Of Walking to and Beyond Grief's Full End, with two rarities of Beethoven and Negro Spirituals in the Middle for the Soundtrack

All photos are by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, taken May 21, 2024

Ah, Beethoven, my first German friend in art ... from him I learned how to be a composer in tune with nature ... he had the great outdoors of Germany and Austria, and I have the parks of San Francisco and the state and national parks of my nation ... he was right about so many things ... including how to finish with grieving. Behold, the most beautiful piece of music Beethoven wrote that the world knows nothing about!

Now, he wrote the "Elegy Song" for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and string quartet, but because it is BEETHOVEN, you will find more recordings with orchestra and big choirs. It is hard to resist, because he gave us such big works ... but sometimes, Beethoven wanted to deal with a more intimate matter, and this version gave me what I needed ... the tenderness of it ... although a piano had to substitute for the quartet ... but then again, from my research, it looks like Beethoven wrote that just in case a quartet was not available! Far-seeing old master ... he foresaw Hive and the pandemic!

Beethoven wrote this for a friend devastated by the sudden loss of his young wife -- she was a mere 24 years old. All that we know about her is remembered in the poem Beethoven chose to set, which I will just roughly transliterate: "Gently you have lived; gently you have fulfilled [your life], too holy for pain! Let no one weep as your heaven-bound spirit goes home!"

Now to ME, as an African American gospel musician, that sounds like a good homegoing type of song in the making, too ... that element of celebration of a life well-lived. This would be like the famous New Orleans second line of jazz ... the somber portion, then followed by the celebration ... but Beethoven, being from a different tradition, blended them.

What captured my attention was someone's bad mismatch of German and English -- they rendered "hast du vollendet" as "you have DIED," but I know the German words for death, and I know "voll" is FULL ... which is how I got out to "vollendet" as "fulfilled" in context, although strictly, one can see the English for "full ended" sitting there in the word ... so, completed, finished, even accomplished ... the young wife made a full life and full end, in gentleness and love ... the world and its pains need not trouble her any more ... she went home to where love reigns.

"Hast du vollendet" ... the line stuck with me ... there was nothing undone in that young lady's brief life. Although her loss must have been terrible to those she left behind, Beethoven ends his elegy for her emphasizing the truth of her life ... acceptance of that truth brings sweet peace.

Now, the bass in this -- Gregory Rahming, on the left in the white shirt -- is very good. He gets that low E down powerfully and beautifully, and I'm glad to have discovered him -- again, he sings from sorrow to light very, very well, and he delighted me in this Negro Spirituals medley!

Now of course at this point, we may imagine the spirit of my second great German friend in art, who called me back to Beethoven and Schubert, fixed up my quarrels with Brahms and Haydn, and even has me loving a few minutes of Wagner, chuckling gently in his big, beautiful basso profundo.

"How did I know, Frau Mathews, that you would be listening to that whole piece -- entirely new to you -- and then would instantly run it back to find out who that bass was?"

The Ghost of Musical Greatness Past appeared with a smile, at about 60 in appearance, black hiking poles and knight-on-the-hike steel gray hiking suit to match.

"Your German continues to improve," he said. "You did not let the meaning of vollendet get past you -- well done, for that is the key to this beautiful song and also how it connects with your past, but also, your future."

"Well, it would have to be the comforting voice of a bass that I could tackle all that with."

"Henceforth have I returned, Frau Mathews. Now it took me a few weeks to get Earth-ready again, because my personal joy and the joy I know better than you do above me about your every right step were both overcoming me to the point that I could scarcely remain in gravity last time! When you made the realization you needed to remain safely across from your past trouble, and when you realized that gratitude and new strength follow each other because the flow of the immortal power of love through gratitude -- the implications of your discovery are more fully known the higher and deeper one lives, here and above! So, I literally could not get back down!"

"Oh, I imagine you have been doing some singing, these two weeks!" I said.

"And sometimes that didn't help me while in mortality -- gravity and I had our quarrels when I was your age and I sang! What you will find, Frau Mathews, is that if you are grateful in doing what you love doing because you are called to it, that cycle between gratitude and new strength will carry you much further than you could otherwise go. This is also why your concern with listening to and singing what is true is important: that truth is divulged to anyone is a cause for gratitude in a world full of deception, and when that truth affirms and encourages you to walk and abide as you are called, then there is a further motivation, and then, with it, if you are blessed with gifts in music ... ."

His speaking voice hit that verge-of-ecstasy timbre he had achieved in his most remarkable live performances, and particularly in Schubert's "An die Musik," that great ode to music itself.

"Oh, that we might have music, in holy accord with all of that ... ."

"Uh oh," I said gently as I wrapped my arms around him. "Gravity is losing you again!"

"Danke schön, Frau Mathews -- I was about gone just that quick!" he said, and settled again into gravity as he laughed. "I enjoyed my life in this earth, and I know how you are about to enjoy yours with the realizations you have had -- but it is good that you have been listening to Beethoven in his serenity this week!"

