No doubt it's time I said something about the tiger. I should mention, perhaps before I recount the particulars of how it escaped and how its escaped prefigured the momentary tragedies and enduring triumphs of our silent March, that several anniversaries ago R and I were able to travel, slowly, up to Philadelphia by way of Baltimore to cath a remarkable exhibition of maps at the Walter's Art Gallery. At least one of the maps contained a tiger, but I can't recall itf it is the map I've ben proccupied with lately.

The exhibition was so transporting we spent at least an hour wandering through the meandering narrative of what humans have made of maps for centuries upon centuries. It contained everything from the stylized graphic art of a London Underground map made in the early 1900s to a craggy lenght of polished wood which an Eskimo would run his hands along while kayaking along the shoreline in the dartk, navigating by sense and counting outcroppings and inlets.

One map from Edo period Japan though traced a pisirutal pilgrimage. Rather than being strictly representative of taking this road or that road to and from a holy city it stressed spiritual exercises at particular points and was illustrated with drawings to aid the pilgrim in achieving the full measure of his pilgrimage. Well, I've been doing something which can be considered some fashion of pilgrimage, but doing it without benefit of a map. I realized recently, and with a healthy measure of shame, that I had never read LORD OF THE FLIES by William Golding. It is one of several conspicuous and surprising gaps in my literary education,m suprising especially for a student of English literature. Well, as a remedy to this problem I've been reading my way through everything that Golding published, finishing of course and in true pilgrim's fashion, wirth the object which precipitated the journey in the first place, Golding's first published work, LORD OF THE FLIES.

Well, I mention this I suppose not because it is particular to the focus of this month, but because it isn't. I have been reading through Golding's books on the train for two months or so, and am happy to report I am most of the way completed with them. no, I mention it because it is an area of interesting accomplishment I have focused on in the last week.

But this last week has, apart from my adventures in Golding been notable for its deviations, actually. R and I listened to two British radio shows, and I should like to add that British radio is simply better than our American radio. Say what you want about whether the federal government should be funding NPR, but recognize simlutaneously that it is the only thing we have that approximates worthwhile radio in America. I don't really want to debate that, not here anyway. But I will say that we listened to two episodes of THE UNBELIEVABLE TRUTH, which is possibly the funniest and smartest radio show going st the moment. It is currently in its 7th season and I am enjoying listening through it a great deal.

We also notably broke our strict fast this week to draw the blinds and enjoy an episode of the new PBS UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS. Don't judge us too harshly, we had a long day in the car with all three kids before hand and when evening came around we were rsather downtrodden and a little desperate.

That;'s all for this week though, which the exception of the tiger story, which, sadly, will have to wait. My sincewrest apologies.

April 11th...2011

Later on we'll explain and apologize appropriately for whatever it was that happened or didn't happen here on this blog in the month of March. I'll just tell you up front that it was a totally justified silence, and involved an escaped circus tiger, a missing suitcase and a hidden message detected in the hem of a ball gown for an understudy in the New York Ballet. Like I said, we'll get to it, and it's not a very interesting story anyway.

We're here to talk about this month. This April. This cruelest month as what's his name described it in Thanatopsis WRONG WRONG WRONG it was Eliot in THE WASTELAND and fie on me for my faulty memory of lines which have tumbled in my head for a decade (wet blanket that he was.)This remains true...Eliot was a wet blanket...though he did like the Groucho Marx a lot...apparently. Not in the way he meant it, April is turning out to be a cruel month indeed though. We've altered our schedule a bit for a couple reasons, chief among them that we really coudn't manage without alcohol this month. More on that later.

This month we are doing without digital media. Sort of. Well, it's our media ecology month anyway, an experiment in decreasing the amount of time we spend in our lives gazing into the flickering firelight of a computer screen. Our distant ancestors who spent their lives pitched in ceaseless combat against the whips and scorns of outrageous nature (see escaped circus tiger above) knew better than we do that it is simply a bad survival tactic to stare INTO the fire. It ruins the eyes for night work, Likewise, staring into these screens that have become in so many ways principle arbiters of the world seems like it must be a bad survival tactic. At any rate it is good to acknowledge their power over us and take a closer look...away from them.

The other day I was at a research panel review meeting, where diffierent institutions were highlighting their work in a number of fields (chiefly blowing things up and measuring the effects of this or that modelling software in predicting what blows up and how). The man running the show spoke late in the afternoon on the final day of the conference and announced that the results would be made available in an online tool because, as he put it blatantly, nothing is real until it's on the internet. He paused after he said it, so I think it was a joke, but no one laughed.

There's been enough diatribe and doomsay against the internet, and we're not about that here. I'm not anyway. Anyway, I'll let R write about it more since she's read THE SHALLOWS and Neill Postman with more assiduity than I. But on the other hand, I've read Verner Vinge's wonderful book RAINBOWS END, which I highly recommend and will excerpt and write about later.

Essentially that's all I can report today, that I will write more about some other stuff later (see escaped circus tiger above). Well, that's not entirely true. I can tell you about the rocky start we had to this month, which began with the difficult admission of just what this month meant. Drastic reductions in internet and no watching movies or television shows. There are essentially four websites i ever visit, so I didn't anticipate the first being difficult or feeling drastic (http://google.com , http://forum.dansimmons.com , htto://www.audiotool.com , http://facebook.com ). Well, for the first week or so it's been more of an exercise in undoing habitude. I have consciously checked myself quite a bit, stopping myself from checking my email more than once or twice a day, from looking at facebook....at all....which isn't a great loss...I still hate facebook...and from weighing in on political discussions etc. But I have been a bit intentional about it and not Draconian. I still research on google books, I still check my email, but the intent has been to decrease and examine and it's been interesting.

The movies are brutal though.

I realized that I tend to come home from work, having already read on the train for at least an hour, having cudgeled my brain all day in the office, having sat through or run meetings, having jostled and bumped against people on trains heading this way or that way through the city, and the thought of doing anything other than cooking, getting the kids to bed and then having a thoughtful or provacative or funny or interesting story told to me, while I sit and enjoy it...is overwhelming.

