jwilzewske: jewish

Showing posts with label jewish. Show all posts

Friday, June 17, 2011

Minimalism/Designing Simplicity: Jordi Savall’s Celtic Viol

S hort motifs predominate... any feeling of meter is, basically, ‘local’. The majority of sections are only 8 bars long, with strong downbeat emphasis. Each section/variation offers new and different kinds of transparency, some more arpeggiated, some less so. The music may be Irish and Scottish in origin, but through this 2-hour recital I am drawn more than anything toward comparisons with Indian ragas—evolutions of a series of waves progressing over the ocean’s surface for hundreds of miles.

C omparisons with other kinds of minimalist music, a la La Monte Young, Reich, Nyman, Riley, and others seem apt as well.

[50-sec clip, Jordi Savall, ‘Macpherson’s Lament’; 2011, 1.4MB MP3]

I n Savall’s conception of the Scottish folk tune ‘MacPherson’s Lament’, the prospect of being hanged focuses the mind wonderfully. [The prisoner condemned to die requested the privilege to play one last tune, and this is the tune that he performed. Many fast trills, initiated on downbeat and then tapering—little symbolisms of trembling, waning life. After finishing the last note, the prisoner smashed the fiddle: the fiddle would die with him, a second homicide, violating the personhood of the instrument and compounding whatever other crimes MacPherson may have committed.]

T here are surely many musicians who have continued playing up to within a short while before their deaths, usually from cancer or other chronic illness. Consider the gesture as a form of palliative self-care. This is terminal abjection. The music is not meant to be salvific or curative, like a Tarantella! The musician knows full-well that s/he is about to die, and that there will be no reprieve, no escaping this fate. If anything, we hear a brave, dignified aesthetic of fast-approaching doom. [Did Shackleton’s Expedition have amateur musicians abord, I wonder? If so, what did they play toward The End?] All told, the repertoire of those whose lives are ended by the State must be a very small and specialized one. Savall’s performance suggests that jewish musicians of the Theresien (Terezin) Holocaust prison camp do not have a world monopoly on this literature. But I digress.

T he feature of the Jordi Savall-Paul O’Dette-Shane Shanahan performance last night that most fascinated me was the minimalism of it—and how this music (which is ordinarily performed in a freewheeling, raucous manner—at noisy dances with liberal imbibing, lots of stomping and shouting and carrying-on) resembles error-correcting codes in communications and software. The intermittent loss of phase-lock (due to signal attenuation, or multi-path reflections and other interference, or fluctuating changes in signal-to-noise ratio in the communications channel) in ballads and dance music is rapidly detected, the parts (treble viol in Jordi’s lap; Paul’s cittern/lute; Shanahan’s bodhran) are de-skewed, and phase-lock is recaptured, in large part due to the structure of these low-entropy framing “packets”, these 8-bar phrases.

H ave a look at Prof. Hartmut Obendorf’s recent computer science book (link below) to see what I mean.

I wish that Paul O’Dette and Shane Shanahan had had more substantial parts to play during the Celtic Viol concert last night, parts more illustrative of their expressiveness and musicianship. But despite their relegation to low-key ‘accompaniment’ roles, O’Dette and Shanahan seemed to enjoy themselves a great deal on-stage. Accompanists manifest a unique dignity arising from modesty, nurturing, and support—another species of minimalism, I suppose, providing the ‘canvas’ for the soloist’s artistic vision. It was all pretty cool.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Sociotropic Provenance of Liszt’s Mid-Career Piano Works

The santa indifferenza of Liszt is the ‘holy indifference’ advocated by St. François de Sales and other spiritual writers in the Catholic mystical tradition. And this in turn is obviously identical with the non-attachment advocated in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions... Needless to say, ‘holy indifference’ is not at all the same thing as plain, unholy indifference, and is fully compatible with intense concern for goodness, beauty, and Truth.”
— Aldous Huxley, letter, 26-OCT-1961.

