Powder her Face (G)

A few days ago, I heard on BBC Readio 3 Thomas Adès’s Piano Concerto, performed by the pianist Kirill Gerstein and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, conducted by Thomas Ades.

Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist and director. His opera “Powder Her Face” was introduced in 1995 at the Cheltenham Festival, and afterwards came to the Almeida in London. I saw one of the Almeida Theatre 1995 performances as at the time I was living in England, in a suburb located conveniently near central London, and was enjoying the abundance of operatic offerings throughout the year.

I was working very hard, traveling a lot, but there were these moments of “freedom”, when I would just leave the office, drive to the Royal Opera House at the Covent Grarden, buy myself a ticket for the performance of the night and forget about everything.

Ades was 24 years old at the time (1995), one of the golden boys of British modern music.

In October 2020 I enjoyed over the radio waves his piano concerto, but cannot say that I remember much from the opera.

Longwater House, Portsmouth Road, Kingston upon Thames

The memories that remain have to do with my companion G.

The process of association started from the “Piano Concerto”, led me to “Powder her Face”, and then to G and more.

G lived in Athens and was visiting me. At the time I had a flat in Kingston upon Thames, overlooking the river.

I remember driving to London late afternoon on the day of the performance. Almeida Theatre was full. G was as always immaculately dressed in black. I can still smell her parfume.

G stayed for almost a week.

“Powder her Face” was one of three opera performances we saw.

View of Thames from Kingston upon Thames, Portsmouth Road

We would spend a lot of time in the living room, overlooking the river, listening to music, talking about the vicissitudes of life.

And the small things, like the reason she started painting her toenails red.

A few months back, in April 1995 I had travelled to Brazil and recounted to her my views on the exhuberant baroque of the Portuguese colony that became Brazil.

Sir Thomas Browne

Sir Thomas Browne wrote that “There is no antidote against the Opium of time” (Hydriotaphia, Chapter 5). But in my memory G survives in spite of what Browne alleges. As I write this I feel that she is next to me, listening to music, reading, asking the odd question.

I cannot put my finger on an explanation for this persistence, for her image being almost constantly with me, but only speculate that there are forces that keep this memory alive.

These forces may be related to missing her companionship, the endless conversations, the insights that we shared. At the same time, they may emanate from the unresolved issues, the unanswered questions.

Maria Callas La Traviata 1956 La Scala

The other opera we saw with G in London in 1995, was Verdi’s “La Traviata”.

We went to a staging of the 1994 Richard Eyre production, revived by Patrick Young, conducted by Philippe Auguin. Violetta was sung by the American soprano Carol Vaness.

One of the evenings during her stay I cooked an “Italian” meal. I had bought pasta with cattlefish ink, black as coal, from Carluccio’s deli in Neal Street, a beautfiful shop in Central London, and some squid and prepared a dish which I remember well because we spent a lot of time discussing it. Colors, texture, taste, aroma.

This was the case with G. We could discuss anything and have a great time doing it.

During the 1993 – 1994 Christmas period I was in G’s house in Athens, where she had invited some friends to dinner. She had prepared a roast and once she presented it, she started slicing it. In an awkward move she managed to cut herself. One of the guests was a surgeon who attended to the cut and the incident went no further.

Having returned to England, in February 1994 I flew to Berlin for a long weekend and during a break from museum visits I wrote her a postcard inquiring about her condition. I expressed cautiously my concern that something was eating her from the inside.

I had almost instictively formulated the hypothesis that the cut of Christmas was no accident, but a cry for help, and wanted to make sure that I could help her, if she needed help.

Tragic comic masks – Mosaic in Hadrian’s Villa

G wrote back to me and we exchanged a few letters. There was no direct answer, but clear appreciation of my hunch that something was eating her inside. She knew I cared, and she knew she could ask for help, or just discuss whatever it was.

This happened a year later, in 1995, during her visit to England. She stated the reason for her being almost in a state of turmoil.

The second “La Traviata” performance we saw was in Birmingham, a production of Welsh National Opera, WNO.

I drove us there during the day, attended the performance and then had dinner at an Indian restaurant near the theatre (I think it was the Hippodrome) and drove home late at night.

The performance was good, but what impressed me was the audience. Compared to the crowd in the ROH stalls of Covent Garden, we could very well have been in a different country.

A comment is in order about the ROH in Covent Garden.

David Hockney: Sir David Webster, 1971

But first I must retrieve an image from my memory. That of David Hockney. I saw him on a rainy day at the end of 1995 in Floral Street, by the ROH. He is one of my favorite artists and I consider myself lucky to have met him, albeit by chance and for only a fraction of a second.

Due to the dire financial conditions faced by it in the age of COVID-19, the Royal Opera House are going to sell in auction the portrait of Sir David Webster, former chief executive and arts pioneer, a David Hockney painting they have in their possession. It is estimated the painting will fetch 18 million GBP.

Having gone on the David Hockney trail, it would be a shame not to mention his stage sets for the 1992 Richard Cox production of Richard Strauss’ “Die Frau ohne Schatten” (The Woman without a Shadow).

ROH Poster for the 1992 Production

I now come to the comment I was going to make before I ventured into the David Hockney memory lane.

The Royal Opera House in the 1990s (I do not know if they still do) had a policy to sell a few 5 GBP tickets on the day of each performance so that people who could not afford the expensive tickets could enjoy an opera. These days the stall tickets on the average would sell for more than 100 GBP.

A couple of times I was lucky to buy these cheap tickets and found myself in another world. It was way up, as high as you can imagine, you could hardly see what was happening on the stage, but the sound was wonderful. In these cheap seats I met a London bus conductor who confided in me very proudly that he has seen “all ROH productions in the last 40 years”.

There was also another wonderful ROH policy that I benefited from. Some performances were not very popular. The ROH crowd by definition is traditional.

In Spring 1995 Benjamin Britten’s “Billy Budd” did not sell all the stall tickets, and the house discounted them. Instead of more than 100 GBP I paid 25 GBP on the night. It was a wonderful Francesca Zmbello production.

Paul Hindemith’s “Mathis der Maler” was another performance in 1995 that I enjoyed with a heavily discounted ticket. In a workshop focusing on the opera I had the opportunity to meet Peter Sellars, the American Theatre and Opera Director. Another invaluable consequence was my introduction to the world of Matthias Grunewald.

G’s “operatic” visit ended and she returned back to Athens.

A year later I moved back to Greece.

I lost G a few years later. It was a blackout, a complete loss of communication. I was travelling in the Balkan peninsula at the time, and took this loss in my stride. Her image would come to me while I was crossing the flat landscape near Skopje or the meandering route by the river Vardar (Axios in Greek) in what today is the Republic of Northern Macedonia, or as I was walking across the Bulgaria – Northern Macedonia border up on the mountains.

The benefit of such a blackout is that you are left with all the good memories, and you escape from experiencing some nasty incidents. The negative side is that there might have been a chance for a reversal, which is now lost.

Unfortunately I have recently experienced a similar situation with another friend.

We change as we progress in life, and real communication is difficult.

I am left with the memories.

Which I consider not a small thing.

Quite the opposite. I consider myself lucky and blessed to have experienced all the wonderful moments with G. And the memories will stay with me until my death.

“How can you be tough with a Christmas cake in your face?” A Sex Pistols short story

The quote of the title belongs to John Lydon, lead singer of the Sex Pistols, the English punk group that shook England in the period from 1975 to 1978. Lydon was referring to band member Sid Vicious, known for his violent behavior, at the end of a benefit concert the Sex Pistols gave for the kids of striking firefighters in Huddersfield, on Christmas day 1977. The firefighters were on strike for nine weeks and needed to feed their children.

John Lydon eats his cake at the Huddersfiled gig in 1977

Lydon said about the childrens’ party: “That gig made me feel like I’d actually achieved something.”