I'll say this much, after the first few days of it, I got more into the groove of writing in evenings, and I've written more consistenty in the last week, adding several pages a night almost to my novel (which is totally at sea and I'm not feeling all that great about it and don't want to talk about it). That's been good. But not watching films really feels like a fast, feels privative. I think in terms of really examining how we spend our days and nights, I am feeling the impact of not watching films more than anything else. It hasn't been terribly pleasant, but a little unpleasantness was I think, part of the purpose of this week, to understand, appreciate and be aware of each thing we do in our lives.

Now, about the circus tiger....

Not content to be simply called a great recorder...ist...Piers Adams is, according to the playbill from our evening of Vivaldi, "heralded" (heralded, mind you) a "the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world." I'll admit that this was the first sentence that I read in the leaflet and for some reason it stuck with me as I read the rest and listened to Red Priest, bring forth an evening of baroque music.

What, I wondered, is the reigning recorder virtuoso like? I imagined the curious company one must doubtless keep to hold such a title. Who are the runners up? I had, and still do have, a difficult time imagining that the International Consortium of Professional Recorder Virtuosos (ICPRV...pronounced phonetically, hard c) were a great deal of fun. Their numbers probably consist of folks who've spent the better part of their lives being hit over the shins for one reason or another.

So I was confused and curious, reading about the bold, mustache twirling irreverence of Red Priest, a group that has been compared (and no doubt heralded as well) to Cirque du Soleil and the Marx Brothers. Well. Such company.

All of this comes from a difficult relationship I have with Renaissance music. Basically, I have always had a hard time imagining humans listening to it. In fact, being somewhat musical myself (and also having a kind of extravagant brain that conceives of ancient cultures weirdly sometimes), it damaged my opinion of the Renaissance in general. I imagined Leonardo Bruni slamming the shutters closed and wishing the dreary droning quartet of sackbuts lutes and those weird sprouting stringed thingies would stop being so persnickety and mournful while he was trying to conceive of a theory of humanistic liberal arts.

That's what I thought of Renaissance music. Fusting old twangy stuff that threatened to veer over the guardrail of the bridge of my....overextended metaphor. Anyway, I didn't like it.

Then, the year our twins were born I listened on New Years eve, while R was in the hospital to this fantastic recording by Rolf Lislevand. Now, before finishing reading this, you should go buy that CD. I'll wait. There, now you can listen to it while you read. Well, Rolff recognized a kind of jazzy improvisational spirit in this music, variations on themes, arpeggiation, diminution, exploration and solo virtuosity. The recording reflects this. It sounds like something I could rock out to if I lived in the 17th century. Moreover, it sounds like something Leonardo Bruni could rock out to. That's too flippant. It's emotional. It's human. It has the kind of life to it that I expect from music, which must in so often serve as the expression of emotions, desires and wants that are too essential for words.

So, back to Piers, the lord of all recorder virtuosos. They leapt onto the stage in masks and cloaks as R already mentioned, Piers at the forefront, elbows pumping, dancing around one another and leaping forward. I have to say, I think Piers might have stolen his stance at one point Jethro Tull but the point was the spirit.

I had the joy of watching the first half of the show with G next to me, leaning around the pillar to get a better look at these dancing players. They were wild. The music was wild. G was entranced. R has already mentioned the fact that G came to the concert as a Vivaldi lover, so I won't belabor that except to say it made it much better for me, who has only recently awakened to a love of this music.

It was a show in every sense of the word. These folks danced, they came out into the garden, the harpsichordist (the dashing and largely self taught David Wright) grasping a fiddle and wandering around the fountain at one point, barking mysteriously on the violin, playing a dog roaming the fields in THE FOUR SEASONS, but still taking time to confess to us as he walked by "I don't even play violin, sorry."

Anyway it was a great and lively reminder of how human this music is. G's response to it only reinforced this. We were able to go and meet the musicians, which was fun G as well, the youngest person in the room by at least two decades. But I have to echo R's point that these were not clowns. They were playing it right, and I think that's important. They do appear sort of wild and clownish from their website, but it's not silly. It's right. The music is everything they play it with (even the occasional pop music strain in the middle of a solo, or musical joke).

Frankly, I'd expect nothing less from the reigning recorder virtuoso in the world today.

Taming the Savages, or Why it Had to be Jane Who Taught Tarzan How to Speak

On to Vivaldi....

Following Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, we all gathered at the National Gallery of Art to listen to a free concert of Red Priest performing Vivaldi and other selections of pre- and early Baroque music. Along with us this time where my Mom (it was her birthday) and Spoon (our 4 year old).


None of us knew what we were getting in to. I thought we would go and enjoy some time sitting amongst marble columns and a lot of gray hairs listening to the lovely and uncomplicated strains of The Four Seasons. Boy was I wrong. Despite what you may see on the link for Red Priest, they were not dressed as pirates (though they were in black and red, and did enter wearing Carnival masks and capes) and were infectiously engaged with serious music. However, like a lot of total music nerds, all the flamboyance turns out to be a chimera, hiding the fact that otherwise you might think they were too stuffy and academic about originality and context to enjoy hearing them play. I'll leave it to the others to recapture more of the evening for you, as I want to focus on a couple of specifics.


I have 15 month old twins. And a four year old. I spend all day with them as my husband so aptly put it the other day, very much like the crew following horses in parades. I was reminded though, sitting in the midst of the dimly lit potted green palms and smooth marble columns, with others surrounding me who were not micturating in their own pants, that the whole aim of my business with the children is precisely not just scraping up filth and responding to constant need. It is in fact to lead these savages to not only engage in order and loveliness, but to seek it out. To rule their intensely real emotions, whims, and needs by self-control--being convinced of what it true, beautiful, and good. And because of this to revel even more fully in the wild tumults of creation, creativity, and passion.


