how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vl
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Category: Amsterdam
July 20, 2019
Concerto for Keyboard / Violin, BWV 1052 – Bach
“The Nightwatch“ (1642)
Rembrandt
_____
for Barbara, who dutifully
kicked me in the psyche
there is apparent discussion about whether
the BWV 1052 of Bach was first a keyboard
or a violin, concerto, I’ve only known it as a
keyboard concerto till now, when looking
for it for a friend, I happened upon this
recently published rendering of an event
that took place at the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam in front of the very
“Nightwatch” of Rembrandt, historical
epochs coming iconically together
which is why, incidentally, I love Europe,
Disneyland for adults, where epochal
periods come together like fantasies,
tossing back at us their manifest, their
multifarious, and mythic glories
what do you think, which came first, the
chicken or the egg, the keyboard or the
violin
I think, however prejudicially, the
keyboard, but what do I know
enjoy either, they’re both riveting
R ! chard
psst: note how the painted faces and the real
faces in the violin version look alike,
Rembrandt‘s genius
May 5, 2018
what’s up in Amsterdam – Piano Sonata in B flat major, D.960 – Franz Schubert
“The Doll“ / “Die Puppe“ (1934)
________
should you be concerned about telling
your Schubert from your Beethoven,
don’t fret, I myself, though considered
by some in this area to be omniscient,
however manifestly, as you’ll note here,
erroneously, upon watching a film last
night – the splendid ”Ex Machina”,
about a robot in the form of Alicia
Vikander, viscerally commanding in
neon blue, which is to say, incandescent,
with stainless steel and wires for body
parts – arms, legs, stomach – as part of
her more human, and curvaceous,
attributes – face, chest, and pelvis – who
fears she might be disassembled when
her purpose is served, and a new, and
better robot might not only take her
place, but also her very physical and
metaphysical components, and concocts
to save her life, if that’s what you’d call it,
however convincing, sophisticated, might
be her replication – confused the Schubert
sonata that filtered through the score for
one of Beethoven’s, though can you
blame me, when the sci-fi tale had been
so otherwise gripping
the D960, Schubert’s 23rd and last piano
sonata, was written in 1828, shortly before
he died, it is extraordinary, and entirely
worthy of being compared to Beethoven,
of being held, indeed, in equal
consideration
you’ll note again Schubert’s reserve, his
courtesy, he is philosophical, rather than
combative, his reply to Fate is acquiescent,
though never subordinate, his response to
the challenge of Life is to display the
colours, sounds, and other, however
humble, ephemeral, perhaps even
inconsequential, attributes of his existence,
with the grace of a very flower, whose
essence we still, today, have not ceased
to acknowledge, and to profoundly admire
this is our only answer, he states, our
ever so resplendent, however individual,
humanity, which it is our very salvation
to recount, to relate
Beethoven would surely have agreed,
and applauded
R ! chard
January 12, 2014
my Amsterdam, January 12, 2013
“right across from those two bridges”
Amsterdam, Holland
________
upon reaching our rented apartment after
our cab crawl through the Friday night
streets of bustling Amsterdam, hemmed
in and harried wherever we went by its
canals, bikes and rickety cobblestones,
all festooned in the neon glitter of, at
seven already of a November evening,
its multicolour nightlife, I looked around
to get my bearings, we found ourselves
on a little lost street standing on uneven
ground in the darkness between a row
of doors and some water
up the short street, as I looked around,
a bridge crossed from our street over
the stream that passed before our
lodgings, and on the other side of that
bridge another crossed another canal
that ran perpendicular
in my mind cobblestones, canals and
bridges incontrovertibly led to fairy
tales, around me I foresaw, in the
pregnant darkness of our secluded
street, adventure, and I would be
its Alice in Wonderland
and verily there appeared, as though
like magic, right across from those
two bridges, two coffee shops and a
restaurant, my two essentials, nothing
else but moonlit buildings, otherwise
only bicycles loomed, and the
occasional pedestrian
of the two coffee shops I chose the
one that was the least pretentious,
seemed to me the least a nightspot,
though it had its own smoky den at
the back, as it turned out, where they
did indeed serve coffee, made friends
with Francesco and Danielo the first
night, who were easy and engaging,
as they rolled me some take-out coffee,
little trumpets of the best, of course,
Columbian, or something, enough for
a couple of days
further up the further street a neon
sign read “Radisson“, which was
perfect, we wouldn’t have to look
for dinner, a noted hotel is always
an excellent place to find fine fare
and that night that’s all we wanted
we weren’t disappointed, the room
was nigh empty, the service right, and
the delicacies good enough to come
back for seconds, which we did