Julien Temple, director of a film on the Pistols, who was present in the children’ gig has said:

“To most people they (the Sex Pistols) were monsters in the news. But seeing them playing to seven- and eight-year-olds is beautiful. They were a radical band, but there was a lot more heart to that group than people know.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2528815/When-Sex-Pistols-werent-quite-vicious-Unseen-film-1977-shows-band-handing-posters-dancing-pop-hits-childrens-charity-gig.html#ixzz4xXP9UkFi
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Eventhough at the time the group was only two years old, they had made their mark on the map. But the conditions were difficult for them, because they were banned from the mainstream media and from performing almost everywhere in the UK.

They were hated by the establishment, shut down by the police, pilloried by the press.

Ticket for the Sex Pistols Gig in Huddersfiled, Christmas 1977

There are no details of the location on the ticket, just the instruction to telephone a number two days before the event. The punters would call and get the details of the event.

Following the benefit gig for the firefighters’ kids, and the devouring of the car bonnet size cake, the band gave their last concert in the UK, in Ivanhoe’s Club on Manchester Road, Huddersfield.

In January 1978 the Sex Pistols toured the USA. At the end of the tour, John Lydon split and left the band.  This was the end of the Sex Pistols as we know them. Sid Vicious died of drug overdose in February 1979. The other wmembers of the band reunited in 1996, and a few more times after that. But the real stuff was gone in 1978.

Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren 1976

How did the Sex Pistols come about? To put it in simple terms, the context was provided by the punk movement of the early 1970s. The actors who made it happen, excluding the band members, were Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. Westwood was an elementary school teacher, and McLaren an art school dropout.

430 Kings Road, London

Without overstating it, one can say that the Sex Pistols were born in the shop that McLaren and Westwood kept on 430 Kings Road, London. Its name since 1974 was SEX, and it was the place to be for all who loved punk in London in the early 1970s. The shop’s main commodity was punk itself.

Glen Mattlock, the future bassist of the Sex Pistols was an employee of the shop.

The other members of the band were:

  • John Lydon (aka Rotten, because of his bad teeth), lead vocalist
  • Paul Cook, drums
  • Steve Jones, guitar
  • Sid Vicious (John Stuart Ritchie), bass – he replaced Mattlock in early 1977

As early as 1972, Mattlock, Vicious and Lydon were regulars at 430 Kings Road.

The Sex Pistols in Paradiso club – Mattlock plays the bass

At this point, one must answer the question “What is punk?”

Oxford Dictionaries define punk as “A loud, fast-moving, and aggressive form of rock music, popular in the late 1970s.”

In 1975 there were over 1.5 million unemployed workers in the UK, most of whom were castoffs from its deteriorating industrial base. In this context, it would not be an exaggeration to say that punk expressed to an extent the frustration and agony of the disenfranchised British youth.

Punk would mean you were the lowest of the low.

Robert Ebert, an American film critic, puts things in perspective:

“The Catch-22 with punk rock, and indeedwith all forms of entertainment designed to shock and offend the bourgoisie, is that if your act is too convinving, you put yourself out of business, a fact carefully noted by today’s rappers as they go as far as they can without going too far.”

The Sex Pistols went too far for their own good.

From left to right: Cook, Jones, Mattlock, Lydon, McLaren

On the 8th October 1976, EMI signs the Sex Pistols up for a period of two yers and a signing fee of UKP 40,000. But three months later, on the 6th January 1977 EMI fired the Pistols. They were too hot to handle.

On the 10th March 1977, A&M signed the Pistols for UKP 75,000, only to drop them a few days later!

It was the brave Mr. Branson and his Virgin company who signed the Pistols on the 18th May 1977.

“God save the Queen”, the band’s second single, was released on the 27th May 1977. It sold 150,000 copies in the first day and 200,000 in the first week. The song was banned by the BBC, as a song of “bad taste”. The members of the band were attacked in the treets by disgusted members of the public. Lydon had reported wounds in the knees by machetes and the in the face by bottles.

However, as Paul Cook, the drummer of the band has said: “We didn’t have a manifesto, but we wanted to shake things up.”

Sex Pistols nd Vivienen Westwood on stage, at Notre Dame Hall in Leicester Square, London, on 15 November 1976. Photograph: Ray Stevenson/Rex Features

In terms of the ideological foundations of the punk movement, I would like to mention Situationism, the movement that was behind May 1968 in Paris. (8) Apparently, Malcolm McLaren was a committed situationist.

Guy Debord’s theory of the Spectacle is the foundation of situationism. Simply put, the world we see is not the real world but the world we are conditioned to see, and the Situationist agenda is to explain how the nightmare works so that everyone can wake up.

One of the famous pieces of Situationist graffiti to appear during the Paris ’68 riots was “art is an academic headache.”

 

It It is almost 40 years since the firefighters’ children benefit concert given by the Sex Pistols in Huddersfield’s Ivanhoe Club. The Sex Pistols are gone. Punk is gone.

Is revolt gone as well?

Sources

  1. Anarchy in Huddersfield: the day the Sex Pistols played Santa, The Guardian

2. The Filth and the Fury, review by Roger Ebert

3. A Merry Punk Rock Christmas: Anarchy in Ivanhoe’s. For Malcontents Only

4. Get Pissed, Destroy (Or Eat Cake): The Sex Pistols’ Final UK Gigs, Christmas 1977. By Peter Alan Loyd. Bombed Out

5. God Save the Queen at 40: how the Sex Pistols made the most controversial song in history. By James Hall, The Telegraph

6. Anarchy in the EU: the Sex Pistols’ drummer on why Brexit isn’t punk. By Michael Henderson. The Spectator

7. How Vivienne Westwood’s Punk Revolution Changed Fashion Forever. By Asaf Rotman, Grailed.

8. Situationism explained! and its affect on punk and pop culture. By Amy Britton, Louder than War.

 

 

 

I am a fool to want you

Edvard Munch, Separation
Edvard Munch, Separation

“I’m A Fool To Want You”

I’m a fool to want you
I’m a fool to want you
To want a love that can’t be true
A love that’s there for others too
I’m a fool to hold you
Such a fool to hold you
To seek a kiss, not mine alone
To share a kiss that devil has known
Time and time again I said I’d leave you
Time and time again I went away
But then would come the time when I would need you
And once again these words I’ll have to say
Take me back, I love you
Pity me, I need you
I know it’s wrong,it must be wrong
But right or wrong, I can’t get along without you

I am a fool to want you - Frank Sinatra - Columbia 78 (1951)
I am a fool to want you – Frank Sinatra – Columbia 78 (1951)

“I’m a Fool to Want You” is a 1951 song composed by Frank Sinatra, Jack Wolf, and Joel Herron.

It is one of my all time favourites. Desperate, frail, exhausted, dispirited, wounded but still alive, surrendered to a gruesome passion, the lover sings almost like in a confession that makes one wish to be destroyed by an impossible love, to be a fool, rather than not experience this love at all. I do not know. I never had this experience, but I always learn. I heard the song for the first time with a friend who at the time was in love with a man who later almost destroyed her. They were both married with other spouses at the time. Naturally, the performer was Billie Holiday.

Frank Sinatra with Ava Gardner in 1951
Frank Sinatra with Ava Gardner in 1951

Today I will start from the very beginning, 1951, Frank Sinatra, and gradually move forward to other performers and interpretations.

The song was written in early 1951 during a dark and desperate period in Sinatra’s soap opera-like relationship with actress Ava Gardner (“The Last Goddess” was “the” love of his life). So great was Sinatra’s grief and deep his despair over losing her that her attempted to end his own life on two separate occasions.

Frank Sinatra first recorded the song with the Ray Charles Singers on March 27, 1951 in an arrangement by Axel Stordahl in New York.

He was 36 years old when he sang this song. Sinatra and Gardner began their affair in the fall of 1949 while Sinatra was still married to his first wife (the mother of Nancy, Frank Jr. and Tina). Granted a divorce, Sinatra quickly married Gardner in November ‘51. But their fervent and volatile love was simply too hot and all-consuming and they separated in October ‘53. After a series of many failed reconciliations the two finally divorced in July ‘57, two short months after Sinatra made a second recording of this song.

He recorded the second version at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood on May 1, 1957, arranged and conducted by Gordon Jenkins, which was released in 1957 on the album Where Are You?.

The great Billie Holiday also sang the song.

