Looking back, aka Alex Ross’s Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music

Posted on December 28, 2020 by barczablog

I’m ending 2020 with a pair of complementary book reviews. No they’re not in any way similar in their topics, yet they frame the transition to a new year rather well. Fareed Zakaria’s Ten Lessons for a Post-pandemic World, (the next review you’ll see in this blog) would dare to predict the path ahead, while Alex Ross’s book about Wagner & Wagnerism offers the look in the rear-view mirror, in its massive summary of cultural influences.

Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music is a big book, 784 pages in the hardcover edition. But in a study of the phenomenon of Richard Wagner how could it be otherwise? “Wagnerian” is an adjective that connotes weight and massive size.

Yet the pages flew by. I will read it again soon.

I won’t subject you to a long preamble before saying that I think Ross’s book is worth reading. Trust me, it’s important if you can find time to read it.

I’m fascinated thinking about who should be reading this book and why.

There are those for instance who think opera is dead, irrelevant, a museum piece in the 21st century that has long outlived its importance. They probably represent the vast majority, readers who won’t even give Ross’s book a second thought, and so might wonder why I would insist on its importance. They may have trouble imagining why one would bother reading about something (opera?) so peripheral and insignificant.

But that’s not really what Ross’s book is about. Such a reader would be in for a colossal surprise, at the unexpected connections, the influences. Because Wagner matters far beyond the realm of opera. Indeed it doesn’t feel like musicology.

Are you a student of film? While I am fascinated by film music and its connections to Wagner, I did not expect to be reading about DW Griffith or Eisenstein in Wagner’s shadow.

Or are you simply interested in the history of Western Europe in the 20th century? Wagner is the bedrock upon which the culture has been built, long before Hitler reared his head.

And then there are the opera-lovers, especially the Wagnerians. The latter represent a curious subset that I mention with a fraught mixture encompassing love & hatred: because in other words I’m looking into a mirror. Yes I’m also one of them. For Wagnerians reading Ross’s book, they will not only get the connections Ross makes between operas and the operatic allusions by poets & painters & novelists & film-makers, but will not need persuading.

We’ve already swallowed the Kool-ade. But wait a minute… that metaphor is just a modern version of a magic potion plot-twist in the first acts of Tristan und Isolde and in Götterdämmerung.

I need to revisit an allusion I made at the beginning of my review of Sky Gilbert’s Shakespeare book last month.

I recall hearing that there were more books about Jesus, Napoleon Bonaparte & Richard Wagner than anyone else: a factoid likely composed by a musicologist. But when I googled the question I see that it’s now 1-Jesus, 2-Napoleon and, 3- (you guessed it): William Shakespeare.

I remember the shock of seeing Jacques Barzun’s title Darwin, Marx and Wagner (1941) a study that I first read way back around 1970, when I was in high-school. I never dreamed that a composer could be important. At one time Wagner was understood to be much more than just an opera composer. I remember that feeling now all over again in coming to Ross’s study. As messy as the topic can be (given Wagner’s anti-semitism & his association with Nazism), as disgusting as I sometimes find Wagner the man & his beliefs, it’s a surprisingly positive experience, to once again see the affirmation of the centrality of Wagner, important both for sublime beauty & disgusting horrors.

I recall too the shock of my classsmates in my modern drama seminar back in the 1990s, when Professor Domenico Pietropaolo had Richard Wagner on our reading list. Yes he was a composer. But he was also a dramaturg in the original sense of the word, namely a theatre theorist & scholar.

That is just a small part of what Ross is after in his book.

I don’t think it’s an accident that I’ve come to the end of the year with these two books before me, like the two heads of Janus, the god from whom January takes its name. Ross might suggest that Wagner’s influence is universal, as pervasive as COVID-19; I’m perversely remembering Thomas Adès suggestion in his analysis of Parsifal that Wagner is “a disease”.

There’s a word Ross keeps using. Everyone thinks that they know what they mean when they say “modern”; “modernist” is not so well-known. One of the great joys of reading Wagnerism has been the chance to see Ross confirm suspicions I’ve long held. If I were to reduce Ross’s huge book to a single sentence –which may sound crazy—it would be that “Wagner is the most influential artist of the last 200 years”, a viewpoint that I share.

The chapters of such a big book vary greatly. At times I was reading something that more or less confirmed my beliefs, while I nodded along. So while Ross writes about Nietzsche or Baudelaire, yes it’s right, although at times I was surprised. And sometimes the chapter takes me entirely into new territory. I now have a desire to explore the novels of Willa Cather, not having suspected that she reframes Wagnerian materials in an American context. I want to look again at Bunûel & Eisenstein, TS Eliot, Virginia Woolf & Thomas Mann just to name a few.

William Blissett

I need to explore what William Blissett wrote, seeing that Ross has quoted him multiple times, a Toronto Wagnerian (and former professor at U of T) whose presence I’ve enjoyed seeing regularly at opera performances in town (I’m just another former student, nodding to him in the lobby). Ross makes me want to re-read and think again about what I’ve seen and heard. And Ross echoes my own suspicion, that for Brecht the dramaturgy of Wagner was the elephant in the room that everyone in his time knew & loved or loathed: now missing from the education of those who might want to understand the context when Brecht felt he needed to wake up a sleeping audience.

I thought I would be doing a disservice to readers if I didn’t somehow capture the breadth of the book: but I can’t possibly do so, not when my word count (somewhere between 800 & 1000) barely exceeds the number of pages in Ross’s book… The size of the volume reflects Ross’s enthusiasm for the subject, an unmistakable passion.

I must re-read it.

Posted in Books & Literature, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Opera, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Schirmer Serenade: a cure for Sam’s insomnia

Posted on December 27, 2020 by barczablog

Last night Sam the dog went to bed but didn’t close her eyes. It’s disturbing. As you may have read in other recent posts, she’s sick. The liver isn’t working right, an incurable malady whether you’re a human or a dog. No she isn’t an alcoholic, and we’re not sure what might have caused the problem. She’s only come into our lives recently, late in Sam’s life, given that she’s a rescue and we (me & Erika) are Sam’s third home, after two previous owners.

