Last spring, I have had a great reunion with a good old friend of mine, a few years younger and one of the orchestra company in the med school days. I might have mentioned that before.
He used to play violin at the orchestra and a usual member of small ensemble with me in it. I have first met him at a summer camp of the orchestra in Shinshu when he was a freshman. I heard a few good violinists had joined it. He was one of them. At the very first moment of seeing each other, he was playing a prelude of Well Tempered Klavier of Bach at a lobby. When I watched him playing it, he told me he had mastered it by himself possibly when I asked about that to him. He added it was not so difficult even for me and asked me if i would try it. That was the unforgettable first ever meeting with him.
Knowing we had the same kind of taste for chamber music, we have played such as Clarinet Quintet by Brahms, the 1st piano trio by Mendelssohn or the 3rd piano quiartet by Brahms and so forth, even though mostly some movements of those music. It was just performance by amateur players but still very precious experience for me. Around my graduation, we have promised to play Faure's piano trio and he has prepared the score with beautiful cover. But our busy days as doctor have kept us apart for years and have not given us a chance to play it yet.
He has been an excellent neurologist and spent days as a faculty staff at a med school. About 20 years ago, when I planned an ensemble camp in Shinshu with friends, he spent time with us for a day or two.
He stood at a railway station near the camp at night, where we promised to see each other there all after over twenty years. I wondered if I could recognize him all after that interval. In the darkness, he stood at the exit of the countryside station and looked all the same as the time of the university orchestra days. A tall and a bit shy looking guy with curly hair. We have enjoyed playing the 1st movement of the 1st piano trio by Mendelssohn at the camp. It sure brought me back to the university days.
The next reunion was in the last spring as told above. Another two decades have passed. No music rendition this time. Just a few glasses of beer and hot spa at a local hotel. At that time, he told me he had been impressed at a couple of Renaissance acapella religious music. One of them, he is mostly impressed, is Motet "Versa est in lectum" by Alonso Lobo, a spanish composer in late Renaissance. He has even sent me a CD of this music a few days ago.
He had to retire early due to a health issue, not directly fatal but long lasting. He has been working as a part time doctor at a hospital near to his home in Tokyo. The motet's lyrics is a well known scripture in the Book of Job, so far as I investigated. It is Job30:31. He seemed to have told his wife to play it at his funeral.
The motet sounds quiet and beautiful. Soothing the listeners' mind. Somewhat nostalgic bringing our mind to an old place where we have grown up, even though the basic mood is still pathetic. I wonder how he has been listening to this piece.
No comments:
Post a Comment