This song is from Billie`s final album “Lady in Satin” completed in 1958 and released in her lifetime. Her final album, Billie Holiday, being recorded in March 1959 and released just after her death.

Billie Holiday in Olympia, November 1958
Billie Holiday in Olympia, November 1958

Ray Ellis said of the album: “I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of “I’m a Fool to Want You”. There were tears in her eyes…After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn’t until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was.”

tsuyoshi-yamamoto-trio-_-midnight-sugar

After the shattering performance by Billie Holiday, it is time to listen to Tsuyoshi Yamamoto trio’s rendition of 1974. Soft, slow, but inspired, like the flow of blood back in the empty vessels of the despairing lover. There is no voice. The piece is from the album “Midnight Sugar”. Touring with the Micky Curtis Band, Yamamoto had the chance to explore several international experiences that he would later use on this album as he worked with this band in France, England and Switzerland. In this album, the Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio plays two of Tsuyoshi’s own blues improvisations followed by jazz ballads that became standards for the trio. Yamamoto’s skill and his jazz feeling adds that certain touch of liveliness and spontaneity

Tsuyoshi Yamamoto (piano) Isoo Fukui (bass) Tetsujiro Obara (drums).

I move on with another instrumental interpretation of the song, rendered by Dexter Gordon’s saxophone.

The saxophone adds a dimension of fragility and volatility, and in this sense it also exacerbates the – naturally emerging – internal upheaval, making an even stronger impression on the listener. I just love it.

Dexter_Gordon_-_ClubhouseLP

It came out in the album Clubhouse, recorded in 1965, but not released until 1979 by Blue Note Records.

It is time to wrap up and close. I have chosen Elvis Costello and Chet Baker for the closing interpretation.

I like Costello and his interpretation, whilst I find Chet Baker’s performance magical. They performed in Ronnie Scott’s, London, on the 6th June 1986.

The musicians of this memorable performance were:

What a great song, and how magnificent the interpretations!

Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks: “I scare myself” and a little more – in the context of perplexed personal situations

Sylvia Plath in Yorkshire, 1957
Sylvia Plath in Yorkshire, 1957

It was sometime in the early 1980’s.

I was in my late 20s and doing postgraduate work in the United States of America.

As luck has it, I was cohabitating with a woman. I do not want to comment on the merits of cohabitation before marriage here. Suffices to say that it was one of the wisest things I have ever done. And I will explain why later.

My good cousin “J” one day introduced me to the genius of Dan Hicks.

“I scare myself” became an obsession for me.

Dan Hicks
Dan Hicks

Before I continue, I must warn the reader (if there is any) of this that the text and the images and the songs and everything about it may appear to be totally incoherent and structureless.

This is one of the conditions of life that cannot be changed. So I take it for granted, as a given inevitability and continue. (You have been warned!)

But who is Dan Hicks?

In order to answer this question in a respectable way I will borrow from Wikipedia.

Hicks at the Santa Fe Brewing Co. June 28, 2009
Hicks at the Santa Fe Brewing Co. June 28, 2009

Daniel Ivan Hicks (born December 9, 1941, in Little Rock, Arkansas), is an American singer-songwriter.

Hicks’ father, Ivan L. Hicks (married to the former Evelyn Kehl), was a career military man. At age five, an only child, Hicks moved with his family to California, eventually settling north of San Francisco in Santa Rosa, where he was a drummer in grade school and played the snare drum in his school marching band.

At 14, he was performing with area dance bands. While in high school, he had a rotating spot on Time Out for Teens, a daily 15-minute local radio program, and he went on to study broadcasting at San Francisco State College during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Taking up the guitar in 1959, he became part of the San Francisco folk music scene, performing at local coffeehouses.”

Charlatans in 1966 or1967. Dan Hicks is the first from the right.
The Charlatans in 1966 or1967. Dan Hicks is the first from the right.

And now I switch to another source, “Triviana Magazine”.

‘After earning his bit of fame and fortune in his early 20s, as a folkie in Bay Area  coffee houses, singing and finger-picking in 1963, he joined the Charlatans as a drummer in 1965 — the Charlatans being the blues-rock band that a lot of people are now calling the beginning of what became the San Francisco rock scene.

But Hicks wasn’t content to sit behind the traps, so started his own band, doing an acoustic swing-folk kind of thing with just him on guitar, a bass player  and two female singers. That eventually became Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, and from 1968 through about 1973,  they were, indeed, hot.

Dan Hicks has said about the song: “I was in love when I wrote this song…either that, or I’d just eaten a huge hash brownie.”‘

Dan Hicks
Dan Hicks

As I have already mentioned, I gor to know Dan Hicks because of the song “I scare myself”.

‘I Scare Myself’ and ‘It’s Not My Time to Go’… I think they’re two of the best songs ever written”Elvis Costello

If Elvis Costello says so, we better listen!

The thing is though, I loved the song long before I Read what Elvis Costello said about it.

With hindsight, I can say that I loved the song because I was scared when I heard it.

I did not know what the hell I was going to do with the cohabitant.

I was receiving mixed signals and was perplexed.

Was she true love, or was she just a passer by?

She already had a failed marriage in her bag, I was a marriage free person at the time.

Life always twists things and gives the answers to the unsuspecting humans.

This is exactly what happened with my situation.

One day my cohabitant fell out of our love nest, then she came back in tears asking for re-admission.

But is there a jailed person who sees an open door in the jail complex and shies away from it?

I beg to say there is not!

And so my cohabitation ended in glory, but my love of the song remains to date.

And I continue ot be scared. Mostly for other reasons now.

striking it rich

The song was released with the album “Striking it Rich” (1972).

I scare myself

I scare myself
just thinking about you
I scare myself
when I’m without you
I scare myself
the moments that you’re gone
I scare myself
when I let my thoughts run

and when they’re runnin’
I keep thinking of you
and when they’re runnin’
what can I do?

I scare myself
and I don’t mean lightly
I scare myself
it can get frightenin’
I scare myself
to think what I could do
I scare myself
it’s some kinda voodoo

and with that voodoo
I keep thinking of you
and with that voodoo
what can I do?

but it’s oh so, so, so different
when we’re together
and I’m oh so so much calmer, I feel better
for the stars have crossed our paths forever
and the sooner that you realize it, the better

then I’ll be with you
and I won’t scare myself
and I’ll know what to do
and I won’t scare myself
and then I’ll think of you
and I won’t scare myself
and then my thoughts’ll run
and I won’t scare myself

then I’ll be with you
and I won’t scare myself
and I’ll know what to do
and I won’t scare myself
and I’ll think of you
and I won’t scare myself
and my thoughts will run
and I won’t scare myself…

Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks live at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, WI, Sunday, December 9th, 2007, Dan’s Birthday!

Original Recordings

Pendle Witches: Mist II Paula Rego 1996
Pendle Witches: Mist II Paula Rego 1996

Dan Hicks is a wise man.

He knows that love can hurt.

And so he sings that he does not want love, if love ….

This is a treatise on gastrolinguistics. In case you wonder what gastrolinguistics is, do not worry, you are not the only one.

Instead of giving an answer to the difficult question, I cope out and invite you to read what Dan Hicks says.

I don’t want love

“Hey, that’s pretty cool

Why don’tcha turn that up?”

Some folks say when you fall in love

You lose your appetite
If love makes you feel that way

Listen to what I say, dear

If love makes you give up steak and potatoes

(That’s what you eat?)

Rice, corn, chitlins, and tomatoes

If love makes you give up all those things

I don’t want love

If love makes you give up ham and greens

Chicken pot pie and lima beans

If love makes you give up all them things

(Don’t want it)

(Don’t want it)

I don’t want love

Ooo…

Well, I am here to say to you that

I love my bread and my meat

Take a look at me and it’s plain to see

That I’m a man

That loves to eat

So, if love makes you give up steak and tomatoes

Eggs over easy and hashbrown potatoes

If love makes you give up stuff like that

(Oh no)

Heh, I don’t want love

No, no, no, no, no, no, no

If love makes you give up corn-dogs and mustard

Cracker Jacks, tootie fruity custard

If love makes you give up onion rings

I don’t want love

(Don’t want it)

If love makes you give up pizza night

Garlic mashed potatoes, then it’s outta sight

If love makes you give up all those things

No no, not me

Well, my baby’s awful skinny

And she don’t like meat

And she can’t stand breakfast in bed

And as for me, well, where’s my seat?