Red Priest's front man Piers Adams explained, after the introductory Vivaldi piece, that the rest of the first half of the concert would be devoted to other musicians who were instrumental in developing the Baroque style, in chronological order leading to Vivaldi. The musicians proceeded to educate us through playing through the music how the Baroque style developed, and why Vivaldi was so extraordinary. The concert jarringly reminded me of the one that we had just enjoyed culminating in Gershwin. ...the uneasy first diversions from form, the seeming rough transitions into flights of fancy and spontaneity. Adams described the Baroque style as being "extravagant, rough edged, wild, raucous" music without "rigid form or structure, prone to eccentricities or flights of fancy and often requiring unprecedented virtuosity to perform". The way that Red Priest played the music made complete sense of what Adams had been describing. Furthermore, when it came to listening to Vivaldi's four seasons it was as though our ears had been opened up, that we were not listening to the stayed recognizable flattened down Vivaldi, but the true maturation of getting Baroque right. Unlike Gershwin's fiercely combative combination of forms, Vivaldi had listened to Bassano, Cima, Castello, Cazzati, Gabrielli, and Corelli and had the vision to bring it into a whole round form of its own. I can only describe it in terms of food. It was like a red wine butter emulsion sauce. The delicate tang of the wine riding atop of the depth and richness of the butter, completely transforming both beyond themselves into something altogether more and different. 


The delight though, for me, was something beyond just hearing afresh the overplayed, under-attended music of Vivaldi. The Baroque seems to easily signify the heights of civilization that I am striving for in raising our children. In all it's force and beauty--the struggle of bombast and storm against the exquisite limitations of an instrument played by a man. Encapsulated by the sheer delight of the musicians with each other (community), their shared endeavor (politics), they produced music that delighted their audience (articulate communication)--producing both wild flights of imagination, the exultation in the sheer capacities of man, and the pathos of the storm, the struggle with nature, drunkenness, and the hunt. 


The tensions between fancy and storm were not merely competing experientially, but rather made coherent a whole experience of life, and this only made possible by the devoted study of music and practiced skill of the players. 


What could be a better view of our lively engagement with the world as God has given it to us to pursue?


Jack was recounting to Spoon this week how Tarzan had taught himself to read, but could not speak the words that he could read. Jane taught him to speak. Parents have a lot to accomplish, and thankfully God has given us each other to encourage and lean on--but I think it is particularly the gift of God to women to be the early caregivers. God has specially called us to do this work, but more over--has specially equipped us to do it. If we lose sight of the delights and struggles of leading our children, and instead tire and merely follow them in their unformed and uninformed whims it is a drudgery and constant conflict. That's where I have been for four weeks. Jack graciously has given me two days to refresh myself (with sleep and quiet)--a much needed break. But I pray that God's gift of a loving husband and a civilizing concert--will bring forward in my thoughts the real, fantastic, scintillating work to be done. 


I was able to be encouraged that evening when Spoon stood enraptured by the music for two and a half hours. I sat there with my mom and thought of the gratification she must (hopefully!) feel sitting with me and my daughter--gratitude forcing some perspective on my own work. Spoon has been listening to Susan Hammond's Classical Kids Vivaldi's Ring of Mystery for the past two years. And as we listened to the music she would whisper, "Now they are going to the Isle of the Dead," "This is when she breaks the violin," and so on, referencing the story she had heard. As we told her the story of the seasons as we progressed through them--she was able to start identifying key themes, such as the storm, the birds, etc. But the best part of all was that I was able to glimpse (in the midst of a very trying four weeks), the pursuit of these things that we would be able to enjoy together with our children as we grow, discover, and create as civilized creatures. 

So, Lord, grant me fortitude to carry on the work that you have set out for me, and energy to communicate delight to those that I love. 

Rhapsody

Part of my desire for wanting to spend more time thinking, listening to, and reading about music this month is because I think that music is a weak spot in my education. I took an independent study course in college on Romantic music to try and address this, and learned how to follow a score, listen to a symphony, and explore the relationships between musicians and other artists of their age. However, I have not since then kept up the exercise very well of sitting down and listening to a piece of music exclusively and trying hard to understand it without any other distractions or diversions. 

So far this month, although it has been disjointed, I have really enjoyed getting the chance to do this more, and I hope to do it at least once a month. We'll see how that goes! 

So Rhapsody. 

I didn't know what rhapsody actually meant, and after Mahler's Lied/symphony, I thought it may be important to know why Gershwin called it a Rhapsody.

Here is Merriam-Webster's definition:

1  a portion of an epic poem adapted for recitation

2

archaic : a miscellaneous collection

3

(1) : a highly emotional utterance (2) : a highly emotional literary work (3) : effusively rapturous or extravagant discourse

4

: a musical composition of irregular form having an improvisatory character

I have to admit while everyone else was totally enthusing after the final notes of the Rhapsody had faded, I was sitting in some confusion. I think hearing the full concert in which the Rhapsody was played  was extremely helpful. Listening to the "crudest" forms of jazz, and their development out of the dance halls to a more sophisticated engagement with a looser form--rather than just songs helped to prepare me for the striking Rhapsody. 

However the Rhapsody sounded to me just as Jack mentioned--like a battle. It sounded really disjointed to me--here a symphonic sweep, truncated, with a twang of a banjo competing. And while altogether fascinating to really be experiencing what the musicians and culture was at that very moment in history--whether jazz would become mainstream, or at the very least, how it would affect the mainstream... I found myself agreeing with the reviewer--and wondering what Gershwin would have come up with had he developed his style more. 

It really seemed to me like Gershwin was saying to the audience, "Here we are: at the cross-roads. What's next?!"

I found it to be altogether stimulating, and fascinating academically, but I really doubt that I would find myself leaning over to put the Rhapsody in Blue on to just jam to. To me, the above definition seems entirely appropriate for what we heard--a miscellaneous, effusively rapturous and extravagant discourse of irregular form, having an improvisatory character. 

P.S. I would love to hear Margaret's discussion of what she saw as the relationship between Whistler's painting and the Rhapsody now that we have heard it. wink wink.

A Concert of Jazz

This post is weirdly overdue. As such, I am forced to backfill some pretty incredible items from the month of February. I'll do it in separate posts, wrapping up our dedicated month of listening, because each of our pieces of music deserves their own little space.

