Piano Concerto no 3 in C minor, Opus 37 – Beethoven
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Category: Claude Monet
July 27, 2019
who’s afraid of the subjunctive
“Impression, Sunrise” (1873)
________
who’s afraid of the subjunctive
much like Elizabeth Taylor as Martha
in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”,
my answer is, I am, George, I am
the subjunctive is an esoteric mood,
even more abstruse in English than
in other languages, where the verb’s
conjugation highlights its presence,
in English, it’s nearly identical to the
indicative, the mood everybody
instinctively speaks in, facts
the subjunctive is about aspiration,
like the conditional, abstract, not
real, but its intention, rather than
the conditional’s inherent
impediment, a condition, shoots
for the stars, isn’t introspective,
but adamant, imperative
it is necessary that one be, it is
urgent that one have, it is
important that one effect, a
particular thing or event, all
subjunctives after the
doorkeeper word, “that”
one finds the subjunctive in
Shakespeare, master of grammar,
perhaps unparalleled in English,
a lot – O, that this too solid flesh
would melt, / Thaw and resolve
itself into a dew! – and follows
with Elizabeth Barrett Browning –
Pardon, o pardon that my soul
should make, / Of all that strong
divineness which I know / For
thine and thee …, for instance,
who is so profoundly indebted to
Shakespeare for her aesthetics
one wondrous day, I realized that
Proust’s entire “À la recherche du
temps perdu“, his “In Search of
Lost Time“, my Bible, was set in
the, French however, subjunctive,
the mood, there as well, of
possibility, therefore rather than
the definitive recreation of an
earlier time, Proust was
describing a sensibility, a personal
interpretation of a previous reality,
however bolstered by intimate and
apparently precise recollection of
shimmeringly imprecise, though
personally accurate, impressions
note here the similar preoccupations
of Proust’s contemporaries, the, aptly
named, Impressionists
everything, Proust was saying, as
were also the Impressionists, is in
the eye of the beholder
the subjunctive is the mood that
sets this instinct in motion
R ! chard
psst: Somerset Maugham I remember
being noteworthy as well for his
immaculate use, in his South
Pacific tales, of the subjunctive,
extremely elegant in its refined
construction, even with its
English austerities, like making
lace out of mere cloth, impressive
despite its impracticality, or
perhaps even because of it
September 13, 2018
Piano Concerto no 2 in G major, opus 44 -Tchaikovsky
“Beech Grove I“ (1902)
________
if a sonata, or any composition for one
instrument, is a meditation, a rumination,
an introspection, a concerto is its entire
opposite, it’s a declamation, a very
harangue, the performer is not only
before an audience, but before an
orchestra, before the conductor of that
orchestra, that soloist had better be,
therefore, something
Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Concerto
hasn’t cut the cultural mustard, you’ve
probably never heard of it, never mind
heard it, not even in the miasma of our
collective unconscious
why
who knows, it’s magnificent
I suspect that Moscow’s distance,
St Petersburg’s, might’ve had something
to do with it, Russia would still have been
a backwater to Europe, regardless of what
Catherine the Great might’ve done for its
intellectual edification, indeed a veritable
Elizabeth the First, Queen of England,
she, in her sponsorship of the arts
something like that happened, but in
reverse, to Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele
in art, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, the
Second Viennese School in music, in
literature, Robert Musil, his “The Man
Without Qualities“ a very rival to
Proust‘s epic trip down memory lane,
“Remembrance …“, when the centre
of gravity for the arts moved from
Vienna to Paris in the late 19th
Century with the advent of
Impressionism
France had entered its Fourth
Republic by then, was to finally
entrench its democracy, and we got
Monet, Debussy, and indeed Proust
instead, not to mention all of that
city’s celebrated others
leaving creative Vienna, meanwhile,
the undisputed engine of the Zeitgeist,
the spirit of the times, for over three
