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Category: poetry to ponder

February 25, 2012

Beethoven’s Symphony no 6 in F major, opus 68, “Pastoral”

here is the Beethoven that made me believe if not indeed
in God at least in something more transcendental than our
mere incarnate existence

it was specifically in the second movement that I found
myself dancing in an altogether other dimension with
my very own beloved, my angel, who’d flown for much
too short a season too close, it appeared, to the ground,
the ground had become much too insubstantial to sustain
so ethereal an organism

may my beloved angel rest in infinite peace

Beethoven’s Symphony no 6 in F major, opus 68, “Pastoral” (1808)

1. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande
(Awakening of Cheerful Feelings upon Arrival in the Country):
Allegro non troppo (sprighly but not overly so)
2. Szene am Bach (Scene by the Brook):
Andante molto mosso (at a brisk walking pace)
3. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute (Happy Gathering of Country Folk):
Allegro (sprightly)
4. Gewitter – Sturm (Thunderstorm – Storm):
Allegro (sprightly)
5. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm
(Shepherd’s Song. Cheerful and Thankful Feelings after the Storm):
Allegretto (not quite sprightly)

the instructions for the movements actually indicate a descriptive,
which is to say a literal, account, wherein musical notes are to
become words that evoke a setting, music assumes the properties
of language, you’ll hear the birds, you’ll hear the brooks, you’ll hear
the thunder, you’ll even imagine on your very own alone the rainbows

Herbert von Karajan (1908 – 1989) conducts from the hereafter –
this is 1967 – a version that is just about definitive, certainly
mystical, magical, wonderful

with abstract camera work to make watching worth your while,
the close-ups of the maestros thumbs alone are worth the price
of admission

Richard

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February 9, 2012

“The Connoiseur” – Norman Rockwell‏

The Connoiseur - Norman Rockwell

“The Connoiseur” (1962)

Norman Rockwell

____

serendipitously trolling Rockwells after sensing his spirit in a
poem I’d just been reading I happened upon this marvelous
piece, an homage of course to Jackson Pollock, perhaps the
most successful of the Abstract Expressionists

but lurking behind the obvious surface of this painting it was
easy to recognize also another glaring, though not as explicit
maybe, tribute, misted perhaps by the transformational
permutations of context and time, wherein a seed becomes
a tree, a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, to no less an iconic
masterpiece than Caspar David Friedrich‘s “Wanderer Above
a Sea of Fog“, the work we just, a blog or so ago, explored

both look upon their own idea of a new horizon

and a Pop Art stab at an Abstract Expressionist through a
High Romantic is a cute trick, witty, wonderful, wise

it’s an easy step to a literary counterpart from there, Keats’
“On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” nearly automatically
comes to mind, another iconic Romantic new dawn

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Beethoven, were I to go to music, is always, especially in his
later works, contemplating new dimensions, new worlds, he
more than any other composer is a metaphysical explorer

maybe also Pink Floyd

who’ve taken me to their own also exalted musical galaxies,
awesome commanding perspectives, transcendental heights,
to my own “wild” indeed “surmise / Silent, upon a peak in”
my version of “Darien”

Richard

psst: Chapman’s “Homer”

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January 20, 2012

Debussy, “L’isle joyeuse”‏ (“The Joyous Island”)

here’s Daphne doing Debussy, his “L’isle joyeuse“, from 1904,
a long way from Beethoven, 1798 
 
had it not been for Beethoven though, making music into a
language, instead of merely a Mozartean, a Haydnesque
aristocratic entertainment, Debussy wouldn’t have even
been possible, where were their “Moonlight Sonata“s, their
“Tempest“s, their “Appassionata“s for that matter, their
“Hammerklavier“s, these earlier composers, for a weightier,
more abstract, topic, Mozart and Haydn were having courtly,
though ever so inspired, fun, while Beethoven would proclaim,
pronounce, discover and describe, open up to the imagination,
upon these earlier, nevertheless mighty, Classical shoulders,
a whole new, transfigured, world
 
 
“L’isle joyeuse“ is not a sonata, it only has one movement,
I would call it a soundscape, were I to define it, Monet,
1840-1926, is written all over it, the same shimmer,
ephemerality, must’ve been the light, not to mention of
course, at his most ethereal, Beethoven
 
 
Richard      
 
 
 
