Earlier in the week we went to watch Mozarts Don Giovanni at Covent Garden. The production was cleverly staged and, on the whole, well-paced. Much to my surprise, I was familiar with all the tunes, but not the story. I suddenly realized I had never seen it before. It has a much better libretto (by Lorenzo Da Ponte) than most Mozart's operas, full of clever puns and situational comedy, social commentary, and even almost psychological depth--perhaps because Don Giovanni is a shameless womanizer, the persistent strain of misogyny, which mars so many of his operas -- as the movie, Amadeus, notes -- is much less present. (Donna Anna performed by Rachel Willis-Sørensen is, in fact, an interesting character who evolves through the opera).
Half way the first act Don Giovanni takes advantage of his noble status to interrupt a joyous wedding among peasants. The whole scene has strong echoes of the so-called Droit du seigneur, the right of the noble man to have sex with his virgin peasants on their wedding night. (The idea is the driving force of Braveheart.) At first, Zerlina* is horrified, but under the influence of his flattery and her own wishes for a better life, against her better judgement -- she understands the Don's intentions for her are not noble -- the idea of a new beginning starts to grip her. (A very good version of the whole scene sung and acted by Rodney Gilfry and Liliana Nikiteanu can be seen here; see also an appropriately creepy one performed Bryn Terfel and Hei-Kyung Hong conducted by James Levine.)
"La ci darem la mano" [There I will give you (my) hand"] is one of the most famous duets; it has a honey-sweet melody. The night I saw it, Chen Reiss and Mariusz Kwiecień sung it with achingly beautiful, haunting intensity. Unlike most versions, which emphasize the closing sequence (Andiam-let's go!), Kwiecień lingered on the key line, Io cangierò tua sorte.--I will change your fate.
There is quite a bit of art that is intended to beautiful and once firmly thought beautiful and great, and where (say) because of changing sensibilities the aesthetic experience is marred or worse, because what it portrays is not at all lovely; where if there is an aesthetic experience at all it's something of an antiquarian interest. [Fill in your favorite example from, say, the history of painting.] If such art still seduces, it's because of a self-conscious bracketing by the viewer.
Zerlina's duet with Don Giovanni is not like that. Before and after, we're not made to forget that Don Giovanni's actions are immoral and also an abuse of the very idea of nobility (and part of the abuse is Don Giovanni's infection by all-too-many-modern ideas--book-keeping, his sensual materialism, his courageous rejection of the gods, his willingness to embrace liberty in which high and low are mixed, etc.). Mozart confronts us with the art of the flattering demagogue, who tells is what we want to hear. And as Mozart shows, this can be cripplingly beautiful.** (Of course, eventually, Zerlinia's akrasia gives way to what she knows can't be true, innocent love.)
The duet is, thus, disturbing not just because we are all, in principle like Zerlina, capable of being seduced -- and the experience of watching the duet, thus, enacts what it represents -- but also because Mozart lets us steal here a glimpse of his suspicion of his great craft and, thereby, change your fate.
A few weeks ago, on 11 October, my mom took me to a concert of the Kamus Quartet at the Concertgebouw (in the Kleine Zaal) in Amsterdam. It was a pleasant Fall evening, but in my rush I had realized I had forgotten dinner; I was pleased to find a quick cup of soup on the Van Baerlestraat. During the academic year, when I teach, my life is so hectic that I lack time to check a music program; I can show up to the concert without having any idea what I am about to listen to. While in general I am averse to surprises (I am even more risk-averse than Rawls assumes), I like sitting down in the chair of the music hall, briefly close my eyes, take a meditative breadth, and then be surprised by the sounds. Of course, even if I did know the titles of what is on the program, I would still be surprised in some sense -- because I lack encyclopedic music knowledge --, but the surprise would be mitigated by some anticipatory expectations about what I would hear.