First, today, now, Gershin. We met at Margaret's home, and got so engrossed in a fine French wine from, according to our translating somalian (that's the term, yes?) , a vinyard called "between two horses". I don't if that's true. I suspect it isn't. But the simple fact is I don't know French well enough to say otherwise and our new friend was very sincere and convincing. But there we were, enjoying wine and conversation and a marvelous meal of roast chicken, pasta with amazing, possibly unpasteurized butter so engrossed in one another and the liveliness of good company and food that we almost missed listening to Rhapsody in Blue altogether. But we didn't. Thankfully.

I managed to track down two important things for the evening. First, I found the New York Times review of Rhapsody in Blue, published the morning after the concert. We read this astonishing review, which looks very little like a review today prior to listening. The concert, Paul Whiteman's "Experiment in Modern Music" was billed as a kind of educational affair, a speculation on the future of Jazz and its role in serious concert halls. At the time Jazz was dance hall music, low music, but it was also beginning to influence both American and European composers. Eric Satie had already begun to explore synchopation, very inspired by jazz, and he wasn't alone. So Paul Whiteman, a music promoter, set up this concert as an exploration of what jazz was capable of and a statement of his belief in the future of jazz. Here's what Paul Whiteman later said:

"I sincerely beleive in Jazz. I think it expresses the spirit of America and I feel sure it has a future - more of a future than a past and present. I want to help that future pan out"

So, "An Experiment in Modern Music" was set up in the concert hall attached to the Aeolian Piano factory. Interestingly enough, just a few blocks away, Duke Ellington was playing the Kentucky Club (a mob joint) and Fletcher Henderson's orchestra was keeping folks dancing at the nearby Roseland (interestingly, just 8 months away from hiring a young Louis Armstrong as his cornet player). That was the landscape. Jazz was on the brink of something, wondering about it's future, and that future was linked somehow to the American character. Olin Downes, the Times reviewer, gets all of this, and gets in February 13th, the morning after the concert. His article is worth reading, and you can find it here:



I think Downes' prescience is interesting, as is Downes flamboyant writing, which seems to take on the character of the concert nicely, at times sounding bouncy and improvisational as the music. But I also reckoned it was interesting to re-assess where jazz has or hasn't gone since 1924. I'm sure a jazz historian could correct me on this, and I hope one will, or perhaps I'll just have to read more about it, but I have the distinct impression that jazz has instead bifurcated itself into very cerebral, philosophic jazz (Thelonious...I'm looking at you) and very watered down directions. There's just not a great deal of series concert jazz that seems to display an evolution from Gershwin's youthful Rhapsody. There is some, and it's noteworthy (Wynton...).

Anyway, I'm rapidly wading in out of my depth to speculate on that, so I'll bring up the second item of the evening.

Maurice Peress re-created the entire 1924 Aeolian concert, and did so very faithfully. He even managed to get (in 1987...so do the astonishing math) some of the original musicians from the 1924 recording. This recording (the 1987 one) was, I think the first recording of Rhapsody in its entirety. The reason for this is an interesting, mechanical one. Paul Whiteman's recording had Gershwin at the piano, but it was recorded to fit on two sides of a 12-inch, 78-rpm record. To do this, cuts had to be made and Gershwin chose to omit almost the entire middle section. The Peress concert, according to Peress, was the first recording to restore it.

Anyway, the recording is interesting, and wildly different than other recordings of Rhapsody in Blue. The principle thing is the banjo. It's really very prominent. Usually recordings downplay this, they smooth everything out, and the piece has become a kind of archetype of smooth sophistication, the wilder themes evened out to a kind of machine efficiency. But Peress' recording is a battle. The bouncing, jittery, banjo driven synchopations of the jazz compete unsteadily with the smooth sophistication of the orchestra. The piece was orchestrated by Ferde Grofe, and it bears the mark of his sense of counterpoint, but I think the essence of the piece, which I'd never quite heard before this night, is one of stark contrasts.

It's easier to see, having listened to that recording, why Downes would be so aware of what was happening on stage. The music makes it fascinatingly plain that there are two worlds in conclict within Rhapsody, the world of sophistication and the world of jazz. So it's still fascinating to consider how this would ultimately play out, and to see the question posed by Gershwin in 1924, as Rhapsody in Blue, quientessentially American in its quest to rise above its class, takes on the world of classical discipline.

Gershwin's Show Tunes

While Gershwin, had he lived past 40, might have become a "serious" composer--he only wrote 4 major orchestral pieces, and one opera--his legacy in music was already sealed, though he didn't know it, with his show tunes. The delightful melodies--at times quick and engaging, at other times soft and mellow and sad--match with his brother's excellent lyrics, became the backbone of jazz, and the first major figure in what are now known as American Standards. You'd be surprised, even if you aren't a jazz lover, how many of his show tunes you know.









Also: the embedding is disabled by request, but don't miss this live version of 'A Foggy Day in London Town' with Nat King Cole on piano and Mel Torme doing vocals.

Gershwin Biography

Um... so, we've clearly all been in way over our heads the last week or so. I've been sick and barely had a lucid thought. So I won't be writing a recap or our wonderful evening listening to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Nor will I provide the detailed and fascinating biographical background that J dug up about the Rhapsody, and the concert wherein it premiered.

Nope. Instead I am going to cop out and share with you a link to a review of a fascinating new biography of Gershwin from the Washington Post:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins.

Was Gershwin an inspired tunesmith, pure and simple, who nevertheless remained a rank amateur when he attempted to compose in larger forms, such as in his piano concertos or for the opera house? Or did his early death rob us of a distinctly American master, somebody who might have yoked all the strains that made up our wondrously polyglot musical culture of the mid-20th century - jazz, blues, popular song, European classical stylings, modernist experimentation - into a sustained and unified expression?

Larry Starr's valuable new book, titled simply George Gershwin, makes a strong case for the latter view. This is not a traditional biography (although Starr shares some potent biographical vignettes in a section called "Snapshots") but rather an insightful, technically intricate yet easy-to-follow study of Gershwin's music, particularly as it came out of the Broadway tradition.

The book can be found here. Read the whole review here.

