126. 6 December 1997 [ES] (Rilke; art, artists, subjectivism; Brahms songs)
previously unpublished; © the estate of eric sams and beatrice cazac (Mrs. Mathew’s letters)
Dear Hayat,
nice to see you and hear from you. I seem to have missed out on early Sumer civilisation; and the only spiritual sculpture of which I have any cognisance comes to me courtesy of Rilke (e.g. Erstaunte euch nicht auf attischen Stelen die Vorsicht/menschlicher Geste? war nicht Liebe und Abschied/so leicht auf die Schultern gelegt, als war es aus anderm/Stoffe gemacht als bei uns?). I like the tactile words, here in the Elegien and also in the Neue Gedichte; it's almost a new poetico-sculptural art-form. The actual statuary however always seems to leave me cold, as (I find) it is itself. Well, perhaps some day my plinth will come, as the song almost says. Meanwhile I and the TLS have your helpful letters.
As to the propensity of anyone to overrate any little thing that happens to come to them in the night, perhaps they should keep their bedroom doors shut. I was pleased to see, in the same TLS, two anti-subjective statements, from Barry Stroud (p. 3) and nice Charles Chadwick, whom I know (p. 18). But who are we against the massive tsunami or great wave of feeling? No wonder I feel so washed up.
And also out of Shakespeare, as well as out of sorts. All the books are boxed up, to save study space; Brahms is on every shelf and fills every last interstice of what's left of my mind (which I also use up, rather rashly, on a drive to understand black holes, in which gravitational fields I've lately become involved, not to say caught and captured). So I fear I can't even locate, let alone seek to explicate, the Yonson and Camden cruces you quote. I am on the other hand reasonably well up in Brahms lieder, which are however in themselves sometimes rather depressing. I think they need upward (if any) transposition, and quicker tempi, and more rubato, and general lightening up; indeed, coddling and cuddling. Then they speak, softly and shyly, of their own inward yet immediate feelings, which are surely relevant. Artists' and art's subjectivism is OK, I reckon; indeed, I get very peevish about the apparently ineradicable notion that Shakespeare's sonnets (for example) are somehow impersonal, This daft notion has recently been espoused (instead of sensibly left to take the veil) by Prof. Jonathan Bate, whose latest book's blurb hails him as our finest Shakespeare scholar. I fear this may be tragically true.
[...] Do you plan to grace these shores then? Here's a card meanwhile, to show that London has its attractions, such as the Library. Not that you need reminding.
I hear that our friend Christopher has moved to Aix-en-Provence; I've suggested to that nice Caroline on the telephone that his next film might be about Cézanne. Speaking of hybrid art-forms, the poetico-musico-visual variety, alias Gesamtkunstwerk, seems somewhat neglected nowadays, and I don't see why music shouldn't be temporarily in abeyance. It will survive. And Christopher's gifts are so very visual.
Best, as ever,
Yours Eric