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January 16, 2012

Beethoven‏’s “Pathétique Sonata”, no 8 in C minor, opus 13

the very first chord of Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata,
no 8 in C minor, opus 13, does the same for the
Romantic Era as Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am”
and Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be” did for the
Age of Reason, it defined its parameters, and set it
on its path, I can think of no other literary equivalent
with anywhere near the same power, the same clarity
and precision as that bold, peremptory statement for
that burgeoning period
 
Delacroix, too nationalistic, the Romantic poets too
introspective, Beethoven perfect, blending the political
with the personal, the personal with the philosophical,
the philosophical with the transcendental, and the
transcendental finally with the sublime, you come out
of a Beethoven composition not only entertained but
informed, inspired, transformed, he takes you there 
 
 
though unknown, to me at least, not yet among the
immortals, Daphne Honma acquits herself quite well
here in Beethoven’s masterpiece, perhaps a little too
plodding at the beginning, I thought, for my taste,
stretching nearly embarrassingly her sforzandos,
those initial arresting statements, Beethoven would
never ‘ve called for that, too much melodramatic
excess would only blur, he knew, the sheen of
unadulterated oracles 
 
but all is soon set aright, indeed redeemed by what
comes next, Daphne Honma deserves much more
applause than is here her portion
 
 
one of Beethoven’s early works, it’s 1798, Beethoven
is 27
 
 
Richard
 
psst: an “unadulterated oracle” 
 
 
 
 
 
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January 5, 2012

untitled – a friend

a friend wrote, after best wishes for the new year and 
generous comments about my postings, comments I
am of course too modest to include here, “Here is a
poem I wrote, probably for my grandchildren.  Hope
it makes you smile.”     
 
smile, I thought, I think it’s brilliant
 
what do you think 
 
 
Richard  
 
psst: it’s untitled, maybe you’d like to come up with 
         something, I thought maybe “Dinner”
 
               ________________
 

untitled
 
 
I am a fish I have a tail
I swim to the depths I tease a whale 
I dine on bits of this and that 
Blow Champagne bubbles through my hat

I am a fish with a mermaids tail
I thought for a while I loved that whale
But when he tried to dine on me
I found him too salacious

I am a fish with silver scales
A hundred percent better than whales
I spin with a shoal of metallic shine 
Cans of sardines drunk on wine

I look through my  mirror and see the sun
Rip tides dancing I join the fun
I travel knots till the sun goes  in
Silhouettes only the light is dim
Below the waves in a stormy sea 
I’m safe with an octopus having tea
He changes colour looking at me

I am a fish with enormous eyes
A bit short sighted but never mind
I see the colours of coral reefs
Colours quite beyond belief
Hermit crabs and tidal drifts
Seaweed gardens Neptune’s gift

I was a fish with a silver sheen
I dreamed of all I could have been
Ceto’s daughter Poseidon’s Queen
I shone in the moonlight luminesque
I bit at sunbeams I did my best
But like that mermaid on the rock
I really should have taken stock
I never dreamed I never wished 
To be a filet on a dish.  
 
 
                                  a friend
 
 
 
 
 
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December 27, 2011

from Haydn to Beethoven‏

in my pantheon of pianists Sviatoslav Richter, 1915-1997, 
is a paragon, if you’ll pardon that parade of p’s, here he
plays two not especially eminent Classical masterworks, 
though neither not uninteresting nor unimportant
 
 
Haydn, along with other composers of his time, wrote
sonatas mostly for their students, young ladies frequently
looking for marriageable advantage, he saved the cream
therefore of his art for his more public pieces, symphonies,
oratorios, string quartets, these last, to my mind, his most 
impressive vehicle
 
you’ll nevertheless be delighted by this effervescent musical
 
Richter plays it in the dark, in his later years a personal 
idiosyncracy
 
it’s 1984
  
 
you’ll note in a Classical musical composition even the
adagio, the slow movement, will be wistful, never even
melancholy, never ever forlorn, considered impudent, 
impertinent, by a genteel aristocracy, their code of
noblesse oblige would’ve frowned on emotional excess, 
considering it undignified, common 
 
