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Category: poetry to ponder

October 16, 2011

some Joshua Bell

in my search for another violin concerto to follow up
on my suggested commitment for a while to that
instrument, to point out that concertos can go further
afield of course than the piano, and notably have, I
was able to find an Aladdin’s cave of musical wonders
but none to fit that specific bill

these other options however have been overwhelming,
once again for me irresistible, I’m a sucker, I’m afraid,
for excellence

for instance this astounding performance I’d temporarily
put aside for being a repetition, another interpretation
of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, done already
superbly here by the resplendent Anne-Sophie Mutter
with her inimitable mentor, Herbert von Karajan, no
less, among my previous recommendations

but this rendition by Joshua Bell, an American, who’d ‘a’
thunk it midst the profusion of Asian superstars, totally
transcends, he is precise, impassioned, is carried away
incandescently by his muse

we are too

Anne-Sophie Mutter who, we wonder, though only for a
moment, she is reliably transcendent, incandescent ever
too

his glissandos made me shiver, his rallentandos hold my
breath, his cadenzas, well, gasp in veritable wonder

a cadenza is what seems like an extended solo part near
the end of a movement where the soloist gets to strut
his, her stuff, it is often enough composed independently
of the composer, but I can only suppose that’s indeed the
case here for this cadenza not sounding especially
contemporary with Beethoven, for instance the strident
atonalities, long stresses on individual notes, defying
the usually strict conditions of that master’s nearly
religious adherence to tempo, rhythm

but it magisterially works, and therefore who cares

whether by Beethoven, Joshua Bell, or anyone else, I
don’t know, and am content to leave behind here such
esoterica

there is a bit of another cadenza near the end also of
the third movement

slow movements are not likely to have one for being
inappropriate, it would be bad form to show off at a
dirge

also von Karajan is not replaced, a conductor is simply
not there, and Joshua Bell seems an unlikely stand-in
for one here since he doesn’t even often look at the
orchestra, also he looks busy enough doing, wouldn’t
you think, other things

since the timpanist, the drummer, at the outset
gives the cue, a lovely of course Asian girl, she could
conceivably be setting the beat at least for her orchestra,
though often the first violin will take up the conductor’s
cause, when not the soloist, why else would one take a
bow, as they always do at concerts, but this one appears
unsubjected to so commanding a role

they open with some recalcitrance at first, as though
not quite sure of the engine, but soon things are humming,
the orchestra is in full swing, stunning, committed, soaring,
through giddy, infinitely miraculous, air

soon enough they also transcend

Joshua Bell earns himself meanwhile for his inspired part
in this splendid presentation an estimable place in my lofty
heaven, among the other poets, painters, asteroids and
stars shining there

Richard

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October 10, 2011

Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

despite not having the stature of the other composers
already considered, Felix Mendelssohn, 1809 – 1847,
nevertheless squeezes right up the middle with his
the greatest violin concertos of all time, perhaps the
most tender of all in contrast to the mightier, more
imperious declamations of the other also more varied
and prolific masters, an archangel among the august
divinities, having earned a place of the very highest
order in their midst with even this one masterful
work, perhaps even of all the most beloved
 
he squeezed right up the middle chronologically as
well in fact, Beethoven wrote his violin concerto in
1806, while Tchaikowsky and Brahms theirs to my
astonishment each from his own little corner of the
world independently in the very same year, 1878,
a fabulous year, it would appear, for violin concertos 
 
Mendelssohn finished his violin concerto in E minor,  
opus 64 in 1844
  
 
when I began a few decades ago to explore violin
concertos, my essential resource was the set I had
on disc of all the great ones played, indeed definitively
executed, by Kyung-Wha Chung, who bested then to
my mind all, without exception, even the most
celebrated virtuosos, whom I need not therefore 
here recall   
 
until now I had never seen her perform 
 
in this outing she recovers in spades my early adulation, 
utterly, she lives and breathes her enchanted instrument,
she is the Mitsuko Uchida of the violin, I can think of no
higher honour, she is meteoric 
 
André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra, who
accompany her, though accomplished, pale beside her
fire, which is throughout riveting   
 
