DAILY DOSE of BEETHOVEN (November 3, 2020)
Platonic love gets a bad rap these days. A girl tells her boyfriend that they are going to have a "Platonic relationship", and he gets ready for a life of cold showers. That is not what it is about. Plato lived in an age, much like ours. He was not against sexual relations, but insisted that love had to begin with the love for the other person's mind: for their creative capacities, which make each person unique and precious.
“Platonic love” resonates with “agapic love”—the highest form of love: the love of the Creator and the love for our fellow human beings as made in the image of that Creator.
Plato's dialogue, "The Symposium" recounts his mentor Socrates' discussion of how he learned about love from the Goddess Diotima. From her, he learned how we are granted immortality by passing down our ideas, knowledge, morals, discoveries, and creations to future generations, so that they might replicate them, and improve upon them; thus keeping those ideas, and our own spirits, alive.
Such Platonic Love is to be found between Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, and here we cite a specific case, which is rooted in Beethoven and Schiller.
BRAHMS AND THE SCHUMANNS
In late September 1853, an unknown 20-year old showed up at the door of Robert and Clara Schumann. Among the pieces that he played for them was his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C Major, which directly quotes one of Beethoven’s late sonatas—Piano Sonata No. 29, Op. 106, the "Hammerklavier." Clara and Robert Schumann were so inspired that Robert wrote an article pronouncing Brahms "The Young Eagle", who would carry the tradition of Bach, Beethoven, and themselves into the future, much in the way that Plato discussed in his "Symposium."
A month later in October, Robert also responded by composing "Gesange der Fruhe", the "Song of the Dawn." For him, Brahms clearly was that dawn. Schumann dedicated the work "to Diotima." Some modern scholars insists that: "surely he could not have meant THAT Diotima. It must be a female friend." We disagree.
Schumann's father was a publisher, whose publications include the complete works of Plato. Robert Schumann planned to produce a work called "The Poet's Garden", citing the historical and epistemological basis of music. Half of his quotes came from Plato. We submit that he meant exactly that Diotima.
Yet, the work is darkened by the simultaneous onset of his dementia. Listen to the first movement:
The opening intervals reflect the opening of Beethoven's Cello Sonata No.3, Op. 69. (We prepared an audio showing the necessary connections.)
When Schumann died in 1856, Brahms was chosen to lead the funeral procession, even though he was much younger than most of Schumann's associates. He and Clara Schumann remained close for the rest of their lives. Much idle speculation has been wasted on whether they shared an intimate romantic relationship. Though we would find no fault if they did, we suspect they did not: The reason—their mutual love of Robert Schumann! Clara once wrote to her children: "I love Johannes Brahms. The nature of that love, is something my critics either cannot, or will not understand."
While confined to a sanitorium in Bonn Germany, Robert Schumann would visit the statue of Beethoven every day. In 1880, the city of Bonn decided to turn Schumann's grave into a monument, by erecting a new headstone. Brahms was commissioned to compose the music for the dedication of that headstone. The piece he wrote is called "Dem Dunkeln Schoss”:
https://youtu.be/-eX0cKY5waE
If you listen closely, you will hear an eerie correspondence between this work, and the first movement of Schumann's "Gesange der Fruhe," but with the sadness and darkness gone. The key to understanding it comes from the poetry Brahms chose, from Schiller's "Song of the Bell" (the same Schiller whose poetry was the basis of Beethoven's 9th Symphony).
Dem dunkeln Schoß der heilgen Erde
Vertrauen wir der Hände Tat,
Vertraut der Sämann seine Saat (line omitted)
Und hofft, daß sie entkeimen werde
Zum Segen, nach des Himmels Rat.
Noch köstlicheren Samen bergen
Wir traurend in der Erde Schoß
Und hoffen, daß er aus den Särgen
Erblühen soll zu schönerm Los.
(To the dark womb of the sacred Earth
We trust the deeds of our hands,
As the sower trusts his seed
And hopes that it may sprout into
a blessing, as willed by Heaven.
Even more precious seed we store
With grief, into the womb of the Earth
And hope, that out of the coffin will
Bloom a more beautiful destiny.)
What is Schiller saying here? When the farmer plants seeds into the ground, he counts, that if he nurtures them, God will do the rest. When we bury a loved one, it is not so automatic. We, as the next generation, must provide that more beautiful destiny.
One gets a sense of Brahms not quoting Schumann, so much as recomposing his work. as though reaching into the grave, grabbing him by the hand, and saying: "My dear friend, I shall help you realize what I know you could have done in your better days." Thus, Brahms becomes that better destiny, and fulfills Diotima's idea of immortality.
The next year, 1881, Brahms composed one of the most perfect works ever written, his setting of Schiller's “Nanie” (Op. 82), using the same intervals.
This is love, at the highest level.
This two-minute audio makes the connections: https://soundcloud.com/user-216951281/bsb
The photo below is of the Schumann monument in Bonn.