tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9989193021827596042024-03-05T20:07:13.764-05:00MusingsScott Williamson writes about the connections between and across the artsScott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.comBlogger186125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-13874707027081657922016-12-01T15:28:00.000-05:002016-12-01T15:28:08.964-05:0030/30 Project: Poem for Day 1If you haven't heard about my participating in Tupelo Press's "30/30 Project" where I'll write 30 poems in 30 days this month, click <a href="https://www.tupelopress.org/3030-project-2/">here</a>. <br />
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Here is the poem for that first day, followed by a brief note on it. Thanks for reading.<br />
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<i>Venetian nocturne</i> <br />
<br />
Sitting alone on <br />
the Fondamente Nuove<br />
smoking staring out <br />
<br />
Looking up at me<br />
as I stroll along the quay<br />
wishing after stars<br />
<br />
She’s solitary<br />
and furtive as a night-bird <br />
will she fly away<br />
__<br />
<br />
Scott Williamson<br />
(Venice - Roanoke; July - Nov 2016).<br />
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This series of haiku was inspired by a night time stroll I regularly took while in residence in the Cannaregio neighborhood (<i>sestiere</i>) of Venice. I was there for a month this past July - August, renting a fabulous Air BnB apartment after the settling of part of my mom's estate. I had long wanted to take a mini-sabbatical and work on artistic projects. One of my goals this trip was to retrace the footsteps of beloved artists and composers from Monteverdi to Bernstein, and in particular, to follow the itinerary of Benjamin Britten. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCPVOfIK3gbqjCJUoQCZXW_Pm0_nAQjkCAKIClW96lLHxVCgG_7B9FXG8ze2rEQslamas6lMIqKSeVYPLEnrdhR0sv-hqcSDiVQMFmlm4PRFAbgP-B3SZ-xI4KV5hPvSHMTa7EbDaoJPf/s1600/IMG_1025.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqCPVOfIK3gbqjCJUoQCZXW_Pm0_nAQjkCAKIClW96lLHxVCgG_7B9FXG8ze2rEQslamas6lMIqKSeVYPLEnrdhR0sv-hqcSDiVQMFmlm4PRFAbgP-B3SZ-xI4KV5hPvSHMTa7EbDaoJPf/s320/IMG_1025.JPG" width="240" height="320" /></a></div>(View of the moon over the Venetian lagoon, from "I Felzi" apartment)<br />
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My apartment was a 90-second walk to the main thoroughfare (both pedestrian and marine) of the area, the Fundamente Nuove. Most Venetian arrivals and departures stop there; it affords views of the mysterious cemetery island, San Michele (where Stravinsky is buried), in addition to popular outlying islands like Murano (the "mecca" of glass-blowing). The Venetian hospital (the <i>Ospedale</i>) is the next stop over, and so while Venice is a relatively crime-free city, what few sirens there are (and they're all attached to the only motorized vehicle in the city: the boat) happen to be in this neighborhood. And yet how quiet the nights are! It was one such night where I saw the woman described in this poem. <br />
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The last line of an earlier version read "should I have said hi", and was entitled "<i>Donna tristessa</i>".<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-73811869968189392202016-11-30T10:12:00.000-05:002016-11-30T12:05:21.758-05:0030/30 Poetry Project and New WebsiteThough it is still in progress, my new website, <a href="http://www.scottmwilliamson.com">scottmwilliamson</a> is now online.<br />
<br />
Even more exciting for me is being chosen by <a href="https://www.tupelopress.org/3030-project-2/">Tupelo Press</a> (who published one of my<br />
<a href="http://www.scottmwilliamson.com/poetry">poems</a>) to participate in their "30/30 Project" where nine poets write 30 poems in 30 days and help Tupelo Press, a leading small, independent, non-profit organization in their important fund-raising efforts.<br />
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Please support the arts by donating to charitable, non-profit organizations in this season of giving!<br />
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To paraphrase the words of the eminent artist and historian, John Ruskin: everybody likes giving away money. Many people, to their great discomfort, simply do not realize this...<br />
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Please support great music and poetry - check out my <a href="https://www.tupelopress.org/3030-project-2/">30/30 Project</a> with Tupelo Press in December!Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-10309262766154305192015-03-21T18:04:00.000-04:002015-03-21T22:50:39.514-04:00Exuberant Rossini(This is for my fantastic Cenerentola colleagues)<br />
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Last night's opening of <i>La Cenerentola</i> at Opera Roanoke embodied the ideal of exuberance. The cast was uniformly "on," the orchestra played as well as they ever have under my (sometimes airborne) baton, and the audience was more responsive than I've ever heard them. Paraphrasing Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in <i>Pretty Woman</i>, "I almost peed my pants!" "She liked it better than 'Pirates of Penzance.,,'" I'd say our audience did, too.<br />
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Unconscious of the eminent connection, I pulled down Kay Redfield Jamison's book, <i>Exuberance</i>, from one of the many piles of books stacked on any number of shelves. If you replace this excerpt's subject with "opera singer," and throw in "singing rapidly in a foreign tongue," then the play described here is humorously apt to the exuberance our fantastic cast exhibited:<br />
<i><br />
In her classic study of Australian wombats, Barbara Triggs writes: "Wombat play is made up of several characteristic movements and attitudes performed in no particular order but with tremendous enthusiasm and exuberance. Typically, a young wombat signals the beginning of playtime by standing absolutely still… Then it jerks its head back and shoulders up, sometimes lifting its front feet right off the ground. Then, but not necessarily in this order, it tosses its head from side to side; jumps in the air with all four feet off the ground; rolls over to its side; races off at a rocking gallop before coming to a sudden stop, reversing through 180 degrees 'on the spot' and racing back to its mother, stopping or veering sideways just before the expected collision; lies flat on its stomach, head thrown back and swinging from side to side, lips drawn back in a wombat 'grin.'"… Triggs, acknowledging the infectious quality of the marsupial's exuberance, concludes by saying "I defy anyone to watch a wombat at play without laughing aloud." </i>(<i>Exuberance: The Passion for Life</i>, Kay Redfield Jamison; Knopf, 2004).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTaaOsfDOKTlmEYH9hPxe9dv5Pi64actZ6ghZGO_DOFUcZVVvzTOE10_u45nIC4y723izihCmKi36DguguZKtBWy0n7gIwMoc1KD3ipZWWumBeNr9KJkXTem4he52kr_E1ujqls1KhXo/s1600/wombat.playing.jpg.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrTaaOsfDOKTlmEYH9hPxe9dv5Pi64actZ6ghZGO_DOFUcZVVvzTOE10_u45nIC4y723izihCmKi36DguguZKtBWy0n7gIwMoc1KD3ipZWWumBeNr9KJkXTem4he52kr_E1ujqls1KhXo/s320/wombat.playing.jpg.png" /></a><br />
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I am so grateful for all of your talents and energy, and I look forward to another galumphing performance of Rossini's ebullient <i>dramma giocoso</i> with you all tomorrow!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkOmao_1K5pgbtV_-lhIcAn9R79pG4w6UgIo3wBATemq7E3SskCysb9LGnWfBkHDXCYXaYvNp_xS6blyv6fcu2ueT4QJOMWD8vX6Bw75H3Z_1g18jIic-pliH2lSaXStCYowJn6gD39vY/s1600/wombat+scratching.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkOmao_1K5pgbtV_-lhIcAn9R79pG4w6UgIo3wBATemq7E3SskCysb9LGnWfBkHDXCYXaYvNp_xS6blyv6fcu2ueT4QJOMWD8vX6Bw75H3Z_1g18jIic-pliH2lSaXStCYowJn6gD39vY/s320/wombat+scratching.jpg" /></a><br />
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Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-33962669220329248072014-11-24T13:59:00.001-05:002014-11-24T17:02:32.760-05:00Japan Tour Travel NotebooksNow that Opera Roanoke's production of Mozart's <i>Abduction</i> has opened and closed, I'm finally catching up on our recent tour to Japan (Oct 30-Nov 8). I posted a few images and gave the briefest of summaries on my <a href="http://operaroanoke.blogspot.com/2014/11/elegance-and-romance-from-virginia-tour.html">Opera Blog</a><br />
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Below I'll share some more images, and some notes I made on walks around Tokyo in-between rehearsals and our 8 (!) performances. <br />
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This is the spectacular view from our hotel room at Chinzan-so. The Three-story Pagoda sits atop one of the hills in the fabulous Chinzan-so gardens. Below are more images from the gardens. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrEK4WkMPr6ZZQ2XwhD74nagnlcSYyei8eiHJTpHmUE5RvFB71mPcRy6z0M-UIlm9qHN9UiBUNLOequvsqqoSey2_5MeMaXsl3vE2DIbGe7p43n6m0GIYmpBVePWkjnrgy-akt_Hx76E/s1600/IMG_0027.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgrEK4WkMPr6ZZQ2XwhD74nagnlcSYyei8eiHJTpHmUE5RvFB71mPcRy6z0M-UIlm9qHN9UiBUNLOequvsqqoSey2_5MeMaXsl3vE2DIbGe7p43n6m0GIYmpBVePWkjnrgy-akt_Hx76E/s320/IMG_0027.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipg7T9lRuPRZ-hbpFeqmqeKDB39cxFilHrzoV2x_cvblj0HOxza3V_pHLBQQZGtE2Zyln0Ar7FSEk36WjZyc9Cykp7Wl4xKO50jUIKb6o3dsls4jFqL9Rs_l00dfDgFxzK7MgJ4fz_IF0/s1600/IMG_0003.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipg7T9lRuPRZ-hbpFeqmqeKDB39cxFilHrzoV2x_cvblj0HOxza3V_pHLBQQZGtE2Zyln0Ar7FSEk36WjZyc9Cykp7Wl4xKO50jUIKb6o3dsls4jFqL9Rs_l00dfDgFxzK7MgJ4fz_IF0/s320/IMG_0003.jpg" /></a><br />
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Below are a pair of the monuments in the gardens. The second is a "Pen" monument dedicated to the great haiku master, Basho.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPAAhfg3gYAwKXp_mjNWxieazgDEV9kXRRZfGp4DxTbt2FJ_5JudEdIzjjAkw0pVnBVdU1rc6l-jJms-2L4KTHaNc1_fLbbfhIpY2c8WWaf-T5FNH7ipi_nVphy3nYUMjHQUfcFdHnhw/s1600/IMG_0026.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPPAAhfg3gYAwKXp_mjNWxieazgDEV9kXRRZfGp4DxTbt2FJ_5JudEdIzjjAkw0pVnBVdU1rc6l-jJms-2L4KTHaNc1_fLbbfhIpY2c8WWaf-T5FNH7ipi_nVphy3nYUMjHQUfcFdHnhw/s320/IMG_0026.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3XG-BD35KrTDp0gfqa8HgdsSfstvvwfI7aI0O1bKLZ4kB-oZxx5n8eH1LX0hgOz2P5PR3x-mHmkE9HjRJFKwy0Z5aNkpafcBhPQZAvuXIZN_9kISjZhCAQNcNIslfbd9nbh_bnb_QKQ/s1600/IMG_0025.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX3XG-BD35KrTDp0gfqa8HgdsSfstvvwfI7aI0O1bKLZ4kB-oZxx5n8eH1LX0hgOz2P5PR3x-mHmkE9HjRJFKwy0Z5aNkpafcBhPQZAvuXIZN_9kISjZhCAQNcNIslfbd9nbh_bnb_QKQ/s320/IMG_0025.jpg" /></a><br />
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The gardens are watched over by 7 gods of fortune. They are:<br />
1. Daikokuten – wealth & fortune; guardian of the kitchen <br />
2. Ebisu – Commerce & fishery; guardian of Chinzan-so; homonym of a Tokyo district and a famous beer.<br />
3. Jurojin – wellness, safety, longevity – reincarnation of Roshi (China) – <br />
deer is his companion – symbol of longevity & harmony with nature<br />
4. Hotei – Zen monk – peace & prosperity<br />
5. Bishamonten – wisdom & bravery – spear & pagoda <br />
6. Fukurokuju – fortune, longevity, wealth – with tortoise, symbol of longevity<br />
7. Benzaiten – goddess of music & eloquence – with lute (biwa)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2ykM3PMunOzRCrnbcSMwIEpfmmCDRzRrtzIXcHlprgt-NGgH5WLZykakNxfTHvm2mpIZauOYrbz5c1u-5r8Lqd-cljxa2UaBaPlDfISGLCtRA-PyGrMsJSrvIak8Fxs6wit4D0Q_RPs/s1600/IMG_0021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil2ykM3PMunOzRCrnbcSMwIEpfmmCDRzRrtzIXcHlprgt-NGgH5WLZykakNxfTHvm2mpIZauOYrbz5c1u-5r8Lqd-cljxa2UaBaPlDfISGLCtRA-PyGrMsJSrvIak8Fxs6wit4D0Q_RPs/s320/IMG_0021.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PGYVqdxg-aIYwm9ZpHYa6w8RnL9VgnJhf4E0WemH_9lx00DtZhPuaAZ-LGD5Z0M6LsESXCNHHz82dDXol5PFAH6a00FWT1wjXAlc4U08r5e-xrjeSijpt7hLJ6kFmFt6eMvsAiNvir8/s1600/IMG_0019.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-PGYVqdxg-aIYwm9ZpHYa6w8RnL9VgnJhf4E0WemH_9lx00DtZhPuaAZ-LGD5Z0M6LsESXCNHHz82dDXol5PFAH6a00FWT1wjXAlc4U08r5e-xrjeSijpt7hLJ6kFmFt6eMvsAiNvir8/s320/IMG_0019.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5rET97tpcg8T5UWeGPm7R-rvNa1Dg7Ivn_Ruj0PlYTa8FPn4KauGrMjlNYQ91gZUbuB6Th2NhdPPZ_54AzFDNdv96fJenYR6p3POq5x8LXtuLB-ilG4B1uTK2Y033zmELAIZNlB9D9Y/s1600/IMG_0042.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd5rET97tpcg8T5UWeGPm7R-rvNa1Dg7Ivn_Ruj0PlYTa8FPn4KauGrMjlNYQ91gZUbuB6Th2NhdPPZ_54AzFDNdv96fJenYR6p3POq5x8LXtuLB-ilG4B1uTK2Y033zmELAIZNlB9D9Y/s320/IMG_0042.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUKf8TGntJg-nKRYagn0v_lQTeqCJIpsWELcyqSWHcTdDq_p0FtQyW7dER8aAELC1Va77xMRhWt2u2zBOKQ9X6OdE72uPkkBHN6VHgBI5_VllX7d8zGydv3THju-2SrqcwlGtwjcwtLpo/s1600/IMG_0015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUKf8TGntJg-nKRYagn0v_lQTeqCJIpsWELcyqSWHcTdDq_p0FtQyW7dER8aAELC1Va77xMRhWt2u2zBOKQ9X6OdE72uPkkBHN6VHgBI5_VllX7d8zGydv3THju-2SrqcwlGtwjcwtLpo/s320/IMG_0015.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLH2oAkYrsrAbcxTHSvl51rnedowNtqKTAfAXk6Z46oDrEEOtv_BiPHGCOf0TFXJrcrb9vUhuF9xhnE8FfdRhXAUAC0WFevwrfHtGOWBZZ5UvpTmUb99KbwlPbnKdNnhFhRG9NeRnQUQY/s1600/IMG_0013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLH2oAkYrsrAbcxTHSvl51rnedowNtqKTAfAXk6Z46oDrEEOtv_BiPHGCOf0TFXJrcrb9vUhuF9xhnE8FfdRhXAUAC0WFevwrfHtGOWBZZ5UvpTmUb99KbwlPbnKdNnhFhRG9NeRnQUQY/s320/IMG_0013.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhnnxd87iyDcXqpZjQAKaXmLRi6ZEQX7POqC8AM_GEMDjuu8loTfuzvISNauTLc5H95XVzfyEjE4d6wJ93B5mzEPmuqi0n25byY0KvYkO09Wf9oF3bovt_baSqdxDhEhW-Ioa73kieb0/s1600/IMG_0009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbhnnxd87iyDcXqpZjQAKaXmLRi6ZEQX7POqC8AM_GEMDjuu8loTfuzvISNauTLc5H95XVzfyEjE4d6wJ93B5mzEPmuqi0n25byY0KvYkO09Wf9oF3bovt_baSqdxDhEhW-Ioa73kieb0/s320/IMG_0009.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgloEkmzHQA5rvnW5kWq2dcyYnYA6E_Yitnku3MYS015fTJBameeuunQIBHHjoxe1JtBSc3h5wdVufZ2R4AL3ymViKx_bO7Yd2tIrtsIeMOsXyrO6fMyCX64pbK2OvLxMnNKwQ1h92lXN0/s1600/IMG_0006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgloEkmzHQA5rvnW5kWq2dcyYnYA6E_Yitnku3MYS015fTJBameeuunQIBHHjoxe1JtBSc3h5wdVufZ2R4AL3ymViKx_bO7Yd2tIrtsIeMOsXyrO6fMyCX64pbK2OvLxMnNKwQ1h92lXN0/s320/IMG_0006.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Like the Pagoda, many of the statues and monuments are some 500 years old. The 20 stone statues of Rakan (Rakanseki) represent images of Buddha's priests, and were originally at a temple in Kyoto. Their diminutive and fragmented shapes add to their aura of mystery - I found the atmosphere at this crossroads of the gardens to be especially mystical, as if outside of "normal" time, suspended in another dimension...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0AsSkh1chqIZKokzFeOGwjc8nVApoBHNGhnFDIOL53S0GF425XqoOimpBOvooyFnH3MWMD-boh9IldB5ByHijJSjMbCmRhD39o5PytfLNRqS14_QjGtpMfBC38SUA3KOZ8d96I5akLY/s1600/IMG_0050.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx0AsSkh1chqIZKokzFeOGwjc8nVApoBHNGhnFDIOL53S0GF425XqoOimpBOvooyFnH3MWMD-boh9IldB5ByHijJSjMbCmRhD39o5PytfLNRqS14_QjGtpMfBC38SUA3KOZ8d96I5akLY/s320/IMG_0050.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFAm2KsuLsAcRjNO-ZfpM3WmN3bDCEK4TShMstVosDC4390lEgKiqqpTQXXmK21kXSAvlIecANOTBvjpttQyB_hiS1Z2rKZgWn0N2XLalAltftwLchwTOrDdE0xdXozWOOg3qEMhxSVDo/s1600/IMG_0004.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFAm2KsuLsAcRjNO-ZfpM3WmN3bDCEK4TShMstVosDC4390lEgKiqqpTQXXmK21kXSAvlIecANOTBvjpttQyB_hiS1Z2rKZgWn0N2XLalAltftwLchwTOrDdE0xdXozWOOg3qEMhxSVDo/s320/IMG_0004.jpg" /></a><br />
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The Chinzan-so gardens are famous for their Camellia blossoms - dozens of variations adorn the hills. Opera lovers know <i>La Traviata</i> is based on Dumas's novel, <i>The Lady of the Camellias,</i> and our friends know how special that opera is to Amy and me, so we delighted in the colorful paths each time we walked through them. We also enjoyed people-watching during Japan's busiest weekend for weddings, which corresponds with their National Holiday for Culture. (Did I mention how much we loved Japan?!?)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2DW5KaCSwDo0hx8hwryJfbXKqKn1uv1-IP6qXUzOoSeoPtSa0vlfLnnNnP4cDTHPctoFNqIxuogk4nGwpaqoINYJ5rtVbbXMajfq_gzsHnUUMz0X1_M35DSuAXZ_A_-OPk9oJUFmvUU/s1600/IMG_0055.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht2DW5KaCSwDo0hx8hwryJfbXKqKn1uv1-IP6qXUzOoSeoPtSa0vlfLnnNnP4cDTHPctoFNqIxuogk4nGwpaqoINYJ5rtVbbXMajfq_gzsHnUUMz0X1_M35DSuAXZ_A_-OPk9oJUFmvUU/s320/IMG_0055.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb95i0w1R523mRy33BhHWms5_RXWl5BEakdYd0Hql0mly9NfBt5fI3fMjc-jmVnV-TlU0Z7xfMYDFPQQ2bVB3FiKGvaF_M2wZf4lNfw8_HiSdYegU7RzgPODpll1DDanorAK8jmYNJ8q4/s1600/IMG_0005.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhb95i0w1R523mRy33BhHWms5_RXWl5BEakdYd0Hql0mly9NfBt5fI3fMjc-jmVnV-TlU0Z7xfMYDFPQQ2bVB3FiKGvaF_M2wZf4lNfw8_HiSdYegU7RzgPODpll1DDanorAK8jmYNJ8q4/s320/IMG_0005.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvXkpo70yTphArzOpt2JpJtMKHPH1qzky4ZsH5oMHZ6wY1MxEtiHKd_bYawEHva9KJf1i78iJ8voN4hWTk2dKCWpiimie3cxTq7NZ6-AiZIH6WbtnCtHXmeDuSPC4x_V8EkFbIsmel8a4/s1600/IMG_0056.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvXkpo70yTphArzOpt2JpJtMKHPH1qzky4ZsH5oMHZ6wY1MxEtiHKd_bYawEHva9KJf1i78iJ8voN4hWTk2dKCWpiimie3cxTq7NZ6-AiZIH6WbtnCtHXmeDuSPC4x_V8EkFbIsmel8a4/s320/IMG_0056.jpg" /></a><br />
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Though I didn't snap any pictures of them, the fierce crows in Tokyo did inspire a poem in the form of the Haibun - a descriptive prose paragraph followed by a Haiku. <br />
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<i>Crow Haibun<br />
<br />
</i>Crows circle the three-story Pagoda at Chinzan-so – their caw loud as their wing-span <br />
is wide. Tokyo crows are immense – they’re ubiquitous at shrines and burial grounds. Having seen them in Japanese films – Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Ozu – their presence seems surreal, as if an apparition has materialized, or a dream image from myth has taken form. Their incessant inner-city choruses blare down from building tops like sirens or apocalyptic trumpets. I am awed and vaguely afraid. <br />
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Crow, I hear your voice – <br />
Crow, like a god, I fear you – <br />
Your call rules the sky.<br />
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This is the "Tortoise of Fortune" - a 10,000 year-old, naturally-made "sculpture" in the shape of one of Japan's symbols of good fortune and longevity. I sat beside <i>Fuku no kame</i> while composing the first draft of the crow poem.<br />
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We spent one afternoon visiting the National Noh Theatre, the top of my "bucket list" items for Tokyo, given my fascination with this stylized and rarified older (less popular) kin to the famous Kabuki theatre. One of my favorite composers, Benjamin Britten, was so taken with Noh theatre he modeled three dramatic works on the genre. Below the Noh gardens are images of the Sumida River, the setting of a famous Noh play which inspired Britten to compose his first "parable," <i>Curlew River</i>. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiph5lq6-8i0148eGqPld1GFFCbsWmwtC8YsUDlPpm59PxWZoDRT8npMHV_GfujvTwaufZn1K3ASIl2cHXTCFln3WQhHIp62sBF3bBoGDV4ZCxKvLGa_usL6AQneWiltx4BkXx9SwV_nA4/s1600/IMG_1484.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiph5lq6-8i0148eGqPld1GFFCbsWmwtC8YsUDlPpm59PxWZoDRT8npMHV_GfujvTwaufZn1K3ASIl2cHXTCFln3WQhHIp62sBF3bBoGDV4ZCxKvLGa_usL6AQneWiltx4BkXx9SwV_nA4/s320/IMG_1484.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5x5fILKNtvrw35ab8RA_Y_1y2FxlEJ7WenD2La256ms9up7g3oiIFbTeeY7VnNreT0WN33n_y88fvSK9laO5VDHw0dvFMVzVlZ2URvFXU06OcLbH1r71D4WKJSi8CScay2ZTenpZL1s/s1600/IMG_1483.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo5x5fILKNtvrw35ab8RA_Y_1y2FxlEJ7WenD2La256ms9up7g3oiIFbTeeY7VnNreT0WN33n_y88fvSK9laO5VDHw0dvFMVzVlZ2URvFXU06OcLbH1r71D4WKJSi8CScay2ZTenpZL1s/s320/IMG_1483.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4c5-nse6dds2GxL0O0Lwz-Q7xVm0veiwaN7T4JS5JFMq_5dYwfar4Z-sMM1gb6PW-zhDiI8WJbfN1j9KDxVYjP51xx22dmjVZsHRJdwbN0AVKL5or6eBDoezhGD2bJLGdCKgnw56hwg/s1600/IMG_1599.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR4c5-nse6dds2GxL0O0Lwz-Q7xVm0veiwaN7T4JS5JFMq_5dYwfar4Z-sMM1gb6PW-zhDiI8WJbfN1j9KDxVYjP51xx22dmjVZsHRJdwbN0AVKL5or6eBDoezhGD2bJLGdCKgnw56hwg/s320/IMG_1599.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3om6wRVv5GsfM2jG86odqVKawqLEOPQA09gFiJ3yZTXL-C4qkyWiQxsoiVF0kIfnIr16LDFlshBU0AMhx8gAejELz2qoqh1klOKpGxAFvuF8E7_tzp68gOdI-ASMxy4GnGbnIMzgCrk/s1600/IMG_1598.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ3om6wRVv5GsfM2jG86odqVKawqLEOPQA09gFiJ3yZTXL-C4qkyWiQxsoiVF0kIfnIr16LDFlshBU0AMhx8gAejELz2qoqh1klOKpGxAFvuF8E7_tzp68gOdI-ASMxy4GnGbnIMzgCrk/s320/IMG_1598.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqa22SIVwrUSKNBTV4jE90-AHx-Ydo3U_vu8ogl_6Un32g4dBdDfLJDe0p-ACecodBSrBfMzt6RRqkSURu_jhZYhyphenhyphenovG5rl2dvVmA4fu1o5lGZR-cmmbVEOlm9y-cp4MWVJ99pXsF038/s1600/IMG_1601.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIqa22SIVwrUSKNBTV4jE90-AHx-Ydo3U_vu8ogl_6Un32g4dBdDfLJDe0p-ACecodBSrBfMzt6RRqkSURu_jhZYhyphenhyphenovG5rl2dvVmA4fu1o5lGZR-cmmbVEOlm9y-cp4MWVJ99pXsF038/s320/IMG_1601.JPG" /></a><br />
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Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-39062023255275565892014-05-29T15:08:00.000-04:002014-05-30T12:09:32.947-04:00Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need...In Memoriam: Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014)<br />
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You can read all of the great inaugural poem Maya Angelou read for President Clinton<br />
<a href="http://poetry.eserver.org/angelou.html">here</a>. <br />
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"Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need | For this bright morning dawning for you."<br />
<br />
Sharon Hershey's energetic melody setting this couplet as a fugue subject for an unpublished a cappella choral setting of the poem rings in my ear. I've thought of it often over the last several weeks following the sudden death of my former Westminster classmate, colleague and friend, Jeff Dinsmore. We rehearsed it together in Spoleto, Italy in 1997. Another recently and too-suddenly departed friend and colleague, John Webber, was also in the Bridge Ensemble - Spoleto Festival Choir in Umbria that summer, under Donald Nally's inspiring leadership. <br />
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It can be dangerous to quote anyone out of context. With that caveat, I have highlighted the most famous excerpt from William Carlos Williams' oft-quoted (and much longer) poem, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower." Below are but the final 21 lines of a complex 200 + line poem. <br />
<br />
Of asphodel, that greeny flower,<br />
