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God-Given Talent
By peace | September 4, 2010
Ludwig van Beethowen
I believe that all great work is an inspired piece of work by God. I had just written The Immortal Beloved. As I was searching for my posts to be linked to relevant keywords, I was taken aback and terrified by THE PROPHET yet again… considering now still the seventh month, the Chinese Ghost Festival…
Jennifer Viegas, author of Beethoven’s World, is a reporter for the Discovery Channel, where she has covered news concerning important historical figures in music, including Beethoven and Mozart. In 2000, she broke the international story about an analysis of a lock of Beethoven’s hair. Viegas also serves as a news reporter for Animal Planet, TLC: The Learning Channel, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and she has written books for the Princeton Review and Random House. The author has been listed in Randall’s “Who’s Who in Music” and plays the French horn, guitar, and several woodwind instruments. This is a book found at Woodlands Regional Library, at the Children department. It is a well-written book that is easy to read, a short glimpse of Beethoven’s World. Besides The Immortal Beloved, the other letter that is of utmost importance to me was The Heiligenstadt Testament. Various websites about Beethoven would have these two in details, but I love what was written in this book as it was written in a shorter version, not so complicated.
A view of The Heiligenstadt Testament from Wikipedia looks like this:
Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament
A detailed Heiligenstadt Testament can be read at these sites: Luwid Van Beethoven’s Biography; Luwid Van Beethoven; and All About Beethoven. Here is a shorter easy to read version of The Heiligenstadt Testament from Beethoven’s World as described by Jennifer Viegas:
The Heiligenstadt Testament
In his biography of the composer, Maynard Solomon reproduced Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt letter, the first part of which reads:
For my brothers Carl and {Johann} Beethoven. Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was even inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to isolate myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, “Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf…. what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair, a little more of that and I would have ended my life — it was only my art that held me back.“
The letter ends as though it could have been meant as a suicide note, since Beethoven bids his brothers farewell. The phrase “it was only my art that held me back” indicates that it was music that saved him. Although so many aspects of his life were adversely affected by his hearing loss, he somehow held on to his music. As Beethoven said earlier in his life, music was his God-given talent. He simply refused to disappoint God, himself and others…
Before I ‘came back’ to write on this, I had stopped at the second paragraph. This is because Isaac woke up. He cried. I asked Richard to make milk for him while I ‘cradled’ him in my arms, playing the organ music all time long (as long as Richard was in the kitchen making milk for Isaac). When milk was ready, I put him on the bed and fed him milk. The music from the organ had stopped. However, something ‘mysterious’ happened in my ears…. I wondered and I pondered… what I had ‘seen’ moments ago, and earlier on in the evening… this is such a spooky world…
What actually happened today? (to be continued)
Topics: All Posts, Arts, children, Chinese, christian, Famous People, Health, Personal | 1 Comment »
September 6th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
[...] (something to discuss about what I had seen in the church today — the Power of Observation) [...]