Richibi’s Weblog

Just another WordPress.com weblog

Tag: Marcel Proust

April 17, 2013

Beethoven’s piano sonata no 29, “Hammerklavier”, revisited, as promised

upon listening to Beethoven’s 29th sonata
one doesn’t imagine its originality, having
been showered for centuries now with its
miracles and majesties, nothing would’ve
been heard like it before, so great a project,
a work of not only temporal magnitude, an
astonishing fifty minutes, but evidently of
more than just mere entertainment, a work
of philosophical, even, amplitude

Beethoven is not just trying to delight, he’s
trying to engage here, bring together, stir,
more profound human responses, evoke
thought, responsibility, compassion, a
spiritual complicity in the new
post-Revolutionary secular order, he is
establishing new metaphysical ground

the subject is existential, the audience
no longer merely aristocratic, masses
now were talking, an affluent bourgeoisie,
artists were responding to a new Romantic
Age, about rights, and what it means to be
human, both men and women, incidentally
– and I stress that newly pertinent at the time
conjunction – above and beyond those of
God, for each couldn’t both hold the
supreme, the earlier Classical, pinnacle,
the rights of Gods and, by extension,
Kings, Queens if you lived in England,
Russia

secularism was needing new oracles

see Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for
instance, for the emergence of
women

see also, of course, otherwise,
Beethoven

the difference with Beethoven is that
he achieved, ultimately, profound
wisdom, I can think of no other
comparable poet, save, of course,
Marcel Proust, both of whom proved
to be, in the same breath, philosophers,
able to stake that exalted claim, certainly
no painter, a difficult medium through
which to philosophize admittedly, to
bring logical and existential constructions
together to enunciate a transcendental
vision

then again, before Proust and Beethoven,
who’d ‘a’ thunk one could’ve transformed
words or music into very grace, mystically
transubstantiated gold, notwithstanding
the misguided alchemists

Pink Floyd did some of that in the Seventies
but retreated into historic and more personal,
less oracular, reminiscences, philosophizing
isn’t easy, see the punishment of Prometheus,
or, for that matter, John Lennon

Beethoven was completely deaf by the time
he composed the “Hammerklavier“, lost in
his own isolation, like Homer, blind to,
though obviously not unaware of, his art

not lost, not unaware either, more like
having been given extrasensory, outright
extraordinary, manifestly, perception

to our utter and everlasting, both of them,
benefit

Richard

Leave a comment
March 7, 2013

Nemo – “Ennead I” by Plotinus (7)‏

 
Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2013 21:45:49 +0000
To: Richibi’s Weblog
From: comment-reply@wordpress.com
Subject: [New comment] “Ennead I” by Plotinus.
 

To apply Plotinus’ theory of memory to Alzheimer, and answer your earlier question. The disease damaged the first component of memory, i.e., our memory storage facility, but it leaves the second and third components intact, where “we” are most active. People afflicted with Alzheimer are no less human than the rest, because they still have their thoughts, emotions, desires, judgment and will.

To use analogy, I’d liken living with Alzheimer to walking on the beach. Our memory is like the footprints we leave in the sand, which are constantly washed away by the waves, but the lack of footprints doesn’t prevent us from continue walking/living

 
 
I have no doubt that there is a soul, a human
entity, behind even a vegetative living being,
Nemo, let me tell you a story, I worked for
years in a palliative care unit as a volunteer
after the death of my beloved, who had died
there in one of their first units in the late 80s,
it was my way of saying thank you
 
a woman there lay in extremis, making no
sense of the fray that stirred ceaselessly
about her, her family distraught over her
perilous state fussing and worrying,
helpless and trying to find nevertheless
purpose midst unfamiliar and stressful
feelings, awash in their stray, unsettled, 
energy
 
their senior member, an actual pastor,
asked if I would sit by their mother’s side
while they all took a necessary break for
lunch, of course I immediately acceded,
that’s what I was there for    
 
gently I sat by her side, I had found
solace in a particular Oriental esoteric
faith meanwhile for my own debilitating
anguish, which had bequeathed me a
chant that would settle often and with
reverence my most aggrieved moments,
little by little it had rendered
acknowledgment, resolve, and, dare I
say, even grace, to my distress 
 
