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Category: me, in B# major
November 21, 2017
Dmitri Shostakovich – “Symphony No 5” in D minor, opus 47
“Hi, XVII Congress of the CPSU (B)“ (1934)
__________
if I thought the Fourth would knock
your socks of, stockings, the Fifth
ought to leave you with, dare I say,
nothing on but your awe, it is
extraordinary, so settle in, pour
yourself a glass of wine, or vodka
if you want to be ethnic, for a
mesmerizing three-quarter hour
days only before the first performance
of Shostakovich’s new symphony, an
article showed up in a leading Moscow
paper suggesting that it would be “a
Soviet artist’s creative response to
justified criticism” in reference, of
course, to Stalin’s displeasure with
Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk“, which had led to the
cancellation of his Fourth Symphony,
read all about it here
disregard for Stalin’s opinion would
have meant certain execution in an
environment where the leader could
not be contradicted, the ruler wanted
uplifting tunes, the rule was Socialist
Realism, art to celebrate the Party
a similar thing was happening at the
same time in Germany, incidentally,
with Hitler objecting to “entartete
Kunst“, the degenerate art that
moderns were producing, Kirchner,
Klee, Dix, for example, who were
only painting, as Shostakovich was
only composing, what they heard,
saw, for which they were all
persecuted
a few necessary words about the
Fifth Symphony itself, if
Shostakovich had been moving
toward dissonance, you’ll find the
Fifth particularly notable for its
tonal melodies, however sometimes
astringent, more larger intervals,
sevenths, octaves, than strident
atonal conjunctions
and since Shostakovich had been
strictly adhering to the two other
Classical conditions, of tempo and
repetition, this symphony might as
well be a Romantic composition
listen to Beethoven’s Fifth and
compare, they sound nearly
identical but for a 130 years
distance, the peremptory opening,
loud, brash, bracing, followed
quickly by a lull in intensity, four
movements each, horns blare in
either military salvos, a propensity
toward dance rhythms, short, sweet
solo moments for several assorted
instruments, usually contemplative,
piercingly personal – after a
comparison, you’ll never see
Beethoven’s Fifth in the same light
again
Beethoven, however, though
forceful, indeed thunderous, is
more centred on the actual music,
which is jubilant, celebratory, an
exultation, while Shostakovich by
contrast, however equally martial,
sounds the implacability, the
ruthlessness of the fanfare, the
parade, you can feel the iron step
of the guard, their advance
inexorable, this is unquestionably
a political statement, then again
Beethoven didn’t live in France
it’s to be noted that both works
are products of a recent revolution,
the French, the Russian, and the
imminence of a Terror, as well of
the return of an autocratic leader,
the Emperor Napoleon in the first
instance, in the second, of course
Stalin
it’s helpful to view the bombastic
portions in Shostakovich, as the
unassailable positions of the Party,
the more melting moments and
single voices as those of the
oppressed proletariat, a people up
against the stringent requirements
of an unforgiving state growing up
all around them
a return to strict Classical
conditions, by the way, which is
to say “tunes”, might’ve been
Shostakovich’s way of placating,
however risky still, a dictator’s
fearful edicts regarding
permissible taste, that’s what
you can do when you can speak
the language
incidentally, the symphonies are
either composer’s Fifth, perhaps
not incidentally
R ! chard
psst: the applause at the first
performance, November 21,
1937, lasted over half an hour,
people were crying, they’d
found a prophet
November 17, 2017
Dmitri Shostakovich – “Symphony No 4” in C minor, opus 43
“Portrait of Joseph Stalin (Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili)“ (1936)
_________
if you’ve been waiting for a Shostakovich
to write home about among his early
symphonies, here’s the one, his
Symphony no 4 in C minor, opus 43 will
knock your socks off from its very
opening gambit, have a seat, settle in,
and get ready for an explosive hour
the Fourth was written in 1936, some
years after the death of Lenin, and the
instalment of Stalin as the supreme,
and ruthless, authority, after several
years throughout the Twenties of
maneuvering himself, cold-bloodedly,
into that position
from Stalin, “Death is the solution to
