XXXVlll. First time he kissed me, he but only kissed – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏ Friday, May 17 2013

 

Sonnets from the Portuguese

 

       XXXVlll.  First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

 

                              First time he kissed me, he but only kissed

                              The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;                            

                              And ever since, it grew more clean and white,                            

                              Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “Oh, list,”                            

                              When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst                             

                               I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,                            

                              Than that first kiss. The second passed in height                            

                              The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,                             

                              Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!                            

                              That was the chrism of love, which love’s own crown,                            

                              With sanctifying sweetness, did precede.                            

                              The third upon my lips was folded down                             

                               In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,                             

                               I have been proud and said, “My love, my own.” 

                         

                                                          Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

 

had the sonnet allowed for more lines,

instead of its strict fourteen, this poem

could not ‘ve not become indecent, 

“purple”, she says, indeed

 

nor, for that matter, more clear, Elizabeth 

has succumbed to his one, two, three

kisses, enough to now call him “[m]y love,

my own”  

 

meed is a reward, and archaic

 

chrism is holy anointing oil, nearly also 

now, but sacramentally, lost 

 

 

so intimate a declaration as this would’ve

been unprecedented in 1845-46, when

these poems were written, though we’re

used to much more flagrant stuff nowadays 

 

that this had been written by a woman

must’ve been nearly scandalous, though

such was allowing the Romantic Age, and

this “most flagrant” expression would

become eventually its very symbol, the

exploration of the human heart, the highly 

intimate revelations of an individual soul

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning holds the top

spot here, nobody does it better

 

in intrinsically less overtly graphic music,

Chopin 

 

 

Richard Strauss does a similar thing in his

opera “Salome” several years later, several,

indeed, decades later, 1905, but in reverse,

Salome wants to first of all touch John the

Baptist’s skin, he won’t allow it, undaunted

she asks to touch his black hair, nor will

he allow that, she insists further on a kiss,

which doesn’t either come, the scene is

lurid and shocking

 

“nothing in the world is as red as your

mouth”, she begs, “let me kiss it, your

mouth”

 

my dear, I cautioned

 

 

later she will dance the “Dance of the Seven

Veils“, lately performed even, after the veils

are, one by one, off, naked

 

for which she gets John the Baptist’s head,

and finally gets her kiss 

 

honest

 

 

the version I saw was unforgettable,

though it had taken a free ticket to

get me there 

 

 

Richard 

 

psst: you’ll note, incidentally, that this poem

           is not an avowal, but a confidence,

           spoken to us, not to him, a not

           insignificant factor

 

 

 

 

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miracles‏ Tuesday, May 7 2013

 

when I started looking for miracles,

I found out that there indeed were

some, as a matter of fact, many  
 
here’s another, in case you missed

the last one
 
 
Richard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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XXXVll. Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏ Monday, May 6 2013

 

Sonnets from the Portuguese

 

       XXXVll.  Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make

 

                              Pardon, oh, pardon, that my soul should make,                             

                              Of all that strong divineness which I know                              

                              For thine and thee, an image only so                             

                              Formed of the sand, and fit to shift and break.                             

                              It is that distant years which did not take                             

                             Thy sovranty, recoiling with a blow,                             

                             Have forced my swimming brain to undergo                             

                             Their doubt and dread, and blindly to forsake                            

                             The purity of likeness and distort                            

                             Thy worthiest love to a worthless counterfeit:                             

                             As if a shipwrecked Pagan, safe in port,                             

                             His guardian sea-god to commemorate,                             

                             Should set a sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort                             

                             And vibrant tail, within the temple-gate

 

                         

                                                          Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

 

though Elizabeth Barrett Browning is ever

abstruse, dare I say, even Baroque - the

epoch of distorted perspectives and

dimensions which preceded the Classical

Era - in her not only grammatical but also

metaphorical constructions, to the point of,

as in the last, her XXXVlth sonnet, being

incomprehensible, too athwart for my taste,

or even my tolerance, here she returns to

form to shine again in her own Romantic

Age, a more literate time, as opposed to

our more visual one, where straight talk

would not ‘ve passed muster as worthy of

any art, that would happen only later as a

reaction to too elaborate artifice, which

you might already even decry, for instance, 

in these sonnets 

 

but to make distinctive the form - the sonnet

goes back to at least Shakespeare, who is

even an obvious inspiration for Elizabeth –

she would’ve had to embroider her own

version of it, which she could only have

done with fresh artifice upon the ancient

structure, like decorative elaborations on

the traditional tablecloth   

 

if they work it’s because the artifice meets

the substance equally, enough to give

meaning to the poem, verve to the

reinvigorated tabletop

 

 

but often, dear Elizabeth, for me, and I would

think for many others in our Twitter age, for

the most part your poems do only just, albeit 

enough to make you nevertheless iconic

 

for Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Chopin 

represent for us now more than any of the

other Romantics their distinctive Age, and

with great, let there be no doubt, and easily

demonstrated, authority    

 

 

“Pardon, oh, pardon“ is not a breeze but it

expands admirably, and distinctively, on her

other masterpieces, or should I say here,

mistresspieces

 

forgive my soul, she asks, for mistaking your

“strong divineness” for something as fleeting

as “sand”, something “fit to shift and break”

 

his “sovranty” - sovereignty, which finds its

etymological roots in the French word

“souveraineté”, should you be wondering - 

had not been a part of her past, her “distant

years” and therefore led to her confusion,

her “swimming brain”, imagining he might

be “a worthless counterfeit” - haven’t we all

been there – instead of the “worthiest love”  

