“The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes”. (André Gide)
I studied a Gide text for my French 'A' Level – 'La Porte Etroite' and, though I am no Catholic and find the notion of Alissa's “sacrifice” in the novel more than mildly abhorrent in humanistic terms, I have always adored the musical, rarified poetry of Gide's prose.
As students, while we were studying La Porte Etroite, we visited a neighbouring school at which my friend's mother taught French and had access to a wonderful film “Avec André Gide” which we duly watched; a film on which I would fervently like to get my hands. (To anyone how knows where I might find it, answers on a 'virtual postcard' please!)
In the film, I remember Gide's delicately chiselled, ascetic visage and, especially, a scene in which the multi-faceted artistic intellectual was (surprisingly to me at the time) teaching piano, coaching a student in the first of Fryderyk Chopin's Scherzi. I was fascinated by the detail he was encouraging and obtaining from his student in this highly complex and virtuosic piece, at an extremely slow and analytical tempo. I often draw inspiration from this episode in my own teaching of advanced classical piano.
I digress. Much as I would love to watch this film right now, it is with the statement at the head of today's article that I wish to settle, for today's thoughts.
It seems that we are discouraged from employing such words as 'madness' today. The label has acquired a pejorative, judgemental, dismissive or demeaning inference. We must, it seems, tiptoe around certain words and appellations that might denigrate or tarnish, albeit unwittingly, a state of being that should rather be celebrated than hush-hushed under the carpet, one that should evoke a sense of sun rather than of cloud.
Neurodivergence frequently nestles at the very heart of creative fecundity. I would venture to suggest that fulfilment of artistic 'Parnassus' is seldom achieved by those for whom existence is devoid of emotional and/or psychological extremes.
I am invariably greeted with raised eyebrows when I describe Ludwig van Beethoven's monumental Piano Sonata op 106 (the so-called Hammerklavier) as “music on the edge of madness”, as if I were seeking to denigrate its searing intensity, profound spirituality and incandescent fury.
I will never understand this reaction. I revere the Hammerklavier, which presents music of the highest explosive power, sitting, as we experience its titanic traversal, alongside passages of the most intimate and prolonged introspection. It could not have been created by a person who lived a workaday existence.
The word 'mad' derives from the old English gemædde, meaning 'out of one's mind', in the sense of a 'violent excitement'. Such a state of mind seems to me to be the one experienced by Beethoven in his composition of the afore-mentioned Sonata, by Chopin in the terrifying – or 'gruselig', to use the fabulous German adjective - final, scurrying movement of his Sonata op 35, or Robert Schumann when he poured forth his vertiginously sensual, truly bipolar 'Kreisleriana'.
I also particularly like it that the Middle-English word for 'mad' is wood. This was a source of amusement to me during my teenage study of Chaucer but, when we remember that the term grew out of an old High German word Wout (indicating rage) and before that, an Indo-European word Wāt, meaning to be excited or inspired, a fresh perspective and enlightenment is attained.
I love this word 'wood' in the context of a mental state anyway as, rightly or wrongly, it suggests being attuned to the natural world.
In 1889, Vincent van Goch painted the 'Asylum' in which he was living. The canvas presents a vision of peace blessed by the sun, the azure skies of the Midi casting healing energy onto the residential institution below. It is worth remembering that the real meaning of the word 'Asylum' holds a positive and protective truth, rather than one suggesting a depository for the dysfunctional.
In the glorious painting above, perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, two figures appear melded with the curling tree-trunks, as if they truly become 'wood'.
“Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide”. (John Dryden – poet and literary critic, 1631-1700)
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS... Copyright Haydn Dickenson 2024
A captivating and educational read.