in search of beauty | Richibi's Weblog

on the harmonica – Slim Harpo

Slim Harpo (1924 – 1970)

______

for Barbara

having read my musings on the guitar‘s
superior practicality, easy portability,
as a carry-along instrument on the range,
a friend replied, “how about a cowboy
with a harmonica“, and mentioned Slim
Harpo, I told her I’d look into it, how
could I not, though I’d never at all
ever heard of Slim Harpo

here’s Slim Harpo, he’s a treat

but a harmonica, finally, is too brash
an instrument to easily fashion out
of it love songs, so I’ll hold onto my
guitar

you’ll note that despite the entirely
different style of music from the
Classical stuff I’ve been bringing
up, the three essentials, tonality,
tempo, and reiteration still apply,
this trinity is the foundation of all
of our Western musical culture,
the output changes only according
to geographical place and time
within those European parameters

Asia has its own, indeed several,
distinct musical idioms

Slim‘s is manifestly the American
Deepest South

enjoy

R ! chard

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March 24, 2018

what’s up in Belgrade, Serbia – Pepe Romero

“Dario de Regoyos Playing the Guitar“ (1882)

Theo van Rysselberghe

______________

for Donna

struck by the intimacy, the emotional
resonance of the guitar, more outward,
more confessional, than introspective,
like the cello, I wondered at the reasons,
speculated merely, but with, to my mind,
unobjectionable conclusions finally, just
this side of actual proof of my, however
provisional nevertheless, conclusions

the guitar, I thought, when a friend
wrote about her especial appreciation
of it, is to both North and South
Americans a much more integral part
of our history, cowboys carried them
out on the range, be it American or
Argentinian

why, I wondered

well, I figured, it doesn’t have, first
of all, a bow, and it’s easy to carry,
a piano would, of course, be right
out of the question

and later in the evening, around a
fire, a cowboy can wrap his very
soul around this metaphor he’s
holding, and speak of his love and
his loneliness

you could try the same thing with a
mandolin, maybe, but it has, I think,
too playful a string to be ever so
meaningful and intimate

it seems, as well, that you can play
more than one note at a time on the
guitar, the thumb and at least one
other finger, to achieve harmonies
other instruments, including the
cello, can’t – I could never play two
notes at a time, for instance, on my
flute when I was flaying it

though I recently found out you can
play two notes together, at a time,
though with great difficulty, on the
violin, which could shoot all of my
theories into the water

stay tuned

listen to Pepe Romero, meanwhile,
astound you with first of all Rodrigo’s
“Concierto de Aranjuez” – you’ll melt
at the adagio – then with Francisco
Tárrega’s “Memories of the Alhambra”,
a piece that’s already written deep in
your bones, I promise you’ll
quiver

enjoy

R ! chard

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March 23, 2018

Cello Suite no 4, in E flat (trans. to C for guitar) – Bach

“The guitar player“ (1894)

Paul Gauguin

________

for Daniel, despite his
occasional jabs

transcribed for guitar, Bach’s Cello Suite no 4
becomes an entirely other experience, listen

less transformationally, the original key, E flat,
is transcribed, altered, to the key of C, you
won’t even notice

from an introspective, however lively often,
utterance, I hear here, rather, a serenade,
before a balcony, before the balustrade of
a blushing señorita, demure beneath her
modest mantilla, quivering behind a
fluttering matching fan, at the sincerity,
and artistry of her courter, his
unadulterated, and utterly vulnerable
pursuit, an unmistakable expression of
his devotion, ability, agility, and eventually,
his worth, which is, incidentally, what art
is, when achieved, always irresistible, even
miraculous

plus who wouldn’t surrender everything
to this guitarist, apart even from his art

R ! chard

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March 22, 2018

Cello Suite no 3, in C major – Bach

“Narcissus“ (c.1599)

Caravaggio

______

what struck me about this most extraordinary
performance of Bach’s Third Cello Suite was
nothing to do with the Suite itself, but with
the work of the camera, right out of
Caravaggio, I thought, a bona fide Baroque
artist also, what could the cameraman have
known

stark contrasts, an absolute focus on the
subject without much set decoration, no
consideration for extraneous, though
perhaps effective, decorative elements
to cloud the pictorial issue

this is not at all Bach, incidentally, who
relies on accompaniment, feeder notes,
to shed light on the essential melody,
often even nearly indistinguishable
from the main statement

both are considered Baroque, Bach,
Caravaggio, but I won’t be getting into
it right now, it’s a long, and tortuous
story

otherwise note, indeed, in Bach, the
reiteration of clusters of music, forward
propulsions, with incremental tonal
variations, moving the melody forward,
something lost during the later, more
frivolous, Classical Period, but recovered
eventually, two generations down, by
Beethoven, kind of like children resemble
their grandparents much more than they
do their actual folks

eventually that becomes Minimalism, see,
for instance, Steve, “Different Trains“,
Reich

R ! chard

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March 21, 2018

to spring

“Primavera” / “Spring“ (1478)

