Silences

Silences

There are many forms of silence and stillness, and of course there is also repeated silence or stillness within a conversation or a piece of music. But what about my life? How many “silences” do I find, allow myself, create for myself? And do I need “silences” at all? If so, why?

With these thoughts in mind, I entered the meditation room of the Buddhist temple in Berlin-Frohnau. My shoes were waiting outside. I had tried to leave my current plans for the day and my thoughts about tomorrow in my shoes. I should probably have worn boots, but I was glad that I hadn't worn sandals, which would have leaked out of the sides and back.

I sat down, took a deep breath in and out and waited. Waited for the new inhalation to come naturally, without breathing, so to speak. This, I thought, is the silence beforehand, the silence of expectation. It is the moment of concentration when the orchestra looks at its conductor and knows what is about to happen, but at the same time lets it happen. It is the silence that is not in the score, not in the notes, but with which, for example, Beethoven's Third Symphony, known as the “Eroica”, begins. The double orchestral beat that follows is the answer to this silence. If you miss the silence, you will miss the significance of the beginning of Beethoven's symphony, which has become so important in music history, and basically you will miss a historic moment.

My breath came and went, it seemed to flow evenly and keep on flowing - until it suddenly stopped briefly as I had just inhaled. Then the air flowed out again as if of its own accord and the breathing resumed, albeit in a slightly different way. It's like the fourth-last bar of one of my favourite Bach fugues, I thought, where the music seems to stop just before the already recognisable end and then sounds towards the final conclusion. No horrified holding of breath, no shock, simply a brief silence with the breath before a summarising, reassuring final movement is spoken. Bach explicitly notated this short pause for breath. According to his instructions, the fingers should be lifted from the keys to allow a moment of silence.

The Buddhist monks in the temple are very patient. They don't ask guests to really meditate because very few of them can, but they are still welcome. Only silence is required, so if at all possible, no coughing, no sneezing, no hiccups, no suppressed sobs, no constantly changing position and rustling your own clothes, no scratching on the floor - almost exactly like in a concert hall. Perhaps the Buddhist temple would be a suitable place to prepare for going to a concert, and I'm not thinking of Rammstein or Classic Open Air, but of the Philharmonie or the chamber music hall.

The silence in the third-last bar of Prelude XXII, also by Johann Sebastian Bach, is seemingly similar but quite different. Here, too, a short pause is notated, but on the sound immediately before it there is a fermata, a halting mark of indeterminate duration. The culminated and condensed, sharp sound of this point is itself the silence, the short pause the new beginning before the final sequence, a renewed catching of breath. The sound itself is thus a fulfilled silence, a silence that occurs after much has been said, much has been felt.

I began to listen to the sound of the silence in the room. The second of Anton von Webern's ‘Five Movements for String Quartet’ came to mind. Music that simply won't come out of the silence. The whole movement is the silence that otherwise does not succeed. The following movements therefore do not bring the music back, they explore the silence that is still possible after the silence.

At this point, I decided to get up again and return to my shoes. I left the temple in silence and didn't say a word on the way until I arrived home. There I darkened my room, didn't switch on the television, radio or CD player, but only touched the keys of my piano once, struck an E major chord and waited for it to fade away completely.

Translated with DeepL, proofread by the author