Latest — Ignat Solzhenitsyn

Reverse Immortality

I recently read a most illuminating essay by the brilliant pianist, educator, presenter Sarah Rothenberg, called Reverse Immortality: The Memory of Music. Among other things, it is a profound reflection on the past and on music’s unique ability to transcend time. It more than repays attentive, uninterrupted reading, the kind that “allows us to concentrate on inner dialogue” (Hannah Arendt). Read it in full here, and below I quote the arresting final paragraph.

Immortality is not about living into the future, it is about having access to the unending past. This is the magic of great art, this time capsule that comes to us breathing life. It is an error to view immortality as a forward trajectory. When I sit at the piano, the music is of a culture and the culture is of a time and when I live in it, which is often, I live elsewhere. We could call it reverse immortality.
— Sarah Rothenberg

Bernard Haitink, 1929–2021

For a “dry business newspaper,” the Economist writes strikingly poetic obituaries. This week’s is no exception. It is a fitting tribute to my great colleague, and captures what, to me, was most important about his music-making—service of the composer.

He was their simple conduit to the world, channelling each composer’s dream like a beautiful flower that unfolded itself. The shape of the piece was the most important thing, the onward drive and flow, knowing just where he was going. Yet the delicate inner discoveries were endless.
[…]
On the podium he was ever-aware of hundreds of eyes on his back. It was the last place, you would think, for someone so shy. But he was there not simply to channel the music, though that was the main point. He was also bound to do his humble best to fill in for an assembly of ghosts. ■
— The Economist