Beethoven’s fire bursts through these Classical strictures
already in his very first piano sonata, opus 2, no 1, 
adhering to the Classical sonata form, even its intention,
but he’s revealed unequivocally by his passion and fury 
 
his adagio here might be lilting but it’s unmistakably
at the very least emotionally compromised, beyond
wistful, though Beethoven at this point, is giving it an
honest try, the movements are in traditional order
despite an extra fourth instalment, and of course any
extra length, as I’ve earlier pointed out, always means
more substance, gravitas, already something of an 
impertinence to the traditional, more unbending
contemporary social cast
 
by the prestissimo, the last and appropriately most
explosive of the movements, he is anything but courtly,
his music already, three years before the Revolution in
France, will no longer submit to imperious aristocracies
flexing no longer tolerable muscle, he cannot, in his very
bones, be confined to merely niceties, and you can hear it
 
Beethoven can no longer be Mozart, Haydn, though he
has studied profoundly at their schools, his are 
tempestuous seeds in that fertile, their Classical, soil, of,
just round the corner, its flower, the more unruly but
profoundly introspective Romantic Movement, the
exploration, the prioritization, of the human soul,
the burgeoning era of human rights 
 
Beethoven will define it, set it firmly on its path, give it
an anthem, a credo, a forthright example, a solid ground
to build a new world on
 
   
the piano sonata, opus 2, no 1, of three in his second
opus, is Beethoven’s very first piano sonata, it’s 1795   
 
stick around, this is just the start
 
 
Richard   
 
 

* Anthony van Hoboken, 1887-1983, rather than
   chronologically like Köchel Mozart, organized Haydn’s
   work according to its musical form, l for symphonies for
   instance, lll for string quartets, XVl for piano sonatas,
   of which this is the 24th, therefore Hob. XVI 24, van
   first published in 1957
 
   an alternate method, published in 1963, from Christa    
   Landon, is arranged chronologically, where this is
   Haydn’s piano sonata no 39, incidentally, of 1773
 
   confusing maybe, but kind of like the EEU being
   referred to just as often as Europe, same place, 
   different organizational catalogue, not so tough
 
  
 
 
 
 
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December 11, 2011

Brahms Piano Concerto no 2 in B flat major, opus 83‏

though I’d no intention of presenting a piano concerto
quite yet I’d been trolling Celibidaches on the Internet,
after marvelling at his wondrous “Boléro”, and couldn’t
hold back this gem I found of his, Brahms’ Piano 
 
same venue, same Münchner Philharmoniker, same
starched ceremonial ruffles, I thought, same even age
of the conductor, to the very minute, it appeared, in 
his unchanged eye and perspective, wise, serene,
omnipotent, perhaps the very same concert as in the
illustrious Ravel, I said to myself, though later I couldn’t
especially recognize individual instrumentalists
 
Daniel Barenboim, who conducted earlier the speedy
“Boléro”, wears another hat here, he’s the pianist, but
in this incarnation he is transcendental, carried aloft,
I think, notably, by the Olympian Celibidache, who
cedes his fire and glory to the younger Barenboim
throughout, who supremely is up for the challenge,
a ready and rearing Apollo, taking on the treacherous
musical task, defying obstreperous planets, perilous
astrological constellations in nefarious conjunctions, 
stray or fleeting stars, to foster safely home to its
final hearth his solar chariot, in a towering sunset,
a finale of apocalyptic proportions, each purveyor
casting unutterable light, god and mere immortal, 
from his own particular perch, upon our beholden
world
  
Celibidache, as would Zeus, cedes serenely to his 
younger avatar his bow, his deserved adulation,
safe in his own unquestionable omnipotence
 
 
this concerto has four movements incidentally, greater
length always suggests more gravitas, more substance 
 
is it warranted
 
you be the judge 
 
 
Richard
 
psst: in another mythological context, note the hand of
         Celibidache resting on air, intermittently fluttering,
         at the beginning of the slowest movement, the
         andante, the third, the hand of God ministering, 
         according to Michelangelo, in the “Creation of 
         Adam”, should you not yet be convinced of the 
         maestro’s august and unequivocal stature
   
 
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December 7, 2011

Celibidache‏’s Ravel’s “Boléro”

