Early Life Climb Completed, Forward March (Brahms, Mathews, Busoni/Chopin, Rachmaninoff/Chopin, Liszt)

One never is quite prepared for a moment in life like this ... even with every preparation possible, crossing the verge into a new phase of life -- irrevocably -- is still something to be considered. It has taken two weeks for me to realize it has happened to me -- the ability to improvise at will having returned in my new life situations heralded it, as did my mentor's enthusiastic response to my birthday singing ... but there were all the other things ... the studio opportunity at a price that works for me ... discovering my fellow Bitcoiners ... and finding all that after being irrevocably alone, relative to all the people I know and love in this world, because not one can go with me now. I know that everything before me will be found in the way that I am going ... but I am still human. That still hurts.

I wept yesterday morning for that last part, and was gently reminded of Brahms's "Mit vierzig Jahren" ... "With Forty Years," and the gently penetrating way Kurt Möll sings the story of someone climbing away from the crowd, away from the loud joys of youth, up a path that is painful in steepness both the limbs and to the heart and lungs -- gasping for air is described -- and then, the coming not to the brotherhood of Schubert's "Aus Heliopolis II," but another great, broad plain to walk ... still alone. Much of this song seems very sad indeed ... but, wait for the ending...

The timestamp is 10:55, but you are of course welcome to listen to the entire 23 minutes!

The reward for the climb into maturity, into going by the way one is called to, is a life fulfilled and descending gently "into port," resting while waiting to launch out into the next life. It is a nice analogy Brahms uses for the idea that death is not the end, for a ship in port has indeed came to safe harbor, but its journey is not complete forever unless it is being decommissioned. Given the idea that someone would climb and then walk down over a great mountain range to get to such a port, the idea is indeed that one would of course rest for a time, but then do what one came for -- and that there, one would at last meet plenty of suitable companions!

"Mit vierzig Jahren" is also the first of four last songs out of 10 -- 40 percent of the album-- that Herr Möll chose to line up that make similar points about life and death. Brahms wrote his own last Four Serious Songs to tackle those topics ... Herr Möll found four earlier songs, and even kept the key pattern in mind: three minor key songs, one major key song. The first of each four are even in the same key. This is the kind of thing one could expect from the type of man who might have sat down and looked at three different translations of an aria and combined portions into his own unique version: he simply granted Brahms Four More Serious Songs. The quiet audacity of that bass, I'm telling you...

"Mit vierzig Jahren" is indeed quite a serious song, and indeed like its pair mate in the Four Serious Songs, quite sad ... the grief and pain is real. One might say getting to the plain at the top of the climb is a classic case of "moving the goalposts" -- being ordered to take your staff and go all the way across down to port, with no guarantee of anything ... except that "It's lonely at the top" is a known phenomenon.

Most people will not and cannot make the full climb into their calling ... it is a way of grief and pain that one can only endure with the utmost dedication meeting with the willingness to give up all other things -- and even given being a Christian, and knowing the immortal strength of Him Who calls me higher, there is no getting around the painful steepness of the path -- and so steep that it can only be safely climbed one way. To turn back is to fall.

But what does it mean to at last be across the verge of the hardest part of the climb, and to have all that room in front -- to have climbed past the grief and pain to a peaceful place to catch one's breath, heal, look back and mourn, and then begin to walk bravely into the new space?

I have decided that when the occasion arises on Hive to make music and I sense inspiration, I will do so, to tap into my recently returned powers to improvise at will ... even a whole song... Hive Open Mic recently gave me occasion to think back over the joy of my walks of the past, and although my grand old soldier and I are not big coffee drinkers, if Hive Open Mic had offered me "Let's Go For Gelato," this would have been a perfect match ... but I get the deeper meaning across.

Let's go for a coffee,
Right after a walk,
The espresso is frothy
As we sit down and talk.

It's a beautiful morning
And a beautiful day,
Another great dawning
To love you always!

Ah, the joys of that time of my life ... precious to memory ...

... but I am here now, and writing of the past with the maturity of now ... like hearing Ferrucio Busoni taking on Chopin instead of Bach ... he starts out far out, then finds the theme, and then goes all the way out and around to a "back to the future" close!

I then found the better-known variations of Chopin's theme by Rachmaninoff ... very different, incorporating homage to late Beethoven and Bach as well -- a surprise, since there is more of that from Rachmaninoff than there is in Busoni who is known for his Bach transcriptions ... but while he does his homage, this is definitely Rachmaninoff's glorious world... we are just living in it for 27 minutes...

These were interesting to listen to as I prepare for my first studio trip in at least a decade ... going all the way back to the Negro Spiritual, but deepened by all of life since, more able to approach the deeper understanding the elders I love enjoy in these songs, and able to connect it with the times I am living in. It is time to pick up the songs of freedom and give them a relatively young voice and composer/arranger approach ... it will be a long journey that requires no hurry ... like the time it takes to listen to what Rachmaninoff and Busoni could do with a theme of Chopin, moving that theme again into the future of the time.

Consolation No. 3 by Liszt expresses a lot of what I feel about this moment in my life ...

.... warm peace in a broad place of consolation ... the pain is real, but so is the comfort.

Once, a decade ago, I passed a milestone in my musical life after a double betrayal ... there was a moment in the process in which the shock and pain of that physically overcame me, at the worst possible time: on a late afternoon bus in New York City, heading to a destination I had never been to before ... in late October, a time in which New York State rivals Germany for cold, and there I was dressed for a San Franciscan's idea of winter and it still would not have been enough! *I knew that I could die -- people whom I loved had abandoned me in a situation in which I could have actually died -- and the shock alone nearly took me out.

But I remember hearing, just as plain as day: "Rest in Me. I have you right where I want you." I came to myself looking at Wonderland: the Hudson Valley of New York, in mid-autumn. It just went up from there all the way to and past a four-piece world premiere at Hudson College.

I heard Matthew 11:28 just as clearly in 2023:

Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And on July 23, 2025, even as I was in my tears:

I have you right where I want you.

All that remains is for me to take my two hiking poles and go -- and I will.