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Category: in search of beauty

March 24, 2012

“The Rite of Spring” – Igor Stravinsky (1913)‏

just in time for the season here is a deconstruction of
“The Rite of Spring”, Stravinsky, that will blow your
socks off, a clarification of a seminal moment in the
history of music and art that sheds light on history,
the history of music, the history of art, but the
history of our very own place in the pageant 
 
better than I could do Micheal Tilson Thomas,
conductor of note, explores our instincts, and
relation to music, aesthetically and anthropologically
through this most visceral music
 
stick around    
 
  
 
appropriate, I think, conductor, Pierre Boulez, of all
the most notably avant-gardist
 
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
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March 23, 2012

Dmitri Shostakovich – String Quartet no 15, opus 144

several years ago when an angel I knew passed away
I read at his commemoration something I had written
for him, adagios, I said, always remind me of John

only a few days later, after I’d spoken, an adagio in
the distance was weaving its magic spell as I
abstractedly washed perennial dishes, a pivotal
spot, it would appear, for me, in my mystic
wanderings, my spiritual peregrinations

gradually I recognized the presence I’d apparently
inadvertently evoked with my unsuspecting but
thoughtful and caring script, opening a key, like
Ali Baba, it would transpire, to the very undiluted
infinite, something I’d wished for from my dad,
who’d died just a few months earlier, promising
me he’d speak to me if he could, though by then
I hadn’t yet heard from him

later when I was browsing for music to get into
to while away my pensive hours I happened upon
some Shostakovich in a nearby record store, I’d
recently been exploring his stuff, having reached
forward from the Romantics and even the
Impressionists, and looked to a relatively more
recent touch, the early Twentieth Century

which is to say the atonalists, Schoenberg, Berg,
Stravinsky and so forth, of which Shostakovich,
I would argue, has proven to be the most
significant voice, his music being that of a
desperate, nearly broken people enduring
the atrocities under Stalin

he is the most important composer of the
Twentieth Century, I think, along with Olivier
Messiaen, who survived a German prisoner of
war camp, two tough, even heroic, spirits

and here were not one, not two, not even three,
but six adagios in his 15th String Quartet, when
anything faster was too much for me to bear,
otherwise it would have to have been silence,
I was elated

I was not let down, Shostakovich’s 15th String
Quartet, opus 144, is a masterpiece, and helped
me through my rigorous Calvary with compassion,
grace, and ultimately golden hope, to health and
resignation

it is not an easy piece, you might find it
overwhelming, but it is the last word in adagios,
and for me it means the world, I couldn’t leave
it out

I found the distribution awkward however, I
haven’t found the quartet complete anywhere
on the Internet, you’ll have to access the movements
separately, pee breaks are therefore allowed, there
are six movements, not usual but we’ve seen
Beethoven do five already for his Sixth Symphony,
so not entirely unexpected

the first movement, Elegy (Adagio), is played by the
Rubio Quartet, but with only an image of war torn
Leningrad to inspire visually

the second, Serenade (Adagio), by the Borodin String
Quartet, perhaps Shostakovich’s best interpreters, are
also presented visuals inert

the third, fourth, and fifth – Intermezzo (Adagio),
Nocturne (Adagio), and Funeral March (Adagio molto) –
in that order, are played live by the Shostakovich
Quartet, named of course in the composer’s honour

and the sixth, Epilogue (Adagio), again by the Borodin

may you be granted the poise and profound grace
of the adagio

Richard

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March 17, 2012

adagios‏

a friend writes,

“Richard,
I thought I could rely on you to call an adagio by it’s right name! If not you, I ask, who can I trust? Certainly not Colin. I asked him about andante and he thinks it is slightly undercooked pasta! In all seriousness though Richard, we do forgive you and we do most enjoy you subllime cultural offerings.”
 
yes, and thank you, and adagios are of course very long
Spanish goodbyes, as in “adagios amigo”  
 
 
they don’t often stand alone, they’re usually part of a greater
composition, Classically in the middle, between two more
sprightly movements, and the form didn’t especially change
even through the later, Romantic, Impressionistic, and more
modern even musical periods 
 
when they have stood alone they’ve usually been excerpted
from a composer’s larger composition for its individual
potency and mass appeal, intact, or sometimes modified,
and often modified even further, time begins to tell 
  
 
two adagios stand out in musical history  
 
Albinoni’s, 1671 -1751, would’ve been the middle movement
of a trio sonata – three instrumentalists playing three individual
pieces as a musical unit – according to Remo Giazotto, musicologist
1910-1998, who’d found fragments, he said, in the burned out
remains of an archive in Dresden after the Second World War
 
later it was determined to be Giazotto’s very own composition,
not at all Albinoni’s  
 
wow, man
  
 
Barber’s “Adagio for Strings“, was lifted from his String Quartet,
Op. 11, again from the customary middle, and arranged for string
orchestra, to universal approbation, a bud turned into an oracular 
flower, speaking for millions 
 
 
adagios are slow, usually mournful affairs, often transformed
into profound, even transcendental, reverence 
 
