{"id":1496,"date":"2009-08-09T11:17:35","date_gmt":"2009-08-09T16:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=1496"},"modified":"2011-05-31T15:29:43","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T20:29:43","slug":"sunday-in-the-car-with-ludwig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.silkentent.com\/Trees\/?p=1496","title":{"rendered":"Sunday in the Car with Ludwig"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 9, 2009
\nSunday<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are not the barriers erected which can say to an aspiring talent, “Thus far and no farther.”
\n<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u201d Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827
\n\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 German composer<\/p>\n

Some time in late May, after my initial rejection by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, I was leaving a health care appointment\u00c2\u00a0when I heard a not unfamiliar melody on the radio playing in the reception area. A symphony, I knew that, probably one I have played and studied in my long-ago life as an orchestra violinist. But which one?<\/p>\n

In the car, I tuned my radio to the classical music station. The piece was still playing, coming to the end of the section I evidently knew so well by heart\u00c2\u00a0that I’d been humming\u00c2\u00a0along in my head\u00c2\u00a0and was exactly in time with the recording. Before the break between that\u00c2\u00a0part and the next, I remembered: Beethoven’s Seventh, the second movement, with its hypnotic ostinato<\/em> that\u00c2\u00a0so captivated\u00c2\u00a0the audience at the premiere of the piece in 1813 they demanded that it be encored.<\/p>\n

At home I pulled out our recording\u00c2\u00a0of the Seventh, played it a few times, the second movement more than a few times. The next day I took it with me in the car. And kept it with me there, playing it over and over as I moved toward my seventh summer at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. The somewhat melancholy mood of the second movement soothed me during the weeks I pondered my outcast state, and the exuberance of the final movement always left me feeling better and more hopeful. When my rejection was reversed, the whole symphony became a symbol of the determination I felt to make the very best of this second chance.<\/p>\n

Over the past week I have made a deliberate effort to assess what I have accomplished as a writer in the past year, and tried to clarify how I hope this Bread Loaf experience will help shape the direction of my development in this next year. I read all the journal work I’d done every August since 2003, looked at the manuscripts I’d presented there and how I had applied (or failed to or declined to apply) the things I’d learned.<\/p>\n

Last night, Ron and I watched The Soloist<\/em>, a movie with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr. that chronicles the\u00c2\u00a0friendship between\u00c2\u00a0a Los Angeles journalist and Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, a gifted musician with a mental illness\u00c2\u00a0who is living on the streets of the city. Ayers is especially\u00c2\u00a0devoted to Beethoven, and seems most transported out of his schizophrenia after playing or listening to Beethoven’s music.<\/p>\n

For years, the Saint-Saens piano concertos and the Franck Symphony in D have been my traveling companions across the New York Thruway to Vermont. Today, I heard the Beethoven Symphonies 1 through\u00c2\u00a06 and the Piano Concerto #5 (the Emperor) as I made my way north to a brief touchdown in Albany.<\/p>\n

Beethoven is almost universally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. (Do I need that “almost”? Is there anyone who disagrees?) The first two symphonies are from his early period, completed while he studied with Joseph Haydn. The third symphony, the “Eroica,” signals the beginning of his middle period, the years in which he shaped and refined his particular style and voice.<\/p>\n

Listening to the pieces one right after the other, I can hear that development. The early works are certainly beautiful and pleasant to listen to. They have all the parts one expects a symphony to have \u00e2\u20ac\u201d four movements, one slow, one sprightly, with\u00c2\u00a0themes that are stated early on and come back, often enlarged and combined. But, especially when compared with the Eroica and beyond, they are tame without being timid, satisfying without being challenging, predictable without being banal. The first two are certainly OK to listen to in the car. Beginning with the Eroica, however, it takes some discipline to keep your mind on your driving instead of being transported by the music.<\/p>\n

These insights are important to me as I make my way to my seventh sojourn as a participant in\u00c2\u00a0the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. My initial rejection sent me first into a tailspin of disappointment unto depression. But it also led me to examine carefully what I had been about as a writer, not only in the past year, but over the whole of my efforts to find my direction and develop my voice. I tore apart the manuscript I’d had such confidence in and sought help\u00c2\u00a0with it. When my reversal of fortune came in late June, I had a much better piece to send and a much clearer idea of who I am as an artist and where I have work to do.<\/p>\n

Beethoven’s middle period saw him producing ambitious works that changed the sound and sensibility of symphonic music. That he struggled with increasing deafness as well as other physical and emotional difficulties during these years makes his achievements all the more impressive. “I am but lately little satisfied with my works, I shall take a new way,” he wrote in 1802, and began writing the Eroica.<\/p>\n

I’ve been in my “early period” for a long time. Like Beethoven, I am little satisfied with my works. This week, at Bread Loaf, I shall take a new way.<\/p>\n

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