I come, my sweet,<br />
to sing to you!<br />
<br />
My heart rouses<br />
thinking to bring you news<br />
of something<br />
<br />
that concerns you<br />
and concerns many men. <i>Look at<br />
what passes for the new.<br />
<br />
You will not find it there but in<br />
despised poems.<br />
It is difficult<br />
<br />
to get the news from poems<br />
yet men die miserably every day<br />
for lack<br />
<br />
of what is found there.</i><br />
Hear me out<br />
for I too am concerned<br />
<br />
and every man<br />
who wants to die at peace in his bed<br />
besides.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I experienced the not infrequent occurrence of rejection, when, at a business lunch, I made what we call "an ask" of an esteemed patron. Whether one can or cannot succeed in show business without really trying I cannot say, but one cannot survive very long in the "arts" without at least one layer of thick skin. If you're a performer or an administrator, you need several layers. Besides "no," I was also politely and directly told that if my non-profit-arts organization were to fold tomorrow, while it might make the news, it would not create much of a stir. (Sadly, this is true. And the same fate would be shared by dozens of other small non-profit organizations in "Virginia's Blue Ridge," who teeter on the edge survival not just year after year, but month by month, like "starving artists," the working poor, many small businesses, struggling families, <i>ad infinitum</i>... But that's another story or essay…)<br />
<br />
I recently read in the introduction to a contemporary poetry anthology (<i>Best of American Poetry 2013</i>) reference to a critic's questioning, in the wake of the most recent Presidential inaugural poem, the recycled polemic, "is poetry dead?" This <i>Washington Post</i> critic called contemporary poetry "limp and fangless." This made me think of critics not so much as "pigeons defecating on the statues of real artists" (paraphrasing the conductor, Robert Shaw, among others) but of the critic as a blood-sniffing vampire. If the metaphor has any traction, contemporary criticism is like a bad vampire sitcom: trying too hard to impress/entertain with fake fangs & blood, dried up cliches, using someone else's old dirt…<br />
<br />
On the Poets.org website, Maya Angelou is the poet of the day, and her full-throated paean to survival, the human spirit, and the African-American voice in particular, <i>Still I Rise</i>, is the <a href="http://www.poets.org/#">poem-of-the-day</a>. <br />
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Among the many other aphorisms the great conductor, Robert Shaw was fond of sharing, here is my favorite: <b><i>Art is not a luxury, but a necessity</i>.</b> <br />
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In his pithy, trenchant essay "<i>The Almond Trees</i>," written in 1940, Albert Camus takes issue with Napoleon's expired truism, on "the impotence of force to establish anything." Napoleon's positivism sees the "sword always conquered by the mind." [Aside: It's a shame that Camus was/is not taught more widely in public schools here. I suspect it is those twin bug-a-boo words, "communist" and "atheist" which stick too easily to "liberals" and thus find them too-easily tossed into the discard or dismiss pile. Camus was as much a humanitarian, philosopher, and freedom-fighter as anything, seen from another angle.] "I do not have enough faith in reason to subscribe to a belief in progress… We have not overcome our [human] condition, and yet we know it better…Our task…is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls." I don't find anything to dismiss in such clear-headed reasoning and vision. <br />
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Writing at the height of Hitler's power, he goes on to observe, "It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. 'Tragedy,' [D.H.] Lawrence said, 'ought to be a great kick at misery.'" <br />
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"The axe to pick at the frozen regions of the heart," Kafka described art as. Why does great music move us so? Why do seasoned opera goers always weep at the end of <i>La Boheme?</i> Among other reasons, it is great art's ability to stimulate intense emotional responses. After our heart and soul have been opened, the mind usually follows... <br />
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In his famous poem - is any poem "famous" outside of artistic circles anymore? - eulogizing W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden wrote that "poetry makes nothing happen." I'm sure we could survive without opera, poetry, abstract art, theatre-of-the-absurd, public sculpture, film and many other "luxuries" and "entertainments" we take for granted or don't take at all. But why would we choose to? <br />
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Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-58815455586788832014-05-13T15:30:00.000-04:002014-05-13T16:07:54.581-04:00Offenbach notebooks for opening night at W&L!<b>Offenbachiad Notebook | Notes for W&L production of Mr Choufleuri | April-May 2014 </b><br />
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Those who want more info on our production - opening tonight! - should visit Opera Roanoke's page <a href="http://operaroanoke.org">here</a>.<br />
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Below are the unedited notes I've kept while preparing for this fantastically fun production of Offenbach, done in the spirit of the salons of his time, which means it's replete with famous guests like Berlioz, Baudelaire, Manet ("or is it Monet?"). Offenbach's favorite eccentric (= crowd pleaser) actor, Bache, joins "that wicked George Sand," among other cultural dignitaries. We insert music by composers the habitués would have expected to encounter at the finest salons (and we hear Offenbach parodying the very "ballad" style he took full advantage of - 19th century Paris is one of the most fascinating periods or places in Western History!) <br />
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I usually share my program notes, but those will be printed in the program: come to the show and read them. As some of my colleagues have expressed interest in my library, I share a window below. This "miscellany" is intended to be educational - if not interesting - on a period or genre with which not only our students, but many of our friends might not be well-acquainted. I share my notes as a classic writer's "notebook." That is to say, it is part essay, part diary, part margin notes, part sourcebook. It may often be convoluted, eccentric (= personal), full of musings, quotes, etc. <br />
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This is one of the ways this artist attempts to serve genius, honor the gods and use whatever odd talents he found dropped like crumbs from the table. And these days, seems there's never enough time to do all of what one loves...<br />
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<i><b>Offenbach library (subjective)</b>:</i><br />
Siegfried Kracauer: <i>Jacques Offenbach & the Paris of His Time</i> <br />
Alistair Horne: <i>The Seven Ages of Paris</i><br />
Essays/Liner notes on <i>La Belle Hélène, Fortunio</i> (A. Messager – Offenbach’s successor), <br />
<i>Tales of Hoffmann, Offenbach Arias</i> (von Otter), <i>Orphée aux enfer</i> <br />
Walter Benjamin: Sel. <i>Writings</i>, <i>The Arcades Project, Baudelaire: The Writer of Modern Life</i><br />
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<b>Quotes, notes, miscellany</b>:<br />
Parisian operetta and Parisian wit: blend of “humor & mockery” | irony & social satire<br />
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O’s Paris: La Belle Epoque | The Golden Mean | 2nd Empire – “spirit of frivolity” (Kracauer)<br />
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“poignant melancholy…discreet and fatal inevitability…touched with bitterness”<br />
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“Delicate bittersweet musicality” of poetry typified by de Musset, Lamartine<br />
<br />
Andre Tubeuf: “the flavor of Mozart” ended with this era… (Messager Fortunio essay)<br />
<b>Rossini</b> called Offenbach the “Mozart of the Champs-Elysées” <br />
<b>Saint-Saens</b> on O’s music: “scores swarmed with microscopic notes, like flies feet, <br />
and out of sheer hurry they barely touch the paper” <br />
<b>Tolstoy</b> praised the “spontaneous comedy” in Offenbach<br />
<b>Nietzsche</b> said O & his librettists produced “opera’s only contribution to poetry so far” and saw in O’s music “the supreme form of wit” <br />
Gautier said O’s operas gave society “a kick in the most sensitive spot”<br />
<br />
Kracauer: Halevy [librettist] was a great observer…On the Boulevards he would pick out someone and follow him…studying flirtations & ballet girls in the ‘foyer de danse’… [He was] a man with an inexhaustible sense of wonder. Like Offenbach, he was straightforward & honest. His sense of irony was the real source of his frivolity & the determining factor in setting the Offenbachiad on the path it took – social satire and the sanctioning of intoxicating pleasure. <br />
<br />
Irony “based on a sense that paradise was lost.” <br />
<br />
“Since melancholy was the constant companion to his happiness, he was able to preserve it from decay.” [=Motto / Aphorism as Credo…]<br />
<br />
O. understood the proximity of laughter to tears, learned through experience w/ his audiences.<br />
<br />
His 1860 ballet, <i>Papillon</i>, presented at the Opéra, was considered “blasphemous” for sharing the same stage as the Grand Opera of Meyerbeer, Auber & Halevy. Went on for 42 performances, billed with none other than Tannhäuser…<br />
<br />
<b>Wagner</b> – after trading barbs [doggerel verse in Kracauer: “<i>Krak! Krak! Krakerakrak | Is noble Jack von Offenback</i>!] and feuding with O – called him kin to “the divine Mozart” after the younger composer’s death in 1880. (Rivalry fueled by envy at O’s success and anti-Semitism)<br />
<br />
Jacques – born Jakob to poor Jewish cantor & musician from Cologne – admitted to Conservatoire under <b>Cherubini</b>, but dropped out after a year – virtuoso cellist – met F. Halevy and sat in his box for La Juive – one of the first French Grand Operas. Halevy senior mentored & introduced him to the influential (& essential) salons (pre-requisite for success/fame in 19th century Paris). <br />
*See campy 90’s bio-film Impromptu (Hugh Grant as Chopin; Julian Sands as Liszt)<br />
*Proust’s composer Vinteuil in Swann’s Way (typifies salon composer)<br />
*Also, A. Neumann’s novel Traveler of the Century (not Paris, but perfect Salon setting)<br />
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<i>Rise of the Arcades</i> – vendors, commodities, fashion, “people watching,” etc – first period in architectural history where iron is primary material / closely associated with Industry, et al.<br />
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<i>Rise of the Flaneur | Dandy |</i> Bourgeoisie [Offenbach & Halevy’s frequent co-librettist, Henri Meilhac “was the quintessential boulevardier…his chief interest in life was to be a Flåneur…<br />
<br />
Nobility ridiculed rising bourgeoisie while envying their swift ascent; <br />
bourgeoisie ridiculed the same nobility [gratin = upper crust] they shamelessly imitated! [see Kracaueur below]<br />
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Anecdote: <i>Naïade</i> journal printed on rubber to be read in the bath by dandies!<br />
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“Jockey Club” at the Opéra: most popular society (=fraternity) which spent more time appreciating the ballerinas in the foyer de danse than they did the evening’s opera!<br />
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Frivolity & hedonism of the gratin & bourgeoisie in marked contrast to the underside of the Empire. The 1832 Cholera epidemic (“manifestly a disease of poverty” –A. Horne – affecting 6X as many poor), and the scourge of a disease closest to modern-day AIDS, syphilis, affected artists and “bohemians” at an alarming rate. Maupassant, Dumas, Baudelaire, Manet – just one distinguished quartet of victims – [Alistair Horne: The Seven Ages of Paris]<br />
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The theatre was not exempt from violence & scandal: from Hugo’s riot-inspiring Hernani (source of Verdi’s early masterpiece, Ernani) through Offenbach, left and right (republicans and royalists) fought when one side cheered a piece which made fun of the other. These social skirmishes led to the banning of umbrellas, canes and other “weapons,” and thus the origins of the coat – or check – room. <br />
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Mr Choufleuri premiered May 31, 1861, at the Presidential Palace (attended by as many ambassadors and dignitaries as refused the title character’s invitation in the opera itself!)<br />
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Morny – co-author with Halevy – was a noted statesman and stepbrother to the Emperor – <br />
made a Duke in 1862, he was a notorious pedant and cynic. He frequently lectured guests on etiquette, and kept caged apes in his foyer as a reminder of “the true nature of man.” All the more revealing an insight into this window of Parisian history, given the satirical nature of the scenario he presented Offenbach & co. <br />
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Offenbach’s “unerring theatrical instincts” his “jokes & witticisms in the jargon of the Boulevards” ensured his success, once enough attention was paid – <br />
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Operettas which “laid bare the foundations of contemporary society” (= its inequities & hypocrisies). They resonated for their “satire at the expense of great figures of antiquity” in works like Orpheus in the Underworld and his masterpiece farce of Helen of Troy, <i>La Belle Hélène</i>. In more “domestic” works like Mr Choufleuri, the satire is a mirror aimed at the very society who adored and demanded more of it. (quotes: Kracauer, chapter 5)<br />
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“Public Opinion [in Orpheus] stands for the appearance of honor, loyalty, and faith – in other words, for social convention.” (p. 208)<br />
<br />
<i>Did it not seem as though at the first sound of this delirious orchestra a whole society suddenly sprang into being and dashed madly into the midst of the dance? This music would be enough to awaken the dead…it seemed as if the whole throng were seized with a mighty impulse, and as though the whole [19th] century, with its governments, institutions, customs, and laws, were plunged into the whirl of a tremendous, all-embracing saraband</i>. <br />
(Francisque Sarcey, on the 1858 premiere of <i>Orphee aux Enfers</i>) (Kracauer, p. 210)<br />
<br />
Orpheus reintroduced the cancan and “set all Paris dancing” and ran for 228 consecutive performances (sic). With his first masterpiece, “the genre of the Offenbachiade was created.”<br />
<br />
“In Offenbach tenderness and gaiety, bright wit and genuine feeling lived harmoniously side by side… A kind of inverted magician, he took it as his mission to unmask the hollow phantoms that tyrannize over mankind; but he gave his blessing to every genuine human emotion that he met on his way.” (211)<br />
<br />
Court life – imitated by courtiers & bourgeoisie – play charades using Mythological characters, clown around like jesters – a “fashion for tableaux vivants, the object of which was to seize and eternalize the fleeting moment; and after…the company would plunge into the whirl of a masked ball, at which Offenbach’s music fulfilled the same function as at the theater.” (Chapter 6)<br />
<br />
<i><b>Offenbachiad mottos for the Paris of his time</b></i>:<br />
“<i>Let us preserve appearances, for all depends on that</i>!” (Jupiter, in O’s Orpheus – a propos!)<br />
<br />
<i>Dis-moi, Venus, quel plaisir trouves-tu | á faire ainsi cascader la vertu? (La Belle Hélène</i>)<br />
(Tell me, Venus, what pleasure do you take | in causing the downfall of my virtue?)<br />
___<br />
<br />
<i>Baudelaire (1821-1867) – La Bohème – Les Misérables and the barricades (Easter 2014)<br />
<b></b></i><br />
I will vent my anger in terrifying books “Grim rage – la rogue” – the result of 50-odd years of fighting amidst barricades (from Benjamin: TWOML, p. 48)<br />
<br />
“Address to Paris” – fragment to close Fleurs du Mal – magic cobblestones which rise up to form fortresses<br />
<br />
“Les Vin des chiffonniers” (Ragpicker’s Wine)<br />
<br />
Et sous les firmament comme un dais suspendu | S’enivre des splendeurs de sa propre vertu<br />
(Under the sky like a canopy suspended| He intoxicates himself on his virtue’s many splendours)<br />
<br />
To drown the bitterness and lull the indolence | of all those old wretches who die in silence<br />
God in remorse, created sleep; | Man added wine, sacred son of the Sun! (final 1857 version)<br />
<br />
“La Reniement de St. Pierre” (The Denial of St Peter)<br />
Did you dream of those days… | Where your heart swelled with hope and courage,<br />
You used to drive out all the vile money lenders with your brave hands | When were you at last the master? Has remorse not | pierced your side more than the spear (Benjamin, 233)<br />
<br />
…<i>the Luciferian privilege of blaspheming the Satan to whom one has fallen prey</i><br />
– Benjamin on Baudelaire’s cycle <i>Révolte</i> (p. 57)<br />
<br />
[Below is my <i>trés amateur</i> sketch for our set design. Though I have experience as a stage director, I am not a designer. I present a concept, ideas, and give a picture of what I see. I (and most directors) depend on a designer to translate vision into product. You won't believe what the inventive, ever-resourceful Kim Renz did with his shoestring budget and my blue-aisle-special sketches. You'll have to come and see! And I can't begin to say how thrilled I am with my friend and colleague, Jessica Miller - exceptional guardian of the former Opera Roanoke costume stock!]<br />
<br />
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<b>Kracauer: The Salons (pp 71-87):<i></i></b><br />
<br />
“Offenbach took a big risk in giving up his appointment at the Opéra-Comique without having anything else in view.” His luck changed with his friendship with Flotow, “present on the memorable occasion at the Marquis de Custine’s when George Sand, who arrived in the company of Frédéric Chopin, astonished everybody by asking for a cigar and smoking it, strolling up and down in the garden…”<br />
<br />
<i>The salons in the time of Louis-Philippe still exercised an enormous influence…the salons constituted a world in themselves, with widespread ramifications…the nobility predominated… The nobility ridiculed the rising power of the bourgeoisie but envied it, while the bourgeoisie ridiculed the nobility but imitated them</i>. [La plus que ca change, c’est la même chose … originated in 1849 Paris, has not never lost coinage since…]<br />
<br />
<i>The supreme ambition of the hostess of every salon was to offer her guests music. Music was the vogue. There was a universal obsession with it…in some circles the music was so good that it actually seemed to be provided for its own sake…Heine complained bitterly about it, and he regarded going to an evening party as a martyrdom Yes</i>! (La plus ca change, vraiment?!) Heine: “Bands of youthful dilettanti, of whom one has learned by experience to expect the very worst, perform in very key and on all the instruments that have ever been invented.” <br />
<br />
The way to the concert hall lay through the <i>Soirees of the well-to-do</i>, which “lay open” the way to the Salons, which could lead to “the dazzling prospect of…fame as a virtuoso. Flotow described this less-than-by-the-book “kitchen recipe” thusly: “<i>One makes several appearances in the course of the winter, and then, at the beginning of Lent, one announces a concert and sends a dozen high-priced tickets, generally at 10 francs, to the hostess of every salon at which one has played…It practically never happens that all, or even any, of the tickets are sent back…The cost of such a concert is negligible. It is given on a profit-sharing basis, takes place in daylight, which saves on the expense of lighting…[advertising/marketing efforts] are unnecessary…nor is there any need for a box office…Any artist who is ambitious can easily maintain himself in Paris in this agreeable fashion</i>… Easy for you to say, Frederick!<br />
<br />
Offenbach’s first soiree was with the famous composer Flotow, who wrote of his 19-yr old prodigy, “my friend was a great success, and very soon he was a favorite…”<br />
<br />
He saw the “young dandies, who had no hesitation in entering a salon covered in dust and dirty boots and always made a beeline for the smoking room immediately after dinner – a form of behaviour… considered the height of smartness. He saw the society ‘Lions’ defined by Mme de Girardin as “one who is noticed,” compared to the lowlier dandy, “a man who wants to be noticed.” <i>Offenbach must necessarily have seen the young men, all looking exactly alike, half monkeys and half lapdogs…forerunners of [characters in] La Vie parisienne</i>... <br />
<br />
<i>While some made themselves slaves to pleasure in order to have, rather, a substitute for something to do, others compensated for the impossibility of doing anything real in life by cultivating their inner sensibilities. They developed countless sentimental enthusiasms. Young poets were permitted to pose as geniuses even in the most aristocratic salons. Groups of young men and women met to read the plays of Victor Hugo and the novels of George Sand and invariably showed themselves supremely affected the experience</i>. [Does qualify these “dandies” as Dilettantes and Philistines? Must pursue further…]<br />
<br />
Music’s “<i>function, like that of romantic literature, was to compensate bourgeois…for the emptiness and meaningless of the atmosphere… the greater outward triumph of materialism, the greater the inner need for emotional upsurgings. Music satisfied this yearning – not so much music in general as one form of it, the sentimental ballad….ballads were the object of a positive cult…they plucked at one’s heartstrings from behind the curtains…a whole deluge of feeling was unloosed to vie with the flood of riches</i>…Offenbach’s riposte to this cult and its inherent sensationalist commercialism (L’inimico della Patria!) was “At the daily sight of 33,333,444,666,000 [33 quadrillion, 333 trillion, etc!] albums displayed in the windows of the music-shops, which have no other purpose than to beguile…the leisure of the salons dedicated to the ballad-cult, we may well exclaim: ‘Album, why should I write anything for you?’ [<i>La plus que ca change</i> – Encore!]<br />
<br />
<i>Chapter Six: The Boulevards, Home of the Homeless</i>, pp. 89-107 [cf: Baudelaire, above]<br />
<br />
