Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Composer Philip Glass Turns Eighty




Philip Glass is quite probably the most well-known minimalist composer of our time. He was born in Baltimore and studied music at a very early age at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. At fifteen, he continued his musical training and studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago. Listeners cannot help but "count" in one way or another throughout all of his compositions. And his work is surely a Calculus in our own time, retaining its minimalist core wrapped in a stylistic evolution.

Listening to Glass is often more an experience where one can get "into" the music as a participant rather than merely observe. Even at its simplest, his work has complexities in tone, harmony, tempo and orchestration. For one thing, Glass counts. He plays by the numbers, practicing his musical arithmetic adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and even solving some algebraic formulas here and there. In the end, music to Glass seems like mathematics he studied. Fortunately for our culture, popular as well as haute, he became an extraordinary, prolific composer and a significant international influence in the music world.

Here is an excerpt from his score for Koyaaniqatsi (1982), a mesmerizing audiovisual feast by Godfrey Reggio and Ron Fricke examining the interface of people, technology, and nature. Glass's score for this film has become a signature piece, one that he and his ensemble have performed around the world for three decades. 




Glass has also composed for popular films including Candyman (1992),  The Hours (2002), and the memorable satire, The Truman Show (1998).





We close with "Knee Play 5" from Glass's 1975 opera, Einstein on the Beach, a work that has been called the composer's watershed piece as well as a defining experience in 20th century classical music.  Readers will find the lyric here. After the first listen, you may want to repeat the piece with lyrics at hand.




Philip Glass was born on this day in Baltimore in 1937.





Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
nwfilm.org

Text:
philipglass.com
wikipendia.org


Sunday, January 29, 2017

Frederick Delius And His Unbound Landscapes From The Soul


The composer, Frederick Delius, was born on this day in Yorkshire, England, in 1862. At 24, he lived the classic story of breaking away from the family business - woolen textiles - to pursue a love for the arts, in this case, music. The break first took him to Solano Grove and an citrus plantation on the banks of the St. Johns River south of Jacksonville, Florida. Later, he would teach music in Danville, Virginia, before returning to Europe for formal education in Germany. He took the sounds of American culture with him. In 1888, he settled in Paris, later married the painter, Jelka Rosen, and devoted his life to composition.



Delius is an interesting character in western music. He patterned much of his style after that of his friend and fellow composer, Edvard Grieg, but tempered it with English impressionism, his love of naturalism, and folk themes he heard among African American working on the Florida plantation.  The result was a vivid soundscape so unique that this quote appeared in the New York Times in 1929:


Delius belongs to no school, follows no tradition and is like no other composer in the form, content, or style of his music.

Almost a century later I think that quote remains intact. The impressionistic style may align him with the English school but he has a significant place in American music history having been the first classical composer to use musical themes of black Americans in the South. Those themes appear in several of his composition more than forty years before George Gershwin and Porgy and Bess. All of his work is rich, melodic, and complex. It is demanding music for the conductor, performer and listener alike, and music that demands an acquired appreciation. Today, his appreciation and popularity continue to grow but I believe he remains a relatively obscure figure in 20th century music outside of Great Britain.





In his last sixteen years he was tortured by the pain of a slow death from syphilis contracted during his early years in Paris. In the four years before his death in 1934, he was blind and essentially paralyzed from the neck down. He composed and completed some of his most significant work during this period, all of it reaching paper through the notations of his loyal amanuensis, Eric Fenby. Here is Song of Summer, a piece from his late period. 





The occasion of the 150th birthday of the composer in 2012 gave rise to several special programs, concerts, and documentaries. The best of the lot in my opinion is filmmaker John Bridcut's BBC documentary, Delius: Composer, Lover, Enigma. Granted it is ninety minutes long but it is first-rate work in every respect and a far better way to explore Delius than to read about him. I hope you will take the time to watch even if you have to do it in two or three segments. If you enjoy the classics and American music history you will not be disappointed.






Years ago, I had the opportunity to sit alone on a dock watching the evening move over the St. Johns River landscape not far from Solano Grove. Delius's music was in my head and all the beauty of "Old Florida" was in my heart. He had likely walked the river's edge at that very place, watched the same sun glistening on the water, heard the worker's songs blending with those of insects and the wind rustling the reeds and nearby palmettos. It was an immersive experience for me. Events like that become fixed in memory. They emerge as compelling memories meant to be shared. I'm more than happy to share this one and encourage readers to continuing exploring its subject.