Yes she was awake in the night. I am not sleeping terribly well to begin with, but also I have to check in on her when I wake up. She lies on the floor right beside my bed. And so while lately we are glad not to see any of the nastier symptoms from before (vomiting or peeing on the floor…at least not very much), every time I looked at her (at 1 am, at 2 am, at 3 am, at 5 am and again at 6:30): her eyes were wide open.

So it was an unexpected relief when I saw her eyes finally closed today in the afternoon, under the piano. I played a series of pieces out of an old anthology of modern piano pieces.

It’s a wonderful chestnut this Schirmer book. Speaking of things I miss during the pandemic, I miss browsing in bookstores, especially used bookstores, where I found this anthology selling for all of $3.00. There are several major works in it such as Ravel’s Jeux d’eau or his Pavane that in new 2020 editions would easily set me back $3.00 all by themselves.

On this occasion I didn’t play the big loud pieces (fast pieces from Percy Grainger, Igor Stravinsky or Bela Bartok). And I softened the dynamics to mezzo-piano or softer in everything I played. In effect the interlude was curated by Schirmer.

1 Serenata Andaluza by Manuel de Falla

2 Träumerei op 9 #4 by Richard Strauss… I really love this enigmatic little piece.

3 Romance op 24 #9 by Jean Sibelius: but always as softly as possible even when the piece calls for big effects. Yes I omitted the big powerful passages near the end, going for something softer instead. While Sibelius might have been offended, Sam seemed to like it.

4 Spring Night op22#8 by Selim Palmgren. One of the great things about anthologies is how you can encounter a composer you’ve never heard of.

5 Étude op4 #3 by Karol Szymanowski

6 Mazurka op25 #4 by Alexander Scriabin, played very softly.

7 Gavotte op12 # 2 by Serge Prokofieff, also very softly.

8 Prelude in E flat op23 #6 by Sergei Rachmaninoff… Rachmaninoff is “Sergei” when Prokofieff is “Serge” and that they say “Prokofieff” not “Prokofiev”. The title page of the book says “1940”, when there likely would be more inconsistency in the transliteration than what you’d see in 2020. But aha the accuracy comes at a price, right? much more than $3.00….In this lovely collection there are supposedly thirteen nationalities represented in 51 compositions. But I suspect it’s all the same to Sam.

9 Élégie op3 no 1 by S Rachmaninoff

To be honest I wasn’t watching her, I was playing. She lies underneath, and I was told her eyes were closed.

Oh but I did hear her loudly snoring, which is the ultimate compliment.

I think it’s a really useful pedagogical exercise to play as though you’re trying not to wake the old dog lying under your piano. Sam is a great teacher.

Sam in her bed under the piano
Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How to get your dog to swallow that pill

Posted on December 26, 2020 by barczablog

I’m sharing this little tidbit because when I googled there was no sign of this idea. It came from our veterinarian. Perhaps it will be universally known someday but for the moment would seem to be a well-kept secret.

Let’s go back in time, to last weekend.

Sam threw up and stopped eating. She was obviously sick.

We took her to the emergency veterinarian hospital. While we were freaking out at her condition, concerned that at her advanced age, she might be close to death, we were confronted with the signage at the hospital that states their priorities.

The sign helped us adjust our expectations, recognizing that while our vomiting dog might be scary to us, it’s not as hazardous as some things one can imagine.

That was at the beginning of the week.

We talked to the vet on the telephone without ever meeting him. I suppose this is normal life in the pandemic, although Sam our dog did get to meet him in the examination room.

Over the telephone and through email, we saw a preliminary diagnosis, the results of the bloodwork, leading to a series of options.

The question we’re always asking ourselves is: who is this for? Are we genuinely seeking to make the dog feel better? or are we torturing her because we can’t part with her, and insist on prolonging her life? While we might ask similar questions with our human loved ones, what’s different is that the animal doesn’t understand the rationale. Where I could submit to the agonies of chemo or radiation or any sort of treatment, why put a dog through such torments, if they don’t know why? it will seem like torture.

For a dog who might be 13 or 14 (we’re not sure, as she’s a rescue, and we’re the third owner) it would have been torture (for example) to undertake the most elaborate option of tests, which require 4 to 5 days of confinement, and separation from us.

What would she understand except something terrifying, painful?

And so after an x-ray and bloodwork, we had a diagnosis and a prescription. Sam has liver problems that we’re treating with a series of different medications.

And then we came to the next big issue. While we had purchased the meds, we couldn’t get Sam to swallow anything. While a human might understand why the doctor instructs them to swallow a big goofy pill, it’s a different matter persuading a dog.

We tried some of the things we saw suggested online, the pill-in-food trick, the stroking of the throat that we’d done with our cat.

No luck.

And so it was a dark week. At one point we were facing the necessity of euthanasia, the fear that if Sam wouldn’t take her meds and her disease progressed, that she would have to be put down. We consulted with someone from Midtown Mobile Veterinary Hospice Services (website: mmvhs.ca ) who helped reduce some of our stress in contemplating the end of Sam’s life. Someday we expect to be calling upon them for help: but not yet…

Dec 22nd is the anniversary of the day we put down another dog back in 2002 with cancer. 2020 was looking every bit as dark as we shed tears, fearing that she would be taken from us.

A conversation with our local vet at Morningside Animal Hospital in Scarborough led to a suggestion, another pathway. He told us to use a syringe (the kind that doesn’t have a needle at the end), filled with water. We’d inject water into her throat as she was swallowing the pill (which means pill first, water second). Morningside Animal Hospital gave us some syringes.

So far it has worked every time, although on occasion we had to refill the syringe and spray again. Each time it’s a few cc’s of water, done just as the pill is going down.

