Richibi’s Weblog

Just another WordPress.com weblog
August 16, 2012

XX. Beloved, my beloved, when I think – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XX. Beloved, my beloved, when I think

Beloved, my Beloved, when I think
That thou wast in the world a year ago,
What time I sat alone here in the snow
And saw no footprint, heard the silence sink
No moment at thy voice, but, link by link,
Went counting all my chains as if that so
They never could fall off at any blow
Struck by thy possible hand, – why, thus I drink
Of life’s great cup of wonder! Wonderful,
Never to feel thee thrill the day or night
With personal act or speech, – nor ever cull
Some prescience of thee with the blossoms white
Thou sawest growing! Atheists are as dull,
Who cannot guess God’s presence out of sight.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

__________________________

even at her twentieth poem already about her love
Elizabeth doesn’t become insipid, mawkish, no longer
inspiring, but delivers a conclusion of substance and
insight and relevance, though the answer to her
question remains a question

despite having been hopeless in her earlier “silence …,
… counting all [her] chains”, never even having imagined
his “voice”, nor the possibility of those punishing irons
“fall[ing] off at any blow / Struck by [his] possible hand”,
never having ever had an inkling of him before his now
evident presence, she sees the flaw in the argument of
“Atheists”, who affirm the absence of light having only
known darkness, the absence of God or, it would
appear as in her own experience, the quite comparable
absence of love

it’s hard to resist such a persuasive argument, with its
shades of Plato‘s chained prisoners in his allegory of
the cave, where they can’t imagine the sun, standing
in for Knowledge, for never having been made aware
of it, beings with glimpses only of a perhaps
incandescent environment that some, including Plato
and now the appropriately anointed Elizabeth, would
have as the more searching Truth

Robert was on-again off-again in his professions of
faith until the very end, a not unRomantic position,
God had been irreversibly unsettled by then by
Science, during the earlier pre-Revolutionary days,
Humpty Dumpty had been, as it were, irrevocably
unseated from his once unimpeachable wall, never
to be so impregnable again

this poem is probably a bit of a playful connubial
dig by a nevertheless ardent still Christian

go girl

Richard

1 Comment
August 10, 2012

Chopin “Études”, opus 25‏

if the Debussy, was a bit too fast a move from Chopin’s
Romanticism, his enchanting melodies wrought with
pressing and intent emotion to tug at your most
unresisting aural senses, into a 20th Century of
cynicism and machinery, speed, neurosis, world war,
it was probably too fast for those who actually lived
it as well, just as we think of our own world as out of
control, ultimately the swoons of Chopin would no
longer cut it alone as mileposts towards so unmoored
a future, a heretofore beyond mere private emotions,
other voices would come up responding to further
calamities, inconsistencies in the cultural argument,
where the poet no longer could stand prophetically
alone, there were others also to tend to, and nations
and even new ideologies burgeoning, social, sometimes
sinister even, experiments, Romanticism would have no
choice but to cede to the imperatives of a new, often
inclement, order

but that nevertheless choice still imprint is nowhere
near as definitive as Chopin before all that happened,
as people were still all celebrating and expressing
their newfound personal validity, freedom, worth,
fruit of the revolution not only of the political world
but of the cultural one as well

Elizabeth Barrett Browning is to my mind his only
literary equivalent, compare their equal ardour
and the likeness of their compelling muse

Daniil Trifonov, playing Chopin’s other set of
“Études”, opus 25, not only lives them, he’s
utterly possessed, he’s in Tel Aviv, it’s May, 2011

Richard

psst: the first Étude is called the “Aeolian Harp”,
the ninth the “Butterfly”, the second to last,
or eleventh, the “Winter Winds”, all of which
you might try to make out in passing, they are
not that difficult to identify, all the others are
named for their key

Leave a comment
August 10, 2012

“The Tulip Folly” – Jean-Léon Gérôme‏

The Tulip Folly - Jean-Leon Gerome           
                            
                                                    “The Tulip Folly” (1882)
 