<i>Whenever O. heard a concert was being arranged, he would hurry to ask for permission to play. As a rule this was readily granted, with no thought, however, of offering him any payment for his service</i>. [Tangent: Thank you, society: artists have been poor bohemians posing as interloping academics, artistic directors, and so-called “freelance artists” from earlier than O. & ever since!] <br />
<br />
And to add insult to injury, akin to asking the servant to kiss the master’s ring, if you will, “he was expected to be grateful for the opportunity of playing in public for nothing…” Unlike many in similar cases, he was “optimistic.” He was “importunate,” as many tend to be, and he was described as “indefatigable,” as every full-time (= free-lance) artist must be… Oh, if they could only charge "billable hours" worthy of their talents! <br />
<br />
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But "Noble Jack von Offenback!" as jealous Richard pegged him, rose to not just fame and fortune "against all odds," but was a true Mozartian genius. He is worthy of those composers like Puccini, Poulenc, Korngold, Lehar, and others - truly great composers who look up to Mozart and Beethoven and Bach - as virtually every single other mortal has had - or should have to…<br />
<br />
KRAK, KRAK, KRAKERAKRAK | IS NOBLE JACK VON OFFENBACK! Indeed...Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-68800324297821832512013-11-25T00:43:00.001-05:002013-11-25T01:04:30.096-05:00Britten Notebooks III: Parables & QuartetsSee below for more notes, quotes & miscellany on Benjamin Britten during this, his 100th birthday weekend. <br />
<br />
Sunday | 24 November 2013 | Britten 100<br />
<br />
Friends, remember! | Gold is tried in the fire | And the mettle of man | In the furnace of humiliation…<br />
… God give us all | The strength to walk | Safe in the burning furnace | Of this murderous world. <br />
– from The Burning Fiery Furnace (libretto by William Plomer) <br />
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Listened this morning to a vivid performance of <i>The Burning Fiery Furnace</i> from the Aldeburgh Festival by Mahogany Opera produced in Orford Church, the space for which the three Church Parables were planned and premiered. (Memory: this is where we saw a 2003 production of <i>Lucretia,</i> which generated interesting discussion and disagreement over the Christianization of the story vis-à-vis the ending. Both our Britten-Pears Programme directors, Michael Chance and Tim Carroll, felt strongly the anachronistic redemption of the ancient Roman tragedy “didn’t work.”) <i>The Burning Fiery Furnace</i> production certainly did work – it was so well-paced, balanced and characterized – you could imagine Nebuchadnezzar’s elaborate robes, the Babylonian “god of gold,” the stained-glass window behind which the Angel appears, etc, etc - just listening via online radio. <br />
<br />
[N.B. Having long sat with these pieces and considered programming them, this morning was the first time I believed the right production could not only be pulled off locally, but would be both entertaining and moving. The instrumental march, for example, would be a sure hit when done with a band who embraces the drama (as they must). It would require particular care in casting and production planning, and would have to be strongly supported by the right church.]<br />
___<br />
<br />
Britten’s <i>String Quartets</i> – this Centenary year and weekend notwithstanding – are a neglected room in the mansion of his legacy, especially on the US side of the pond. This is our loss. His first quartet was commissioned by the same American patron (Elizabeth Coolidge) who sought new quartets from Bartok and Schoenberg. Composed while he was in the US in 1941, Britten’s String Quartet No. 1 in D, op. 25, won the young émigré a Gold Medal from the Library of Congress for service to Chamber Music. Its shimmering opening – a perilously difficult passage for the upper strings – reflect the “California Sun” where Britten and Pears were living at the time, according to the composer, David Matthews. The Andante third movement is an early example of Britten’s gift for masterfully sustained lyricism; a trait he shared with his musical heroes Mozart, Schubert and Mahler. <br />
<br />
One of the reasons the Quartets (like much of his instrumental output) are lesser known is <br />
a result of the large shadows cast by his operas and vocal works. String Quartet No. 2 in C, op. 36, comes from 1945, the same year as <i>Peter Grimes,</i> and the 250th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell. Written after his Purcell inspired song-cycle, <i>The Holy Sonnets of John Donne</i>, the 2nd Quartet is dedicated to Britten’s beloved Baroque forbear. The first of the quartet’s three movements was described by the scholar Hans Keller as Britten’s “most deliberate masterpiece.” The final movement, longer than the first two combined, is a Purcellian ground-bass “Chacony,” with 21 (!) variations.<br />
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Keller hoped Britten would continue to write chamber music, and string quartets in particular. He would have to wait 30 years for the realization of this wish, in what must be one of the most poignant examples of delayed gratification in classical music. What is remarkable is the consistency of not only inspiration, but style, voice and character. <br />
<br />
Originally called a “Divertimento,” String Quartet No. 3 in G, op. 94, was completed in Venice in 1975. Though most Britten commentators cite the "arch form" of its 5-movements by linking the outer movements, I would call the form <i>chiastic</i>, and highlight the central, “Song,” movement as its <i>crux</i>. The opening movement is called “Duets,” and features aptly named textures between the voices. The final movement is subtitled “La Serenissima,” after Britten’s (and Pears’) favorite city; a place to which they repaired at crucial times in the composer’s career, and where he always was able to work with inspiration. In addition to assuming another Baroque form (“Passacaglia”) the 5th movement quotes from <i>Death in Venice</i> and mirrors the journey of the opera’s hero, Aschenbach. This was the final role Britten wrote for his muse and partner, Peter Pears. The central movement of his final quartet is a ravishing song without words. It is Britten’s "Adagietto" to Pears, as that of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony was to Alma (and beloved by Britten long before Mahler was in vogue. See below for more on Mahler and Britten. On another note, Britten dedicated his <i>Nocturne</i>, op. 60 to Alma Mahler; their correspondence is mutually supportive and admiring).<br />
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Britten’s instrumental <i>Schwanengesang</i> is one of his most sublime achievements. Its rarified atmosphere is possessed ‘of a profound beauty more touching than anything else, radiant, wise, new, mysterious—overwhelming,’ according to none other than Pears himself. <br />
<br />
All three of the Church Parables and String Quartets were part of the Britten 100 festivities from <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03j8f6d/episodes/guide">BBC Radio 3</a> and are available online for the next week. Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-70634007964617827272013-11-23T23:02:00.002-05:002013-11-23T23:02:29.346-05:00Britten Notebooks: II (for his Centenary weekend)Yesterday I posted several notebook entries here: quotes from other scholars<br />
and some of my own writings, including some poems I hope to include in a portrait<br />
poem of Britten. Inquiring minds can also check out a couple of links on the Opera Blog,<br />
as Britten is on the air practically 24-7 this weekend on BBC and around the UK. Cheers!<br />
<br />
<b>Britten Notebooks, November 2013 (cont.)<br />
</b><br />
Our job is to be useful, and to the living. – Britten <br />
from John Culshaw’s <i>Ben – A Tribute to Benjamin Britten</i> (in DECCA: <i>The Complete Works</i>)<br />
<i>His was a complex character, and superficially full of contradictions. He was world-famous but he did not care for the trappings of fame. He was a marvelous pianist and conductor, yet he did not enjoy performing and the prospect of a concert performance sometimes made him literally sick. As he grew older, he seemed to harbour increasing doubts about his own works – doubts which were not shared by his colleagues or by the public…<br />
<br />
A deceptive simplicity, an earthliness, lies behind all his music, just as it lies behind the music of his beloved Schubert</i>.<br />
___<br />
<br />
<b>Britten 100 | BBC Radio 3 Features</b><br />
<br />
“There was a sort of alchemy about Ben… it [the music] poured out of him” (Jenny Walker, on the “magical atmosphere” in The Death of St Narcissus and other works from the ‘70’s).<br />
<br />
“Ben was less a conductor than a complete musician… Every voice [in the orchestra] was clear…he kept persisting…as if by sheer force of will…it had more to do with his personality…one had an attitude to his conducting that was completely different…an almost religious attitude… it was one degree higher [compared with other conductors] – Anita Wallfisch, on playing in the ECO with Britten for repertoire ranging from Bach, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Debussy, Shostakovich and Britten’s own works (i.e.: ’64 concert with Rostropovich – premiere of Haydn cello concerto with Britten’s cadenza’s, along with BB’s Cello Symphony).<br />
<br />
Back to Kovnatskaya’s “Notes on a Theme from Peter Grimes.” (in <i>On Mahler and Britten</i>, see below)<br />
<br />
<i>This universe is but the discharge of passions | longs stored in the human heart</i>. – Boris Pasternak<br />
<br />
Mahler is the center where Britten and Shostakovich meet. “Russian Shostakovich studies devote no less an important place to the Shostakovich – Mahler digression than Britten scholars in England lend to the Britten-Mahler parallel.” (p. 177)<br />
<br />
In “Kafka and his Precursors,” Borges wryly proves how a contemporary creator informs his interpreters’ understanding of the process of influence. Knowing the connection between Britten’s <i>Death in Venice</i> and Mahler’s <i>Das Lied von der Erde</i>, I listen to the latter in another way. Mahler influences Britten. Mahler is Britten’s precursor. This, then is the context for another example from Russian poetry with which Kovnatskaya enriches her readers: “This is one of the mechanisms of ‘cultural memory’ about which Osip Mandelstam wrote in terms of genetic continuity:”<br />
<br />
<i>We are all, even without realizing it, carriers of an enormous embryological experience… the whole process of experience, which culminates in the memory’s triumphant effort, is amazingly similar to the process of growth…this all develops not of its own accord,but merely as a response to an invitation, as a reaching out in justification of all expectation.</i><br />
<br />
Of the inexplicable force <i>Das Lied</i> had on him, Britten wrote, “I cannot understand it – it passes over me like a tidal wave – and that matters not a jot either, because it goes on for ever, even if it is never performed again – that final chord is printed on the atmosphere” (from 29 June 1937, in Britten: Letters from a Life, Vol. 1). Shostakovich thought it was both “the greatest thing of genius created in music,” and given “only one hour left to live,” he said he “should choose the finale of <i>Das Lied von der Erde</i>” (p. 183). <br />
<br />
Kovnatskaya concludes:<br />
<i>Looking at these reflecting mirrors and prisms of Britten, Mahler and Shostakovich, many new details come into focus…Britten assimilated Shostakovich’s musical language in the style of Mahler, then Shostakovich’s late style betrays elements of Britten’s musical language, again through a Mahlerian prism. Without Mahler a comparative study of the music of Bitten and Shostakovich loses in dimension, depth and inherent meaning, since for both of them Mahler was the embodiment of eternal values, of that ‘blessed inheritance’ (Mandelstam), and of that soul-scorching sense of the modern world</i>. (p. 184)<br />
___<br />
<br />
Postscript: Britten’s letter of 29 June 1937 to Henry Boys opens with this wry remark: <br />
<i>It is now well past midnight & society dictates that I should stop playing the Abschied</i>. <br />
<br />
Before he describes the “tidal wave” effect of Mahler’s <i>Das Lied von der Erde</i>, the 23-year-old composer sounds more like a philosopher or poet: <br />
<br />
<i>It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness & pain: of strength & freedom. The beauty of disappointment & never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony. </i><br />
<br />
(<i>Letters from a Life: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten</i>, Vol. One 1923-39)<br />
<br />
It may seem easy to dismiss such arm-chair aphorisms as the romantic musings typical of a young artist. Knowing Britten’s life and work, however, makes it difficult to read such observations as anything but prescient, if not prophetic. What might the “everlasting beauty of monotony” be besides the perfect essence of a single pure melody? Mahler’s Abschied closes with the soloist singing a descending two-note motive on the word, “ewig,” while the orchestra echoes and cushions the “eternal” essence the composer has depicted. An enormous sphere of sound – “the song of the earth” – has been reduced to a single note: a mono-tone. Britten’s texture of choice in his last decade could be seen as variations on this theme. His beloved Gamelan music, and the timeless chant-inspired textures of the late works aim for such an everlasting beauty, that, however rarified, simple and austere, is anything but monotonous. <br />
<br />
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(The Red House, Aldeburgh - where Britten and Pears lived from 1957)<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-17315945040697432112013-11-22T15:03:00.000-05:002013-11-22T22:12:40.347-05:00Britten 100: Notebooks for his Centenary<b>Britten Notebooks</b> November 2013<br />
<br />
For I have a greater compass of both mirth and melancholy than another… <br />
(from <i>Jubilate Agno</i> – C. Smart)<br />
<br />
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<b>Centenary Week</b> | 17.XI.13<br />
<br />
In one sitting, reading a dozen of Britten’s <b>Letters from a Life</b> (in the sixth and final volume) one encounters separate references to a quartet of eminent artists who were living when this volume appeared just last year (2012). In the notes accompanying their appearances, I entered years of death for Hans Werner Henze, Colin Davis, Galina Vishnevskaya, and Jonathan Harvey. I am only on page 99 out of 700 + pages. The great novelist Doris Lessing died the very day (17.XI.13) I read those letters and wrote this note.<br />
___<br />
<br />
While listening to Shostakovich’s Mahlerian 4th symphony (did Britten know it? given its suppression during Stalin's terror, Britten may never have heard it), I turn a page in the <i>Letters</i> to one from 25 September 1966 he wrote his Russian colleague, wishing DSCH a happy 60th birthday, and “many more years of inspired creative activity” – DS would have 9; BB a mere 7 – “to give the world more of your splendid music.” The essence of bittersweet.<br />
___<br />
<br />
The Tallis Scholars celebrate their 40th anniversary and Peter Philips is the guest on the BBC 3 Early Music show this Sunday. Noted for their crystalline purity of sound, critics have found Philips and his ken “cold,” even “bloodless.” His response is perfect, and applies not only to the “straight-tone” approach to choral music, but perhaps also to the British temperament in general, and a composer like Britten in particular. “The cool surface hides a tremendous emotional charge. Once you understand that, well then you’re hooked.” <br />
___<br />
<br />
18.XI.13<br />
It could not have been lost on Britten the action of <i>Billy Budd</i>, as stated in the Prologue and Epilogue by Captain Vere – the role written for his partner and muse, Peter Pears – is set in 1797, the year of Franz Schubert's birth, one of his favorite composers. The composer he loved more than Beethoven or Brahms, one whom he ranked just under Mozart, one he interpreted with searing intensity and penetrating intimacy, whether with Pears or Fischer-Dieskau or Richter. [N.B. Listen again to his anecdote about meeting Schubert in a dream, and its blessed effect on the following days.]<br />
___<br />
<br />
Listening to the MET’s first broadcast of <i>Billy Budd</i>, from 1979 is notable enough. It also marked Pears’ last MET performance, and represented a “passing of the torch” between another pair of singers. The Budd in Britten’s classic DECCA recording, Peter Glossop, plays Vere’s Lieutenant, while the young baritone, Richard Sitwell sings the title role. At the MET’s most recent remount, its previous Budd, Dwayne Croft, sang the Lt, while its new Budd, Nathan Gunn, had been the Novice’s friend in Croft’s run as Britten’s martyred hero. Musically, the performance is dominated by Raymond Leppard’s incisively dramatic pacing of the sprawling score, and, for me at least, Pears’ remarkably ageless singing. Yes, his Vere is “an old man,” but at 69, he is a better Britten tenor than most others at any age. It's frustrating to this Britten fan that the MET is broadcasting Vickers' <i>Peter Grimes</i> three times this week, rather than Rolfe Johnson's &/or Langridge's, both of whom were renowned Britten tenors, whereas the great Canadian was known for his dramatic Verdi and Wagner roles (Britten infamously walked out of a performance of <i>Grimes</i> featuring Vickers).<br />
___<br />
<br />
19.XI.13<br />
In her excellent essay on a theme from <i>Peter Grimes</i> (in <i>On Mahler and Britten</i>), Ludmila Kovnatskaya quotes her fellow Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam, on “the whole process of experience,” which Britten would have referred to as <i>tradition</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>We are all, even without realizing it, carriers of an enormous embryological experience…<br />
the whole process of experience, which culminates in the memory’s triumphant effort,<br />
is amazingly similar to the process of growth</i>.<br />
___<br />
<br />
<i>Some of my Adventures with Ben Britten<br />
</i><br />
In one, I’m riding in the back of<br />
his old red car while he and the<br />
daughter of the composer who <br />
wrote the music of the 7 spheres<br />
discuss more practical matters.<br />
“Happy listener,” I have never<br />
been more. In another, <br />
Peter Pears sings a<br />
mysterious Nocturne in a<br />
blue room high up in an<br />
ancient tower. All three of us<br />
are together inside a cabin<br />
amidst snowy woods (though<br />
I’d have to check my diary<br />
to see what we discussed or<br />
played or listened to). The<br />
best one was the night I<br />
asked him to appear and<br />
he did, not just once but<br />
repeatedly. The first time,<br />
he had us all in stitches <br />
as he made fun of himself,<br />
“taking the piss” and turning<br />
the tables by telling a story<br />
of a joke another singer<br />
played on Peter and him.<br />
He was red as a poppy<br />
by the time he finished<br />
guffawing at how stuffy<br />
he’d been back then – Ah,<br />
Ben. But later, he and Peter<br />
appeared for a 1986 revival<br />
of <i>Midsummer Night’s Dream</i><br />
at a crowded outdoor festival. How<br />
did we find ourselves there,<br />
Britten looking fresh as he<br />
did at its ’62 premiere, and<br />
Pears, ageless as ever, no <br />
sign of death imminent <br />
for either one of them.<br />
___<br />
<br />
<br />
20.XI.13<br />
all art being | a form of violence | as a peony | is violence <br />
(from “The Problem of Hands,” – L. Mathias)<br />
<br />
Here the strong mallow strikes her slimy root | Here the dull night-shade hangs her deadly fruit <br />
(from "Marsh Flowers" - G. Crabbe)<br />
___<br />
<br />
HIS <br />
<br />
Ben loves HIS.<br />
HIS stands for:<br />
<br />
Hello, Isolating Sea.<br />
Highly Irregular Stomach.<br />
Help! I’m Sick.<br />
Hate Intensifies Stupidity.<br />
Heal. Icarus. Sun.<br />
H Is Spirit<br />
Hallelujah! Inspired Smart<br />
<br />
HIS and HIS<br />
Ben and Peter.<br />
<br />
He Is Superior.<br />
Hesitating. In Sequins?<br />
Home. Ink. Shingle.<br />
Hurt. Illness. Sorry.<br />
Humiliating Internal Surprises.<br />
Honey, I’m silly.<br />
Here, It’s Safe.<br />
<br />
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<br />
21.XI.13<br />
Benjamin Britten writes a letter<br />
<br />
<i>O dear white children casual as birds, <br />
Playing among the ruined languages…<br />
O weep, child weep, O weep away the stain<br />
Lost innocence who wished your lover dead, <br />
Weep for the lives your wishes never led</i>. <br />
(from “Hymn for St Cecilia's Day,” W.H. Auden)<br />
<br />
Dear Cency:<br />
<br />
Please forgive my being out of touch so long, my boy. You must have thought I’d forgotten you! Of course we’ve been terribly busy with concerts – you should hear Peter these days: he sings like an angel, a Greek hero, and the god of music himself! Our festival is now in its 66th year – can you believe it? I remember when you helped us start it. We could never have done it without your vision and indefatigable energy, your wide-eyed imagination and playful sense of adventure. Thank you, thank you, dearest & most cherished friend of those prelapsarian years. We have missed you more than we thought possible. We have neither seen nor heard of you for some time now. Where have you been? Whose dreams are you inspiring, and with whom are you toying? Which choir is blessed with your ever-pure treble, oh muse of the perilous heights? I can imagine your sweet, coy smile as you read this. Alas, time, old-age, sickness, and decay have well-acquainted us with your nemeses. I’m sure I did not get it right in my settings of Blake’s “Songs and Proverbs,” but the poet of the “Poison’d Tree” most certainly did. Only it is we who are now felled. How I hated to leave Peter. In the end, those we love matter most. Yet looking back, it seems I devoted my entire life to you, sweet boy: to finding you again – to healing the rift when you were taken from us. Or did we let you go? Whether searching for you in others – to my ultimate disappointment & their inevitable frustration – whether trying to recreate you through music or living vicariously through the children of our friends, I could only catch a glimpse of you, dearest Innocence; I could never touch you, never know you again. Perhaps you, too, were merely another ghost, a phantom from the irreparable past.<br />
Will I ever see you again? <br />
With much love,<br />
Ben<br />
___<br />
<br />
Friday, 22 November 2013 | Britten’s 100th birthday | St Cecilia’s Day<br />
<br />
Notes from Christopher Palmer's essay "Towards a Genealogy of Death in Venice."<br />
<br />