This time around, we did not receive program notes and we had not bought the program booklet. At the start of the second piece, I glanced to my left over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me. I looked at his booklet, and read that the first piece had been Grieg's unfinished second string quartet; as the musicians re-appeared on stage, I could vaguely make out the name Fagerlund. Because it was unfamiliar to me, I wasn't sure if I got that right. But soon I was distracted by the music emanating from the stage.
I adore chamber music concerts because in their intimate settings, you can follow the interaction among the musicians. The Kamus has a fantastic first violinist, Terhi Paldanius. She makes little eye contact with the rest of the group while she is playing as if she is completely withdrawn into her own music making; the others do make frequent eye contact with each other and often steel glances at her. It's as if they are checking she is still there with them and not playing among the eternal, crystalline spheres. Later in the Sibelius, Petja Kainulainen (the Cellist) would shine in a very different fashion. [Here is the program.]
I was a bit annoyed, at first, by the unfamiliarity of the music. I had, in fact, wanted some time to ruminate on the nature of an unfinished composition. I adore the opening movement of Schubert's 8th 'unfinished' symphony, and I always imagine -- when I hear it -- that of course it could not be completed; it's impossible to put an end to perfection--it's conatus is, as it were, in full vigor fully complete with itself. I made a mental note to check it out youtube and re-listen to Grieg's unfinished.
I enjoyed the Fagerlund piece, which sounded vaguely like Bartok and Berg. And I wondered if I had misread the name because I couldn't place him n my knowledge of the early twentieth century repertoire. The musicians seemed to enjoy it, too. When they were done, they accepted our warm applause but started to wave somebody on stage. Eventually Fagurlund -- for it was him -- appeared, and I realized I had just been witness to a world première of his second string quartet ('From the Ground'). He was a robust man with a sprightly step, and in the moment he climbed the podium I sensed his vanity and pride mixed with a bashful, boyish gratitude toward the players. In that moment I regretted that I was not a sculptor (like my dad) because I would have wished to capture that moment, with his many faces at once, in bronze. Despite the lures of intermission, we applauded louder and heartily.
It was probably not the first time the piece had been played; the Kamus quartet must have practiced it many times, including undoubtedly a full dress rehearsal. And there is really not much difference, to encountering a piece for the first time and a world-première. But even so, one does not have to buy into ex nihilo creation, to like the fact that musicians and other artists mark the first public performance of a piece. I am unsure where the practice originates (Wikipedia is frustratingly and revealingly incomplete on the topic).
And I am kind of sad that we philosophers -- when we launch our concepts and arguments into an unfeeling universe -- do not have an equivalent ceremonial sense.* One may think this is due to the fact that we do not think of ourselves as public performers. That would be the easy explanation. For, the premiere marks not just that something new has come into the world, and with this a whole range of possibilities, but that very novelty also signals that a bit of the world -- where people had not yet had the opportunity to hear Fagerlund's second quartet --, has become irrevocably history. And it is no coincidence that among the arts, we -- who embrace our eternal propositions -- are least comfortable with transience.
Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies Be-Bop-A-Lula, Baby What I Say Here comes Johnny singing I Gotta Woman Down in the tunnels trying to make it pay He got the action, he got the motion Yeah the boy can play Dedication devotion Turning all the night time into the day
He do the song about the sweet loving woman He do the song about the knife He do the walk, he do the walk of life
Here comes Johnny and he'll tell you the story Hand me down my walking shoes Here comes Johnny with the power and glory Backbeat the talkin' blues He got the action, he got the motion Yeah the boy can play Dedication devotion Turning all the night time into the day
He do the song about the sweet loving woman He do the song about the knife He do the walk, he do the walk of life
Here comes Johnny singing oldies, goldies Be-Bop-A-Lula Baby What I Say Here comes Johnny singing I Gotta Woman Down in the tunnels, trying to make it pay He got the action, he got the motion Yeah the boy can play Dedication devotion Turning the night time into day And after all the violence and double talk There's just a song in all the trouble and the strife You do the walk, you do the walk of life.---Mark Knopfler (1995).