Sergiu Celibidache is the granddaddy of conductors, 
a Methuselah, a patriarch, a high priest, a cardinal, 
a very ayatollah, Olympian, no less imposing on
Olympos than Zeus, god of everything, in his
majesty 
 
here he delivers the “Boléro” of Ravel, I think,
definitively, at a pace that would have made the
composer, I’m sure, exultant, proud, at an imposing
longer than 22 minutes, the most extended I’ve ever
heard, it is nevertheless the most imperious, mighty,
authoritative, a wall of adamant and ritualistic sound 
put in mesmerizing motion, indeed ignited, by the 
lascivious demands of the luxurious, undulating  
bolero
 
the slower pace seems to suggest a further distance,
an incidence, by the noteworthy by, of the expression
of spatial dimension through the manipulation of sound, 
fashioned precisely here by the measured increase in
volume throughout, becoming louder as it nears, settling
in your very face at its conclusion, like an apotheosis,
massive, unflinching, remarkable
 
 
it is not uninstructive to compare for metre the two
previous “Boléro”s I mentioned, the moderate Dudamel,
the galloping Barenboim, to gauge the impact of their
choice of tempo on your preference, the one you like is
the one you’ll want to return to, leaving the other two
in the evanescent dust, no fuss, no muss, just instinct 
 
it is also instructive then to wonder why, which’ll say
much more about who you are, you’ll be surprised to
note, who you still aspire to be, than anything you
might ever have imagined
 
 
Richard
  
psst: every advance in taste, quality, comfort, could
         only have taken place ever through comparison,
         the sum of two is greater always than its meager,
         even arid, parts
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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November 28, 2011

a haiku by W.H. Auden‏

 
He has never seen God
but once or twice he believes
he has heard Him
 
 
                    W.H. Auden  
 
 
in trying to find this poem on the Internet after I’d come
upon it in the New Yorker, November 14, 2011, I settled
upon this unlikely site which gave the work enormous 
context
 
Colin Keenan pays heartfelt tribute to his friend, Wes
Wehmiller, both of them to me unknown
 
 
in preparing us for the poem Keenan says, 
 
                  “Auden came to understand that the essence
                   of prayer is not to talk to God, or to ask for
                   something, but to listen. I think that faith is
                   simply the ability to understand the language
                   that is spoken.” 
 
 
I think it is a profoundly insightful comment, it’s how I
listen in fact to music, for its easier access to the too
often too evanescent otherwise sublime, the mystical,
the miraculous
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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November 23, 2011

a couple of Mozart sonatas

if a symphony is a concerto without a soloist, a sonata
is a concerto without an orchestra, the soloist plays
alone, must deliver the same enchantment 
 
there are nevertheless always therefore the prerequisite
several movements, otherwise no sonata
 
 
the sonata, as we know it, originated in the mid-18th
century with more or less Mozart, earlier the term
applied to other structural notions in music
 
to still my consternation they were often not continuous,
movements were performed indiscriminately among other
eclectic acts in an evening of diverse entertainments, it
was Beethoven who put a decisive stop to that, though
the fame and popularity of Haydn and a few other
contemporaries, Clementi, Salieri, as well of course as
himself Mozart, had probably settled the matter for all
practical purposes somewhat earlier
 
Beethoven among his other theoretical principles codified
that, indeed wrote the book on it, like Moses delivering
the commandments, except that Beethoven presented
horizons in his mythology, miraculous and infinite,
instead of castigation and luxurious sin
 
his understanding of music, still now unsurpassed, is
demonstrable in his works through all the musical
innovations that have since, through all the very ages,
transpired, down to even his bagatelles, musical trifles,
which I’ll approach later, if you’ll stick around
    
 
but it starts essentially with Mozart 
 
Mitsuko Uchida, who is unsurpassed in Mozart, plays
Ludwig von Köchel, who catalogued finally, in 1862,
nearly a hundred years after Mozart’s death, in 1791,
the complete works of the master, other works have
been intermittently added since so that several
revised editions have dutifully followed, lettered a, b,
c according to the revision, the last Köchel number is 
626 
 
 
Mozart’s music is sprightly, effervescent, magical, but
not especially intellectually challenging, I think of toy
soldiers and candy cane, innocence and a child’s delight
in the infinite possibilities of creation, Creation  
 
 
Alfred Brendel  who stands shoulder to shoulder with
the iconic Glenn Gould when it comes to Beethoven,
 
of 18 piano sonatas, the D major K.576 above, was
his last 
 
 
Brendel is too commanding to play authentic Mozart,
though his technique is irreproachable, admirable,
spotless, wonderful 
 
he is Beethoven playing Mozart however, an uneven
fit 
 
comparing the two interpretations is instructive, Brendel
will dazzle, inevitably, but Uchida will make you fly
 
don’t believe me, count on it 
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
 
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