Beethoven 250: interpreting Sonata #9

Posted on November 14, 2020 by barczablog

There are at least two ways to understand music.

We listen. Perhaps you hear a performance on some device such as your smartphone, your TV or a computer, or even in a live setting such as a concert or a church. It may be something from the past, for instance when we’re talking about someone like Ludwig van Beethoven in anticipation of his 250th birthday. It could be a popular composer such as Taylor Swift, John Legend or a film-music legend such as Ennio Morricone. But in each case the encounter with the music itself is through your ears. I don’t deny that other senses come into play, that there’s a visual component too, particularly if you’re watching Swift or looking at how Morricone’s music works in a film.

But there’s another way many of us encounter music, and it’s usually how one learns music, when we’re taught how to sing or play an instrument, perhaps how to read music or charts.

And so in addition to listening to music we may sometimes make music: or at least that is the goal.

This is the first Beethoven Sonata I studied. I was much younger, under the guidance of my second teacher, Harold Patterson (I hope I spelled that right…) at the Royal Conservatory of Music, North Toronto Branch, on Yonge St, roughly 15 minutes walking distance from my childhood home.

I wasn’t afraid of it or intimidated, although Mr Patterson always said “Beethoven” with a curious emphasis, not unlike the way some people will say the names of Biblical figures such as “Pontius Pilate” or “John the Baptist”. I was to understand that this was an undertaking, that I was privileged to play this music and must treat this as a significant challenge.

The first time I looked I noticed something in this piece that has best been captured by something I read decades later, from Claude Debussy, who spoke of baroque composers such as JS Bach. Debussy observed that the notes on the page were like the patterns of arabesque, a word with mysterious connotations that I’m sure the French composer likely encouraged. Whatever else is going on, the music is beautiful to look at on the printed page.

That page of music is the site for an encounter between the player & the composition, as though it were a football player meeting the football. Does that sound crude? It’s easy to make noise, harder to make something beautiful. But we can imagine a vast continuum of ability between those (at any age) who are just beginning to play, and those who have acquired expertise, mastery, even virtuosity. The music may require care from the player, perhaps playing it slowly, perhaps only undertaking a few notes from one hand or the other rather than taking on the whole piece. If one has heard the piece before, if one is a good sight-reader, one might dare to play the whole thing up to speed. Sometimes we have no choice, as that’s what’s required in a church or music-theatre or opera when someone puts a score in front of you and you have to make it happen with little or no opportunity to practice.

Beethoven himself was recognized in his youth as a great player, a virtuoso artist: even as he concealed the secret of his growing deafness. In the modern era we may look back upon people who were known as composers or pianists, applying a label that may not be how they thought of themselves, persons without any awareness of being only one or the other, not both. Mozart played the fortepiano, (which isn’t the same as a modern pianoforte) and also played the violin, writing music for both, also operas & masses and many other types of music. Besides the many things he would accomplish, Beethoven was a great pianist who wrote great music for the piano. In the next century music was often designed to challenge the player, displaying their virtuosity. Think of Beethoven in the lineage that leads us on to Chopin & Liszt, Mendelssohn & Schumann, later Ravel, Rachmaninoff, Busoni, Bartok, Ligeti…

For me it’s the inevitable subtext when I’m listening to Stewart Goodyear or Yuja Wang playing a piece. The virtuoso might be understood to be on a spiritual quest, where the great compositions are like the mountains to be climbed or oceans to be crossed: with nothing more than their fingers to take them and us on that journey of exploration. It can be one of the great joys to encounter a new approach, although for some listeners this is heresy: that one might dare play something in a new way. There is a discourse around performance of a particular work, where we understand the conversation between the way it has been done and the possibilities to do it in a new way. I listen, intrigued, because I’m a fellow traveler on that quest, admittedly never likely to venture as high or as far. But the Olympic motto “ Citius – Altius – Fortius” (or in other words “Faster – Higher – Stronger”) is not irrelevant. Singing or playing an instrument does entail the expenditure of energy, making the athletic analogy at least something to consider. If you consider the athleticism of dance –the necessity to train and strengthen while retaining flexibility & agility—remember that the fingers are doing something like a dance on the keyboard. Some pieces are very quick, sometimes calling for a big sound, sometimes for something gentle. A player’s strength & agility are indispensable to the fullest expression of what’s on the page. Some pieces are exhausting. Some pieces require great delicacy.

Although Beethoven died in 1827 we are far from having exhausted the possibilities in his works. As with the plays of Shakespeare or the operas of Wagner, there are still interpretive pathways available to make something new of something old. I recall my excitement in 2012 when I heard that Canadian pianist Stewart Goodyear was undertaking something called the “Beethoven Marathon”, playing all 32 sonatas in one grueling day, concerts in the morning afternoon & evening. As a mental achievement alone it’s remarkable, a bigger feat for instance than the roles of Hamlet or King Lear, each a few hours shared with a cast, where Goodyear played alone through all 32 sonatas.

