From the heart! May it go to the heart. Beethoven’s message, written in his own hand above the Kyrie. As I do every time I listen, I wait for the burst of passion that marks its beginnings. In the camp, Okuma-san said, “When we are out of this place”—he had been trying to tell me about the Mass—”you and I might someday hear this wonderful music together. When you are older, we might even be fortunate enough to attend a live performance. The beginning of the Missa Solemnis has a way of entering the spirit all at once and then holding it captive until the last note.” It would not be until the late fifties that I would hear a Toscanini record of the Mass, when Okuma-san and I listened to what seemed to be sounds funnelled from many places into one place, the choir swelling into the room where we sat. And now it’s as if I am compelled to hear this, and every one of Beethoven’s works, through Okuma-san’s ears and in the context of his stories. It is a big work, Beethoven wrote.