André Previn was married famously to Mia Farrow way
back when, later married our very own Anne-Sophie
Mutter, though they divorced in 2006, he was a pop,
to my mind, conductor, made of serviceable and
always dependable stuff, but never shining, you’ll
have to leave that to his featured brilliant light here,
who will not, I assure you, fail to deliver searing
heat along with the stated incandescence 
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
 
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October 9, 2011

Brahms violin concerto in D major, Op.77

though I’d’ve preferred to consider violin concertos for a while
after the Tchaikowsky, the Beethoven, a break from the usual,
though always eminently magisterial, piano, I was unable to
quickly find a performance of the work I had in mind that would
suit my needs, nothing primarily that was complete, that had all 
its unabridged movements
 
and what’s a concerto without its movements, a meal without
an appetizer, without its main course maybe, without even 
dessert, that’s making do, that’s subsisting, that’s got nothing
to do with appreciating a meal, not to mention our pending
Thanksgiving
 
then the Chopin struck, a very revelation, and I couldn’t, even
temporarily, put it aside 
 
I hope you enjoyed it   
 
 
because the Brahms in D major, opus 77, is after the first
two violin concertos I listed the third most revered and 
respected major string work, it cannot but be duly and
with great honour represented in any Classical music 
survey
 
the first movement, the allegro non troppo, or, jauntily but
not too much, in English, is played by David Oistrakh and 
conducted by the legendary Kirill Kondrashin, who conducted
Van Cliburn, famously, in both his Tchaikowsky One and
Rachmaninoff Three concertos in Moscow, 1958, when Cliburn 
won first prize, is he the best, Khrushchev asked when
nervous judges questioned awarding an American, give it
to him then, he most judiciously replied, in the very face
of Cold War bile and cynicism 
 
Kondrashin defected to the West in 1978 
 
David Oistrakh never left his homeland, Russia, though he
toured extensively enough in the West, surely dazzling
everywhere rapt audiences
 
 
the next two movements, the adagio, slow, the allegro 
but not too lively – little by little go faster, have the
glorious Leonard Bernstein jumping up and down even 
with exhilaration at the thrilling sounds they are making,
while the equally glorious Gidon Kremer struts inimitable,
incendiary stuff, a Tchaikowsky competition winner also
he, in 1970, who ‘s since dominated and championed an
impressively extensive and eclectic, even modern, 
repertoire  
 
note in passing that their accompanying Vienna Philharmonic
doesn’t have a single woman, which nevertheless doesn’t 
of course disqualify a superior sound, it is merely an archaic,
intransigeant, aristocratic institution, it would appear, with
a counterintuitively melodious and undeniably winning soul
 
 
one course at one restaurant then, the next two at another,
you’ll need to adjust to atmosphere, menu variations,
service, but expect in either case only the very best, you
will not be disappointed 
 
 
Brahms violin concerto in D major, opus 77
 
              1 – allegro non troppo, Oistrakh, Kondrashin,
                                                          the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
              2 – adagio, Gidon Kremer, Leonard Bernstein, the Vienna Philharmonic
                                                              Kremer, Bernstein,  
                                                    the Vienna Philharmonic again
 
 
Richard 
 
psst: here is an alternate third movement by to me unknowns,
         an exquisite partial repast, perhaps the most impressive
         morsel here    
 
 
 
 
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September 29, 2011

Chopin piano concerto no 1, opus 11‏

Chopin doesn’t take you on a philosophical journey, he
just makes you fly    
 
 
Richard 
 
psst: goes well with wine

 

 

 

 

