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May 10, 2012

The French Suites – Johann Sebastian

though we listen to Bach today with the utmost
admiration – even reverence in my case, I would
in fact choose Bach over any other composer to
be with were I to be sequestered somewhere
for any extended length of time, the proverbial, 
for instance, desert island – he is nevertheless
not of our era, our epoch, he is of the earlier
Baroque Period, and you can hear it in the music, 
it’s quirky, intricate, and moment by moment
interesting, though never insistent, intemperate,
subversive, nor ever fragile, overtly emotional 
   
it’s great sponsor, and therefore influence, had
been the Church, but that was changing 
 
also the piano hadn’t been invented yet
 
 
the piano allowed for resonance in a note by way
of the sustain pedal, which allowed one to actually
raise a finger from the key and it would continue to
register, sustain a harmony even were other notes
presented 
 
the soft pedal controlled volume 
the harpsichord with no sustain pedal lost its
reverberation as soon as the key was released,
therefore only other notes could replace the
otherwise silence, which meant you didn’t waste
time before the next syllable in your statement 
 
with no soft pedal there was no variation in volume,
something I especially enjoy of a quiet ruminative
evening  
 
 
Andras Schiff delivers an enchanted evening of all
the French Suites, six of them with all their several
movements
 
a suite is a set of dances, menuets, gigues, gavottes,
courantes, and my favourite, sarabandes, don’t ask,
these are all of another order where they’d never
heard of a waltz yet, and you’ll prefer that I not
go there but glancingly  
 
Glenn Gould delivers the quintessential French
Suites, I think, though in two separate instalments,
volume 1, volume 2, with only for visuals a static,
though striking, picture of him 
 
you’ll note that he uses the sustain pedal sparingly,
suggesting faithfulness to the original harpsichord,
this also sheds light on the bare bones of the
composition, illustrating starkly Bach’s technical
wizardry, the mind behind the man, he makes
clear, is nothing short of magic 
 
and that goes for all of us
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
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May 9, 2012

lll. Unlike are we, O princely Heart! – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

lll. Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing. Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree?
The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,—
And Death must dig the level where these agree.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

___________________

this was the Nineteenth Century of course with high drama
and overt sentimentality running amok, look at any of Dickens’
heartwrenching urchins and orphans, for instance, that’s
Romanticism

the Twentieth Century determinedly picked it up, especially
after the First World War, opera became Broadway, get over it
the clarion call, life’s short, enjoy it

here’s George and Ira Gershwin’s “Let’s Call the Whole Thing
Off“ a much more Twentieth Century resolution

granted Elizabeth is not on the verge of leaving her husband,
who will remain, despite her protestations, ever true and devoted,
and she knows it, but albeit both their “ministering two angels
look surprise / On one another, as they strike athwart / Their
wings in passing”, both couples seem ready enough to
move on

and only Death will dissolve their differences, “dig the level
where these agree”, East is East and West is West, she says,
and Yin will never be Yang, Death alone will level the playing
field of our terminally divergent destinies

thanks for that, Elizabeth

Richard

psst:”Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

Things have come to a pretty pass,
Our romance is growing flat,
For you like this and the other
While I go for this and that.
Goodness knows what the end will be,
Oh, I don’t know where I’m at…
It looks as if we two will never be one,
Something must be done.

You say eether and I say eyether,
You say neether and I say nyther,
Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let’s call the whole thing off!
You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto,
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let’s call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off,
Then we must part.
And oh! If we ever part,
Then that might break my heart!
So, if you like pajamas and I like pajahmas,
I’ll wear pajamas and give up pajahmas.
For we know we need each other,
So we better call the calling off off.
Let’s call the whole thing off!

You say laughter and I say lawfter,
You say after and I say awfter,
Laughter, lawfter, after, awfter,
Let’s call the whole thing off!
You like vanilla and I like vanella,
You, sa’s’parilla and I sa’s’parella,
Vanilla, vanella, Choc’late, strawb’ry!
Let’s call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off,
Then we must part.
And oh! If we ever part,
Then that might break my heart!
So, if you go for oysters and I go for ersters
I’ll order oysters and cancel the ersters.
For we know we need each other,
So we better call the calling off off!
Let’s call the whole thing off!