I was inspired by the film Julie and Julia, following the parallel stories of Julia Child virtuoso chef and Julie Powell, emulating her and writing about it on a blog.

So I tried approaching Beethoven in a new way. Never mind the challenges of playing this sonata or that sonata. What if one played them all, one after another? I couldn’t help noticing resemblances, when one is hearing the sonatas in one’s head, played one after another. The concluding chords to Op 101 almost sound like a taunt inviting the opening of Op 106. (try playing one after the other). One sees patterns. And so as I thought about Beethoven & Goodyear back in 2012, I wrote a few times about it, not unlike Julie contemplating French cuisine & Julia.

Let’s come back to piano sonata #9, a piece I started to learn as a child. Was I 13? I’m not sure but when I look at what a mature artist does with the music I’m humbled to think that I was unafraid to play this music. With maturity comes fear I suppose.

I really like Daniel Barenboim’s reading of Sonata #9. He had a program that I saw on TVO long ago called Barenboim on Beethoven, a wonderful combination of remarks & performances.

Barenboim’s version is not as quick as Glenn Gould’s performance, one that might remind you of that Olympic motto Citius – Altius – Fortius.

To each their own. I prefer the way Barenboim lets the music breathe, giving space for reflection. The two readings are so different from one another, bringing out different aspects of the same music.

Isn’t it amazing.

Posted in Books & Literature, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, Popular music & culture, Sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Food porn

Posted on November 7, 2020 by barczablog

That’s what it felt like, watching a film about food, before eating something irresistibly scrumptious.

The film is Chef with its wonderful premise and strong script.

The cast includes Sofia Vergara, Dustin Hoffman, John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Robert Downey Jr & Scarlett Johansson. Jon Favreau is at the heart of a project that he wrote produced & directed, showing another side to his flamboyant self. It was surely a labour of love. Have you seen it?

I wonder if you know Favreau. He’s directed superhero movies, comedies, and lent his physical presence to several films.

I first saw him in The Replacements(2000) where he plays a raging linebacker. If you watch this clip, you might never suspect that under that wild surface lurks a sensitive artist.

A sensitive artist with anger-management issues, that is….

The story might be a cautionary tale for anyone not aware of the power of social media, as Favreau’s raging chef Carl Casper has a career ending meltdown caught on video, that goes viral. It’s full of life lessons, centred in the kitchen, reminding us of the redemptive power of work & family values.

When one is humbled? You start over.

On top of everything it has amazing close-up shots of food, to make your mouth water, and lots of lovely music too.

But there is hazard I want to warn you of, namely don’t watch this film if you’re trying to control your eating.

I knew I liked the menu from The Kingston Social as I am having a second consecutive week of the epic Jambalaya (shrimp, smoked chicken & pork sausage, rice & beans and humongous).

It’s big…!

Erika went for the Lamb Shank, and we both enjoyed the accompaniment of Konzelmann Shiraz.

The film is food porn, enticing you to let go of any self-control you thought you might have. I’ve seen the film 3 or 4 times now and can’t resist it.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Food, Health and Nutrition, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Le tombeau de Couperin: Ravel’s Six Remembrance Monuments

Posted on November 6, 2020 by barczablog

In the first days of November we remember.

November 1st is All Saints’ Day, the celebration that gave rise to Halloween, even if modern culture pays more attention to the edgy rebellion implicit in October 31st than the day that follows. In many churches it’s a day to honour those who have passed away, remembering parents, grandparents and those who came before, presumed to have ascended to heaven.

And a few days later, another important day. Known as “Armistice Day” throughout the British Empire it was renamed “Remembrance Day” in Canada, to commemorate November 11th 1918, the last day of the First World War. Hostilities ceased at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The ending of the war coincided with the season of gratitude implicit in All Saints Day. Outdoor services at 11:00 am on the 11th may include the Last Post and 2 minutes of silence, followed by Reveille and the recitation of the poem “In Flanders Fields.”

Artists help us remember, painting portraits of famous people. Composers too. Imagine that you were in the midst of the greatest war anyone had ever seen, your friends were dying, and you wanted them to be remembered.

Maurice Ravel’s “Le tombeau de Couperin” is in a tradition of honouring someone, as the intro in the Dover edition explains:

Formal compositions by his pupils honoring a departed master grew out of an ancient historical tradition. In Europe of the 14th to 17th centuries such works were labeled apothéose (glorification), plainte or déploration (lamentation), or tombeau (literally, a tomb—a monument to the dead). Ockeghem wrote one for Binchois… Josquin for Ockeghem… Gombert for Josquin. Influenced by the music of Corelli, Couperin acknowledged his musical debt in his “Grande Sonate en trio“ entitled Le Parnasse ou l’apothéose de Corelli.

Ravel composed a suite of six movements for piano between 1914 and 1917, and then orchestrated four of them in 1919, omitting two and changing the order.

