on our magnificence
Richibi’s Weblog
Just another WordPress.com weblog
Category: me, in C# major
March 11, 2018
on, however exuberant, ambition
“The Chess Players“ (1902)
_______
for Joselyn, my Ariel
pumped as I was by my most recent
exegesis about longevity, a dear,
dear friend, used to, and infinitely
tolerant, of my, apparently often,
according to her, exhortations
about my significant literary abilities,
sighed when I told her I’d make her
famous with my art, also my mother,
as well as other influential and
cherished characters, and produced
a Scrabble word over our game to,
in an instant, overwhelm me with a
seven letter concoction, at the very
last moment, leaving me with a row,
furthermore, of unused tiles, with,
however trivial, still annihilating,
consequences
ouch, I said, girlfriend
but I’m not giving up on my promise
to her, I’m reaching for the stars
what do you think
R ! chard
March 11, 2018
the time change / March 11, 2018
“Clock with Blue Wing“ (1949)
________
with the unruly sleeping patterns of the aged,
mostly, disquieting midnight hours awake,
fretting ever about not enough proper rest,
even though the next day might be fraught,
in retirement, with plenty of time to recover,
I wondered, as such a person, at the
relevance of this semiannual time change,
especially among seniors, those dripping in
time to squander, one day following the next,
often nearly indistinguishably
all it means to me, I said to my mom, is that
I’ll be falling asleep, instead of at two, at three,
in the morning
she hasn’t answered yet
R ! chard
November 26, 2017
me in C# major – Wonderland
“Alice in Wonderland“ (1977 )
_______
to Soeur Lucie-des-Lys,
wherever she now
may be
the school that we went to, my
sister and I, was across the street,
through a wild grass field, which
we crossed diagonally, especially
after the Soeurs de l’Assomption,
the Sisters of the Assumption of,
indeed, the Blessed Virgin, had
their convent built directly before
our house, not only the times, but
also the nuns’ implicit intercession,
would’ve prevented any harm
coming to us as we wended our
innocent way across their, surely
consecrated, ground
then down a slight hill to cross
the stone bridge that led to the
other side of the gully, that let
a rill slithering through it ripple
gingerly between its two mostly
brush-covered embankments,
shrubs and disconsolate,
disoriented, displaced
apparently, trees
then another trail, in a conversely
diagonal direction – like Alice‘s
flipped reality in Wonderland,
inverted and eventually wondrous
– climbed up the other side of the
rise, and led across another open
field, aridly, to our school
I don’t remember my first day,
but I remember my sister’s, my
parents worked, therefore,
having done this for already a
year, I would walk her to school,
introduce her to her teacher, I
was seven, she was six, there
was no kindergarten then, nor,
by a long shot, children’s day
care centres
but already we were Hansel and
Gretel in my mind, if we became
gingerbread cookies, we’d become
so together, therefore off we went
to encounter this strange new
world
I knew the principal, an efficient
nun, but not unkind, who later
even taught me, she would
introduce my sister to her first
teacher, Soeur Lucie-des-lys,
who couldn’t’ve chosen a better
name, Lucy-of-the-Lilies, and
was just as modest, utterly
inoffensive, as her adopted
moniker
but my sister cried, indeed wailed,
she had never seen a nun before,
in their black and white attire,
stark and ominously disciplinarian
but I had to go to my own class,
my own new year of exploration,
I liked school, I knew what it
could bring, I knew my sister ‘d
be safe with these new wards of
our education
especially with Sister
Lucy-of-the-Lilies, who could ask
for a better mystical indication,
and an absolute reflection of her
actual person, a poem in the guise
of a maiden, to allay, at the time,
any of my residual reservations
then again, I was Hansel, only,
who else could I trust
later my sister met friends, and a
whole new world of adventure,
just like Alice did in her own,
legendary, Wonderland
R ! chard
November 25, 2017
“Symphony no 6 in B minor, opus 54” – Dmitri Shostakovich
“Great Expectations. USSR pavilion on 1939 New York World’s Fair“ (1939)
____________
“I hope that these few preparatory words
can give you an insight that may permit
you to experience this strangely
heterogeneous work as a single entity,
a flashpoint in musical history”, says
Leonard Bernstein, somewhat,
admittedly, grandiloquently, in an indeed
thrilling introduction to Shostakovich’s
Sixth Symphony in B minor, opus 54
that he reiterates several of the points
that I earlier brought up does me no
disservice, coming especially from a
person of such high quality, pedigree,
in the musical world, I’m abashed,
bashful, indeed blushing, that my
humble insights have been so
eminently corroborated
but I cannot second his enthusiasm
for Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony,
a failed, to my mind, entity, a long
introductory lament that lingered
long after its “best before” date,
followed by indifferent, though
perhaps energetic, yet unrelated,
final movements, the instrumentation
might be, admittedly, brilliant, the
Shostakovichian precise array of
sounds, but the sum is less than the
parts, I think, I took home only
confusion, as did the crowd,
apparently, at its first presentation,
Leningrad, November 21, 1939,
Mravinsky conducting, wow, an
even more convincing argument,
maybe, than Bernstein’s, however
rousing, interpretation
for your information, I’ve included
Tchaikovsky’s Sixth, according to
Bernstein intimately related, he
explains, to Shostakovich’s Sixth
you’ll note how different, however,
these two symphonies are compared
to how similar in so many respects
Beethoven’s and Shostakovich’s
Fifths are, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth is
manifestly more Romantic than
Revolutionary
but imagine Tchaikovsky starting and
ending with an adagio, how audacious,
daring, though not particularly efficient,
I think, not especially successful, the
adagio lamentoso seems to me
anticlimactic after the vigorous allegro
molto vivace, which receives a
thunderous applause, the last
movement, the lamentoso, however
lovely, doesn’t rise to the heights of a