‘Cause it’s time that I was fed

So if love makes you give up saute and pate

And foie gras

And stuff you have to flambé

If love makes you give up buffalo wings

I don’t want love

No, no

Not me

No sir

No siree

I, I, I, I, I don’t want love

Pass the sausage!

“I don’t want Love”

After this wonderful declaration lets watch an original 1970’s video for old times’ sake.

Dan Hicks and his hot licks in 1972

In closing, two more songs, one by Dan Hicks and another by Tom Waits.

Both wonderful.

Thank you Dan!

…and please,

“Pass the sausage!”

Dan Hicks & His Sidekicks – Canned Music

The Piano has been drinking – a Tom Waits Song

Sources

1. Triviana Magazine “Gettin’ in His Licks!”

2. Wikipedia

3. Al Gravitar Rodando

1001 Ways to Die – (10) Ginette Neveu, French Violinist (1919-1949)

Edith Piaf wrote of Neveu in her autobiography, The Wheel of Fortune: “I would have traveled thousands of miles to hear the great Ginette Neveu….”

Ginette Neveu was a French violinist.

The front page with the news of the crash - No survivors
The front page with the news of the crash – No survivors

On 27 October 1949, she boarded an Air France flight en route to a series of concert engagements in the USA.

The flight departed from Paris Orly in the evening of the 27th October at 2006 hrs with final destination New York and a refueling stop at the Santa Maria island of the Azores.

(On a personal note, my mother flew from Paris to New York on a TWA Lockheed Constellation in 1949. They stopped for refueling at Shannon, Ireland and Gander, Newfoundland.)

Lockheed Constellation
Lockheed Constellation

The Air France Lockheed Constellation aircraft with identification F-BAZN had 37 passengers and 11 crew members on board. It was delivered new to Air France on the 28th January 1948. The pilot of the flight, Jean de la Noue, 37 years old, had 6,700 hours flying time and had flown the Atlantic 88 times.

At 0151 hrs on 28th October the airplane reported her position as 150 nautical miles from Santa Maria, giving estimated time of arrival at 0255 hrs, ten minutes later than the original time of 0245 hrs. At 0251 hrs the aircraft sent a signal from an altitude of 3000 ft, with the airport on site, and visual flight rules (VFR) in effect, and asked for landing instructions. Shortly after this last communication the airplane crashed on the peak Varra, of Redondo mountain on the island of Sao Miguel, 100 miles northwest of its intended landing location.

All on board died.

Ginette Neveu (left) and Marcel Cerdan (right), shortly before boarding the fatal flight at Orly
Ginette Neveu (left) and Marcel Cerdan (right), shortly before boarding the fatal flight at Orly

The violonist was travelling with her brother, pianist Jean Paul Neveu, who appears in the middle of the photograph above. The photo was taken minutes before the passengers boarded the fatal flight. Ginette was showing to the boxer Marcel Cerdan (right) another passeger, her Stradivarius violin. Cerdan had become a world champion by knocking Tony Zale out in the 12th round in Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, New Jersey on September 21, 1948. Although married with three children, he had an affair with the famous singer Édith Piaf. The affair lasted from summer 1948 until his death in autumn 1949. They were very devoted to each other and Piaf wrote one of her most famous songs, Hymne à l’amour, for Cerdan. Cerdan changed his travel plans last minute, as he was to cross the Atlantic by ship. Allegedly he did this after a call from Edith Piaf who was already in New York.

It was the first crash of Air France on the Paris- New York route which started on 1 July 1946 and had successfully completed 1,572 flights without an accident.

Map of the Azores
Map of the Azores

The investigation that followed found that the cause of the accident was controlled flight into terrain due to inadequate navigation by the pilot whilst operating under VFR condition. It was found that the pilot had sent false position reports and that he had failed to identify the airport.

On 10th June 1949, Neveu recorded the Brahms violin concerto with the Hague Residentie Orchestra, under the direction of Antal Dorati.

The Brahms violin concerto is one of the great violin concerti and premiered in Leipzig on the 1st January 1889.

At age 15, Ginette Neveu achieved worldwide celebrity status when she won the Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition over 180 contestants, including the future virtuoso David Oistrakh, who finished second, and Henri Temianka, who finished third.

Poème, Op. 25, is a work for violin and orchestra written by Ernest Chausson in 1896. It is a staple of the violinist’s repertoire, has very often been recorded and performed, and is generally considered Chausson’s best-known and most-loved composition. The clip that follows is a 1946 recording. There is also another one of 1949.

And now the Oistrach recording of the Poeme.

Her performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto is considered the best ever. Here is the 3rd movement.

Ginette Neveu gave her last concert on 20 October 1949. Eight days later  she would die.

She was only 30 years old. Some people think that had she lived, she would have become the greatest violin player of all times.

Tsambouna: The bagpipe of the Greek islands – Τσαμπουνα: ο άσκαυλος των Ελληνικων νησιων

Ο ασκαυλος ειναι ενα μουσικο οργανο που ξεκινα να αναφερεται στην αρχαια Ελλαδα απο τον πεμπτο αιωνα προ Χριστου.

Bagpipes in Ancient Greece go back to the 5th century B.C.

Υπαρχουν κυριως δυο ασκαυλοι στην Ελλαδα: η τσαμπουνα, που ειναι της νησιωτικης Ελλαδας, και η γκαϊντα, που ειναι της βορειας Ελλαδας.

There are two major bagpipes in Greece: tsambouna of the Greek islands, and gainda of North Greece.

Σημερα θελω να μοιραστω μαζι σας μουσικη με τσαμπουνα και το μικρο αδερφακι της, το τουμπι. Κατα περιπτωση παιζουν και αλλα οργανα, οπως βιολι, λαουτο.

Today I want to share music with tsambouna, and its little sibling, toumbi (a little drum). The violin and the lute also contribute.

Η Αννα Στεργιου, στο εμπεριστατωμενο αρθρο της στα Κυκλαδιτικα Νεα γραφει:

Anna Stergiou writes in her article (Cycladic News):

«Φυσαλίς» (=είδος αυλού με ασκί) την ονόμαζαν οι αρχαίοι Ελληνες, όπως μας εξήγησε ο μουσικοσυνθέτης Γ. Ε. Παπαδάκης, τον 5ο αιώνα π.Χ., ενώ μελετητές της Βίβλου μιλούν για τη symponyah του Δαβίδ, και άλλοι την ονομάζουν άσκαυλο (=ασκί+αυλός).

The ancient Greeks were calling the bagpipe “bubble”, back in the 5th century B.C.  Some Bible scholars refer to David’s symponyah, while others use the term bagpipe.

Μια άλλη άποψη θέλει τον άσκαυλο να έρχεται στην Ελλάδα από την Ασία, περί τον 1ο ή 2ο αιώνα μ.Χ., σύμφωνα με μαρτυρίες των Σουετόνιου και Δίωνα του Χρυσοστόμου.

Another view claims that the bagpipe came to Greece from Asia, back in the 1st or 2nd century A.D.

Σε κάθε περίπτωση, ο άσκαυλος είναι όργανο διαδεδομένο σε κάθε γωνιά του πλανήτη, ενώ ακόμη και σήμερα δεξιοτέχνες του οργάνου συναντάμε κυρίως στη Σκωτία, τη βόρεια Γαλλία και την Ουγγαρία. 

In any case, the bagpipe has spread in every corner of the planet.

Τρεις βασικούς τύπους του οργάνου συναντάμε σήμερα στην Ελλάδα.

Στα νησιά μας είναι γνωστή ως τσαμπούνα, συμπόνια, σαμπούνα ή τσαμούντα (Ανδρος, Τήνος, Μύκονος), σαμπούνια (Σύρος, Κύμη Ευβοίας), σκορτσάμπουνο (Κεφαλονιά), τσαμπουνάσκιο (Νάξος), στη Μακεδονία και τη Θράκη κυριαρχεί η γκάιντα, ενώ οι Πόντιοι την αποκαλούν συνήθως τουλούμ ζουρνά ή αγγείον.