He who once has looked on Beauty has lost himself irretrievably to Death. – from Platen’s <i>Tristan</i><br />
<br />
Death, beauty, love, eternity: these are language symbols for this at once platonic and intoxicatingly musical soul-miracle… - Thomas Mann on Platen<br />
<br />
The “dangerous fascination” of the sea – Mann quoting Nietzsche – <br />
the Sea, as symbol of the nothingness which is everythingness… <br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
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Fragment for Benjamin Britten<br />
<br />
Aldeburgh beach! I can feel <br />
the shingle, like loose<br />
cobblestones underneath<br />
my feet. I can hear<br />
the sui generis sound<br />
of the North Sea breaking<br />
over the smooth-stone surface,<br />
scraping away as it ebbs,<br />
as if Thetis and her<br />
Nereids were taking back<br />
whatever remnants remain<br />
from all the dead.<br />
<br />
(July 2013)Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-90659778855503372232013-08-30T09:45:00.000-04:002013-08-30T18:42:24.624-04:00Experimenting with Infinity: Seamus Heaney (April 13, 1939- August 30, 2013)Amy read a poem our friend Ricky shared online this morning by the eminent Irish poet Seamus Heaney: <br />
<br />
Postscript<br />
<br />
And some time make the time to drive out west <br />
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, <br />
In September or October, when the wind <br />
And the light are working off each other <br />
So that the ocean on one side is wild <br />
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones <br />
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit <br />
By the earthed lightening of flock of swans, <br />
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, <br />
Their fully-grown headstrong-looking heads <br />
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. <br />
Useless to think you'll park or capture it <br />
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, <br />
A hurry through which known and strange things pass <br />
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways <br />
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open<br />
<br />
We were both shocked to learn another one of the world's great artists had died. The Academy of American poets website is an excellent source for poets and poetry, so I was surprised to find only one of his poems there. I expect another Heaney verse or two may be added in the coming days, and that the poem-of-the-day in my inbox soon will be one of his, with the almost tacit announcement of his death (...born April 13, 1939, and died August 30, 2013). <br />
<br />
Yet how much has Heaney left us: his collected poems is one of the great achievements in poetry since the second world war, he is regarded as the greatest Irish poet since W.B. Yeats, and his translation of <i>Beowulf</i> has become the new standard for the seminal Old English epic. My single favorite poetry anthology is one he edited with Ted Hughes. <i>The Rattle Bag</i> is arranged, not by subject, region, nor chronology, but alphabetically by title. Unlike its dry academic cousins (the kind from which Robin Williams instructs his students to rip the prefaces in "Dead Poets Society") <i>The Rattle Bag's</i> simple arrangement gives it a concentrated spontaneity and packs it with poetry's unique powers of compression, image, wordplay, and musical language.<br />
<br />
Here's <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21889">A Kite for Aibhin</a>.<br />
<br />
The website Poemhunters.com (not as authoritative as the Poets site above) has several of his popular poems, among them, "From Lightenings," from which this brief tribute takes it title. Here's that section, itself a tribute to Thomas Hardy.<br />
<br />
from "From Lightenings"<br />
Once, as a child, out in a field of sheep, <br />
Thomas Hardy pretended to be dead <br />
And lay down flat among their dainty shins. <br />
<br />
In that sniffed-at, bleated-into, grassy space <br />
He experimented with infinity. <br />
His small cool brow was like an anvil waiting <br />
<br />
For sky to make it sing the perfect pitch <br />
Of his dumb being, and that stir he caused <br />
In the fleece-hustle was the original <br />
<br />
Of a ripple that would travel eighty years <br />
Outward from there, to be the same ripple <br />
Inside him at its last circumference. <br />
<br />
One of his earliest poems, "Digging," finds the poet bent over his writing desk, where his "squat pen rests; snug as a gun." This startling image - so unexpected - is one of Heaney's gifts. It demonstrates the unsettling power of language. Yet there is a sensuality in his language that is always elemental: we can feel and smell and taste and touch the earth. <br />
<br />
Outside the poet's window, "a clean rasping sound | When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:| My father, digging. I look down | Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds| Bends low,..." Heaney is in tune with the seasons of the year and of humankind. "Digging" juxtaposes the poet with his father and grandfather, men who till the soil, "digging" and getting their hands dirty with things other than ink. Here's how he concludes this "ars poetica" from his groundbreaking 1966 collection. <br />
<br />
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap<br />
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge<br />
Through living roots awaken in my head.<br />
But I've no spade to follow men like them.<br />
<br />
Between my finger and my thumb<br />
The squat pen rests.<br />
I'll dig with it. <br />
<br />
Lucky for us he "experimented with infinity" during a half-century of writing poetry we can continue to share. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54FoJJjk0oNhp6VNHLjULPbMT76E0rHNf9IQ90lXqRRWFafpAK16EGUP28ARkQQnY1DBVdJbYBRCKW0Jmmbt4M-t6uuXC3Uj3Q0UjvEXrKoTKoGRxOY53Bp45_PwJqjeW515krXhAliw/s1600/Seamus-Heaney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54FoJJjk0oNhp6VNHLjULPbMT76E0rHNf9IQ90lXqRRWFafpAK16EGUP28ARkQQnY1DBVdJbYBRCKW0Jmmbt4M-t6uuXC3Uj3Q0UjvEXrKoTKoGRxOY53Bp45_PwJqjeW515krXhAliw/s320/Seamus-Heaney.jpg" /></a></div>Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-84312305901145451012013-07-24T16:45:00.000-04:002013-07-31T10:30:55.160-04:00Summer with the BBC PromsFellow Music-Lovers and Colleagues (in need of musical refreshment):<br />
<br />
The BBC Proms is here again. If I finish this quick post in time,<br />
you should be able to click a link and listen live to the second half<br />
of today's "programme" featuring the BBC Philharmonic in<br />
British orchestral works (by Elgar, Bantock, and Walton). Because<br />
the Proms is nothing if not "all in," the meaty program also concludes<br />
with the launch of one of their many focuses (or "themes") for each particular<br />
season. Tchaikovsky's so-called "Fate Symphony," the 4th, kicks of a survey of <br />
each of the Russian Master's 6 symphonies. <br />
<br />
The Proms is the greatest music festival in the world in size and scope - <br />
and many non-Brits would agree - and content.<br />
<br />
Click this <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3">link</a> to listen live everyday until Sept 7.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZWiMQNuvpQPevLmWpxPffJA3qfRaUKhHSac51gQ2RB0eigWTX-sfLKcuSXmbTIAHfpTiBSaMP3Mv8MbR85EVcayS4UERDrTRsnSKni2zLMLU2lp72DHcDgjOhCfy4ElajdWr4b2Iqek/s1600/Sir+Henry+Wood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtZWiMQNuvpQPevLmWpxPffJA3qfRaUKhHSac51gQ2RB0eigWTX-sfLKcuSXmbTIAHfpTiBSaMP3Mv8MbR85EVcayS4UERDrTRsnSKni2zLMLU2lp72DHcDgjOhCfy4ElajdWr4b2Iqek/s320/Sir+Henry+Wood.jpg" /></a></div>(Sir Henry Wood, British conductor and champion of his colleagues, <br />
Elgar, Parry, Bantock, Stanford, et al. <br />
He founded the the Proms in 1895)<br />
<br />
Here's a sampling of the guest soloists, orchestras and the requisite anniversary celebrations:<br />
<br />
<b>Britten and Lutoslawski</b> - 100th birthday, featuring major surveys of each composer<br />
<br />
<b>Verdi and Wagner </b>- Bicentennial, featuring the <i>Four Sacred Pieces</i>, a first-ever Proms Single Season Complete <i>Ring Cycle, </i> as well as <b>Tristan</b> <i>and</i> <b>Parsifal</b>. <br />
<br />
<b>Celebration of Polish Music </b>(and always a celebration of <b>British</b> music!)<br />
<br />
<b>World Premieres</b> by over a dozen contemporary composers<br />
(of all styles, shapes and sizes)<br />
<br />
A RANDOM LIST OF OTHER NOTABLE NAMES:<br />
Pappano & S. Cecilia Roma; <br />
Barenboim & Staats. Berlin; <br />
Bamberg SO & Mahler 5; <br />
Henze & Tippett w/Knussen; <br />
Jansons & Mahler 2; <br />
Midsummer Marriage; <br />
Shostakovich 5, 6, 10, Piano cto. n. 2; <br />
Verdi overtures w/Sinf. d. Milano; <br />
VPO & Maazel & Bruckner 8 <br />
(also Bruckner 4: Oslo/Petrenko, & 7: Salonen)<br />
<br />
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The view of the Royal Albert Hall from behind the Bust of Sir Henry.<br />
He is atop the organ, overlooking the orchestra.<br />
The middle-ground (shaped like a half-sun on the horizon) <br />
is where the "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Proms">Prommers</a>" stand for each concert.<br />
<br />
If you ever are in London between mid-July and early September,<br />
be sure to join the "queue" that day and get your SRO ticket<br />
for whatever is on the docket. <br />
<br />
Cheers!<br />
<br />
P.S. Two things: the concerts which start at 19:30 GMT translate to 2:30 p.m. EST;<br />
and if you listen to a symphony or multi-movement work, don't be surprised to hear<br />
applause: the Proms audience is among the most revered in the world for their<br />
one-of-a-kind attentiveness, openness to new and unfamiliar works, <br />
and their infectious enthusiasm whenever they decide to applaud or clap<br />
for an encore. Enjoy!<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-64944053064343092272013-05-13T14:56:00.001-04:002013-05-13T22:29:28.052-04:00In memoriam: JCW (1 April 2001 - 13 May 2013)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI24A24VZ3P2Fi_EqpOcZoXXR4YqyJIri-hXP9-oAlUqIUUBsCQIaFcfeZfNKz_-mOgw8Mjcw-Viu6qYnDTKfjz2lqVDbujo-bibCXOKpIrMcxxlNhLT-nucYLrScx-CQcIMWoz4elDuk/s1600/J's+last+night+w+Bou.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI24A24VZ3P2Fi_EqpOcZoXXR4YqyJIri-hXP9-oAlUqIUUBsCQIaFcfeZfNKz_-mOgw8Mjcw-Viu6qYnDTKfjz2lqVDbujo-bibCXOKpIrMcxxlNhLT-nucYLrScx-CQcIMWoz4elDuk/s320/J's+last+night+w+Bou.jpg" /></a><br />
<br />
Even the affection of his canine brother, Boulez could not prolong our cat Jeoffry's life,<br />
for he died in his sleep sometime early this morning, a few hours after I took that picture<br />
of our two black-and-white boys on the bed.<br />
<br />
Here is the poem (most famously used by Benjamin Britten in his cantata, Rejoice in the Lamb)<br />
from whence Jeoffry took his name, and quite a few of his traits. From the time he was a few weeks old when we first adopted each other in August 2001 to this very morning, he was my first feline best friend, and was beloved by virtually everyone who met him. And to everyone who ever looked in on him during my frequent travels these past years: thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you know how much he is already missed.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbLSvOqylOvzGYOcRNvQYok8271osjMXOUy_1xsj6EdblMLc_NuxFunD9foQpTyfaVd71RHar5ScbRv6NLPcoR2jRX6HSiHCSGKjs855mswmiRrBgBz2gKYg7XaIeMqpVLFlLYyHs1tWo/s1600/Jeoffrey.VA.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbLSvOqylOvzGYOcRNvQYok8271osjMXOUy_1xsj6EdblMLc_NuxFunD9foQpTyfaVd71RHar5ScbRv6NLPcoR2jRX6HSiHCSGKjs855mswmiRrBgBz2gKYg7XaIeMqpVLFlLYyHs1tWo/s320/Jeoffrey.VA.JPG" /></a><br />
(Here he is during his last season in Norfolk, 2010)<br />
<br />
from Jubilate Agno<br />
Christopher Smart (1722-1771)<br />
<br />
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry. <br />
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.<br />
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.<br />
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.<br />
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.<br />
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.<br />
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.<br />
For this he performs in ten degrees.<br />
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.<br />
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.<br />
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.<br />
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.<br />
For fifthly he washes himself.<br />
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.<br />
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.<br />
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.<br />
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.<br />
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.<br />
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.<br />
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.<br />
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.<br />
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.<br />
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.<br />
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.<br />
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.<br />
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.<br />
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.<br />
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.<br />
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.<br />
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.<br />
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.<br />
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.<br />
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.<br />
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.<br />
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.<br />
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.<br />
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.<br />
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.<br />
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.<br />
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.<br />
For he is tenacious of his point.<br />
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.<br />
For he knows that God is his Saviour.<br />
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.<br />
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.<br />
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually--Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.<br />
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.<br />
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.<br />
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.<br />
For he is docile and can learn certain things.<br />
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.<br />
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.<br />
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.<br />
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.<br />
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.<br />
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.<br />
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.<br />
For the former is afraid of detection.<br />
For the latter refuses the charge.<br />
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.<br />
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.<br />
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.<br />
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.<br />
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.<br />
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.<br />
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.<br />
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.<br />
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.<br />
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.<br />
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.<br />
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.<br />
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.<br />
For he can swim for life.<br />
For he can creep. <br />
<br />
I just encountered a fabulous poem by the contemporary New York poet, Edward Hirsch. It's called "Wild Gratitude" and it's a meditation on Smart's poem, the poet's cat, and more. You can read it online and hear the poet read it on the <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20534">Poets</a> page.<br />
<br />
Joeffry's first sister, Lucina, also shared her name with a beloved poetical cat. Auden's poem<br />
to his beloved kitten was set by another favorite composer of ours, Hans Werner Henze<br />
(1926-2012). <br />
<br />
Here's that poem, following a picture of Jeoffry and Luci in Norfolk, 2008.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1t3TOL901Il2pARZEaUKZt0FWQffuLjEOeXv20GZI3ukk8rztf52shN6mcGwIDrx3fSBn_EFO3_jM8FcsbFKX57AlzyR50K33scPXohnrhzYmGKASb-UZoqL5Hyy41M6s-z8eCiPpyM/s1600/J+and+L.Bayfront.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-1t3TOL901Il2pARZEaUKZt0FWQffuLjEOeXv20GZI3ukk8rztf52shN6mcGwIDrx3fSBn_EFO3_jM8FcsbFKX57AlzyR50K33scPXohnrhzYmGKASb-UZoqL5Hyy41M6s-z8eCiPpyM/s320/J+and+L.Bayfront.JPG" /></a><br />
<br />
In Memoriam, L.K.A; 1950-1952 <br />
<br />
At peace under this mandarin, sleep, Lucina<br />
Blue-eyed queen of white cats<br />
For you the Ischian wave <br />
Shall weep <br />
When we who now miss you<br />
Are American dust<br />
And steep Epomeo in peace and war<br />
Augustly a grave-watch keep. <br />
<br />
(W.H. Auden)<br />
<br />
In one of life's many unpredictable twists, Luci died just after I left for the airport and another gig. Amy has been away much of this Spring, and J died just one week before her return. We'll read Christopher Smart together while we scatter Jeoffry's ashes across our new garden, outside a house which has never felt emptier.<br />
<br />
For further reading on poems about cats, pets, grief (and every other occasion) see the <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16142">Poets</a> page for Thomas Gray's "Ode on the death of a favorite cat" and links to similar poems.Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-76861317052798368452013-04-29T21:20:00.002-04:002013-04-29T21:20:45.416-04:00Pirate Dreams: Original Poetry after The Pirates of PenzancePirate Dreams<br />
<br />
I.<br />
Dreams of dancing police<br />
in a game of <br />
chance or music for <br />
changes – what was it?<br />
Nevermind the weather let’s<br />
talk about the daisies <br />
or binomial theorem if<br />
you’re teeming with a <br />
lot of news practice <br />
squaring the hypotenuse General <br />
as the sorties scour <br />
the commissariat and the <br />
Pirate King loots the<br />
shore with a centre- <br />
bit another orphan boy <br />
empty-handed hail poetry<br />
___<br />
<br />
II.<br />
Thirteen-four-thirteen<br />
Pirates and police – oh my!<br />
Please no more encores<br />
<br />
Caravanserai<br />
Disyllabification<br />
Commissariat<br />
<br />
Dotted with daisies<br />
talking about the weather<br />
matrimonified<br />
<br />
Heliogabalus<br />
binomial theorem<br />
deliberateness<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
<br />
III. A portrait of Isabel’s mermaids<br />
<br />
<i>… a carved stone-portal entrance / to a forbidden sea-temple;<br />
they called the creature… / …a Siren, / a maid-of-the-sea, a mermaid,<br />
Some said, this mermaid sang / and that a Siren-song was fatal </i>(H.D.)<br />
<br />
Isabel, aka Tall Stanley, likes <br />
“mermaids and eating” or so<br />
the local newspaper reported.<br />
She thinks of them as<br />
fellow humans, we aver<br />
from her dialogue with<br />
Kate and Edith (Spunky<br />
and Short Stanley, respectfully).<br />
“It’s the very place for mermaids!”<br />
she gleefully exclaims<br />
through a mouth full of cake.<br />
<br />
What does Isabel – <i>o la<br />
belle! Mademoiselle! Veuve<br />
la belle – La Belle Dam</i>e…<br />
What do you dream<br />
you’ll find five fathoms deep?<br />
Do you fancy some<br />
Pre-Raphaelite vision<br />
like Cowper’s portrait<br />
of Keats’ <i>La Belle<br />
Dame Sans Merci</i> ?<br />
The dangerous nymph,<br />
the “lady in the meads,<br />
full beautiful – a faery’s child<br />
Her hair was long, her foot was light<br />
And her eyes were wild.”<br />
<br />
Oh! What a lady <br />
she must have been,<br />
right, Isabel? What<br />
mermaids wait at<br />
the bottom of your dark <br />
wishing-well? You’re <br />
as mysterious as they are.<br />
Dare I write another<br />
<br />
___<br />
<br />
[Here the poem breaks off]<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1ookXNupDaZ_QAGJwhCxlqsrUcn0fb2qb1G-SH7iH2WPA2IbK7p8FnuDVC9y72OkXbQmoQYMgx56rpYKz-axvHv02JMcoy0fKqEgyBPkSHss1gn0zytHIXPdKfey4CMPlf2ljifRgkg/s1600/cowper.labelledame.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY1ookXNupDaZ_QAGJwhCxlqsrUcn0fb2qb1G-SH7iH2WPA2IbK7p8FnuDVC9y72OkXbQmoQYMgx56rpYKz-axvHv02JMcoy0fKqEgyBPkSHss1gn0zytHIXPdKfey4CMPlf2ljifRgkg/s320/cowper.labelledame.jpg" /></a><br />
Cowper: La Belle Dame Sans Merci (The Beautiful Woman Without Mercy)<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-31316601361203395292012-11-14T13:50:00.000-05:002013-02-08T11:20:29.256-05:00Henze, in his own wordsHans Werner Henze (1926-2012 - see below for a personal tribute), in his own words... <br />
(from <i>Music and Politics, Collected Writings</i> 1953-1981)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu8U_1eOpoayjmeHcvBpKaLU4c8gQyoX8pjBH32AlH9x2gFMLXBx_gV5I38rVjlSiC_CI5Grfs-vk-RZ8sW4faPLKdARUgbtH54O_EB_-VXDdSBCYIF2FsLCykDFDZoLA2jZd-oAcqPnI/s1600/Henze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="308" width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu8U_1eOpoayjmeHcvBpKaLU4c8gQyoX8pjBH32AlH9x2gFMLXBx_gV5I38rVjlSiC_CI5Grfs-vk-RZ8sW4faPLKdARUgbtH54O_EB_-VXDdSBCYIF2FsLCykDFDZoLA2jZd-oAcqPnI/s320/Henze.jpg" /></a></div><br />
My certainty lies in my wavering. My wavering is ambivalence about a world that has populated itself with people whose papers are all in order. is one meant to congratulate, to applaud them? (1957)<br />
<br />
Art is constantly in danger and must incessantly be re-invented, to ward off the encroachment of mechanical processes. (1959)<br />
<br />
Old forms, like classical ideals of beauty, seem to me no longer attainable, but they still may be seen in the distance; they stimulate memory, like dreams, but the path to them is filled with the great darkness of our age; this path to them is the most difficult and impossible. It seems to me the only folly worth living for. (1963)<br />
<br />
I needed to be entirely alone, like a hermit, in order to find out what music represented for me, how it is tied to our existence, what its meaning might be, and what the cultural tasks might be for the composer in human society.<br />
<br />
Music as speech: a discourse, a syntax, a means of communication and instruction.<br />
<br />