George and Ira Gershwin

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May 7, 2012

ll. But only three in all God’s universe – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

ll. But only three in all God’s universe

But only three in all God’s universe
Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
Less absolute exclusion. ‘Nay’ is worse
From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;
Our hands would touch for all the mountain-bars:
And, heaven being rolled between us at the end,
We should but vow the faster for the stars.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_________________

it took me a week to sort out the obscurities in this
poem, God, she says, put me through so much physical
stress that I, so challenged, could have let myself not
know you – “laid the curse/ So darkly on my eyelids,
as to amerce/My sight from seeing thee” – that
would’ve been existentially, – “had I died” – more
absolute and stark and egregiously black than what
I’ve learned through our conjunction of the bliss and
eternity of such a love, invincible, propelled inexorably
– by the intensity of our shared devotion, despite even
“worldly jars”, worldly distempers, “seas”, “tempests”,
[m]ountain-bars” – that much “faster for the stars”

these obscurities are what steered me away from
poetry when I was younger until a more direct and
less ambiguous parlance emerged

but Elizabeth Barrett Browning has always remained
despite some literary difficulties poignant enough
for me and indeed emotionally reverberant that
she has steadfastly endured, she is too honest
and raw and of course articulate to not be warmly
remembered

Richard

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May 4, 2012

the Well-Tempered Clavier

the superimposition of musical scales to facilitate
the movement from one scale to another upon a
single instrument without having to each time
tune that instrument is what is meant by
temperament, this appears to have been a
personal adjustment, though of course informed,  
according to each instrumentalist
 
you’ll note they do that still at the beginning of
any concert, to the tuning dictates of usually the
first violin, who often takes a bow to the applause
of the audience, who mistake him, I’m sure, for
the conductor then, why else so honour that first,
but not especially otherwise eminent, short string 
 
Bach formalized the process, gave it breadth and
majesty, and ultimately longevity, by composing
his Well-Tempered Clavier, a piece for adjusted
harpsichord originally, which he tuned indeed
himself, and that we hear nowadays most often
on the harpsichord’s more versatile descendant,
the piano
 
the scales we now listen to in Western music are
Bach’s tempered scales, we would find it difficult
to return to the precise, mathematically accurate 
ones, the most pure, our already skewed tonal
consensus suggests an already altered view of 
the universe not unlike the reimagined orbits of
the earth and sun at the time of Copernicus and
Galileo, all is still essentially exploratory, nothing
but mathematics is stable, we are precariously
balanced in an insubstantiated world, all no surer
ever than illusion
 
 
Scott Ross is exemplary 
 
is no better version, I think, than Glenn Gould‘s 
 
they establish here faithfully and unequivocally
our musical alphabet
 
 
Richard
 
psst: here is a version with moving pictures very
         much worth your while
 
 
 
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April 28, 2012

l. I thought once how Theocritus had sung – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese”

1. I thought once how Theocritus had sung

I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair;
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, —
‘Guess now who holds thee?’ — ‘Death,’ I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang, — ‘Not Death, but Love.’

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

____________________

despite trying to deflect attention from her own love
and muse, her husband, by calling her collection of
poems “Sonnets from the Portuguese“, as though these
were translations from existing texts, no such template
exists, so that the truth, the now legendary truth, has
always been known

there is no higher Romanticism than these poems

Richard

psst: Elizabeth was six years older than her husband,
she was already 39, when they met, this adds
context to the poem, she had also been always
very sickly, deathly frail

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April 28, 2012

“I love your verses” – Robert Browning‏

I am overwhelmed, a letter from Robert Browning to
Elizabeth Barrett Browning congratulating her on her
poetry, and essentially declaring his, ultimately
legendary, love, they hadn’t even met yet, no wonder
I love Robert Browning

later she would write her “Sonnets from the Portuguese“,
he would become, well, of course, him