(The author presents the variety of local names the bagpipe has in Greece).

Ευτυχώς, για την τσαμπούνα επωνυμίες της κατέγραψαν ο μουσικολόγος του Κέντρου Λαογραφίας της Ακαδημίας Αθηνών και πρωτοψάλτης της μητρόπολης Αθηνών, Σπύρος Περιστέρης, καθώς και ο μουσικολόγος Φοίβος Ανωγειανάκης. 

Με την επωνυμία «πιπίνι» τη συναντάμε στο Βόλο και τη Λιβαδειά, «πιπίγκι» την αποκαλούσαν στη Ρούμελη, «πιπινάρι» στην Αλεξάνδρεια Ημαθίας και «πίσκα» στο Ασβεστοχώρι Θεσσαλονίκης.

Whatever is the name used for the bagpipe, it is important to note that it was born in the fields, to keep company to the shepherds during the endless hours of solitude.

Οποια ονομασία κι αν έχει η τσαμπούνα, σημασία έχει ότι γεννήθηκε στους αγρούς, για να συντροφεύει τους ποιμένες τις ατέλειωτες ώρες της μοναξιάς τους, είναι «βοσκίστικο όργανο».

Ως προς την προελευση της λεξης “τσαμπουνα”, διαβαζω (και ευχαριστω) στα Καρπαθικα Ημερολογια:

According to “Carpathos Diaries”, the word “tsambouna” originates from the italian zampogna.

Η ονομασία τσαμπούνα προέρχεται από το ιταλικό zampogna(τσαμπόνια). Το ιταλικό ο προφέρεται λίγο πιο κλειστό από το ελληνικό, τείνοντας προς το ου, και γι’ αυτό πολλές ιταλικές λέξεις με -ο- έχουν περάσει στα ελληνικά με -ου-, όπως η φουρτούνα (fortuna), η τραμουντάνα (tramontana) κλπ.. Στα ιταλικά τσαμπόνια ονομάζεται και πάλι ένας άσκαυλος, παρόμοιος με τη δική μας τσαμπούνα και την γκάιντα αλλά και πάλι με σαφείς διαφορές και από τις δύο. 


Η ιταλική ονομασία με τη σειρά της προέρχεται από το λατινικό symphonia, που είναι βέβαια η ελληνική λέξη συμφωνία. Άρα τελικά η λέξη τσαμπούνα είναι αντιδάνειο. Γιατί όμως ένα τέτοιο όργανο να ονομαστεί «συμφωνία»; Το νόημα του όρου είναι προφανώς ότι δύο ή περισσότεροι αυλοί (στα ιταλικά όργανα είναι συνήθως τέσσερις) ηχούν ταυτόχρονα. Καθώς τα περισσότερα πνευστά βγάζουν ανά πάσα στιγμή μία μόνο φωνή, το γεγονός ότι ο άσκαυλος είναι πολυφωνικός θεωρήθηκε ότι επαρκεί για να τον χαρακτηρίσει και να τον διακρίνει από τα άλλα όργανα, κι έτσι να δώσει το όνομά του. 

The italian work in turn, comes from the latin symphonia, which originates from the same greek word. In this sense, “tsambouna” is a reverse loan.

Μετα τα εισαγωγικα, ας περασουμε στο ακουστικο μερος, που ειναι και το ζητουμενο εν προκειμενω.

After the background information, lets proceed to hear some music.

Ξεκινω με τον Πατερα Ελευθεριο απο την Τζια, που παιζει τσαμπουνα. Τον συνοδευει ο Αντωνης Ζουλος με το τουμπί, τον αχωριστο συντροφο της τσαμπουνας. Το βιντεακι ειναι απο το καλοκαιρι του 2009 στην Τζια (Κεα). Η ποιοτητα ειναι κακη, αλλα το παραθετω γιατι απεικονιζει την “οργανικη ενταξη του οργανου” στην κοινοτητα των ανθρωπων της Τζιας.

I start with Father Eleftherios, of the island of Kea, who plays his tsambouna in June 2009. Antonis Zoulos accompanies him with his “toumbi (little drum). The quality of the video is poor, but I include it because I want to show that “organic relationship” of the instrument with the small island community.

I continue with the iconoclastic “Greek Events”, presenting an unknown side of the life on the cosmopolitan island of Mykonos.

Συνεχιζω με το εικονοκλαστικο “Ελληνων Δρωμενα”, που παρουσιαζει το ταιριαστο και αξεπεραστο ζευγαρι της τσμαπουνας με το τουμπί στο νησι της Μυκονου!!! Οποια εκπληξις!!! Η Μυκονος εχει και μιαν αλλη ζωη. Η εικονα ειναι κακης ποιοτητας, ομως κατα καποιον περιεργο τροπο αυτο κανει τη συνολικη εμπειρια καλυτερη. Ο πραγματικος πρωταγωνιστης ειναι ο ηχος.

Ο Νικητας Τσιμουρης απο την Καλυμνο, παιζει την τσαμπουνα του. Ενα βιντεο φτιαγμενο στην Αμερικανικη πολη Ταρπον Σπρινγκς της Φλοριντα, οπου ο Τσιμουρης μεταναστευσε το 1967. Και πηρε την τσαμπουνα του μαζι του.

Nikitas Tsimouris emigrated from the small island of Kalymnos to Tarpon Springs, Florida, back in 1967. He took his tsambouna with him. Watch him play.

Ικαριώτικος στα τρία – Θεολόγος Γρύλλης, τσαμπούνα

Theologos Grillis plays to a tune from the island of Icaria.

Ο Ματθαιος Γιαννουλης στο Ναξιωτικο “Ντουμπακια”. Παιζει τσαμπούνα  ο  Αντώνης Αναματερός.

Mathaios Yiannoulis sings a song from the island of Naxos. Antonis Anamateros plays the tsambouna.

Ο Θεολόγος Γρίλλης παιζει τσαμπουνα και ο Στάθης Κουκουλάρης βιολι.

Theologos Grillis plays a delightful tune with his tsambouna. Stathis Koukoularis plays the violin.

Κλεινω με την αποδοση του “Σωσον Κυριε” απο δυο ενθουσιωδεις μουσικους, τον Αλεξανδρο Κλειδωνα στην τσαμπουνα, και τον Περικλη Σχινα στο λαουτο. Ειναι και πολυ επικαιρο, με οσα συμβαινουν στον πολιτικο στιβο της Ελλαδας. Ισως με τον ηχο της τσαμπουνας μας ακουσει ο Κυριος και – επιτελους – ερθει να μας σωσει.

The concluding piece is a adaptation of a Byzantine tune that goes back to the people praying to the Lord to save them. Two enthusiastic musicians, Alexandros Klidonas and Pericles Schinas play the tsambouna and the lute.

Sancta Susanna: opera in one act by Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was one of the most important German composers of the 20th century.

Alfred Einstein’s famous assessment of Hindemith as the natural musician “who produces music as a tree bears fruit” may easily and appropriately be extended to all his music making, not just composition.

In 1921 he composed the one act opera “Sancta Susanna” on a libretto based on the play “Sancta Susanna” by August Stramm.

August Stramm

August Stramm was a German poet, born in Muenster in 1874. He became a postal official after his university studies, and started contributing to the periodical “Der Sturm” in 1913.

Der Strum, October 1917

Although Stramm in 1914 was a reserve officer, he enthusiastically enlisted for active duty and was sent to the front.

Stramm died in 1915 at the Russian front, in Belarus.

Stramm’s supercharged theatrical style had led to his works being dubbed Schreidramen (Screamplays).

Though the play’s religio-erotic symbolism is the outward manifestation of its power to disturb, Hindemith’s music grippingly reinforces and intensifies that disturbance. Impressive though the first two members
of his operatic trilogy had been, Sancta Susanna is his first authentic masterpiece. Here he has powerfully assimilated all the contemporary influences, and the music speaks an Expressionist language entirely
Hindemith’s own.


