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Category: not just for eggheads

my 10 best films – “Closer”

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          The Bolt” (c.1778)

 

                  Jean-Honoré Fragonard

 

                                       ________

 

 

in the spirit of recording my ten best

ever films, my favourite films of all

time, something that, at my relatively

advanced age, 71, I feel entitled to do,

however might some think me

presumptuous, others, not inaccurate,

I started last night with Closer

 

Mike Nichols directs, who also helmed

another of my ten favourites, Who’s

Afraid of Virginia Woolfwhich, having

just watched it recently, I won’t again

soon, having been, once more,

devastated, I cry from the first roll of

the credits, bawl when the music

comes on, a theme that’s reverberated

with me through the several ensuing

ages, same as just happened again

to me with this one

 

The Blower’s Daughter, listen, tells

the story, breathes the essence of,

anguish, the tale itself follows, four

individuals, in a tight, literary, conceit,

live out the agonies of participants in

modern emotional interactions, or, at

least, my modern, 2004, it all takes

place in London, with a brief, though

revelatory, postscript in New York, in

order to tie loose ends together, they

are called upon, the performers,

consummate in every instance, Julia

Roberts, Jude LawNatalie Portman,   

Clive Owen, however reduced might

be their full cast, a mighty, note,

professional challenge, to display the

myriad tragedies inherent in all loving

entanglements

 

try to find it, it ought to knock your

socks off

 

meanwhile, think about your own

best list, if you don’t suppose it’s

at all too early

 

 

R ! chard

 

psst: stick around, incidentally, for the

          final credits, to Mozart’s

          transcendental Soave sia il vento,

          from his Così fan tutteaptly,

          and sublimely, introspective

 

on our magnificence

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   Allegory of Magnificence (1654) 

 

      Eustache Le Sueur

 

           ____________

 

we have only our magnificence to 

counteract the indignity of our 

incarnation

 

a flower is itself its only existential 

defence, its effervescence of 

attributes – colour, grace, 

intoxicating aroma – its 

validating glory

 

we are such things as dreams 

are made of, its a question of 

choosing one’s dreams

 

 

R ! chard

 

 

 

grammmar in action, verb moods

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     Philosophy and Grammar 

   

            Gentile da Fabriano

 

                    __________

 

reach, imperative, I always say, indicative, 

for a star, you might, conditional, get the 

moon, but you might also, conditional, 

get a star

 

such is the power of mood in verb 

structure, and an expression of how 

words through grammatical stipulations

become inspiration, poetry

 

think about it 

 

 

R ! chard

 

 

 

 

nocturnes / scherzos, Chopin

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    Scherzo di putti 

 

          Giovanni Battista Piranesi

 

                        ______________

 

 

what is the difference between 

 

        one, a nocturne

         two, a scherzo

you tell me

both by Chopin

 

nocturne, incidentally, is a French 

word for night music

 

scherzo is an Italian word for joke, 

something humorous

 

 

R ! chard

 

 

psst: if you said the pace, the tempo, 

          however comparably, in all the 

          instances, elastic, you’re 

         absolutely right, the rest is

         ever entirely Romantic, which

         is to say, by definition,

         introspective

cuisine, modern art

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    “Still Life. Food, Glasses and a Jug on a Table (1640) 

           Pieter Claesz

               _______

if I’ve been trying to show off Beethoven,
and other Romantic artists, painters, 
poets, composers, as prophets in a
post-Christian, secular environment, 
their modern equivalents show up in,
of all places, cuisine in the 21st Century,
where chefs have become the new, and
dominant, expression of art, if you can 
believe it, but trust me 

I can’t but urgently enough recommend,   
should you be at all interested in the  
evolution of creative genius, 
Chef’s Table“, an already 5-year-old 
series on Netflix, $9.99 a month, with 
a first month free trial, a show that 
gives you, to my mind, front row 
seat for the manner in which an artist
becomes an expression of, a lighting 
rod for, social change, a picture of 
the juice it takes to produce such a 
person

who could be any one of us, all that’s
needed is a conscience

and maybe, admittedly, a muse


R ! chard 

psst: a few of their restaurants I’ve 
          virtually visited 

          Osteria Francescane – with a friend, 
          we decided we’d have the foie gras
          as a starter, snails and hare with 
          “aromatic herbs” for our primi, but
          she’d have the beef, I’d have the 
          suckling pig as secondi

