I have been asked a few times, “So, Chip, what do you think of today’s music scene? Where is the Brahms of today?” My answer has been, “There is none. There never will be again.”

Technically, that is still true. There will never be another (fill-in-the-blank individual’s name that is dead). But my answer is different today.

Brahms was a composer. By that I mean: when he woke up in the morning, he already knew that he was going to write down music that day. It was a habit that had grown to predictability, created by a perfect blend of circumstances that placed his psyche in his body, surrounded him with the perfect blend of other individuals, and caused him to study a topic and find satisfaction in living this habit. He was a composer because he had to be.

Brahms was not a pianist. He played the piano. I am not a composer. I have written music down, but I do not wake up needing to.

“Where is today’s Brahms?” My answer today is, “He hasn’t left.” The creative force that was unleashed through Brahms affected his circle of friends when they gathered to hear his songs. His friends’ creative forces mingled with his, each shaping the other. Some of the sounds they heard – some of the stories they told – some of the life they lived – was written down in one language or another – marks on pages – that musicians have brought to aural life a hundred years since.

Last night I sat with Brahms. He was in Brooklyn. His storytelling and soul-cries, weaving speech-sounds with textless ones, transported a different circle of friends outside of time and into another’s soul-life. He still uses Ab, Eb, Eb minor, and Bb minor – and matches those keys with their expressions. What is it about Bb minor…

Thank you, Julianne Mason, for sharing your music.