                                                         Jean-Léon Gérôme
 
                                                          _______________ 
 
 
between the twin authorities of steeple and sworded 
supervisor bristles a field of obedient but effervescent  
flowers, transcending in their full and radiant bloom
their even regimented quadrangles with poetry and
multicolored enchantment in the very face of
overwhelming but presumptuous power, pointing to
the supremely existential act of just artfully being 
 
I am as well a flower
 
 
Richard
 
 
                   _______________________________
 
 
 
the dutch were so into tulips there was a depression caused when the value of tulips fell and they were developing the black tulip and all the breeding bulb secrets were highly guarded thus the importance of having guards literally doing the picking of the flowers so no bulbs could be snatched by others..good find Richard
Neil
 
 

 

 
 
Leave a comment
August 3, 2012

Debussy’s “Études”

 Man with a Guitar - Georges Braque
 
                    “Man with a Guitar“ (1914)
 
                               Georges Braque 
 
                                       ______
 
 
while we’re on the subject of études, listening to 
hundred years later, 1830s to 1915, would prove
instructive, I deemed 
 
picture me deeming, August 3, 2012, my brow
just slightly pensively constricting 
 
 
if the basis of music as defined by the Classical
period depended on beat, tonality, and the repetition
of the tune, usually of both musical statements, these
apparently essential components of course would be
the first places to bear the scrutiny of probing musical
minds, seeking to find, seeking to set more expansive,
more profound dimensions to the areas of their quest,
that’s what artists do 
 
and this of course is exactly what happened starting
with Beethoven, by the time of Chopin music had
relaxed its stricter Classical rhythmic precision,
allowing great expansive gestures in the more
malleable tempi, tempos, producing the effect of
more compassion and soulful examination than
the earlier less indulgent, more disciplined code
 
the fact of having musical tapestries, sound patches,
take the place of melody, narrative, in the musical
presentation of Chopin also suggests a more
diversified, dare I say prismatic, telling, than the 
linear account of for instance Mozart‘s solitary
tuneful wanderer
 
it also evokes incidentally the vagaries of the
inconstant heart rather than its unflinching
condemnation, a repudiation of atavistic
Christian ecclesiastical intolerance 
 
 
by the time the old order was about to be extinguished,
in 1915, at the onset of the First World War, Debussy’s
“Études“, like Chopin 12 of them per set, had seen
social injustice – see Charles Dickens, see Émile Zola,
see Karl Marx – the improbable discoveries of science –
Darwin, Freud, Einstein – the car, the airplane,
photography were changing everything, the old
paradigms no longer applied, were irrelevant, even
harmful, in this new context, the First World War 
would prove all that 
 
in the language of music, tempo, melody, repetition
would be inevitably subverted
 
Debussy produces erratic tempi, foregoes melody for
harmonic exploration, combining incidentally the
musical patches of Chopin with the intellectually
driven investigations of Beethoven for a more
cerebral understanding of music, a music for the
head, with expert displays of pianistic skill, indeed
prestidigitation, for, along with the intellectual
rigour, spectacle  
 
is this then still music 
 
is Post-Impressionist painting still art  
 
what would 1915 have said
 
 
above is Georges Braque‘s nearly contemporary, 1914,  
 
man with a guitar, who’d a thunk it
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment
August 1, 2012

“La Forêt de Paimpont” – René Magritte‏

Forest of Paimpont - Rene Magritte      
 
 
                                          “La Forêt de Paimpont” (1963)
 
                                                             René Magritte   
 
                                                                   _________ 
 
 
                                                        for Jami, my ekphrasis teacher,
                                                             who opened my ears to my
                                                                   eyes and both consequently
                                                                          to my heart 
 
