Chopin’s Tristesse is « Everything »

There is a song that shakes your limbs from sleep, a song that wakes up the drummer in you, a song that plays a rusty childhood tape and flashes it before your eyes, a song that makes you aware of your pain ..A song that happens without our consent and makes us relive, feel, understand and move on .. And then, there’s this song, or piece, a wordless piece that tickles your ears and settles there, with no apparent reason.

I have always been an ardent lover of Bach, but I have always had an unspoken weakness for Chopin. The moment I discovered his “Tristesse”, I fell in love with its poignant simplicity, so I had to learn to play it on the violin. A while later, I found myself humming it as a lullaby to my agitated little cousin. I never understood why it got to me, you never do with classical music ..

One day, as I traveled so many a time, I was gazing into the boundless greenness of God’s earth, it resurfaced before my mind’s eye. “Tristesse”, a name so unfair for a piece so telling ..

It starts with long notes slowly played, beautifully extended. Between the notes, you feel serenity, by the edge of a note, you sense calmness, and as silence starts clouding the last note, you feel nostalgia .. almost instantly. 

It begins with subtle yet powerful tone, lazy notes furtively escalating their way to a heart-wrenching climax, like a chest heaving a deep breath, ready to say something, but doesn't ...

At first, one is eased into a beguiling state of rest, gentle soothing notes conciliate the listener and take him by storm in a matter of seconds. However, the storm quickly subsides into calmness again. 

This circle-like pattern of the piece is reminiscent of life's most precious and devastating moments. Every soul born in this earth rejoices a state of eventless carelessness, then adulthood sweeps the human being off that fluffy carpet and thrusts him in the throas of life. Eventually, it grants him that initial calmness, a calmness no more carefree ..Wise, perhaps wounded, possibly lonely ...

In Death too, we perceive that inescapable cycle .. Before exhaling the last breath, an old soul lives a phase of peace, of sweet nostalgia, of slowly-weaved words of wisdom. Then, heart beats accelerate, the chest lifts itself wih quick desperate half-breaths to reach a scary non-human spot, only to be subdued into stillness again, Death.

Even in Love, the same cycle repeats itself. It starts with a shy phase of attempts to understand and penetrate the other Significant soul. A slow episode marked by hesitation and carefully-studied little steps. Soon after, the couple is taken into a whirlwind of romantic feelings and sweet excitement. Familiarity, by the end, leads the pair to solid ground again, to tranquility.

Everytime, the cycle comes to end, but the feeling of it does not, it leaves something behind .. Like the end of a last note, like in "Tristesse" .. The note stops existing, but the following note amplifies it as it amplifies and valorises itself .. With "Tristesse", we learn that there is no real end. The end never ends .. It leaves a trail of accumulated knowledges, memories that makes it everlasting ..