all problems. No man – no problem.“
fearing retribution after Stalin had
criticized his recent opera, “Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk“, Shostakovich
cancelled the first performance of
this new work, due to take place in
December, ’36, others had already
suffered internal exile or execution
who had displeased the tyrant, a
prelude to the infamous Great Terror
the Symphony was eventually played
in 1961, 25 years later, conducted by
no less than Kirill Kondrashin, who’d
partnered Van Cliburn a few years
earlier in Cliburn’s conquest of Russia,
but along with this time however the
long-lived Leningrad Philharmonic
Orchestra
to a friend, I said, this is the biggest
thing since verily Beethoven, no one
has so blown me away symphonically
since then
he looked forward, he replied, to
hearing it
the Fourth Symphony has three distinct
movements, to fit thus appropriately the
definition of symphony, though the first
and third have more than one section,
something Shostakovich would have
learned from already Beethoven, it gives
the opportunity of experiencing a variety
of emotions within one uninterrupted
context, add several movements and
you have a poignant, peripatetic musical
journey, more intricate, psychologically
complex, than many other even eminent
composers, Schubert, Chopin,
Mendelssohn, even Brahms, for instance
it’s helpful to think of film scores, and
their multiple narrative incidents,
brimming with impassioned moments,
however disparate, Shostakovich had
already written several of them
let me point out that Shostakovich’s
rhythms are entirely Classical, even
folkloric in their essential aspects,
everywhere sounds like a march,
proud and bombastic, if not a
veritable dance, peasants carousing,
courtiers waltzing, and repetition is
sufficiently present to not not
recognize the essential music
according to our most elementary
preconceptions
but the dissonances clash, as though
somewhere the tune, despite its rigid
rhythms, falls apart in execution, as
though the participants had, I think,
broken limbs, despite the indomitable
Russian spirit
this is what Shostakovich is all about,
you’ll hear him as we move along
objecting, however surreptitiously,
cautiously, to the Soviet system, like
Pasternak, like Solzhenitsyn, without
ever, like them, leaving his country
despite its manifest oppression, and
despite the lure of Western accolades,
Nobel prizes, for instance, it was their
home
and there is so much more to tell, but
first of all, listen
R ! chard
October 3, 2017
the “wall”
“A Sunday on La Grande Jatte“ (1884)
________
should you know Vancouver, you’ll
recognize, nearly immediately, the
Seawall on this video, before even
a minute has elapsed you spot the
Westin Bayshore coming at you,
nearly perilously, before the speeding
bullet that takes you on the journey
turns the crucial corner on the paved
path that wends its way afterwards
around the peninsula
on foot, this takes about three hours,
but here, inspired by the music of Pink
Floyd, on a deft reinterpretation of the
title and music from “The Wall“, their
oracular masterpiece, an inspired
cyclist brings this local trajectory to
psychedelic life, if you can stand the
unsettling disjunction between his
dizzying speed and the grandeur
of the transcendent, immutable,
coastlines
you’ll need, I suggest, a seatbelt,
but the ride is wild
the journey ends abruptly, both
geographically and musically,
just down the street from my place,
across the road from a recently
favourite restaurant, with a view,
just as transcendent, however not
at all disappointingly mutable, of
the Pacific sunset, whenever we,
family and friends, eat there
R ! chard
September 19, 2017
on Billy Collins – “Safe Travels”
me, May 24, 2016
__________
I save all the New Yorker poems
to read after I’ve been through
everything else in the issue,
like dessert after a meal, icing
on the cake, sometimes too
heavy, sometimes too light,
sometimes too rich, sometimes
just right
today, I found my favourite poem,
period, this year, stepped right
into its shoes, like old slippers,
the only difference being my
walls are painted a variety of
contrasting colours, studded
with memorabilia, treasured
artefacts, see above
also, no one’s translating my
poems, though even our metre
is the same, try it, sing us out
loud, you’ll dance
R ! chard
_____________
Every time Gulliver travels
into another chapter of “Gulliver’s Travels”
I marvel at how well travelled he is
despite his incurable gullibility.
