The Last Days of Immanuel Kant
Gavin Bryars’
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant
The Crossing
Donald Nally, conductor
The Month of Moderns
Friday, June 14, 2025 at 7pm
The Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
PROGRAM
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant (2025) – Gavin Bryars
–World premiere–
NOTES + TEXTS
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant
music by Gavin Bryars
words of Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859)
A note from the composer:
History
Thomas De Quincey’s The Last Days of Immanuel Kant has been in my mind for more than half my life, even before I first articulated my interest in it as a possible opera. After the final performance of my first opera Medea in 1984 at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, the conductor Richard Bernas asked me whether I would like to write more operas, and I gave him a list of three possible subjects. One was Jules Verne’s Doctor Ox’s Experiment, and the others were Flaubert’s Bouvard et Pécuchet, and De Quincey's The Last Days of Immanuel Kant and I drafted operatic treatments of the last two. I even went to Munich in 1986 to discuss the Kant project with Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, who had made the astonishing film of Parsifal in its centenary year, and I planned to compose the last act for an Arts Council tour, though the character tenors I wanted to feature were not available, and so I set Jules Verne as my second opera.
A further opportunity presented itself with my third opera when the director of the Mainz Opera wanted to commission an opera for the opening of the theatre after rebuilding. I was asked to suggest a subject and I proposed The Last Days of Immanuel Kant. He found it interesting but felt that it was a bit too bleak and austere to serve as a celebration for the reopening of an opera house. So instead I wrote an opera (“G”), on Gutenberg the 600th anniversary of whose birth coincided with the reopening.
Apart from G, I have written “satellite works” in advance of each new opera. Allegrasco and an instrumental Prolegomenon preceded Medea. And with Doctor Ox I wrote an extended Epilogue for the Arts Councill Tour, which I condensed down to 7 minutes for the opera itself, as well as By the Vaar, a jazz bass concerto for Charlie Haden, which eventually formed a kind of obligato beneath a love duet. And though I reconciled myself to the likelihood that, in spite of my efforts, the opera might never happen I have written equivalent “satellites” for the non-existent Kant opera over the years. Now, having decided to make it an extended quasi-narrative choral piece, these find there ways into parts of this new work, though seldom by direct quotation. These are:
An instrumental piece The Old Tower of Löbenicht (1986) for my ensemble. This relates to a passage where Kant is disturbed by growing trees that have obscured the view of a distant tower, and the owner of the trees, learning of Kant’s distress, has them cropped.
A choral work And So Ended Kant’s Travelling in this World (1997) for the voices of the Hilliard Summer School. The original text describes Kant's last journey, a futile and inconclusive visit to a friend in the country. Part VII of this work only uses the first and last sentences of this piece while adding several other textual references to Kant’s attempts at travel - and the final musical cadence…
String Sextet (2023) subtitled “The Bridges of Königsberg.” The reference is to a mathematical problem (which is insoluble) that asks whether all the seven bridges over the river Preger can be traversed sequentially in a single trip without doubling back. The sextet alludes to this by various strategic movements between instruments and, here, informs some of the harmonic language of part VIII
The Text
De Quincy was one of the great 19th-century writers of prose, but his work is also admired by those who perceive links with other levels of writing, especially through his choices of subject matter. For example, although De Quincy’s text purports to be a translation of an account of Kant’s last years by a companion, Wasianski, his frequent ironic footnotes almost give it the character of a Duchampian “assisted readymade.” And at the same time, the way in which De Quincy seems to take pleasure in the absurdity of many of Kant’s habits has the flavour of, say, a theatre work by Samuel Beckett. This connection was asserted forcibly in Philippe Colliin’s remarkable film based on De Quincy’s text in which Kant is played by the great Beckett actor David Warrilow, who I had met when he performed Krapp’s Last Tape at Leicester Haymarket Theatre when I worked there.
Kant was born and died in February of Leap Years (though not on the 29th) and had a certain obsession with this month. He lived his entire life in Königsberg, now Kaliningrad, where he established unerringly repetitive daily routines, so much so that people would set their clocks when he passed by… and De Quincy emphasises this, almost to excess.
I have made severe edits of the text to create a libretto, just as I did with the two previous works for The Crossing – The Fifth Century (Thomas Traherne) and A Native Hill (Wendell Berry). The work falls into 9 sections, plus an interlude between parts 5 and 6 which I added after the work was completed. They are:
I. Motto
The two important things that fill the mind: “the starry heavens above me and the moral law within”
II. Prologue
De Quincy’s astonishing assumption: “I take it for granted that every person of education will acknowledge some interest in the personal history of Immanuel Kant…”
III. Dinner
“Lord Chesterfield’s rule”, that a dinner party, himself included, should not fall below the number of the Graces (3)—nor exceed that of the Muses (9).