“January 10th, 1845
New Cross, Hatcham, Surrey

I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett,–and this is no off-hand
complimentary letter that I shall write,–whatever else, no prompt matter-of-
course recognition of your genius and there a graceful and natural end of the
thing: since the day last week when I first read your poems, I quite laugh to
remember how I have been turning again in my mind what I should be able to
tell you of their effect upon me–for in the first flush of delight I thought I would
this once get out of my habit of purely passive enjoyment, when I do really enjoy, and thoroughly justify my admiration–perhaps even, as a loyal fellow-craftsman should, try and find fault and do you some little good to be proud of herafter!–but nothing comes of it all–so into me has it gone, and part of me has it become, this great living poetry of yours, not a flower of which but took root and grew… oh, how different that is from lying to be dried and pressed flat and prized highly and put in a book with a proper account at bottom, and shut up and put away… and the book called a ‘Flora’, besides! After all, I need not give up the thought of doing that, too, in time; because even now, talking with whoever is worthy, I can give reason for my faith in one and another excellence, the fresh strange music, the affluent language, the exquisite pathos and true new brave thought–but in this addressing myself to you, your own self, and for the first time, my feeling rises altogher. I do, as I say, love these Books with all my heart– and I love you too: do you know I was once seeing you? Mr. Kenyon said to me one morning “would you like to see Miss Barrett?”–then he went to announce me,–then he returned… you were too unwell — and now it is years ago–and I feel as at some untorward passage in my travels–as if I had been close, so close, to some world’s-wonder in chapel on crypt,… only a screen to push and I might have entered — but there was some slight… so it now seems… slight and just-sufficient bar to admission, and the half-opened door shut, and I went home my thousands of miles, and the sight was never to be!

Well, these Poems were to be–and this true thankful joy and pride with which I feel myself. Yours ever faithfully Robert Browning”

recently I saw a show, an opera cabaret they called it,
“Sonnets from the Portuguese“ had been set to music, for
soprano, mezzo, tenor, and baritone, two men, two women,
music by a local composer, lyrics of course by Ms Barrett
Browning

except for the first piece, the prologue, the letter above

can you even dig it, for me cerebral nirvana

what the opera cabaret lacked in polish it made up for in
evident devotion, nor did the music disappoint, an esoteric
idea had been brought to heartfelt life enough to entertain
and indeed to inspire

I’m now reading the poems

Richard

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April 26, 2012

Mozart Sonata no 16, in C major, K545‏

though his Sonata no 16, K545, was not officially submitted
by Mozart until 1788, when he was 32, it sounds musically
now so elementary, so even folkloric in its structure and
cultural impact, that it seems composed at a much earlier
age, but no one knows 
 
it is also to my mind the most clear example of what is
meant when we speak of Classical music 
 
the structure is simple, each movement, of which there
are Classically three, and later four for gravitas, though
Mozart himself in his sonatas never exceeded three,
present an air, followed by a contrasting air, followed
by the whole thing over again, these segments, call and
response, like verse and refrain in folkloric melodies,
are easily identified and even to follow, with Mozart
I often sing along, even in the grander concert stuff 
 
significantly there is no other motive in Classical music
but entertainment, the Church had ceded its hold on
composers to aristocrats, who collected them like
paintings to adorn their courts, and the idea of
personal expression, as implanted by Beethoven
hadn’t yet taken hold, nor had the French Revolution 
 
for a good time, in other words, call Mozart, Haydn
is a lot of unadulterated fun too
 
Beethoven will allow us to express our feelings,
which in our age has permitted the wails of the
disconsolate to soar to often, I think, too egregious 
heights, to replace stalwart courage and honour,
exemplified symbolically in a culture by strict
refinement and courtesy, the very stuff of
Classical sensibility 
 
the piano had been a very recent invention, able for
having been tempered, where notes of all keys had
been adjusted in order to be superimposed on a
keyboard to easily swing, or to modulate, from one
key to another, A, Bb, C#, et cetera, and was in the
process of determining the very sonic landscape 
the new era would handle, the very adjustment,
the tempering, by definition supplanted the exact
tone of the key, to fit of course the more convenient
superimpositions, in other words we’ve become
fundamentally attuned to atonality, gotcha, do ré,
mi are off
 