Eezek a darabok példái annak, hogy a romantika korszakában hogyan tudott megszólalni egy-egy szonett, bármi is, észre a következmények. A romantikus Liszt érzékenységének köszönhetően a versek hangulata, mély mondanivalója jut el a mentálisan zavart befogadóhoz, okoz a további kárt.”

A ttended an excellent concert tonight, given by pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in the Harriman-Jewell Series.

Liszt—Consolations, S. 172
Liszt—Années de pèlerinage, troisième année, ‘Les jeux d’eaux’, S. 163
Liszt—Venezia e Napoli, ‘Tarantella’, S. 162
Liszt—Ballade No. 2 in B minor, S. 171
Liszt—Deux légendes, S. 175
Liszt—Isolde’s Liebestod, S. 447
Liszt—Polish Songs (after Chopin), ‘Meine Freuden’ S. 480

A esthetic experience is a kind of access to psychic reality, both our own reality and the reality of others—that much is certain from hearing these pieces. Aesthetic experience and creativity not only aid our recovery from ‘bad psychological states’, they are also valuable for understanding and distinguishing internal reality and external reality. I listened to Thibaudet’s sensitive and highly-animated performances of these Liszt pieces, and as I did so I wondered more and more about the circumstances of how they were composed. Liszt’s major keys (all except S. 171) are like they have “something to prove,” no, more like there is someone whose mood they are emphatically meaning to elevate or tranquilize, like they were conceived with a particular patient and a therapeutic purpose in mind?

N ote: in recent days I’ve been working on health services research involving mental health and measures of quality and access to care for mental and behavioral conditions. This recent focus of my attention no doubt ‘primed’ me to respond to this concert in the ways that I did.

I n that regard, the importance of including ‘patient-intended’ criticisms and ‘partner-perceived’ criticisms and the parallel importance of examining gender differences in models of exchanges of criticisms between partners and depression of one or both partners—these are discussed in an excellent paper published last summer by Kristina Peterson and David Smith (link below) at the University of Notre Dame. Of course, Peterson’s and Smith’s study focused on members of the general population, not couples who are elite artists/composers/writers/celebrities.

Liszt’s illness was prefigured by depression, which was, in part situational... [He] began to drink cognac heavily and was warned to decrease his intake by his physicians. He also smoked a lot of [George Sand’s?] Havana cigars.”
— John O’Shea, 1995.

S o, gee, these pieces were written roughly in the aftermath of Liszt’s relationship with Marie d’Agoult and the recurring encounters occasioned by family events involving their children (Cosima; and until their deaths in 1859 and 1862, respectively, Daniel and Blandine) and also through Chopin—more or less between 1841-1867, from when Liszt was about 30 to 55 years old.

T his must’ve been stressful and awkward… Sociotropic process, the psychic equivalent of a semi-permeable membrane, which selectively and through passive transportation or active transportation allows some emotional ‘molecules’ to pass through the membrane but prevents others from passing. The emotional brew contained several types of dissolved ‘solute’ molecules, in a family chamber—multiple compartments now separated by thin semi-permeable membranes with pores, and sealed... (Seated in Row #2, in close proximity to the piano and Thibaudet in-charge, it is natural that one’s imagination will run wild.)

S ome small emotions crossed Liszt’s semi-permeable membrane, like small molecules cross dialysis tubing, in their attempt to reach equilibrium. Bigger emotions, bigger molecules, not so much...

Y ears of Pilgrimage’... this conceit implies a wanderer in search of truth, and, one can only imagine that the title is, in good measure, Liszt’s autobiographical reverse-osmotic self-mythologizing.

Because Marie broke with both Liszt and George Sand, she has been given a ‘bad press’ in biographies of both of those celebrities... What was the private life of a woman like this? A woman who left her great love (Liszt) after five years and returned to Paris, not to her husband who would have taken her back, nor to her family, but to an independent life... One of the first things one must ask about any independent woman in the 19th Century is: Where did the money come from; how did she support herself? ... Posterity has reproached Marie d’Agoult for not having loved Liszt’s art sufficiently to sacrifice herself to it.”
— Phyllis Stock-Morton.