 
 
Richard  
 
 
 
 
 
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March 13, 2012

Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 21, K 467 (1785)

to my astonishment, not to mention my embarrassment,
upon learning just now, with this video, that the andante
to Mozart’s Piano Concerto no 21, K. 467, is not an adagio, 
as I’d been informing anyone I’d been trying to enlighten
about that tempo, breaking into, no, gently acceding to,
ever, the delicacy of the bucolic music in a voice that
had already often rendered the tune’s lyrical, incandescent, 
curves to the best of my fervent ability, I had to cede
years and years of my false assumption to the cold
irreversible judgment of black fact, I was wrong, I had
been wrong, am wrong, March 13, 2012
 
it doesn’t happen often, therefore the date
 
meanwhile beware of my pronouncements, where possible,
where pertinent, check your facts 
 
though that andante really feels like an adagio, don’t you
think
 
 
this middle movement had been the theme to a celebrated
movie when I was young – a Swedish movie, “Elvira Madigan“,
about a tragic couple who hadn’t survived the rigours of love,
a true and compelling story – and had become known through
this film, thereby introducing Mozart culturally to an entire
generation nurtured on movies
 
the andante is now probably again recognized as primarily
a work of Mozart’s, I’ll wager because of the film still now
his most famous, the film itself, “Elvira Madigan“, not having
had the shelf life of essential art, having become a historical,
though circumstantial merely, curiosity     
 
 
you won’t hear the fury of Brahms or Beethoven in
Mozart, he is of an another, earlier era, of courtesy and
controlled emotions, there is tenderness of course, but
never overt imperiousness or passion, just courtly music,
razzle dazzle and panache, that has lasted unscathed,
not at all blemished nevertheless for already 250 years  
 
 
Richard  
 
 
 
 
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March 10, 2012

Brahms Violin Concerto – Kyung-Wha Chung (1985)

having had a yen for Brahms lately, his grand, sweeping
concertos, I put on again Kyung-Wha Chung last night,
with André Previn, 1996, doing the Violin Concerto, a
good fit at under fifty minutes, while I simultaneously 
washed the dishes – the gods never granted me a
dishwasher, probably to keep me humble, wary of
potentially crippling, I think, hubris 
 
afterwards for the sheer exhilaration of it I wanted to
watch the whole thing over again, but another version
intrigued and beckoned, from 1985, when Chung was of
course younger, less assured, I suspected, her take maybe
less profoundly felt, not yet quite as definitive 
 
but she proved to be again Olympian, on fire, more fierce
in her attack, more defiant, Aphrodite, goddess of love,
beauty, pleasure, this time, still radiant, utterly authoritative
and convincing, paying glorious court to her host of equally
divine peers
 
this performance is of another, of an utterly transcendental, 
order, of the Brahms Violin Concerto you are not likely, nor 
are they, ever to see than either so illustrious a rendition
again
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
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February 25, 2012

Beethoven’s Symphony no 6 in F major, opus 68, “Pastoral”

here is the Beethoven that made me believe if not indeed
in God at least in something more transcendental than our
mere incarnate existence

it was specifically in the second movement that I found
myself dancing in an altogether other dimension with
my very own beloved, my angel, who’d flown for much
too short a season too close, it appeared, to the ground,
the ground had become much too insubstantial to sustain
so ethereal an organism

may my beloved angel rest in infinite peace

Beethoven’s Symphony no 6 in F major, opus 68, “Pastoral” (1808)

1. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande
(Awakening of Cheerful Feelings upon Arrival in the Country):
Allegro non troppo (sprighly but not overly so)
2. Szene am Bach (Scene by the Brook):
Andante molto mosso (at a brisk walking pace)
3. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute (Happy Gathering of Country Folk):
Allegro (sprightly)
4. Gewitter – Sturm (Thunderstorm – Storm):
Allegro (sprightly)
5. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm
(Shepherd’s Song. Cheerful and Thankful Feelings after the Storm):
Allegretto (not quite sprightly)

the instructions for the movements actually indicate a descriptive,
which is to say a literal, account, wherein musical notes are to
become words that evoke a setting, music assumes the properties
of language, you’ll hear the birds, you’ll hear the brooks, you’ll hear
the thunder, you’ll even imagine on your very own alone the rainbows

Herbert von Karajan (1908 – 1989) conducts from the hereafter –
this is 1967 – a version that is just about definitive, certainly
mystical, magical, wonderful

with abstract camera work to make watching worth your while,
the close-ups of the maestros thumbs alone are worth the price
of admission

Richard

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February 21, 2012

Anton Bruckner’s Symphony no 7‏

this is what it’ll sound like, I believe, when you enter
the gates of heaven, should you actually watch this
video you’ll be forthwith, I’m sure, even transported
there, I always am

