sonatas, continued (Beethoven – “32 Variations in C minor”)
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Tag: Alice in Wonderland
September 26, 2018
Piano Concerto no 1 in D minor, opus 15 – Brahms
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog“ (1818)
_____________
if Beethoven built the Church, along
with Goethe maybe, of Romanticism,
and be assured Romanticism is an
ideology, a moral outlook, a
motivational perspective, much like
the economy is nowadays,
supplanting any more humanistic
imperatives, Brahms put up one of its
Cathedrals, just listen, the First Piano
Concerto is a monument, as mighty
as the Cologne Cathedral musically,
right next to Bonn, incidentally,
Brahms‘ birthplace
with the disintegration of the
supremacy of the Catholic deity
at the onset of the Protestant
Reformation, Luther, Calvin,
Henry Vlll and all that, bolstered
by new discoveries in scientific
speculation, that the earth wasn’t
flat, for instance, that it revolved
around the sun rather than the
other way around, contradictory,
though convincing, voices began
to abound, excite question
in the 18th Century, the Age of
Reason, the Christian Deity fell,
never effectively to be put back
together again, see for Its final
sundering, Nietzsche
in France, after the Revolution,
the Church was officially removed
from political consideration,
countermanding its centuries of
morally heinous depredations,
the United States had already at
its own Revolution separated it
from State
Romanticism was an answer to
a world wherein there might not
be a God, a world with, however,
a spiritual dimension, to respond
to the clockwork universe
envisioned by the earlier epoch,
the Enlightenment, a world where
everything could be categorized,
analyzed, predicted
Romanticism called for the
inclusion of inspiration in the mix,
there are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy,
as Shakespeare would, for
instance, have it – “Hamlet”,
1.5.167-8
poets became prophets thereby,
if they could manage it, very
oracles, the world was blessed
with, at that very moment,
Beethoven, far outstripping the
likes of, later, for example, Billy
Graham, or other such, however
galvanizing, proselytizers,
whose messages would’ve been
too, to my mind, literal
for music cannot lie, obfuscate,
prevaricate, music cannot be
fake
and then there was Schubert,
and Chopin, Tolstoy, Dickens,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Robert, her husband,
Tchaikovsky, Caspar David
Friedrich, the Johann Strausses,
Byron, Shelley, Keats, whose
artworks, all, are as profoundly
in our blood, our cultural system,
as, if not more so than, our
present information about the
details of our Christian myths,
despite a superfluity of them
even, throughout the long
indeed Middle Ages, and right
up to, and including, the still
fervent then Renaissance, for
better or for worse still, for us
what Romanticism did, and
specifically through the work
of these seminal artists, was
give each of us a chance,
show us how to come
through trial and tribulation,
what a faith does, any faith
it said, here, this is my dilemma,
and this is how I deal with it
for me, Beethoven’s 32nd
Piano Sonata is, soundly, the
epitome of that, but listen to
Brahms put a stamp on it
with undaunted authority
we might be ultimately of no
consequence in an indifferent
universe, they say, but, hey,
this is what we can do, and
do gloriously, while we are
at it
Woody Allen picks up the
purpose in our own recent
20th Century, following in
the earnest footsteps of his
Existential mentor, the much
too dour, I think, Ingmar
Bergman
but that’s another story
entirely
meanwhile, listen
also watch, the conductor here,
a complete delight, is right out
of “Alice in Wonderland“, I
promise you’ll love it
R ! chard
November 26, 2017
me in C# major – Wonderland
“Alice in Wonderland“ (1977 )
_______
to Soeur Lucie-des-Lys,
wherever she now
may be
the school that we went to, my
sister and I, was across the street,
through a wild grass field, which
we crossed diagonally, especially
after the Soeurs de l’Assomption,
the Sisters of the Assumption of,
indeed, the Blessed Virgin, had
their convent built directly before
our house, not only the times, but
also the nuns’ implicit intercession,
would’ve prevented any harm
coming to us as we wended our
innocent way across their, surely
consecrated, ground
then down a slight hill to cross
the stone bridge that led to the
other side of the gully, that let
a rill slithering through it ripple
gingerly between its two mostly
brush-covered embankments,
shrubs and disconsolate,
disoriented, displaced
apparently, trees
then another trail, in a conversely
diagonal direction – like Alice‘s
flipped reality in Wonderland,
inverted and eventually wondrous
– climbed up the other side of the
rise, and led across another open
field, aridly, to our school
I don’t remember my first day,
but I remember my sister’s, my
parents worked, therefore,
having done this for already a
year, I would walk her to school,
introduce her to her teacher, I
was seven, she was six, there
was no kindergarten then, nor,
by a long shot, children’s day
care centres
but already we were Hansel and
Gretel in my mind, if we became
gingerbread cookies, we’d become
so together, therefore off we went
to encounter this strange new
world
I knew the principal, an efficient
nun, but not unkind, who later
even taught me, she would
introduce my sister to her first
teacher, Soeur Lucie-des-lys,
who couldn’t’ve chosen a better
name, Lucy-of-the-Lilies, and
was just as modest, utterly
inoffensive, as her adopted
moniker
but my sister cried, indeed wailed,
she had never seen a nun before,
in their black and white attire,
stark and ominously disciplinarian
but I had to go to my own class,
my own new year of exploration,
I liked school, I knew what it
could bring, I knew my sister ‘d
be safe with these new wards of
our education
especially with Sister
Lucy-of-the-Lilies, who could ask
for a better mystical indication,