Happy listening!

Music is a cry of the soul. It is addressed and should appeal instantly to the soul of the listener. It is a revelation, a thing to be reverenced.
                                                                                                   Frederick Delius



Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
Delius portrait, by his wife, Jelka Rosen, painted in Grez-sur-Loing, France, 1912. Grainger Museum, University of Melbourne, Australia

Text:
The Delius Society, website and Facebook page
Before the Champions: Frederick Delius' Florida Suite for Orchestra, Mary E. Greene., M.A. Thesis, University of Miami, 2011
Radio Swiss Classic, Frederick Delius
wikipedia.org,, Frederick Delius

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Stephane Grappelli: Jazz Meets The Violin


Earlier this week we commemorated the birth of the renowned gypsy guitarist, Django Reinhardt. Today we remember the birthday of the jazz violinist Stephane Grappelli who with Reinhardt formed the Quintette du Hot Club de France in the early 1930's. Like his friend, Django, 



Quintette du Hot Club de France                                                                              Paris, 1937




Grappelli was a self taught musician who developed a unique playing style that would have broad influence in the worlds of jazz and popular music. Fortunately, much of that influence was direct as he outlived Reinhardt by nearly fifty years and performed with perfection almost to the end of his life on December 1, 1997. He loved people almost as much as he loved music and brought his jovial, upbeat personality and style to audiences young and old, large and small, performing both solo and with many of the jazz greats of the twentieth century.


File:Stephane Grappelli Allan Warren.jpg
Portrait of Stephane Grappelli London                                 Allan Warren 1976

One would think that a jazz virtuoso would be well known in the country that birthed the genre but he was little known in the United States even after thirty years of success in Europe. His American debut in 1969 brought him wide publicity and the international "rediscovery" that followed kept him on tour before adoring audiences for almost three decades. 










Sources

Photos and Illustration:
wikimedia.org

Text:
theguardian.com, Nigel Kennedy article, December 19, 2007
nytimes.com, Stephane Grappelli obituary, December 2, 1997

Monday, January 23, 2017

The Hot Swinging Gypsy Jazz Of Django Reinhardt






The 20th century produced a number of fine guitarists in the fields of classical and popular music. And then there was Django Reinhardt. He was a poor Belgian gypsy who by the age of twelve could earn his way playing the guitar in the streets and small clubs around Paris. At seventeen a trailer fire left him with a severely injured hand but he soon developed a new fingering style and with it a unique sound. By 1930 Reinhardt developed an appreciation of American jazz and began incorporating its elements in his playing. In a few years he would go on to meet the violinist, Stephane Grappelli, an equally free musical spirit and innovator. They soon formed a new group, the "Quintette du Hot Club de France", and a "hot swing" sound that would make music as well as music history for the next twenty years.  At its core was the Reinhardt style that has influenced guitarists for more than eight decades.





And here is the Reinhardt sound as part of the group he co-founded with Grappelli [readers will here more about Grappelli in a few days]:






Reinhardt died in 1953 at the age of 43, but his impact has lived on for decades. Even today, almost every celebrity guitarist in the world of popular music, jazz, blues and rock and roll would acknowledge Reinhardt as an influence in their music. Here is an entertaining musical link to an NPR Jazz Live blog expanding on Reinhardt's legacy. We commemorate his birthday today (in 1910) with this documentary excerpt:






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress

Text:
wikipedia.org

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Edgar Allan Poe: "Dreaming Dreams No Mortal Ever Dared To Dream Before"


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.'*

In our home we have a shelf reserved for treasured books. Among the first editions, autographed copies, rare titles, and nostalgic family favorites is a small and well-worn paperback from my high school years. Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe has been a part of my life for over 55 years. I'm happy to report that virtually every high school graduate in the U.S. still encounters the suspense, mystery, and magic of Poe even if it is nothing more than a reading and discussion of The Raven.*  The poem brought Edgar Allan Poe instant fame in 1845 and ensured him a secure place in American literature. His appeal to readers, especially young ones, rests in his dark and stormy subjects, his fantastic plots, and rich, descriptive writing. There is a timelessness about his work as well that in part accounts for his appeal to contemporary readers. 





