Brahms. Our sweet summer child. We have resurrected you from the grave to inform you what has become of your music. And it is with no pleasure that we must tell you they are mostly heard through the crackling sound of an office telephone. See, it takes us so long to get a hold of the doctor nowadays, they play us music like yours to keep us entertained. We are so sorry.
But that’s not even the worst part. You see, unfortunately, we have grown to despise your life’s work and associate it with one of the most tedious and hateful activities of modern adult life. Surely you didn’t imagine the fate of “Hungarian Dance No. 5” would be the tense overture of waiting to learn how much insulin your insurance will cover. The frenzied notes make for a great rhythm to pace anxiously around the house.
We regret to inform you that another of your masterpieces, “Symphony No. 1,” has played while some poor fuck is waiting to hear that the doctor has not heard from the other doctor yet, and thus they have to call the first doctor again before they can schedule an appointment to be seen in five months.
“A German Requiem” makes for good background music to a long-haul session of waiting and doing absolutely nothing while being put on a brief hold. By the fourth movement, we think maybe the receptionist forgot about us. By the fifth, we’re almost positive no one is going to pick up the phone. If we can make it through all seven movements, we have to listen from the beginning again, and surely by now it should be our turn, right? How long can a ‘higher call volume than usual’ last, realistically?
“Violin Concerto,” which you wrote and dedicated for a dear friend, is meant to be heard in a concert hall with sublime acoustics but right now we are on the seventh repeat of this small segment of it while we are being transferred from appointments to billing. Each time we have to press a number in the phone tree, there is a loud BEEP and the segment starts all over again. While we would like to tell you that the segment leaves us wanting to hear the rest of the concerto, at this point it makes us want to throw our phone, and your music, through a window to never be seen again.
Long story short, we are deeply sorry and have nothing to offer you but our sincere condolences.