While Sam will still pass away at some point (she’s old after all), at least she’s come back from the lethargy we saw on the weekend. Her energy level is much better today than before when she was dizzy & unable to do more than stagger about. Now she’s aware of her surroundings and eager to go outside. And her appetite seems to have come back.

It’s the best Christmas gift we could imagine. We’re grateful for the help from the vet, and cautiously optimistic.

Sam in the snow on Christmas Morning

We are relieved that at least we’re not stuck, no longer despairing, as we were a couple of days ago. I wanted to share the idea for anyone who’s having trouble getting their dog to swallow a pill.

Please make sure you consult with your own veterinarian, to see what might be best for your animal.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Messiah / Complex

Posted on December 20, 2020 by barczablog

There’s nothing simple about Messiah/Complex, a new film that’s currently available for streaming from the Against the Grain Theatre website until January 7th.

Complex? It’s an adaptation of Handel’s popular oratorio, a co-production of Against the Grain Theatre and Against the Grain Theatre TV in partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. I’m not sure I understand that sentence, let alone the legalities or the logistics. Directed by Joel Ivany & Renellta Arluk, conducted by Johannes Debus, this is not your usual Handel’s Messiah. Not by a long shot.

Joel Ivany, Artistic Director of Against the Grain Theatre

The credits tell a very Canadian story, listing units in every province except Saskatchewan, and even including one each for Yukon, Nunavut & NWT. I suspect the omission of the one province irks or irritates the creative team, who seem to have gone to great pains to be inclusive in every sense of the word, giving almost every number in the oratorio a bit of a twist. Sometimes it’s linguistic, venturing into French, Arabic, Dene, Inuktitut, (and more), sometimes it’s political, when the text is changed, tweaked ever so slightly. And of course politics comes into the filming.

While the phrase “Messiah Complex” is a pathology, I am not sure that’s what this title means even if the producers are taking advantage of its currency, the meaning being largely opaque. And if it is a bit of a shot at contemporary Christianity? I think they can defend that choice, because Christianity can’t claim the moral high ground, not after errors such as the Residential Schools, and that’s only the most obvious instance. Messiah / Complex feels refreshingly positive and new, considering that Handel’s text comes from the King James Bible of 1611. But the film often gives us a renewed reading in a new language, an opportunity to shed some of the abusive associations in new phrasing.

The best example I can give happens a little over 20 minutes into the film, when we get our first radical revision, from Diyet in Yukon, singing not in English but Southern Tutchone (a language as I discovered with a little googling & reading).

Who is Diyet? I found Diyet & the Love Soldiers. This is not your usual classical music persona.

And her brave face? right there in the film, singing a changed version of Handel & the Biblical text.

“Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son” becomes “This is our land and our people too”.

“And shall call his son Emmanuel, God With Us” becomes “Creator has made all of this land (for us all)”

No it’s not the usual voice you’d hear in a Handel oratorio, one of several inspired choices. The team behind Messiah / Complex were curators assembling something different from the usual, something (dare I say it) against the grain.

Not “Oh thou that tellest good tidings to Zion” but “Who brings this good news to us?”

Not “get thee up into the high mountain” but “share the news from the top of the mountain”: as we see huge mountains in the images before us, a singer walking before them. It’s breath-taking in every sense.

Usually one gets the classically trained singing voice needed to fill the big concert hall and to be heard over the orchestra. Unavoidably, that comes with the added tendency to seem like a show-off. Indeed that was a tendency in the baroque, to embellish, to impress us. But instead we get a gentle voice intimately close –like the singer’s face who we see in a close-up. As a result that gives us a totally different sort of authenticity.

Diyet’s picture from the Facebook group for Diyet & The Love Soldiers

Up to this point watching the film, I had been conflicted, resisting. Perhaps that’s my tight-ass old-fashioned love of the Handel Messiah? resisting the way AtG’s press release came at me with the hype about all the collaborators. Yes it’s a complex project and wow I doubt they could pull this off in any other country. Yes it’s so quintessentially Canadian. There’s some irony in my resistance, as I recognize that wait a minute,…. hey isn’t this precisely what I’ve been demanding almost like a mantra?

A Canadian product from Canadian artists? And here it is.

And suddenly watching this solo I’m all in, completely won over by the legitimacy of this segment (baptized with a flood of tears). Diyet is shown walking by a road on a snowy day in the Yukon with magnificent mountains in the distance.

When I think of the many live performed Messiahs I have seen, not unlike most of the operas I’ve seen, one always has to admit “ymmv”, or “your mileage may vary”. Rarely does one get a perfect chorus AND a perfect orchestra AND thoughtful leadership from the conductor(s) AND the right voice from the tenor ….AND the bass AND the alto AND the soprano all clicking in all the numbers. Instead of drama (meaning mine as I wonder how they will manage the challenges, how they will respect tradition or boldly try something new), we’ve got a different soloist –and often a different language & culture—for each solo. Most of the drama is gone, indeed the tension is mostly absent. A purist might quibble with choristers smiling sweetly as they sing “and he shall purify”, a very dark scary text. But it’s a fun performance by UPEI Chamber Choir, joy evident in this as in every choral segment of the film. And most of the solos also bubble over with joy, even if some are solemnly mysterious, spiritual without being religious.

There is so much more I could say, so many more soloists to mention…. While YMMV implies failures, I merely meant that sometimes we’re honoring Handel and the King James text, other times boldly going into new territory: which I welcomed. While some may prefer a more conservative approach, I believe that the generations who are happy in the realm of Zoom & spotify & the download will see nothing objectionable, while seeing much to applaud & admire.

I can imagine the challenging choices the creative team faced, between sometimes honouring a conventional & recognizable approach to Handel vs sometimes giving us something with an edge. In the end I welcomed all the transgressions, the moments that for me are the most genuine & spiritual.