quarters of an earlier century, thereby,
in the dust
New York would take over in the
1950s, similarly, for a time, Andy
Warhol and The Factory, eclipsing
any other town
in other words, location, location,
location, in tandem with historical
events
R ! chard
July 18, 2018
how to read music – Cello Sonata in D major, opus 102, no 2 – Beethoven
“Head in Black and Green“ (1913)
___________
the line of music, the essential melody,
is not resolved in Beethoven until several
bars from the beginning in his Fifth Cello
Sonata, one note follows another without
any specific reference to what preceded it
but the tempo, and the voice, which is to
say, its tonality
there is ever, however, though perhaps
sometimes eccentric, a harmony, a
convincing argument, we are speaking
the same language
as in reading, one follows the musical
line for those several bars, hanging
onto each note for meaning, spotting
even commas, semi-colons, periods,
however unconsciously, until one
reaches the end of the paragraph,
made evident by the recapitulation
therefore music
which doesn’t only, however,
recapitulate, here, but elaborates,
adding depth, dimension, local
colour, to the already intricate
story
Beethoven is challenging the very
idea of music in this composition,
much as later the Impressionists
did, for instance, when they
upended the entrenched idea of
merely representational art – a
process I saw reverberating in my
very own 1950’s, ’60’s, when even
Monet, people objected, could’ve
been managed by their children
Picasso, of course, was, at the time,
nothing less than a joke, not to
mention any of the Surrealists, or –
gasp – the Expressionists, see
above
I prefer the very early cello sonatas
of Beethoven, for their verve, their
energy, the second movement, the
“Adagio con molto sentimento
d’affetto” in this late one, overdoes
it, I think, a little, it’s like sitting with
someone you can’t leave, whose
sorrow is immense, and which you
can barely handle, but must, out of,
if nothing else, chivalry, or common,
and insuperable, one hopes, human
compassion, consider, and duly,
thus, proffer, ideally, grace
who hasn’t been there
R ! chard
March 20, 2018
different trains – Reich / Bach
“Saint-Lazare Gare, Normandy Train“ (1887)
________
since I’m on the subject of trains, let me
once again highlight a piece that, to my
mind, is one of the most significant
works of the 20th Century, Steve Reich’s
“Different Trains“, an extraordinary
homage to the victims of the Holocaust
it is in three movements, “America –
Before the War”, “Europe – During the
War“, and “After the War“, Reich
recounts his impressions of train trips
that marked him throughout, therefore
this is an autobiographical work, as
well as being an historical document,
and add to that a profoundly moving
musical meditation on a pivotal
moment in our history
I used to say that if you’re going to
open your mouth, you should be
either entertaining or informative,
preferably both, otherwise keep
your mouth shut, many took
offense, I must’ve been
insufferable
but, I would opine, life is short,
you’ll have to, I’m afraid, deal
with your own shortcomings
Reich here has no shortcomings,
though at first you think this might
be a long trip, with so many
repeated musical clusters, not to
mention the strident atonality, it
soon becomes evident that this
piece is amazing, a personal and
powerful evocation of a particular
transformational event seen
through the eyes of an innocent,
an American child, a poet,
experiencing, however
metaphorically, the horror of this
defining moment
style and content, information and
entertainment, indissolubly gel to
deliver an unforgettable experience,
my own such pivotal moment
would’ve been the Cold War air raid
shelters, the nuclear threat
Reich holds on to Classical
conditions by a mere thread, tempo,
however variable, is solid throughout
as a rock, dictated by the prepared
tape that the instrumentalists must
follow rhythmically like a clock
another divergence from the
Classical model is that tonality
and recapitulation, apart from the
repetition of musical clusters, is
entirely jettisoned
note, however, the same use of
repeated clusters in Bach, to
simulate propulsion, the
minimalism of the 20th Century is
already prefigured in Bach’s stuff