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February 10, 2011

the sixth and seventh circles of Purgatory

after having managed with Dante first the seven circles of lurid Hell,
then five in the much more tolerable Purgatory, I’ve reached the sixth
and seventh circles there of Lust and Gluttony, sins I have been more
particularly prone to
  
the egregious crimes of murder, fraud, treason, blasphemy, the stuff 
of very Hell, were never a concern for me, while the venial imperfections 
of pride, envy, wrath, sloth, Purgatory’s more tempered lot, would never,
surely, transcendentally confound me, I thought, should there be indeed
a Hell, a Heaven, or a Purgatory, notions incidentally that were first made
explicit by Dante himself in his “Divine Comedy“, no earlier topographical
description of the place had ever been written, later Bosch would paint his
“Garden of Earthly Delights”  
 
we owe our notions of the Christian afterlife even still to Dante 
  
  
but where of course does all this fit in a universe we know to be infinite,
an idea itself, that last, that is no less awesome
 
somewhere above Olympus, the home of the Greek Gods, is where it sits,
I think, but beneath the canopy of the stars, which enclosed the earth then, 
but which dispersed, it would seem, of its own incorporeality when we’d
reached beyond  
 
  
at the terrace of Gluttony, a level that winds around the mountain,
Dante meets among emaciated shades – “shades”, he says, “that
seemed things dead twice over”, who hunger for instead of victuals
eternal life – Forese Donati, an old flame 
  
“how did you come so far so fast?”, he asks his bosom friend who’d died
only a short four years earlier  
  
“It is my Nella”, he replies, his wife
  
        “whose flooding tears so quickly brought me 
         to drink sweet wormwood in the torments. 
  
         With her devoted prayers and with her sighs,
         she plucked me from the slope where one must wait  
         and freed me from the other circles.” * 
   
but I think it was Dante himself who could never have consigned such a
privy buddy to anything short of Purgatory   
 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    and that was the terrace of Gluttony
 
tomorrow I do Lust   
 
 
upon moving towards that terrace, the last before reaching the
circles of Paradise, an angel blinds Dante with its radiance so that
he must turn away his eyes  
 
        “And as, announcing dawn, the breeze of May
          stirs and exudes a fragrance
          filled with the scent of grass and flowers,
 
          just such a wind I felt stroking my brow  
          and I could feel the moving of his feathers,
          my senses steeped in odor of ambrosia.” **

 

I wish you angels, and Heaven 
 
Richard 
 
 
*    “Purgatorio“, XXIII, 85-90 
**  “Purgatorio“, XXIV, 145-150 
 
                           translations by Robert and Jean Hollander

 

 

 

 

 

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May 13, 2010

John Ruskin, on truth in art

that we have dismissed, often indeed forgotten, the great voices of our culture,
the great oracles, the dead, they’ve dared to call them, painters, composers,
poets, doesn’t make their pronouncements less true, less inspiring, proof that
they are still very much alive, and relevant 
  
that they are still relevant ties us to the great notion that we are from very
Homer to the present day one family, one illustrious family, which to disregard, 
or any of its great giants, would be our inestimable loss 
 
where would we be without their wisdom, leaves without a trunk
 
 
John Ruskin was a great influence on Marcel Proust, my own supreme poet and prophet, I needed to plumb his literary pockets for, I did not doubt, nuggets of priceless gold
 
 
Richard 
 
 
                       _____________________

 

Chapter 7
 
8 – That then which I would have the reader inquire respecting
       every work of art of undetermined merit submitted to his
       judgment, is not whether it be a work of especial grandeur,
       importance, or power; but whether it have any virtue or
       substance as a link in this chain of truth; whether it have 
       recorded or interpreted anything before unknown; whether
       it have added one single stone to our heaven pointing pyramid,
       cut away one dark bough, or levelled one rugged hillock in our
       path. This, if it be an honest work of art, it must have done, for
       no man ever yet worked honestly without giving some such help
       to his race. God appoints to every one of his creatures a separate
       mission, and if they discharge it honourably, if they acquit themselves
       like men and faithfully follow that light which is in them, withdrawing
       from it all cold and quenching influence, there will assuredly come of
       it such burning as, in its appointed mode and measure, shall shine
       before men, and be of service constant and holy. Degrees infinite
       of lustre there must always be, but the weakest among us has a
       gift, however seemingly trivial, which is peculiar to him, and which
       worthily used will be a gift also to his race for  ever: 
                ‘Fool not’, says George Herbert,
                                                                     ‘For all may have,
                             If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave’ 
      
 
                                            John Ruskin (from “Modern Painters“) 
 
 

                     ______________________________________________

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