I began to murmur this chant as I lay my
hand upon her arm, she all aflutter from
her chronic delirium trying to find,
hopelessly it appeared, a place to settle,
I could only with my touch console
somewhat, I wistfully imagined
 
in my monotone I continued to issue
the palliative vowel sounds, surrounding
them with as much compassion and
gentle harmony as I could muster,
knowing that these must reach the soul,
something I had been discovering from
my own fraught experience
 
her body began to settle, there was no
question of reaching her mind, any kind
of intelligible conversation, but you do
that also with a very young child, and like
a very young child she continued to
respond 
 
to my chant, which had been like a river
flowing, constant and murmuring, finding
the most soothing paths of a trickling 
rhythm, she began to harmonize
 
row, row, row, your boat, she began
to sing, haltingly of course, at first
tentatively, but then with more and
more, though ever reliant, confidence
 
I believe that God had been talking 
there to all of us, I turned to see the
family standing in the doorway, still
and hushed
 
 
where, Nemo, does that leave philosophy
 
therefore Proust   
 
 
Richard      
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment
October 26, 2012

“The Trojan Women” – Euripides

the purpose of any art essentially is to either
inform or entertain, preferably both together,
therefore comedy would be associated with
entertaining whereas tragedy with informing
and, as such, this last would be perhaps more
intellectually demanding, so be it 
 
the strength nevertheless of great tragedy is in
its level of delivering immediacy and fascination,
which is to say entertainment, of great comedy
its obverse, insight  
 
“The Trojan Women” was written in 415 BC by
Euripides, a tragedian at the very summit still,
2400 years later, count them, of remarkable 
historical achievement 
 
the war with Troy had taken place a full 800
hundred years earlier, Homer had written the
alternate Bible to our Western civilization,
“The Iliad“, still with Proust to my mind the
very summit of our Occidental accomplishment,  
resonating across the ages as powerfully as
even the pyramids, extraordinary to read,
from about, again count them, astounding
millennia, nearly unimaginable centuries, 
850 BC  
 
 
Helen had been abducted from Sparta, according
to that side of the story, by Paris, the son of King
Priam of Troy, she had been whisked away not
unwillingly according to that prince of that city,
from where she became known to us as Helen of
Troy, rather than of her original Sparta
 
the Trojan War ensued
 
 
the Trojans were creamed by the Achaeans, the
Greeks, the Spartans, interchangeable terms,
under Menelaus, king of Sparta, and his brother,
Agamemnon, older brother, and king of Mycenae,
the greater incorporating kingdom   
 
the Trojan women remain to pay the price of
war, after so many centuries still their horror is
vivid, nor do we need to look far for equivalent
modern instances, they were all slaughtered or
enslaved, ‘nough, or maybe not ‘nough, said 
 
 
here we get perhaps the best interpretation
we’ll ever see, with a cast we’ll probably not
in a long while again put together – Katharine
Hepburn in perhaps her greatest role – “Once
I was queen in Troy”, she says, and you will
profoundly believe her – Vanessa Redgrave
doesn’t get ever much better as she reaches
chthonically, which is to say from the very
entrails of her earth, her soul, for a cry of
anguish you are not likely to ever forget – 
Geneviève Bujold, a mad Cassandra, and
Irene Papas, the very incarnation of the
most beautiful woman in the world
 
all tear up the screen in their moments,
leaving you breathless and helpless before
their art and evocative power, only Helen,
because of her beauty, insidiously manages
in the story to reasonably comfortably
survive, making mincemeat meanwhile
out of her big bad, he would have it, 
Menelaus
 
Helen had been the gift to Paris, who’d had
to choose among the goddesses, Hera, Athena,
Aphrodite, which of these was the most
beautiful, but only when Aphrodite had bribed
him with the gift of the most beautiful woman
in the world instead of from either other deity
power and glory, had he chosen Helen
 
the other two of course reponded with the
devastation at Troy, Olympians were not prone
to be easy, Christian mercy would find in that
pagan unequivalency propitious ground 
 
  
wonderful rendering of the traditional Greek
chorus – the Greek version of back-up girls,
“doo-wop, doo-wop” or “she loves him, she
loves him” – commenting on the tempestuous
story     
 
one of my favourite ever films   

   

 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
Leave a comment
April 10, 2008

Raphael – The Sistine Madonna

  Raffael 051.jpg                 

                          Sistine Madonna, c.1512-1514

                                         Raphael

                                      (1483-1520)