I’m going to invoke a technical term from the film-music realm. We speak of music that is “diegetic” and “non—diegetic”. Woody Allen gave a classic illustration in Bananas (1971), in fact sending it all up. As his character gets the good news that he’s invited to dinner with the President we hear harp music: as though wow this were the feelings in his head. That’s the usual way film music works, where invisible musicians underscore the events on the screen. And so the music seems to be non-diegetic, emotions inspired by events in the story.

Ah but we discover that the music is coming from a harpist practicing in his closet.

So while at a few select moments in the film we do get to see the Toronto Symphony led by conductor Johannes Debus in the opening Sinfonia and again in the Hallelujah Chorus (which seems apt given that we also see the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir singing on King St in front of Roy Thomson Hall, the usual home base for the TSO & TMC), for most of the proceedings they are invisible, the non-diegetic score, for their participation in this film.

When we watch the UPEI Chamber Choir (“And He shall purify”), or Le Cheour Louisbourg in Moncton (“For Unto Us a Child is Born”) or Halifax Camerata Singers (“Worthy is the Lamb” & the final Amen), we see the ensemble’s conductor leading a choir. But no, we don’t see the TSO. The music invisibly accompanies, presumably from a recording session accomplished with the choir. At times the choir poses rather than singing, at times they are lip synching, although it’s pretty clear that the singing was done elsewhere given the absence of microphones, especially in that shot on King St West.

So it’s a film that doesn’t pretend to be anything else. It makes an intriguing comparison with Rituaels, the new “film-concert” from collectif9 that I reviewed recently, the genre in quotes because I’ve never seen it before. Collectif9 made it crystal clear through their camerawork that we were watching the players play a concert, even though there were lots of filmed moments interspersed: just as in Messiah/Complex. Clearly we’ve come to a different performance realm with new rules. But I am reserving judgment for now as to whether this is temporary, brought on by the pandemic, or perhaps the new normal.

Fareed Zacharia whom you may know from “GPS”, his Sunday program on CNN, has a new book that I’m reading called Ten Lessons for a Post-pandemic World. Fareed points to Kodak’s failure to adapt to a digital world, filing for bankruptcy, and citing the huge share of the entertainment industry spending that goes to gaming, exceeding that of Hollywood & the music business put together. As you’ve likely noticed, some companies are getting rich right now while others fall by the wayside. Those who have an online presence –such as the TSO & Against the Grain—likely will have a future. As I lament that the Canadian Opera Company, who presented many brilliant productions over the past decade that I wish I could see again in a digital/virtual format, I’ve been enjoying the free online offerings from the Metropolitan Opera. Whether the in-person concerts & operas manage to fully come back or not surely the virtual presentations and their associated revenue stream are here to stay.

Messiah/Complex is a beautiful film from AtG & the TSO, with all these collaborators working in so many provinces & territories. Especially given the current challenges artists & companies face, this film is a healthy omen, perhaps an indication of great things to come.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Politics, Popular music & culture, Reviews, Spirituality & Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Beethoven 250: 2020 vision

Posted on December 15, 2020 by barczablog

It’s an oxymoron of a year, this 2020 that is a little over two weeks from its conclusion.

Social butterflies (those of us who self-identify as extroverts & are therefore energized by other people) have no choice but to go back into our chrysalis, or do our socializing with our pets (we make baby-talk to our dogs?).

But I digress. The introverts meanwhile smile quietly at the irony, at this great excuse to avoid gathering. “The meek shall inherit the Earth”, someone said. And so in this bizarre year we discover the anti-performance, the virtual rather than the real.

Perhaps 2020 is a tiny bit of what it must have been like to be Beethoven, which is apt considering that it was a deaf man who taught us how to hear. Isn’t it perfect that the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birthday should fall in this upside down year, when live performance isn’t permitted, when the celebration of this anniversary is confined to the virtual realm of online concerts..?

It reminds me of nothing so much as Beethoven himself.

What must it be like to be composing music entirely using your inner ear? Yes it can be done. Of course composers have a few options.

1-They can draw or write something entirely using music software. SPOILER ALERT: this wasn’t an option for Beethoven.

2-They can go back and forth between writing and testing their experiment. You think of something that might sound good and then like a cook, tasting their creation, they test it on the instrument to see how it sounds. Needless to say, if you’re becoming deaf this becomes difficult or impossible.

3- …OR as I mentioned above, one can compose entirely in one’s head. I have done this before. I am not saying the result was immortal, or even good. But I was working on the score for an adaptation of Pericles in the early 1980s while I was working in a small bookstore. I had a bit of a struggle shutting the mall’s Muzak out while trying to hear what was scored on the page.

(hm do they still have Muzak nowadays? Do millennials know the meaning of the word? do they even have malls? But do large places play music on the sound system anymore?)

But wow it’s distracting when you’re trying to compose something, to hear other music blaring at you. I only mention this because that last option –composing entirely in his head—became the only option available for Beethoven, who might try to sing a tune aloud, perhaps to hear it inside his head, but couldn’t simply plunk out a tune on his piano.

I am reminded of that scene in Immortal Beloved when we see him playing a piano, unaware of someone behind him, as he explores the sounds. He is testing a new instrument.

Did he perhaps begin to understand the piano as a sonorous wonderland, with amazing potential? His writing took the instrument far beyond what anyone else had done.

Or that famous story of the premiere of his 9th symphony, supposedly unaware of the riotous applause from the audience behind him until a soloist turned him around. He was like an exile from the world, progressively further & further away from society as his hearing loss grew more complete.

I am also reminded of someone entirely different. I just finished reading Alex Ross’s huge book about Richard Wagner, which is why he’s on my mind. Because Wagner was involved in a failed revolt, he fled capture by the police, going into exile with his wife and probably with a dog as well. For the next several years he would be a pamphlet writer, railing against the conventions of the world while in exile, living with generous friends such as Franz Liszt and later Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria, both of whom took him in and helped facilitate premieres of his works. No Wagner wasn’t deaf: but he also didn’t have access to a theatre, and so no wonder he reinvented opera in this period, while writing radical essays about “the art of the future”. He noticed what was wrong with opera while unable to make any opera, and wrote the single most insightful essay on the subject, “Opera and Drama”: making the simple critique that a form meant to use music to make drama, instead tended to use drama as a form to make music. Distance offers perspective, a chance to learn, and there is no distance like exile.

