Giant Three Legends

Author: (French) Roman Rolland Guochangjing
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-02-01
Features: Twenty-five years ago, when writing this small "Beethoven," I didn’t intend to write about music. It was 1902. I was going through a turbulent, destructive, and renewing storm of a period. I avoided Paris and came to the side of my childhood companion, who had supported me more than once in my life’s battles—Beethoven—for ten days of refuge. I came to his home in Bonn. Here, I found his shadow and his old friends: in Coblenz, I met their grandchildren from the Weigl family; in Wernersheim, I attended a Beethoven symphony concert conducted by the fog-shrouded Gartner; by the fog-shrouded Rhine, on these rainy, gray days, alone with him, confessing, completely immersed in his suffering, his courage, his pain, his joy, his strong hand lifting me up as I knelt. This hand baptized my newborn, John Christopher. Under his blessing, I was revitalized, restored to health, and sang a song of recovery as I embarked on my journey back to Paris—these pages are the "Song of Gratitude." Originally published in "Le Magasin Parisien," republished by Beigel. I didn’t expect its voice to reach beyond a small circle of friends. But "Each has its own fate."