Yesterday, my Northern line train was re-routed because of a station closure. I changed direction at Old Street station; I was a bit annoyed by the delay because the minor mishaps were accumulating and my plan to get a full day's writing in were being endangered. While I walked through the tunnel, "The Walk of Life" started playing on my headset. Deezer's algorithm understands me all too well because the song brought me back to my teenage years. (It's a bit freaky that it plays a song about the underground while I am in it, but my brain knows its chance.)* For those of us who did not feel at ease in the punk scene, and came of age with MTV, Dire Straits was the band. I am pretty sure that Brothers in Arms or Sultans of Swing was the second album I bought when I got my own CD player. (Meat Loaf's Bat out of Hell was the first.) Despite my teenage years not being an especially happy period in my life, "The Walk of Life" immediately got me smiling and humming along.
While I was waiting for the connection, I looked around me, expecting the Summer commuters -- a mellower lot than the ordinary group -- to join me in song and dance (I had seen bits of La-La-Land on a recent transatlantic flight), but I was immediately reminded that listening to music on a headset prevents a communal, connected experience. This left me alone with The Walk of Life. I moved the song back to the start, Here comes Johnny...
I played the song three times over. I am one of these people who can hear a song repeatedly, enjoy it immensely, even sing along, and have no idea what the words mean. For me the original impression, even enduring reflection, of a song is a mood that I associate with the melody and rhytm, perhaps the circumstances in which I encountered the song; I never hear the meaning of the words and the story/point they represent. If I grasp any meaning at all it's a product of the video-clip. (I am also bad at remembering the name of songs; so while I was talking about the song over dinner, I kept referring to it as 'Sultans of Swings'--one of my favorite phrases.) When I spent a year on the road with my first girlfriend, I learned it could be otherwise: she heard a song with words and all.
Much to my surprise, despite the upbeat tune, and the sense that MTV was all about effacing a sense of the past, an embrace of the here and now, "the walk of life" trades in nostalgia. It's about a musician who sings "oldies." In fact, it plays homage to some of my favorite adult discoveries: "I Got a Woman", "Be-Bop-A-Lula", "What I'd Say", "My Sweet Lovin' Woman", and "Mack the Knife". (For my post on Mack the Knife, recall.)Even in the 1980s these were songs that were twenty to thirty years old. Knopfler was born in 1949, so these are songs he would have heard when he was my age when I first heard him. (I just realize that Knopfler is my mom's age!)
The song is about a struggling, street singer. He is held up as the true artist ("dedication devotion"), perhaps the true spirit of the blues today. And in performance he is capable of the art's true alchemy: stopping the ordinary flow of time ("Turning all the night time into the day"). I call it alchemy because a beat is a measure of, or perhaps just is, time. Or, perhaps, it's better to say, the true artist gives hope (day) amidst despair (night).
The inter-textual list of songs is a history of music with in addition to Mack, the birth of soul (represented by the arc between Ray Charles' I got a Woman and What'd I Say) and the older "Be-Bop-A-Lula," which Knopfler must have encountered in Cliff Richard's 1959 version. [I had no idea who Cliff Richard was when I saw him live on TV playing center court.] You don't need to be especially knowledgeable about music to grasp that the list represents the back and forth, cultural appropriation, among (inter alia) old Europe (Brecht's Thee Penny), the deep South's gospel culture (represented by the organ and the Lord's Prayer "The power and the Glory")**, and the British invasion (already a generation old by then).
As an aside, while writing this post, I discovered why I tend to think of the song as happy. The American version of the video clip, which I am sure I have seen before, is basically a version of the song performed during a Stadium Tour interspersed with sports bloopers. With those images the song becomes about the ways in which even the best artists/athletes get curve-balls thrown at them, can laugh about themselves, and pick themselves up again--it's perseverance and success.
