Piano Concerto no 20, K.466 – Mozart (Uchida)
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Category: finding miracles
April 5, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 102
“To Be Titled“ (1987) –
Jean-Michel Basquiat
__________
next, according to Ovid, inspired, presumably,
by the Gods, is what happens before the world
is created
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
which is to say, the earth
And Heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
the “face of Nature” was “One”, an
indistinguishable, perhaps not even, “face”
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
this undifferentiated agglomeration, this “lifeless
lump” was called Chaos
note the “seeds”, however, potential, though
“jarring”, or conflicting, the genesis for what
is to follow
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
the horns of the moon are visible when the
crescent moon lies flat on the horizon, in
the shape of a smile, presenting “horns”,
the twin elevated extensions
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:
or lie
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
see again Chaos here
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water’s dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
next, the first metamorphosis
stay tuned
R ! chard
February 25, 2020
on Beethoven’s Symphony no. 6, the “Pastorale”
“The Sound of the Flute“
Xu Beihong
________
for Susan, who urges
me ever to write
a friend wrote recently, extolling a
performance of Beethoven’s Sixth
Symphony he’d just seen, a
noteworthy conductor conducting
then again, how can you go wrong,
I wrote back, with that already
enchanting music, sent him, in
return, a version I’d ferreted out,
tried out for him, had been duly
enchanted, had laughed, had cried,
taken shelter from the storm, come
out the other side transported, again
I wondered about the power of music,
during my intermittent musings
throughout the variegated movements,
as the peregrinations ambled on along
their own magical explorations, long
irrepressible arpeggios running up or
down the scales, performing
arabesques at their peaks, rumbling
tremolos at their grumbling bottoms,
before returning to the more stable
middle ground of the melody
where, I wondered, does it all find its
source
sounds, individual sounds, would
have been signals of danger,
originally, a single note from a horn
warning of strangers on the way to
a community of otherwise peaceful
cohabitants if not only family, a twig
cracking in the forest when you
believe you’re all alone
individual sounds would’ve picked
up meaning beyond their own pitch
and volume, resonance, reverberation,
rotundity, through Darwinian, even,
time
a mother’s voice, for instance,
identified immediately, upon a single
note, perenially, by any of her brood
it’s a long way from there to a symphony,
but those are its roots, why we laugh, why
we cry, take shelter from the storm, and
come out the other side transported
notes are written, emblazoned, on
our consciousness, our lives depended,
depend still, on it
listen
R ! chard
psst: interestingly, our Darwinian evolution
has produced pitch as an identifying
factor for our species, a female voice
is higher than a male’s, this has
allowed us, as a species, to sing
March 30, 2019
String Quartet no 15, Opus 144 – Dmitri Shostakovich
Title page and key monogram of “The Mountain Lover” (c. 1895)
Aubrey Beardsley
___________
after John passed away, I read, at a
gathering we had for him, something
that I’d written in his honour, it began,
adagios always remind me of John,
John was a dancer, he walked like
one
a few days later, immersed as I
was in memories of him while
mechanically washing some
dishes, I heard, from a symphony
I’d put on in the background to
keep me company in my reverie,
its adagio
I dried my hands, put my arms
around myself, and we danced
to the end of the movement, I’d
found, I understood, utterly, I
believed, miraculously, a key to
the very hereafter, adagios
would henceforth always
remind me of John
some time later, flipping aimlessly
through string quartets, of
Shostakovich among others, I
happened upon this one, his 15th
String Quartet, Opus 144, which
had, to my astonishment, not one,
not two, not three, not even four
nor five, but six whole adagios,
this was John talking, I knew,
I’ve loved it ever since
listen
R ! chard
psst:
String Quartet no 15, Opus 144
l – Elegy: Adagio
ll – Serenade: Adagio
lll – Intermezzo: Adagio
lV – Nocturne: Adagio
V – Funeral March: Adagio molto
Vl – Epilogue: Adagio
Dmitri Shostakovich
February 18, 2019
on a personal note
“Roses“ (c.1886)
John Singer Sargent
____________
on a personal note, since I prefer longer
pieces, something I can sink my teeth
into – I like them when they’re long, I