           Attica’s set menu doesn’t give you
           much of a choice, though it promises
           utter, and I believe them, excellence

           Alinea, where eating is more than 
           even just a designer meal, but a
           very transcendental experience 

Piano Sonata in C# minor, opus 80 – Tchaikovsky

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The Sonata 

              Childe Hassam

                     ___________

                            for Sarah and Rachel, the daughters
                              of the son of a dear cousin, after a 
                                belated lunch recently, two young 
                                  girls14, 16, in bloom, as Proust 
                                    would say, who speak not only 
                                      music, but French and English,
                                        fluently, I checked – perhaps   
                                          even German, their Oma  
                                            lives with them – they also  
                                              play the flute, the piano,    
                                                and sing, what could be
                                                  I ask you, more beautiful,  
                                                   two young girls ibloom, 
                                                     indeed in very blossom   
                                        
                               or am I being too French
 
the form of the sonata had been established 
decisively during the Classical Period, out 
of the rudiments of Bach’s own such pieces
Mozart and Haydn had given the concept its 
final shape, its structure, three or four 
contrasting movements, by definition all 
entertainments

Beethoven kicked the entertainment part 
right out of the ball park, made his show 
into a veritable transcendental meditation, 
rather than to merely applaud, audiences 
gasped, were meant to be awed, as I still 
ever am by his musical speculations

but by definition as well, a sonata is a 
piece for a single instrument, therefore
inherently introspective, whether the 
player has an audience or not, soloists, 
note, play easily on their own

even an accompanied sonata, as violin
sonatas often are, for instance, or this 
one for two pianos, would lose the 
intimacy of a solo piece, for having 
someone playing, however compatibly, 
over one’s shoulder  

in other words, a piano sonata is, by
definition, a monologue, a soliloquy,
where notes tell the story that words 
would intimately, even confessionally,
in poetry, convey

the emotions that are elicited from 
a piece are as real as they would 
be from any literary alternative, 
except that they’re quickened, like 
aromas, through the senses, rather 
than through divisiveby definition 
confrontational, logic

rosemary reminds me always, for 
instance, of one of my departed 
aunts, like the taste of a madeleine 
dipped in tea opened the door for 
Proust to an entire earlier epoch, 
the seed, the subject, of his 
disquisition on Time, À la 
recherche du temps perdu“, An 
Exploration into Elapsed Time“, 
my own translation, none of the 
published proffered titles   
having rendered the subtlety  
of the shimmering original
  
rosemary, in other words, speaks,
if even only to me

listen to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano
Sonata, in C# minor, opus 80, one
of only two of his, what do you 
hear, think, feel


R ! chard

the Kingdom of Denmark vs Hamlet

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  Ideal portrait of Shakespeare (c.1775) 

         Angelica Kauffman

____________

since I’m on the subject of Hamlet
here‘s the most fun production 
I’ve seen since I can remember, 
the trial of said Hamlet before 
the High Court of the Kingdom 
of Denmark vs Himself, for the 
murder of Poloniuschief 
counsellor of the new King, 
Claudius, after the death of 
Hamlet, père, brother to Claudius, 
Greek, nearly, already, tragedy

Anthony M. KennedyAssociate 
Justice of the Supreme Court of 
the United States, presides, 
Abbe Lowell, counsel for both 
Jared Kushner, and Ivanka Trump
recently in the matter of Russian
interference, argues for the 
defense, while Jessie K. LiuU.S. 
Attorney for the District of 
Columbia, is the prosecution

the stakes are high, not only for
Hamlet

the participants put on quite 
show, however erudite, they 
all deliver in utter spades

you’ll relish the surprisingly 
multifarious quotations you 
might not, you thought, ‘ve 
got, of Shakespeare, you’ll be 
amazed to find that you’re not 
that much out of touch with 
these not so daunting, after 
all, considerations

much art, in other words, is only 
as far away as one’s curiosity, 
one’s acknowledgement, much 
of it is already in our system, in  
our cultural DNA, all that’s   
needed to take it in is our 
attention

watch


R ! chard

String Quartet in F minor, opus 95, “Serioso” – Beethoven

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Napoleon Bonaparte in his Study at the Tuileries (1812) 