Each of the six is dedicated to the memory of close friends who died in World War I. Who were they? While their identity might be a mystery, we do have the monuments themselves, like beautiful statues, that might at least give us some idea of what Ravel thought of them. Maybe he simply attached their names, and there’s no connection to the person. Ravel built them with elegant restraint, as balanced and stylish as anything you’d find in a graveyard.

1 Prélude dedicated to Lietenant Jacques Charlot, a composer whose chief claim to fame might be for his solo piano transcription of Ravel’s Mother Goose suite. He died in 1915.

2 Fugue dedicated to Second Lieutenant Jean Cruppi, son of a prominent politician.

3 Forlane dedicated to Lietenant Gabriel Deluc, a painter killed in 1916. I find this is the most interesting piece, suggesting a quirky intellectual, someone capable of irony. I wonder what kind of conversation one could have had with Gabriel Deluc.

La Danse dans le Bois sacré, Gabriel Deluc (1910)

4 Rigaudon dedicated to Pierre and Pascal Gaudin, who were childhood friends. For this movement at least the suite seems to shake off its seriousness.

5 Menuet dedicated to Jean Dreyfus

6 Toccata dedicated to Captain Joseph de Marliave a famous musicologist who died close to the beginning of the war in August 2014. No wonder Ravel gave him this intricate memorial.

For the orchestral suite of four, the Toccata & Fugue are dropped, leaving the Prélude to begin the suite, then the Forlane, followed by the Menuet and concluding with the boisterous Rigaudon. These men who died were all so young. The painter Deluc was 33 when he died. Musicologist Joseph de Marliave was 41 when he died. No wonder Ravel’s last word should be with this reminder of boys at play.

And perhaps that’s how they should be remembered forever.

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Beethoven 250: his double life

Posted on November 4, 2020 by barczablog

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in 1770, almost 250 years ago.

The Heiligenstadt Testament was addressed to the composer’s two brothers, Carl & Johann, as a last will and testament. Written in October 1802 as the composer approached his 32nd birthday, this autumnal piece of work about the great secret of his life was never seen by anyone other than the composer until months after he died in 1827. A small part of the document is about what he leaves behind, while the greatest part concerns his identity, the pretense of his youth.

Let’s look at excerpts from an English translation quoted in George Marek’s Beethoven: biography of a genius (1961).

O my fellow men, who consider me, or describe me as, unfriendly, peevish or even misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. For you do not know the secret reason why I appear to you to be so. Ever since my childhood my heart and soul have been imbued with the tender feeling of goodwill, and I have always been ready to perform even great actions. But just think, for the last six years I have been afflicted with an incurable complaint which has been made worse by incompetent doctors. From year to year my hopes of being cured have gradually been shattered and finally I have been forced to accept the prospect of permanent infirmity (the curing of which may perhaps take years or may even prove to be impossible). Though endowed with a passionate and lively temperament and even fond of the distractions offered by society I was soon obliged to seclude myself and live in solitude. If at times I decided just to ignore my infirmity, alas! How cruelly was I then driven back by the intensified sad experience of my poor hearing. Yet I could not bring myself to say to people: “Speak up, shout, for I am deaf.” Alas! How could I possibly refer to the impairing of a sense which in me should be more perfectly developed than in other people, a sense which at one time I possessed in the greatest perfection, even to a degree of perfection such as assuredly few in my profession possess or have ever possessed—Oh, I cannot do it; so forgive me, if you ever see me withdrawing from your company which I used to enjoy. Moreover my misfortune pains me doubly, inasmuch as it leads to my being misjudged. For me there can be no relaxation in human society, no refined conversations, no mutual confidences. I must live quite alone and may creep into society only as often as sheer necessity demands; I must live like an outcast. If I appear in company I am overcome by a burning anxiety, a fear that I am running the risk of letting people notice my condition—And that has been my experience during the last six months which I have spent in the country. My sensible doctor by suggesting that I should spare my hearing as much as possible has more or less encouraged my present natural inclination, though indeed when carried away now and then by my instinctive desire for human society I have let myself be tempted to seek it. But how humiliated I have felt if somebody standing beside me heard the sound of a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or if somebody heard a shepherd sing and again I heard nothing—Such experiences almost made me despair and I was on the point of putting an end to my life—The only thing that held me back was my art.

This, the first part of the document, shows Beethoven’s despondency, describing not just the drama of his growing deafness but also the additional layer of his masquerade, his need to conceal his condition as he continued to perform at the piano. Eventually his secret was revealed to the world, but at this time and for a few years he was able to compose and perform. His last concert would be in December 1808, more than six years later!

Beethoven’s condition changed, becoming more deaf with the passage of time. Robin Wallace produces an enormous amount of indirect evidence in his recent book Hearing Beethoven, to suggest that Beethoven’s hearing loss was partial & gradual rather than complete.