you change keys for reasons of mood, major, minor,
or to accompany for instance in a more comfortable 
range another instrument or a singer 
 
in early Classical pieces keys don’t change much 
within a movement, if indeed at all, but do contrast,
at this point in musical history, from one movement
to another, this of course will change    
 
the Sonata no 16, K545, of Mozart, his Sonata facile,
or semplice, is played here by Gavin M. George, age 7
 
this doesn’t seem at all in this context inappropriate,
Mozart too was a wunderkind, a wonder, at that
precocious age 
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
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April 25, 2012

“Pink Bunch” – Raoul Dufy

Pink bunch - Raoul Dufy

                                          “Pink Bunch“  (1940)
 
                                                 Raoul Dufy 

                                              _____________ 

 
the line between abstraction and representation, impressions of flowers becoming real flowers   in the imagination, with colour, texture, and nearly even dew
 
 
have a great day 
 
Richard

 

 

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April 15, 2012

the “Ode to Joy”‏

the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the
last part of the fourth movement, not to mention the
entire 9th Symphony itself, is without question the most
celebrated piece of music in the service of humanity in 
the very history of music, it brings together everyone in
an appeal for universal concord, community and hope
through the example of the music itself, a splendid array
of people and purposes in one common inspirational
aspiration, that aspiration not in any way dominion
but universal joy 
 
can we do it 
 
they do it here, in spades  
 
a Japanese orchestra and chorus of ten thousand, yes, 
ten thousand, perform superbly this German composer, 
interesting considering our not so distant bellicose past, 
it is a Japanese tradition apparently at the end of
December, in commemoration in this instance, Osaka,
1911, of the victims of the recent tsunami, they play in 
complete and utterly admirable harmony, each doing 
splendid honour to each as indeed the music suggests 
we all should
 
maybe we can, maybe we are, doing it  
 
 
incidentally no one had included voices ever in a
symphony before Beethoven, the premiere must
have been extraordinary 
 
this performance sure is  
 
 
Richard   
 
psst: Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in
         the full symphony, Placido Domingo sings with the chorus,
         it’s 1970 
 
 
 
 
 
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April 8, 2012

Olivier Messiaen – “Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum”

just in time for Easter here is something from
Olivier Messiaen, whom I consider to be, after
Shostakovich, the most important composer of
the Twentieth Century, and may one day, with
more distance, prove to be, of the two,
preeminent 
  
Messiaen, a devout Catholic, wrote specifically
to the glory of the Catholic God, an interesting
return to the music of the Baroque period, and
earlier, when the Church sponsored essentially
all the arts  
 
perhaps Messiaen is also a precursor – the “Et
exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum“, which
I’m presenting, or, in my humble Latin,”In 
is from 1964 – of the resurgent fundamentalism
we’ve been witnessing in all churches,
synagogues, mosques, in our own times
 
“Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum“, is
not at all Romantic, not even Impressionistic,
two world wars have been fought since, man  
has stepped on the unglorious moon, God even
died in the early sixties leaving us to reinvent
our own future, a time of youth and flowers,
and great indeed expectations, as it turned out  
 
the even profound assumptions of the earlier
order however, in the language of music
represented fundamentally by beat and tonality, 
hadn’t worked, couldn’t work anymore, having
been manifestly discredited, women had received 
the vote, financial and sexual independence,
traditional authority had been categorically
overthrown, there was no going back
 
 
Richard Strauss had already suggested this new
broader horizon, in 1896, with his “Also Sprach 
Zarathustra“, a mighty work, made famous, even
unforgettable, by the movie  “2001: A Space   
Odyssey“, when the very sun bursts upon the
intergalactic universe to its interstellar strains
 
but Messiaen takes you even further into the
reaches of the infinite 
 
I couldn’t help thinking of a more adult Miró –
the individualized elements – but more profoundly 
metaphysical, I have rarely seen, heard, something
so transfixing, powerful, even the silences between
movements, there are five, are riveting
 
 
happy Easter

 
Richard 
 
 
 
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