plus ça change, as we say in French,
there is nothing really new, in other
words, under the sun
in the spirit of juxtaposing items
to discover much more than the
sum of their parts, listen to Bach’s
Second Suite, in D minor, for
inspirational clarification
R ! chard
psst: there were no trains at the time
of Bach, I should note, they were
a product of the later 19th-Century,
its Industrial Revolution, see, for
instance, here, or above
March 4, 2018
String Quartet, opus 77, no 1 – Joseph Haydn
“The Red Cape (Madame Monet)“ (c.1870)
_______
for my mom
that’s a lot of Haydn, I said to my mom,
when I saw the list of my transmittals in
her hotmail, hm, I wondered, maybe it’s
too much
then I said, but it’s like when we’ve
toured, for instance, our European
art galleries, me propounding on
the paintings, as I am wont, however
incorrigibly, to do, but now, note, you
can tell the difference between your
Monets and your Klimts, however
similar their perspectives
or like your tour guide taking you
recently through Argentina,
highlighting spots, in the space of
a month only, the same amount of
time I’ve spent for the music of
Haydn
pronounced, incidentally, I specified,
like “hidin'” in English, not “maiden”,
just sayin’
I gathered that she’d ‘ve sensed by
now, if she’d been listening, which she
said she had, mornings over her
coffee, what a string quartet is, four
movements, different tempos, fast
at first, a joyful introduction,
followed by a lament, then a spirited
third movement, for countereffect,
then a big fourth movement finish
also, the internal structure of each
movement would’ve been internalized,
a theme, a counter theme, a
recapitulation of both, or either, all of
it, probably unconsciously, which is
how art fundamentally works till you
meticulously deconstruct it
the string quartet is the work of Haydn,
the house that Haydn built, from
peripheral aristocratic entertainment,
like modern day artists sporting their
wares in noisy restaurants, to the
glamour of taking on, in concert halls,
Europe, Brunelleschi did a similar,
sleight-of-hand thing with his dome
in Florence for its oracular Cathedral
remember that the string quartet lives
on as a form, where no longer does
the minuet, for instance, nor the
polonaise, nor even the waltz, not to
mention that concertos, and
symphonies have become now
significantly subservient to movies,
secondary players
watch the instrumentalists here live
out, in Haydn’s Opus 77, no 1, their
appropriately Romantic ardour,
something not at all promoted in
Haydn’s earlier Esterházy phase, to
raise their bow in triumph, as they
do at the end of most movements
is already an indication, not at all
appropriate for the earlier princely
salons, that times have changed
Haydn was a prophet, but also an
elder, with an instrument to connect
the oncoming, and turbulent, century
to the impregnable bond of his
period’s systems, the legitimacy of
the autocratic, clockwork, world,
Classicism, the Age of Reason, the
Enlightenment, for better or for
worse
we are left with its, however ever
ebullient, consequences
R ! chard
February 20, 2018
Cyprien Katsaris in Budapest
Cyprien Katsaris
________
if there’s only one concert you see
this week – I would’ve said this year
but I have way too many irresistible
concerts to promote – make it this
one, like none I’ve ever seen before,
Cyprien Katsaris, who wowed us in
my last encomium, delivers, not one,
but two concertos, when emotionally
I can usually deal with only one
but you can pause between the pieces,
like I did, to wipe a tear or two away
after the adagios, which remind me,
always, of my beloved, John
but that’s another story
Katsaris starts with an improvisation,
which he elucidates as an art form
much more expertly than I would,
then delivers a stunning rendition of
his mastery of that gift
though I couldn’t identify the first part
of it, the melting melody in the last
section of his homage to, essentially,
the Romantic Period, rushed back
memories for me of a piece I could
never forget, the music from Fellini’s
heartbreaking masterpiece “La Strada“
– listen, listen – right out of Romantic
Period idioms, its very story even, like
Dickens’ “Oliver Twist“, his Little Nell
from the “The Old Curiosity Shop“,
staples of my adolescence, married