The complex drama included the struggle to simulate a competent musician rather than a deaf one, not just the performances in concert but in society & in his daily life, and the various means employed to compensate. There is a performative aspect to competence. You put on your clothes and go out into the world, and perhaps think nothing of the eyes upon you, noticing whether you tied your shoelaces or have your pants on backwards. We may not experience any pressure to fit in as a normal person, but what if your behaviour signifies some sort of weakness or disability? When one is different, when one might be noticed there is the possibility of being judged. That is exacerbated by the onstage drama when one takes on the persona of virtuoso, who must at the very least signify competence if not expertise and even a superhuman brilliance.

Do you ever get stage-fright? Now imagine that your secret identity could be revealed at any moment by a slip-up.

We are only able to speculate so long after the fact, but there is also the evidence of Beethoven’s own music. Think about the challenges of playing your own piano concerto when you can’t hear. In several places Beethoven boldly begins a movement with a piano solo. That applies to the finale to concertos & 1, 2, 3 and 5, and the first movement of #4. That may seem unorthodox until you realize this is a clever solution for a deaf musician.

Opening to the Finale to Concerto #2

When the orchestra joins in –which could be both a visual event as well as an aural one –the soloist can see them all begin to play. And the orchestra would normally match the tempo of the pianist, and therefore no one should notice if the soloist were deaf.

And the deception could continue.

But finally the secret was revealed. The 1994 film Immortal Beloved gives us a fictionalized dramatization of that moment of discovery.

Let’s re-read the beginning of the Testament again.

O my fellow men, who consider me, or describe me as, unfriendly, peevish or even misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. For you do not know the secret reason why I appear to you to be so.

No wonder that he seemed crabby or distant.

Posted in Books & Literature, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Psychology and perception | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Beethoven’s 250th

Posted on November 2, 2020 by barczablog

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in December of 1770.

I suppose the only people who might care about the precise date would be those of us who want to throw Ludwig a party.

In my day one was taught that his birthday was December 16th although it’s now understood that his actual date of birth isn’t known. There’s a registration of baptism for December 17th, so some people think it was the day immediately before. But that’s a guess.

A vague beginning? It reminds me of the ambiguities in the opening of his 9th Symphony. Listen….to the beginning at least. If you’re not paying close attention you may not discern the moment when it began: just like Ludwig himself.

It’s very theatrical. He creates a stage, where we can watch something happen, the blank space for an event or the background in a painting with something that will be added into the foreground, something natural & organic. The quiet anticipatory buzz in the orchestra that might suggest something about to happen is like a misty view of a lake or ocean before sunrise. It reminds me of the birthday mystery, that gradual opening. From the foggy mist, the theme will emerge, mythic. I take it as a self-portrait of the man, even of the species. Surely Wagner had it in his head as an influence if not an actual prototype when he wrote the opening to his Ring cycle, another long gradual beginning that reminds one of nature & the origins of life.

The Ludwig who landed into a world without Victrolas or vaccines, a place where people on average didn’t live much past the age of 40, and child mortality rates that would claim one in four children, might be more astonished by our plans for celebrations than for pandemics. In that time composers were neither published nor remembered the way they are now. It was decades after his death that Mendelssohn brought Bach back from near extinction, just as Wagner would help popularize Beethoven.

I recall the reverence of the Beethoven bicentennial in 1970, unlike any other commemoration before or since. The place to worship was in the record store, interpreters like a priesthood. How ironic that these recordings that seemed so perfect would in time be relics of a failed religion: for of course they were vinyl.

As Americans brace for the outcome of their election,…As Canadians bundle up for winter & indoor life safe from the coronavirus…As we look around at what’s missing from our lives (Halloween or hockey, theatres & recreation), while seeking to remember those who have passed away,…? chances are that the commemoration of that life lived so long ago is the furthest thing from anyone’s mind, especially given that concerts & operas are all but impossible right now.

I suspect Ludwig would just shrug.

But I’m going to do my own little Beethoven 250 commemoration, posting here over the next few weeks leading up to the day that might be his 250th birthday, December 16th.

The man and his music interest me.

Posted in Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Brand new sound: a moving experience

Posted on November 1, 2020 by barczablog

I stumbled upon something quite by accident and want to share the good news.

No I can’t take credit. We’re fixing some old windows, and needed to work with the contractor, who was blocked off by the way the furniture was arranged.

I was at my mom’s, when Erika took the initiative. She asked me if it would be okay to experiment a bit, and I said “sure”: because her taste is really good. It made sense for her to do this when I wasn’t around to get in the way or object.

I’m still impressed by how much she moved all by herself: especially the piano.

So as I report on our experience, let me propose this to you as a possibility, something to consider for your own living space.

Have you ever wanted to make a change, but lamented that changes are usually expensive & difficult? A new paint-job? New furniture or decor?

A new piano?!!