Anton Bruckner‘s Symphony no 7 is the high mass of
all concertos, this is where Bruckner, patriarch and
prophet, gives us his, our, musical description of
grace

Celibidache makes the occasion august, and utterly
transcendental

no need to genuflect, of course, only to partake and
enjoy

Richard

psst: I believe it was Herbert Blomstedt among
conductors who said that Bruckner for him was
proof of God

though I wouldn’t completely agree I think he is a
very strong incentive, but I’d needed something
much more intimate and personalized, for me it
took Beethoven

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February 17, 2012

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565‏

Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565  
 
         for feet          

         for mostly fingers 

                                                                                                                                               Richard

 

 

 

 

 

 
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February 17, 2012

Beethoven’s Sonata no 14 in C-sharp minor, “Quasi una Fantasia”, opus 27, no 2 (the “Moonlight Sonata”)

opus 27, no 2 – better known as the “Moonlight Sonata” after a
music critic several years after Beethoven had died likened its
famous first movement to impressions of moonlight, and the
name stuck – is probably along with his no 8, the “Sonate
Pathétique“, the most famous piano sonata in the history of
music, its name alone is hard to forget, and its murmuring
chords, like passing clouds before the quiet and uncluttered
simplicity of its central melody, like the longings of the very
moon, is etched in our Western cultural subconscious
 
“Quasi una Fantasia” means “in the manner of an improvisation”,
an idea already which would’ve been considered impudent earlier
at court, where decorum and form had held rigorous sway  
 
but Beethoven begins as well with a slow movement, an “adagio
sostenuto“, a sustained adagio, suggesting the inexorable passage
of time, interrupted only midst its unending undulations by the 
mournful cry of a melody, silken, yet solitary, as a moon    
 
so plaintive a display of pathos would not have played well
before an aristocracy which, ruled by codes of honour, would
have found common, base, such flagrant self-indulgence
 
but times had changed, discontent was having its say, and
Beethoven was fervently speaking it, for his era, and for very
history   
 
 
that a sonata would start with a slow movement also put into
question the very tradition, ineluctable until then, of having
to keep its place in the middle, by changing the order of play
the order of emotional commitment necessarily followed,
suggesting that these could be manipulated as in a play, a
novel, a poem, a narrative, wherein notes would speak like
words, Beethoven was devising to make music thus into a
veritable language 
 
just listen 
 
 
after a short middle movement, the allegretto, faster than
the first, the presto, the last and fastest movement of all,
usually the shortest movement of a sonata on account of
its technically difficult speed, is longer here than both other
movements put together, to concert pianists a very Everest,
a test of their mettle and skill, an irresistible challenge to
any ambitious virtuoso, another, more pragmatic, reason,
incidentally, for the success, and survival, of a piece, which
is championed, kept in view, by an artist for its ability to
make him or her technically impress, thereby creating the
canon, another word for the repertoire 
 
 
despite a few fluffed, here and there even discordant, notes,
Wilhelm Kempff (1895-1991), a titan among pianists, manages 
a completely convincing interpretation, not easily bested 
 
enjoy
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
 
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February 11, 2012

“Man at the Window” – Gustave Caillebotte‏

             Man at the Window - Gustave Caillebotte

                                  “Man at the Window”  (1875)
 
                                            Gustave Caillebotte  

                                                                  __________ 
 
 
it’s hard not to think of Caspar David Friedrich (1818) or
Norman Rockwell (1962) upon viewing now this painting,
which came up today in a lecture I was viewing on the
Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte, 1848-1894, halfway
between both 
 
they are, all three of course, all about contemplation,
but all explore a different aspect of that phenomenon
 
let me suggest that Friedrich‘s concerns are patently
metaphysical, he casts his eyes, which we do not see,
incidentally, upon a horizon that looks like destiny,
ours by extension, murky yet imbued with possibility,
even the improbable
  
or maybe this is just what I see
 
 
Rockwell‘s perspective is instead aesthetic, a view
of the world as expressed by others, the capacity to
understand and relate to other voices, opinions, within 
our social construct, allegorized here by the exhibition
room
 
it is a closed speculation, circumscribed by the limited
dimensions, physical or conceptual, of any other
counterpart, contained therefore metaphorically, and
concisely, within a frame  
 
that frame represents the physical limits imposed on
a painter, but also the conceptual limitations of the
viewer him- or herself, it works both ways, for some
this will be a man merely looking out a window, for
others an opening on an epoch
  
 
Caillebotte, 1848-1894, looks inward to his isolation,
alienation, from his luxurious interior, black as a cave,
upon a confined avenue where nothing but an impossible
communication, with the lone woman crossing the
street, surely a furtive eye, gives way necessarily to
resignation, and a kind of existential yield to ineluctable
fate, a sensibility beginning to burgeon at the time, see
Nietzsche, 1844-1900, and nihilism  
 
then again this is only my impression, this is what I got
 
and a picture is worth, we say, a thousand words
 
 
Richard  
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 
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