Sandro Botticelli

_________

according to long tradition, the 21st of March
has been the first day of spring, but yesterday,
the 20th, two people in separate encounters,
told me that spring had started that very day,
throwing my entrenched supposition out the
window, for better or for worse

regardless, spring has now, surely decidedly,
sprung

here’s Beethoven celebrating it, though the
title, “Spring“, was probably not his, others
mostly gave his works their nicknames, for
their own, usually associative, reasons – his
“Moonlight” Sonata also, for instance – but
that’s been ever enough for me, it’s the
music that ultimately matters, I think

the “Spring” Sonata, opus 24 then is for
violin and piano, his 5th such, written in 1801,
it is an early piece, full still of the verve we’ve
heard here already in his Opus 5, no 1 for Cello
and Piano, with his musical phrases flying
right through the bar lines and off the very
page

Kyung Wha Chung plays the violin, she
remains after all these years my very
favourite violinist

enjoy

and have the greatest of springs,
whenever you might want to start it

R ! chard

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March 20, 2018

different trains – Reich / Bach

“Saint-Lazare Gare, Normandy Train“ (1887)

Claude Monet

________

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

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March 19, 2018

French Suite no 3 in B minor – Bach

“Dance of the Majos at the Banks of Manzanares“ (1777)

Francisco Goya

_________

upon reading up somewhat on the different
Bach Suites, I’ve provisionally concluded
that the earlier English Suites, 1715 to 1720,
were a modification of the established form
of the suite, which would not have included
a prelude, which isn’t, indeed, a dance

the Cello Suites follow, ahem, suit

but by the French Suites, 1722 to 1725, Bach
is eschewing – Gesundheit – the prelude, but
inserting, however, an air in his Fourth – an
air is not either a dance – and mixing up
their order in the later Suites, a minuet, for
instance, in the last one of them, his Sixth,
coming up after the gigue, which sports even
also a polonaise, where in his Fifth, Bach adds
a loure, I ask you, a slow French gigue, to his
bristling concoction

the terms French and English, incidentally,
were added only after Bach’s demise, for
diverse and uncorroborated reasons, so
that these titles probably don’t mean much
to a contemporary audience, who can’t tell,
anyway, our gavottes from our bourrées

the music of Bach is like that of no other
composer, he owns essentially the Baroque
Period, having, in fact, wrenched the Era
from the painters, who’d established it in
art to such a degree that it defined its
earlier historical phase

with Bach, the torch is handed over to
music, from then on until the
Impressionists, the period is defined
by composers, both Classical, then
Romantic, with some poets holding
some sway

the technique that dominates the music
of Bach is that of counterpoint, where
a tune is repeated in the harmonization
a few beats from its first iteration,
vocally, we call that singing in canon

his music is introspective, as though
the player were privately meditating,
it has the playfulness of Mozart, but
Mozart is expressive, not interior,
therefore nowhere near as spiritual,
Beethoven will return with a
profundity that matches Bach’s, but
with much more Sturm und Drang,
tempestuous moral struggle, much
less resignation, ouch, watch

listening to Bach for me is like getting
on a train, and just letting the rhythm
of the wheels sustain me, as I watch,
indeed introspectively, the surrounding
countryside, stopping at the musical
journey’s several halts, its intervals,
until its final destination, which
despite, or even because of, taking
sometimes hours, is nevertheless
endlessly satisfying, and never
ever less than, however improbably,
inspiring

here’s Bach’s Third French Suite,
you’ll note it includes an idiosyncratic
“trio”, not strictly a recognized dance
either – leave it to the saucy French, I
say, to consider interpolating a trio

R ! chard

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March 17, 2018

English Suite No 3 in G Minor – Bach

“Suite Fibonacci“ (2003)

Charles Bezie

________

before I say much more about his Cello
Suites, let me point out that Bach has
some French Suites, some English
Suites, on top of similarly structured
Partitas and Toccatas, the French have
their tout de suites, and hotels have,
nowadays, their so named luxury
apartments

musical suites are sets of dance pieces,
by the early 18th Century much stylized,
with an introductory prélude, an allemande,
followed by a courante, which is to say, folk
dances, the first German, the next French,
then a sarabande, Spanish, followed by a
couple of galanteries, court dances,
minuets, gavottes, bourrées, then a final
English gigue

all of the markings are in French, which
leads me to believe that all of these
dances must’ve originated at the court
of Louis XlVth, the Sun King, 1638 to
1715

but the suggestion is that Europe was
becoming an integrated community
all of these dances were eclipsed by
the Classical Period, of Haydn and
Mozart, apart from the minuet, which
more or less defined, nevertheless,
that new era

the minuet will die out by the time of
Beethoven, you’ll note, to be replaced
by the waltz, which had been
considered much too racy until
transformed by Chopin into a work
of ethereal art

the Strausses, father and son, gave it,
only a little later, celebratory potency,
but that’s another story

here’s Bach’s English Suite, the 3rd,
for context, the French ones are a
little too salty, as it were, they do not
quite conform to prescribed suite
notions, however might their
propositions have been, ahem,
sweet

meanwhile, enjoy this one

R ! chard

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March 16, 2018

Cello Suite no 1, in G major – Bach

“Homage to J.S. Bach“ (1912)

