extremely obese then. Neuroendocrine tumor could be the reason. Of course, it is of no use for us to understand Brahms. But this story reminded me of my good friend, John, AC4CA who sadly passed away this February.  

Whenever we met on the radio, we often talked about music. He has loved Chopin and has played some pieces of Chopin by himself. As written elsewhere in this blog, he has suffered from the same kind of rare cancer as Brahms has. In the case of Brahms, the origin seems to be speculated at pancreas. John had it in GI tract. He has not told about his illness but just said he was attending to MD Anderson in Houston. Reading of Brahms' bouts of the tumor due to intermittently secreted hormon, I just wondered if John had not had any such bout himself. He was not complaining of his health issue but always said everything was OK and he was hopeful for the treatment given at MD Anderson. He seemed more concerned about his wife with Alzheimer. He was greedy at any news of the trial or progress of treatment for that difficult illness. During the period of COVID 19, he could not see her in person but only through a window at the facility she was contained. He seemed to be sad not seeing her face to face. At least, in our conversation, he was not enthralled with his own health issue but with his wife's condition. Hasn't he had any unpleasant attack of neuroendocrine tumor? Should I have asked him about that? 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5070262/?fbclid=IwAR0yDla4faEGQopKRre-0zjXdczqAvuDP8Zaz9hNxWdDsEjg6GfuXyLzu2Q

Time flies away as if nothing has happened. I still recall both of them from time to time. As already posted, Brahms' 4th symphony is a music of reconciliation to life. The last movement of Passacaglia expresses that in most deliberate and passionate way. This recording of Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Kurt Sanderling has been the first and best of this symphony for me since I ever listened to it for the first time in my school days. 

I might have told about this before...