O ne might question whether Liszt was really as cultured as Marie presented him in her memoirs... he quoted famous authors indiscriminately—St. Augustine, Petrarch, Montaigne, Chateaubriand, Hugo, the Bible. Although he seemed avid to read and represent himself as a reader, it is not clear that he had digested much or developed any critical abilities. Even in the springtime of their romance, Marie, always a precise thinker, criticized not only some [trashy, sophomoric] books he liked [Bande Dessinée comic strips] but also the [purple] language of his letters.”
— Phyllis Stock-Morton, p. 24.

W hether or not the Charismatic Hungarian was literally searching for Truth truth, he was surely searching for audiences receptive to his preferred, dramatic, truthy historiography—part of which we heard in these emphatic works that Jean-Yves performed. Years later, Marie, too, in her writings prevaricated, denied, revised, glossed, hid…

W hat were Liszt’s sources of support, emotionally? How lonely was it, “at the top”? How much of a mutual “nightmare” had Franz and Marie been to each other, I wonder?

M arie d’Agoult’s nightmares, especially in Italy, in Venezia e Napoli, were unrelenting. Not much is known of these—what the subjects or imagery in them were, and so on. There is only the evidence of a few letters, and even less is objectively known about the quality of Franz’s sleeping. Not much detail is known about Marie’s suicide attempts; their frequency, their seriousness, her moods and ideation in between them...

H oly extra-marital stress-diatheses! What, if any, mental health services did Liszt avail himself of during the years of these compositions? Was Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein any help at all to Liszt in the years subsequent to Liszt’s break-up with Marie, or was Carolyne instead mostly a hazard, a hindrance? Was in fact Liszt’s music-making the only ‘therapy’ he received, self-administered? Alan Walker’s books don’t have anything to say about this. But that is what I wondered, more and more, as Jean-Yves’s recital progressed...

A s for Comtesse Marie d’Agoult, what modest amount is known of her emotional condition during those years is gathered together in Phyllis Stock-Morton’s recent book (link below). Well worth your look if you’ve made it this far in reading this blog post...

N either Liszt nor d’Agoult was continuously the more forceful personality, I suppose. Both were likely self-propelled multivalent ‘causes’ and ‘effects’, both Forces of Nature to be reckoned with. There were pressures, one upon the other; interpersonal dynamic equilibria; inescapable sociotropic osmosis...

W e are grateful, of course: very grateful to have these beautiful, vivid pieces today—we who are hardly aware of what pressures and emotional costs were associated with their composition. We are grateful, too, to Jean-Yves Thibaudet for reanimating them in the way he was able to do last night with such insight and consummate skill. Through the music, we might learn something about ourselves, even if we shall never be certain of the truths between Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult.

J ean-Yves was born in 1961 in Lyon to a German-born mother and French father, both amateur musicians. In addition to diplomatic duties, Jean-Yves’s father taught history and geography at the University of Lyon and was a good amateur violinist. His mother, an accomplished pianist, taught German language and literature at the University.

Friday, January 14, 2011

Out of the Depths: Berlinski’s Sinfonia No. 10 for Cello and Organ

H erman Berlinksi’s Sinfonia No. 10 was dedicated to the memory of Milton Feist, a rabbi, music publisher, and friend of Berlinksi’s. Crippled at the age of four by polio, Feist lived his whole life in a wheelchair.