Like Wagner, Beethoven was separated from his music, something like what we have all lived during the pandemic. No we didn’t go anywhere (nor did Beethoven). But the concerts and operas went away, except on our computers. For Beethoven the music receded away from him like water in a lake that was drying up. The result of such profound changes as what we’re living through in 2020 is a kind of alienation, leaving some people confused, depressed, traumatized, and worse. If you are sad living through 2020 imagine what Beethoven lived through, and consider what one can learn from this experience.

It may be difficult yet it is also an opportunity.

Remember how wonderful the music sounded in a concert hall: that is when you could actually go into a concert hall..? I am grateful even recalling the banality of lining up to pee at Roy Thomson Hall, or Four Seasons Centre. In December 2020 one walks the streets, the restaurants & stores mostly locked down. We are often masked, unable to even see a smile. Beethoven was perceived to be grouchy, miserable. I can relate. Under a mask no one can see your smile (or lack thereof).

Beethoven sometimes composed counter-intuitively, against our expectation. Listen for instance to the first movement of his violin concerto, where the two main ideas are a melody on the fiddle plus a repeated idea for the drum. It’s almost like an abstract exercise. Can you make something so beautiful out of the repeated pounding of a drum as to let it be a motif, a significant musical idea? The drama of the opening mvmt of his violin concerto could be a self-portrait in those two opposing ideas: a melody for violin, soft pounding of the drum. Is this something that one dreams up when far away, estranged, exiled?

Beethoven was the first to write a song cycle. Its title sounds like an apt subject for 2020, this year of estrangement & physical distancing. “An die ferne Geliebte” or “to the distant beloved”, is a series of songs for male voice, addressing a love who is far away.

I am thinking too of the letters to his Immortal Beloved (that I mentioned recently in context with the film), who was in a sense distant from him. He is again in a kind of alienated place, trying to get to someone. No wonder, then that his song cycle celebrates love from afar.

Do we listen differently alone? I suspect we do. But do we make music differently as performers and composers, making music without an audience? I know I make music differently when I know someone will hear. I wonder when the dog is under the piano (channeling Gerald Moore) “am I playing too loudly”?

The face reflected in the piano

When my wife is in the house I prefer to make a sound that is pleasant rather than noisy. If I am playing something that’s too difficult she can hear a struggle, picks up on the drama. I’ve re-thought and re-learned how to play and/or sing from hearing her feedback, coming to understand some compositions differently as a result. Some pieces must be dramatic (Erlkönig!?), while some should aim to be free of drama (Satie’s Gymnopédies?). Maybe that is what we understand by a genre, both in the implications for the artist and the implicit signals to audiences. But what if one has no such feedback? What if one is truly deaf? Usually at that point, music-making isn’t even an option let alone an interest and a passion. It is forever amazing to reflect on what Beethoven accomplished.

Of course composition changed under his influence, but perhaps too it changes with what his deafness implies, with the implications of sounds inside the head as the ideal, not the ones we hear. So the first glimmering of the “modern” might be with him, in the willingness to make music without any pressure to be “beautiful”. His beauty is at times radical, pointing the way to the Wagner-Mahler-Berg modernism, composers who push music away from the usual path into new ones of ever more daring. Any bold composer in 2020 can think of Beethoven as the avatar of bold exploration.

And naturally in 2020 we speak of things with precision, such as the percentage efficacy of a vaccine. But when we speak of Beethoven’s birthday we don’t know it. We know that he was baptized on December 17th 1770, which is 250 years ago this Thursday. Was he born that day? It seems unlikely although I have seen that date put forth. I often see Dec 16th or 15th which are conjecture. I am guessing that in 1770, December 17th fell on a Sunday. But perhaps not. My mom tells me that at least one of my sibs was baptized in the hospital automatically, and not via church. Perhaps something like that was possible in the 18th century.

But I merely finish by pointing out that it’s not a beginning that can be ascertained with scientific accuracy. But even if it were possible, that’s not what matters.

It’s the music.

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Mad Pupparazzo

Posted on December 15, 2020 by barczablog

I follow her around with my phone, taking pictures not so much a paparazzo as a pupparazzo.

Samantha (SAM for short) seems to like the attention.

“Hey Sam wanna take a selfie..??”

The pictures? It’s simply that she’s irresistible. I want to capture those beautiful moments.

Sam is very photogenic, notwithstanding the big lump in her left thigh.

It may be cancer, but she is 13 years old. We feed her and do our best to make her life enjoyable.

A friend has suggested that maybe she is a Norwegian Buhund. We don’t know, as she’s a rescue, and we’re the third owner. At this point –to be honest– she really owns us.

And that’s okay.

And the way she looks at the camera I think she likes the attention.

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Beethoven 250: Immortal Beloved

Posted on December 15, 2020 by barczablog

Immortal Beloved (1994)  is one of my favorite films.  While I’ve been told by a Beethoven scholar that the facts aren’t correct in the film, that doesn’t stop me from liking it. How could it be otherwise?

Spoiler alert #1: I love this film, so don’t expect a balanced commentary from me. I think the film is worth the trouble of multiple viewings, rewarding anyone who bothers to watch it, particularly now as we remember Beethoven 250 years after his birth.

This is the film for which Gary Oldman really deserves his Oscar.

You can’t blame him for worrying about being typecast, recalling his brilliance as Lee Harvey Oswald or Winston Churchill. 

Have you seen it? whatever you may think of its accuracy –using modern instruments rather than period ones, messing up some of the time-lines & facts in the interest of a romantic storyline—it’s a compelling combination of visuals & musical performance. I recall Jay Scott calling attention to that one tiny infelicity, that the music is all done with modern instruments via Georg Solti rather than anything utilizing a historically informed performance style.  The one exception comes during a piano lesson when the instrument sounds dreadful.  If I didn’t know better I’d say Solti’s goal was almost slanderous.

