Yesterday I went to see a musical interpretation of Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet devised by Bill Barclay with music by the Brodsky Quarter. It was sublime. Rilke’s beautiful, profound often prescient words interlaced with Ravel and Debussy.
This concert-theatre work explored poet Rilke’s famous letters to the “young poet” Franz Kappus, as well as the letters of the young poet himself (remarkably, Franz’s half of the exchange has only come to light in recent years).
Don't be too quick to draw conclusions from what happens to you; simply let it happen… Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer - Rilke
Both born in 1875, Rilke and Ravel each wrote their iconic works in Paris at the age of 28, at the same time, and just a few streets apart forecasting the future of romanticism as modernist thought took over Paris at the turn of the century.
Debussy composed his only string quartet just ten years earlier, also at the same stage of life and undoubtedly influenced Ravel. Their musical conversation mirrors the mentorship between the poets. Debussy is ten years older than Ravel, while Kappus is ten years younger than Rilke.
The necessary thing is after all but this; solitude, great inner solitude. Going into oneself for hours meeting no one - this one must be able to attain.
― Rilke
Rilke had so much to say about love, solitude, transcendence and the fragile richness of life.
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