My furnace is stoked.
The one that fires my passion.
A month of being embedded in serious music in San Miguel de Allende, rather than slaking my thirst, has heightened my desire to be surrounded by it. That is rather easy to do in the house. I can summons Wagner's valkyrie from my various sound systems to do battle with the neighborhood stereos.
This morning I opened Jan Swafford's Language of the Spirit at the Beethoven chapter -- where I had left off reading it a month or so ago. "Consider Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It has long been the most famous symphony in the world, which means that it has gone beyond a cultural monument and become some kind of cultural cliché, like the Mona Lisa surrounded by an army of cell phones taking its picture.
The Fifth is the result of musical genius. But, I decided since Swafford was going to take several pages analyzing it, I should listen to it with an ear for detail.
For months, as I have extended the length of my walks, I have struggled with a solution to the inevitable boredom that sets in. So, I cranked up Bernstein's version of the Fifth on Youtube, stuck in my ear phones, and headed off on my walk.
Bernstein's conducting was impeccable. The Youtube version had great fidelity. And I was closely following the musical themes as they developed.
Then, I remembered why I have not tried earphones in the past. They appear to be a magnet for people to come up and start talking.
Because I have done my best to train out my natural rudeness, I do a perfunctory stop and walk in circles while I talk to my interlocutor. There are always information nuggets to mine.
When it was not people, it was my telephone interrupting the music with notices of the multitude of communications I receive each hour through Facebook, Messenger, Gmail, and MagicJack. It was almost like trying to write a legal brief at home while tending three pre-school children and trying to answer seven telephone lines.
Let's just say that the experiment resulted in far more frustration than musical enlightenment. While I write, Beethoven is working those three monumental notes into a musical tapestry.
And, speaking of music immersion, I just realized I never told you about the second half of the chamber music festival. The very festival that has put a burr under my second violin cushion.
I will cut to the chase (as the movie people say). The second half of the festival was as good as the first (can't stop the music). That is not surprising. Because this was the festival's 40th anniversary, the five groups invited to play were some of the best in the world.
The last two groups differed in some very fundamental ways. The most fundamental was the makeup of each group. The Horszowski Trio (as the name implies) consists of a piano, a violin, and a cello. They were new to the festival. But they were augmented by the viola of Masumi Per Rostad. He is a veteran of the festival.
During their two concerts, they performed some familiar and some challenging pieces. Challenging for both the performers and the audience.
- Antonin Dvořák, "Piano Trio No. 4 in E minor" (1891)
- Felix Mendelssohn, "Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor" (1845)
- Robert Schumann, "Piano Quartet in E-flat major" (1842)
- Robert Schumann, "Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor" (1847)
- Dmitri Shostakovich, "Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor" (1944)
- Gabriel Fauré, "Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor" (1i883)
That may be due to the portrayal of musicians suffering in The Death of Stalin. (If you have not seen it, I recommend it. I will never look at Beria the same again. Wicked satire is an understatement.) I am starting to appreciate how he could retain a vestige of creativity under the world's most evil government.
The Shostakovich piano trio is a powerful piece of work. Especially, the third movement. The author of the program notes puts it this way. "Block chords in the piano, bleak and black, begin the Largo." Unfortunately, as played that night, the notes were far more mechanical than bleak.
I attributed that interpretation to the violin's introduction where he tried to subtly draw a comparison between Russia's destruction and resurrection in the Second World War to contemporary politics. I thought he was referring to Putin. The man sitting behind me thought he was referring to Trump. Either way, I thought the eccentric performance was an intended anachronism.
The Fine Arts Quartet is a well-established group. That means that they are older. Their much younger selves performed at the first chamber music festival in 1979.
Being older, they have a very staid style. They are not so much interpreters of the music as they are the voice of the composer. There are very few stage antics. At times, there is very little animation.
With one exception (you can pick it out by the name you will not recognize), they also performed a strong program. And performed it as yeomen.
- Ludwig van Beethoven, "String Quartet No. 1 in F major" (1798-1800)
- Ralph Evans, "String Quartet No. 1" (1995)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, "String Quartet No. 1 in D major" (1871)
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, "String Quartet No. 19 in C major" (1785)
- Dmitri Shostakovitch, "String Quartet No. 11 in F minor" (1966)
- Claude Debussy, "String Quartet in G minor" (1893)
For those of you who may be interested in improving your appreciation of serious music, I discovered an interesting tool on Youtube. Someone has gone to the trouble of making videos complete with the score. You can actually see themes developing, as well as hearing them.
On the last night of the concert, a young realtor sat next to me. I suspect he was there because it was good for business. But, he was also interested in learning. Unlike most tyros, he did not pretend he knew what he did not. After the interval, he leaned over and asked me the proper way to pronounce "Debussy." I was happy to oblige.
In that spirit, I offer the Debussy piece complete with scores for those who are curious to learn. May you listen long and proper.
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