I don't recall when Poe's work first entered my life, but it was long before high school. Little did I know that we would eventually share a bit of history at Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. He was stationed there for about a year beginning in 1827. The fort and island are the setting for his short story, The Gold Bug. During my career, I spent several weeks walking the damp tunnels, the grassy terreplein, and studying the character of this historic fort and those who garrisoned it over the centuries. I watched the sun rise and set over its walls, and stood at the gun emplacements at midnight listening to the invisible surf breaking on the beach or watching ship traffic moving in and out of Charleston harbor. For all I know, Poe's shadow watched my every move. For certain his work and legacy will continue to provide all of us with fantastic entertainment.

Poe was born in Boston on this day in 1809. He spent his lifetime living and working between the coastal cities of Boston and Charleston. Death found him in Baltimore in 1849 wrapped in the mystery and tragedy that surrounded him during much of his life. Here is his last complete poem written a few months before his death.


Annabell Lee


It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love—
I and my Annabel Lee—
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me—
Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we—
Of many far wiser than we—
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea—
In her tomb by the sounding sea.


Few American writers have had such a broad impact on the arts. In his 2009 commentary on the bicentennial of the author's birth, Jeffrey A. Savoye, Secretary/Treasurer of the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore said this:

We can see that his writings still work their magic on succeeding generations of readers, and yet Poe’s secrets remain distinctively his own. We can ape and parody the form, but legions of would-be disciples have too often created mostly pale imitations, and scholars have laid waste to forests of trees in printing articles and books that attempt to explain the essence of his genius. Yet, traces of Poe’s influence can be seen in the writings of such diverse authors as Jules Verne and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ray Bradbury, Charles Baudelaire and Allen Ginsberg. (His writings have also been translated into every major language. One Japanese author and critic so greatly admired Poe that he changed his own name from Tarö Hirai to Edogawa Rampo.) And this influence has not been limited to the written word. Such artists as Gustave Doré, Arthur Rackham, and Édouard Manet have illustrated his works. Sergei Rachmaninov, Leonard Slatkin, Philip Glass, and many others have composed musical tributes. In an interview published in 1960, Alfred Hitchcock, the great movie director, commented that “It’s because I liked Edgar Allan Poe’s stories so much that I began to make suspense films.”

Today there is another mystery surrounding Poe. Between 1949 and 2012, an anonymous toaster appeared at Poe's grave in Baltimore's Westminster Burial Ground in the early hours of his birthday. The toaster left three roses and a half full bottle of cognac. Over time he became somewhat of a celebrity himself appearing suddenly in the cemetery only to do his duty then disappear as mysteriously as he had appeared. In 2012 the tribute stopped. Did the toaster lose interest? Was he tired of the media circus and copycats? Was he infirm? Had he passed away? The world has no answer for these questions. The Toaster adds a fitting mystery to Poe's legacy, a window into fantasy that lives on in classrooms, in private libraries, on glowing Kindles or anywhere readers enjoy imagination at its best.









Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
commons.wikimedia.org, public domain photograph by Edwin H. Manchester taken November 9, 1848 in Providence, Rhode Island


Text:
eapoe.org
poetryfoundation.org

Monday, January 16, 2017

Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. 2017: Visions Of Peace And Justice


Today is the official holiday commemorating King's birth on January 15, 1929. From the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, Washington:





















Sources:

nps.gov/mlkm/, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial website, National Park Service

Saturday, January 7, 2017

The Dancing Pattern Named Alan Watts


By the 1960's he had become rather well-known on the American scene as much for living "in the moment" in alcohol, experimental drugs, and other excesses as for his writings. Classical Zen masters criticized him for practicing a light version of Buddhism. Many in the youth rebellion of the time latched on to his eccentrism and independent thought as a beacon in what they viewed as a western world in decline.  Either way, he would say that he was what he did. We can do nothing more or less than accept the full man. So who was this man whose portraits seemed to remind me of a clever and mischievous child?



His name was Alan Watts. He was born January 6, 1915, in Britain where he developed a keen interest in Asian studies. He moved to the U.S. in the late 1930’s and became an Episcopal priest in 1943. After seven years Watts left the church and returned to the study of Asian philosophy and religion full-time. When he died in November 1973 he left the world over two dozen books, hundreds of pamphlets and briefs, and well over a thousand hours of audiovisual recordings offering his original thoughts on the Western expression of Zen/ Zen Buddhism and Asian thought. For further reading I recommend his autobiography, In My Own Way, published in 1972. It is an entertaining book providing readers with a memorable glimpse at American culture and character in the generation following World War II.

