Sikorski
“The work I was writing for the Beethoven piano competition was finished, but remained nameless. ‘Prelude, Toccata and Postlude’ was the first thought, which I immediately rejected as too conservative and boring. The piece asked for a very different title. What shall I call it then?
I was nine when my piano teacher first assigned me to learn a Beethoven sonata. For some reason he selected sonata in E-flat major, Op.27 No.1 and so, with its distant bells - my uneasy relationship with Beethoven had started. At the same time I started to read Beethoven’s biographical novel. I liked reading about his difficult childhood and youth. Somehow, the more miserable he appeared to be, the more enjoyable was the reading. In the light of his terrible struggles I felt better about my own life. It seemed impossible to love Beethoven for his successes, but his failures were most human.
Everything about Beethoven seemed heavy, square, earth-bound. Yet his music seemed to be fighting the forces of gravity, fighting against its own awkwardness of movement – towards unattainable grace. From Beethoven’s portraits - his bushy eyebrows overshadowed his intent unhappy eyes and his forehead seemed to be sweaty.
What dreams did he have? What fears? What passions? What nightmares?
In ‘Ludwigs Alptraum’, as it happens in the dreams, the most disjointed elements suddenly reveal connections and seem to belong together in a strange and distorted reality that has its own proportions, its own sense of time and its own timelessness. All art is born from dreams. And, perhaps only in dreams, Fate can show us its hidden thread that binds each passing day to the next one. The dreams are full of signs, if only one can find them again in memories.”
(Lera Auerbach)