Motivational Mondays: The Most Beautiful Music You Were Never Supposed To Hear...
Photo by the author, Deeann D. Mathews, October 11, 2025
It's been a rough couple of weeks around my circle ... and it's Monday, and we have to get back at it.
Sometimes even I wonder if it is even going to matter... it's been a rough few weeks. I know better, but the thoughts do cross one's mind.
But music we were never supposed to hear reminded me: keep going.
Josef Weiss was born in Hungary in 1864, and was a student of Franz Liszt ... his talent was apparent early, and so advanced was he as a pianist and composer by the early 1900s that he was the first person to write music for German-language films.
Imagine that -- in the home of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Wagner, someone thought Josef Weiss should be the composer, at this early stage of film in Germany, to contribute new music ... but then again, Weiss was the great-grand student of Beethoven. He had modernity, but also that deep connection to the great German masters centuries before.
But that made no difference three decades later. Josef Weiss was Jewish, and the same country for whose films he wrote beautiful music arranged his death in the Holocaust, in 1945.
The Nazis did their best to eliminate all Jewish art and music from the public eye, everywhere that they occupied. Josef Weiss's music survived, however, because of whose student he was, and how many decades he was a well-known composer and pianist before the Nazis. The film that he wrote music for in 1913 was brought back to the public eye in 2013, and thus, his music was rediscovered and is now being re-recorded and held in honor.
Against heavy odds, the voice of Josef Weiss still sounds in the world ... a beautiful reminder of the triumph of good over evil, and a reminder: all the good we do matters, even though in the short term evil may obscure it, and even though even under the best of circumstances, one can simply be overlooked and forgotten.
Do all the good you can anyway.
No good is ever wasted.
The voice of truth will sound again.
@jesuslnrs and @mipiano -- I invite you to hear this beautiful music, because it is beautiful, and because I believe the story of it will encourage each of you in your own special way!
Dear Frau Mathews,
Believe it or not, you were present in the informal chit-chat conversation between me and Edje yesterday evening. I mentioned you are posting your stories on Thursdays in Q-inspired and I (as he is taking a bit longer break from Hive, and me a half-break too hahaha reaching almost a long break as well) don't get there to read, engage, curate the posts (my apologies) and a tag from you today is here! What a coincidence, or not a coincidence but something more powerful :))
Btw, if you can add the link to the YouTube here in the comment, as in the post I can't reach it... it says that it is unavailable. I would like to hear that music by Josef Weiss. Thank you for your thoughts and mention once again!
I hope your weeks will be less rough than the past few ones. We keep going, with music even better, and can't agree more with you with this:
Do all the good you can anyway.
No good is ever wasted.
... and when we stick just to that, to doing good, and doing our things good faithfull to our priciples, no matter what, then I see the things are starting to unfold in the best way by themselves in front of us.
Oh, and I have spent the whole morning multitasking in a great way: The washing machine was giving a fresh touch to the winter coats and jackets over the entire morning, and I was giving a touch to my piano hahaha, well, practiced all that time - what a happiness!! 😊
P.S. Waiting for the link with music :)
YouTube is straight up lying ... it has not been removed ... although it may be just server madness between our two worlds. See if this works: "Am Teiche," by Josef Weiss
I knew y'all were on break ... the Ghost of Musical Greatness Past and I are just holding down the fort ... but I had something extra this week because of discovering this. What a blessing you had there while the washing machine did its work, and as we get older and have more responsibility, we learn that time itself is a wonder we are not promised -- but if we can do good with it, even if it is just a little, it is worth it! For as it is written: "Redeeming the time, for the days are evil." We are having a few evil days in the U.S. ... but the time can still be redeemed, and made beautiful. Josef Weiss is an encouragement, indeed!
I am speechless how beautiful these gentle waves on the surface of a pond can be 💜
Loved it... so much that I have it already in front of me. Danke, Frau Mathews. And indeed, as time is a gift, the responsibility of how we use it is on us.
Ok, so I will enjoy in this pond now a bit :D
OH YES! YES! I have another pond post coming up in November and would LOVE to post YOU if you ever record it!
Thank you for sharing that beautiful composition. I had never heard it before.
Josef Weiss was buried alive ... hidden from us all ... I have known about him for only a week ...glad you took a listen!