And how did I come to know of Watts and his world?  In 1968 documentary filmmakers, Irving and Elda Hartley, produced a fourteen-minute film entitled Buddhism: Man and Nature. Watts wrote the script and provided the narration. For the Hartleys, it was an award winning addition to their series on spirituality and religion. For others, particularly those studying or working in natural resource management, ecology and related fields, the film was a compelling prescription for understanding and appreciating our natural world. It is in that context that I encountered it in the early 1970’s as a new employee of the National Park Service.





Within days after seeing Buddhism: Man and Nature I transcribed the narration and proceeded to carry it with me for more than 36 years fulfilling my employer's mission to help people appreciate, understand, and preserve some of the finest natural and cultural landscapes throughout the nation.

The film never influenced my personal religious convictions but it certainly impacted my understanding of the human place and role in natural landscapes. Alan Watts’s powerful script writing as well as his transcendent narration motivated me to look deeper into the man and his writings. Over the next decade his books on Zen, Asian philosophy and the West's response, and human behavior grew to occupy well over two feet of shelf space in my library.

The transcript I typed on my trusty Smith-Corona portable typewriter way back when? Well-tattered and coffee stained, it sits enshrined in the household safe.



Sources

Photos and Illustration:
kpfa.org

Text:
wikipedia.org
alanwatts.com



Friday, January 6, 2017

Epiphany 2017


Adoration of the Magi                                                           William Blake, 1799

Today is Epiphany, the celebration of the visit of the Magi to the infant Jesus, and their recognition or revelation of Him as the King of Kings.  There is but one popular American carol for the celebration of Epiphany. It was written by the Episcopal clergyman, John Henry Hopkins, Jr., and appeared in print in 1863 in a collection of his sacred music.





In closing this series on Christmas and Epiphany 2017 we contrast a 19th century hymn above with one written by Saint Romanos the Melodist in the 6th century at a time when Christmas and Epiphany were celebrated on the same feast day. As joyful and beautiful as the familiar hymns are to us there is something mysterious and dreamlike in the ancient and unfamiliar. One could easily imagine the three kings returning home and eventually hearing this hymn in their own tongue.







Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
www.william-blake.org

Text:
www.patheos.com/blogs/joelmiller
www.wikipedia.org

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Christmastide 2016: The Twelfth Day


Twelfth Night activities in New Orleans, 1884


Today is the twelfth and final day of Christmas. For some, it will end with feasting, music, dancing, and theater at Twelfth Night festivities. When all the party goers have arrived, each will select a small festival cake or cake slice. Three of those cakes contain a hidden bean or token designating them as the king cake, queen cake and fool cake. The lucky holders of the royal cakes oversee the evening's activities before returning to their normal lives, most likely "below the salt." These Twelfth Night traditions have been part of western culture for over a thousand years.


The King Drinks                                       David Teniers, Flemish, ca. 1669-1690

This day is important among Christians who maintain liturgical traditions: it marks the end of the twelve day festival celebrating the birth of Christ, it is the eve of Epiphany, and it is the beginning of the carnival season ending with Mardi Gras. Those who are reluctant to bid Christmas farewell can take heart knowing that the tradition of Christmastide extends through February 2 or Candlemas, the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

Here at the our household, we trust that you have experienced a wonder-filled Christmas. May you live throughout this new year in the spirit of Twelfth Night, finding joy and happiness in what often seems a disordered world. In the words of William Shakespeare, who had a bit to say about this evening in Twelfth Night, (Act II, Scene 5):

Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.

Great or common, what you will!






Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
wikipedia.org
art-games.co.uk

Text:
wikipedia.org

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Christmastide 2016: The Eleventh Day


According to the many versions of the song, The Twelve Days of Christmas, this day could see your true true love bringing you pipers piping, ladies dancing, ladies spinning, badgers baiting, lads a-louping, lords a leaping or bulls a beating. Take your pick. Unfortunately, one item not found in any version is the gift of good fortune. Tradition tells us that gift should come in the form of a wish from a chimney sweep on New Year's Day. I like tradition but I certainly don't like the odds of readers and friends ever meeting a chimney sweep these days. To rectify the situation I'd like to introduce you to some sweeps from the imaginations of Wiener Werkstatte artists from the early 20th century.