Also, for fun: a rare video of Gershwin (playing his own "I Got Rhythym"):

On Mahler

Sometime in the past few months I finished Song of the Lark by Willa Cather. I say sometime because it took me so long to eek out the last 20 pages it seemed more like it evaporated than I completed it. However, the story has made a lovely and lasting impression on me. Interestingly SofL was written in 1915 and the Lied were composed in 1908--and as I listened to Mahler's Lied, I thought again and again of the similarities of the Lied and SofL both in theme and in subject, in tone and in the finale. In fact listening to the Lied helped me to finally understand the end of SofL, and helped me think through the Lied with some more coherence.

The subject matter immediately jumped to mind--with the German Mahler being influenced by the Eastern motifs and poetry--bringing it to bear on the rather tense Modernism with which he struggled, all within the somewhat florid context of the Art Nouveau style. Thea, also struggling with Modernism in a sense--what it means to be an artist in a time when most people are consumed by business and the newest fad--she heads to Germany to pursue serious voice training. The audiences in Europe and America sharply contrast--in Europe the masses are informed and trained listeners, in American the masses are swayed at the merest note from a critic and love singers for character rather than for excellence. Interestingly, Mahler first performed these Lied while at the Met in New York--where Thea eventually makes her break out debut.

In the Lied, Mahler starts with the troubadour's introduction--much like Cather's introduction--full of boisterous and somewhat jumbled first impressions--the earth's fiery sand cliffs, Thor bumping along in the wagon, the deep ruts of the old wagon trails, Spanish Johnny's mysterious disappearances when the mood strikes him, the low undertone of Thea's mother's understanding and Ray Kennedy's devotion and tragic death. All of the themes of exultation, sadness, striving, triumph, and loneliness are there, though it's unclear how the song hangs together (it was my least favorite), and it is not until the end that you see how the threads all do develop and lead to a coherent narrative. 

Mahler, and Cather move then to Autumn--as an aside, this is markedly odd--typically both in symphonies and in narrative--the conceit is to begin with Spring--with the bursting forth of youth. Neither artist does this however. We are plunged in Mahler's Lied into a drudging and sad song of decay. Thea escapes from Moonstone, we initially think in order to finally have the chance to meet her potential--instead she spends her time focussing on the wrong instrument (the piano, not her voice), has to return to Moonstone (again more frustration, since she is totally alienated from those who are there), and back to Chicago again, only to spend her time with a capricious and unhappy instructor, drearily changing from boarding house to boarding house (seemingly always in the rain), and making no real progress or connection. Yet there are glimpses of hope. Thea knows with certainty what her true gift is, and meets Fred Ottenburg. 

Onward to Youth, Beauty and Spring. Fred allows Thea the chance to spend time in Arizona, where she recaptures her vigor amongst the ancient spirits of the cliff people, the sparrows, and the sun--solidifying her identity and connection with human industry and striving, and lifting her to see the strength and delight she can communicate. She trains in Germany, and begins to sing in major productions in Europe. Conversely parallel to the Autumn, hints of sadness pervade the exultation--the cliff dwellers are absent--all of their industry is known only through remnants, Fred's tragic deception of Thea, and his being trapped, unable to fully enjoy or marry Thea, Thea's mother's death, and her inability to be there, the tragi-comic death of Dr. Archie's wife. 

In Mahler's stunning Farewell all of the elements hinted at and developed in the earlier songs come into vivid coherence. As Jack's post point's out his farewell is mournful and resigned, but hopeful. Cather finishes too with a Farewell of sorts. Thea's final direction as an artist is defined through the last conversation we overhear between her and Fred Ottenburg. There is a farewell, and Thea progresses on to what appears to be entirely musical being. There is very little humanity left in her, and I think, very little hope. It's a sad depiction of the Modern person I think, and one that even though Mahler shares, and perhaps perceives an even greater pathos involved in the human struggle of achievement and decline, his is more humane finally than Cather's. 

2/15/2011

Our next piece for exploration is George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Rhapsody in Blue was inspired in part by this painting, Nocturne in Black and Gold – The Falling Rocket, by James McNeill Whistler (which is in the Detroit Museum of Art). More precisely, the name was inspired by Whistler. Where Whistler used musical terms to describe his paintings, Gershwin used art (rather, color) to describe his rhapsody.

We'll be listening on Friday, but in the meantime, posting about the piece this week. (Full disclosure, this is my favorite orchestral piece...ever.)

2/12/2011

If we're to believe the story, and it seems generally accepted, Mahler was seriously concerned that people might "go home and blow their brains out" upon hearing Das Lied Von der Erde. Songs of the Earth. Songs that describe the life and gaiety and joy and love of the world, encapsulate the power of a horse and the self absorption of a drunkard and finally bid farewell to its impermanence and fleeting joys.

I've been putting off weighing in on this piece of music for one reason or another, but the overall umbrella of the problem is twofold. First, it's a complicated piece which has been subject to considerable scrutiny from unusually erudite people whose business it is to turn the lens of their erudition on music. I am not one of those people and gave up the notion of being too smart about this from the first. The other problem was fear.

Das Lied von der Erde was huge, and deeply affecting. It consists of six songs, great Chinese poems from important masters of Chinese poetry including Li Bai and Wang Wei (I actually translated a Li Bai poem in college once). The poems were first translated into French, from French to the Hans Heilman German version and thence to the Hans Berthge version. Finally someone not named Hans got their...hands...sorry...anyway, got their hands on the text and that was none other than Gustav Mahler who considerably personalized the poems as you can see here. One of the most important shifts he made is in the last poem, the only song I am going to get to in this post. That's because the songs are all leading up to it. Not to say they aren't important but they are all leading up to Der Abscheid, the farewell. The two most significant things, I think, that Mahler did to this poem was to make it in the first person and turn the last line into a refrain.

I'm nothing like an expert, but Mahler set's this final, massive piece in the first person to...brace yourself for the accumulated genius of my degree in English literature...personalize the poem. Simple enough I suppose, but hearing it sung in the first person somehow drove things to a more personal level.

Now the refrain. Wang Wei has his last line like this:

Endless the white clouds.