to a nearly mythic lyrical invention
let me add that improvisations have
been an integral part of concertos for
a very long time, the cadenzas, an
interpolation by the performing artist,
hir riff, a strutting of hir stuff, late
in the, usually final, movement, a
consequence, incidentally, of the
more forward, individualistic,
18th-Century progression towards
individual rights, some left to the
performing artist, but many
prescribed by the composer himself,
where, here, I must, gender sensitive
myself, unceremoniously interject to
explain my deference to the
designation above, “himself“, to male
merely composers, who were then the
only ones, however culturally ignobly,
to nevertheless shape our quite, I
think, extraordinary musical trajectory,
for better, of course, or for worse
in this instance, I suspect Katsaris
wrote his own cadenzas for the
Mozart, notice his arm at the end of
the first movement fly up in an
especial transport, and in the last
movement, watch his very
exuberance mark the spot, but I
couldn’t put it past Mozart to have
written something so historically
visionary
Bach, incidentally, wasn’t doing
cadenzas, so don’t look for them
the two concertos that follow the
improvisation, Bach’s, my favourite
of his – you’ll understand why when
you hear it – then Mozart’s 21st –
everyone’s favourite – are both
played transcendentally
consider the difference in period,
the earlier Baroque, with Bach’s
notes skipping along inexorably,
the pace required by the
harpsichord, which didn’t have
hold pedals to allow notes to
resonate, the music moves along
therefore nearly minimalistic tracks,
a pace, and musical motif, that don’t
stop, they keep on chugging, until
they reach their destination, their,
as it were, station, or even their
stasis
Mozart’s music is as effervescent,
but conforms to a different cadence,
where a theme is presented, then a
musical, and contrasting, second,
with recapitulation, sometimes
merely partial, which is to say that
the call and response dynamic of
the dance, or for that matter, by
extension, modern ballads, is
being established, codified, and
elucidated
an era has intervened
then as an encore, Katsaris delivers,
not a cream puff, but Liszt, of all
people, we’re used to performers
giving us trifles at this point, but not
Katsaris
then to top it all off, he plays the Chopin
you thought you’d never ever hear again,
but here immaculate and utterly
inspirational
the orchestra alone performs after the
intermission, works by Ravel and Bizet,
surprisingly similar, I thought, the two
composers, in their musical idiom, the
use of the winds as metaphors, for
instance, for originality, eccentricity,
unmitigated poetry within the context
of what is not unnatural
neither is either composer adverse to
atonality, they work in textures, instead
of melodies, all of which is very
Impressionistic, see of course Monet
and others for historical reference
did I say I want to be Cyprien Katsaris
when I grow up, well there, it’s said,
he’s lovely
R ! chard
September 23, 2016
on art, its purpose
“Poet With Flower“ (2008)
_____
wherefore art, I’ve long and often wondered,
with only a wink to Juliet’s Romeo, for my
question dug deeper, why, indeed, itself art
we build our souls on the stories we’ve
heard, the impressions we’ve received
from voices that spoke directly to our
senses, painters with paint, musicians
with music, writers with words, poets
with poems
it started with fairy tales, which told of
right and wrong, good and bad, courage,
kindness, responsibility, and dire
consequences for discord
Biblical stories also took up a lot of my own
childhood, Jesus, Adam and Eve, Moses
and the Ten Commandments, this last
reinforced by Cecil B. DeMille’s epic
but soon enough it was Oliver Twist, Little
Nell, and by an inescapable authorial leap,
since these were all by an irresistible
Charles Dickens for a guy my age, Sydney
Carton, who valiantly stands in for his
friend, Charles Darnay, at the guillotine, a
quantum, even existential, leap from
Peter Pan and Mary Poppins
though I had the good fortune to learn to
read and write music as a boy, play music,
learn about Bach, Brahms and Beethoven,
it didn’t take anyone else much more than
their enthusiasm to see what the Beatles
were similarly doing, the Rolling Stones,