The spine-tingling virtuosity of the orchestration is remarkable for the hallucinatory vividness of its scene-painting and its portrayal (betrayal, rather) of Angst and subconscious desire with a phantasmal
refinement of instrumental chiaroscuro. Yet Hindemith’s opera has firm tonal foundations, upon which fierce dissonance alternates with delusory consonance in nightmarish ways. Sancta Susanna is
built, like its cathedral cloister, in large, wellproportioned blocks. The music is almost monothematic, proceeding by variation of a principal melody (the lyric, nightingale-like flute solo heard in the deceptively beautiful nocturnal prelude). From this source derive many sinister subsidiaries, such as the clarinet theme for the appearance of the horrific spider – which in turn becomes the theme of the nuns’ denunciation of Susanna as she entraps herself in the web of her own emotions.

Paul Hindemith composed Sancta Susanna as part of a trilogy, which also included Mörder, Hoffnung der Frauen and Das Nusch-Nuschi. These two works premiered in 1921, but Sancta Susannawas not performed because of its obscene content.

Fritz Busch, who was responsible in 1921 for the turbulent premieres of Das NuschNuschi (which infuriated the audience by using a quotation from Tristan to accompany a burlesque castration scene) and Miirder, Hoffnung der Frauen (“Murderer, hope of women”, a setting of Oskar Kokoschka’s luridly incomprehensible expressionist drama about the war of the sexes), flatly refused to conduct Sancta Susanna on the grounds of its blasphemous obscenity: Susanna is an hysterical nun who first strips naked in front of the convent high altar and then tears the loincloth from a statue of the crucified Christ. The three scores made Hindemith’s name as an enfant terrible.

Sancta Susanna finally premiered in Frankfurt in 1922 and caused immediately a scandal.

Sancta Susanna was charged with blasphemy and Frankfurt institutions like the Catholic Women’s League protested against the performances and even demanded the pieces be withdrawn.
In 1934 Hindemith banned further productions of the three works. He had distanced himself from the compositional style of his early works and was unwilling to subject the works to any further public debate on morality.

Reviewing the world premiere in 1922, philosopher Theodore Adorno wrote:

In Sancta Susanna, everything that happened musically is developed from one theme; a theme of emotional power which pertains not to one individual, nor to one mood, but quite simply to the fundamentally irrational occurrences of this opera.

Synopsis (from the Chandos booklet)

In the cloister chapel of a nunnery, old Sister Clementia discovers the young nun Susanna in abject prayer before the high altar, troubled in spirit and body by the warm, windy, nightingale-loud summer night.

They become aware of movement outside: a couple is making love under the linden-trees.

Susanna calls the peasant-girl inside and tries to make her feel guilty; she demands to see the man too, but he enters only to snatch his girl away.

Susanna curses him as Satan.

Clementia, agitated, seems to be hearing something.

She tells Susanna how, many years ago, on a night like this, she saw a girl come naked to the altar and embrace and kiss the life-size figure of the crucified Christ.

For this blasphemy she was buried alive, and the image has been veiled ever since.

The tale only fans Susanna’s repressed sexual hysteria.

She, too, imagines she hears the voice of the entombed girl and, stripping naked, she defies Clementia and rips the covering from Christ’s torso.

But she is terrified when a huge spider falls into her hair from the crucifix, and cowers beneath the altar while midnight strikes and the other nuns file into the chapel.

Nevertheless she finds a transfiguring strength from her act: she demands that they wall her up, and endures their curses as the curtain falls.

In the Gramophone review of the opera, we read:

“Musically speaking, the shock value of Sancta Susanna lies in the expectations aroused by the opening (a delicately atmospheric, romantic nocturne with almost Puccinian overtones; the quiet, chant-like dialogue that follows) and their contradiction by the feverish, obsessive music (Hindemith predicting his Cardillac manner—only four years off, after all) of the main action.”

A much larger-scale summing-up of Hindemith’s ideas had come earlier in the 1930s with the completion of the opera Mathis der Maler (Mathis the Artist) and the symphony based on it. The German painter Matthias Grunewald symbolized for Hindemith the dilemma of all artists caught up in political upheavals: Hindemith had himself been attacked by the Nazis, and in 1937 was forced to leave Germany. The three movements of the symphony Mathis der Maler each represent one of the panels of Grunewald’s altarpiece at Isenheim, and the warmth and humanity of the work show the composer coming to terms with his Classical and Romantic heritage, and with his innate respect for tradition.

Hindemith found refuge from the Nazis in America, where he taught at Yale University and took United States citizenship in 1946. A series of orchestral commissions included the Symphonic metamorphosis on themes of Carl Maria von Weber, whose wordy title conceals a work of the most deft and delightful humour, an antidote to the common view of the mature Hindemith as a composer of unbending Teutonic seriousness. In 1953 he moved to Switzerland, and there, in his last years, completed Die Harmonic der Welt (The Harmony of the World), a mystical opera about the astronomer Johan Kepler.

Kaoru Kakizakai: a modern Komuso (Zen Priest of Nothingness) plays Shakuhachi

Kaoru Kakizakai in Athens

Introduction

I was blessed to attend a recital by Kaoru Kakizakai in the Onassis Cultural Center of Athens, Greece.

Kaoru Kakizakai is a master of shakuhachi, the Japanese bamboo flute.

In the sections that follow I try to present the key aspects of the history and the tradition surrounding the shakuhachi, the profile of the master soloist, and some of the pieces he played in the concert.

But behind or above or beyond all of this, the revelation for me is that this instrument produces the sound of the soul.

So if you want to hear the sound of the soul (see also my article on Butoh Dance “Not thinking, only soul”), carry on reading.

Sui Zen: Blowing Meditation.

Shakuhachi

“Shaku-hachi” means “one shaku eight sun” (almost 55 centimeters), the standard length of a shakuhachi.

The bamboo flute first came to Japan from China during the 6th century. The shakuhachi proper, however, is quite distinct from its Chinese counterpart– the result of centuries of isolated evolution in Japan.

Sanzo Wada: The Komuso

During the medieval period, shakuhachi were most notable for their role in the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhist monks, known as komusō (“priests of nothingness,” or “emptiness monks”), who used the shakuhachi as a spiritual tool. Their songs (called “honkyoku”) were paced according to the players’ breathing and were considered meditation (suizen) as much as music.

The primary genres of shakuhachi music are

  • honkyoku (traditional, solo),
  • sankyoku (ensemble, with koto and shamisen), and
  • shinkyoku (new music composed for shakuhachi and koto, commonly post-Meiji era compositions influenced by western music).

The Komuso

虚無僧 (komusō) means “priest of nothingness” or “monk of emptiness”

Komuso

The komuso monk wore a straw basket on his head, the tengai. This denoted the absence of specific ego.

What the hat also did was remove their identity from prying eyes. That of a komusō was a popular disguise for spies, samurai, particularly ronin, and supposedly ninjas.

Fuke Zen (Fukeshu) comes from the teachings of Linji Yixuan, a Zen teacher from China in the 9th Century. Fuke however is the Japanese name for Puhua one of Linji’s peers and co-founders of his sect. Puhua would walk around ringing a bell to summon others to enlightenment. In Japan, it was thought the shakuhachi could serve this purpose.

Komuso print

Fuke started as early as 1254 by the priest Kakushin, who visited China and learnt there not only theology but music. Upon his return he wandered about Japan preaching and playing the flute.

Komusō practiced Suizen, which is meditation through the blowing of a shakuhachi, as opposed to Zazen, which is meditation through sitting as practiced by most Zen followers.

The Fuke sect of Zen was active during the Edo period 1600-1868.

The Meiji Emperor, moving from Kyoto to Tokyo in 1868

With the Meiji Restoration, beginning in 1868, the shogunate was abolished and so was the Fuke sect, in order to help identify and eliminate the shogun’s holdouts. The very playing of the shakuhachi was officially forbidden for a few years. Non-Fuke folk traditions did not suffer greatly from this, since the tunes could be played just as easily on another pentatonic instrument. However, the honkyoku repertoire was known exclusively to the Fuke sect and transmitted by repetition and practice, and much of it was lost, along with many important documents.

