Funeral Speech

[David]

There were numerous great moments during the funeral, including this poignant speech:

We stand weeping over the broken strings of an instrument now stilled. He was an artist, & what he was, he was only through art. The thorns of life had wounded him deeply, & as the shipwrecked man clutches the saving shore, he flew to your arms.

He was an artist, & who shall stand beside him? He was an artist, but also a man, a man in every sense, in the highest sense. Because he shut himself off from the world, they called him hostile; & callous, because he shunned feelings.

He fled the world because he did not find, in the whole compass of his loving nature, a weapon with which to resist it. He withdrew from his fellow men after he had given them everything & had received nothing in return. He remained alone because he found no second self. But until his death he preserved a human heart for all men, a father's heart for his own people, the whole world.

Thus he was, thus he died, thus he will live for all time!

[vivfox]

He fled the world because he did not find, in the whole compass of his loving nature, a weapon with which to resist it. He withdrew from his fellow men after he had given them everything & had received nothing in return.

I have often felt this way in my own life.

[David]

I have often felt this way in my own life.You mustn't feel that way. You are part of the fabric of all life, just like all of us. We are all irreplaceable elements of the great variety of humanity. To forget that is to cut oneself adrift, but the current of belonging will always pull you back.

[desertangel]

Thank you for transcribing and posting that here... such a beautiful way of putting it. I couldn't hear half of what was being said. Who knew ones own tears could be so noisy.

[daniellaaarisen]

I have often felt this way in my own life.

Same here.

[Tango]

Franz was a master writer. Thank you for sharing this David.

http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Bio/BiographyFuneralOration.html

[vivfox]

Same here.
Based on some of your posts I can see a kindship between us.

[becca]

Did many of those people 'stand with him' the last dozen years before this though?

I saw something that was done for Ebony of him framing himself as a fine artist and I felt it was mostly a huge stretch to put anything in that context but I suppose others disagree. Great artist, genius, changed the world... I find that empty hyperbole when it's about other pop music people. Maybe to some extent Lou Reed or Stevie Wonder going from the same period of time.

'Received nothing in return' though... huh? He had more wealth at one time than most African countries ever get near to keeping. I really have found selfless altruism to be an extremely rare thing in reality, go read some Ayn Rand anyway, it's good for you.

[daniellaaarisen]

Based on some of your posts I can see a kindship between us.

Agreed :) It's refreshing for me to see.

[rubytuesday]

Did many of those people 'stand with him' the last dozen years before this though?

I saw something that was done for Ebony of him framing himself as a fine artist and I felt it was mostly a huge stretch to put anything in that context but I suppose others disagree. Great artist, genius, changed the world... I find that empty hyperbole when it's about other pop music people. Maybe to some extent Lou Reed or Stevie Wonder going from the same period of time.

'Received nothing in return' though... huh? He had more wealth at one time than most African countries ever get near to keeping. I really have found selfless altruism to be an extremely rare thing in reality, go read some Ayn Rand anyway, it's good for you.

I don't think that's about MJ. It doesn't say it is and doesn't sound like it is.

[Tango]

The speech in the opening post was written about:


http://ahmedfernando.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/pe19690320.gif

[becca]

I don't think that's about MJ. It doesn't say it is and doesn't sound like it is.

That's good then! I avoided seeing or hearing much so for all I knew it would be. Ludwig's music is Art, especially the Pastoral Symphony, though I don't know how faultless an aesthete he was as I'm more of a Satie fiend.

[David]

http://ahmedfernando.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/pe19690320.gifCool strip!! :thumbsup:
That's real Beethoven, too, in the 4th cell -- it's where the right hand crosses over the left in the Pathétique sonata 3rd movement.
The medium is the message; the message is the medium: The strip says it all, folks, "clear & simple."

Do you understand?

[becca]

Do you understand?

I've never claimed to be the sharpest pencil in the fruitcake let alone ambidexterous, so no, I don't understand anything. I am simply a person self described as 'liking' bears who doubts how much truth is ever spoken at funerals.

Did you happen to see the recent P.B.S. Nova special however where the man's brain lights up in an M.R.I. listening to Bach while failing to react likewise to Beethoven? I wondered if Sibelius would have shut his entire melon completely off...

[David]

Did you happen to see the recent P.B.S. Nova special however where the man's brain lights up in an M.R.I. listening to Bach while failing to react likewise to Beethoven?That was probably Ruskin ("Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of bags of nails").

I wondered if Sibelius would have shut his entire melon completely off.That guy looked like Peter Lorre in "Mad Love."