                             _______________________

                                                                                                                                      in my search for what is beautiful, in my unending, my unyielding quest for the sublime, I’ve come upon many things that ‘ve been awesome, before the Venus de Milo I trembled, stood silent, reverent before her incandescent aura, in consternation before her shimmering grace, marvelled that time alone, I supposed, and magnificence could so irradiate, create actual energy
 
in Dresden the Sistine Madonna did the same, the only other work ever to so palpably illuminate

during the late Beethoven string quartets I cried, especially the fourteenth, but who wouldn’t, they are masterpieces
 
on first looking into Homer I confirmed indeed the promise of Keats, nearly subscribed to the gods of Olympus, would’ve converted to their convincing myths, but Proust finally remains my true religion, the reflection of all I believe, the poet aspiring to be a philosopher, the philosopher aspiring to be a poet, where Truth and Beauty inextricably intermix, interweave and inspire  

for a while I had my doubts, art, music, literature seemed seductive enough, even important, but not urgent, not necessary, there would be life without art, I rued, but hadn’t been able to pursue it further

then in a revelation someone somewhere said, without art there would be no civilization, and I regained forthwith my faith

earnestly I’ve returned to its service

                                                                                                                                     yours in art                                                                                                                                                                    richibi

 

      _______________________________

Leave a comment
March 17, 2008

the 50 greatest books in English

should you have been following the contest in the Globe and Mail, here’s the latest:
 
THE 50 GREATEST BOOKS, to date
 
Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species
Dante Alighieri, Commedia (The Divine Comedy)
Plato, The Republic
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
James Joyce, Ulysses
Karl Marx, Das Kapital
St. Augustine, Confessions
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince
 
 
my recent response :
 
first of all of the first ten choices of the 50 greatest books in English only three strictly fit the bill, the others are culled from everything already from French and German to verily Ancient Greek and Latin, by way of medieval Spanish no less, and Italian
 
with this I have no cavil but for not paying proper heed to translations, translators, and their varied abilities for delivering accurate goods, both in substance and in spirit, some references should be made to preferred renditions, I would suspect Dante for instance in even competent prose would be no match at all for nearly any in thoughtful verse, and these superior options should be duly credited and recommended, otherwise where is the “English” in these “50 greatest books”
 
“Remembrance of Things Past” got me off, it is my supreme masterpiece along with “The Iliad”, it got me interested in this contest, further choices did not disinterest, and I held back scepticism
 
however having just read Plato on essentially your instigation, and found him outrageous, indeed offensive, not least of all because he actually proposes to castrate Homer, censor parts of him, to fit a cockeyed political agenda, a tyranny in fact – for where is the line between tyranny and even enlightened kingship – a tyranny he would of course administer himself
 
Plato throughout merrily essentially rambles, nearly incoherently, certainly without any real relevance to ourselves, unless you want to start a tyranny, while his audience, Thrasymachus, Glaucon and the rest, let him ramble, tyrannically, for over four hundred nearly interminable pages
 
could they be thinking, could we
 
 
and where is Homer for that matter on your list
 
to propose a list of the 50 greatest books one would have to have read a good part of the canon, or have a pool of such people, for where otherwise is the validity of the contest, you can’t even begin to make those choices without having read too many of the masters that haven’t made the list yet
 
where is of course Shakespeare in all this, where is this pinnacle of English literature, where is Dickens, where is Henry Fielding and the boisterous “Tom Jones”, the gothic Emily Brontë of “Wuthering Heights, the ethereal and unforgettable Virginia Woolf, where, closer to home, are Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, with each their masterful groundbreakers, “In Cold Blood”, “Lolita”
 
I won’t even start on literary titans in other languages
 
 
the choices in English to date have been quaint, “Ulysses” belongs there, “Tom Sawyer” instead of “Huckkleberry Finn”, but with next week F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” the choices of your panel become questionable
 
where is Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” then, “Of Human Bondage”, or any of his perfect short stories if you’ll first give precedence to the entertaining but not nearly as prolific, nor able, Fitzgerald
 
I suspect not read                                                                                  

or closer to home where is “The Grapes of Wrath”, one of, just one of, John Steinbeck’s towering achievements
 
James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” with Walker Evans, or his sublime “A Death in the Family”, right up there with “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Harper Lee’s triumph, where are these, could they have been read but still not trump next week’s trifle
 
where is “Gone With the Wind”, Margaret Mitchell’s magnum opus, in every sense of that first word, magnum great, magnum wonderful
 
where is the sensuous and searing “Alexandria Quartet” of Lawrence Durrell
 
more esoterically perhaps but no less deservedly where are the sublime “Diaries of Anaïs Nin”, an unparalleled account of a life lived at the very centre of cultural exchange in New York and Paris starting at the Jazz Age, moment by telling moment,  and ending in the psychedelia of the Sixties and Seventies, written with stark and consummate ablility, artistry, and frankness
 
where for that matter is Anne Frank’s diary, about which a moment of silence would rather do than my mere words to sing its highest praises
 
there are only 40 places left, please fill them thoughtfully

                                                                                                                                                                    thank you
 

 

  __________________________________

Leave a comment