“Variations in Violet and Grey – Market Place“ (1885)
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strolling through my virtual musical park
today, in, indeed, the very merry month
of May, I was taken by surprise by, nearly
tripped over, in fact, a Beethoven work,
written in the very year, 1806, of the
“Razumovsky”s
I’d overlooked it cause it is without an
opus number, is listed, therefore, as
WoO.80, and is, consequently, easily
lost in the wealth of Beethoven’s
more prominently identified pieces,
but it is utterly miraculous, I think,
and entirely indispensable
I’d said something about it in an earlier
text, back when I was somewhat more
of a nerd, it would appear, perhaps even
a little inscrutable, though it’s
nevertheless, I think, not uninformative,
you might want to check it out, despite
its platform difficulties
the 32 Variations in C Minor are shorter,
at an average of 11 minutes, than Chopin’s
“Minute Waltz”, relatively, a variation every
half minute, where Chopin’s nevertheless
magical invention takes twice that to
complete its proposition
but in this brief span of time, this more
or less 11 minutes, Beethoven takes
you to the moon and back
a few things I could add to my earlier
evaluation, could even be reiterating,
Beethoven in his variations explores a
musical idea, turns it in every which
direction, not much different from what
he does in the individual movements of
his string quartets, his trios, his
symphonies, concertos and sonatas,
with their essential themes, motives,
they’re all – if you’ll permit an idea I got
from Paganini’s “Caprices” – cadenzas,
individual musings inspirationally
extrapolated, which, be they for
technical brilliance, or for a yearning
for a more spiritual legacy, set the
stage for a promise of forthcoming
excellence
this dichotomy will define the
essential bifurcated paths of the
musical industry, during, incidentally,
the very Industrial Revolution, their
mutual history, confrontation, for the
centuries to follow, which is to say,
their balance between form and
function, style versus substance,
Glenn Gould versus Liberace, say,
or Chopin, Liszt
before this, it’d been the more
sedate, less assertive evenings at
the Esterházys, to give you some
perspective, mass markets were
about to come up, not least in the
matter of entertainment
Beethoven was, as it were, already
putting on a show
R ! chard
psst: these alternate “Variations” put you in
the driver’s seat, a pilot explains the
procedures, it’s completely absorbing,
insightful, listen
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window, 1657
Johannes Vermeer
(1632-1675)
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“View of Dresden from the Right Bank of the Elbe with Augustus Bridge”
(1748)
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these earlier “back tracks“, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
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these earlier “back tracks”, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
October 21, 2004 Vancouver, B.C.
gold and russet leaves, dear Greg, rustling in the wake of a serendipitous wisp of wind, glittering and glistening in the crisp, clear autumn light, skateboarders’ silhouettes skimming along the edge of a ruffled ocean, sleak as the flight of the birds above, inspired an otherwise gray day, the sun has been out only in patches
after a truly therapeutic massage yesterday and a promise to my physiotherapist then to resume my too long interrupted exercises I started the day after some Proust of course and, I confess, also some irresistible Shakespeare – where a piteous Arthur, a boy who should be king, pleads of his executioner not to have his eyes pierced by hot irons, “cut out my tongue”, he says, “So I may keep mine eyes: O, spare mine eyes.” – I started the day at the gym doing a good run of vigorous exercises, a sure sign of a reinvigorated spirit, I’m returning to health and life
and to continue the day as though it were my last I lunched luxuriously afterwards instead of eating at home, on eggs and wine, a newspaper and a coffee, at my usual beachfront restaurant before heading out to Wendy’s where we were to read any old Shakespeare this time, I’d given her the choice, which turned out to be “The Merchant of Venice”, she thought, she said, she’d like that, imagining especially Venice, and also, I think, cause I’d mentioned that the movie, well reviewed, should be coming out next month
I smoked a joint along the way to her place along the water, where the “gold and russet leaves”, the “skateboarders’ silhouettes”, the “flight of the birds above”, left their wistful impression
then after a passionate discourse at her place on art, inspired I’m sure by the puff, and some references admittedly to my wounded heart, which she took in with great concern and compassion, I read