always say – which led me into spending
33 years with Proust, for instance, page
by page, so that I could breathe it in, him,
I tend to veer towards music with several
movements, be they serial, as in sonatas,
symphonies, concertos, Classically
speaking, of course, or haphazard, as
in the more loosely associated suites
rather than smelling merely the rose,
as in a simple waltz, nocturne, étude,
I want to revel in the aroma of an
entire garden
therefore the three hours of Liszt‘s
“Années de pèlerinage“, for example,
even Wagner‘s daunting five hour
operas, individual portions of his
towering, indeed epic, four-part
“Ring” cycle, enthral me
these are high masses, and if you
subscribe to the faith, the experience
they allow can be transformational,
however such may still be,
nevertheless, a mere rose, a mere,
but epiphanic, rose, as is, for
instance, the exquisite Opus 10, no 3
of Chopin, “Tristesse”, or “Sadness“,
inveterately, for me
a rose, a creation as unique as we
are, in our shared, however unevenly
apportioned, mortality, proud, sturdy,
protected by thorns, even, meanwhile,
as we are, in our own manner, against
our own existential vicissitudes
but vibrant, also, ever, drenched in
any of its several arresting colours,
fragrant, poised, full of perfect grace,
as we should be ourselves, I’ve told
myself, not only with regard to their
beauty, but to their inspiration,
whether a deity exists that we
might be beholden to, incidentally,
or not
Shostakovich has something poignant
to say about that, also Beethoven, but
that’s another story, for later, maybe,
however, either, powerfully
consequential
until then, l’important, as we sing in
French, c’est la rose
or heed, it says, in other, but
nevertheless ever instructive words,
the wisdom of very nature
I live by it
R ! chard
September 16, 2018
“The Man I Love” – the Gershwins
“Apollon” (1937)
_______
flipping through old ruminations
lately, that I’d left in my out box for
whatever reason, I came across this
number that I’d discovered on the
Internet in order to soothe a trying
emotional upset, when my heart is
broken, I learn the words to torch
songs, and wallow in their misery
until the poignancy of the poetry
seduces me and I revel in their
caress, in their, indeed, excess
Apollo, my own personal deity, and
I had split after 17 years, and though
that story is completely different
from the one in this torrid love song,
the anguish remains utterly the same,
whether it’s around the man one
loves, loved, or would love
watch this wonderful rendition of
“The Man I Love“ in a version you’ll
probably never forget, for both its
originality and its great humanity
R ! chard
July 10, 2018
a “Musical Offering” – Bach
“Bouquet of Flowers“ (1946)
_________
for Collin
a friend, who lives too far from me
to visit, but who is too close to my
heart for me to do nothing, has just
had a stroke, “His body, smile, motor functions are improving.The most affected area is his speech center. He is filling in the gaps, has surrendered to his situation, but is operating at about 25% comprehension and memory. He has to rebuild his language, and is getting his ideas across with a lot of help in translation. He will be doing a lot of speech therapy. His uncanny resilience will serve him well.“,
I’ve been advised
should I continue to write to him,
I’ve wondered, maybe just a few
cheery words a day, does he
take the time to read his mail,
can he, does someone do it for
him, should I call, or when
I thought, if not anything else, why
not music, something I can easily
send, something he can hear,
surrender to, rather than pay any
more cerebral attention
yesterday, I sent him Bach, Bach’s
“Musical Offering“, 1747, Bach is
from a much more serene period
in music than Beethoven, my
recent area of investigation here,
Bach wrote a lot of ecclesiastical
stuff, cantatas and such, masses,
was indeed music director for the
Lutheran churches in Leipzig for
a time, the combination makes for
reflective, often even transcendental
music, Beethoven wouldn’t at all,
in this case, ‘ve done, with all of
his Sturm und Drang
I’m lighting a candle a day for my
friend, I’ll also be sending him
internet flowers, till I think of
what else I can do but pray, for
his speedy recovery
thanks for dropping by
R ! chard
July 1, 2018
Violin Concerto no. 1 – Paganini
“Portrait of Paganini“ (1832)
___________
before you start thinking that, because
of my recent comparisons, Paganini is
a nobody, look what I found, had
stupidly forgotten about, among the
multiplicity of wondrous examples
concertos have to offer
this will attest, as well, to my fallibility,
which I unreservedly confess, in many,
even familiar, matters, I used to not
much remember the last time I was
wrong, but writing makes one more
