Page 248 - PDF Flip TR Program Demo

to form cascading spirals of triplets in C, very easy to play in that key, which spill up and down the entire range of the strings for the whole movement.
I’m reminded of the death of the philosopher Walter Benjamin, who killed himself while awaiting deportation from Spain back across the French border into Nazi hands. If he had been one day earlier, he would have missed the deportation order, and just one day later, the Spanish officials became more lenient. So it was just one dark day on which Benjamin chose to judge his world. We base our lives often on split-second decisions, when it might be more realistic to look at larger patterns. And possibly this is Beethoven’s message. He had thought of killing himself at the time of the Testament he wrote at Heiligenstadt, about an hour outside Vienna, in October of 1802, depressed by his deafness and the idea that people might realize it:
O men, when some day you read these words, reflect that you did me wrong and let the unfor- tunate one comfort himself and find one of his kind who despite all obstacles of nature yet did all that was in his power to be accepted among worthy artists and men.
But he had fifteen sonatas yet to write; he had written only one symphony, and fortunately he was to live for another 25 years.
248 The Music at Tippet Rise