Music is not musicology, and the logic of a work resets on a unique constellation of incident, encounter, experience, agreement; it transcends inherited rules, construction, calculation… illuminations and discoveries take place in dreams, not in the laboratory. Not, however, in a state of haziness, but in the wakefulness of sleepwalkers, where facts are perceived with abnormal clarity. (1964)<br />
<br />
On Auden & Kallman’s libretto for <i>The Bassarids</i>, quoting Aurora Ciliberti: <br />
Culture is for Auden not scholasticism, but a real knowledge of the facts; its core is faith; it is not something one wears like a piece of jewelry, but what makes a human being.<br />
<br />
The charm and the fascination of the theatre lies precisely in the multitude of possibilities with which it can reflect life in ever new shapes and forms.<br />
<br />
Fundamental human and existential problems give rise to music.<br />
<br />
I have on occasion said that music drama interest me because for me music is a language that people have not yet mastered, and about which they do not yet know enough. Today [1975] there is a terrible danger, as people are bombarded with music everywhere they go, that this situation will harden into a kind of paralysis of the ear and the organs of sound perception. So instead of the human psyche and intellect being developed to understand music as a language – as a part of the sign-system of our civilization – there is a total idiotization, an impoverishment of the possibilities of perceiving the true meaning of musical signs. A major part of my efforts is concerned with communicating the language of music as such, and as a language that comes from the history of our civilization, that has an origin, a present and a past, and will have a future for which we, the composers, are responsible.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSI3cXVowCJSt-TWsBs3dHZVu6luqXYP4dMoLSXye872ER7eZQkgAFnWOyLKRuE422NiDKCQyuXvuucCRkfy-tkA4smE4IucfRDuND87t70_6axkqtAlEUDxMEZKKEJOduyNi6Jhg4u4o/s1600/Henze.2006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="290" width="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSI3cXVowCJSt-TWsBs3dHZVu6luqXYP4dMoLSXye872ER7eZQkgAFnWOyLKRuE422NiDKCQyuXvuucCRkfy-tkA4smE4IucfRDuND87t70_6axkqtAlEUDxMEZKKEJOduyNi6Jhg4u4o/s320/Henze.2006.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Forms in art are in fact also forms of behavior as between people – modes of communication… Art is living and essential only where it is involved with people’s needs and problems. (1975)<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-11121641511089867002012-11-08T10:02:00.000-05:002012-11-08T11:17:12.053-05:00The "rich & strange" music of Thomas Adès...On the occasion of the Met "Live in HD" broadcast of <i>The Tempest</i><br />
by Thomas Adès, here's a poem inspired by one of his orchestral works.<br />
<br />
Simon Rattle paired Mahler's 5th Symphony with Adès' 4-movement symphonic tone poem<br />
<i>Asyla</i> (the plural of Asylum) for his first program as the new director of the Berlin Philharmonic a decade ago. It's 3rd movement is a symphonic evocation of club music, and its title, <i>Ecstasio</i> is as rich a play on word as is <i>Asyla</i>. <br />
<br />
Asyla<br />
<br />
III. what is this <br />
sound coming<br />
<br />
out of even<br />
the stems<br />
<br />
of these<br />
flowers? <br />
<br />
and is<br />
this <i>ecstasio</i><br />
imagined <br />
or<br />
palpably real<br />
<br />
as Hamlet’s wound<br />
or doubt<br />
or disgust…<br />
<br />
IV. so much<br />
<br />
depends upon<br />
a piano<br />
<br />
tuned to another<br />
key like<br />
<br />
the crossed<br />
purposes of<br />
lovers or<br />
<br />
parents<br />
<br />
or gods. <br />
<br />
The<br />
thing is <br />
<br />
simply<br />
<br />
to find it.<br />
(after Adès)<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-5093736531740885242012-11-04T15:58:00.000-05:002012-11-08T11:21:17.891-05:00In Memoriam: HWH: 1926-2012 <i>In Memoriam</i>: Hans Werner Henze, 1.VII.1926-27.X.2012<br />
<br />
We just learned yesterday that one of our favorite composers - and one of the most vital, original and prolific composers of the last 60 years - Hans Werner Henze, died October 27 at age 86.<br />
<br />
I met Maestro Henze at the US premiere by the New York Phil of his anti-fascist 9th Symphony, based on Anna Seghers searing novel, <i>The Seventh Cross</i>. He signed my study score of his 5th Symphony (written for Bernstein and the NYPO in the early '60's). We talked briefly about the importance of music like his - music that is full of humanity and consciousness; art that performs, enacts or enables the act of memory. <br />
<br />
Excellent obituaries can be found online at the Guardian, Musical America and the NY Times. YouTube has an extensive Hans Werner Henze playlist, featuring excerpts from some of his 2-dozen operas, 10 symphonies, dozen ballets, and many of his hundreds of other vocal, chamber, choral and orchestral works. He was a visionary, an iconoclast and an eccentric, and his music reflects his character. He is at once a late romantic, an expressionist and impressionist, a member of the avant-garde and one of its scourges. Like his beloved Whitman, Henze contains multitudes. Below are some quotes from a book of his essays, followed by poetic tributes I penned in his honor. <br />
<br />
<i>The charm and the fascination of the theatre lies precisely in the multitude of possibilities with which it can reflect life in ever new shapes and forms.<br />
<br />
Fundamental human and existential problems give rise to music.<br />
<br />
I have on occasion said that music drama interest me because for me music is a language that people have not yet mastered, and about which they do not yet know enough. Today [1975] there is a terrible danger, as people are bombarded with music everywhere they go, that this situation will harden into a kind of paralysis of the ear and the organs of sound perception. So instead of the human psyche and intellect being developed to understand music as a language – as a part of the sign-system of our civilization – there is a total idiotization, an impoverishment of the possibilities of perceiving the true meaning of musical signs. A major part of my efforts is concerned with communicating the language of music as such, and as a language that comes from the history of our civilization, that has an origin, a present and a past, and will have a future for which we, the composers, are responsible.<br />
<br />
Forms in art are in fact also forms of behavior as between people – modes of communication… Art is living and essential only where it is involved with people’s needs and problems.</i><br />
<br />
(from Hans Werner Henze, <i>Music and Politics, Collected Writings,</i> 1953-1981, Faber)<br />
<br />
Ø∑∏ÆΩ∫ß◊†<br />
a HWH<br />
<br />
I. You must be laughing with Selim and Suleika in the Spirit world,<br />
As your disciples, devotees and lovers left behind mourn<br />
Your passing and celebrate your prodigal gifts to music, art <br />
And humanity. Thank you, Hans for singing such rich and strange<br />
Songs across the tempestuous decades after the War. Your <br />
Voice may echo only faintly in hardened quarters; it quavers<br />
In between the heartstrings in the enchanted forest you<br />
Composed to life, and it sings an ecstatic descant above the<br />
Ravaged world over which you ranged, explored and excavated.<br />
<br />
I owe you a large portion of my conscience, a hearty store of<br />
Imagination and an ever-renewing source of inspiration from <br />
Your polyphonic symphonies, your visionary operas, your sui generis<br />
Concertos and evergreen ballets, the beautiful palette of your tone poems; <br />
Songs, chorales and chamber works of floral intimacy and fluorescent<br />
Luminosity. Your voice is missed already, but it will resound as long as<br />
The bards hymn, the dancers fly and the singers soar ethereal…<br />
<br />
<br />
II. With whom shall we commune in the dreamworld today, Hans? <br />
<i>Sebastian</i> or Percy? Lady M or Jean G? Where is Rudi? Natasha? <br />
The <i>Cimarrón</i> and the <i>Pigs</i> who should have drowned with the <i>Medusa</i>?<br />
(Mustn’t hold the bitterness in the mouth; it sours the wine…)<br />
Where are Peter and Ben? Chester and Wystan, Willie, Ingeborg, Christopher?<br />
I haven’t heard your love letter to Fausto and I miss the Greyhounds almost as much <br />
As you do. Persephone, Antigone, <i>Orpheus</i>! Selim, Suleika, Rimbaud and Walt!<br />
Pentheus & Dionysus, <i>Apollo & Hyacinth, Phaedra, Daphne</i>, Manon!<br />
<i>The Prince</i> and <i>King Stag</i>, the <i>Young Lovers</i> and the <i>Hoopoe</i>! <i>The English Cat</i>,<br />
<i>Undine</i> and Fonteyn! Have they cut down the <i>7th Cross</i> and censored your <br />
<i>Requiem</i>? Fear not, we will dance like the <i>Maenads</i> and <i>Dithyramb</i> a storm for those <br />
<i>Whispers of the Heavenly Death</i>. <i>The West Wind</i> will carry the intoxicating scent of<br />
<i>The Miracle of the Rose</i> and only the fascists will be thrown in the <i>Labyrinth</i>. <br />
We give Thanks you were not burned at the stake like Bruno for your<br />
<i>Praise to the Infinities</i>. <i>The Sicilian Muses</i> and <i>Neapolitan Songs</i> and the ethereal<br />
<i>Cantata of the Ultimate Fable </i>– Your beautiful eccentric life’s work, é vero? <br />
We’re joining <i>Aristaeus</i> for the <i>Barcarola</i> with the Ferryman, singing<br />
<i>Nocturnes and Arias </i>with abandon, <i>Being Beauteous, Behind the Wire,</i> like<br />
<i>Swann in Love</i> with <i>Tristan</i>. Ciao, Caro. Bis bald.<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-15792361129369443062012-10-08T12:48:00.000-04:002012-10-10T10:44:06.637-04:00To E.A.P on the anniversary of his deathIn honor of Columbus day and the anniversary of the death of America's most original and visionary romantic, Edgar Allan Poe (d. Oct 7, 1849) here is a little ditty incorporating all of the titles of Poe's mature poems. It is dedicated to the young apprentice artists of Opera Roanoke. We began rehearsals yesterday for our upcoming <i>Masques of Orpheus<b></b></i> scenes program entitled <b>"Tempests, Ghosts & Mad Queens."</b> Edgar Allan himself will be the host of this ghoulish entertainment <b>Nov 2 & 4 </b>in Floyd and Roanoke, respectively.<br />
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To E.A.P on the anniversary of his death<br />
(7.X.12 | Roanoke, VA)<br />
<br />
What fantastic images of yore – <br />
What haunted images of yours,<br />
Edgar Allan shall we today conjure?<br />
<br />
Shall we visit <i>The Haunted Palace</i> – <br />
“Ah, nevermore!” Serenade <i>Ulalume</i>, sing<br />
<i>To Helen </i>or meet <i>Annabel Lee</i> in<br />
<i>Dream-Land</i> by <i>The City in the Sea</i> that is <br />
<i>An Enigma</i> tolling like “the tintinnabulation <br />
that so musically wells” from <i>The Bells</i> <br />
or the “double life” of <i>Silence</i> in <i>The Valley of Unrest</i>?<br />
<br />
“I saw thee once” in <i>A Dream Within a Dream</i> – <br />
<i>To One in Paradise</i> - <i>The Sleeper</i> reads a twisted<br />
<i>Valentine</i> of <i>The Conqueror Worm</i> – <br />
One of numberless unfinished <i>Scenes from Politian</i> – <br />
In <i>The Coliseum</i>, a <i>Hymn</i> from <i>Israfel</i> – <i>To My Mother</i> – <br />
(in <i>Eldorado</i>) – ah, <i>Lenore</i> – or <br />
<i>To Helen, Eulalie,</i> “blushing bride”<br />
on the “Isola d’oro” when we fled<br />
<i>To Zante </i>and sang our <i>Bridal Ballad</i><br />
<i>For Annie, To F – S S. O – D, To F - -, To - - <br />
</i><br />
Quoth <i>The Raven</i>: “Nevermore…”<br />
<br />
<i>N.B. The Italicized words are the titles of Poe’s poems;<br />
the words in parentheses are quotations from them.<br />
Very little in this so-called poem is therefore original. – H.L.M.</i><br />
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(Manet's illustration for Mallarme's French edition of "The Raven")<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-14910249637983812592012-09-16T11:48:00.000-04:002012-09-16T11:48:16.913-04:00Interpretation, or reading the lines & what is or is not between them…16.IX.12/Roanoke (for James, on his birthday)<br />
<br />
<i>We call a hole a grave if we value what goes into it, a mine if we value what comes out.<br />
<br />
The instrument at hand. (The instrument. The hand.)<br />
<br />
No snide experiment. A broken filament like a pearl must be drawn from the lip of a bruised music.</i> <br />
<br />
from “What Is a Threnody” in <i>Archicembalo</i> by G. C. Waldrep (Tupelo, 2009)<br />
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Poetry and opera may be the two most “specialized” forms of “classical” art in human culture. Each inspires a cult-like devotion and a seemingly exclusive obsession among its practitioners, amateurs and patrons alike. To those ignorant or suspicious of poetry or opera, such ritual stylization may be an obstacle to the exploration of these rarified genres. <br />
<br />
One of the signifiers and qualifiers of greatness is its ability to reward repeated readings, hearings or viewings. Shakespeare’s plays continue to enrich and enthrall – and even entertain – us as we spend more time with the Bard and his work. Cervantes rightly observed that <i>Don Quixote</i> should be read across the span of a lifetime. A young man might marvel at the adventures while one in mid-life will laugh at human folly and an old man will cry with recognition, regret and the compassion borne of wisdom.<br />
<br />
At the risk of over-generalization we would submit the majority of great art – poetry, literature, music, theatre and the so-called “visual” or “plastic” arts of painting and sculpture – is “accessible,” approachable and immediate in its appeal. <br />
<br />
Let’s examine this essay’s epigram above. G. C. Waldrep’s musical <i>gamut</i> of cryptic poetry is not as “hermetically sealed” as an initial reading might imply. Titles – like names – are important clues. That Wagner’s rootless sea-faring wanderer <i>Der Fliegende Holländer</i> (the Flying Dutchman) is known by a legendary title rather than a name is hugely significant to who he is. Likewise, Waldrep drops clues across the lily pads of his "leapfrogging" poems. A <i>threnody</i> is literally a song of lament (from the Greek <i>threnoidia</i> – <i>threnos</i> = lament; <i>odia</i> = ode). This is clue number one.<br />
<br />
The first line from which we’ve drawn our epigram is an example of one of poetry’s sharpest blades: the proverb, aphorism or dictum. <i>We call a hole a grave if we value what goes into it… </i>One of the paradoxical parallels and contrasts between Wagner’s Dutchman and the romantic archetype of the “undead” (familiar in the trope of the Vampire) is found in their distinctive “crypts.” The vampire sleeps in a coffin, representing her earthly origins and the grave out of which she arises. The ghost pirate descends into the bosom of the sea itself. We are also intrigued by the frequency with which vampires in their coffins are transported by ship across the sea. This reinforces the parallels between the varying types of “undead” in romantic and gothic art…<br />
<br />
Waldrep’s line, <i>A broken filament like a pearl must be drawn from the lip of a bruised music</i> is lyric poetry first – musical, melodic and possessed of a sensuous beauty that is best appreciated by being recited aloud. Like opera, its physical sound alone is central to whatever its “meaning” or “interpretation” is. The poetic sentence is bookended by adjectives of vulnerability – broken, bruised – which evoke a wound that may be both real and symbolic. Both readings reinforce the lamenting song of the poem's title.<br />
<br />
We believe many potential lovers of poetry and music – the oldest forms of art we know, predating the drawings which among other activities depict music making – get stuck in a quicksand of the imagination. The false myth that these forms require advanced degrees and a specialized knowledge to be enjoyed persists. One may prefer “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day” to Waldrep’s verbal and musical experiments, but to dismiss poetry as an opaque or difficult or nonsensical genre says far more about the ignorance of a would-be amateur afraid of an unfamiliar genre than it does about the qualitative differences between traditional sonnets and modern verse. Likewise, the number of potential opera patrons who have never experienced a great opera live yet maintain they “don’t like opera” will always confound us even if it has ceased to surprise.<br />
<br />
<i>The Flying Dutchman </i>is an example of a great opera around which much false myth stubbornly clings like kudzu preventing many an eye from appreciating the beautiful details that have always been present. One 19th century conductor said the wind from Wagner’s romantic seafaring adventure story whips one in the face every time one opens the score. Indeed, its defining motive – the mirror inversion of the arresting leap with which Beethoven launches his great 9th Symphony (the “Ode to Joy”) – will be familiar to not only opera lovers but to anyone who’s listened to Bugs Bunny’s and Elmer Fudd’s hilarious operatic send up, “What’s Opera Doc.” (Yes, it’s on YouTube. The 4’ minute “music video” features a pastiche of Wagner from <i>The Flying Dutchman</i> to <i>Die Walküre, Siegfried, Tannhaüser </i>and back again…)<br />
<br />
Let us conclude with another demystifying clarification we may later explore in more depth. The plots of operas are frequently fantastic and require the same willing suspension of disbelief necessary to appreciate many works of fiction in media as varied as film, theatre, television and all kinds of literature. As the scholar Robert Donington puts it, “it is the opera we are enjoying and not just the music.” Wagner was among the first composers of music drama to refer to his written scenario as a poem (an operatic libretto is like a script or a screenplay). <i>The Flying Dutchman</i> was his first masterpiece and major success. It was the operatic ship that launched an extraordinary and endlessly fascinating body of work. This singular marriage of poetry and music in the theatrical medium of opera is among the most immediate and most powerful of artistic media human creativity has imagined. <br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-61443348734130642742012-09-07T11:15:00.000-04:002012-09-07T11:15:53.867-04:00Mythical thrillers, parable art & serious entertainment...<br />
I have been writing about Wagner and <i>The Flying Dutchman</i> on my opera blog. This is a more philosophical essay about serious music, referencing Wagner and his "parable art" music dramas rich in mythological content and meaning.<br />
<br />
<i>A mythical tale is a thriller of intelligibility. – Pier Paolo Pasolini<br />
</i><br />
<i>A general misconception about Romanticism is that it is about feelings of romance… It is a radical state of being at odds with the world. – V. Jurowski<br />
<br />
Mortuos plango, vivos voco [I lament the dead, I call the living]. – J. Harvey<br />
<br />
There must always be two kinds of art: escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep, and parable-art, that art which shall teach man to unlearn hatred and learn love. – W.H. Auden</i><br />
<br />
Auden’s 1935 assessment of the needs for our cultural diet has become more potent with the passing of the subsequent seven decades. A poet, librettist, critic, philosopher, Anglican and activist, Auden was one of the 20th century’s most important voices. A “Renaissance man” polymath, Auden could be breezy and profound, witty and serious at once. A deep thinker and engaged citizen, he maintained a lyrical style that was against the grain of the modernist avant-garde. Impossible to pigeonhole, he was an iconoclast and independent working from within the “ivory tower” of academia. As a member of the academy he was well positioned to challenge its propensity towards myopia. A near-sighted interest in self-preservation prevents individuals and organizations from opening to their full potentials. The infamous seven deadly words – “we’ve never done it that way before” epitomizes a close-mindedness that will always struggle in the quicksand of fear. This anxiety about the unfamiliar is a wall as high as Rapunzel’s tower. It keeps many a system or institution closed. And it prevents a broader audience from experiencing many a genius and great work.<br />
<br />
Great art – serious art – parable art – “high” or “classical” art is always at some level against the grain. It challenges an establishment that usually prefers escape to depth and chooses “easy listening” over anything that hints of the difficult. This is why “deep” poets like Rilke remind us – not without a sense of urgency and passionate intensity - “that we must hold to what is difficult.” When he writes, “You must change your life,” the poet is naming a place where meaning is found. Growth does not occur without “growing pains.” Challenges, obstacles, problems, conflicts and tensions contain the seeds of possibility and newness. Why does our so-called “culture” run the other way to distraction, diversion, “safety” and the bland anesthesia of the comfortable and familiar? And why do we passionate romantics get so worked up about it?<br />
<br />
We shall try to cease the Sunday sermonizing and take up the theme of that “thriller of intelligibility” Pasolini found in myth. This <i>leitmotif</i> is one serious artists have translated in various media across the ages. We believe opera is the most complete medium in which to find this engaging – and entertaining – depth. Opera has nurtured an intimate connection with myth and “parable art” across its 400+ years of existence. We have recently quoted on more than one occasion from the poet & librettist Dana Gioia’s excellent essay “Sotto Voce” (an epilogue in the Graywolf Press edition of his libretto for the contemporary gothic opera, <i>Nosferatu</i>). Gioia summarizes opera’s unique power. Opera lovers who have not thought analytically about why they respond so viscerally to their beloved art form smile, nod and verbalize affirmation after hearing Gioia’s insights. <br />
<br />
<i>Opera demands intense lyric compression… What opera excels at is presenting peak moments of human emotion… Better perhaps than any other art form, it can represent the full emotional intensity of a specific moment… </i>(p. 72)<br />
<br />
This compression – like any concentrated form of energy – packs a punch. And that “emotional intensity” triggers a response from the receptive participant. I started to write “listener,” but the totality that is opera – music and poetry, story and stagecraft and more – makes it unique. Wagner wanted to create “music dramas” in the mold he saw as the ultimate and essential form, the Gesamtkunstwerk – the “total work of art.” One of Opera Roanoke’s current tag lines is: <i>Hear the Drama. See the Music.</i> The other is <i>Opera: Life with a melody.</i> Both capture these essential qualities of opera’s totalizing and “larger than life” power that is at once “over the top.” <br />