Other than this, I love this film without reservation, as I mentioned in spoiler alert #1.

Spoiler alert #2, I don’t like spoiling stories so I won’t spill the beans about this one. You’ll have to see it for yourself, and decide on its merits.

So let’s start with the premise.

Beethoven has just died.  The opening is a powerful scene scored with Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis. We see the funeral procession that might include Franz Schubert; that is, we know Schubert was a pallbearer but we don’t get a good look at the men carrying the coffin.

Later we are listening to Anton Schindler, his admirer, sometime secretary & helper who has been going through his papers, which contain a mystery.  A series of letters written in July 1812 were addressed to the “Unsterbliche Geliebte:”
the “immortal beloved”. 

But who was this person? There are several possible candidates, women to whom the letters may have been addressed: but never sent.  The film brings us closer to three possible candidates, one of whom is not taken seriously by the academics who know about such things (in other words, I’ve been told in private correspondence in no uncertain terms).  

Beethoven died alone, a single man without any apparent survivors.  The film would suggest that our assumptions are incorrect: that in fact Beethoven did father a son. I won’t reveal any more. 

What I like about the film is how it makes me think about him in a new way. He is a person living with a big secret, namely his hearing loss, which he must conceal.  I think Oldman does a remarkable job of making the character believable.

Directed & written by Bernard Rose, it has an interesting intersection with another Rose film, namely his adaptation of Tolstoy’s Kreutzer Sonata (2008).  Tolstoy’s story about marital infidelity might be the subtext for Rose’s earlier Immortal Beloved.  Rose seems to believe that the music in Beethoven’s sonata (which we hear briefly in the earlier film) is telling the same sort of story we find in Tolstoy, that the passions of the sonata concern an ardent traveler trying to reach his beloved.

In passing we’re given one of the most perfect definitions of music (or any art for that matter) that I have ever encountered.  See if you agree.

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Allied Music Centre — Massey Hall

Posted on December 9, 2020 by barczablog

Allied Properties makes a transformative contribution to the Massey Hall Revitalization expanding the scope of the project.

Featuring an additional performance venue and new dedicated spaces for artist development and community education initiatives

Allied Music Centre, Rendering
Rendering courtesy of Massey Hall / KPMB Architects

(TORONTO – December 8, 2020) – With enormous gratitude, Massey Hall today announces that Allied Properties (TSX:AP.UN), a Canadian provider of creative urban workspace, has made a landmark contribution to the Massey Hall Revitalization. This transformative support expands the project’s original scope and introduces Canada’s premiere multi-purpose performance facility, Allied Music Centre, home of historic Massey Hall.

“We’re truly grateful for the opportunity to partner with historic Massey Hall,” said Michael Emory, President & CEO of Allied. “This partnership will enable us to contribute meaningfully to our communities. It will also enable us to propel our vision over an extended period of time and to enrich the experience of the many creative organizations and people who use our urban workspace across the country.”

Massey Hall will always be called Massey Hall, but Allied’s significant investment to the Revitalization is the catalyst for the creation of Allied Music Centre. Featuring NEW state-of-the-art performance venues and dedicated spaces for Artist Development and Education & Outreach initiatives, all located in the 7-storey tower adjacent to the National Historic Site.

These previously unannounced additional spaces include:

The Theatre. An entirely new and intimate venue that will be a welcome addition to Toronto’s music ecosystem, serving as a launch pad for emerging artists and a home for community programming and engagement. With retractable seating akin to Massey Hall’s revitalized orchestra level, it easily transforms from traditional theatre for more intimate performances and presentations – seating 100, into a standing room club or education workshop setting.

The Studio. With the acoustic treatment and technical capability you would expect of a professional recording facility, The Studio has multi-function flexibility for educational programming and artistic development at the core of its design.

The Studio adapts to a range of these uses, whether as a “wired” classroom for education programs delivered in person or remotely, as space for emerging artists to create, or as a sequestered rehearsal space for acts performing at any of the venues.

Artists’ Lab. A suite of dedicated resources for creators providing all the modern tools needed to develop their craft. Featuring professionally appointed digital audio workstations, a unique instrument library, acoustically treated practice rooms, and more – a home for artists.

The Lounge. A gathering place for artists, industry, and fans alike, the Lounge will offer a casual gathering place for the music community by day and will be abuzz at night as concert-goers and creatives mingle and take in the awe-inspiring view of the city.

This extraordinary investment is a testament to Allied’s on-going commitment to creativity and connectivity and a bold extension of their Make Room for the Arts program, an initiative providing much-needed affordable spaces to the artistic community.

“In Allied, we have found a partner who shares our values, believes in our mission, and from day one wanted to know what they could do to make the Massey Hall Revitalization even more impactful to the community,” said Jesse Kumagai, President & CEO, The Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall. “As a result, their insightful and meaningful investment is not only bringing Massey Hall a significant step closer to reopening, but also serving as the catalyst for expanded scope, adding a new performance venue and dedicated spaces for artist development and music education. We are immeasurably grateful for this remarkable contribution to Canada’s music scene!”

When complete, Allied Music Centre will play a profound role in our cultural ecosystem, creating inspiring new opportunities for artists and music fans at every step along their journeys. From emerging artists making their debut to the world’s most celebrated stars, young students discovering a passion for music to lifelong fans soaking in the energy of live performance, Allied Music Centre will be a home for all music and all people.

As previously announced, the Massey Hall Revitalization will restore and renew both the interior and exterior of this National Historic Site, unveil over 100 restored original stained glass windows, introduce new music venues, feature archives and exhibits located throughout and, offer a new retractable seating option on the orchestra level of the Allan Slaight Auditorium for energy charged performances.