IV. Conversation
Kant tolerated no calms or periods when its animation languished
V. The Old Tower
Kant’s is unable to pursue his twilight meditations when increasingly tall poplars obscure the distant old tower of Löbenicht
(Interlude: Lament)
A 12th century Italian lauda “Oi me lasso”
VI. Four Decays
1. Memory – Kant writes a syllabus for each day’s conversation
2. Theorising – the increasing weakness of his ability to theorise
3. Coffee – He loses all measure of time
4. Night – Darkness becomes a terror to him and silence an oppression
VII. Kant’s Last Travelling
Returning from a futile journey, he sleeps in peace “and so ended Kant’s travelling in this world”
VIII. February
An old song “Oh, happy February! In which man has least to bear”
From February 3rd to 12th; he dies as the clock struck eleven
IX. Postlude February 28th
Kant’s funeral – “Peace to his Dust, and Everlasting Honour!”
The Last Days of Immanuel Kant is dedicated to Tony Creamer, Donald Nally and The Crossing. In Memoriam Fred Orton (1945-2025) my old friend and Duchamp adventurer who died in February.
The Interlude, for solo alto and 6 solo tenors, has an additional dedication to Maren Montalbano, whose unique voice has given me so much pleasure and inspiration, and whose own “last days” with The Crossing end with the premiere of this work.
Gavin Bryars, Billesdon, June 2025
I. Motto
Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and intently thought concerns itself with them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within.
II. Prologue
I take it for granted that every person of education will acknowledge some interest in the personal history of Immanuel Kant. There is no philosophic writer whatsoever who can pretend to approach Kant in the extent of the influence which he has exercised over the minds of men.
His was a life remarkable for the purity and philosophic dignity of its daily tenor. We see him struggling with the misery of decaying faculties, and with the pain and agitation of two different complaints, one affecting his stomach, and the other his head; over which the nobility of his mind is seen victoriously eminent to the last. I know not how to excuse kneeling at the bedside to record the struggles of expiring nature, except by supposing that the idea of Kant transcended and extinguished the ordinary restraints of human sensibility.
III. Dinner
It had been his custom to eat at a table d’hôte. But now he began to keep house himself. He was a punctual observer of Lord Chesterfield’s rule—that his dinner party, himself included, should not fall below the number of the Graces—nor exceed that of the Muses. Kant talked all the way to the eating-room about the state of the weather, which he considered one of the principal forces which act upon the health. He was displeased if people ate too little. The first man to help himself was in his eyes the politest guest; for so much the sooner came his own turn.
Immediately after the termination of his dinner party, Kant walked out for exercise to pursue his meditations. He disapproved of eating alone, solipsismus convictorii. He disapproved of walking or riding alone. He wished to breathe exclusively through his nostrils. The atmospheric air, being carried round by a longer circuit, reaching the lungs in a state of less rawness, at a temperature somewhat higher, would be less apt to irritate them.
IV. Conversation
There was no friend of Kant’s but considered the day on which he was to dine with him as a day of pleasure, seasoned with the overflow of his enlightened mind. Kant tolerated no calms or periods when its animation languished. It was rarely or never that he directed the conversation to any branch of the philosophy founded by himself.
The subjects of conversation at Kant’s table were drawn chiefly from natural philosophy, meteorology, chemistry, natural history, and above all, politics. So keen was his penetration into the interior of political events that he talked with the authority of a diplomatic person who had access to cabinet intelligence. He threw out many conjectures, which were as punctually fulfilled as his own memorable conjecture in regard to the hiatus in the planetary system between Mars and Jupiter.
V. The Old Tower
At six o’clock he sat down to his library table and read till dusk. During this state of repose he took his station winter and summer by the stove, looking through the window at the old tower of Löbenicht; not that he could be said properly to see it, but the tower rested upon his eye,—obscurely, or but half revealed to his consciousness. No words seemed forcible enough to express his sense of the gratification which he derived from this old tower, when seen under these circumstances of twilight and quiet reverie.
At length some poplars in a neighbouring garden shot up to such a height as to obscure the tower, upon which Kant became uneasy and restless, and at length found himself unable to pursue his evening meditations. The proprietor of the garden was a very considerate person, who had a high regard for Kant; and accordingly gave orders that the poplars should be cropped. This was done, the old tower of Löbenicht was again unveiled, and Kant recovered his equanimity, and pursued his twilight meditations as before.
VI. Four Decays
1. Memory
The infirmities of age now began to steal upon Kant. The decay of his memory was too palpable to escape his own notice and he began to write a syllabus for each day’s conversation, on cards or any chance scrap of paper.
2. Theorising
Another sign was the weakness with which he now began to theorise. He accounted for everything by electricity. A singular mortality at this time prevailed amongst cats. Being so eminently an electric animal, he attributed this epizootic to electricity.
