The Price of Creativity by Johnny Barclay
PRICE OF CREATIVITY
This was a room much lived in – dusty, stuffy, smoky, a distinct lack of fresh air – both a home and a work place.
Sheaves of paper, manic scrawls, were littered about like confetti, but mostly on the floor amid crumbs and scraps of food, hard to conceal against the dark, grimy stone.
Most visible were sheets of musical notation scratched in pencil, many of them angrily torn and scrunched up before being hurled at the fireplace, ashes still smouldering in the grate, waiting to engulf the banal and mediocre. And yet there was some order in the chaos and a suggestion of genius in one who has stepped away from the crowd and done things differently.
It was a restless space, the study of a man obsessed and uneasy with himself but not without feminine influence. On top of the piano, a standard upright, stood a vase containing pink roses and also a prayer book open at Psalm 43 with a small pencil mark against verse five – “Why art thou so heavy, O my soul: and why art thou so disquieted within me?” The answer perhaps lay in the portrait hanging on the wall opposite of a young woman sitting at the piano.
The room was cluttered with uncomfortable sofas and rickety chairs, much evidence of smoking in the air and on the covers and floor, and empty bottles of wine standing haphazardly in the hearth, suggesting that composition and inspiration stood hand in hand with alcohol and tobacco. In front of the fire stood a stool with sturdy legs and a soft leather top for sitting upon or resting legs at the end of a hard day. It was much scalded and discoloured by burns and slops of red wine.
It was an unruly den in which loneliness seemed closely related to creativity and where a tendency in brighter times towards boastfulness concealed the burden of low self-worth. The contrast of the piano and the portrait of his wife, whose fingers were so much at ease on its keys, was a constant reminder of unfulfilment and merely served to mask his own achievements. The good and bad, the highs and lows, the chords and discords all lived together in the same room.
He would never willingly have chosen Dresden for his home in 1841, let alone this dingy room. He longed to see more of his wife and, despite his envy of her musical virtuosity, missed her beauty and passion. For him it was always two steps forward and one step back where inspiration was quickly followed by despair, and with many successes more damaging than failures.
*Perfekte liebe vertreibt die angst
This message was fastened as a calming influence to the inside of the piano’s lid. Others could be found scattered about the room …
*Ich liebe dich was auch immer
*Ich kann nicht ohne dich leben
Always signed with a large C
*Perfect love drives out fear
*I love you whatever
*I can’t live without you
Jackie says: The creative process is beautifully described fully at work here, set alongside the longing of the room’s occupant for his wife. More than some of the other pieces, it gives a sense of the tortured inner life of the composer, and so is very successful. But I found myself being distracted, in a way, by the clues as to the identity of the person. The piece would have been very good even if I had not know who it was (after much Googling)
I liked the gradual way this piece moved from the general to the specific. It was only towards the end that I realised it was about a real person rather than a fictional creation. Not being very knowledgeable about composers, I had to do some research to identify the owner of the room, but I am now fairly confident it is Robert Schumann. The clues are there – Dresden, the wife who is a brilliant musician, the letter ‘C’ for Clara. The description of the room expresses perfectly the insecurity of the creative artist, the inability ever to feel satisfied with his work, even to the point of hating and wanting to destroy what he has created. It’s a vivid evocation of the mental illness which would lead to Schumann ending his life in an asylum. And, as is so often the case, the writing is all the more powerful for its restraint.