<br />
As the poet William Meredith rhetorically asks, <br />
<i>Isn’t this how we’ve always longed to talk? <br />
Words as they fall are monotone and bloodless <br />
But they yearn to take the risk these noises take.</i> (from <i>About Opera</i>)<br />
<br />
Back to Gioia: <i>Opera tends to explore the extremes of human experience, especially the limits of suffering. Tragic opera remains the only theatrical form still unabashedly committed to Aristotle’s notion of emotional catharsis through pity and terror </i>(p. 73).<br />
<br />
Wagner’s operas are the epitome of this ideal. Indeed, he is the only non-Italian in the list of 19th century “romantic” greats Gioia names as the operatic equivalents of “Sophocles’ Athens or Shakespeare’s London.” Again, I find Gioia’s pronouncements right on target. One of the highest compliments we pay an opera is to call a role and / or performance “Shakespearean.” The two composers most often awarded such acclaim are Verdi and Wagner. Through that “special lyric intensity” and by exploring those “extremes of human experience” opera is both “larger than life” and true to it. The artist’s ability to represent or recreate, to translate or “express” a particularly human state of mind, heart or being is what makes art the highest form of human creativity (this recognition might give us pause to consider the place of the artist in society, but that is another book).<br />
<br />
Wagner’s successor in German opera was Richard Strauss. Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal created some of the 20th century’s greatest music dramas of timeless myth with <i>Salome, Elektra</i> and <i>Die Frau ohne Schatten</i> (The Woman without a Shadow). Writing of Hofmannsthal, Gioia cites the poet’s task…was to create ‘the myth of our time.’ Opera in particular fascinated him with its expressive power and ritualized action.<br />
<br />
I am no longer surprised when I learn that a prospective patron who claims to not like opera has never attended one. Many liken opera to an “acquired taste” – which, like coffee, “ethnic” cuisine or certain sports may be just that (for some). I was struck as if by a lightning bolt the first time I heard an “opera singer” live and up close. It affected me immediately and has not relaxed its grip on my imagination. Nor has it ceased to touch my heart, and with its magical charms it continues to penetrate the very core of my being. I have always responded to the grand dramas and lyric tragedies of every type of stage. Comedy is escape art which I enjoy as an occasional break from my preferred diet of meaning and substance, poetry, philosophy and the melancholy beauty of antiquity, the Renaissance, the Romantics and their modern day bards and translators.<br />
<br />
Like Gioia, I believe “music can make fantasy and myth, symbolism and expressionism credible.” And not only “accessible” but palpably real and immediately appealing. The “thriller of intelligibility” that great myths, tales, fables and legends are drives opera and gives this most original of “mash up” art forms staying power. But if it were “only” this ability to make symbols and archetypes intelligible – as “period” dramas and “epic” films also attempt – the genre’s appeal would be more limited. I believe all music has a spiritual value. The creative act itself is an affirmation of life and the human spirit. Even the darkest of tragedies arises from this affirmative source of creativity.<br />
<br />
One of music’s primary themes is the cycle of renewal. So many musical forms – from theme & variation to sonata form, song or “bar” form to the rondo – enact this very cycle of regeneration. Whether interpreted as rebirth or a symbol of resurrection, this eternally returning cycle is at the heart of epic trilogies and tragedies. It enlivens the symphonic repertoire and has always been a leitmotif of grand opera. And no composer enacted this cycle of life, death and rebirth – or curse and redemption – more so than Richard Wagner. <br />
<br />
Wagner recast the sacrificial death of the martyr – most familiar to Western audiences in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus – as the Liebestod or love-death. As we have noted in other essays about Wagner, the <i>Liebestod</i> most famously occurs in <i>Tristan und Isolde</i> and in Brünnhilde’s immolation in <i>Götterdämmerung</i>, the final chapter in Wagner’s epic <i>Ring of the Nibelungs</i>, one of the crowning achievements of Western civilization. The road to Wagner’s Ring begins in earnest with <i>Der Fliegende Holländer</i>. The Dutchman’s & Senta’s love is a doomed one; they meet in death as Senta throws herself into the same waves the ghost ship and her captain have entered. We do not see this dark love’s consummation on stage, but we hear their belated union in the music as the opera’s themes meet and resolve in radiant harmony. This is romantic opera at its most gripping, a thriller of intelligibility and a myth for all time.<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-1214612044816049932012-09-01T17:21:00.001-04:002012-09-01T17:21:14.286-04:00Mediterranean Serenade: photo journals of our recital tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9f2_nSP5uk9ZJpj31LhZrf8yoqEpTZ9MSnM7NtyKTx19AKKda8b4dMIB262veFCxyACMqtzLjTOWsvf7z3HmwuUsk9b3nps4zy0BhtEWk5NN04pCDt-tM0lT5AvPTtjAs7r4U_w4bKw/s1600/DSCN1066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9f2_nSP5uk9ZJpj31LhZrf8yoqEpTZ9MSnM7NtyKTx19AKKda8b4dMIB262veFCxyACMqtzLjTOWsvf7z3HmwuUsk9b3nps4zy0BhtEWk5NN04pCDt-tM0lT5AvPTtjAs7r4U_w4bKw/s320/DSCN1066.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Morning in Rome at the Pyramid and the cemetery Acatolico ("Non-Catholic" or the so-called "Protestant" cemetery, where Shelley & Keats are buried...)<br />
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Shelley's tomb, quoting Shakespeare's Mediterranean "enchanted Island" adventure, the Tempest...<br />
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The imposing statue of Mazzini, whose style of beard was most famously worn by Verdi...<br />
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An aptly named restaurant at Naxos Bay, Sicily, just beyond the famed Strait of Messina, where Odysseus, Aeneas and the ancient heroes sailed between the original "rock and a hard place," the sirens turned sea monsters Scylla & Charybdis...<br />
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A plaque commemorating the great Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio in the world heritage site of the Trulli village of Alberobello...<br />
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St Anthony of Padua, patron saint of the only Trulli-style church in the world (and a reminder of one of our favorite Mahler songs, "Antony of Padua's Sermon to the Fishes")<br />
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Approaching Kotor, Montenegro, site of our first recital ashore...<br />
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The ever-present Lion, reminder of Venice's reach across much of the Mediterranean...<br />
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The Medieval church in Kotor, founded in the year 809, host of our recital...<br />
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Incomparable beauty in an amazing sacred space...<br />
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Happy after serenading a gracious audience of fellow travelers and guests in the packed sanctuary...<br />
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On Amy's birthday in Dubrovnik - the port Byron called the "pearl of the Adriatic" we enjoy the beautiful harbor and ships that could fit a Flying Dutchman set!<br />
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A perfect sunset preceding a birthday dinner...<br />
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Our favorite destination on our tour, the beautiful Croatian island of Korcula<br />
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Natural wonders abound...<br />
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Final day of the tour: recital at the Teatro Tartini in the hometown of the great Baroque virtuoso violinist & composer, Giuseppe Tartini<br />
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Inside the gorgeous theatre...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbvBNJYDFkjJPlJ6859YAAygndBrbDnk6ovlrntRu108-z5-DAsyhxlmMSK78UWAwjPf_IgKI46vFsIh6k_wvZpuRPfNTHwTEdiaAVhmgocRgrkX8x1zpGlAV7FE7HJtnbqGJWGpbp1A/s1600/DSCN1235.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbbvBNJYDFkjJPlJ6859YAAygndBrbDnk6ovlrntRu108-z5-DAsyhxlmMSK78UWAwjPf_IgKI46vFsIh6k_wvZpuRPfNTHwTEdiaAVhmgocRgrkX8x1zpGlAV7FE7HJtnbqGJWGpbp1A/s320/DSCN1235.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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And outside around Tartini square...<br />
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Singing makes one thirsty...<br />
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(There be pirate flags here?!?)<br />
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Buon viaggio...<br />
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Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-13490064179640196642012-09-01T16:31:00.002-04:002012-09-01T16:31:56.332-04:00Travel pictures: photo journal of Venice...Travel journals: pictures from Venice<br />
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(outside the Eurostar hotel Cannaregio)<br />
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(the most poetic bridges in the world)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYM19yWeIpuEy2EBnCpHsGt15lZO4oz6oyvRVo0Wxj7C3rBKGIMQITQ7DMfoi43K3uC3uitfqS-rkaUIbbHRAiP_4GSpcdjX2yVd3H9P7R_8yqJDtMv0JtoGNrJMtKE-4U92dSHh0gqY/s1600/DSCN1287.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="209" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYM19yWeIpuEy2EBnCpHsGt15lZO4oz6oyvRVo0Wxj7C3rBKGIMQITQ7DMfoi43K3uC3uitfqS-rkaUIbbHRAiP_4GSpcdjX2yVd3H9P7R_8yqJDtMv0JtoGNrJMtKE-4U92dSHh0gqY/s320/DSCN1287.JPG" /></a></div><br />
a reminder of our favorite Italian director, the man who "made" Callas...<br />
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(one of many sobering memorials around the Jewish ghetto)<br />
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with the photographer Paolo Renier in front of one of his images from the Egyptian ruins at Abydos in the Scuola Grande of S. Giovanni Evangelista<br />
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Amy, bringing some class to the Ponte de le Tette (the "Bridge of Tits," so-called because the Venetian ladies of the night gathered in this quiet corner around the corner from a nobleman's palazzo...)<br />
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Tintoretto's church, Madonna dell'Orto, where Judas is included among the 12 disciples in the facade of the Gothic cathedral (and a legend says one of the 30 silver pieces is with him...)<br />
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Amy, outside Tintoretto's house<br />
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Tintoretto's workshop, a thriving art center where painters still practice their art<br />
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The "House of Spirits" on the lagoon, where Venetian legends say the spirit world comes alive in the air at night...<br />
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The facade of the hospital, in the neighborhood where the ghosts of Doges haunt the alleys and where Vivaldi lived and worked...<br />
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Along the side of the hospital, the fleet of Venetian ambulances: yellow boats...<br />
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One of a series of statues commemorating three brothers cursed for their treacherous treatment of a Venetian woman... It is said that one pure of heart can feel the heart beat inside the statue of the third brother.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilV8xzAkXkOsnBKNfhCYZVJV127zdqb5VpKZ4vLcI9a7-vXrAujZ1TpBanBZ7bJPW9tfxBWm_EjzGVA_QkwWFXjpUPI_cHQNAoYPVKIPhxMtODBgam-TElD_HL0qMeBCkmoVMXywMCCsg/s1600/DSCN1326.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilV8xzAkXkOsnBKNfhCYZVJV127zdqb5VpKZ4vLcI9a7-vXrAujZ1TpBanBZ7bJPW9tfxBWm_EjzGVA_QkwWFXjpUPI_cHQNAoYPVKIPhxMtODBgam-TElD_HL0qMeBCkmoVMXywMCCsg/s320/DSCN1326.JPG" /></a></div><br />
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The deathly hallows in the cemetery of Venice, the epitome of the "Isle of the Dead," Isola San Michele, final resting place of Stravinsky, Diaghilev, Tiepolo, Ezra Pound, Joseph Brodsky & Luigi Nono...<br />
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One of the watch-keepers of San Michele...<br />
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The cloisters of the church on the island cemetery...<br />
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From the pizzeria across the lagoon from San Michele...<br />
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The brick heart tucked away behind a sottoportego, commemorating the mermaid Melusina and her love for a young Venetian fisherman...<br />
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The bust of Vivaldi and the certificate of not only his baptism but also the exorcism the priest performed on the tortured infant...<br />
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One of the countless "lions of Venice" but the three at the Arsenal, according to Venetian myth, came to life because of an ancient curse (a century or two after Dante's Inferno referenced the Naval port...)<br />
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Verdi and Wagner standing guard in the public gardens near the Venice Biennale pavilions...<br />
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The awesome statue of Giosue Carducci, Italy's first Nobel poet, an iconoclast against the grain...<br />
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More shadowy figures, reminders of Venetian mysteries and the palpable spirits in the air and over the water...<br />
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Along the Grand Canal as the gloaming heralds another magical Venetian twilight...<br />
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The most striking modern bridge, by Calatrava...its rib-like structure honoring Venice's heritage as a center for shipbuilding and design...<br />
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A marker of Wagner's Venetian residence, ironically enough it is now the Casino of Venice...<br />
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A glimpse of the famous Rialto bridge...<br />
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...and Byron's house, just around a bend in the canal from Wagner's...<br />
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Ah, Venezia...<br />
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Amore...<br />
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Leone di San Marco...<br />
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Notte in La Serenissima<br />
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Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-60355888859628697432012-09-01T11:57:00.001-04:002012-09-01T11:57:28.179-04:00Mediterranean pictures, II: VeniceMediterranean Pic’s, Part II: Travel Journals in Venice | 15-18.8.12 | Cannaregio, Jewish Ghetto…<br />
I. Ferragosto II. Egyptian ruins III. – IV. Dark memories… V. – VI. Spirits & Ghosts<br />
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I. 15.8.12. Arrived in Venice on the highest (and most commercial) of feast days – <i>Ferragosto</i> or the Feast of the Assumption – the 15th of August (which is now Italy’s biggest “bank holiday” and vacation time…) Trying to avoid the crowds – which is why we chose to stay in the North western most corner of Venice – just across a bridge from the Jewish Ghetto – where, by the way, we had two of the finest & best-priced dinners in our Italian travels – Pasta: lasagne al forno & gnocchi Bolognese at I Quattro Rusteghi. At the Kosher restaurant Gam, Gam we had exceptional Falafel, Israeli appetizers & exceptional pesto tagliatelle with cherry pomodori…<br />
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But back to the Feast of the Assumption and our wanderings around northern Venice avoiding the Rialto and staying as far from St Mark’s square as humanly possible (in a dizzyingly labyrinthine city like Venice). We just happened to take a turn where we hadn’t intended and found ourselves at the I Frari church where Tiziano’s (Titian) masterpiece, <i>The Assumption of the Virgin</i> sets the chancel ablaze with its fiery red virgin already in flight, lifted to heaven as if the canvas itself were alive… <br />
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(The cloisters of the gothic cathedral Madonna dell'Orto)<br />
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Despite its omission from our travel guide in our first visit to Venice in 2009, Monteverdi’s tomb – though far more modest than Canova’s – is a humble & elegant shrine to one of western music’s first titans. The tombstone gives one the chance to brush up on Roman numerals. Claudio lived from MDMLXVII – MDCMXLIII. A bust of his goateed face sits opposite a music stand with a copy of a manuscript part-book for one of his sacred motets. (We recall – with that twinge of pain felt in the stomach & the heart – we were supposed to have lead a performance of Monteverdi’s <i>Vespers of 1610</i> with the Virginia Chorale at this year’s Virginia Arts Festival, with a baroque orchestra of old friends & colleagues largely from D.C…. Ah, the bittersweet recognitions Mnemosyne awakens in our breasts…). We digress. Monteverdi’s <i>Vespers</i> premiered at St Mark’s in Venice after the aspiring artist “got the job” for which he wrote his hugely ambitious sacred masterwork. It premiered on <i>Ferragosto</i>, August 15, 1613. 399 years ago to this day. It’s worth noting Monteverdi’s musical canvas of Venetian Vespers was the first great masterpiece of European choral music (a precursor to Bach’s <i>Mass in B minor</i> & Beethoven’s <i>Missa Solemnis</i>).<br />
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II. Needless to say, our three short days in Venice were filled with many experiences of artistic or uncanny serendipity, from happening upon a fascinating exhibit of the Egyptian ruins at <b>Abydos</b>, a 5,000 year old necropolis that is among the most fascinating and least known ancient sites in the world. We had the pleasure of meeting the photographer, Paolo Renier, whose brilliant work was accompanied by video documentary commentary by archeologists from around the world. With our fractured & disjointed Italian we attempted to tell Paolo how fantastic his eye is, and how important this exhibition is. It reminds us how deep & rich is our past and how amazing the human imagination & creative impulse has always been. It might give us pause to notice how timely, how uncanny such eye-opening mind-expanding cross-cultural multi-disciplinary art exhibitions always are. Variously experienced in a medieval cathedral, an art gallery or an opera house there is no doubt that a special synergy arises when two or more dynamic forces are at work in creative harmony & imaginative counterpoint. Archeology & photography, history & philosophy, painting & sculpture, mystery & ritual, art & science all meet & engage one another in a creative discourse that could shed light on our contemporary society’s apparent inability to engage in any such positive dialogue (especially in Presidential election years). <br />
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This exhibition, at the Scuola Grande of San Giovanni Evangelista (St. John the Evangelist) was part of the church’s 750th anniversary celebration. That church is older than any extant church in the US by more years than the US has been in existence. It is a baby compared to the <b>Temple of Osiris</b>, from c. 3,000 b.c.(e). It is also important to us personally, because of our deep and abiding interest and curiosity in antiquity, archeology, ancient culture & mythology (religion), art & philosophy. To cite one other example, the <i>Egyptian Book of the Dead</i> is as important a work in its context as the Talmud, the Bible, the Quran or Homer is to their respective readers (to cite a quartet of Egypt’s younger nephews…)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNiFk8u9EZrFggKacuSZ644V_P2SbFvhYAkEr3TS9QCfakcISUZblCuteA9kZo7aRQIk3FC_4yrzdXMWBJK-e1FNMBRSGDQAB5qrfkTo1jeonCnUww0F31wcWLh2y7aUgOzH-FDMlPwVo/s1600/DSCN1296.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNiFk8u9EZrFggKacuSZ644V_P2SbFvhYAkEr3TS9QCfakcISUZblCuteA9kZo7aRQIk3FC_4yrzdXMWBJK-e1FNMBRSGDQAB5qrfkTo1jeonCnUww0F31wcWLh2y7aUgOzH-FDMlPwVo/s320/DSCN1296.JPG" /></a></div>(a frieze in the courtyard of S. Giovanni Evangelista)<br />
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III. Attuned to mystery this summer, interested in the <b>Gothic<b></b></b> strain of Romanticism as we prepare for Wagner’s dark & stormy ghost story, <i>The Flying Dutchman<b></b></i>, our deepening interest in the esoteric & hermetic traditions continues – we are tracing the lines back and forth from the present through the 20th century to the Romantic 19th and the open-minded Renaissance, Dante’s <i>Inferno</i> & the “dark ages” back to ancient Rome & Homeric Greece and beyond, across & behind… So it is no wonder we were enthralled in Rome by the tucked away <i>Porta Magica</i> (the Magic Gate) full of code-signaling hieroglyphs & symbols, Egyptian gods guarding the mysteries contained within a gate only a worthy novice or initiate may decode & thereby gain entrance (this is what Tamino does in Mozart’s <i>Magic Flute</i>; it is a metaphor for every Odyssey-like journey of separation, tribulation & return or renewal…) It also “just happens” that the mason Palombara was contemporary Enlightenment (during the twilight of the Renaissance, before the servant, Reason wrested complete control from his master, Intuition and heralded the so-called “Enlightenment” period…)<br />
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In addition to the hieroglyphs in the <i>The Temple of Osiris Revealed</i> exhibit and those of Palombara’s <i>Magic Gate</i>, we noted the <b>Masonic & hermetic crest</b> at the Chiesa della Maddalena, an eye within a triangle within a circle – the geometric angles indicative of the Masonic architectural & artistic minds joining with mathematics & science, led by the essential harmony of the universe, represented in the union of such perfect symbols as the visionary “eye,” the perfect globe of the circle, the Sun & Moon and the geometric triangle, both pyramid, gem & trinity in one beautiful symmetry… Above the hieroglyphic symbol is a Latin inscription: <i>Sapientia. Aedificavit. Sibi. Domus.</i> (Wisdom & Edification Dwell Here. If my Latin is not far off… Regardless, what kind of a cathedral was this Church of Mary Magdalene? Perhaps one who understood who she really was – a community open to the mysteries & the Gnostic thirst for knowledge…)<br />