I don’t enjoy travelling anymore
because, for instance,
I still don’t know the difference
between a “bloke” and a “chap.”
And I’m embarrassed
whenever I have to hold out a palm
of loose coins to a cashier
as if I were feeding a pigeon in a park.
Like Proust, I see only trouble
in store if I leave my room,
which is not lined with cork,
only sheets of wallpaper
featuring orange flowers
and little green vines.
Of course, anytime I want
I can travel in my imagination
but only as far as Toronto,
where some graduate students
with goatees and snoods
are translating my poems into Canadian.
__________
psst: I said just recently to a poet
acquaintance that what poetry
needed in the 21st Century is
humour, the only art form not
catching up with the rest,
otherwise it’ll die of, indeed
succumb to, its own
lugubriousness
thank you again, Billy Collins
September 7, 2017
a contemporary haiku, on wine
________
a glass of wine, I sing,
two, in German,
go figure
R ! chard
March 15, 2017
“Daffodils” – William Wordsworth (an epitaph)
“Wild Poppies, Near Argenteuil” (1873)
________
for Pat
a dear friend passed away recently,
Pat, the mother of my partner, who
passed away himself nearly 30 years
ago, was already of a certain age at
which death follows closely tripping
us up with itches and cramps and
dire debilities as we walk along the
winding road that isn’t that long any
longer
she’d already acquired Alzheimer’s
though she read still, understood,
even poetry, though she could not
remember what had happened
yesterday even, however traumatic,
that she’d fallen the day before, for
instance, and bore still corroborative
angry scratches escaped her, left
her puzzled, though never rattled,
ever compliant
you can forget all you want, Pat, I’d
said to her earlier in her prognosis,
but don’t ever forget I love you
since, during our regular Internet
encounters, along with her husband
on her end, she’s left the conversation
to him, but wraps her arms around
herself and tells me she wants to hug
me, we always end our visit with I love
you’s
when I went to visit her in hospital,
where she’d ended up following more
falls, which indicated eventually dire
complications, I brought her a teddy
bear
here, Pat, I said, I can’t be here always
to hug you, but you can think of me
when you hug this bear
she died a few days later, the last
words we said were, I love you, I
love you, before I flew back home
to Vancouver from Victoria
I was sad, I lit candles, then a day
later I thought, how do I get out from
under this somber cloud, I should
listen for her, I remembered
talk to me, Pat, I’ll hear, I entreated
when my dad died, I’d said, talk to
me, Dad, I’m your son, I’ll hear, and
I did
when his sister died, a beloved aunt,
I’d lit a scented candle inadvertently
in commemoration, when the air
suddenly filled with the aroma of
rosemary, which had wafted in on the
exhalations of the candle to fuse with
my own reveries in epiphanic, verily
transcendental, conversation
adagios, also, always remind me of
John, Pat’s son
talk to me, Pat, say something, I
said to the ether, and listened
last Thursday, at the service, turning
to the last page of the programme
which had been provided, I began to
read her favourite poem
I wandered lonely as a cloud, I read
but couldn’t make it through the next
line, tears welling up in my eyes, my
mom, who was with me, holding my
hand
thank you, Pat, I said, overcome with
emotion, this poem would be her
teddy bear to me
Richard
________________
I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: –
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed – and gazed – but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
October 7, 2016
what is a poet
“Flowers In a Brown Vase“ (1904)
_______
if I imagine myself to be a poet, what
is a poet, I have to ask, or, more
accurately, what do I imagine a poet
to be
cause this is a two-way street, I am
defined by the word I inhabit, but I
define the word as well, redefining
it, essentially, to fit my etymological
purpose
my moral purpose I leave to myself,
in a completely other ideological
dimension
if I can
a poet then is one who writes, paints,
composes, manifests, in a word,
creates, poems
what is a poem
a poem is where beauty and truth
combine to create harmony,
coalescence, to the point of one’s
admiration, enchantment, wonder,
enlightenment, in incremental steps