 
 
this painting, my latest desktop, is for me about
childhood and fairy tales, the sunrise is about the
possibility of wisdom, not only adventure, the trees
are the poetry, their slight shiver, shimmer, tremor
in any cool, bracing breeze, they are also my spears,
potential weapons, to either aid or threaten me, as
I wander towards the horizon, pink with my fantasies, 
no less vivid for me than for Don Quixote his windmills, 
I am aware, but beautiful nevertheless in the colors
of those dreams, which I would have no other 
 
I am of course the knight riding towards the
undifferentiated sunset or sunrise, and I have
no clock      
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
Leave a comment
July 29, 2012

Chopin: “Études”, opus 10

if I haven’t brought up Chopin much in this series
it’s that I think of him more as a decorator than
as an innovator, he was developing a sensibility
that had been defined by the earlier Beethoven,
adding texture and style, form instead of function,
the wheel had been invented, now it remained to
be artfully applied
 
some break new ground, others decorate it, make
it enchanting, Chopin makes things enchanting 
 
he is also the first composer we think of when we
think of Romanticism, which says quite a lot about
the quality, the universality, of his gift 
 
 
here are his opus 10, “Études”, or “Studies”, 12 of
them, they are not sonatas, for not having more
than one movement, they are “études” , “studies”,
called by that name for being what they are, then
given numbers to differentiate them, also their
key, the convenience of universally attributing
titles not having quite caught on yet though a
couple of these do have them, the 5th, the
“Black Keys”, for obvious reasons, and the last,
the “Revolutionary”, again for reasons you’ll find
obvious once you’ve heard it 
 
tonality however remains, no apparent discords,
that’ll come later  
 
 
note that in comparison to Mozart the notes are
a shimmer, the same alphabet is used, the one
set up by Bach, but where Mozart made these
into narratives to follow, and even sing along to,
with Chopin the same flurry of notes becomes
a wash of sound you could never vocally keep
up with, a texture rather, an enveloping caress,
prefiguring incidentally the Impressionists, the
lush soundscapes of for instance Debussy 
 
 
though you’ll find the same prerequisite opening
musical statement as in Mozart, followed by the  
contrasting one, often these will be in altogether
constrasting rhythms as well, tempi, compared
to the single strict beat throughout of the 
foundational Classical model    
 
the tempo itself is also much more lax, some
passages surrendering formal rhythmic strictures
to greater emotional content, more self-expression,
less attention to rules, in accord with the newly
installed ideal of individual human rights 
 
hence Romanticism, the fruit of the Revolution 
 
 
note also that the musical argument is no longer
in the Mozartean playground but of a more mature
understanding, Chopin has known love 
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment
July 22, 2012

How to Listen to Classical Music: Beginner’s Manual

 
How to Listen to Classical Music: Beginner’s Manual    
 
                                     (after Pamela Spiro Wagner) 
 
            First, forget everything you have learned,
            that Classical Music is difficult,
            that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
            with your high school equivalency diploma,
            your steel-tipped boots,
            or your white-collar misunderstandings.    
 
            Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
            the best Classical Music means what it says and says it.
 
            To listen to Classical Music requires only courage
            enough to leap from the edge
            and trust.
 
            Treat Classical Music like dirt,
            humus rich and heavy from the garden.
            Later it will become the fat tomatoes
            and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.
 
            Classical Music demands surrender,
            language saying what is true,
            doing holy things to the ordinary.

            Listen to just one Classical work a day.
            Someday an irresistible composition may open in your heart
            like a daffodil offering its cup
            to the sun.
 
            When you can identify the Mozart fantasia 
            among the four of his sonatas I’ve included here in this gentle message,
            close this manual.
 