When the Meiji government did permit the playing of shakuhachi again, it was only as an accompanying instrument to the koto, shamisen, etc. It was not until later that honkyoku were allowed to be played publicly again as solo pieces.

Kaoru Kakizakai

Kaoru Kakikazai

Kaoru Kakizakai studied under and recorded with Yokoyama Katsuya. He graduated from the NHK Traditional Music Conservatory and was a past winner of the Kumamoto All Japan Hogaku competition. Kakizakai has performed widely in Japan and abroad, including as shakuhachi soloist in Toru Takemitsu’s November Steps with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. As of 2006, he is a research fellow at the Tokyo College of Music. He is also full-time instructor for the International Shakuhachi Kenshukan and NHK Culture Centre, and President of the International Shakuhachi Kenshu-kan Chichibu School and Higashi Yamato School.  He is a member of the regular faculty of the Shakuhachi Summer Camp of the Rockies in Colorado (USA).

Kaoru Kakizakai in Athens

The program

I will refer to some of the pieces played by the soloist. The explanatory notes for the pieces are sourced from the excellent “komuso.com”, The International Shakuhachi Society.

Koku

The concert started with this traditional piece.

Empty Sky is the usual translation of Koku.

It fails, however, to convey the meaning of the original Chinese characters, which by definition, cannot be known by the rational mind of the ‘relative’. The second character of the word, ‘ku’ is easy; it means ‘sky’ or ‘air’. The first character ‘ko’ is not so easy. It refers to a concept that is in the realm of the Absolute and therefore cannot be explained or understood with words. Words, and indeed our thoughts, are of the world of the relative. For example, the word ’empty’ has no meaning apart from the word ‘full’. The work ‘ko’, on the other hand, does not mean merely ’empty’, because it is not the opposite of ‘full’; it is ‘that’ which has nothing to do with ‘fullness’.

Hokusai: The big wave

Daha

Traditional

Daha / Pounding Wave is a prayer for the will power or determination to achieve one’s highest aspirations. There are times when strong, intense, and unyielding determinations, like the ocean waves pounding at the cliff face, is appropriate. Other times, gentle, patient and unceasing will power, like the quiet waves lapping at the base of the cliff, gives better results. This piece reflects both the Yin and the Yang of will power.

Pregnant women playing in summer heat (5 heads, 10 bodies) -- Utagawa Kunitoshi, 1881

San’an

Traditional

Folklore has it that when the wife of a shakuhachi player became pregnant, he would pass grains of rice through his flute and play this song while cooking the rice for his spouse as an offering for safe birth. Some Buddhist sects believe that at a certain level one’s soul or spirit chooses one’s parents and karma determines the place and/or conditions into which one is reborn. This feeling of wanting to be born safely into the conditions and with the people one chooses is the attitude of prayer involved here.

Although many recognizable rhythms make this piece easy to play from memory, interspersed throughout are melodies full of strong passion. This is somewhat different than the image of honkyoku as serenely meditative. Meditative energy can, indeed, be very powerful and dynamic. This song is also the most technically demanding of all the dokyoku. Throwing a unique sound into the middle of a melody that is flowing along smoothly can be a real challenge. From a technical standpoint, linking up sounds that are quite diverse is the big difference between honkyoku that move along slowly and honkyoku that progress at a swifter pace.

A word of note: Yokoyama-sensei admitted that he played San An all four times his wife was pregnant, praying for a boy on each occasion! Playing this piece earnestly many times is undoubtedly how he came to master it. Nevertheless, one must recognize some inherent limitations when dealing with the gods as Mrs. Yokoyama gave birth to four daughters!

Kaoru Kakizakai in Athens

Tamuke

Traditional

“Tamuke” literally means “hands folded together in prayer” and is a eulogy or requiem for the departed souls of loved ones. It is a melody that brings indescribable sorrow and stillness deep into the heart. Tamuke originated in the Fusai Temple in Ise, Wakayama Prefecture, a branch of the Kyoto Meian Temple. Let’s look at the image of a person sitting in prayer, facing. . . what? Facing the unknown. Someone special and dearly loved has crossed over to the other side. You are communicating with them, however, your mind faces “nothing”. You expect them to walk through the door any minute, but they do not. They have vanished from the face of the earth. The rational mind cannot deal with this very well. We sit in an attitude of respect for both the deceased and in the face of the unknown. When one goes through this “tearing away” that occurs when someone who is a part of your life dies, a wide range of emotions are experienced: pain, anger, fear, sadness, bewilderment, hope, expectation, helplessness, grief, and so on. Tamuke gives us a vehicle to express these deep feelings and a way to communicate with our loved ones.

In Japan, most homes have a Buddhist altar where one can sit and connect with those who have passed on from this world. Often there is a photograph of the deceased in front of the altar as well as some food or drink they enjoyed. One sits at the altar, burning incense and communicating in some form, usually by chanting a sutra, by talking or even in the silence of memories. This is wonderful because, in Japan, there is a place to make such contact in a most natural way.

A shakuhachi player can sit in this space before the altar playing Tamuke until the person in his or her heart appears. Time is not part of this world; one should naturally lose oneself in this process and several hours will pass in an instant. Play shakuhachi to express the emotions you experience at the gates of death. Play while remembering the things you experienced with this person, recalling their existence as if you are sharing old stories with them. Play until tears of sadness stream down your cheeks, then tears of happiness, as you feel their presence sitting next to you and the relief that they still have an existence, albeit in a different world.

The feeling of Tamuke is whatever you bring to it. Not just a sad effigy, but something very real as you play from your life experience. Do what is natural. Play happily if you feel like doing so; this is a private matter. Tamuke gives an opportunity to play from the core of your life. This skill cannot be taught, but only learned through “doing”.

Koson Ohara: Itsukushima torii with stone lantern and deer

Shika no Tone

Traditional

“Shika No Tohne” describes a scene in deep autumn when the voice of the male deer calls for his female deer mates. And this type of descriptive scene has been used in poetic material since the time of the “Kokin Washu” (an ancient poetry anthology).

“Shika No Tohne” can be played as a solo piece, however, in a duet, the ending of one musical phrase overlaps into the beginning of another. This piece can be divided into five parts. After the introductory phrase of the whole piece, the first part is that which is played with the special “Mura-Iki” technique with the octave rising. Part two takes in part one, moreover, four individually characteristic melodies develop. Emotionally, part two is the climax of the entire piece. In the third section, the previous high feeling is succeeded and then every phrase intensifies. Then, to our surprise, the first melody re-appears abruptly. In part four, the melody proceeds calmly and the fifth part is brief, concluding the whole piece. In this concluding part, it is as if, rather than viewing deer, the focus is changed to that of the scenery deep in the mountains where the leaves on the trees have turned red and yellow. This is felt because the ending of “Shika No Toneh” is so calm.

Japanese bronze vase, early 20th century

Tsuru no Sugomori

Nesting of cranes

Traditional

Tsuru no sugomori depicts various aspects of the life cycle of the crane, a bird symbolizing longevity in Oriental thought. A pair of cranes build a nest, lay an egg, raise a fledgling and rear it to maturity before bidding it farewell as it flies away and they are left to live out their allotted life span. Although the whole piece can be appreciated as a piece of absolute music, it is equally interesting to note the variety of programmatic playing techniques used in describing the wing flutters (trill-like fluttering effects, heard between 1:00 and 3:00 minutes), the cries (another trill-like technique, heard between 4:00 and 7:00), and even the fledgling’s departure from its parents (a simple melodic line heard at around 7:50). As a whole, this piece is thought to emphasize Buddhistic values of affection between family members.