That’s the thing. Whatever you have, high-tech or acoustic, can seem brand-new if you do as Erika did. She simply re-arranged the furniture. Please note, she didn’t have the acoustical properties of the space in mind. It was primarily to do with the guy fixing the windows, and the need to clear space for him to work.

He’s coming this week!

Have you ever analyzed the acoustics of your living space, the way your instrument(s) make(s) sound when they’re played in your home? Even if you only have one room, there’s likely a place in the room, the proverbial sweet spot, where the music sounds best. If there are multiple rooms, there are surely places where the sound is dead, and others where it’s alive. Maybe you seek out the softest place to play, to inflict the least sound on your neighbours, maybe you seek out the most lively response. Maybe you play as softly as possible. Maybe you don’t hold back.

No I’m not suggesting you be a scientist, an acoustical engineer. I merely mean, listen, and pay attention to what you hear. It might change the way you play, indeed it should change the way you are playing, because after all when we make music we’re also listening: and not just to ourselves. The title of Gerald Moore’s memoir sums up the old-school understanding of the accompanist (a word that is out of favour in the 21st century), namely “Am I too loud?” To answer such questions, one doesn’t merely play, but one listens as one plays.

But I digress.

Do you listen to the room before you start? And this can be the funniest part, although haha the joke may be on you.

What does it sound like when you’re not playing, when you’re listening to the ambient sound?? Is there sound from other apartment dwellers? Perhaps music drifting in (and I am suddenly recalling the experience waiting in the corridors of the Royal Conservatory, hearing singers & instrumentalists all working away…. Creating a fearsome din).

And suddenly I remember the first time I did music for a show in the Robert Gill Theatre back in the 1990s, while I was doing my MA at the Drama Centre, University of Toronto. It was a thrill to get to work on the show, written by Daniel David Moses, directed by Colin Taylor. As I sat in the empty theatre talking to Colin he pointed out something about the theatre: that I had never really noticed.

The Robert Gill Theatre is on the 3rd floor of the Koffler Student Services Centre, a wonderful multi-purpose building in what used to be the Central Library at the corner of St George & College Streets: repurposed as a student centre and bookstore with multiple office spaces. The old theatre on the third floor was refurbished for the Drama Centre’s use, but had some weaknesses, both as far as sightlines and acoustics.

Colin was alerting me to the sounds in the space. And I now recall Anton Kuerti long ago talking about the bane of musicians everywhere in Canada, especially those who have to tour, an issue also present in the Gill, namely ventilation noise. Music is ideally presented into silence: but that’s not what we’re usually working with.

Before Colin & I even started to discuss cues for the show, he asked me to create something he called “a bed-track”, that would conceal the ventilation sounds behind a curtain of something quasi-musical, gentle sounds that would be meta-music, given that we’d play this track at the threshold of hearing, just loud enough to meld with the noises but not be so obtrusive as to be noticed.

We’d start playing it during the pre-show as the audience came in. It was one among many lessons.

I’m still learning: as we flash forward to 2020 and Erika’s experimentation. When the piano moved it had at least three impacts:

1) The place looked different: and Erika liked it. This might have been her primary consideration..? I suspect this is what one often faces in real life, that visual concerns trump everything else.

2) The dog had a new place to sleep, given that the piano is a den where she sleeps. Believe it or not she’s under there while I am playing, sometimes happiest (it seems) with the biggest loudest pieces. I say this because when she’s elsewhere and I begin playing one of these she gets up and finds her way over to her bed under the piano.

Who’d a thunk it?

3) The piano sounded different.

I am still figuring this out. One of the first things I played through was the last few pages of Tristan und Isolde minus the voices of course, something I’ve been playing a lot over the past few weeks.

It sounded brand new: because the lower notes had a new depth and sonority with the walls bouncing the sound to me in new ways. The upper notes sounded sweeter, as though they were free to fly, where previously I hadn’t heard them as clearly.

This has been true for everything I’ve played since the move. Chopin and Schumann and Dvorak and Wagner and Ravel and Debussy are all sounding different. I was hesitant about joining in (weird to say that… I said that impulsively, not remembering that it’s ME who is playing) with my voice. Singing along with myself in this new location feels different. Because of course the singing voice is also different with the new acoustic, the different set of surfaces bouncing the music (both instrumental & vocal).

I find I want to play differently now. Indeed I think this is always the case with any new instrument, that I hear the music in new ways and understand the contours and shapes of the music in new ways.

Let’s set aside the question of whether it’s any good. As a critic, a person expected to judge, to tell you this is good and/or bad”, you may want to frame this around judgment & questions of making something better, perfecting the music. But anyone can change their musical experience by examining their acoustic. The options may not be huge, indeed you may already have found the sweet spot and are sounding as good as you can in your space.

Even so, I want to put this out there.

If the pandemic means you’re not able to get out to the usual places where you practice and /or perform (and I am certainly missing the church where I was accustomed to sing & play, especially the loving community)? If you’re not feeling inspired because you don’t have the usual opportunities?

