Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient by Norman Cousins Read Free Book Online Page B

I can hardly wait to play Bach. What a wonderful way to start the day.”
    If Bach was his favorite composer, what was his favorite composition?
    â€œThe piece that means the most to me was written not by Bach but by Brahms,” he said. “Here, let me show it to you. I have the original manuscript.”
    He took down from the wall, where it had been framed behind glass, one of the most valuable music manuscripts in the world now in private hands—Brahms’s B-flat Quartet.
    â€œInteresting, how I happened to acquire it,” he said. “Many years ago I knew a man who was head of the Friends of Music in Vienna. His name was Wilhelm Kuchs. One night in Vienna—this was before the war—he invited several of his friends for dinner, myself included. He had what I believe may have been the finest private collection of original music manuscripts in the world. He also owned an impressive collection of fine musical instruments—violins by Stradivarius and Guarneri among them. He was wealthy, very wealthy, but he was a simple man and a very accessible one.
    â€œThen the war came. He was in his eighties. He had no intention of spending the rest of his old age under Nazism. He moved to Switzerland. He was then more than ninety. I was eager to pay my respects. Just seeing him again, this wonderful old friend who had done so much for music, was to me a very moving experience. I think we both wept on each other’s shoulder. Then I told him how concerned I had been over this collection of manuscripts. I had been terribly apprehensive that he might not have been able to keep his collection from falling into Nazi hands.
    â€œMy friend told me there was nothing to worry about; he had managed to save the entire collection. Then he went and got some items from the collection—some chamber music by Schubert and Mozart to begin with. Then he placed on the table before me the original manuscript of the Brahms B-flat Quartet. I could hardly believe my eyes. I stood transfixed. I suppose every musician feels that there is one piece that speaks to him alone, one which he feels seems to involve every molecule of his being. This was the way I had felt about the B-flat Quartet ever since I played it for the first time. And always I felt it was mine.
    â€œMr. Kuchs could see that when I held the B-flat Quartet manuscript in my hands it was a very special and powerful emotional experience.
    â€œâ€˜It is your quartet in every way,’ Mr. Kuchs said. ‘It would make me happy if you would let me give it to you.’ And he did.
    â€œI couldn’t thank him adequately then, but I did write him a long letter telling him of the great pride and joy his gift had brought to my life. When Mr. Kuchs replied, he told me many things about the history of the B-flat Quartet I had not known before. One fact in particular stood out. It is that Brahms began to write the quartet just nine months before I was born. It took him nine months to complete it. We both came into the world on exactly the same day, the same month, the same year.”
    As Don Pablo spoke, he seemed to relive the experience. His features, unmarred by any hard lines, were so expressive that his words seemed merely to confirm the image. Indeed, his face had the dramatic power of a full Ibsen cast.
    I asked Don Pablo whether any other individual compositions had special meaning for him.
    â€œMany pieces,” he said, “but none that I felt owned me and expressed me as much as the B-flat Quartet. Yet, when I get up in the morning, I can think only of Bach. I have the feeling that the world is being reborn. Nature always seems more in evidence to me in the morning.
    â€œThere is one other piece I must tell you about. This one, too, has special meaning. I think it is the piece I would like most to hear again during my last moments on earth. How lovely and moving it is, the second movement of Mozart’s Clarinet