            Congratulations.
            You are now hearing 
            as opposed to listening to Classical Music 
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment
July 16, 2012

XlX. The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XlX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize

The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandize;
I barter curl for curl upon that mart,
And from my poet’s forehead to my heart
Receive this lock which outweighs argosies, –
As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes
The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart
The nine white Muse-brows. For this counters part,…
The bay crown’s shade, Beloved, I surmise,
Still lingers on thy curl, it is so black!
Thus, with a fillet of smooth-kissing breath,
I tie the shadows safe from gliding back,
And lay the gift where nothing hindereth;
Here on my heart, as on thy brow, to lack
No natural heat till mine grows cold in death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

Elizabeth in the last poem has just given a
lock of her own hair to her “poet”, now
Robert returns his own tonsorial favour

this exchange, this particular instance of
“mechandiz[ing]”, would baffle merchants –
“counters”, she calls them, somewhat
derisively – would render deliberations
moot whereby a curl “outweighs” very
“argosies”, flotillas – see Jason and the
Argonauts, their golden cargo, for an
etymology

Pindar is one of the nine lyric poets of Greek
antiquity, whose brows were touched by the
nine Greek muses, Clio, Thalia, Erato, Euterpe,
Polyhymnia, Calliope, Terpsichore, Urania,
Melpomene, may they forever inspire

the “bay crown” is the laurel her victor still
may wear to honour his celebrated literary
achievements

“purpureal” is another word for purple

Elizabeth‘s love is unquestionably erudite,
perhaps a little indeed too “purple” were it
not for the beauty, and piercing sincerity, of
her vaunted sentiment

as it is she overcomes her own arcane even
references to deliver staunch and poignant,
I think, relevance, enough to be moved and
admire

long live Elizabeth

Richard

Leave a comment
July 14, 2012

XVlll. I never gave a lock of hair away – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XVlll. I never gave a lock of hair away

I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully
I ring out to the full brown length and say
“Take it.” My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot’s glee,
Nor plant I it from rose- or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow’s trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified, –
Take it thou, – finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_______________________________

with her one word, “this”, peremptory and indicative,
Elizabeth anchors us to a common present, making
us witness to the scene, a scene of the most tender
intimacies

these effortlessly transcend by their apparent
urgency and truth the usual meter of a sonnet,
leaving in the dust however always only perfect
rhymes, like wooden sentinels left twirling in too
strong a wind

enough of them however to constitute a poem

or what’s a poem

the same kind of thing happens in the history
of music, where notes skip deftly over a bar
without even the semblance of an
acknowledging curtsy, caught up in the more
compelling reality of their vivid and impetuous
imagination, like children who haven’t learned
quite all the rules yet

in Mozart, his piano sonata in D major, K576,
here for instance, the incorrigible child is
ever even present, even ever evident

both poets reflect a search for greater
authenticity, challenging established ideas
of beauty in its unending deliberation with
truth, see Keats on this irreducible dichotomy

Richard

Leave a comment
July 13, 2012

XVll. My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XVll. My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between His After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind’s forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears. God’s will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use?
A hope, to sing by gladly? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse?
A shade, in which to sing – of palm or pine?
A grave, on which to rest from singing? Choose.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

it is to be remembered that Robert Browning at the
time was considered a poet of growing authority
though Elizabeth herself had not been of no
consequence, and her star was not to lose its
brilliance in the literary firmament throughout her
lifetime and beyond, but Robert was a man and
benefited therefore from greater consideration
than would’ve then a woman, a not unfamiliar
situation even now

the institutional role of women was pretty well
the one that Elizabeth naturally took on, when
women had no other recourse but to be
dependent, if not graced with comfortable
independent means, which in fact Elizabeth
was

with such an unmistakable gift as hers, however,
I can’t imagine that beyond the genuine love she
manifests for her husband throughout her poems
she would have been unaware of her own
considerable worth, ever granting that love can
be even ever so blind, my own love for instance
riding each morning for me preternaturally and
however improbably the very chariot of a
blinding, mesmerizing, sun

“Choose” though, she at the very last commands,
striking again a telling imperative

note the elision of the rhyme through several
verses in the poem giving the lines a momentum
that lets the poem fly, making the matter
compelling, urgent

compare Mozart soaring above the bar lines
when the piano is comparably unleashed, to
let the music make a similar irrepressible magic

prose is finding its way into poetry here, poetry
conversely into prose

Richard

Leave a comment