Mahler Symphony No. 6 I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo
Darkness.
We fear it.
Many words describe this matter.
Diabolic. Malevolent. Bad. Evil. Vile.
Where does darkness come from?
We all know darkness, also from within. We all have also dark sides. Sides we better don’t look into. Sides we don’t want anybody to see them. Sides we hide very carefully. Is it in the outside? Or in the inside?
Darkness makes the world dualistic. It sets a limit to lightness. The brighter the light, the darker the darkness. It is a limitation.
There is much darkness in this world. People experience unbearable suffering, the future of this planet is uncertain.
For me darkness is the separation from something bigger than us. You can call it God, nature, another dimension.
One can always choose which way to go. It is up to us. But I don’t imagine it like in Star Wars. The Bad against the Good.
I think, if I bring light into my own darknesses, I bring light into this world. The darkness originates first in us before it comes into this world.
Yet why is there darkness?
Why does it has to exist?
If you listen to the first movement of Gustav Mahler’s 6th symphony, I would like to show you a place at minute 14:56. There I find an answer. Listen to the melody. The answer to me is: because we are humans. Being a human is a pretty dualistic matter. I guess, bearing the own darkness is part of being a human. Though Mahler continues and if you listen to minute 17:50, you hear something different. It is for me like a melody out of space. Heavenly. You can find it in the beginning too, at minute 2:02. There is always light. When the night is at its darkest point, the sun arises.
So why isn’t everything light from the beginning? Why having all this darkness? Is it necessary? All this cruel suffering and hopeless despair?
No. It isn’t necessary. There is no meaning in it for me. But without this, we maybe wouldn’t be able to recognise ourselves. There would be no mirror, we could look into. Without darkness, we maybe couldn’t become aware of who we really are.