Altering the configuration of your space is a way to rejuvenate your experience of music.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Art, Architecture & Design, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, University life | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Woodward and Cohen: odd couple

Posted on October 30, 2020 by barczablog

They’re an odd pair, Bob Woodward & Michael Cohen. Or more properly, their books make an odd couple.

One man uses four letter words for his titles, the other book has a title with a sub-title followed by a sub-subtitle (although come to think of it he features four letter words throughout his book). Maybe the length of the titles tells us something about the writer & their confidence in their project.

One man might be identified as a crusader who already has a place in the history books (including the ones he’s authored). There’s the film we’ve all seen, All the President’s Men, where he’s portrayed by Robert Redford.

The other man went to jail, and might even be identified as a crook. More on that in a moment.

Michael Cohen’s book about his time working for Donald Trump is called Disloyal in huge letters, then A Memoir in smaller letters, and finally The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump. As far as I can tell it is his first and only book, and now a best-seller.

Rage is the latest Bob Woodward book about Donald Trump. Not only has Woodward written over a dozen books, he’s even written another one about Trump, Fear.

After a taste of Disloyal and a sniff of Rage (that is, sampling each book), I dove into Cohen’s book without hesitation as I found it much easier reading. The book by the beginner is full of wit & reads like a conversation. The book by the professional is a slower slog, much more careful in its construction and as a result much harder to read.

I wonder, does this perhaps parallel the larger world & the discourses surrounding POTUS #45? The beginner politician might be expected to flounder although to some (himself especially) he is the greatest ever.

Conventional wisdom doesn’t apply to Trump. Indeed he seems to deliberately push against the mainstream, and that guarantees him publicity & his ongoing ownership of the headlines & our attention. Cohen writes the way Trump tweets, which is to say without expertise and without any evident hesitation. It seems impulsive & organic, where Woodward’s writing is accurate but careful & deliberate. If this were a morality play, Woodward would be the personification of the rule-book & convention. We see the path to Trump’s White House of maskless self-indulgence in Cohen’s book, a thrill-ride with no fear of consequences or the bill to pay. And it’s natural to encounter Woodward as the nagging voice asking about the morning after, about where it leads & how much it will cost.

Needless to say one is more fun than the other, a guilty pleasure.

If you think Satan was the hero of Paradise Lost you will love Cohen’s book & the villainy it captures. It’s a matter of aesthetics & politics, taste & morality. The Godfather books & films are much clearer in telling us who is a good guy or a bad guy than Disloyal. But come to think of it, everything seems blurry lately, as far as which way is up, who’s good or bad.

There is a strange pair of voices heard in each book.

For Woodward it’s what we might have demanded of the press in 2016: that for every known falsehood, that it be balanced with truth. And so Woodward interviews Trump for hours, capturing all sorts of falsehoods and half-truths inside the quotation marks, followed by a kind of rebuttal in the next sentence from his authorial voice, as though to set the record straight.

For Cohen it’s more a matter of his conscience. He’ll be doing something awful and telling us that he knows it’s wrong, perhaps mentioning the disapproval of his wife and children, and shifting his tone to comment upon himself, asking why he was so mesmerized by his leader. We hear about Jim Jones & the Koolade, the question of Trump’s cult-like following. Clearly cognitive dissonance was mild for Cohen, possibly because he was riding the coat-tails of his boss Trump.

I read the books one after the other, startled at how nicely they go together.

I offer a cautionary note to anyone considering these books. If by the time you are going to read, it turns out that the election is over and Trump has been re-elected, I wouldn’t recommend the books. They will depress you if you’re a Democrat. If you’re a Republican, they might promote cognitive dissonance, although maybe you can ignore the sensation if you are sufficiently enamored of the joys of “winning”.

Woodward’s book is more timely for me, given that the elephant in the room—COVID19—steps forward in 2020. The pandemic wasn’t relevant for Cohen’s book. There’s a natural sequence to the books, that I hit by accident. Cohen tells us how the idea for a Trump presidency was born, and takes us through the campaign, ending in 2019. Woodward’s book is much more current, taking us into 2020 & right up to the present day pandemic horror show.

And of course I will have a different perspective when I wake up next week, depending on the outcome of the election.

Posted in Books & Literature, Politics, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Who’s your daddy?

Posted on October 25, 2020 by barczablog

While killing time waiting for the latest Saturday Night Live to begin I stumbled across something much more enjoyable than expected.

As Father Figures (2017) begins to unfold, and I saw vague resonances to other recent films I tried to imagine the conversation as the film was being pitched.

Glenn Close is playing a mom who has been promiscuous in her youth, so much so that her memory of the conception of her boys is a bit hazy: not unlike the premise for Mamma Mia, although it’s not a musical. But instead of bringing the possible dads together on a Mediterranean isle, we get a journey of self-discovery.

Kyle (Owen Wilson) and his mother Helen (Glenn Close).