Georges Braque

__________

for Lynne, who’s been catching up
on her Bach, recently

the cello had been a peripheral instrument,
supplying accompaniment, merely, until
Bach gave it wings, in new employ as
Kapellmeister for Leopold, Prince of
Anhalt-Cöthen, a Calvinist, who decried
music in his churches, Bach turned to
secular music mostly during this period,
instead of to the cantatas and oratorios,
the ecclesiastical stuff, he’d in earlier
services been composing, not at all,
however, unproductively, for he produced
during this new period the template
essentially for the entire modern epoch –
the “Well-Tempered Klavier”, all of his
piano literature, the Two- and Three-Part
Inventions, his Toccatas, his Partitas, the
sublime Cello Suites, his equally profoundly
inspirational Sonatas for Unaccompanied
Violin, are the basis upon which our
contemporary music still stands, these
pieces are still the Everests to climb for
contemporary instrumentalists, you need
only to listen to know why, by a semi-tone
a cellist can fall apart, destroy the entire
experience, distort an otherwise
transcendental possibility, like a climber
can tragically lose hir life

listen to Mischa Maisky, to my mind the
very Zeus of 20th-Century cellists,
perform Bach’s 1st Cello Suite, and
deliver incontrovertible proof of that,
however Olympian, claim

R ! chard

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March 15, 2018

up my eccentricities / the Ides of March

“The Death of Caesar“ (1798)

Vincenzo Camuccini

___________

in looking up a requiem to commemorate
the Ides of March, today, a date imprinted
on our collective consciousness since
Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar”, act l,
scene ll –

Soothsayer: Beware the Ides of March.

Julius Caesar: What man is that?

Marcus Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

Julius Caesar Set him before me, let me see his face.

Cassius: Fellow, come from the throng, look upon Caesar.

Julius Caesar: What say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

Soothsayer: Beware the Ides of March.

Julius Caesar: He is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass.

– I found an entirely appropriate work,
though with more contemporary, and
consequently more immediate,
associations

but first, let me say more about both
Julius Caesar and Shakespeare

Caesar died on the Ides of March,
notoriously, and ignominiously –
though ruthless in his own way,
not to mention also flamboyant,
Caesar had been a ruler conscious
of his constituency, and therefore
socially responsive, giving, for
instance, citizenship to residents
from far away, a contentious issue
still nowadays, and support for
veterans, another hot political
topic

he was also the lover of Cleopatra,
among apparently many other trysts,
not to mention, it has been suggested,
of King Nicomedes lV of Bithynia

regardless, he is the template for
modern rulers, eclipsing Alexander
the Great by a long shot, who else
has a very month, July, named after
him, apart from Augustus, Caesar‘s
heir and successor

his complete literary works have only
recently come out in English, an
apparently, and most undoubtedly,
significant enterprise, Caesar would
be, of course, subjective, therefore
probably indifferent to, or more
unforthcoming about, his less savoury
excesses – he’d apparently cut off the
hands of soldiers he had conquered,
something he never mentioned

should we consider the impunity of our
own 21st-Century autocrats – who will
blithely destroy communities with
lethal chemical agents, and even, in
like manner, specifically target
individuals – with less condemnation
and horror

nobody cared, by the way, about the
Ides of March, until Shakespeare
suggested, for all time, that we
should beware of it

and we’ve been doing so ever since

March 11th, 2011, was the date of the
Japanese tsunami, the earth shook,
thousands died, the devastation was
unimaginable, including nuclear
radioactive explosions

Tōru Takemitsu‘s “Requiem“, written
in 1957, though not specifically
related to that national tragedy, is
not at all unrelated to their agony

and through the power of music to
bring souls together, manifestly,
here and now, his thoughtful
evocation, however dissonant,
however arhythmic, however
unhinged from Western Classical
musical precepts, which might
very well, I remark, be the point,
brings souls, if you’ll listen,
demonstrably together

R ! chard

psst: did I mention that the words
“Tsar” and “Kaiser” are
derivations of the name
Caesar

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Richibi’s Weblog

Category: in search of beauty

March 25, 2018

on the harmonica – Slim Harpo

March 24, 2018

what’s up in Belgrade, Serbia – Pepe Romero

March 23, 2018

Cello Suite no 4, in E flat (trans. to C for guitar) – Bach

March 22, 2018

Cello Suite no 3, in C major – Bach

March 21, 2018

to spring

March 20, 2018

different trains – Reich / Bach

March 19, 2018

French Suite no 3 in B minor – Bach

March 17, 2018

English Suite No 3 in G Minor – Bach

March 16, 2018

Cello Suite no 1, in G major – Bach

March 15, 2018

up my eccentricities / the Ides of March