Mahler's looks like this:

Ewig...Ewig (endless, endless)

Not to over consider the change, I think that's the difference between Chinese poetry and music.

I really don't know what to say about the mysterious oboe and the occasional, far off whisper of a mandolin that runs through Der Abscheid. Margaret already described how we all sat in stunned silence while this song rolled over us like crashing waves. There are these deep orchestral blasts that punctuate the piece, and they come together in the end with terrible finality. I couldn't think how to get at the effect that had. I consider myself, after all, to be a writer of one kind or another and resent the thought that I might be left dangling like Claudius, with painted words that make a cheap thing of something vast deep. (act 3...scene something or other. it's just before the "to be or not to be" bit) wasn't one I liked.

I'll just say that the first time we listened I heard the C minor plinks of the Mandolin, the movement of this song of farewell, the mysterious oboe, I felt it all as emptiness, remembered the lines from Tristan and Isolde (which Wagner took from somewhere else...Goethe I think) "Oed and Leer ist das Meer" (Waste and empty is the sea). It struck me as terrible, a terrible meditation on the vast emptiness of the world and the unanswered longings we must live with and die by. The poet in Der Abscheid dismounts his horse and offers wine to his departing friend.

Where and why are you going?

You say you are returning to the southern mountains.

Let me go and do not ask me why, says the other,

there are endless white clouds there.

There is Mahler's refrain; Endless, endless.

R reminded me, and played for all of us the musical theme at the end of Mahler's second, the Resurrection Symphony. Sure enough it's there, a very similar rise, a shift to C Major (the relative major to the A Minor key that Lied Von der Erde begins in) and, I think, Mahler's essential, if meloncholic, certainty in the redemption of time. I can't help but wonder if it is listeners like me that Mahler was worried about walking away from Das Lied von der Erde really bummed out, listeners astute enough to get the pentatonic meanders and orchestral blasts and bold venturing into the "endless, endless" world of horizons but too dumb to see his overall allegiance in the process.

Because I'm situated here in the 21st century, what came to mind was that last scene from the movie SE7EN, you know the one. "Ernest Hemmingway once said 'the world is a fine place and worth fighting for' well I believe in that last part."

The Greatest Composers

The New York Times classical music critic Anthony Tommasini recently did a series exploring the question: Who are the greatest composers of all time?  He said, in his introduction to the project:

What makes great music great? There are lots of ways to answer. Here’s a playful approach: make a list of the Top 10 composers in history. A gimmick? Sure, but one worth using if you have to defend your choices. What goes into a decision to put certain composers on such a list or to keep them off? Should influence matter, or just the works themselves? What about popularity? Are there any objective criteria?

Anyway, if film institutes can issue lists of best movies, and rock magazines tally the greatest albums, why can’t a classical music critic give it a try, too?

He spent two weeks looking at the candidates, responding to readers questions, and finally came out with his list (Spoiler Alert: Bach wins!)--which is a fun little analysis of "not monumental idols but living, compelling presences."

On the list, Bach is the only one we've chosen for this little project.  And the final slot goes to Bartok (who, with Stravinsky and Wagner round out the Moderns)--but I can't really forgive that.  Bartok is nothing to Mahler.  It was a fascinating project, garnering over 1500 comments.  I highly recommend you check out the videos and articles dedicated to particular time periods:

+ The Romantics
+ The Female Factor
+ Verdi and Wagner
+ The 20th Century Masters
+ The Vienna Four Part One and Part Two

The Pentatonic Scale

We listened to Mahler's Songs of the Earth (conducted by Otto Klemperer) on Saturday.  We didn't really know what we were getting into, and the first couple of songs inspired lively discussion about the poetry, the musical themes, his inspiration (the songs are based on old Chinese poems, translated into the much more lyrical German).  But the final song, "Der Abshied" (The Farewell), a twenty-nine minute piece for mezzo-soprano, we were totally silent and enthralled.  It was a stunning piece of music--transcending all the pain and beauty and despair of the previous songs into grace and light and longing.

Because of the oriental influences, Mahler used elements of the pentatonic scale--which is a 5 note scale--the black keys on a piano, for reference.  Most oriental music is uses the Pentatonic scale, whereas Western music typically uses the Dorian.  However, the Pentatonic scale endures in folk music in almost all cultures.  I don't know much about it, and am always meaning to research more, but it seems the pentatonic scale is the most fundamental scale for music.

Here's an amazing video where Bobby McFerrin explains the pentatonic scale, as only he can:
 

Some Links for Mahler

I love this photo of Mahler with his wife Alma.

Many thanks to R and J for inviting me to join them on their February project.  I am super excited to be discussing Mahler, because I actually don't know much about him; I only know that I've loved everything of his that I have ever heard.

2010 and 2011 are good years for those who love Gustav Mahler.  2010 was the 150th anniversary of his birth, and 2011 the 100th anniversary of his death.  Needless to say: he's on just about every civic orchestra's concert list this season. And I've been collecting links about Mahler for ages now, so here's a nice start to my research:

+ Mahler's last concert was at Carnegie Hall:

A short, intense man, bundled in woolens, burst through the Carnegie Hall stage door 100 years ago for the last concert of his life. Gustav Mahler should not, by rights, have been there. The doctor had ordered him to bed with a head cold, and his relations with the New York Philharmonic had broken down at a hostile board meeting where, as tempers rose, a lawyer was whisked out from behind a curtain wielding a menacing contract. Any maestro today would have canceled the next concert, leaving the orchestra and his agent to concoct a face-saving statement. Mahler, though, was not a quitter.

(WSJ)  John Susanka responds.

+ I've never heard his poetic songs performed, but they brought my sister to tears once. Singer Thomas Hampson recently released an album of the lieder based on German folk poetry called Des Knaben Wunderhorn (CD, MP3).  The WSJ sat down to discuss Mahler's influence on Hampson's career.

+ Is there too much Mahler (WSJ...ironically, since they've written more about him this past year than about any other composer as far as I have read.)

