Richibi’s Weblog

   “Les musiciens“ (1952) 

        Nicolas de Staël

           ___________

on the third day of C***mas, I needed to 

ready myself for the onslaught, I was 

hosting, yikes, for someone from out

of town

I thought I’d had it all figured out, but 

obstacles occurred, of course, to my, 

nearly cowed, consternation

I needed help

I’d anticipated more violin concertos 

to get me going, but, among my 

several bookmarks, King Crimson

came up, a group I’d admired 

tremendously in my formative years,

the 70s, when freedom of expression

prevailed, in all of its innocent

expectations

they are tremendous, if you like that 

sort of thing, entirely progressive 

rock

you’ll think me eccentric if I relate 

them to Classical considerations, not 

only are they rigorous about tempo, 

tonality, and repetition, essential 

Classical components, but reach 

further into even tribal configurations,

their minimalism – later formalized by,

incidentally, Beethoven – of infinitely

repeated rhythms, like thumping, 

intoxicating, essentially, thrusts,

heartbeats meeting heartbeats, very, 

in other words, primitive, primeval

add to that, later, their superimposed 

atonal riffs – Jimi Hendrix meets the 

jungle – a direct reference to 

Schoenberg‘s breakdown of the 

orthodoxy of the musical scale, and

cadence, and reiteration, you’re left 

with a history of our culture’s sonic

aspirations in a single incandescent

concert, despite a couple of egregious 

commercial interruptions in the

download, a 21st-Century, it seems, 

corporate roadblock

watch, enjoy 

R ! chard