how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, X
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February 26, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vlll
“Polonaise” (1934)
Konstantin Korovin
________
cause the pickings are slim among the
shared musical formats between Mozart
and Chopin, Mozart, for instance,
composed eighteen piano sonatas to
Chopin’s mere three, Chopin’s First
even having been more or less
disregarded since for being promising
maybe, but not at all inspired, where
Mozart meanwhile also wrote 27 piano
concertos to Chopin’s only two, though
both, his, entirely mighty
Chopin, however, pretty well establishes
the nocturne, the scherzo, the prelude,
the étude, the polonaise, the mazurka
as musical forms, while Mozart never
establishes a thing, apart from his own
supreme talent
but here are a couple of fantasias that
they both share, Mozart’s Fantasia
no 3 in D minor, of four, Chopin’s
Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major,
Opus 61, Chopin blending here his
fantaisie to the beat of a polonaise,
a dance form of his native Poland,
see above
listen for trills in the Mozart, which
admittedly show up only near the
end of the piece, otherwise he
sounds a lot like, I’ll admit, Chopin
listen for arpeggios in the Chopin
a follow-up exercise in listening,
trills, notably, up against arpeggios
consider, enjoy
R ! chard
November 2, 2020
my 10 best films – “Copenhagen”
______________
yesterday – a Sunday afternoon, much
like Sundays the way they were
supposed to be, gracious, cordial, if
somewhat reverent, but, especially,
and quite specifically, as specified in
its prevailing Good Book then, restful
– a friend and I watched a second of
my ten favourite movies
Copenhagen, a three-character play
that had won the Tony in 2000, had
been made into a film a couple of
years later, with Daniel Craig, no
less than Daniel Craig, yes, that
Daniel Craig, if you’ll pardon my
gushing, the most recent, and
therefore ,to my mind, nearly
definitive James Bond, with a
couple of other less well known,
though supremely capable,
performers
Daniel Craig is Werner Heisenberg,
the German physicist who’d studied
with Niels Bohr, his Danish tutor,
both becoming, individually, great
names in the history of 20th-Century
nuclear physics, right up there with
Einstein and Oppenheimer
the year is 1941, Denmark is
occupied, Heisenberg, though
earlier a beloved student, is
now a political enemy, of his
earlier mentor, Niels Bohr
conflicting, apparently, ideologies,
incompatible, clashing, loyalties,
fell even apparently indissoluble
intimacies
it is allowed by the German High
Command that Heisenberg visit
Bohr in Copenhagen, at his home,
to, perhaps, glean information
about the atom bomb, its
composition
Heisenberg, if not necessarily
coerced, is, however informally,
tasked with getting whatever
relevant information from Bohr,
who is not directly involved with
either the German or American
pursuits, his interest is essentially
theoretical, to the extent that he
can maintain that pose despite
intense international pressure
they meet, they met, an actual
historical event, Michael Frayn
the playwright, imagines their
meeting, which has never been
recorded, the play is a work of
the imagination, but of an
imagination of the very highest
order, and philosophical insight
Schubert provides most of the
music, sets the tone for the
film, the much more refined
atmosphere of polished Europe,
the Europe we look toward, like
Romans looked toward Athens,
for their moral and aesthetic
pre-eminence, a Europe that
profoundly reverberates still in
our, however globalized,
collectivity
listen
try hard to see the movie
R ! chard
October 4, 2020
“Love Opened a Mortal Wound” – Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695)
___________
in both style and substance, the
following poem reminds me of
Emily Dickinson‘s wonderful stuff
the poet, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,
1651–1695, was the illegitimate
daughter of a Spanish father and
a Creole mother, who chose to
follow her many intellectual pursuits
and become a nun rather than submit
to the rigours of love and a secular life
R ! chard
_________________
Love Opened a Mortal Wound
Love opened a mortal wound.
In agony, I worked the blade
to make it deeper. Please,
I begged, let death come quick.
Wild, distracted, sick,
I counted, counted
all the ways love hurt me.
One life, I thought—a thousand deaths.
Blow after blow, my heart
couldn’t survive this beating.
Then—how can I explain it?
I came to my senses. I said,
Why do I suffer? What lover
ever had so much pleasure?
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
(translated by Joan Larkin
and Jaime Manrique)
Con el Dolor de la Mortal Herida
Con el dolor de la mortal herida,
de un agravio de amor me lamentaba;
y por ver si la muerte se llegaba,
procuraba que fuese más crecida.
Toda en el mal el alma divertida,
pena por pena su dolor sumaba,
y en cada circunstancia ponderaba
que sobrarban mil muertes a una vida.
Y cuando, al golpe de uno y otro tiro,
rendido el corazón daba penoso
señas de dar el último suspiro,
no sé con qué destino prodigioso
volví en mi acuerdo y dije:—¿Qué me admiro?
¿Quién en amor ha sido más dichoso?
September 17, 2020
Preludes and Fugues, Op.87 – Shostakovich
Tatiana Nikolayeva
___________
during this period of self-isolation, it
is nearly an unavoidable consequence
of such imposed solitude that one
would become contemplative, though,
I must admit, this is not for me an
especially unusual state
lately, I’ve returned to the Preludes and
Fugues of Shostakovich, a reinterpretation
of the form that Johann Sebastian Bach
had initiated in 1722, and indeed
reinterpreted himself between 1739 and
1742, each set known separately as
Books 1 and 2
a prelude is, as the name itself suggests,
an introductory piece, and I won’t get into
any further explanations of it, which would
be technical, and not especially relevant
here
a fugue is a line of music, however, that
is repeated a few bars in so that the tune
ends up essentially analyzing itself, for
voice we know this as singing in canon,
you’ve probably done this yourself, in a
group, singing, for instance, Row, Row,
Row Your Boat, or, even in French,
Frère Jacques
but the strictly instrumental form becomes,
by virtue of re-examining itself over and
over again, nearly, by definition,
introspective
there are neither highs nor lows, which
is to say, alterations in volume, in a fugue,
so that the couple of hours it takes to get
through any set including them would be
restful, though never not intellectually
intriguing, much as mental meandering,
or daydreaming, speculation, is
Shostakovich, much as Bach did,
composed his in every key, major
and minor, for a total of 24
here are his first 12
here are the remaining dozen
they were written by Shostakovich for
Tatiana Nikolayeva, who plays them
herself in both of these iterations
sit back, relax, enjoy
R ! chard
July 19, 2020
Chopin Piano Concerto no. 1
“The Monument to Chopin in the Luxembourg Gardens“ (1909)
Henri Rousseau
________
for Joselyn, thanks for the tip
one good Chopin Piano Concerto deserves
another, especially if it is, to my mind, superior,
however ever be these things entirely subjective,
you decide
here’s his First, listen, be mesmerized
R ! chard
June 22, 2020
“The Afternoon of a Faun” – Debussy / Nijinsky / Nureyev
“Faun and Nymph“ (1867)
Pál Szinyei Merse
________
to take a break, for a moment, from the
travails of Io, a heifer still, though her
father, Inachus, is aware of the situation,
and Hermes, messenger of the gods, is
out, on the orders of Jove/ Jupiter / Zeus,
to save her, and, at the same time,
inspired by the music Hermes tells Argus,
her many-eyed keeper, Pan, god of the
wilds, has been playing, with reeds he’s
been left with of Syrinx, the nymph he
would’ve loved had she not been
transformed into rushes, as imagined by
Debussy in his evocative Syrinx for solo
flute, as highlighted in my last instalment,
I could not not remember Debussy‘s
other similarly mythological, and intimately
related, work, his Prelude to the Afternoon
of a Faun, as modified itself by Vaslav
Nijinsky, legendary dancer and
choreographer, into an event that verily
shook the early 20th Century
retitled, L’après-midi d’un faune, The
Afternoon of a Faun in English, the
performance captures everything one
would gather from Ovid’s myths of its
primitive, primal, sensibilities
the faun, needless to say, is representative
of Pan, god of the wild, woodlands, a satyr,
part instinct, part man, see above
watch Rudolf Nureyev, then, his equally
celebrated successor, take on the role
Nijinsky made famous, without any
alterations made to the original 1912
production, however improbably,
though entirely successfully, we’re in
Paris, May 29, though transposed,
faithfully and superbly, to New York,
Broadway, 1979
proceed, however, at your own discretion,
The Afternoon of a Faun is steaming, it’s
about what happens when a young buck’s
fancies, implacable and irrepressible, turn
to love, not for the scrupulous, where does
love begin, it asks, and lust retire, or is it
the other way around, where does yin, in
other words, meet, become, yang
these are questions that more and more
begin to come up, you’ll find, in Greek
and Roman, and most other ancient,
for that matter, mythologies, something
that isn’t at all touched upon in the
Abrahamic traditions, Christanity, Islam,
Judaism, monotheistic, though they’re
at least as old, where nature, the place
of animals, vegetation, land, water, our
intimate interconnection with them,
don’t much, for better or for worse,
come up
I miss the wonder of the more
pantheistic, the pagan, perspective
enjoy
R ! chard
May 30, 2020
“Apollo e Dafne” – George Frideric Handel
“George Frideric Handel” (1726 – 1728)
Balthasar Denner
__________
supposing that there would probably
be a musical interpretation of the
myth of Apollo and Daphne, I wasn’t
surprised to discover that Handel
had written one, in 1709 – 10, cantatas
on mythic subjects was the type of
thing he did, don’t forget the
Renaissance, the renewed, and
probing fascination, starting more
or less in the 14th Century, with
Classical Greece and Rome, affecting
everything, even as late, 1685 to 1759,
as the 18th Century for this composer
I must admit that I’m not particularly
partial to Handel, his rhythms are
way too elementary for my taste,
plus he never achieves the depth
of emotion Bach, his contemporary,
does, 1685 – 1750, so that I’ve put
him aside pretty well completely
but here’s an Apollo e Dafne that
I found compelling from beginning
to end
Apollo e Dafne is not an opera, but
a cantata, which means a piece
for voice and orchestra, but with
several movements, like tunes in
a Broadway show
this production, however, has
incorporated a scenario with
singers in costume acting
out a plot
it has no subtitles though, but
you can read the translation
here, should you need to
Handel’s libretto, note, is a
reworking of Ovid’s text, therefore
not an exact reproduction of the
version I’ve been highlighting,
Dryden’s translation of 1717,
written a few years, you’ll want to
consider, after Handel’s own
composition, but the essential
story is there, she eventually
turns into a tree, no surprise,
you knew that already from Ovid’s
very title, The Transformation of
Daphne into a Lawrel, as
inscribed, however archaically
now, by Dryden
I’ll just point out that Cupid’s in
red, doesn’t sing, just delivers
atmospheric context, and you
might find some later scenes
quite, even shockingly, I did,
explicit, be advised
otherwise, enjoy, be delighted
R ! chard
April 3, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 101
“Primavera“ (1478)
Sandro Botticelli
_________
a friend expressed some interest in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses recently after I’d sung for
a few moments its praises, had told her I
was revisiting it after some time with the
intention of duly, this time, completing it,
given that, hey, we’ve got lots of time, at
present, all of us, on our hands, by very
mandate
it sounds wonderful, she briefed me after
I’d sent her the appropriate link, but there
are some parts I don’t understand
I’ll help, I said, only too eager to share
the delights of this inprobable treasure,
a gift nearly two thousand years old,
with the magic still of very revelation
Metamorphoses is a creation story, the
equivalent of the Bible for those who
revered the Roman deities, the same
deities that the Greeks revered, but
transplanted, renamed, to Roman
stock, like the Puritans did their
Christian seed at Plymouth Rock
Ovid, 43 BC to 17/18 AD, was a Roman
poet, paying fealty to Augustus, Emperor
of Rome, 63 BC to 14 AD, therefore his
Roman goddesses, gods, and his,
contemporary, Latin
which was translated into English early
in the Renaissance, but found its best
expression, to my mind still, in the
eminent hands of Sir Samuel Garth,
John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph
Addison, William Congreve, among
others in, already, 1717
listen
The Creation of the World
Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing:
Ovid is saying my topic is transformation, very
metamorphoses, plural of metamorphosis
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
‘Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc’d from Nature’s birth, to Caesar’s times.
poets have traditionally called upon their related
muses to inspire them to accomplish their task,
Ovid invokes his Gods, compare Shakespeare’s
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend / The
brightest heaven of invention, his prologue to
Henry V
“Ye Gods”, Ovid says, “from whom these
miracles did spring”, those everyday wonders
that surround us, inspire me, he asks, that I
might “compleat”, which is to say complete,
his poem, “this long laborious work”
his “numbers” are his years, “coelestial”, or
celestial, “heat”, is inspiration
“tenour to my rimes” means rhythm, weight,
to his poetry
“Nature’s birth”, or the beginning of time, to
“Caesar’s time”, Ovid‘s own period under
Augustus
Ovid asks the Gods to fuel him with the
fire to tell the story of the world from its
very beginning to his own epoch,
Caesar’s
how’s that for a project
enough for now
but stay tuned for, to follow, the Creation,
capital C, I tell you
R ! chard
October 22, 2019
Piano Concerto no 4, Opus 58 – Beethoven
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