+ Last fall Norman Liebrecht released  book Why Mahler: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World. Here are reviews: WSJ; The Economist; New Republic.  While the reviews make me hesitate, if I had time for more reading, I'd pick up Liebrecht's other Mahler book Mahler Remembered which was recommended by Terry Teachout and is a compilation of personal papers, letters, etc of Mahler.

+ Alex Ross (the New Yorker music critic and my go to source for classical music criticism) published a review in the London Review of Books in 2000 of several books about Mahler.  Fascinating reading.

+ Also from Alex Ross: this is a great (little) story about Mahler.

This is the plaque commemorating the building in which Mahler lived and wrote.  Can I just say, that is an awesome font?  R, will you make sure that when I am dead and a memorial is raised for me and my life's work (haha...yeah right), it looks as cool as that?

(Cross posted on my personal blog Ten Thousand Places.)

January 31, 2011

J: 


Work, and I mean my paycheck labor out in the world, has been running me to ground this week. I have had to backfill all my posts about creative time and - to tear the fourth wall of bloggery down - I had to backfill the time itself. I stole moments Saturday to pay Friday, and so on.

I reckon this though as another moment of symmetry for the purpose of this blog and our experiment in deliberate living. I know I've spent the last year tracking down time to write and make music like an ungainly hunter. like wolves that just chase an elk until it falls over. It isnt beautiful, but it works enough of the time to get something done. Anyway, I last year I wrote stories, worked on a novel, poetry and music, but I did it with the unimpressive tactics of the wolf.

You may want to leap to the defense of wolves. They are fine animals and I am not really meaning to get hung up on them...and how much they are the bullies of the animal world, and kind of good looking cowards.

Right, but, this January was a time of deliberate time. I think it is an odd turn of phrase when people talk about "finding time" as though it were laying around somewhere (in which case I would steal it from those inattentive guppies in an instant and without regret...a man who finds time isnt likely to put it to any better use than one who finds money). I don't like the notion of "making time" any better, as though one's godlike hubris is going to rend the fabric of the universe asunder and allow you to sit, while water droplets hang in the air, and write at the moving point of a frozen world. Sure its a figure of speech, I get it...but don't like it. But this January, rather than being the layabout blowing his dollar at the arcade, the master of time and space, or just a bully wolf, we fought very deliberately for 30 minutes each day. Mostly we won.

It changes the way you think about finding making or hunting time, to have done a thing like that with forethought. We picked a ringer of a month though. It depressed me at first when I realized how hard it was for us to find just 30 minutes, and I wondered if I had even spent that much time per session of writing in the last year. But upon reflection, this was just a rough month. So, we did it anyway and I am very proud of the result.

I think the real challenge of this year is going to be to keep making certain, when faced with incoming months that could be as rough as this one, I find at least the same time to keep working.

If and when I finish my novel this year, I will be sure to mention it here, and see how well I kept that time in order.

Onward to February.


R:


I started on my next painting.

"Yorkshire, 1965"




I suppose it is also fitting that I reflect on our first month here. I absolutely loved having in mind that these 30 minutes must be fit in. It helped me to orient my days a little bit better: if we were having a guest  over for dinner, I knew I wouldn't be able to have my time in the evening, and so organized the kids to be busy while I could be as well. It was really nice to have Spoon up painting next to me while I painted. More than this however, it helped me to realize how many 30 minutes I wasted checking email and scrolling through my Google Reader. Now don't get me wrong, I am not going to stop checking either one of those things! But it's even more satisfying to check them in bulk than to briefly glance for a couple minutes here and there. And meanwhile I have larger chunks to devote to reading, actually sitting down with my kids, or being creative. Not only have I already painted more paintings than all of last year, but I have knitted, read, written letters and blog posts, and had guests over for dinner--all of which had been shunted aside by not consolidating my use of the internet (primarily) and watching movies (secondarily).


I have been listening to The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr while I cook or clean up the kitchen this month. It's been oddly apt with the consideration of time this month. The brain is affected by what we choose to do or even what we think. Making choices in what you spend time thinking about actually affects the capacities of your brain. Carr writes about how deep reading (and I would add to this--any focussed creative activity), actually grows the capacity of your brain to engage the world when not reading.


"'The remarkable virtuosity displayed by new literary artists who managed to counterfeit taste, touch, smell, or sound in mere words required a heightened awareness and closer observation of sensory experience that was passed on in turn to the reader,' writes Eisenstein. Like painters and composers, writers were able to 'alter perception' in a way 'that enriched rather than stunted sensuous response to external  stimuli, expanded rather than contracted sympathetic response to the varieties of human experience.' The words in books didn't just strengthen people's ability to think abstractly; they enriched people's experience if the physical world, the world outside the book."


The brain wants to repeat patterns that it develops.


I have found that just like with working out--I feel more energetic having expended energy--the same to be true with leisure time. If I sit and watch a movie because I am just too tired to do anything else, I end up going to be feeling even more sluggish and restless. When I would actually just make myself sit down and paint or draw or read for 30 minutes or more, or then watch a movie, my enjoyment of the movie was increased, and I felt less tired and sluggish over all.


I hope to continue this good pattern of devoting more focussed attention to the small amounts of time during the day--perhaps alternating more between reading, writing, and being creative in other ways, rather than just limiting it to creativity. I will not try and make myself do this on the weekends though!


After devoting a month to re-focussing my attention, I am looking forward to developing the capacity of listening without images: February!

January 30, 2011

J: Chipped away at the unyielding stone of my novel. Also wrote a poem for a friend:

Friends turn 29

Turning twenty-nine is the seventeen of adulthood;
Once too young to smoke or drink, now just one rung short
of “I’m in my thirties.”

When I do it this March, I’ll wonder whether this year
will be the time I cram in all the accomplishments of youth
that will make them marvel.

Forget it. Let’s reckon more directly, that we were never more capable,
less foolish or forgetful, or more huge with hope or bristling certitude
than we are this year.



R:

I knitted.

January 29, 2011

J: I labored like Sisyphus at my novel, typing, scribbling and then scratching and deleting.

R:

I knitted.

