Adagio Sostenuto — Allegro
I wonder why every portrait of Beethoven depicts him with, or rather, imposes on him, this invariable look of fury, with deeply furrowed brows and eyes staring so intently — are those the very pair of eyes Rilke saw in his Apollo? But every time I listen to his cello sonata I think how these portraits do not do him justice. It gives me goose bumps, NOT by an eruption of triumph euphemism like the beginning of the fourth movement of No.5, but with sheer serenity, such serenity that is all encompassing, and such assurance, with warmth and understanding so close and personal.
Saturday we took Maomao on a trip to a seashore village. It was a gorgeous day outside the window, as the bus made its circles around towards the mountain top. When the bus made another turn, the ocean below sprung into view. You can look into so far in the distance where the clouds dissolved into a veil of mists even though it’s a perfectly sunny sky, and when the ocean held in its blossom such a blueness it became an entity living and breathing, a kind of transparency that was so substantive, so indisputably existing. I pointed out for Maomao a yacht that was cutting across the surface of the ocean with spreading white waves like an intentive stroke of water color that soon dissipated into the fibers of the canvas, and found he fell asleep on my lap, holding on to me with his arms and legs like a baby koala sleeping on a tree trunk. I instinctively stiffened my posture, and looked out of the window again. Silently breathed the vast scenery into me, I encompassed it and internalized it, understood it, and pressed it into Maomao’s mind through my chest where he rested his chin. He will see the vastness of the ocean and sky in his short nap, internalize it and understand it. And in my mind I played the cello sonata, let a shudder washed over me, and thought how Beethoven had miraculously anticipated this moment, when we are together, here.
Wang Maomao 