3. Coffee
He now lost all measure of time. Coffee must be brought “upon the spot.” If it was said— “Dear Professor, the coffee will be brought up in a moment.” He would say “Will be!” “But there’s the rub, that it only will be: Man never is, but always to be blest.” And when he heard the servant’s step upon the stairs, and as joyfully as every sailor from the masthead, he would call out “Land, land! my dear friends, I see land.”
4. Night
Kant began to complain of unpleasant dreams. Melodies, (*) which he had heard in youth resounded painfully in his ears and dwelt upon them in a way from which no efforts of abstraction could release him. And when he had fallen asleep, however deep his sleep might be, it was suddenly broken up by terrific dreams, which alarmed him beyond description. Darkness was a terror to him and silence an oppression.
(*) superimposed text for 2 solo sopranos and 2 solo altos – “Ach, meine schöne Emmalina, ach, meine sieben Brücken”
VII. Kant’s last travelling
His very last excursion was to the garden of a friend. He was to meet an old friend at the gardens; but after waiting a few moments, he insisted that some hours had elapsed. Retiring to some shady place, he stood still and motionless with the air of a person listening, or in suspense, and went away in great discomposure of mind. When it was known that Kant had gone out, as the carriage moved through the street where his house stood, we found it choked up with people. A lane was formed in the crowd. I observed persons of rank, and distinguished strangers, some of whom now saw Kant for the first time, and many for the last. Great was his joy when he found himself once more in his study. This night he slept in peace, and so ended Kant’s travelling in this world.
VIII. February
In the latter weeks of his life, a great change took place in the tone of his spirits. At his dinner-table, there was now a melancholy silence. His weakness moved a circle of his friends to tears.
In the memorandum book I found a fragment of an old song, which expressed that February was the month in which people had the least weight to carry—it was shorter by two and by three days than the others “Oh, happy February! in which man has least to bear—least pain, least sorrow, least self- reproach!”
On the third, the springs of life seemed to be ceasing from their play. His existence henceforward seemed to be the mere prolongation of an impetus derived from an eighty years’ life, after the moving power of the mechanism was withdrawn.
Saturday, the fourth, I heard his guests expressing their fears that they should never meet him again; and I could not but share these fears myself.
Monday, the sixth, he was much weaker and more torpid. He spoke not a word, except on the occasion of my question about the Moors of Barbary. He immediately gave us a summary account of their habits and customs; and told us by the way, that in the word ‘Algiers’, the ‘g’ ought to be pronounced hard (as in the English word gear).
Kant had become much more tranquil and composed. Now the strife was over and this time forward, no movement of impatience, or expression of fretfulness, ever escaped him.
Friday, the tenth, I went to see him at six o’clock in the morning. It was stormy, and a deep snow had fallen in the night-time. As I drew near to his bedside, I said, “Good morning.” He returned my salutation by saying, “Good morning,” but in so feeble and faltering a voice that it was hardly articulate.
Saturday, the eleventh, he lay with fixed and rayless eyes. He was speechless, but he turned his face towards me and made signs that I should kiss him. The kiss which he now gave to me was the last memorial that he knew me.
At a quarter after three o’clock on Sunday morning, Kant stretched himself out as if taking a position for his final act and settled into the precise posture which he preserved to the moment of death.
The breath grew feebler; there followed one slight respiration or sigh; the pulse still beat for a few seconds—slower and fainter, till it ceased altogether; and exactly at that moment the clock struck eleven.
IX. Postlude February 28th
All the dignitaries of church and state assembled in the church in the Castle. The bells of every church in Königsberg tolling. A never-ending train of many thousand persons followed it on foot. In the Cathedral, Kant’s mortal remains were lowered into the academic vault, where he now rests.
“the starry heavens - the moral law within.”
PEACE TO HIS DUST, AND EVERLASTING HONOUR!
We are grateful to those who make The Crossing possible.
TEAM + ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Crossing
Nathaniel Barnett
Jessica Beebe
Kelly Ann Bixby
Karen Blanchard
Steven Bradshaw
Aryssa Burrs
Colin Dill
Micah Dingler
Ryan Fleming
Joanna Gates
Steven Hyder
Michael Jones
Lauren Kelly
Anika Kildegaard
Hannah Dixon McConnell
Maren Montalbano
Olivia Prendergast
James Reese
Daniel Schwartz
Thann Scoggin
Rebecca Siler
Daniel Spratlan
Elisa Sutherland
Jackson Williams
Donald Nally, conductor
Shannon McMahon, managing director
Kevin Vondrack, associate conductor
Naomi Bennett, artistic associate
Chelsea Lyons, community engagement manager
Katherine DeSimine, administrative assistant
Paul Vazquez, sound designer
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