Prelude Reflections for Lent 3: J. Brahms, Intermezzo 1, Opus 119

Prelude for the Third Sunday of Lent

J. Brahms, Intermezzo 1, Opus 119

Published 1893

This week I would like to offer a slightly more personal reflection on the piano prelude. It is coming up on the one year anniversary of the suspension of in-person worship as a congregation at our church. When I prepared and recorded this beautiful piece by Brahms, I was powerfully brought back to that moment and what it meant to me.

 My playing has always been my primary spiritual discipline, my form of sacred meditation. But in March 2020, I did not know how I would translate this to the new reality of separation from church. As our virtual worship evolved last spring, it became clear that I would need to record music for the services, partly because of copyright issues, and also, more pertinently for me, because I wanted to fulfill my ministry in the difficult times of the pandemic. While the absence of a congregation and communal singing was a terrible blow, I knew I had to find a new way of reaching out through my music to help make our virtual worship as meaningful as possible.

As a bit of background, I had, over the fifty years of my piano playing, almost never recorded anything, both by chance and by choice. This, despite spending hours a day for many years at my instrument. I had imbibed, from my teacher or from my nature, a desire for perfection, and I was profoundly wary of any recording. In fact, I initially told Reverend Jen I did not think I could make recordings. She very kindly and wisely told me not to worry; we would find a way.

 The way was revealed to me in Lent, last year, when I suddenly understood that my hesitation was something I needed to give up. I became aware that I could share my music in a new medium and cast off the limitations of trying to be “perfect” at the same time. In fact, it was the only way I could do my recording. As I contemplated the seemingly impossible things our health care and front line workers were doing every day, my own anxieties appeared much less important.

 This Intermezzo by Brahms is a piece I have known for the last forty years (fortunately, the decades melt away when I am at the piano!). I probably played and recorded it a hundred times in the last two weeks, and by the end of those hours, I felt my physical body had become almost invisible, or perhaps, it was transmuted into the music. I had Psalm 130 (see below) in my head for those days and it seemed that when Brahms moved from the deepest notes in the piano to the highest, over and over, those musical phrases were echoing the Psalmist.

One amusing thing was that at a certain point I played the piece in a way I felt truly expressed everything I wanted, with not one wrong note. I sat back, quite satisfied, only to notice I had not pressed the red record button…That “perfect” version of the Brahms Intermezzo was sent up like smoke from a sacrifice at the altar of sacred music.

 Faithfully yours,

Mary Therese

 Psalm 130:1-8

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.