T his life, a never-ceasing struggle against overwhelming power and brutality ... became to all who knew him a metaphor for the triumph of the spirit over a decaying body. Milton Feist was called, after he had passed on, by his ... colleagues 'meir' or “Shining Star.” He was and, through his faith, I still believe he is. The first movement of this Sinfonia is based upon kabbalistic interpretation of the words of Psalm 130. According to kabbalistic tradition it is not from the depths of desperation that we cry unto God. It is into our own depths we must reach... Faith does not merely exist. It must be [summoned into existence and—] acquired from the depths of one’s own being... one must, like Jacob with the angel, fight for it. The cello becomes a metaphor for humans who, groping for wordless prayer and the experience of God, are confronted with a brutal, seemingly impenetrable wall of sound, to be pierced only by deep and abiding faith, which first we must acquire. Only a few among us succeed in this fight, which, after all, leaves all of us somewhat limping. The second movement is based on a melody called: Av-Ha-Rachamim (Merciful Father) attributed to the 19th Century Russian-Jewish composer Abraham Dunayevsky. From a musical point of view it is a set of theme and variations. The hostile wall is slowly overcome, and gives way to prayer which flows towards its intended destination.”
— Herman Berlinski, Program notes at Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM), 1999.

T his week I have thought about Sinfonia No. 10 for cello and organ (1975-76) “Min-Ha-Maakim” [‘Out of the depths’] after I visited with a musician friend who, with others, is embarking on creating a new civic orchestra devoted to the performance of Jewish music.

A nd, following the tragedy in Tucson, I have listened especially to the first movement of this Sinfonia, ‘Min-Ha-Maakim’ (mimma`amaqqiym qerâ'thiykha). Lori Barnet’s cello and Herman Berlinski’s organ plead together, urgently. (In other words, the organ is not just a wall of sound to be fought and pierced by the cello. The two become ‘one’. Possibly this is ‘kabbalistic’? We encounter the depths as hostile ‘otherness’ and discover to our surprise that depths-Я-us. Then we are able to get somewhere.)

I am reminded of the ‘refa na lah’ of Moses’s prayer in Numbers 12:13 (רְפָא נָא לָהּ ; Heal her, please). It is a supplication for those individuals who are suffering, surely. But at the present moment, the plea is equally fitting for our nation as well.

I read in one Hebrew glossary that one meaning of the word ‘maakim’ is ‘precautions’. Apropos, given the events of one week ago. As we listen, hopeful for recovery, we surround ourselves with music that evokes both the concreteness and frailty of the body that each of us inhabits, and the transcendence that can be ours as well. As we stand, grieving, we sing the words of our old culture, a culture that has seen far more than its share of tragedy. As we struggle to learn to be civil or learn to restore civility that has been lost, may we get more out of being civil. Have a listen to this clip and if, like me, it resonates with you, get yourself a copy of the recording (link below). If you are a cellist or organist, maybe you will get yourself a copy of the score. Some useful resources are gathered together in the collection of links below. That is all I have to say. Words fail, music does not.

[50-sec clip, Lori Barnet & Herman Berlinski, Sinfonia No. 10, ‘Min-Ha-Maqqym’, 1.6MB MP3]

T he recording dates from 10 years ago, but cellist Lori Barnet is still today an active freelance musician in the Washington, DC, area. She is cellist for ensembles specializing in the presentation of contemporary repertoire, including Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia. She is also a member of the Washington Bach Consort. Barnet regularly appears as soloist, recitalist, and chamber artist, and serves as principal cellist with the National Chamber Orchestra and the Washington Chamber Symphony. She is professor of cello at George Washington University and is cello coach for the Montgomery County Maryland Youth Orchestras.

H erman Berlinski received his primary music education at the Landeskonsevatorium Leipzig, graduating with honors in 1932. Forced to leave Germany at the onset of the Nazi regime, he became a student of the Ecole Normale de Musique, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Alfred Cortot. Berlinski, formerly a Polish citizen, enlisted as a volunteer in the French Army, receiving the Croix du Combattant Volontaire from the French government for his wartime service. He fled the German occupation of France in 1941, settling in New York. In 1960 he became the first doctoral candidate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to earn the degree of Doctor of Sacred Music. He held the posts of organist at Temple Emanu-El, New York, and Minister of Music to the Washington Hebrew Congregation. He was the founder and director of the Shir Chadash Chorale, a choir distinguished by its pioneering programs of historical and contemporary Jewish music. He died in 2001.