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IV. Crash course through the two largest (and least densely packed) <i>sestieri</i> in Venice: Cannaregio & Castello, with assistance from another new edition to our personal library (acquired in Venezia) <i>Venetian Ghost Stories & Legends<b></b></i>. This engaging “alternative” walking-tour guide to <i>La Serenissima</i>, the Star of the Sea ("Ave maris stella") and an enchanting poetic island empire whose cemetery is a literal <i>Isle of the Dead…</i><br />
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Having read our Shakespeare [Merchant of Venice] and studied European history, its crusades & diasporas and Inquisitions, we were already acquainted with the Jewish Ghetto. But in a case of poignant “meaningful coincidence” we had literally just made the acquaintance of a Holocaust survivor, a new friend whom we were privileged to accompany on this Mediterranean Serenade recital tour. Of all the special memories from an amazing two weeks in one of the most beautiful corners of the world, the most precious was talking to the embodiment & epitome of a true <i>Survivor</i> on the final night of our trip, a valedictory evening following a deeply meaningful concert of Verismo arias and duets in the Teatro Tartini in Piran Slovenia (named after Piran’s most famous child, the Baroque violin virtuoso & composer, Giuseppe Tartini – he of the gothic Devil’s Trill Sonata…). <br />
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At that final concert of operatic music connected to the Mediterranean, we offered Verismo-related works from <i>Carmen, Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades</i> and other Puccini favorites. In our attempts to embody the program’s title of “Get Real: Verismo in Opera” we introduced Puccini’s Roman favorite <i>Tosca</i> as a political thriller pitting a progressive/leftist artist against a draconian/conservative Baron & Henchman (following several days of often heated political discussion and debate, some generated by the engaging and provocative lectures by the political scientists & historians on board, lecturing on everything from Pirates in the Adriatic to how WWII might not have been “won” by the “good guys” to the exporting of Greek culture to the Roman empire and beyond…. For inquiring minds & opera quiz trivia buffs, we mentioned for the sake of our fellow-travelers, all of whom embarked from Rome / Civitavecchia – democrats & republicans, socialists, libertarians, tea-partiers & atheists alike – Tosca’s reference to the port of Civitavecchia, where she thinks she’s been given safe-haven by the treacherous & villainous politico, Scarpia. [NB: To be "fair & balanced" it should be noted that artists may be politically conservative and Barons may be artistically progressive. Leftists may be tyrants, artists may be bigots and conservatives sometimes have “bleeding hearts,” and keen intuitions (so-called: “feminine qualities”) & even creative genius…]<br />
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V. Where were we – ah, memory – <i>Mnemosyne<b></b></i>, the Mother of the Muses, and the memorials around the Jewish Ghetto (see Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice for the most familiar tale involving the fabled city). Having had the very recent & deeply meaningful experience of reconnecting to the horrors of the Shoah in the fronts of our minds, we set out to explore some of the darker corners of Venice. It should be noted our intention is to pay respects, to honor the dead & the mysteries & memories that haunt the past. We are not interested in “ghost stories” so much as entertainment as a window into the beyond, an archetypal (or mythological) means of metaphysical (or spiritual) connection. We had already planned to visit the <b>Isle of the Dead,</b> San Michele, Venice’s cemetery in which Stravinsky & Diaghilev, Brodsky & Pound, Tiepolo & thousands upon thousands are buried. Many of our destinations are determined by artistic motivations, and honoring the resting places of the ashes of heroes, mentors & artistic forebears, kin & idols is an important consideration. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxAW9qiSK5GDw7AFORQhjUAcJnLpX46OIgQSSxt1f9a860GHu54-nqoMR2D5INaH-r4ytXyJOSNayMqubbAUdT8Ei5-ciiGTi16J6GbZpobwiwzVJ2UNy9GQNg7-8KfQ8Wg9mS9Ulb5-k/s1600/DSCN1321.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxAW9qiSK5GDw7AFORQhjUAcJnLpX46OIgQSSxt1f9a860GHu54-nqoMR2D5INaH-r4ytXyJOSNayMqubbAUdT8Ei5-ciiGTi16J6GbZpobwiwzVJ2UNy9GQNg7-8KfQ8Wg9mS9Ulb5-k/s320/DSCN1321.JPG" /></a></div>(Isola San Michele from across the lagoon)<br />
<br />
Isola San Michele is a cemetery like no other on earth. It is charged with centuries of spirits, legends, mysteries & secrets. One of them involved a Friar at the Church of San Michele, a simple ancient church of bone-white stone. This Friar was a spiritual adept, able to discern long-buried secrets from the Devil’s dreams… (Are those eccentric mystics, Initiates, Masons, alchemists, Rosicrucians, witches, Wicca, sorcerers and mad poets to be trusted?) Anyway, this visionary priest discerned in the shifting winds before a tempest and in the changing colors of the clouds at sunset dancing on either side of a thunderstorm secrets like the hidden corners of the world (at least to most of 15th c. Europe). He apparently drew a topographically accurate map of the world without ever having left Italy… Reasonable men might credit this solely to science, logic, mathematics & other such “rational” ways of thinking… but those intuitive dreamers & visionaries, those Don Quixotes & Prosperos, the artists & thinkers & creators know that every coin has more sides than are visible…<br />
<br />
We paid homage to <b>Stravinsky</b> by listening to his masterpiece setting of the <i>Mass</i>, originally written for La Scala (and last performed by yours truly in Colmar in 1996, in a memorable festival featuring Rostropovich, the Moscow Virtuosi and guest conductors M. Plasson & V. Spivakov. Our mentor & friend – and guest conductor of Opera Roanoke’s recent co-production w/ St John’s of <i>Amahl</i> – Joseph Flummerfelt conducted our performance in an incense-haunted medieval cathedral, in which I was honored to make my professional European debut in this neo-classically symmetrical & architecturally structured masterpiece setting of the Mass…)<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhdqtlbn2T3w_sZI0bfpmc3I6id0MODPyR-aHzyvwgdo_CscRSeX9Lg3wRUiJiV5WGk8XTGYhp3xbkAWVNvHu7vmpNpl6ra8n0h126jpaBSsBUlAj4nAU9JRoaIFUy4hLWTnEYoC-P6JI/s1600/DSCN1339.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhdqtlbn2T3w_sZI0bfpmc3I6id0MODPyR-aHzyvwgdo_CscRSeX9Lg3wRUiJiV5WGk8XTGYhp3xbkAWVNvHu7vmpNpl6ra8n0h126jpaBSsBUlAj4nAU9JRoaIFUy4hLWTnEYoC-P6JI/s320/DSCN1339.JPG" /></a></div>(the graves of Igor & Vera Stravinsky)<br />
<br />
We took a close-up photo of the ballet slippers left by devotees of Diaghilev, and recalled with deep admiration our love of the Ballets Rus & the Russian muses from Pushkin & Tchaikosky, Dostoevsky & Shostakovich – and, along with the already named so many more that have spoken to us and touched us not only this summer of a special Russian communion, but across our lives…<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLSpz4ygclnlJZzYiVS4kbw90gcXbmtnHlc4d9ZCkjQ3jvMW94ZyrBIIn-suI1pzTFkFGTa-1VEYY7HyetTCdMk4Qmcvea_zwqjbV4IAYD7MTUV2MN18E5rcbD4-NSb0X0cr5fdJ3f2k/s1600/DSCN1337.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCLSpz4ygclnlJZzYiVS4kbw90gcXbmtnHlc4d9ZCkjQ3jvMW94ZyrBIIn-suI1pzTFkFGTa-1VEYY7HyetTCdMk4Qmcvea_zwqjbV4IAYD7MTUV2MN18E5rcbD4-NSb0X0cr5fdJ3f2k/s320/DSCN1337.JPG" /></a></div><br />
We wrote <i>haiku</i> for exiled Soviet-American poet & dissident Joseph Brodsky while sitting on the edge of Pound’s plot (a poet we don’t admire because of his fascist sympathies – like many Anglo - & Americans in the ‘30’s & ‘40’s, these often artistic or academic/intellectual political conservatives showed blatant signs of racism and specifically anti-Semitism, which led avant-garde conservatives – [oxymoronic?!] – like Pound & Eliot to apparently support fascist regimes like those in Franco’s Spain & Mussolini’s Italy…(and if we’re out of our political science/lit-crit depth, please pardon the generalizations in what is already a most discursive way of chronicling one’s travels & elucidating connections b/w cultural events, history, mythology, &tc, et alia, und so weiter…)<br />
<br />
We also paid homage to a long-admired (if seldom listened to) avant-garde visionary and dissident activist, Luigi Nono. We shall comment on Nono’s statements of universal humanity and his opposition to fascism & racism (and therefore injustice, oppression & violence in any form) and the prominent musicians who have joined him in his oppositional confrontational fight against not only evil but also – and arguably more important – complacency, apathy, ennui & hopelessness…<br />
<br />
VI. Our ghost trip took us to Tintoretto’s church (like the cemetery, already on our itinerary, since we missed it the last time…) the imposing gothic cathedral Madonna dell’Orto. His sprawling canvas of the <i>Last Judgment</i>, rising the length of the massive chancel is one of the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance and a staggering achievement (which took over 20 years to paint, if memory serves us…). It is a paradigm of the artistic sublime in its ability to transport the viewer through a confrontation of awesome beauty, scale & terror. It turns out he had an encounter with a witch who’d tricked his daughter and whom he caught just in time – but not quick enough for her to change into smoke and burst through a crevice in the wall – atop which Tintoretto placed a tiny sculpture of the mythic hero & strongman Hercules (the original “bouncer?”). <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3s54fTbVzrjBxjE_yqUhIfM1svXlfVxzLcEQkJv_rDUFFyNjOcQGrtfM6eDrAYbGVfZi8f8vyHw4MlGJMOqYyOdCBN-s0GmAd68J2-BBjkVj8mvrBCGJe2hIovPTYXFI1UmoWEaO3WQ/s1600/DSCN1323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin3s54fTbVzrjBxjE_yqUhIfM1svXlfVxzLcEQkJv_rDUFFyNjOcQGrtfM6eDrAYbGVfZi8f8vyHw4MlGJMOqYyOdCBN-s0GmAd68J2-BBjkVj8mvrBCGJe2hIovPTYXFI1UmoWEaO3WQ/s320/DSCN1323.JPG" /></a></div><br />
We returned to the Tintoretto house after we acquired the Venetian Legends book, retraced our steps and captured not only that small sculpture, but also other enigmatic sculptures, crests & reliefs in the neighborhood tied to more of these legends. With at least one foot in the ever-shifting river of “truth,” the origins of such works serve as markers & memorials – they help us remember the importance of naming the subjects, objects & beings into whose spheres we enter… This open-endedness – to ask, “Well, is this “just a legend” or “only a myth,” “or is it true?” misses the point of the symbolic (poetic, allegorical or metaphorical) meaning. Such open-endedness is characteristic of visionary artists. It allows at least one foot to be step into the creative water where there is always room for interpretation. This fundamental difference of perspective – rational & intuitive, closed & open – is at the core of the difference between the “right” and the “left,” the conservative and the progressive, the “business model” and the “artistic process.” There is a crescendo of voices proposing the distinct advantages of the latter over the former, in spheres of influence as varied as the board room & the political office, the marketing & programming boards, the talent scouts & the plucky start-up enterprises (see Ghamei, McGilchrist, Jaynes, Redfield Jamison, Whyte, et al).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmgP1TTZIb8Ia-7UAx4FGTySznq3Ad3MplpfS_dwf-XXoGZnMg2vcQSHQtCTk-iAaXW62kzozOtI9jPPsWjeY0s6CqHU7H2kcK3TvhmAxjv4lPpeamHX_as_kJptsNao-8NUtYe855ec/s1600/DSCN1381.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQmgP1TTZIb8Ia-7UAx4FGTySznq3Ad3MplpfS_dwf-XXoGZnMg2vcQSHQtCTk-iAaXW62kzozOtI9jPPsWjeY0s6CqHU7H2kcK3TvhmAxjv4lPpeamHX_as_kJptsNao-8NUtYe855ec/s320/DSCN1381.JPG" /></a></div>(the Arsenal, with Lion statue and bust of Dante)<br />
<br />
Another detour. Like walking around the dark <i>calle, sotoportege, fondamenti & campi</i> of Venice, wondering when you will discover whether or not you’re heading in the direction you originally intended… Is there still time for <b>Vivaldi’s</b> baptismal certificate & the exorcism performed on the infant genius that may have sealed his give & take relationship with the Prince of Darkness… And the mermaid Melusina & the “brick heart” hidden behind the sotoportego di Preti marking another tragic tale… the cracked-line statues of 3 runic Lions (who came to life!) at the Arsenal where a bust of Dante glares out from a wall & thus speaks Canto XXI of the <i>Inferno</i>:<br />
In the Venetians’ arsenal as boils through wintry months tenacious pitch,<br />
To smear their unsound vessels; for the inclement time, <br />
Sea-faring men restrains, and in that while his barque one builds anew…<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdmPZuhLegvzSlZ-QZgn1QmRj-dIWKfm6k35MX6TFom7nl-BOKEp0GAaIJwccTI65l8v0hFYnFykloquwyCqa-ULHIo0QztUz6YLFUkebaYo8oLuaujStfsno3gjrXaq-tpGMxqGttHE/s1600/DSCN1365.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqdmPZuhLegvzSlZ-QZgn1QmRj-dIWKfm6k35MX6TFom7nl-BOKEp0GAaIJwccTI65l8v0hFYnFykloquwyCqa-ULHIo0QztUz6YLFUkebaYo8oLuaujStfsno3gjrXaq-tpGMxqGttHE/s320/DSCN1365.JPG" /></a></div><br />
PS: Memorials of <b>Byron & Wagner</b> hiding in the open along the Grand Canal (Wagner’s Venetian palazzo is now the city’s Casino… Statues of Verdi & Wagner in the Giardini at the Biennale pavilions…the iconoclastic Nobel poet Giosue Carducci (new to us this journey) is represented by an imposing statue with a god-like eagle…<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihzAy6527sk6xJC-SeeMVGqVXMhMMOcHipMWT-x-H9PQwcDTAor94fra2Qz3xLV_CY7N4kn5wdWxe4kmW9SFy_GnaJa9UZunwoPwuRCwpD2wRw5tZO3V7G2rgeHRCFxaqjfbo2fdOGmUc/s1600/DSCN1436.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihzAy6527sk6xJC-SeeMVGqVXMhMMOcHipMWT-x-H9PQwcDTAor94fra2Qz3xLV_CY7N4kn5wdWxe4kmW9SFy_GnaJa9UZunwoPwuRCwpD2wRw5tZO3V7G2rgeHRCFxaqjfbo2fdOGmUc/s320/DSCN1436.JPG" /></a></div>(The Grand Canal at twilight)<br />
Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-421702276874348582012-09-01T10:03:00.000-04:002012-09-01T12:32:44.545-04:00Mediterranean pictures – images of the sea, its islands & ports:<br />
Travel Journals, poems & notes<br />
<br />
Roma – 5-6.VIII.12<br />
<br />
I. The rose petal that literally floated down<br />
at my fingertips beside Santa Maria Maggiore<br />
on this festival day of the Madonna della Neve [Snow]<br />
where thousands of rose petals represent<br />
this annually commemorated miracle of snow…<br />
<br />
II. <i>La Porta Magica<br />
</i>An eccentric<br />
enigmatic gift<br />
a surprise<br />
a mystery<br />
only one who<br />
unlocks the crypt<br />
and is worthy<br />
to enter may do so…<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQdB52gVcHya-g9QRM1NotOy-3vOeBeKU7DnRB2ynE9H0N-_yT25uoigIC0QVnQfAbPFrkVJgVjOrEaIc4Kt9XioTSQ9aNv87g75dHRdng1gt0LYI4slb2D5D7i6CKyrT_fxKfta3Zgg/s1600/DSCN1059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlQdB52gVcHya-g9QRM1NotOy-3vOeBeKU7DnRB2ynE9H0N-_yT25uoigIC0QVnQfAbPFrkVJgVjOrEaIc4Kt9XioTSQ9aNv87g75dHRdng1gt0LYI4slb2D5D7i6CKyrT_fxKfta3Zgg/s320/DSCN1059.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Massimiliano Palombara (1614-1680)<br />
the “magic gate” and its “monstrous dwarves” (the Egyptian demigod Bes)<br />
hieroglyphs, gods and Rosicrucian mysteries…Serendipity alert! Abydos=V<br />
<br />
III. Visiting Keats & Shelley at the “Protestant Cemetery” (Acatolico) and walking the Aventine hill at the border of ruins – a blessedly quiet corner of the Eternal City<br />
<br />
Noting we are honoring Percy Bysshe 220 years & 2 days after his birth on 4.VIII.1792 – Noting the nameless grave “of one whose name was writ on water” and did not live to see 30 years…<br />
<br />
Blessing the “little friends of the departed” – the cats that tend the tombstones of foreign visitors who died or wished to be buried in Rome – <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGtt2QGDsvfMlJMG0RdpgXkxzL5GjUwF18CLqQSxPOD-1G2ePeT072uPFVjrbZVsphCjjuuEOWRjvDA8_XPMsw_u0H3Lkzl8HBwP96PCGCgPU6y-qVrYRCTBT5GDCrRDMFia9RhoO0Lc0/s1600/DSCN1071.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGtt2QGDsvfMlJMG0RdpgXkxzL5GjUwF18CLqQSxPOD-1G2ePeT072uPFVjrbZVsphCjjuuEOWRjvDA8_XPMsw_u0H3Lkzl8HBwP96PCGCgPU6y-qVrYRCTBT5GDCrRDMFia9RhoO0Lc0/s320/DSCN1071.JPG" /></a></div><br />
At the graves of Shelley & Keats<br />
whose names are writ on water<br />
and carved in stone & etched<br />
into hearts through the rich and <br />
strange music of poetry<br />
since each suffered the change<br />
of a too-early called curtain…<br />
<br />
Shelley’s tempest-tossed “Vision of the Sea” and his tempestuous life & death<br />
and the lines from Ariel’s eerie song in The Tempest – <br />
Keats eccentric unconventional sonnet “On the Sea” [ABBA ABBA CDEDEC]<br />
<br />
6.VIII.12 – on board Corinthian II, towards Agropoli<br />
<br />
I. Glad to be alive<br />
since the vampire<br />
didn’t get me<br />
and the distempered<br />
security guard didn’t<br />
shoot me when <br />
I shouted back <br />
(he reached for his gun<br />
and my pupils dilated)<br />
And now we’re at sea<br />
and rocking lulling sailing<br />
along the mythic Tyrrhenian<br />
coast heading towards<br />
Scylla & Charybdis…<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtx5RDmZDAwqtvS87DT4VQMkkN2wy5eTmz0JY2P-wDe1wxaI_Lb-dr70rJy9GaO-iW9p4xrbuTq9KmY0mIHuiismzibPuqczAhrxKTDcyockTB-oLsd638uFxJayP_tKw0Stl2s_N-VVU/s1600/Scylla.charybdis.Ital.fres.c.1500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtx5RDmZDAwqtvS87DT4VQMkkN2wy5eTmz0JY2P-wDe1wxaI_Lb-dr70rJy9GaO-iW9p4xrbuTq9KmY0mIHuiismzibPuqczAhrxKTDcyockTB-oLsd638uFxJayP_tKw0Stl2s_N-VVU/s320/Scylla.charybdis.Ital.fres.c.1500.jpg" /></a></div>(15th c. Italian fresco of Scylla & Charybdis)<br />
<br />
7.VIII/Paestum [Hardy: I will build up a temple / And set you therein / As its shrine]<br />
<br />
I. The 3 Temenos of Doric columned Temples to Hera/Juno and Zeus (or Apollo or Athena/Minerva) – the pomegranate symbol of life and its fertile seeds – and the shadow side – Persephone/Proserpina and “the pomegranate seeds of death…” [E. Sitwell]<br />
still standing from the 6th and 5th centuries bce.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh77h9tdjCA2ifn_CUhEM5u4in6tbtXxmO8EJ22xQMPiNRv3j-oL98TkJxRWOyOwnq_7MfAkFOeYJldXcKel1vwk6Zx6sL69zd_M4gF9HYpIJ6CKlGuMJgR-Uoj0eyIhABRMSjDlFBJI3c/s1600/DSCN1090.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh77h9tdjCA2ifn_CUhEM5u4in6tbtXxmO8EJ22xQMPiNRv3j-oL98TkJxRWOyOwnq_7MfAkFOeYJldXcKel1vwk6Zx6sL69zd_M4gF9HYpIJ6CKlGuMJgR-Uoj0eyIhABRMSjDlFBJI3c/s320/DSCN1090.JPG" /></a></div><br />
Paestum from Poseidonia [=Neptune] <br />
Die Götter Griechenlands = snapshot of the ancient world <br />
and the fragmented ruins that remain<br />
<br />
The hooting doves and cawing birds around the ruins – a soaring hawk – <br />
Jupiter or Apollo watching over what remains?<br />
A lizard scurrying down a Doric column of Juno – one of her ensigns?<br />
<br />
The remains of an underwater labyrinth – an aquatic game or contest?<br />
Honey perfectly preserved in vases for 2,000 years – symbol of immortality…<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho62b2gFvd3SQg_bvC_rUf0mDN1CzgSEW85KJS2n5ucztlG0It6XkbqplNpwt1oSSQ79P6JUgxOFwLr8q-otJy2Fqcp2s-FXPF0ryLQIxK_kSOj1M0fYfWlLVs82OhnCMhyphenhyphenUnR6sV58xQ/s1600/DSCN1105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho62b2gFvd3SQg_bvC_rUf0mDN1CzgSEW85KJS2n5ucztlG0It6XkbqplNpwt1oSSQ79P6JUgxOFwLr8q-otJy2Fqcp2s-FXPF0ryLQIxK_kSOj1M0fYfWlLVs82OhnCMhyphenhyphenUnR6sV58xQ/s320/DSCN1105.JPG" /></a></div><br />
<i>Sono sacra all Ninfa</i> = I am sacred to the Nymph etched on a vase from Huroon…<br />
<br />
The elevated temple to Athena/Minerva – symbol of the highest point = Acropolis…<br />
<br />
Inscription to Chirone the Centaur, expert in medicinal arts (magic & alchemy…)<br />
<br />
Painted tomb of the Diver (metaphor for the crossing over of death – <br />
like Hercules crossing over the pillars of Gibraltar…) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsN1rm0xsfc1QudJEIc3fBWjnLgWCIwZwFOS15_izErlRJYeJgpi525ESw3noomJoVHZOBMh5gQv4lnADj6tAsvQWIqQW5e2bjTHED136jb7FaQvIi9LF2PvL_HqnRw5FCI6OjkXWknQ/s1600/DSCN1117.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:right; float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="240" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdsN1rm0xsfc1QudJEIc3fBWjnLgWCIwZwFOS15_izErlRJYeJgpi525ESw3noomJoVHZOBMh5gQv4lnADj6tAsvQWIqQW5e2bjTHED136jb7FaQvIi9LF2PvL_HqnRw5FCI6OjkXWknQ/s320/DSCN1117.JPG" /></a></div><br />
The Aulos [flute] & Lyra del carapace di Tortuga (the tortoise shell lyre)<br />
<br />
8.VIII/Naxos Bay – Taormina, Sicily: A modern Odyssey….<br />
<br />
I. At the Naxos Bay Lido<br />
around the corner from the <br />
fabled Strait of Messina<br />
which brought us Scylla<br />
& Charybdis Odyssey-inspired<br />
Dreamworld adventures as if<br />
on cue – our Dreamquest<br />
involved transmigrational journeys,<br />
perils, friendships tested and<br />
broken, extreme risk and life-<br />
threatening danger and one<br />
blissful (however bizarre) romantic<br />
encounter with a muse (or siren) to<br />
relieve the stress & strain of the journey,<br />
its storms and toils and surreal<br />
homecoming – less valedictory <br />
than the welcome release of laughter – <br />
a blessed relief…<br />
<br />
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II. The rocks here at the Lido – <br />
were they the same from which<br />
Ariadne kept watch for a sign <br />
for the return of Theseus?<br />
Was she on this shore<br />
when Bacchus appeared as<br />
if out of the air<br />
to ravish her famished being?<br />
<br />
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III. Where Scylla once hid<br />
her hideously enchanting<br />
voraciously hungry sextet of heads <br />
there now stands a gaudy<br />
lighthouse whose purple and red<br />
fluorescent lights punctuate the strait<br />
marking a place of mythological<br />
conflict with post-modern kitsch<br />
<br />
IV. Instead of vanishing<br />
in the perfect storm <br />
of Charybdis’ whirlpool<br />
the Corinthian slowed to a crawl,<br />
rocked to and fro<br />
and passed uneventfully through…<br />
<br />
9.VIII.12/Monopoli – Alberobello [Trulli “world heritage” village]<br />
<br />
I. The beautiful snow-white beehive conical houses<br />
of the Unesco World Heritage site of Trulli villages –<br />
the only Trulli Church in the world: Parrochia Sant’Antonio di Padua<br />
(did Mahler know this town?)<br />
<br />