Owen Wilson & Ed Helms are contrasting brothers who seem estranged, driving each other a little bit crazy. It’s not so different from what we saw in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007), although this time Wilson is less of a jerk, more of the silly over-the-top fount of enlightenment & wisdom he played in the Fokker films, beginning with Meet the Parents (2000).

If you recall Helms from the Hangover movies you may be waiting for the craziness underneath that is ready to erupt.

It’s a classic pattern really, this idea of a journey of self-discovery, with conflict & male-bonding, . We’re sometimes verging into territory that is uncomfortable, but this isn’t as gross & scary as some comedies I’ve seen in the past few years.

One reason it feels so fresh is that Lawrence Sher is making his directorial debut leading a strong ensemble cast including JK Simmons, Ving Rhames, Harry Shearer and Christopher Walken, in addition to Wilson, Helms & Close. Sher has recently been an Oscar nominated cinematographer for The Joker after a long apprenticeship behind the camera, that certainly earned him his shot at directing.

While there’s a lot of testosterone in the film it’s refreshing, sensitive, while dodging many of the usual pitfalls. There’s little cliché or sentimentality. I am sure they’ll let Sher direct again after a strong start.

And then there’s Justin Malen, who wrote the script.

The mystery deepens when I look more closely. Malen’s entry on IMDB mentions Office Christmas Party (2016) and Wished another 2017 film, identified as a Chinese film, and for which Malen’s credit is under the name Hongwen Mai. So perhaps his career isn’t properly documented because he has changed his name.

The writer explains

While it may seem to be good that he has three films opening in 2021, none of them sound terribly exciting. Two of the three (Yes Day and Clifford the Big Red Dog) seem to be aimed at children and Bad Teacher 2 is a sequel to a forgettable film. Clearly the powers that be have noticed that the man can write, and have given him lots of work, perhaps insisting that he pay his dues. But I hope someone will eventually ask him what sort of project he wants to write. Full disclosure: I love children’s films. I was musing just yesterday that Gru (the evil genius/reformed hero of the Despicable Me cycle) sounds like a kid’s version of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, and thereby empowered to mangle the language in a way one never hears in the adult cinema world. I remember Clifford from numerous bedtimes with the kids, and will likely see Malen’s creation one way or another. While the industry doesn’t always seem to respect children’s literature, I’m not the industry. I love Roald Dahl, Maurice Sendak, The Nutcracker & anything undertaken as art or entertainment intended for children.

I believe Malen has genuine talent. While the big actor names & Ivan Reitman as Executive Producer likely helped promote the project, it was the writing that made this such an enjoyable film. You’ll hear people complain about comedies that follow the deeply worn tracks of a genre so well that there’s nothing new anymore, and then when someone tries something genuinely new they complain because it’s unfamiliar & challenging.

Father Figures isn’t a predictable film. I think I need to see it again to have a better sense of it, but it held my attention. While it was only asked to fill the time before SNL it was the highlight of the night, and has me musing the morning after.

If you get the chance to see it, I’d recommend it.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Popular music & culture | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Aversion to the e-version

Posted on October 22, 2020 by barczablog

Confession: this is a meta-review, a preamble to what’s ahead. I’ve been reading lots of books, and will write about them in the next little while.

Once again the pandemic seems to be changing our rules. I saw Singin’ in the Rain a few days ago, a film that I admire for many reasons, especially its illustration of the way a changing paradigm can upend and disrupt our lives. When the talkies arrived our ideas of excellence were changed forever. My favorite number in this film is one that for me captures the essence of musicals, the idea that the music goes where the word can’t. After a certain point in this scene the words cease to mean anything at all: so no wonder they venture into something totally meaningless. No it’s not Robert Wilson but this number seems very modern to me.

At one time –long ago—I was more like the studious fellow doing the tongue-twisters, not realizing that I was taking everything too seriously.

So speaking of the new & the changing paradigms, I’ve been avoiding e-books for years.
It’s not an objection to technology, this avoidance of digital documents. But I do love the feel of a book, the smell of a book. Ah let me wander in the depths of a used book store, especially a music store. My collection? largely used books I’ve stumbled upon particularly the scores. Magic. How did they know I was looking for that opera? Of course I need to wrap my head around electronic scores, especially now that I’m composing again. Yes it’s embarrassing to admit how much I did using a pencil, although I did a few things with a tiny cheap program I bought for $20, which worked fine for the songs & music cues in Christmas at the Ivanov’s, (oh my dog so many years ago.)

Oh my dog…

But I’m now understanding something I saw before. I recall speculating on social media when I couldn’t find a bookstore that would carry Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century, foolishly attributing this to something political as though the book were being suppressed. Silly me. Flash forward to 2020, when I can’t get a hard-copy of Alex Ross’s new Wagner book. I realize now that both times the key was not politics but logistics. An American best-seller will be made available in the USA first and only later will they get around to Canada & her tiny customer base. We’re like a blanket on the back of a behemoth, only useful to keep the animal warm, otherwise beyond notice. I’ve seen this pattern with other products.