The original version of the video is more complex (see below): it has the studio tour along images of Johnny singing in the underground. Upstairs, on stage, the members of the group are a success, behaving like rock-stars, while below, when Johnny performs, we see them show up in guises of the alternative conformist lives they would have lived. The clip moves, sliding doors style, between the two realities. And while the life underground is not glorified, even romanticized, one can't help but feeling that the video leaves open the real possibility that Dire Straits -- real troubles -- have become a walking contradiction [presenting fun, while singing about hardship].
Let me close. I am genuinely ambivalent about the closing lines:
And after all the violence and double talk There's just a song in all the trouble and the strife
Sometimes, it seems to me to belittle the sorrow and experiences that inspired the oldies. In other moments, I -- who must be past the half-point of his walk of life -- reflect on my nostalgic wish to freeze the frame in the hopes and aspirations of my teen-age years and allow that the lyrics may not wish to belittle; it claims not so much art's ability to transform the very bad into something other, but rather impolitely articulates the endurance, if not eternity, of what, amidst political horrors, had seemed merely ephemeral ('just a song'). To what degree there is a false dichotomy lurking here probably depends on if one is willing to die for the true.+
The only coöperation which is commonly possible is exceedingly partial and superficial; and what little true coöperation there is, is as if it were not, being a harmony inaudible to men. If a man has faith, he will coöperate with equal faith everywhere; if he has not faith, he will continue to live like the rest of the world, whatever company he is joined to. To coöperate in the highest as well as the lowest sense, means to get our living together.--Thoreau, Walden, "Economy."
I arrived at dusk at Istanbul's Taksim square to the start of the Muezzins's Azhan surrounding us from all sides. I enjoyed the moment to get roasted walnuts. I looked up at Ghezi park--oddly familiar from the protests despite the (minor) construction at the edges. I knew that at the metro stop, I was going to say goodbye to Niklas Seidl, my unexpected travel companion of the last ninety minutes; Niklas is a German composer and cellist with the Cologne based group, Hand Werk; he has a (German) state fellowship to be in (part-time) residence in Istanbul. (You can see and hear him play here.) He told me about the sights and sounds encountered through his explorations of Istanbul's neighborhoods. We had met earlier in line at the airport-bus-stop, and we had talked through the Friday afternoon slow, rush hour bus-ride into town.
I had been given a glimpse of the creative life, and I felt refreshed; the short night's sleep and my travel forgotten. Sometimes an encounter with a stranger can be exhilarating because ordinary reserve and strategic behavior is absent. (To be sure I don't think of contemporary classical composers as the exemplars of the creative life.) As the sounds of the azhan faded into the background, I descended into Istanbul's metro system. I had to resist the urge to send Bellow's Herzog a text-message, see; once underground I looked for the token machine.
The next morning I woke to the view below. The news from Paris had kept me up late (and I was pleased by Facebook's safety check button); I overslept from a non-restful sleep. I had too little time to go down to the shore-line for a breakfast and hike. Instead, I enjoyed a quiet morning in the hills reading and savoring Walden.
As I contemplated Thoreau's stirring words and the beauty of my surroundings, I was struck by the recurring temptation to view Thoreau's self-described life of true philosophy as somehow a refuge from the real world. Yet, if it is a refuge then it is not a cowardly one; it requires courage to live an experimental life, to avoid embracing despair, and, not to put too fine a point on it, to resist the call to war.
Before writing this post I explored some of Seidl's compositions on youtube. (He works in multiple media at once.) My favorite one today, which is simultaneously funny (even satirical) and sad, is an uncanny meditation on a certain, ordinary-life-presence-of-the-sublime that resonates with my mood this week-end. It also illustrates one of Seidl's claims he made during our shared bus-ride: a lot of contemporary classical music can, despite the reputation of avant-garde elitism, be appreciated at once without prior musical background (unlike, say, much of the Baroque chamber music -- which we both admire --, which often presupposes familiarity with other music in order to be enjoyed). It doesn't follow, of course, that there are no puns and motifs that can be savored only by the advanced student. It's called talgwaren & Absterben; I like that the meaning of 'talgwaren' is mysterious to me. Anyway, here it is:
This is an invited guest-post by Adam Morton--ES.]