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The alchemical process of rainwater reacting with the porous white stones<br />
to create a sprawling system of grottoes and caves in the region of Castellano – <br />
<br />
The centuries old Olive trees in the Apulia region <br />
(500-800 years old and still fruitful!) <br />
<br />
Monopoli – from Monos Polis = a unique city – <br />
founded during the Homeric age – 8th c. b.c.e.<br />
The city of Brindisi – we’ll all drink to that (“and one for Mahler!”)<br />
The 1958 hit <i>Volare</i> – inspired by the azure Adriatic<br />
<br />
11.VIII.12/ Dubrovnik – Amy’s bday<br />
<br />
I. Byron dubbed Dubrovnik “the pearl of the Adriatic” and it is still true – <br />
George Gordon lyric of the day: <br />
She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless skies & starry climes; <br />
And all that is best and fair / Meet in her aspect and her eyes.<br />
<br />
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II. In Poems of the Sea (bought for Amy’s bday in 2009) our Byronic hero himself is in the Mediterranean vis-à-vis <i>Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage</i>:<br />
Roll on, though deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!<br />
…Man marks the earth with ruin – his control / Stops with the shore…<br />
He winks into thy depths with bubbling groan <br />
Without a grave, unknell’d, uncoffin’d, and unknown [foreshadows of Hardy]<br />
---<br />
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies<br />
His pretty hope in some near port or bay, …<br />
---<br />
Thou glorious mirror…<br />
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime – <br />
The image of eternity – the throne<br />
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime<br />
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone<br />
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.<br />
<br />
And I have loved thee, Ocean! …<br />
For I was as it were a child of thee, <br />
And trusted to thy billows far and near,<br />
And laid my hand upon thy mane – as I do here.<br />
<br />
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12.VIII.12/Korcula – home of Marco Polo<br />
<br />
I. Another "Island of exception" [N.B: Holly Case's engaging lectures on Pirates and Islands, respectively] in the enchanting Adriatic – <i>luxe, calme & volupte</i> – cool & cleansing water – if not so calm this day (great for windsurfing!) still a perfect spot to stop, relax, luxuriate and simply be… <br />
<br />
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II. Another esoteric Rosicrucian connection: Magister Marcus Andree<br />
Marko Andrijic (14?-1507): master mason & builder of the St Mark’s <br />
Venetian inspired cathedral tower – More Serendipity: Porta Magica, Abydos & Venetian mysteries (Isle of Dead, Gargoyles & Ghosts & Myths…)<br />
<br />
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III. The fantastic artistic details in the architecture – insignias, crests, plaques, reliefs, columns and cryptic inscriptions abound – the half-broken round window that shows fragments of a cross or grail chalice, and two arms of a star of two points of a compass (or another Masonic instrument…)<br />
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IV. Eliot Cohen’s outstanding lecture: <i>A Dangerous Gift: Advising the Sec. of State</i><br />
<br />
Great quotes on leadership and power, impossible decisions & inevitable failure:<br />
<br />
Authority without responsibility: <br />
the prerogative of the harlot throughout history<br />
(former British Prime Minister)<br />
<br />
It is always difficult to give advice, <br />
even from the wise to the wise,<br />
and all courses may run ill <br />
(Gildor the Elf, to Frodo)<br />
<br />
You can “speak truth to power” only when power is ready to listen… <br />
(Experience has taught us the harsh verity of that truism!)<br />
<br />
All political lives end in failure…<br />
<br />
The Talmudic story of the 4 Rabbis in the Orchard <br />
[= metaphor for philosophy or mysticism or faith itself]<br />
1 died within; 1 went mad; 1 lost his faith and only 1 came out in peace – <br />
Shalom = peace, and has the same root as the word “whole” – <br />
thus the only 1 who entered in/with peace emerged in 1 piece…<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil996tVGOfEfDFJU2LAHS95f7AlYYLL_WIFj1B1j8PnImMk6PlNwhhUDSU8t9ollKIAJma4E8Kmg_KYB-l2eqqDjvV9lHL5i_9oOs24W_fi_H2K6FjyCc_xWHL5JJqXRkP-0OnnWYSjjg/s1600/DSCN1288.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear:left; float:left;margin-right:1em; margin-bottom:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil996tVGOfEfDFJU2LAHS95f7AlYYLL_WIFj1B1j8PnImMk6PlNwhhUDSU8t9ollKIAJma4E8Kmg_KYB-l2eqqDjvV9lHL5i_9oOs24W_fi_H2K6FjyCc_xWHL5JJqXRkP-0OnnWYSjjg/s320/DSCN1288.JPG" /></a></div>(A memorial plaque to Jewish martyrs in Venice's Old Ghetto)Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-7037715455817202572012-08-31T16:29:00.000-04:002012-08-31T16:38:14.246-04:00Ixion's wheel & eccentricsIxion’s wheel, eccentric creators, dark myths & muses 31.VII.12 <br />
<br />
Rued Langgaard (1893-1952) is one of this summer’s ‘beautiful eccentrics’ about whom we’ve been musing since at least last spring… We re-discovered his music a couple of years ago at the BBC Proms (the “world’s greatest classical music festival” is available online at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms)<br />
<br />
Though not as much Wagner is on this season's Proms as we'd like - we expect the bicentennial year of Wagner & Verdi in 2013 to mind those gaps. [See Vissi d'arte posts on Wagner's gothic world as Opera Roanoke prepares to mount its first Wagner production: <i>The Flying Dutchman<b></b></i>] This year's proms have already offered lived performances of Debussy's <i>Pelleas & Melisande</i>, Berlioz's <i>Les Troyens</i>, Britten's <i>Peter Grimes</i>, Mozart's <i>Marriage of Figaro</i>, Gilbert & Sullivan's <i>Yeoman of the Guard.</i> Coming up the first week of Sept. is <i>Nixon in China</i> by John Adams. It is a festival that lives up to its billing as the greatest classical music festival in the world. <br />
<br />
Prone to digression this season of exciting travels, adventures and artistic musings, we have enjoyed spending time with artists of varying genres who might be “outside the box” of the mainstream, so-called ‘members of the avant-garde’ or fascinating characters unknown because unread un-translated unsung or unperformed… A couple of eccentric writers relatively new to us include G. de Nerval & H.P. Lovecraft. Their nocturnal settings, strange dreamworlds and mysterious visions connect directly to the Romantic & Gothic realm of Wagner, all of whom were influenced by the Tales of E.T.A. Hoffmann and the Vampire craze Byron helped propagate across the dark & stormy 19th century. [See the opera musing on Romantic Gothic & Wagner]. <br />
<br />
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[The original "Byronic hero," George Gordon, Lord Byron]<br />
<br />
We mentioned Langgaard and the Proms. Another eccentric featured at this summer’s Proms is the British composer (with ties to Germany & the US) Frederick Delius. Delius (like Debussy) is 150 this year, and his hard-to-categorize blend of impressionism, Englishness colored with Continental flavors and the Florida sun makes for a neo-romantic sound world unlike any other composer. Like Vaughan Williams & many fellow Brits interested in pushing the boundaries of Victorian propriety to allow for more creative breathing room, Delius loved Walt Whitman. Again, we digress…Langgaard, Delius, Wagner…<br />
<br />
Interruption: Maestro Gianandrea Noseda shared – via the BBC Proms announcer – that he could program Mahler’s nocturnal Seventh symphony “only once every 3 or 4 years” because of how “dark and difficult” it is “to perform.” We second that appraisal. The fatigue from performing – of literally re-creating a masterwork – whether it be a 75-minute Symphony, a one-act or Monodrama, a full-length opera or play – is akin to the exhilarating exhaustion that accompanies the creation of such a work (as we know from composers’ own testimony about the creative process – see Harvey: <i>Music & Inspiration</i>). This work involves the entire being – mind, body and spirit – and is a “holistic” approach to life as it requires the artist to burn with a smoldering passion that not only fires every fibre of her being but is electric enough to captivate an audience so they might be moved, touched, affected and enlarged by the first-hand experience with artistic genius…<br />
<br />
But back to Langgaard’s eccentric vision – Mahlerian in scope & originality, if not always in style – his 6-minute 11th Symphony called <i>Ixion</i>. We are reminded Ixion was one of the mortals punished by the gods with a torture of everlasting repetition – “spending his life turning a wheel of fire in endless torment, like Sisyphus” as the composer put it (Sisyphus – endlessly rolling the boulder uphill – is frequently conflated with Ixion in mythological commentary and criticism, for inquiring minds…) The top of Langgaard’s score reads “Ixion: Bound to an eternally rolling flaming wheel…” The daddy of those tortured titans is not Sisyphus so much as Prometheus. (Though Camus might have us think so in his engaging re-imagining <i>The Myth of Sisyphus</i>).<br />
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[Ribera's 1632 chiaroscuro portrait of the tortured "Ixion"]<br />
<br />
Nearly every romantic artist invokes Prometheus – from Shelley to Beethoven to Wagner to eccentrics like Scriabin and Luigi Nono. A compelling biography of the artistically inclined scientist Robert Oppenheimer is subtitled “An American Prometheus.” Mary Shelley’s seminal gothic "monster" novel is <i>Frankenstein, A Modern Prometheus</i>. These last two examples remind us the dark shadows of ambition are described as “promethean.” It can be dangerous and destructive as a plague from the gods, the invention of a murderous monster or nuclear holocaust. But Prometheus – like most of the gods and mythic figures – is Janus-faced, two-sided (multi-faceted) and complex. His ambition & drive can be positively creative and his vision & the will to act on it is the origin of all human striving & achievement (this is also the heart of romantic philosophy in misunderstood thinkers & poets like Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, to grossly oversimplify…) Where romantic ideals have flourished (as they did in the Renaissance, for example), the creative promethean artists of an era have brought forth nourishing fruit. Prometheus is a symbol of both the fire of creativity and its audacity. He is the “bringer of light” to humanity, enabling not only the creativity found in the arts, but the life-sustaining crafts of industry and artisanship. He is at once the prototypical romantic hero and the founder of modernity. With the fire of creativity also came the flames of industry and the beginnings of humanity’s ultimately futile attempts to control and manipulate the elements and Nature. Humankind, like Prometheus himself, has always been burned by his own flames…<br />
<br />
Langgaard’s own life appears to be a series of Promethean or Sisyphean tortures, an outcast and iconoclastic artist’s Herculean efforts to find a room in a closed system (as some have described the Nielsen-loving Danish music establishment of the first third of the 20th c.) One of his biographers (ironically named Nielsen, the name of Langgaard’s alleged nemesis) cites the maverick composer’s “obstinacy, protest, total lack of inhibition and complete disregard for convention” – doesn’t he sound interesting already? The expressive interval of the minor 7th is prominently featured in this mini-symphony (cum tone poem) That 7th is famously used by Bernstein at the start of his torch song “Somewhere.” It’s the interval that arches dramatically upwards between the first two words: “There’s a…[place for us]”). The romantic expressivity and <br />
open-ended harmony is at once a leaning-into and a longing-towards something indefinable if not inexpressible… like love or eternity… <br />
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Langgaard did not do himself any favors, as the critics and academics ungenerously like to say, by his “eccentric… and publicly proclaimed beliefs.” His “idiosyncratically religious and apocalyptic form of Christianity” was too unsettling or reactionary or just “too weird” for the establishment. Underscoring the symbolic quality of his ill luck – because it cuts both ways - his music was too “Wagnerian” or “conservative” for the same musical establishment that decided what was avant-garde, what was mainstream and what was outside – marginalized, outcast or merely ignored – as Langgaard increasingly was…) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjScHeOTepL76S77gUQEtJvlu-oKoyPkm56oDAoK4eyUzLMp8Hc6MkAEIVeFFEewQ22zLiEpVA5eU7oqBm2oj7-QaQdnFYHnSrlNJZZ1AweTtluea-0f2nh7AbXjF_Um0Pr2vbL5HGhWe4/s1600/Terror.Antiquus.Leon.Bakst.1908.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="298" width="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjScHeOTepL76S77gUQEtJvlu-oKoyPkm56oDAoK4eyUzLMp8Hc6MkAEIVeFFEewQ22zLiEpVA5eU7oqBm2oj7-QaQdnFYHnSrlNJZZ1AweTtluea-0f2nh7AbXjF_Um0Pr2vbL5HGhWe4/s320/Terror.Antiquus.Leon.Bakst.1908.jpg" /></a></div><br />
[Leon Bakst: Terror Antiquus - an apocalyptic vision from 1915]<br />
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There was also the issue of his convention-defying “ill-fitting clothes, his cultivation of the appearance of a long-haired 19th century virtuoso.” Like many a romantic or Byronic hero, a hippy, freak, misfit, exile or genius nerd, Langgaard’s due came later. That is to say, if he enjoyed even modest success in his lifetime, like Mahler before him, it is only 50 years after death such an eccentric vision begins to be embraced.Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-998919302182759604.post-43701451992633284092012-06-23T14:44:00.000-04:002012-06-23T18:24:28.370-04:00Circle of Fifths: Musings on the Figure 5 for my wife on our Fifth Anniversary…23.VI.12 / Liberty Inn, Maine<br />
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One of the first images that comes to mind when I consider the figure 5, is the William Carlos Williams poem, “The Great Figure.”<br />
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<i>Among the rain<br />
and lights<br />
I saw the figure 5<br />
in gold<br />
on a red<br />
firetruck<br />
moving<br />
tense<br />
unheeded<br />
to gong clangs<br />
siren howls<br />
and wheels rumbling<br />
through the dark city.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepYNk2C0-Y9UXuKJE2GM9gj_hCQZtUdkoN5l6gzCgnEskXCeskfQ9DaMf3LfmcLJXsdaf9pTEvJubeYF1mKNRYGWiJhK3yly6Ig8-_wc2EkKPUTohKdcdz7KEVbSiKiGn8MbKhKn2jxE/s1600/Charles.Demuth.5.jpg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjepYNk2C0-Y9UXuKJE2GM9gj_hCQZtUdkoN5l6gzCgnEskXCeskfQ9DaMf3LfmcLJXsdaf9pTEvJubeYF1mKNRYGWiJhK3yly6Ig8-_wc2EkKPUTohKdcdz7KEVbSiKiGn8MbKhKn2jxE/s320/Charles.Demuth.5.jpg.png" /></a><br />
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It inspired the above iconic 1928 painting by Charles Demuth, entitled “The Figure 5 in Gold.” Williams similarly epigrammatic poem, “The Red Wheelbarrow” is inscribed on the back of an expressionist portrait my friend and former student, Robert Farmer painted of me, which is among my wife’s favorite pieces of original art in our collection. <br />
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The great figure 5 is also the mysterious and mystical “Fifth Element,” hinting at the beyond and an alternate dimension. The 5th planet from the Sun is Jupiter (Zeus in Greek mythology), the lord of the titans. In Holst’s symphonic suite, <i>The Planets</i>, Jupiter is “the bringer of jollity.” This is fitting for the 23rd of June: the two numbers of which total 5, of course. The trinity of 3 and the perfect pair of 2 are symbolic themselves. Today is also Midsummer’s Eve or St. John’s Eve, a day of celebration in conjunction with the Summer Solstice, the fertile and luminous season of growth and light. Midsummer is the setting of Shakespeare’s great comedy of the interpenetration of the mortal and spirit worlds in <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>. It is the setting of Michael Tippett’s marvelous first opera, <i>The Midsummer Marriage.</i> Hans Sachs passes the Meistersinger torch to the young initiate Walther von Stolzing on St. John’s Eve in Wagner’s melodic masterpiece, <i>Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg</i>. Today also happens to be the anniversary of our beloved cousins, Tracy and Jeff Sonafelt. We are celebrating this midsummer in one of the most idyllic spots we know, on Lake St George in Liberty, Maine, as guests of our dear friends Kari Foster and Rick Hurwitz. <br />
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Since we have touched on the magical harmonies inspired by Midsummer and the union of 2+3 = 5, this circle of 5ths (itself a guide to the harmonious progression of chords separated by the “perfect” interval of the 5th) will conclude its brief digression with a mention of great 5th symphonies. Beethoven’s “knock of fate” symphony is among the most beloved and performed essays in the genre, and inspired every composer in his wake. Beethoven’s 9th would redefine the symphonic genre and force future composers to consider what their own "9th's" would be, given the inevitable comparisons to Beethoven’s towering achievement. The same comparisons hold for the 5th symphony. Thanks to Beethoven’s incredibly affirmative statement, "5th's" are frequently luminous and exuberant works, full of lyrical <i>cantabile</i> melody and unified, well-argued statements of form marrying content. <br />
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The most famous and beloved 5th after Beethoven must be Mahler’s, whose 5-movement work is an example of the axiom that tradition is not inherited but made. The famous <i>Adagietto</i> for strings and harp, the penultimate movement of Mahler 5, is one of the most beautiful adagios ever written, and was surely a love-message, a "song without words" to his beloved, Alma.<br />
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The self-contained 5th symphony of economic compression is by the Nordic Apollo to Mahler’s Dionysus, the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Sibelius 5 is a three-movement work shorter than some of the single movements of Mahler and his one-time teacher, Bruckner - whose 5th is among his greatest achievements – grand and elegant, Teutonic and elemental. Sibelius was beloved in the English speaking world during his lifetime, and has returned to his well-deserved place after a period of neglect during the creative silence of his final thirty years. His 5th embodies the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights.<br />
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Ralph Vaughan Williams’ 5th symphony is dedicated to Sibelius. It is among the most lyrical and romantic of his 9 symphonies and though we don’t know what Sibelius thought of the dedication, he should feel gratified at such an elegant tribute. The neglected British composer Arnold Bax was another admirer of Sibelius, and his 5th symphony is indebted to the Finnish master. Sibelius’ successor as the figurative musical dean of Finland is Einojuhani Rautavaara. Rautavaara’s 5th is a single-movement essay from the mid 1980’s. Like many of the octogenarian composer’s autumnal works, it is full of lyricism and colorful orchestrations evoking the Nordic landscape and ethereal birdcalls.<br />
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The northern landscapes - and their corresponding inscapes of emotional depth - in Russia inspired great 5th symphonies from Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. Tchaik 5 is a Beethovenian statement of faith, and its slow movement has one of the most beautiful horn solos in the repertoire. Prokofiev and Shostakovich both wrote works reflecting their war-torn and politically volatile climates, respectively. Both are considered among their respective composer’s genuine masterpieces, and possessed of individually haunting beauties. <br />
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A 5th that is overlooked as a symphony because of its status as both a tone poem and a piano concerto (with obligato wordless chorus) is Scriabin’s mystical masterwork, “Prometheus, The Poem of Fire.” Scriabin’s “Symphony No. 5” recalls Beethoven, who also wrote a Prometheus-inspired ballet score. Liszt's 5th symphonic poem happens to be <i>Prometheus</i>. If only more recent mythic adaptations could be so alive! Unlike the vapid Ridley Scott film ostensibly inspired by the myth of the Greek titan <i>Prometheus</i>, Scriabin’s symphonic poem evokes a sense of wonder, mystery and possibility. One of the original tricksters, Prometheus rebelled against the titans, bringing "the gift of fire" to humankind, and enabling not only art and industry, but also forging the possibility of human independence. An archetypal symbol for the artist, he was tortured for his bold vision. Scriabin's symphonic poem centers around the gift and the magical sense of possibility engendered by creativity. His Prometheus is a richly colored canvas that is romantic, impressionist and expressionist at once. The Promethean fire of creativity is kindled at Midsummer, and the circle is complete in the perfect union symbolized by the wedding ring. <br />
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Postscript: Nielsen 5. I neglected to list Carl Nielsen's sui generis 5th symphony. The Dutch composer's 6 symphonies are each individual expressions of music's ability to not merely depict life but to actually pulse with life itself. The 5th is in two movements, the first of which is divided into two nearly equal 10 minute movements, and the second consists of an Allegro, a Presto, an Andante and a culminating Allegro. Of his most famous symphony, the 4th, he explained his programmatic title, <i>The Inextinguishable</i> in a great paragraph that bears quoting. It applies to our theme of life-affirming music, Midsummer festivities and the joys of shared human life.<br />
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"The title <i>Inextinguishable</i> suggests something that only music itself can express fully: the elementary will of life. Only music can give an abstract expression of life, in contrast to the other arts which must construct models and symbolize. Music solves the problem only by remaining itself; for music is life whereas the other arts only depict life. Life is unquenchable and inextinguishable; yesterday, today and tomorrow, life was, is and will be in struggle, conflict, procreation and destruction; and everything returns. Music is life, and as such, inextinguishable."<br />
<br />Scott Williamsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10847565610009226201noreply@blogger.com0