"Love, joy, and peace," I said. "The other piece this week by Beethoven -- an early rarity -- was 'Da Steigen die Menschen an's Licht,' where it is remembered that the Emperor Joseph II led his people through turmoil back into peace and rest ... back into good and happy order with the earth and the sun, all under the rays of its Creator."

"You also discovered Charlotte Margiono -- now that is a soprano, Frau Mathews, and still here on earth for you to enjoy."

"I must agree with you, Herr Möll. A voice so high and yet so deep and full ... so deep I had to match pitches and tessitura to realize she wasn't a contralto ... so deep, and yet so high, on such a melody in which Beethoven is already sitting in his future powers ... those closing chords with those sevenths of sevenths! That is one of the most beautiful voices singing one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have ever heard!"

My companion smiled.

"He was who he would be at 19, as much as he was at 44 ... just as you are yourself still at 43, but having consistently worked on all sides of your art, more mature."

Then he laughed.

"You also are consistent in who you love, Frau Mathews. Only Beethoven could get you to listen to and love a new soprano!"

"Well, you know, Beethoven reputedly a had a bass voice too, and as stubborn as I am, a bass voice can make me reconsider just about anything. Bach also, for that matter."

"You are consistent, Frau Mathews. What you are hearing is men with low voices writing for low voices and instruments knowledgeably ... and you play that bass end because of Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata. You are consistent. A woman like you ought not to be mixed up with chaos and drama, because you truly have never been built for that."

"I have learned my lesson," I said.

"And -- well, before we go into that, Frau Mathews, leave this beautiful music on as we find a place that fits it."

"I was planning to complete the Oak Woodlands' western portion today," I said.

"How ideal," he said. "What a glorious day with such glorious music to do such a glorious walk!"

On this day, the exit from my north-south route though the Oak Woodlands from two main streets was not despised as an entrance ...

... and it struck me as I left the noise and features of the street behind me just how close the two different worlds are ...

... and yet, though adjacent to each other, they are surely completely different, and it is an awesome privilege to be able to cross over from one to the other.

"And," my companion said, "of course you remember that you did not know all this was here six weeks ago, and so the answer to the grace of being called up and out is gratitude."

"Humble gratitude ... I do see these lessons piling on each other in the most beautiful way, for I lived 43 years and never knew Beethoven was just that beautiful as I know today!"

"And also you cannot stay off a side trail -- it works to find other pieces of music too -- but Frau Mathews, that is BARELY a trail!"

"Yes, but, look!"

"Well, that is one of the most remarkable oak trees I have ever seen, I must confess!"

Again in the land of wonders, side trails and all! It seemed that the wind was singing the string section of "Da Steigen die Menschen an's Licht" through the oaks, and the woodwinds through every gap ...

... and I thought I could hear Charlotte Margiono singing that melody, so high and deep and full in the openness of the ridge ... partially because someone walking with me was beautifully singing the bass in the choral part ... it was such a beautiful day...

... but at a particular moment I again remembered "Elegischer Gesang" and began to to weep as I regarded this place to which I had come, and also how I had come to a spring in peace...

"Zu heilig für den Schmerz!" my companion gently sang his bass part right on time ... too holy for the pain... I had been led away in 2022 and 2023 from any thought of revenge, any thought of reprisal ... had been led to attempt to bless to and beyond my departure and leave lifelines and signposts ... and at last had come to a place in which I could look back and think of all those people without anger or grief ... sincerely I came, sincerely I departed ... and now I could look back with nothing but love ... there was no pain left.

As at last I reached the westernmost point of the Oak Woodlands Trail...

... and as I turned around from seeing the Golden Gate Bridge and looked across the road to see Sutro Tower...

... my companion sang that last line of "Elegischer Gesang" including that marvelous low E, but put it in transliterated English: "You have full-ended."

I had. It was the end of the trail in more ways than one. The noise of the street was nearer again now...

.. and a crowd in the nearest meadow was playing a loud and energetic game.

Ah, the life of the world system, and all its competition, and its more strident joys -- nothing wrong with the latter if one was called to those -- but from being all but one who passed through on my way to higher ground and deeper peace, I had full-ended. I was not willing to return by the way that I had come to this point in my life -- and then I remembered: there was a loop in the Oak Woodlands trail:

... so, in seeking not to descend, I returned to the world of wonder...

... but on an upward narrow path ... hikers only ... the gratitude I felt that I could manage such a path ... like in Brahms's "Mit fierzig Jahren," from which I had recalled "youth's strident joys," I could take my staff and go, the descent a long way off still!

My companion chuckled.

"I was called to add that to my choice of Brahms's songs for many reasons -- a particular two-year-old who someday would hike the Oak Woodlands was among them, although I did not know it!"