the Supremes, they were not only singing,
but making history, shaping it, and us, we
followed the questions they rose, their
responses, the effects upon ourselves
for nothing is considered until it’s
mentioned, spoken, made clear, and they
were those prophets
the same goes for art, we see as we see
cause Monet, Picasso, Warhol showed
us how to see, what to look at
and of course poets, Shakespeare,
Rostand, Dante, Goethe, to inform, each,
their individual language, and culture
I have been Philip Carey, Scarlett O’Hara,
Blanche Dubois, Gary Cooper in “High
Noon“, both Martha and George in
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf“, lately
I’ve been even Hank Williams
as Babette would say, a French doll who
gets abducted in “Raggedy Ann and Andy:
A Musical Misadventure“, an animated
movie from the Seventies, – oo aahrr yoo
Richard
psst: all of them have been me too,
incidentally
March 22, 2016
a rumination on rain
_________
since last November the days have
been short, and have not hastened
since winter to be longer, not
helped either by the most recent
time change, more than anything
a biannual irritant
nor has the rain stopped, apart from
a few clement days, its persistent,
often pounding, onslaught
that’s me, above, expressing my
displeasure
as usual, in distress, I turned to art
to see, or hear, what others might
have to say about my current
dilemma, my chagrin du jour, if you
like, in this instance, the Erte on rain
took the sting out of the raindrops
others had inspired, a Gauguin,
unexpectedly grey, but haunting,
a Monet, of course, equally sombre,
who painted in all weathers
Constable, uncharacteristically
angry, was looking a lot like
Turner, but more direct, accessible,
less oracular, more matter-of-fact,
sensible, reading only the weather
in the weather
Winston Churchill, of all people,
gives us, incidentally, something
in between
a 1900 Paul Mathiopoulos appealed
especially to my sense of poetry
among the artworks I perused,
someone I’ll have to further, for his
tender homage to perhaps other
colours than orange, explore
a John Atkinson Grimshaw, another
to me unknown, does a similar thing
in, essentially, a monochrome, with
a fine mist standing in for ethereality
Miró is ever up to his old tricks,
seeing rain among the other marvels
in his idiosyncratic playpen, if you can
find it
but Erte catches best of all my desire
for irony, sardonicism, self-criticism
in music I couldn’t think of anything
other than Beethoven’s “Der Sturm“
to temper the weather, despite the
fact that rain hadn’t been ever his
inspiration, the title came from his
publisher to increase sales,
Beethoven wrote pure music,
abstract, never specifically literally
to describe, what is called program
music, his descriptions, his
evocations, came unadulterated,
untransliterated, from the heart
in literature nothing beats Somerset
Maugham’s short story, “Rain“, a
masterpiece of intrigue as well as
literary prowess, searing substance
married to superb style
the book was duly made into film,
and several times, with Gloria
none of these slouches
the clouds have now coincidentally
dispersed, the metaphorical ones,
not so surprisingly, have been
meanwhile displaced by my retreat
into art, a recourse I’ve found to be
always dependable, and, yet again,
in this otherwise grim environment,
diverting and trustworthily inspiring
I wish you consequently, also, for
similar reasons, art, a salve along
life’s often obstreperous journey
Richard
June 3, 2015
June, 2015
“Fields in the Month of June“ (1874)
___________
there were no poems not tawdry
about the month of June when I
looked, I read of the moon a lot,
of blossoms everywhere blooming,
troubadours crooning, couples
spooning, ubiquitously and
indiscriminately, none enough to
warrant my further attention
but this lyric, serendipitously,
finally, touched on what I thought
June might bring up
June, it said, is busting out all
over, to corroborate, just click
incidentally, Monet, a year earlier,
1873, had painted his “Wild
Poppies, near Argenteuil“, the
month of June in his conception
being addressed here perhaps
merely peripherally
but it seems Daubigny and Monet
must’ve known each other
again just click
Richard
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