      Jacques-Louis David

              __________

first of all, let me resolve an issue I’d 
brought up recently, can there be music 
without repetition, recapitulation, of an 
initial musical idea 

no, I emphatically now state, otherwise 
one has a sentence, prose, thus 
reiteration must define as we 
understand it, music

until, of course, I’m made to eat my 
words

secondly, and to the present point
Beethoven’s 11th String Quartet, was 
nicknamed Serioso“, imagine how 
far that label would get one nowadays
but it was a different era, where fun,
levity, wasn’t, creatively, an essential 
component, that only began to happen, 
modestly, in the mid-19th Century, then 
full on in the 20th, after the First World 
War, see the Charlestonfor instance, 
Charlie ChaplinFred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers  

the 11th is the last string quartet of 
Beethoven’s Middle Period – and if 
you think this one is serious, wait
till you hear his Late ones

but don’t let me scare you, they are 
transcendental, very epiphanies,
you’ll verily leave the planet 

note that the music you’re listening 
to in the Serioso is not initially 
cadenced, a line of notes deliver, 
rather, a sentence, which is later 
restated, there are more than the 
four Classical tempi, also, to divide 
the movements, but several, which 
display, nearly indiscriminately, 
much like in literature, or movies, 
variety of emotions, here
however, without the words, one, 
even, specifically called serioso”,
delivered, expressed, spoken, in 
the language of, however, music

listen

I hope you’ll enjoy  


R ! 
chard

psst: note that there are no words in
          the Charlie Chaplin either, but 
          the information is transmitted 
          through the eyes, not the ears

Sonata for Violin and Piano in F minor, BWV 1018 – Bach

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    “Four Devotees of Prints

            Honoré Daumier

                __________

up at the crack of about nine this 
morning, I determined to get the 
ordeal of trying to print 
something out of the way, go 
over to my mom’s, a few blocks 
down the street, to use her  
printer, something I figured  
would probably present obstacles

though we followed the proposed
instructions, nothing would work,
print, pressed, delivered nothing

hoops were required, several of 
which I managed, got closer, and  
more prepped, but when they 
essentially seemed to contract
marriage, I withdrew – though I 
might‘ve inadvertently sworn a 
ring

flummoxed, even irritated, by 
the manufactured distress, I
determinedly decided to go 
back to paper, I am not a robot, 
I ascertain, as they often 
electronically instruct, to, 
mean really, confirm your 
identity


back home, I lit a candle for Collin, 
my friend, who ‘s just had a 
debilitating stroke, and listened to
Bach again, an absolute cradle

listen to how falling into the 
rhythmic pocket, beats landing  
on anticipated beats in a rocking 
motion, lets you slip into surrender, 
and even physical, solace 

hear, however, how the lingering 
notes of the violin transgress bar
lines, much like with Beethoven
in order to tell a more personal
story

Bach gets to look a lot more like
Beethoven every minute, or the 
reverse, I’m finding, like 
grandchildren resembling, atom 
for atom, their grandparents

stay tuned, there’s a lot more
to uncover 


R ! chard

“Capriccio on the departure of his beloved brother” – Bach

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     “Music (1904) 

           Thomas Eakins

                  _______

music cannot lie, when it caresses 
you, your very senses on the alert 
for what, or what does not, inspire, 
from one note to the next, and, of 
course, from one sensation to the 
other

words are subject to all kinds of 
interpretations, visual arts can be 
manipulated, tell varying versions 
of an, even imagined, event, see, 
for instance, Surrealismwith its
distortions as multifarious as the 
imagination

but music cannot not tell the truth, 
one hears music with one’s senses, 
and responds to it with the same 
primitive instinct as, nearly, smell, 
another powerful truth teller, ask 
dogs, or ask a young man’s fancy 
when it turns to thoughts of love”,
in spring, there is no surer compass


here’s more Bach, Capriccio on the 
departure of his beloved brother“, 
from their family home, a marvel I’ve 
recently discovered 

  • Arioso: Adagio — ‘Friends Gather & Try to Dissuade Him…’
  • (Andante) – ‘They Picture the Dangers Which May Befall Him’
  • Adagiosissimo (or Adagissimo) – ‘The Friends’ Lament’
  • (Andante con moto) – ‘Since He Cannot Be Dissuaded, They Say Farewell’
  • Allegro pocco – ‘Aria of the Postilion’ (Aria di postiglione)
  • ‘Fugue in Imitation of the Postilion’s Horn’ (Fuga all’imitazione della cornetta di postiglione
 

do you love it


thanks, sincerely, for dropping by 

R ! chard