And if three chimney sweeps, pretty girls, and a pig don't lift your spirits and leave you with high hopes in the new year this should do it.




Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
www.theviennasecession.com

Text:
wikipedia.org




Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Christmastide 2016: The Tenth Day


On this tenth day of Christmastide we'll focus on two short stories, one well-known, one obscure.

In the last week or so, many of us watched or heard bits and pieces of the film, A Christmas Story, during its annual television marathon broadcast by Turner Broadcasting System. Its author, Jean Shepherd (1921-199), was a wonderful storyteller, humorist, and radio personality who left us with enduring images of growing up in America in the '30s and '40s. He assembled the script from several earlier publications, personal notes, and his stand-up comedy routine. A book based on the script emerged in 2003. Millions of people across at least two generations have memorized the best lines of dialogue. Some have gone so far as to purchase and exhibit the "electric sex" of the infamous leg lamp in a prominent window. In our home we choose to have a small version of the item on our tree and surprise our guests will finely decorated leg lamp sugar cookies. 



". . .the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window."

While Shepherd spent his childhood in the Midwest, the poet and writer, Dylan Thomas (1914-1953), grew up in Swansea and the surrounding farmlands of south Wales. In his brief life Thomas would turn experience and observation into some of the most beautiful and lyrical imagery ever written in the English language. Two years after his death his story, A Child's Christmas in Wales, appeared in print. It was an instant hit in Great Britain and in the United States. The story was adapted for a television film in 1987 and broadcast for several years on public television in the United States and the BBC and affiliates in Great Britain. Although true to Dylan's beloved story and well-received by viewers the film never achieved the broad national exposure as a holiday film by 2000. 

A Child's Christmas in Wales Poster


Image result for a child's christmas in wales 1987
"Our snow was not only shaken from white wash buckets down the sky, it came shawling out of the ground..."

Although both men approached their craft from very different perspectives in terms of geography and style, each has left us with an enduring story of Christmas. Shepherd's work is easily accessible, but Thomas's is obscure, if not lost, to most Americans.  To rectify the issue, listen to the hypnotic and unforgettable voice of the author telling his story:




Monday, January 2, 2017

Christmastide 2016: The Ninth Day


It's another rather quiet day on the Christian calendar. In the Catholic tradition it is the Feast of Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church and a day to celebrate the virtue of friendship. Christmastide does indeed focus us on the memories of family and friends. Over many years the happenings of this season become riveted in our memories as significant and unforgettable emotional events. My thoughts meander over those Christmases past, of friends one time near and dear now lost in time, of family and our traditions in America now reaching their twelfth generation.

I can imagine the joy in the long tradition of children building the first snowman each winter. We boomers in the wave of births following World War II were the first to have an identity for our snowman. His name was Frosty and he rose almost overnight to national fame through a song co-written by Walter E. "Jack" Rollins (1906-1973). America's "Singing Cowboy," Gene Autry recorded the song with the Cass Mountain Boys in 1950. It was an instant hit to be covered by scores of singers over the next sixty years. As an international star in song, print, film, and television, one could say that Frosty's influence has certainly not melted away over the years.









Sources

Text:
wikipedia.org

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Christmastide 2016: The Eighth Day


Happy New Year!


Bolton Priory Window, Bolton Abbey, Skipton, UK                     Augustus Pugin

In much of Western Christianity today is celebrated either as the Solemnity of Mary or the Festival of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.

Our music for New Year's Day is a Welsh carol set to the music of the British composer, Benjamin Britten. It explores the custom of levy-dew an ancient tradition of drawing water from a well and sprinkling it on townspeople as a means of cleansing or preparing them to face the new year.




Here we bring new water from the well so clear
To worship God, with this happy New Year

Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, the water and the wine;
the seven bright gold wires and the bugles that do shine.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her toe,
Open you the West Door, and turn the Old Year go.
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.

Sing reign of Fair Maid, with gold upon her chin,
Open you the East Door, and let the New Year in.
Sing levy dew, sing levy dew, etc.


Llanllawer Holy Well, Pembrokeshire, UK                                     Richard Law



Sources

Photos and Illustrations:
window, boltonpriory.org.uk
well, commons.wikimedia.org, Llanllawer Holy Well and issuing stream, geograph.org.uk

Text:
wikipedia.org


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