January 28, 2011

J:

R:

After a hectic morning preparing for the exterminators to come, transferring everything I need for a family of five to my mom's and plopping down there for the day and coming night, I forgot to bring with me my knitting. I was able to finally get the last 5 pages of Song of the Lark read--but I hardly think that counts as creative.

January 27, 2011

J:





Also, I wrote an abysmal little bit of prose on the train today, finishing it in awkward places while waiting here or there or driving up and down main street in the snow. It was like the end times, buses sliding off the road, the police only stopping for the most desperate cases. I'll show you some exciting portions of it, but my thoughts were all smashed together - along with my limbs - as we bumped along home, heading into the coming plague of ice, snow, slush and roving bands of barbaric pirates, fighting over the last scraps of food and hunting in packs:


"Now it is the hour of the four wheel drive, and everyone who has got their suv bounds proudly, daring anyone to affront them with emission guilt, certain, with good reason, that the man swishing sideways uphill in his hybrid is filled with jealous helplessness.

I am one of those proud four wheeled mountain goat men, torn between demanding tribute from the victims of sunny day efficiency and the desire to go out like a man who owns a boat, rescuing swimmers from the storm. Now I am the schoolmaster, the superior one. "Maybe if you'd planned ahead," I say, sternly. By ten the roads are littered with abandoned cars, carapaces that document the bold and the foolish with indifference. Even the sure footed trucks are swishing about as though they were steered by rudders. The buses are out of commission; the police are all busy.

Once I make it home, blue lightning, more like a live atmospheric charge hums and crackles in the air, a buzz just inside your ear. The power blinks off in terified response, and then it is dark, and cold, everything cast back a century in a second. We light the gas stove with a match and bring out candles, books, my guitar.

Our neighbor is pregnant, and we meet out on the street. We hardly ever talk, but we exchange phone numbers and offer to drive her to the hospital if it comes to that the blue and humming flashes haunt us all night, and I fall asleep, senseless of the time and certain only of how much seems to have changed."


Also, tragedy! As you can see above, the power went out, and we were pioneers again. You may not be aware of this, but you can't read books published after 1923 by candlelight. Go and try it in your bathroom right now if you don't believe me. But, because of this I couldn't sent my interview questions in to Leodegraunce, or sign my contract with them. So, like a pioneer, who could hew a tree down and build a door with leather hinges, I whipped out my blackberry and clicked SEND on my draft email. I promptly lost 3g coverage. So, roving about with the blackberry held up like a torch, I looked for coverage, finding it, clicking SEND, losing it and wandering around more. Finally it went, and I checked to see if it was in my SENT folder. It was! Hooray! Wait...so were five other copies of the email. Now the editor of Leodegraunce probably assumes I am dangerous and should be avoided. But she is publishing my story anyway.





R:


I knitted today. Actually, I was almost blown up by a power line, but after surviving that I sat at home and knitted, drank a glass of wine, and watched the Art of the Steal (a documentary about the Barnes Foundation that I will probably blog about sometime soon over at Spoon).

January 26, 2011

J:

As much as I love many of his stories, I learned not to trust O. Henry. That's for the obvious reason that I knew he was going to trick me. He'd always make it delightful and I found myself accepting it with the kind of grudging affection you give to that relative who is always giving people wet willies, or snapping you with a dish towel. I still hold "Mammon and the Archer" very dear because it was the first story of his that I read and what he did with the story had a big impact on me as a writer. But, I mention all of this in the first place to promise you, anyone who's reading this, that I'm not tricking you and this was not orchestrated as an O. Henry trick for the month of January. The month in which we're highlighting our creative pursuits.

On this day, the 26th of January, 2011, I sold a short story. I sold a very small story to a fledgling market for a diminutive fee. It's technically pro-scale payment, which fits my personal dictum to never publish for free no matter what - I think publishing for free sets a terrible example for our youth.

Anyway, you read it here first, and I will update with links and much crowing from the ridge pole when it goes up. You'll be able to read the story, along with a really important and thoughtful "author" interview in the next issue of Leodegraunce (apparently mine will also be in the print anthology, stay tuned for that). I suppose it kind of counts as creative time as well that I spent some time today writing up my responses to the interview questions.

R:

I did not get anything purposely creative done today. I had an important client in the morning, and then the storm hit. I did light a lot of candles though!

January 25, 2011

J:

Wrote on my novel. And...



R:

I painted.

(the artificial light gives it a slightly more yellow tint than it is. I'll try another shot in natural light tomorrow.)

January 24, 2011

J:

Wrote on my novel.

R:

I chose the hardware for my new (old) cabinet... or at least I narrowed it down.

Knobs: (vote!)

Pulls:

January 23, 2011

J:


R:

I drew the preliminaries for my painting.

January 22, 2011

J:

The Weatherbeaten

Sure enough they're still there,

the books I read when I was very young.

They remain in the harbor of the juvenile section.

My brother first encouraged

open ocean travel out beyond these

volumes about melted coins and warlike badgers.

Young men who read are brazen,

and tough enough to handle heavy weather

with sextants for latitude but careless disregard

for wet chronometers,

adrift among the decimals and fictions,

and measureless expanses of trench and massif,

between jagged landmasses.

Some men return and write dull volumes;

entire works devoted to a boy and his tire swing,

desperate stories by old men afraid of forgetting.

Here is one in my hand,

about something as exciting as

a day walking through the forest with one's dog.

But boys wanted adventure,

death, danger and mystery they know is out there,

where old men want to be boys again.

I am a weatherbeaten,

young man, schooled in what really lies beyond,

not quite yet convinced that there's nothing worth wanting

outside my small experience.

I'm young enough to want to want something

in these books where anything impossible could happen.

Too young to wish to be young.

A boy darts past me like a bluefin,

snatching up one about a boy accused of treason.

"They've got it!" said to himself,

as he warily avoids the sailor looming

uncertain and adrift in a far flung foreign port.

R:


I worked on choosing a color for my new (old) china cabinet. The colors are Benjamin Moore's Stingray 1529 in high gloss for the exterior and Mascarpone AF-20 in flat finish for the interior. I'll post pictures in the spring when the work is completed on it.