aware of one’s even egregious
insufficiencies, I love, I must say,
that it makes one humble
meanwhile, Paganini’s First Violin
Concerto has absolutely no faults,
it’ll run through your cultural veins
like water, you’ll probably be able
to sing all the notes, apart, of course,
from the cadenza, which, in this
instance, is the soloist’s, not
Paganini’s, a not unusual occurence,
indeed a common one, though it’s
nice when they tell you who wrote it,
the composer or the player, as they
do in this case, cause unless you’re
a total nerd you mostly wouldn’t be
able to tell the difference
the cadenza is the part, incidentally,
where near the end of a movement,
any movement, though usually not
the slow one – think about it – the
soloist struts hir improvisational
stuff, independently from the
orchestra, till s/he signals it back in
I’ve said before that Paganini’s
“Caprices“ are a series, essentially,
of cadenzas, not at all such shabby
stuff
meanwhile, I think Paganini is back
in the running, what do you think
R ! chard
April 22, 2018
Fantasia in F minor, D.940 – Franz Schubert
“Princes In The Tower“ (1878)
___________
flipping through the suggested list of
YouTube videos that always accompanies
the main feature for a quite specific other
quintet of Schubert, a work to compare
with the one I recently presented, I
chanced upon, by the very gleam of what
it promised on the label, a Fantasia, rather,
of Schubert for four-hand piano, in other
words, two people, pups of the same
family, it appeared in this instance,
according to both their names, and the
still picture
I wasn’t prepared to find two veritable
cherubs, dressed alike in black and
very music of angels
written in May, 1828, Schubert died
that November, age 31
the Fantasia is essentially a sonata
with all the breaks removed, it is
video indicates the three traditional
separations of the movements as
they occur
you’ll find again tonality, tempo,
and recapitulation rule, but the
idiom is searching, clusters of
notes are broken down, explored,
dissected, looking for some kind
of metaphysical solution, which
of course, can only be the quest
itself, imperceptible to the
beseecher, who can only ever
find it in the mirror of his or her
own creation, in other words, the
answer is in the process, we are
ourselves our own metaphysical
solution according to the life that
we individually create, which, in
magical, the very utterances of
angels, Schubert must’ve been
an angel
note the return of the original
theme in the final movement,
like a memory of something
that started long ago, before
the tumult and anguish of the
intervening moments, the sigh
at the end, the very last note,
a surrender, a submission, an
exhausted, and I use the word
advisedly, capitulation
if I’ve twinned the painting above
it’s that they are both expressions
of absolute innocence, unclouded
emotions before their either fate,
played appropriately by apt
before their direst of plights
disappeared from the Tower of
ages 12 and 9, held there, no one
has determined the true course of
events, apart from the fact that
Richard lll got the throne,
however illegitimately
manifestly Romantic, 1878, though
late, Impressionism was taking
as controversial as the French,
nor the Austrians, for that matter,
still delivered utter masterpieces
in the, however outdated,
perspective
the painting, at five feet by three,
is nearly life size, standing beside
it is unforgettable, it is in a sober,
dare I say, Protestant style, quite
different from the Catholic
Schubert and his more Italianate
sensibilities, it is spare in both
colour and filigree, a consequence
of strict rules established upon the
the British will pick up again,
artistically, but only marginally, in
the 19th Century, they shine,
however, in the area of philosophy,
instance, significant in the shaping
of the American Constitution, or
empiricist, what there is to learn
Germany in the 18th Century with
does God exist, all the way up to
puts an end to Him, and the West
prepares for secularism, separation
of Church and State
manifest in their horror, not
stylized, but overt, flagrant
combination of drama, pathos,
for Romantic attention to the
plight of even regal personalities
R ! chard
March 11, 2018
pension protest, à la Russe
“Miriam dances“ (1931)
______
a couple of retired Russian ladies spoofed
a video that student airline pilots had
performed, that shocked their academy,
who wanted the boys expelled
in protest, other Russians started sending
in their own versions of the dance, but these
two ladies, nothing at all like Tina Turner,
turned out to be the Internet sensation
read all about it here, click on each of the
videos there, the girls’ and the boys’, you’ll
love ‘em
R ! chard
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