later as we walked home churchbells
rang the late hour, soon, they tolled, Read the rest of this entry »
December 29, 2013
my Amsterdam, December 29, 2013
The Amsterdam Canal Apartments
___________________
our trip from Bruges to Amsterdam was
circuitous, instead of a direct, unimpeded
journey, something that, incredibly I
thought, wasn’t even up for sale between
these two significant cities, we were made
to change trains in both Antwerp and
Rotterdam, with too long a wait at one,
and too short at the other, too brief to
tote comfortably our luggage there
such an inconvenient distance
I perspired, Mom worried about my heart,
not to mention my irascible impatience
Amsterdam Centraal was a replay of the
fall of Saigon, but with just a little bit more
order, a cab driver took our bags and crept
along the overflowing Friday night streets
and their contiguous, oddly moderating
canals, placid, constant, immutable, to
our, as they say in Europe, pied-à-terre
only a walk away from the train station,
I gathered, not carrying our luggage of
course, about the spot where the driver
dropped us off, the rest of the pertinent
city must be consequently nearby, I
supposed, as indeed it was
the driver put our bags on the
cobblestones, he’d driven up one
side of the canal, crossed a bridge
and returned along the one way
other, and stopped before our
own gingerbread house, scrunched
up between several others, our host,
the owner’s representative, who’d
been waiting on the stoop later than
our proposed arrival hour was gentle,
gracious, efficient and helpful, but
spoke essentially maybe seven words
of English, just Spanish, being from
Venezuela, and Dutch
could we blame him
would we expect our host to speak
Dutch in Canada if we couldn’t speak
its English, I asked Mom, who’d, out
of surely the day’s distress, I decried,
was resorting to peevish indignation
I enunciated all of my concerns
throughout to our ever attentive squire,
repeated my words carefully, spoke
them ever louder, one by ardent one,
pointed, spread out my arms, became
a back-up act performing grandly my
own instructions
all, I commend, were met eventually
unimpeachably
let me help change the beds, I offered,
he’d had to set up for a mother and son
rather than the more connubial pair he’d
expected, no, he replied, or something
similar that I could comprehend, and
wouldn’t hear of it in any language
he gave us the keys, after which we
could rest, and did, until two days later,
not including nearby dinners, of course,
out
the place was what you would expect
of a gingerbread house, beams, uneven
corners, but spotless and ready to take
on our colours, long instead of wide, a
Dutch particularity, with all the up to the
minute conveniences
there was however no bath, but a
generous shower stall I could easily live
with, and gloriously did for that month
outside a few cars were parked by the
barges, homes some of them, along the
canal, another canal ran perpendicular
to it away from us between two rows of
houses lined each with their tree, also,
incidentally, their garbage, but that’s
another story
it was night already, everywhere street
lights twinkled, as did their glistening
reflections on the onyx water
on the quarter hour church bells rang
dreams, they tolled, and told over and
over again, were possible
Richard
November 9, 2013
my Amsterdam, November 7, 2013
“Canal in Amsterdam” (1874)
____
in the morning we sit by the large
paned double windows that frame
the masterpiece that sits before our
paned double windows that frame
the masterpiece that sits before our
eyes, beyond a little cement and
wrought iron bridge that crosses
our canal another canal runs
perpendicular and away from us
between a row on either side of
trees, their leaves pale yellow
mostly, from late fall, with patches
here and there, like incidental
brushstrokes, of less vivid, or
weathered, if you like, greens
cobblestone paths along either bank,
charming but precarious, serve
pedestrians, cyclists in their dozens,
and the occasional adventurous car
willing to tackle the more lackadaisical
pace and unpredictability of bicycles,
people and everywhere watery
roadblocks, Renaissance gingerbread
houses hold the fort on either side of
the canvas, geometrically ceding to,
and doing a master class in,
perspective
in the distance, of course, the obligatory
steeple, infallably sounding on the quarter
hour
this morning a flight of what looked
to me like doves, so I’ll call them
to me like doves, so I’ll call them
doves, to touch up anyway with white
and peaceful thoughts my story, cast
magic by fretting in flocks vertiginously
between the parallel lines of trees, just
ahead of our front row seats
a symphony, I said to my mom, though
a symphony, I said to my mom, though
for the birds it must’ve been tumultuous,
a rash, maybe, anthropomorphism, but
their tumult has only ever translated for
me as immutably grace
people were taking pictures with their
smartphones, whirling skyward to the
avian poetry
we counted our blessings as we
breakfasted on coffee, bread and
cheese
later we’re off to the Rijksmuseum
to witness other visual wonders
Richard
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