So in other words I’m now fighting my aversion to the e-version. When I tried to procure a copy of Alex Ross’s new book about Wagner, the kind charming person from the bookstore said there were no copies available in this country.

Really?

This is only partially true of course because we were only speaking of hard copy. Digital versions? Different story.

I was softened up because I was already looking at other electronic volumes.
A professor I know in the USA directed me to Paulo Freire’s A Pedagogy of the Oppressed, available as a pdf for download at no charge. I’ve been reading it.

And when I was reading up on Sky Gilbert (he’s written a wonderful study of Shakespeare that I’ve been reading and I wanted to know more about him), I encountered The Canadian Encyclopedia’s entry that includes a wonderful essay about Shakespeare, that is also a free download, titled The Shakespeare Experiment: A Seduction in the form of an Essay.

I recall reading other old essays this way, such as several of Richard Wagner’s writings, and opera libretti that can be found online. It’s a way to side-step commercial market forces. Books that don’t make big $ are available this way. There are trade-offs. I can’t just shove it onto a shelf or lend it to a friend: at least I haven’t figured that part out yet. But I am shocked at how easy they are to read. I had thought the digital interface in your face would not be so comfortable. Surprise surprise.

So now I’m eagerly hunting for more books. Sometimes I get the old-fashioned hard copy. I’ve recently been reading dry Bob Woodward (a disappointment so far), funny Michael Cohen (an unexpected surprise at least so far), singer David Geary’s memoir, Sky Gilbert’s brilliant Shakespeare analysis (I am on my third trip through this remarkable study), Fareed Zacharia’s newest & John Lithgow’s funny new book.

When I need a break from all those words (just like Gene Kelly & Donald O’Connor in the video above) there’s always music. So I’ll write something about that.

And of course I’m reading Alex Ross electronically and so far loving it.

I will tell you more about these books in the next little while. I hope it’s helpful, with Christmas coming. Did you know that books make wonderful gifts?

Posted in Books & Literature, Dance, theatre & musicals, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Saturday morning dream

Posted on October 17, 2020 by barczablog

I had a dream this morning.

It started out as a nightmare, that classic things going wrong dream, where you have a show to give or a piece to perform and don’t remember your lines.

I was to give a presentation or teach a class.

I had been hanging out with friends in a theatre space, something vaguely like the McMillan Theatre. No I’ve never done that before.

And I suddenly remembered that I was scheduled to talk about something upstairs, (even though hm, wait, isn’t the classroom downstairs?) So I was quibbling with the dream already.

I realized that I didn’t have the CD for the music I was supposed to discuss. And I didn’t have notes. For a microsecond I was nervous.

There are broadly speaking two kinds of dreams. I don’t mean “fun” and “scary” although I suppose that is also true. I meant to divide dreams between the ones where you are immersed in the dream as though it were your reality (and it can scare you because you believe in it), and the ones where you know you’re dreaming, which is called “lucid dreaming”.

So it dawned on me that I was dreaming.

And I had a marvelous epiphany during the dream. Ha, I should hope so. Who wants a banal epiphany or a boring epiphany? But I really mean it. As I noticed how odd the situation was – that I’m supposed to give a presentation when I’m not currently enrolled in any courses nor am I teaching—it hit me, that, wait, it’s 2020. Nobody is doing any of these things right now.

And I had the fun realization that not only was this a dream but hey, I could talk about anything I wanted in the classroom. Sure, that’s always the case: that a teacher doesn’t necessarily have to be a slave to curriculum or structure.

But I was particularly aware, that this was an opportunity, an unreal magical moment.

I miss the EJB, the theatres & concert spaces, the gatherings of people including the ones who are excited to be there. And even if some are bored I miss them too. I miss the whole kit & kaboodle.

It was nice to be temporarily immersed in a world that I’m not able to visit right now, and even nicer to know that it could be like a playground, in this dream. At one point I was rushing to take the elevator upstairs and of course it was in the wrong place, and when the door opened the floor was 3 feet away from proper alignment. I climbed in, amused that the floor was more like the dirt in the garden outside than a real elevator, an amalgam of recent experiences (I’ve been raking leaves this week, not riding elevators at the EJB). I climbed in thinking my jacket would get dirty and it would be fun explaining this to the listeners at the presentation: and knowing that, no I suppose it was just a dream.

The dream didn’t last long once I realized what was up.

And it was Saturday morning. I was grateful that Erika had let me sleep in, and had taken the dog outside for me, sparing me one of the usual morning chores.

Hm, come to think of it, it’s a pleasure to walk outside watching the dog romping around in the yard. Not a chore at all. It’s a pleasure.

I went to make coffee, to shake off sleep, to tell Erika about the dream…and to make the dog her breakfast.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Personal ruminations & essays, Psychology and perception | Leave a comment