at first of course the language was rough and unfamiliar – a thicket of words, a bramble of indecipherable locutions – but as together we sorted out the subjects from the verbs, the art within the convolutions, we discovered poetry and enchantment, I’d told her to tell me if she got bored, uninterested – it should be fun, exhilarating, art, inspirational – but we made it to the end, Act 1, scene 1, it took two hours, Antonio’s ships were out, his friend Bassanio needed money to woo the lovely but expensive Portia and so was steered toward the city’s moneylenders to borrow on his friend Antonio’s assurance
Shylock, the famous Jew, nor for that matter Portia, have appeared yet
later at home after some television I determined to answer your letter, another sign of returning health
I hope you will enjoy my composition
I imagine you adrift in London, impressed and agog at so much of the history and the institutions, thick as traffic everywhere, even the city’s air and colours seem suffused with the stains and strains of a crotchety but golden nevertheless antiquity, a walk along the Thames suggests a time too long ago before it even all began, before there even was a London, and any street will conjure Dickens, Conan Doyle, and if you’re lucky and literate, even himself the Elizabethan Shakespeare, while Big Ben dependably tolls out in a deep reverberant voice not only the hours but the very centuries
I hope you won’t miss a thing
you are in my thoughts of course, and prayers
love
Richard
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these earlier “back tracks”, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
please enjoy
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March 15, 2006
as though the fire were out I was finding no spark of inspiration lately, though spring now, and some verve, have conspired at last to reignite my flailing prose
not even that I couldn’t match the noun to an apt and attractive adjective, that I couldn’t find the time or case of an ornery verb, that the metre of an iambic was perhaps recalcitrant or the lilt of an onomatopeia tired and worn, but rather and more decidedly, more fatally finally for my few sputtering words, for my flagging, foundering vowels, for my crumbling, turncoat consonnants, that were deserting me in droves, that I couldn’t turn open even the page, couldn’t find my way even to the paper that would allow me to write, to fill the vast waste of whiteness at my hand with the bouquets of wild and fragrant flowers that usually I find along the path of my itinerant imagination
this is no longer, evidently, the case
the ink is again flowing, the spring of art is in the air along with the spring of sap and blossoms
today I drew fleurs-de-lys on my walls, heraldically, which I’ll anoint in several colours to stand out against the variety of colours painted there already, I live in an array of colours, just like in a fairy tale
yesterday, to enhance that fancy, I received a mirror, a beautiful mirror, its craftsman told me it is made to reflect specifically one’s inner beauty
what if that could be
perhaps that craftsman ‘s a magician
he was at least a wise man
and a welcome inspiration
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these earlier “back tracks”, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
please enjoy
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for Greg, its champion
the stone angel:
miracles are of course in the eye of the beholder, like beauty, truth, and love
I remember being told by my mother about the wife of a cousin of my father, she was notoriously unattractive, indeed downright ugly, everyone said, her daughter later worked for my father in our family’s store, she was cheerful, industrious, and eager to be working there, one day when her mom came in her daughter called out to her mom as she entered, hi beautiful and altered forever my conception of beauty
miracles are also such entities, they happen in the heart and in the soul, without these there are merely serendipitous circumstances bereft of either reason or wile
but to the wide-eyed innocent still dazzled by the glory of a sunrise, the splendour of a sunset, the iridescent grace and beauty of a shimmering rainbow stretching its improbable arc across a sun-strewn sky, hot on the heels of routed clouds and blustering but receding thunder, miracles are a sign of heaven, the consequence, the stardust, of faith
we’d been headed out to dinner after a day of taking in Buenos Aires, making our way along one of its more popular streets, Avenida Florida is closed to traffic but teems with the to and fro of shoppers, tourists, merchants, and of course minstrels, entertainers, we’d seen a pair of men dancing the tango together for coins, each in a formal though somewhat worn-out black suit, young novices, a girl in black as well, in mesh, sultry hose, dark, beautiful and mysterious, stood to the side awaiting her moment, we thought they were probably students of tango, their steps were informed but not quite yet smooth and silken as the dance requires
Greg had been telling me about a mime who’d done magic for children, they would drop a coin into a box for her and she would then somehow make a light glow in their palm as she dropped something into it