leading to very transcendence, the
feeling that something has moved
in your heart
just a bouquet of flowers will do it,
for instance
that’s what I think
Richard
October 2, 2016
on truth
“Truth Unveiled By Time“ (1645-1652)
_______
a cousin once said to me about
his father, that he was as honest
as the day is long
though I didn’t say a word, this
was emphatically not my opinion
but I concluded nevertheless that,
once again, truth is in the eye of
the beholder, not, of course, truth
truth, the one we all would like to
believe must exist, but the one
which is the only one that we can
work with, our own
but what is true
no one knows but for personal
intimations, truth must be, in other
words, our individual constructions,
a kind of existential prosetry, a
consistent story we tell ourselves,
a walking shadow, a tale / told by
an idiot, according to Macbeth, full
of sound and fury, / signifying
nothing
I imagine I am a poet
imagine
Richard
psst: prosetry is poetry written in prose,
see “up my idiosyncracies – a bio“
July 30, 2016
up my idiosyncrasies – Plato
“The School Of Athens“ (1510-1511)
_____
he sounds just like you, my friend said,
who’d bought me the works of Plato,
for C***mas maybe, or my birthday, or
maybe just because he knew I’d very
much appreciate them
we were reading him together, as is
always my inclination, his Meno
according to my calculations,
Socrates was doing most of the
talking, with Meno, a Sophist
acolyte, a school of philosophy then,
prove anything by using the right
arguments
lawyers, of course, ensued, politicians
and rhetoric, the art of proving anything
by using the right arguments
philosophy had reached a structural,
indeed an existential, impasse, why,
they therefore wondered, philosophy
wherein it entered a phase of moral
speculation, Stoicism, Epicureanism,
Scepticism, Cynicism, and can you
blame them, theories about the
stars, the moon, the world, even
matter itself, had become so
questionable, was it fire, air, water,
atoms, at its source, who knew
I thought so too, I said, and told
him that Plato’s were the first
texts I studied in philosophy when
I entered university, that’s where I
learned to talk like that, philosophy
from the scratch, as my German
teacher would’ve said, which is to
say, from its very beginnings,
whence I could view, I figured, the
evolution of received wisdom in
Western culture
I was young then, the young have
such dreams
my father had been agnostic, ever
asking questions, though we were
being raised Catholic, my sister
and I, on account of our mother
tongue, our entire community,
having been historically linked
with that religion, and cause my
parents wanted us to be educated
in French
an existentialist crisis would
eventually follow, I intuited, as
indeed it did, so I majored in
philosophy
Socrates taught me to ask
questions, that no one had
all the answers
Plato, usurping his master’s voice,
created the paradigm for our present
version of a Divinity, and Its Paradise
there is an ideal version of any
item we might consider, he spouted,
an ideal table, for instance, exists
of which every material table is an
imperfect example
to virtue, love, beauty, truth, he
applied the same principle, which
early erudite Catholics, Augustine,
Thomas Aquinas, for instance, and
others, despite rejecting all of the
other Greek cultural achievements,
appropriated in order to bolster their
impression of God, the ideal of the
Ideal
this lasted uncontested for just
over a thousand years
for a thousand years our salvation
had been extraterrestrial,
supranatural, this, our very,
perhaps only, existence, an
imperfect reflection of somewhere
else an ideal, a mere simulacrum,
we were, a metaphor
Socrates had only asked questions,
what is virtue, what is justice, what
is beauty, truth
Plato presumed to have known the
answers
Aristotle is making a comeback,
whose method, in opposition to
his contemporaneous forebear,
was much more like Charles
Darwin‘s, working from the facts,
which proved then, and are
proving still now, to be multifarious,
diverse, astonishing, and nearly
enough to make you believe in
God/dess again, this time, however,
through the back door
or in a multiplicity, a panoply, a
very pavilion, even, of natural
deities, otherwise known as
angels, for better or for worse
God/dess bless, or angels
Richard
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