Also previously announced, the new seven-story tower – in addition to today’s announcement will feature; a new 500-capacity club with incredible sightlines to the city, additional patron amenities that will include accessible seating options throughout and, state-of-the-art production facilities with turnkey content capture, wired to every stage and studio in Allied Music Centre.

For more information, visit www.alliedmusiccentre.com.


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“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment

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Masterful Rituaels film-concert from collectif9

Posted on December 8, 2020 by barczablog

After seeing a preview, I recommend Rituaels, a new film-concert from collectif9 especially to anyone who is missing live performance, wanting the experience of live music in their home setting, and especially to any artists intrigued by the challenges and contradictions in bringing something live to life, via a lifeless electronic device.

For artists curious about what is possible? Have a look.

Rituæls premiere broadcast (via http://www.collectif9.ca) will be on Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8pm for free, and will be accompanied by a discussion with the members of the group. The film-concert will be accessible free of charge for a period of 48 hours, after which it will be available for rental on their website until January 11, 2021.

As you can probably tell from that little teaser-video, a great deal of thought seems to have gone into this project, projected to be the first “film-concert” of a series. I remember Marshall McLuhan and his identification of media as “hot” or “cold” or even “cool”. A film seen in a theatre or a concert presented in a concert hall or church is a hotter medium event than when it’s seen as a video on your personal device. For better or worse, the creators of Rituaels seem to understand that this film needs to be constructed in such a way so as not to overwhelm us with its intensity. The choice of repertoire, the presentation of each musical piece by the players of collectif9, the visuals and the montage all contribute to the effect. The word “cool” is one I want to use, not just in the McLuhan sense but in the sense of something hip and attractive to those in the music world who are not—like myself—over the age of 60.

There can be an awkwardness to Zoom and other attempts to simulate liveness in the virtual realm. I recall the weird first attempts at a Saturday Night Live, the unevenness of interviews on CBC or CNN even between professionals. Facetime or whatsapp or Messenger may give you a close-up look at friends and loved ones, but we are still learning the vocabulary, still getting adjusted to pandemic life. And even so, how then does one possibly preserve a sense of liveness? especially without anything awkward or odd..? Do we get a sense of a real live concert when there’s something still & orderly, if the chaos of people in between movements with their coughs or chair noises are in some sense how we know that something is not recorded but live…?

As I think about what I saw in my preview of Rituaels I am reminded of Bertolt Brecht who would have something to say –recalling his Verfremdungseffekt –about the process from the audience’s viewpoint. Do we gain something when the performers turn their pages, tune up or move their chairs, before playing? I think so. That bit of mechanical movement is a gesture to us, reminding us that the music is not just something artificially recorded on a soundtrack, but being made for us in the moment by the living musicians, calling attention to the mechanics of playing music. It puts our focus on the music and the music-making rather than the images.

Can one make something that has the freshness of a live performance while also relaxing us & putting us at ease? At times it’s very laid back, but when I played Rituaels last night there were moments when my wife thought I was listening to rock music, probably during Aheym by Bryce Dessner, the most intense moments of the film-concert. This version by Kronos quartet is different from what collectif9 did, but gives you both a sense of Dessner’s piece does as well as some visuals that may have influenced the team working with collectif9. I’m reminded of Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, that seminal film with timelapse & the music of Philip Glass.

Excuse me for repeating myself, but I would recommend that anyone wondering about bringing live performance into the virtual world should have a look at this film-concert. I was intrigued when I saw the press release for Rituaels, indeed, when I saw that they were calling it a “film-concert”. Whenever we make something, especially something new, we may not always know what we’ve made. It’s therefore quite marvelous to discover something displaying genuine mastery, created with a deep understanding of the issues facing the audience.

It works, and it’s a pleasure.

Collectif9 are an ensemble of four violins, two cellos, two violas and a bass. Their nine string players have been performing for almost a decade. Rituaels includes ten live performers, namely the nine of collectif9 plus dancer Stacey Désilier.

Stacey Désilier (photo: Clément Dietz)

I chose to watch Rituaels on a big screen, to allow the visuals to move me, and wasn’t disappointed. Even enlarged there’s a great deal of detail & complexity to reward the viewer. We find ourselves in a church space where the bodies of some musicians are already discovered in place, and others process in slowly using the church aisles while playing. It suggests a ritual quality because of the space, because of the way they process slowly, and perhaps also because I’m mindful of the title. I wonder, not for the first time, what does that word mean?

We’re put in a funny hybrid space. The music emerges from live players who don’t seem overly coached or stagey, just doing what musicians do. They play, their focus is their music or their instrument not a fake performance or anything stagey or ostentatious. Yet there are artificial visuals too, some from CGI, some from the dancer shown in close-ups, some from cinematography of the natural world. While Stacey Désilier may be a dancer, there is very little that one might identify as “dance” in the usual sense of the word. We are mostly presented with Désilier in a variety of postures & attitudes, mostly static & at times very contemplative. That bold choice to be understated gives the film-concert additional intensity & power.

After the very first item on the program we’re listening to relatively recent compositions.

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179): O vis æternitatis
Arvo Pärt (né en 1935): Psalom et Summa
Nicole Lizée (née en 1973): Another Living Soul
Bryce Dessner (né en 1976): Aheym et Tenebre
Michael Tippett (1905-1998): Lament
Jocelyn Morlock (née en 1969): Exaudi (arrangement pour violoncelle solo et cordes)

Collectif9 includes nine string players:

– Chloé Chabanole, John Corban, Robert Margaryan, Elizabeth Skinner, violin
– Scott Chancey, Xavier Lepage-Brault, viola
– Jérémie Cloutier, Andrea Stewart, cello
– Thibault Bertin-Maghit, bass

The team behind the film—concert is led by their bass player.
– Conception et direction artistique: Thibault Bertin-Maghit
– Réalisation vidéo: Benoit Fry & Lucas Harrison Rupnik
– Réalisation musicale: Carl Talbot
– Éclairage: Alexandre Péloquin
– Scénographie: Joëlle Harbec

Rituæls will be broadcast for free for the first time on Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8pm, and will be accompanied by a discussion with the members of the group. The film-concert will be accessible free of charge for a period of 48 hours, after which it will be available for rental on their website until January 11, 2021.