proper finale for this forerunner’s
contagious ebullience, sounds rather
like an encore, melodramatic and a bit
pretentious
or maybe I’m just getting cranky
sooner or later though, the conundrum
of adagio bookends will be resolved,
someone inevitably will do it, like
finding the square on the hypotenuse,
unearthing warped space, discovering
a way to recapture carbon dioxide and
make it work for us, as trees would do
if we let them, someone always exceeds,
miraculously, our expectations, watch
for it, dare I say, here
R ! chard
November 24, 2017
me, in C# major – in the beginning
“Prieteni“
_______
for my sister
my sister, who is presently recovering,
learning to walk again, up and down,
apparently, the stairs, after a second,
especially virulent, sarcoma, the first,
a year ago, insignificant compared to
this one, which has left her, this time,
with but two of seven muscles in her
upper right hind leg, her thigh, was
surely my first experience of someone
who could understand my existence,
she was born a year and a very few
days later than I was
two buds on a branch learning to
weather the weather from the same
degree, essentially, of inference
she had dark eyes, round, brown,
beautiful, would eventually win
beauty pageants, her hair was also
brown, beautiful, though all this
was to her ever irrelevant, until later
perhaps when she learned to always,
however humbly, as one should treat
a gift from heaven, use it, to protect
her child, to ensure her own ever
noble existence, through which she
never, however, stopped being
beautiful, even radiant
however beautiful might she have
been, I only ever saw her heart,
something I’ve done since with
beautiful people, beyond even
their vaunted allure
my sister was not only my sister,
thus, she was also the other part
of my heart
still is
my parents worked, were gone all
day, ensuring our physical comfort,
food, clothing, a roof over our
heads, and they were little by little
becoming eventually extravagantly
successful, for little people
but it was the ’50s, folks were
coming out of a culture of log
cabins and perseverance, aunts
had survived fires that had burnt
the town down, and who’d saved
their children, all cowering in the
nearby river, cloaked in tarpaulins,
while the menfolk had been toiling
in some other nearby township
to keep their families going,
nearly as heroically as the women
but my sister and I had just been
born in this particular corner of
infinity, where each child, in its
own, needs to make its own way
we, blessed as we were, could
confront this abashing new world
together
and we did
she had been a bud, she became
my anchor, as I, I think, ever for
her since have also been
if you’ll pardon my inordinate, and
perhaps too gushing, ardour
R ! chard
November 23, 2017
me, in C# major – program notes
“The Journey of the Stone Unicorn“ (2005)
______
for my Uncle Al, who put
me up to this challenge
an uncle of mine recently, who’d only
undertaken, just as recently, his own
“memoir”, he called it, urged me to
write my own autobiography on the
strength of what he perceived to be
my writing ability, I knew that would
be a daunting venture, one that he’d
shown me already in several internet
correspondences how daunting it
had been for his own eventually
abandoned effort, it had been
chronological, a death blow since at
least Proust, Joyce, and the advent
of stream of consciousness, time is
no longer considered linear, watch
any program on television
indeed I tried at one point, a few
months back to start from the
beginning, it was a disaster, where
I was born, when, in a manger, for
your information, for there was no
room at the inn, but from there it
was perfunctory, like watching the
hands on a clock turn
in the meantime, I thought I’d try
something else, a recent inspiration,
just sit by the fire and tell your story,
my story, which is not at all, I think,
as I would, of course, uninteresting,
but you’ll be the gauge of that,
should you keep on reading
and I think I can do that
R ! chard
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
February 11, 2017
“Is Art Truth?”
“Paradise”
__________
“Is Art Truth?“, a friend asks after speaking of
its benefits, “Art accepts and tells the truth-Is
that it ?“, she inquires, wonders
art, like truth itself and beauty, is in the eye
of the beholder, I submit, and therefore my
definition is, once again, entirely personal,
though I’ve rigorously plumbed it
it requires background
art died for a thousand years, it was
essentially unrecorded, dormant from
the fall of Rome to the Renaissance, nor
promoted but for Catholic purposes,
hence the majestic cathedrals and the
magisterial altarpieces, works produced
by, however, communities until eventually
certain artisans were recognized as more
inspired than others, and given autonomy
enter Duccio, for instance
in time these new, necessarily idiosyncratic
perspectives – see Hieronymus Bosch, Dante
Alighieri – dominated, veering in their search
for truth in their art and beauty – selling points,
incidentally – towards less strictly orthodox
utterances
see above
art, and its contemporary science, were
chipping away at ecclesiastical dogma
till God died, and artists continued their
prescient march forward, shaping our
zeitgeist, our spirit of the times, with
their pronouncements for lack of any
other guides
but the voices grew personal, see Mozart,
often profound and prophetic, see
Beethoven, till the confluence of disparate
realities gave us secularism, each soul for
itself as a tenet, a credo, a belief, a truth
what did they have in common
I believe it was their quest for beauty
through truth, their quest for truth
through beauty, with a nod here to
the salient Keats
art is prayer, a search for, as well as a
manifestation of, one’s personal
identification with the sacred
it is not truth, it is not beauty, it is the
fervent intention itself, linked with a
correspondent workmanship, craft,
which inspires
see for instance van Gogh for this, who,
remember, nevertheless shot himself,
artists are mortal, merely, messengers,
ever, therefore, fallible, unsure, fearful
even, often, of their, perhaps
Promethean, fire
for consolation, or even maybe
transcendence, see again,
pertinently here, Beethoven
Richard
psst: thanks, Joan
Richibi's Weblog 