and an absolute reflection of her
actual person, a poem in the guise
of a maiden, to allay, at the time,
any of my residual reservations
then again, I was Hansel, only,
who else could I trust
later my sister met friends, and a
whole new world of adventure,
just like Alice did in her own,
legendary, Wonderland
R ! chard
January 12, 2014
my Amsterdam, January 12, 2013
“right across from those two bridges”
Amsterdam, Holland
________
upon reaching our rented apartment after
our cab crawl through the Friday night
streets of bustling Amsterdam, hemmed
in and harried wherever we went by its
canals, bikes and rickety cobblestones,
all festooned in the neon glitter of, at
seven already of a November evening,
its multicolour nightlife, I looked around
to get my bearings, we found ourselves
on a little lost street standing on uneven
ground in the darkness between a row
of doors and some water
up the short street, as I looked around,
a bridge crossed from our street over
the stream that passed before our
lodgings, and on the other side of that
bridge another crossed another canal
that ran perpendicular
in my mind cobblestones, canals and
bridges incontrovertibly led to fairy
tales, around me I foresaw, in the
pregnant darkness of our secluded
street, adventure, and I would be
its Alice in Wonderland
and verily there appeared, as though
like magic, right across from those
two bridges, two coffee shops and a
restaurant, my two essentials, nothing
else but moonlit buildings, otherwise
only bicycles loomed, and the
occasional pedestrian
of the two coffee shops I chose the
one that was the least pretentious,
seemed to me the least a nightspot,
though it had its own smoky den at
the back, as it turned out, where they
did indeed serve coffee, made friends
with Francesco and Danielo the first
night, who were easy and engaging,
as they rolled me some take-out coffee,
little trumpets of the best, of course,
Columbian, or something, enough for
a couple of days
further up the further street a neon
sign read “Radisson“, which was
perfect, we wouldn’t have to look
for dinner, a noted hotel is always
an excellent place to find fine fare
and that night that’s all we wanted
we weren’t disappointed, the room
was nigh empty, the service right, and
the delicacies good enough to come
back for seconds, which we did
later as we walked home churchbells
rang the late hour, soon, they tolled, Read the rest of this entry »
October 16, 2013
beyond Alice
for Yolande
we had been talking, a friend and I, about
ashes – after, of course, my tale of Hawaii,
and my sacred purpose there with my
friend Greg around the memory of his
nephew and parents – the preparations
necessary to effect a smooth
transmission from one’s demise to final
ashes – after, of course, my tale of Hawaii,
and my sacred purpose there with my
friend Greg around the memory of his
nephew and parents – the preparations
necessary to effect a smooth
transmission from one’s demise to final
disposition, a somber thought for many,
but quite irreversible however, and better
sooner than too late, when bureaucratic
considerations inexorably and
inappropriately apply
to do so had been for her a last-minute
thing, earlier too stark, invisible,
to do so had been for her a last-minute
thing, earlier too stark, invisible,
unconsidered, but a comfort, she said,
ultimately, for the process had thus
itself become invisible, seamless, upon
a call the service duly submitted to her
particular wishes, of allowing her to sit by
the body till just before dawn, to avoid the
crush of the suddenly bristling morning,
and the probable indiscretions against
the solemnity of the night
she remembered how she had herself
reverently cast her own husband’s
she remembered how she had herself
reverently cast her own husband’s
ashes, told me she had kept some
should she find somewhere else
another garden than the one she
tended now should she ever want
to wander
I spoke of my own ashes, others’ ashes
I spoke of my own ashes, others’ ashes
she had with her husband cast those
of a sole remaining aunt of an afternoon,
from a rock on the seashore as the tide
moved in and out, feasting on sandwiches
and wine, I had seen dolphins dance out
on the ocean when I’d done something
similar myself around other ashes
a boy, a gay guy, she said came walking
before them on the same beach later,
earlier, I can’t remember
what do you mean gay, how did you
know that, I defensively countered
he was walking between two elderly
ladies, she answered without a beat
as though I hadn’t interrupted, holding
a tea service, complete with silverware,
china and napkins
I was glad I’d asked, I thought her
conclusion incontrovertible
her husband thought they’d entered
Alice’s wondrous rabbit hole, I thought
he couldn’t’ve been far off
they asked
the two ladies were his aunts, he replied,
on the ocean when I’d done something
similar myself around other ashes
a boy, a gay guy, she said came walking
before them on the same beach later,
earlier, I can’t remember
what do you mean gay, how did you
know that, I defensively countered
he was walking between two elderly
ladies, she answered without a beat
as though I hadn’t interrupted, holding
a tea service, complete with silverware,
china and napkins
I was glad I’d asked, I thought her
conclusion incontrovertible
her husband thought they’d entered
Alice’s wondrous rabbit hole, I thought
he couldn’t’ve been far off
they asked
the two ladies were his aunts, he replied,
come over from England to commemorate
their sister, his mom
this wasn’t at all a rabbit hole, I thought,
this wasn’t at all a rabbit hole, I thought,
but somewhere immeasurably finer, holier,
transcendent, they would be offering her
remains piecemeal to the rose garden,
there by the water in the sunlight on the
lawn, shaping sweetly their own ideas of
what lay beyond
I’d heard utterly, of course, and ineluctably
there a poem
my friend replenished our wine
we recalled our own departed spirits
Richard
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