RITUÆLS
Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8pm
available at http://www.collectif9.ca
Free until Dec. 13 | $10 after Dec. 13
Facebook event: fb.me/e/1QuYLbzJD
Donations accepted: http://www.gofundme.com/collectif9

collectif9
Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Popular music & culture, Reviews, Spirituality & Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Beethoven 250: recalling Brian Macdonald’s Diabelli Variations

Posted on December 7, 2020 by barczablog

As I reminisce about a piece choreographed by Brian Macdonald I hope I can be forgiven for seguing into remembrance of the man, who is known for many things. You probably saw one of the musicals he directed at Stratford, perhaps on film or TV if not in person.

Back in 2005 I brought him in as a keynote speaker for the FOOT Festival at University of Toronto’s Drama Centre. It was an honour and a huge thrill.

The obituary I pulled up mentions opera.
“In October, Macdonald returned to the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto and from his wheelchair supervised yet another revival of his critically acclaimed 1990 production of Madama Butterfly. His curtain call was his last public appearance.”

I raved about one of the casts, the best Butterfly I’ve ever seen.

His career was long. I see in that obit I shared above, that he was also “artistic director of Montreal’s Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (1974-77).” During one of their visits to Toronto at the O’Keefe Centre I saw Macdonald’s Diabelli Variations.

I see in that obit that Macdonald “aspired to be a concert pianist.” I wonder if Macdonald ever played the Diabelli Variations himself? Surely.

The tickets for that show back in the 1970s were available among my acquaintances at Trinity College, University of Toronto when I was an undergrad. A red-haired fellow in our group named Barry sounded off to me during the intermission that there was simply no way to make a ballet out of the Beethoven piece, “Diabelli Variations”. He said “you can’t do this” and of course I disagreed then, and recalling the conversation now am thankful for the boldness of Macdonald’s ideas. I had wanted desperately to come see it again before they left town, but didn’t manage it.

Do you know this piece? The Diabelli Variations are among my most favorite of all Beethoven’s works, piano or otherwise. Someone had the idea of giving a tune to several composers, and then assembling all their variations into one piece. When I think about it, especially when remembering what Beethoven came up with: it’s not really such a good idea. Yes I suppose one might be intrigued at the comparison, between a variation by Schubert (who actually wrote one), and one by Beethoven. But you wouldn’t get the satisfaction of a unified composition such as what Beethoven gave us.

You start with a dinky little tune in 3, a dance tune in C Major. And then Beethoven proceeds to create one of his most remarkable compositions.

Theme and the first of 33 variations

First he does a kind of march which is of course in 4: as if to smash the tune into little pieces, someone said. (was it Anton Kuerti? I can’t recall….but it would match his interpretation). Then the next variation starts with something meek and mild, building over the next few variations, bigger & faster, until we get a climax at variation #7. Variation #8 is a chance to chill out, relax a bit, almost like a lullaby or even an elegy for the massacre of the tune that has been happening. #9 is angular & in chunks in C minor then #10 is a breath-taking release of tension, Presto. 11 and 12 are waltzy with very little movement, gently exploring the melody. #13 is another explosive release of tension before we come again to something elegiac and maestoso, namely #14. But 15, 16 and 17 are fast & playful. 18 is a slower dance melody, then 19 is a vivid presto again, leading us to the slow-motion of 20. 21 is faster, then 22 is a light parodic interlude mocking the opening of Don Giovanni in its variation. 23 is fast & intense,, then 24 is a thoughtful fughetta based on the melody of course. 25 is as fluid as a skater’s waltz, building to a climax through 26 & the Vivace of 27. For 28 Beethoven is again grinding things into small pieces, before the shit hits in the fan in 29, 30 & 31, successively more pathos & drama in each variation. 32 is a stunning allegro Fuga in E flat major, that leads us back after cadenzas & an introspective adagio like a recitative, to the 33rd variation in C major, tempo di menuetto.

Yes it’s a series of variations, but it’s like a commentary on music & the possibilities of composition. I don’t know that I would have had such a clear understanding of the piece without Macdonald. The piece makes me especially sad today as I think about what we’re unable to do during the pandemic, missing the usual sorts of human society to which we were accustomed. I desperately wish I could talk to Macdonald about the piece.

And I’m sure Beethoven would have loved what Macdonald created. I cherish that conversation with Barry –the one who said “you can’t do this” – that makes the poignancy of the memory so much deeper, even if it’s as far beyond recall as the prospect of getting Ludwig and Brian together for a beer after the show.

Macdonald puts his piano onstage, the ballet dramatizing as the piece gets played. I couldn’t help feeling that this piece was conceived as Macdonald the choreographer played the piece once upon a time. At first it’s just one man dancing while the pianist plays. In due course we see the various actions of the piece, the roughness of the passages such as the first variation where the music seems to be destructive. The piece is ultimately social, the dance element in the music understood as two or more people dancing onstage with the piano, the dance as a kind of response to the music of the piano. It feels like a conversation, that the pianist makes the dance happen in response to what the music is doing. The drama is especially moving at the end, as the erupting energies of the fugue in variation #32 lead to the noble tranquility of the last variation, as though it were about reconciliation, world peace. That’s what it feels like.

The final image that haunts me, as I picture the music of the last bars, is that the dancer is coming back to the piano, where he started, the big open space on the page that parallels the big space on the stage, that would imply lots of people and lots of energy, closing up into something smaller, tighter, intimate, reconciled.

The end

Am I a fool to wish someone would try to choreograph this music again? It’s a fond beautiful image I dimly recollect from another century from an artist who is no longer with us. But the piece is about dance, about human society, about conflict & resolution.
I like it.

Posted in Books & Literature, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, University life | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment