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Category: Pink Floyd

August 18, 2018

String Quartet no 16 in F major, opus 135 – Beethoven

portrait-of-alexander-sakharoff-1909.jpg!Large.jpg

    “Portrait of Alexander Sakharoff“ (1909) 
      
            Alexej von Jawlensky

                 ______________

if you’re wondering, how could a simple 
composer have such influence on an age,
think of the impact the Beatles had on 
the 1960s, essentially defining them, 
moving them from the pop song, “I Want 
to Hold Your Hand“, an updated version 
of anything by Elvis Presley, to their 
transformational “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Heart’s Club Band“, thirteen arias in 
search of an opera, paving the way for ,
not only concept albums, but for the 
likes of, for instance, the messianic, 
the oracular, Pink Floyd

Beethoven did much the same for the 
early 19th Century

the 16th String Quartet, his last, is,
like the 15th, in segmented pieces,
not the uninterrupted challenge for 
instrumentalists the continuous
14th is, where neither the players 
nor the audience get time to even 
breathe between movements 

but their composition is so riven 
with musical eccentricities, 
conceptual challenges, that they
are not to be dismissed, are even
epochal

the pauses, the interruptions of the 
beat, the irregular, and disconcerting
sometimes, rhythms, the stridency 
of some of the notes, pitched and
peremptory interpolations, despite 
a sensibility that still pays homage 
between the lines to the Classical 
considerations of deference, 
propriety – you can even feel the 
courtier’s hand, at times, extended 
in the dance, with ever such refined
grace, in order to accompany, to 
partner, to gently lead, his lady 

in other words, the 16th is “Abbey
Road“, if I’m to continue with my 
Beatle comparison, for neither  
was the equal of their respective 
counterparts, “Sgt. Pepper” ,  
Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet, 
both of which incontrovertibly and 
absolutely, in their time, changed 
everything, were culturally, thus, 
superior, where the others weren’t, 
didn’t, as effectively, as profoundly, 
leave so strong an imprint  

but you choose, all are extraordinary


R ! chard

psst: in order not to not add the nearly 
          irresistible digital blueprints, 
          which is to say, the not only 
          dancing but utterly illuminating 
          computer graphics, here they are,
          divided in the 16th‘s separate
          movements

             1. Allegretto
             2. Vivace
             3. Lento assai, cantante e tranquillo
             4. Der schwer gefaßte Entschluß. Grave, ma non troppo tratto 
                      (Muss es sein?)  –  Allegro (Es muss sein!) – Grave, ma 
                      non troppo tratto – Allegro

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August 11, 2018

String Quartet no 14 in C-sharp Minor, opus 131 – Beethoven

musician

        “Musician“ 

              Zaya

                 __

                                           for Ian, who surely 
                                              benefitted from my
                                                   intransigeance


after watching performed the first movement 
of Beethoven’s 14th String Quartet at home 
with a friend, I interrupted the piece and 
instead put on the one I’d found with 
computer graphics

not from the beginning, he said

yes, from the beginning, I retorted, a mere
six or seven minutes which’ll be worth it, I
insisted, and they were

four lines of music, the top one yellow for 
the first violin, red for the second, mauve 
for the viola, and blue for the cello, which 
individually advance according to the 
length of each instrument’s notes, the 
height, meanwhile, of the lines indicate 
pitch, top ones high notes, bottom lines 
low, it’s like watching a blueprint of 
what’s happening, and mesmerizing, a 
musical score in very motion, though 
without, admittedly, the bar lines, nor 
key and time signatures, clefs neither, 
for that matter 

the music meanwhile is transcendent

Beethoven here resolves all the issues
I brought up about his two early Late
Sonatas, grab bags of fine tunes but 
without a centre, cuts on an album, 
rather than the visionary 
pronouncements of the prophet I’ve
come to expect from Beethoven

Beethoven pulls out all the stops 
for his 14th, goes from a fugue in 
the first movement, a form 
reminiscent of Bach, who’d been 
completely obliterated during the 
Classical Period, masterful dance 
rhythms then, peppered 
throughout, referencing, indeed
honouring late 18th Century court
music, a set of variations in the
fourth movement, and other 
classifications I won’t touch for 
their being too technical, but 
which all illustrate Beethoven’s 
mastery of every musical 
convention until his time, then 
pushes all of it further still into 
the future with this string quartet, 
supreme among all string quartets, 
his 14th

much later, Pink Floyd would pull 
off a similar stunt, take its own 
generation’s music to comparable 
heights with an equally cultural, 
which is to say historical, impact,
the comparison is, I think,  
noteworthy and instructive

Pink Floyd, incidentally, was also 
a quartet, for even more context

note that throughout, tonality, tempo,
and repetition have been strictly, 
though, admittedly, often 
eccentrically observed, the piece has 
been arresting, even riveting, however, 
for some, disconcertingly so, but 
never not understood, never foreign, 
the music isn’t at all alienating, as 
could be, say, Chinese opera for most 
of us, we’re still here in our corner of 
the planet following faithfully in the 
Western musical tradition as it thus 
then evolved

I could say all of the above as well, 
again, by the way, about Pink Floyd  
in their own, ahem, Time


all of that said, this other version,  
by the Alban Berg Quartet, is the 
performance that you’ll remember,
it is still incomparable, the gold
standard

enjoy


R ! chard

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August 4, 2018

String Quartet no 12, E-flat major, opus 127 – Ludwig van Beethoven

the-cellist-1909.jpg!Large

    “The Cellist“ (1909) 

          Amedeo Modigliani

                   _________

if I haven’t spent a lot of time with
Beethoven’s 12th String Quartet, 
ever, it’s that, despite being 
considered one of his “Late” 
compositions, 1825, the 
supposedly probing ones, it is 
still steeped in Classical 
traditions, rather than the 
introspective impulses of the 
“Hammerklavier”, for instance, 
most movements seem to aim
for entertainment, rather than 
for enlightenment

all movements display dance rhythms,
often 3/4 time, which is to say, three 
quarter notes to the bar – one, two, 
three, one, two, three, one, two, three, 
one, two, three, try counting them as 
you listen, a dance beat, instead of 
the probing philosophical explorations 
of his more profound “Late” pieces, 
the “Hammerklavier”, for instance

neither is the 12th especially cohesive
as a piece on its own, the movements
don’t especially relate to one another,
they’re like cuts on an album, however
satisfactory, even delightful, they’re
units in a display of abilities, the 
difference between Elvis Presley‘s  ,
however transcendent, but disparate,
ballads to, later, Pink Floyd‘s epic
metaphysical orations  


but you’ll want to watch the cellist 
here, whose enthusiasm, eagerness,
ardour are such that you might even 
want to shield your eyes on occasion, 
with splayed, even, fingers – whose 
breadth I’ll leave entirely up to your 
personal discretion – though I could 
not, myself, resist for even a moment 
the uninhibited physical expression 
of his thoroughly impassioned 
account 

tune in, if you dare


R ! chard

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February 5, 2018

Divertimento no 17, K334 – Mozart

minuet-with-pantaloon-and-colombine-from-the-room-of-carnival-scenes-in-the-foresteria-1757.jpg!Large.jpg

“Minuet with Pantaloon and Colombine, from the Room of Carnival Scenes
                                                                                                       in the Foresteria“ (1757)

     Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo

             ________________

already I can hear you asking, why is
“The Seven Last Words“, with its nine
already movements, not a divertimento,
you’ll cry 

a divertimento is an entertainment, it 
doesn’t have the gravitas of Haydn’s 
composition, a sacred work, a 
divertimento is meant to delight

“The Seven Last Words“, therefore,
by definition is not a divertimento,
it’s a completely different idea of a
piece with several movements, it 
has profoundly ulterior intentions,
following, rather, in the tradition of
Bach’s oratorios, though it had 
originally been conceived without 
words, the prelate in this work 
would be doing the talking

the piece gives itself a theme, a 
focus, a project, creating something 
like chapters in a book 

or think of the Stations of the Cross 
a metaphorically more apt, perhaps, 
unifying principle, instead of just a 
series of disparate airs, like singles 
were on albums until Pink Floyd 
similarly revolutionized music with 
a topic during my generation, “The
Wall“, with a little preparatory help, 
albeit, from the Beatles, earlier,
our friends

here’s Mozart, nevertheless, in order 
to compare, his Divertimento no 17,  
K334, giving the aristocracy what 
they still, in 1780, wanted, something 
courtly

you’ll notice there are not just one 
but two minuets in the program, both 
with recapitulations, a sure sign that 
we’re still in the Classical Era, though 
the minuet will die off as quickly as 
the divertimento will in the following 
decades, relics, both, of an earlier era

and indeed this is Mozart’s last for 
small orchestra, divertimenti would be 
composed from here on as merely 
tributes to an earlier period and its 
musical formulas

masses and oratorios would go the same 
way, incidentally, with some resurgence 
in the following centuries from a couple 
of Catholic organists who left profound 
influences individually on later centuries

but more about them later

meanwhile, here’s Mozart, feel the 
gentility, his genuflexion to propriety 
rather than to faith


R ! chard

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November 29, 2017

Symphony no 7 in C major, opus 60, the “Leningrad”- Dmitri Shostakovich

leningrad-in-blockade-sketch-on-the-theme-of-leningrad-symphony-of-d-d-shostakovich-1943.jpg!Large.jpg

“Leningrad in blockade. Sketch on the theme of 
         “Leningrad Symphony” of D. D. Shostakovich.“ 
                                                                (c.1943) 

     Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

             __________

though I’ve been through the Seventh 
three times already, consecutively, it
doesn’t reach, for me, the heights the 
Fifth did, its first movement is
manifestly imperious, nearly even 
overwhelming, certainly unforgettable, 
I’ve been humming the ostinato in my 
sleep

but the following movements seem to 
me – not being Russian, nor having as
intimately incorporated their culture, 
where rhythms and history are 
inextricably intertwined – muddled 
about the reconstruction of its 
shattered world, melodies might be
lovely but are lost in a blur of musical
directions, there isn’t enough repetition 
of musical motifs to find solid ground, 
angry statements follow lyrical adagios
too often to get our bearings on what 
might be going on 

the first movement, however, remains a 
triumph, note the debt owed to Ravel’s 
“Bolero“ in the rousing ostinato, the 
part where the same musical phrase 
obstinately repeats its peremptory and 
ever more vociferous mantra, its 
headlong incantation, an interesting 
blend in either symphonic work of the 
sinuous, the seductive, the beguiling,
turning into the overtly martial, all to 
do with pulse 

the Symphony no 7, the “Leningrad”,
was first presented in that very city 
during its siege by the Germans, 
which lasted from 1941 to 1944, 
however unbelievably, Shostakovich, 
already a giant, was expected to deliver 
a masterpiece by both the people and 
by the regime, imagine Bono doing a
concert for Syria 

Shostakovich doesn’t disappoint

players were culled from what remained 
of instrumentalists among the survivors
of both Stalin’s criminal purges and of 
the German siege itself left in the city, 
those who hadn’t survived the famine
there, Valery Gergiev, an exalted 
Russian conductor, describes them as
walking skeletons, meagre from 
starvation, we’ve seen these before at 
Auschwitz

the world heard, and was moved, 
imperialism in any form was being 
vociferously condemned, going back 
to Napoleon even and his own failed 
invasion, if not also to Hannibal 
crossing the Alps, Caesar, his 
Rubicon

much of this symphony is about cultural 
resistance, the survival of a proud and 
resilient seed, any proud and resilient 
seed, hence its international standing

see Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for 
comparable fanfare, flourish, and 
circumstance, the only other work of
any such historical political importance
and, appreciably, still unsurpassed,

except for, maybe, Roger Waters
channeling Pink Floyd at the Berlin 
Wall, along with, not incidentally
there, again Beethoven 


R ! chard

psst: the other great composer of the 
          20th Century, Messiaen, also 
          composed a commemoration of
          an awful moment in our history,
          the Holocaust, his “Quartet for 
          the End of Time“, played originally
          in his very concentration camp by 
          similarly “walking skeletons”, does   
          for me everything Shostakovich’s 
          Seventh didn’t 

         

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October 3, 2017

the “wall”

study-for-a-sunday-on-la-grande-jatte-1885(1).jpg!Large

    “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte“ (1884)

           Georges Seurat

                 ________

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

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September 1, 2017

an homage to the victims of the Titanic

the-fighting-temeraire-tugged-to-her-last-berth-to-be-broken-up-1839.jpg!Large

  “The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up“ (1839) 

          William Turner

                _______

while I’m on the subject of threnodies, 
which is to say “song[s] of lamentation
for the dead”, as I earlier stated, let me 
bring your attention to this extraordinary 
piece, an homage to the victims of the
Titanic
 
it doesn’t even have a title, much as 
Mozart and Haydn didn’t before music 
went mainstream, into public forums 
rather than merely aristocratic salons, 
and when an identifying moniker 
instead of a number became manifestly 
more practical, especially when the 
emerging Middle Classes were 
becoming the ones who were paying 
the composer’s bills, at the opera 
houses and the other sprouting 
concert venues, when some composers 
had even up to 32 sets of piano sonatas 
to remember, three and four often to 
a single set, opus number, as many as 
there are movements in a very sonata

and that’s not counting the numbered 
symphonies and string quartets of 
theirs, left to similarly calculate, 
decipher, extricate

it doesn’t have a title, I think, because
to my knowledge, it is the first of its
kind, a composition created by 
computer, for computer, an entirely 
self-contained digital work of, 
manifestly, art – I’d been waiting, 
diligently, for one – and like Beethoven, 
after the work was done, the artist(s)
just felt the title best left to the 
wordsmiths, thus – you’re welcome –  
“Threnody for the Victims of the 
Titanic“

sure, computers have done practical
things before, admirably, but never 
told a story, and certainly never one 
as profound as this one

these are the last moments of the 
Titanic, digitally reproduced, in real 
time, 2 hours and 40 minutes, they
are mesmerizing, you don’t want 
to miss a thing

there are no voices, apart from a 
few radio transmissions at the 
start, spotting the iceberg, calling 
out commands to beware, stop 
the engines

afterwards only silence, and the 
sound of the waves, the churning
of the engines, which have been 
restarted, sounding as rhythmic, 
incidentally, and numbing, as the 
wheels on the railroad tracks of
Steve Reich‘s “Different Trains“,
another powerful threnody 

later the flash and crack of flares,
the crunch of the ship sinking  

the pervasive, however disrupted, 
silence and the inexorable passage 
of ever ticking time combine to be, 
thereafter, transfixing, meditative, 
ultimately transcendent, a fitting 
setting for a threnody 

I know of only another work to take
you to that venerable place,
Beethoven’s opus 111

and often enough Pink Floyd, for 
that matter, and the visionary 
Alan Parsons Project, of course, 
discoursing on inexorable Time 

and, now that I think of it, Elgar‘s
“The Dream of Gerontius“, whose 
character goes from his deathbed 
in the first act, to his afterlife in 
the second, effecting transcendence
for us by, yes, ingenious 
metaphorical proxy

but I digress

what I call “Threnody for the Victims 
of the Titanic“ is a narrative with 
sound, not a movie, not a television
program, it has more commonality 
with a musical production than 
anything else but painting in art 
history, though its means are 
intuitively literary, ship stories go
back to “The Odyssey“ through
“Gulliver’s Travels“ , “Treasure 
Island“ and to one of my very 
favourites, “Ship of Fools“,
relatively recently

I could add “Mutiny on the Bounty“,
“Moby Dick“, “The Caine Mutiny“ 

in art, a precedent would’ve been set
in our collective consciousness by 
William Turner‘s celebrated “The 
Fighting Temeraire …“, but I would 
mention as well Caspar David 
Friedrich‘s “The Wanderer above 
the Sea of Fog“ for its existential
pertinence

a few literary points I’d like to stress
to back up my overt adulation, I find  
it impressive that the Classical rules
of tragedy have been maintained, 
unity of action, time, and place, 
prescriptions going back to 
Aristotle‘s “Poetics“ in our cultural 
history, to profoundly express 
tragedy, iconic, epic, misfortune

not to mention the Classical musical
imperatives of tempo, tonality and 
repetition, none of which can be 
faulted here in this consummate 
composition

there is a no greater leveller of tempo 
than time, larghissimo here*, in the 
largest sense of that word, the 
cosmic, the inexorable pace of 
temporality in our brief heavens

a greater leveller of tonality neither  
is there than the rigorously impartial 
hum of the imperturbable Cosmos 

nor is there greater repetition than 
uniformity, however disrupted by  
however fervent ever human 
intervention, see Sisyphus, or 
Martha in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia
Woolf“ for iconic disrupters

R ! chard

*   Shostakovich had asked the 
     Beethoven Quartet to play the first 
     movement of his 15th String Quartet,
     “Elegy: Adagio“, “so that flies 
     drop dead in mid-air, and the 
     audience start leaving the hall from 
     sheer boredom“  

     well this inspired elucidation is even  
     slower than that

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November 22, 2016

the wall

colors-for-a-large-wall-1951.jpg

   “Colors For A Large Wall“ (1951)

       Ellsworth Kelly

          __________

talking about walls, isn’t it only a few
years ago we were tearing one down

here is Roger Waters and several
other outstanding guest artists, in 
very Berlin, July 21, 1990, celebrating 
its demise

a little earlier, C***mas, 1989, only
moments after East Germans had 
been allowed to visit West Germany,
essentially giving way to the 
dissolution of the barrier, Leonard
Bernstein conducted Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony, changing the 
word “joy” from the title of Schiller’s 
poem, appropriated by Beethoven 
for his great fourth choral movement, 
to “freedom”, giving new meaning, 
and new life, and new inspiration,  
to Beethoven’s always resounding 
nevertheless masterpiece

how soon we’ve forgotten

Richard

psst: let’s paint the wall

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June 30, 2015

at the XVth International Tchaikovsky Competition – Bach‏

"J.S. Bach, Wohltemp. Klav. Bd. I, No. IV. (Extrait) / (Duo de Tristesse)" - Robert Strûbin

““J.S. Bach, Wohltemp. Klav. Bd. I, No. IV. (Extrait) / (Duo de Tristesse)” (1957)

Robert Strûbin

________

if I’ve been getting on their backs
about their Bachs at the Tchaikovsky
Competition, it’s that they’re playing
Bach as though he were mediocre
Beethoven, it’s like asking Duke
Ellington to be Pink Floyd, it’s just
a completely different generation,
era

Bach wrote for the harpsichord, a
precursor to the piano, it could not
control the volume, nor the length
of a note, the pianoforte came
along to resolve both issues

therefore before Beethoven, who
made full use of the new invention
and worked hard the pianissimos
and the fortissimos, to degrees that
often became either inappropriate
or too authoritative, indelicate or
obnoxious if you’re not in the mood
– I remember wanting to play his so
solemn 111 at my father’s funeral,
but realized late that the first
movement was not especially in
that situation warranted, nor even
parts of the transcendental, but not
always not obstreperous, adagio –
and thumbed thus his nose at the
aristocracy, who earlier, before
the citoyens had demanded their
rights and when the world had
been considered to be of a
rational, logical order, a clock,
and as regular, would never have
tolerated such impudence

Bach and Mozart do not sway
much from strict rhythm, neither
do they alter volume much at all

so that the constant display of
heartfelt Bach and passionate
Mozart becomes cloying, and
not at all what these Classical
and Baroque masters would
have approved of

nor Beethoven, nor Chopin, for
that matter, whose strict tempo
markings didn’t include much
rubato, ritardandos, which you
could think of as milking a note,
putting velvet on your canvas,
it doesn’t work, the composition
itself unaided by bathos, pathos,
delivers, check out, of course,
Glenn Gould

Andrei Korobeinikov sat me right
down the other night with his
arresting BWV868, thrilling,
followed by more dazzling
pyrotechnics, though he fizzled,
and fractured his Beethoven, the
very 111 I care so much for, I
couldn’t even finish, you don’t
need a velvet canvas behind the
111, neither cloying ritardandos,
just skill, nor tangles of notes,
for that matter

Richard

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February 25, 2015

Canadian surrealism

"Capture of bear in the woods" - Klavdy Lebedev

“Capture of bear in the woods“ (1907)

Klavdy Lebedev

_______

if Pink Floyd pigs can fly, as well as
Michael Sowa penguins, watch what
bears can do in Canada in January,
surely even in February

amazing, just click

Richard

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