Sanno Shinto Shrine, 800 meters from the hypocenter of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945

Kata Ashi Torii no Eizou

Composer: Toshinao Sato

If you climb up some stone steps in the Sakamoto machi (Nagasaki), you will find a torii gate (a two-legged arch at the entrance to Shinto shrines) with only one leg. I’m not certain what time it was exactly the first time I saw it, but I’ll never forget how I stood rooted to the spot, staring in utter amazement as I considered what brought about that empty space and the mechanics of the balance of the structure. In 1970 when I was asked by the famous Kohachiro Miyata to write an unaccompanied shakuhachi solo for him, the image of that torii gate somehow attached itself to that request. Looking back, it seems to have been a mysterious connection. Without a doubt, this one-legged torii gate was created by the atomic bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki. The anger and tragedy of those victims of long ago are enveloped in this music. – Toshinao Sato

Kaoru Kakizakai in Athens

Material sourced from:

1.Relevant  wikipedia articles

2. The Zen priests of nothingness, ABC Radio

3. The International Shakuhachi Society

Martha Argerich and friends play Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto for 4 Pianos, BWV 1065

On Monday 12th March 2012 I was lucky to attend a concert given by Martha Argerich and a group of young pianists in the Athens Concert Hall “Megaron”.

The program comprised Igor Stravisknky’s Rite of Spring arranged for four pianos and percussion, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s three concerti for pianos and orchestra, BWV 1060, 1064 and 1065.

The friends are young pianists who have already performed in Martha Argerich’s project, an annual event taking place in Switzerland.

Argerich played in the last concert  for four pianos and orchestra, JS Bach’s BWV1065. This is a transcription of Vivaldi’s concerto for 4 violins in B minor, op.3 no.10, RV 580.

In addition to Martha Argerich, the other thee piansits who performed in the concluding concerto were:

Lily Maisky

Lily Maisky

Lily Maisky was born in Paris in 1987, moving to Brussels soon after. She performed with such artists as Mischa Maisky, Julian Rachlin, Janine Jansen, Renaud Capuçon, Sergey Krylov, Nicholas Angelich, Frank Braley, Gérard Caussé, Chantal Juillet, Dora Schwarzberg. She is the daughter of the cellist Mischa Maisky.

Alexander Mogilevsky

Alexander Mogilevsky

Pianist Alexander Mogilevsky was born in 1977 in Odessa, Russia, and regularly appears at music festivals such as Martha Argerich’s project in Lugano, Switzerland; Rotterdam Philharmonic Gergiev Festival; Verbier in Switzerland; and the Roque d’Antheron Piano Festival in Mikkeli, Finland.

Alexandros Kapelis

Alexandros Kapelis

Born of a Greek father and Peruvian mother, Mr. Kapelis grew up in both countries during his formative years. Mr. Kapelis has appeared with the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Italica, the Monterrey Symphony (Mexico), the Filarmónica de Lima (Peru), and the Orchestra ton Chromaton (Greece).

Martha Argerich

There is no point to say anything about Martha Argerich. She just comes from another universe.

The Orchestra

The in house orchestra of Megaron of Athens, the Kamerata Orchestra, was conducted by Gerard Korsten.

I found concerto 1065 exceptionally youthful and playful, totally out of line with the rather somber tone of JS Bach’s work. It could be the Italian influence. After all, this is a transcription of Vivaldi’s concert for four violins, as I mentioned earlier.

My strongest impression though, was that this was more of a game played between the pianists. All four of them were having great fun. I do not recall another performance of classical music where the musicians were having so much fun. Argerich has managed to create an atmosphere of musical creativity that is combined with sheer joy. And it shows.

I found in youtube a performance of concert 1065 from Verbier  on 22 July 2002, with Martha Argerich playing one of the four pianos. The other three pianos were played by: Evgeni Kissin, James LEvine, and Mikhail Pletnev.

In the orchestra you will enjoy the presence of Sarah Chang, Gidon Kremer, and Mischa Maisky.

Enjoy it.

The music of Silvestre Revueltas – "Sensemaya" and "Night of the Mayas"

I discovered the Mexican composer Sivestre Revueltas in the early 90s in London, England. I was moved by his passion and rhythm.
I bought a Catalyst CD titled “The Night of the Mayas” with, among others, the New Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by another great Mexican musician, the conductor Eduardo Mata.  
Revueltas sounded almost out of this world. I stress the word “almost”. His sound is the sound of the jungle, that has come to town and then decided to return to its origins. In this respect, he is extraordinarily different from Vila Lobos, even though they share the Latin American cultural background. It is unfortunate that Revueltas died in poverty of pneumonia at the age of 40.
Revueltas’ two major works are Sensemaya and the Night of the Mayas. 

Silvestre Revueltas

 
Sensemaya is a poem by Cuban poet Nicolas Guillén. The poem evokes a ritual Afro-Caribbean chant performed while killing a snake:
 
Sensemaya
(Chant to kill a snake)
 
¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!
¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!
¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!
The snake has eyes of glass;,
The snake coils on a stick;,
With his eyes of glass on a stick,
With his eyes of glass.
The snake can move without feet;
The snake can hide in the grass;
Crawling he hides in the grass,
Moving without feet.
¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombe.!
Hit him with an ax and he dies;
Hit him! Go on, hit him!
Don’t hit him with your foot or he’ll bite;,
Don’t hit him with your foot, or he’ll get away.
Sensemayá, the snake,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, with his eyes,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, with his tongue,
sensemayá.
Sensemayá, with his mouth,
sensemayá.
The dead snake cannot eat;
the dead snake cannot hiss;
he cannot move,
he cannot run!
The dead snake cannot look;,
the dead snake cannot drink,;
he cannot breathe,
he cannot bite.
¡Mayombe-bombe-mayombé!
Sensemayá, the snake . . .

Translated by Willis Knapp Jones. Spanish American Literature in Translation: A Selection of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama since 1888. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1963.

(You may recall Sensemaya from the soundtrack of “Sin City”.)

La noche de los Mayas

Revueltas composed his score for Chano Urueta’s film La noche de los mayas (“The Night of the Mayas”) in 1939.

La noche de los Mayas is the closest Revueltas came to a full-fledged symphony. Had he lived the additional ten years he wished for, he might have composed symphonies that would have rivaled those of his colleague, Carlos Chavez.

Washington’s Kennedy Center, gives us the following quick look of the work.

The four movements of Revueltas’s “posthumous symphony” may be summarized as follows:

I. NOCHE DE LOS MAYAS (Molto sostenuto) is an atmospheric piece, mysterious, brooding, suggesting perhaps mighty powers now dormant, images of volcanoes and pyramids. The middle section is brighter and lyrical, but the movement ends as it began.

II. NOCHE DE JARANAS (Scherzo, “Night of Revelry”). Jarana is not only a Spanish term for “revelry,” but in Mexico the name of a particular dance form in which Spanish and native influences are blended. Experts in such matters suggest likenesses to the huapango, the jarabe and the son. This scherzo fairly bursts with activity and stunning colors, and is filled with surprising and frequently humorous turns. It is quite a workout for the orchestra, and for the large percussion section in particular.

III. NOCHE DE YUCATáN (Andante espressivo). The “slow movement” alludes to the Yucatán peninsula as home to the Mayans in their magnificent second period. This nocturne is not so much mystical as straightforwardly voluptuous and impassioned. The strings carry the main burden, with imaginative support from clarinets, horns and tuba. Less voluptuous but more touchingly intimate is an interlude in which a solo flute, accompanied by an Indian drum and rattle, introduces the gently melancholy tune of a Mayan song still sung in parts of Yucatán, the Xtoles, a paean to the day’s end and twilight. When the strings resume the opening material they are muted, and this passage leads without pause to the final and most elaborate movement.

IV. NOCHE DE ENCANTAMIENTO (Theme and Variations, “Night of Enchantment”) begins in an atomosphere of heightened tension and anticipation. After about a minute and a half comes the aforementioned cadenza devised by Enrique Diemecke, based on various works of Revueltas: material for guïro (a notched gourd, of Cuban origin) and native tambourine, recognizable as having come from the second movement of this suite; a drum figure from the Homenaje a García Lorca; a xylophone motif from Sensemayá. Once the variations get under way, the music becomes increasingly charged and frenzied. The listener is not likely to notice the transition from one variation to the next, but rather to be swept up in the almost frightening momentum and abandon of the music, as the brasses give out primordial chants and the percussion become more and more assertive, not merely punctuating the rhythm but driving the whole unstoppable and ever expanding force of the wild celebration–a grand sacrificial dance, perhaps, which, like the one at the end of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, does not so much come to an end as simply exhaust itself.