I’d listened inattentively, making my way through the crowd instead, that flowed like a turbulent river all around and kept me alert especially to its currents
look, Greg said, it was a stone angel he was pointing at, a charcoal statue about the size of a man, the wings hadn’t been intricately described but they were the right size and spread convincingly above the reverent posture, the head was bent forward somewhat in prayer, the hands piously enfolded, a stone tunic fit the shape and turns of the heavenly body as though it were indeed cloth, the feet, the articulated toes, rested mystically upon the charcoal pedestal
I don’t remember seeing that there, I said to Greg, we’d been along that street before but I’d also always paid more attention to the traffic than the storefronts, and wasn’t unduly surprised that I’d missed maybe even this angel
do you have any change, Greg asked, I noticed a box at the foot of the angel, also charcoal, part of the sculpture, though I thought it strange in fact on public art
no, I said instinctively, careful not to squander my meagre pot, but when he asked again after I’d further considered, rued my initial ungenerous response, I dredged up a few pesos from an alternate pocket
Greg held out the coin to a little girl who stood nearby with her mother, offered it for her to take, whereupon she came by, accepted the change, then proceeded to the sculpture, and dropped the offering into the box for donations, then withdrew
but by then the angel had quivered, was coming to splendid life, and like a revelation had begun to unfold
of course this was a man, I understood in the very moment, but a man in the guise of an angel, which of course is an angel in the guise of a man, for where does the line begin or end which divides them
with a wave of his hand he beckoned the little girl back, she returned and in her palm which he held in his own blessed hand he bestowed a gift, which didn’t glow, I incidentally thought, but must nevertheless be wondrous
already I quivered, frozen in awe, but quaking like a leaf in a mystical wind
the little girl turned around to Greg, held out the gift in her little palm to give it safely and dutifully back to him, but when she opened her hand for him to retrieve the holy thing he merely touched it back again enclosing it there for her to keep, the act itself of another angel, spontaneously selfless, selflessly spontaneous, munificent
by this time of course there were tears in my eyes, I’m a sucker for the acts of angels, but the angel himself had been observing the kindness being proferred in his name, he signalled Greg over and bestowed upon him a gift which again he retrieved from a breast pocket stitched in the stone above his heart
Greg returned with a miniature silver crucifix that gleamed and glistened in his palm, not a glow, incidentally, but an incandescence, and indeed wondrous
but the angel was not about to leave me out and beckoned that I might too receive this blessing so that I advanced to receive also my little cross, he must’ve recognized my fervent admiration, my dumbfounded awe, and would honour me also, I gathered, with his favour
others followed suit, deposited their pesetas, received their little crosses from an always consummate angel, calm, poised, respectful, and profoundly inspirational always, until the wave of them wore off
I still quavered as though the earth had moved, like any creature stunned by for instance lightning, like any one of us before a force of nature starkly and grandly manifested, there is so much we overlook
but driven by finally logic and the practicality of moving on – even mystical experiences are finite – we wended our way forward toward our dinner out, but only a few yards on, meters if you will, out from where we’d had our visitation, I felt I’d left something wholly unfinished, wholly unsaid, asked Greg to return and with me, for me, tell the angel he’d been miraculous, magnificent, that I’d been so very much inspired, in Spanish, for all I could speak was English, and Greg was versed in their tongue
in his ear Greg spoke a fervent Spanish, he’d been there too, was also eager, I slipped a larger, more appropriate amount, I thought, into the coin box, more in keeping with the experience
but the angel didn’t move
he probably didn’t hear, Greg later pointed out, paper won’t sound like change will
but unresponsive to Greg too, I’d wondered, who’d poured his Spanish heart into the angel’s ear, maybe wax from the makeup, he’d thought
for a moment then the angel remained a sculpture, still, and in character, and of stone
then with deep generous eyes that slowly he opened, heavy with the weight, I thought, of maybe the very world, he peered deep into my own
beautiful, I responded, beautiful, the only word I could utter in exalted admiration
then in English, clear and reverberant, like an oracle, I thought, for us all to understand and behold, he replied, simply but wondrously, cryptically enough indeed but with great portent, thank you
to which I could only add, amen