"But there is One Who did!" I said, and was flooded with gratitude that took me to the point of ecstasy as we passed through the greatest oaken wonders framing a path I have ever seen -- natural arches over the path...

... and smaller oaks twisted by wild winds like waves, over and beyond the path ...

I had a thought then of how dangerous this place might be in the storms of winter or the heavy winds of a foggy summer, and thus how few had tracked this track ... and how thus, on this rare calm day, for the spring winds to not lash those branches into my face on so narrow a path, indeed it had been intended for that two-year-old who already hated the sound of Brahms's "Lullaby" out-of-tune in a music box to hear "Mit vierzig Jahren" at age 42 and think, at age 43, that she could take her hiking poles and tackle the hardest part of the Oak Woodlands Trail -- and I was going, at a pace I scarcely would have credited myself for -- but since the end of all matters in 2023, I was more than thirty pounds lighter, and since the winter had not been too inclement, I had never lost a step of my strength and in fact had added to it -- so much so that I over-topped that portion of the trail and was just about flying down, for gratitude had added new strength --

-- but --

"Langsamer gehen, Frau Mathews."

Now, a basso profundo reminder to slow down from him while he was still in the flesh would have pretty much stopped anybody in their tracks, but there was no 'pretty much' to it at this point in his existence. I slowed and stopped and would have missed a pretty view if I hadn't ...

... and, at a higher speed, I possibly might have slipped and tripped and, as it says in Strauss's "Das Tal," given myself to let spring take me in and bloom right on ... but my old-Teutonic-knight-on-the-hike wrapped both arms around me as he had already wrapped his voice ... that voice like the deepest, darkest, softest velvet, pressing my heart rate and and breathing back down into safe limits ... I had become overjoyed in the way, so relieved of my burdens, so delighted in what I had been called to ...

"Slow down, Frau Mathews, slow down ... I know how these moments are ... once upon a time while singing Mozart -- Osmin, in fact -- I came to myself standing on the box between the stage and the orchestra!"

I laughed.

"Online in the YouTube comments, you STILL can't live that performance down, some forty years later!"

"But that's my point, Frau Mathews -- having the opportunity to live it down instead of falling is my whole point. The box held, and I am holding you, and you are going to learn how to safely operate in this new realm of joy and freedom and I am going to help you, as I had to learn. You may not come to your alto chair in the choir on high for any reason before called. You did well not coming for an excess of sorrow, although that was close enough."

"Your voice warned me that I was too near the edge of the pit many times," I said, "and at many other times, held me and lifted me when I was in such pain I did not even know the danger I was in."

"For you may not come before called ... and also, Frau Mathews, not from an excess of joy. You will find your old knight-in-song will be faithful to you on all sides of your duty, so for the moment, nur ruhe, meine Töchterlein."

I rested there with him for a good while, and then we walked together up to a new place on the ridgeline ...

... then looked back from across it ...

... and soon, far below, I saw the end of the fuchsia dell, and two lovers sitting on the bench by the trail that I had observed in a previous week ...

That trail came up and up and up until it came where I was, which meant I could go through the dell and meet this trail ... which also meant that the loop, now gently descending, might just end somewhere in the dell. Sure enough, the loop naturally ended in that place of peace I had sat in among the redwoods before, never knowing the wonders just above it.

And, down a grassy path, the last of the oaks framed half the passage from there to the front of the dell.

Now I wondered if actually this trail had divulged all its secrets ... but in being able to contemplate that, I truly was taken to a different place in my thoughts.

"About two millennia ago," my companion said, "Someone said 'Ich habe vollendet!' -- it is finished -- for He there on Calvary had done all His Father had sent Him to do. The pain was finished there. Many eyes wept, not knowing that was the full end of that portion, but after about three days of rest, there would be a new beginning for Him, and all those who believed on Him, including you, some 2,000 years down the line.

"In 2022 and 2023, Frau Mathews, you were called to walk in love toward a community of people who were not yet ready to receive that in the way you intended. Your pain and grief has a beginning, but also an end, and you have found it and even transcended it, for being led upward in a holy way, free of bitterness, now you can look back with nothing but love, in a clear conscience. Now you can freely explore this new life to which you have come, with unburdened heart and clear mind. Du hast vollendet, Frau Mathews. "But also, you have climbed and climbed and climbed ... back up into the light from the darkness of sorrow ... so, da steigen ... an's licht."

"And, I don't feel no ways tired," I said, "at least not on the inside!"

"You see why I have to float along half the time with you, Frau Mathews, not just in joy, but to keep up?" he said, and I laughed. "Mein kind, you and a hike, and now that you have found real hiker-only trails and managed them, what will you do now? Now that you are no longer weighted down by grief and pain, how high can you climb in all the realms to which you are called?"

"It is a good question," I said. "In due time, we'll see where we are called to go!"

"And how!" he said.