Imaged by Bessi | pixabay.com
By Muhammad Natsir Tahar
It’s hard to
find creative passion from your comfort zone. Something that is stable even
becomes the enemy of genius. Too miserable in the long run or too comfortable,
does not cause celebrities to emerge from there. They live off the quick flash
between the two. Even those who surf more in the sweep of fierce waves are the
best of all.
Many
great people suffer from illness and disability. Edison was half deaf, Aldous
Huxley was half blind, Alexander Graham Bell and Picaso were dyslexic.
Michaelangelo, Titian, Goya, and Monet all have illnesses that are the driving
force behind their work.
Michaelangelo,
for example, was in too much pain while painting the Sistine
Chapel, which then
gave birth to twisted figures. It even became the school of mannerism, the next great art genre.
Socrates
had another misery, he had Xanthippe his wife, the most chatty woman in ancient
Athens. The more Xanthippe babbled, the more Socrates went on preaching. And it
seems that apart from the children, almost one Athena had scolded Socrates.
In
a quiet room of furniture, a small piano the size of a child has been used by
Beethoven to write his first and only opera, Fidelio, as well as a sweet short
composition entitled Fur Elise. He knew he would be deaf and suffer
from the loss of one of the most important senses in his world. But the
deafness did not interfere with the creative productivity of the Maestro.
Vienna
was the most musical city of the 18th century. Crowded and dirty, with noisy
horse-drawn carriages, the sound of horse hooves pounding the cobblestone
streets created a constant nuisance as well as routinely splashing dirt and
dust.
Coolies
spray the streets twice a day in their futile attempt to maintain sanitation.
But the musical genius emerges like a Lotus flower, amidst dirt and chaos.
Mozart and Beethoven two great composers –both 15 years apart emerged from
there. Joseph Haydn, Bach and Handel too of course.
At
that time the composers bounced and collided which then changed the direction
of their speed and trajectory. Mozart and Bethoven, these two musical giants
only crossed paths once, in 1787.
Bethoven
was only 16 years old but already arrogant, he heard Mozart play the piano and
then said his style was zerhackt, jerky. The two poles of a magnetic field
should not be brought together. Similarly, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo
snorted at each other.
Mozart
loves money. He earned a lot of money but spent even more on clothes, fine
meals, and especially gambling. Until he found himself owed 1,500 florins,
worth more than a year’s worth of income at the time.
Until
these debts became a source of misery, which prompted him to write more music.
Without this bitterness, the world would not be able to thank him for so much
of the beauty of his music.
Mozart
composes symphonies like Pixar composes his films: designed for different
audiences at the same time. But unfortunately he is a part-time world musician.
The uncertainty of income and the crush of debt caused much grief and perhaps
hastened his death at the age of 35.
Mozart
once created a strange and shocking quartet. It was the result when he wrote it
just as his wife was struggling with death to give birth to their first child.
Everything that was uncomfortable gathered there when the music was born one
after another with his first child.
An
observer of Constanze’s music later confirmed that the quartet contained
several passages that reflected his pain, particularly the minuet.
Throughout
his life, Beethoven always found it difficult to shake off anxiety. It creates
a messy room. An honorable guest from France described it as the dirtiest and
nastiest place imaginable.
Damp
spots covered the ceiling, an old piano covered in dust between the sheet
music, a pile of pens with hardened ink, chairs covered in dirty dishes and
leftovers from last night’s food. Or once in a while he takes a shower in the
living room, wet anything.
But
a great symphony has emerged from that chaotic situation. In a city that
venerates music in the highest respect and admiration that can be transmitted
to every single age.
They
even wrote to each other, Mozart writing to Haydn, his mentor and adoptive
father. Haydn taught Beethoven then was influenced by him. Beethoven wrote for
the late Mozart, going to great lengths not to imitate him, to the point that
his attempts have become a kind of imitation.
Einstein
praised Mozart as something pure born of nature. Borrowing Zen philosophy,
something that appears and astonishes the world is harmony, it will appear
repeatedly from all other times and places.
Remember
that the trio or anyone else at that time never wrote classical music, they
were racing to perform the most spectacular symphony of their time. It is we
who call it classical music, because we suffer from a linear monochronic
understanding of time.
It
was Wage Roedolf Soepratman –a symphony that emerged from chaos– in the
difficult colonial era. When the national anthem Indonesia
Raya was
composed and sung for the first time, he was hunted by the Dutch East Indies
police, until he fell ill in Surabaya.
And
when he broadcast his last song Matahari Terbit in early August 1938, he was
arrested with scouts in Malang, then arrested and imprisoned in Kalisosok.
Soepratman died on August 17, 1938, exactly seven years before the Proclamation
of Indonesian Independence, August 17, 1945.
He did not have time to watch Indonesia Raya become the national anthem. As Mozart also did not get to see Beethoven grow up to be juxtaposed with his name in the future. Guys, stay in your comfort zone, or bring out your masterpiece and whatever will make you great! ~
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