Perception, consciousness, language, and memory interact in our awareness of musical pitches and keys differently than in visual perception. For example there is good evidence that we remember pitches more accurately than we are aware of, even when we are vividly conscious of them in our experience. It would be good to understand this better, partly as an antidote to the way vision dominates the discussion of perceptual appearances. The topic has a practical side, too, as anyone interested in music will wish they were better at recognizing notes, intervals, keys. The essay this summarizes reports on my experiments with pitch during the past year, their degree of success, and some speculative conclusions. It is definitely unorthodox, though it connects with some data in(For the full details see my essay here; it has a bibliography [see also these papers--ES].
History, aims. My aim was to separate access from accuracy. People with absolute pitch vary in how precisely they can discriminate notes, so as a limiting case imagine someone who can verbalize whether a note is within a half-octave of some tone. They would be able to access information that most people cannot, but they would not have a very accurate pitch sense. I wanted to see if I could develop access, letting accuracy fall however it might. This would be like our grasp of colour, where we have a rough approximate vocabulary that almost everyone can apply, but few can use with great precision. Working towards this, I stumbled on the spread/wobble distinction (to be explained below). Now I can verbally classify pitches, independently of their register, into several rough overlapping classes. I often have intuitions now about keys. I make mistakes but I am usually within a tone or so. I can now do very simple sight-singing from written music.
spread/wobble
The central move is to split the hard-to-remember pitch qualia into two components. They both present as spatial extents, though these are unconnected with where the sources are really located. This can be done in two ways: the training described in the essay, and by accepting the graph below of my hard-earned classifications and insisting that notes have the required spatial qualities, until they take them on spontaneously. They are best combined.
The first component is wobble. When you hear a note you can encourage it to wander or oscillate from one location to another, wandering in space before you or oscillating from side to side. The pattern of wandering is characteristic of a given pitch, independently of its octave. The location alternates between locations, stopping at one before you hear it at another. One technique here is to hear notes as beginning at a definite point in time but having two endings. The note begins with a percussive or consonantal onset sound, which soon ends, and the end of this onset has a sound quality itself. The on-sound and the off-sound occupy different apparent locations.
The other component is spread.Simultaneous with wobble, or beginning an instant later, there is a continuous spread or slide, to fill an extent that can end either within or beyond the wobble. It seems to occupy all of this horizontal interval. It is simultaneous, occupying the whole angle between its limits, and moving smoothly between them.
It is far from obvious that pitches should have these features. The only way to convince yourself they do is to make them appear in the sounds of the notes. Separating them is the hardest part.
Rough graph Here are the wobbles and spreads that the twelve semitones present to me.
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. --Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.-- William Wordsworth.
This afternoon I attended a chamber music recital outside of Amsterdam. In Spring and Summer, Oudekerk aan de Amstel is a charming river village; but on a damp and dreary Winter day the sounds of two highways intersecting in the distance pierce through the valley. After a desultory walk around the village, we entered the neo-classical, Amstelkerk (from 1775). Inside, we came to hear the Uriel ensemble, which is comprised of Concertgebouw musicians, play works by Schumann and Brahms.
Unfortunately, the cello, played by the very experienced Yke Viersen (my whole life the Concertgebouw's cellist--and father of the great Quirine Viersen), repeatedly goes completely out of tune in the first piece, Schumann's Adagio and Allego for piano and cello. Nothing can salvage flat playing.
On Sunday evening, my wife took me to Concertgebouw to attend a recital performance of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with Jaroussky and Julia Lezhneva (Юлия Михайловна Лежнева) as part of an extended birthday celebration. Jaroussky (a counter-tenor) is the star, but Lezhneva's singing stole the show. Below the picture, two musings on what happens when comedy and vulgarity creep into high art. as the hall was filling up.
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