 

she compares herself to a “shipwrecked

Pagan”, who, saved, “safe in port”, gives

thanks, pays homage, to “a sea-god”, ”a

sculptured porpoise, gills a-snort”, rather

than, of course, her One and True

Christian God, an interesting instance

of religious iconographical inflexibility,

as though her Christian God had more

authenticity than the sea deity

 

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, it should be

noted, remained ever to her Divinity

devout despite the intermittent

fluctuations of her less religiously

committed husband

 

who nevertheless remained ever to

her true, and  ever, both romantically

and Romantically, by her stalwart 

 

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

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XXXVl. When we met first and loved, I did not build – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏ Tuesday, Apr 30 2013

 

Sonnets from the Portuguese

 

       XXXVl.  When we met first and loved, I did not build

 

                         When we met first and loved, I did not build                          

                         Upon the event with marble. Could it mean                         

                         To last, a love set pendulous between                          

                         Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled,                          

                         Distrusting every light that seemed to gild                         

                         The onward path, and feared to overlean                          

                         A finger even. And, though I have grown serene                          

                         And strong since then, I think that God has willed                         

                         A still renewable fear . . .O love, O troth                         

                         Lest these enclaspèd hands should never hold,                         

                         This mutual kiss drop down between us both                          

                         As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold.                         

                         And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath,                         

                         Must lose one joy, by his life’s star foretold

 

                                                    Elizabeth Barrett Browning

 

 

some poems cross the line of scrutability,

the line of even credibility sometimes,  

being too cute for their own artful ever 

nevertheless intentions, too abstruse,

clever, for their own too weighted words,

having let artifice overwhelm whatever

substance  

 

the beginning here is straightforward, 

Elizabeth hasn’t cast her dreams in

“marble”, she hasn’t engraved her

illusions in stone, she dutifully allows

for disappointment in the promise of

fulfilment that lies between what has

lain before for her and what lies ahead 

be this promise not fulfilled, or

eventually, in any case, forthwith

thwarted, as inexorably it must, for 

she is, they are, we all are, inescapably 

mortal, we come to the end, ineluctably,

of all our projected dreams

 

but the danger of breaking, however

inadvertently, so magical a spell,

prevents her from moving even a

finger, as though a breath, a bristle,

a brush, could threaten its tenuous,

as she would have it, enchantment

 

and haven’t we all been there, I

remember the death of a possible love 

in the momentary merely, and utterly

arbitrary, obstruction of our charged

line of sight, a sure sign of discordance,

a clear and irrevocable omen 

  

but should their own conjunction not

hold, “This mutual kiss drop down

between us both”, she enjoins, allow

it to take hold as an independent, an

“unowned”, thing, a tribute ever to the

ineradicability of the moment, she urges,

even beyond their “lips being cold”, which

is to say, each beyond their, indomitably

separated, extraterrestrial existences 

 

but why “drop down” instead of “raise”, 

“[t]his mutual kiss …. between us”, one

incidentally wonders, shouldn’t a kiss

move up

 

“Love” she then continues, “be false”,

out of, it seems, nowhere, do not hold

your promise of forever, she says, should

her suitor’s “oath” in any way betray his 

happiness

 

hn, I asked, where did that come from

 

what are you talking about here, Elizabeth,

I pondered, which “oath” is to be kept, and

what “joy” is being threatened, you’ll have

to be more specific, dear

 

and how, furthermore, does this statement

follow from your otherwise reasonably

consecutive text  

 

your love, I’m afraid, is a literary muddle in

this sorry construction, you’re generally,

though always metaphorically intricate,

more penetrable than this, you’ve let your 

literary impulse trump your logic on this

one, Elizabeth, we’re not getting it

 

a poem must be, by definition, coherent, I

think, otherwise it’s nothing but hogwash, 

doing damage to the very idea of poetry,

an affront, in the instance, indeed a

blasphemy

 

for poetry, to my mind, is sacred

 

 

then again maybe I’m being too ardent, 

too harsh, too inflexible   

 

and, for that matter, what, indeed, is 

poetry

 

you define it 

 

you be, for you are, the judge

  

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

 

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Beethoven Strinq Quartet no 14, opus 131‏ Friday, Apr 26 2013

if Beethoven had written merely one transcendental

work we would still have been beholden, but that he

wrote neither two, nor three, but several immutable

pieces is extraordinary, super-, apparently, human,

though, of course, manifestly not, unless you want

to bring Jesus into the picture as such a dual being,

then we’ll talk, but Beethoven is a staunchly secular

voice, devoid of the spiritual considerations of a

Bach, for instance, Beethoven speaks for humanity,

its longings, consternations, aspirations, its essence,     

no longer the discredited primacy of the Cross and

Its imperial derivatives, Human Rights have trumped

God

 

what Beethoven maintains however is the reverence, 

his later pieces - you’ve heard the “Hammerklavier“,

already, the 32nd piano sonata - are manifestly

spiritual experiences, as opposed to religious 

 

the 14th String Quartet will do the same

 

if the “Hammerklavier“ is akin to  Moses delivering 

his peremptory tablets, the 14th String Quartet is

the Sermon on the Mount, in the history of music

they have so great an impact  

 

 

briefly, as briefly as I can, I’ll say a few introductory

words, then let your soul and the music do the rest,

see what happens to your karma

 

 

there are seven movements in the 14th, uninterrupted,

no pauses between the movements, though each is

easily identifiable, tempo therefore becomes incidental

instead of Classically ordered, the first movement, for

instance, is an adagio, a Classically improbable spot

 

the sections therefore play much as chapters in a

novel, advancing according to the logic and emotions

of the moment, always, as in all of Beethoven, moving

inexorably forward despite the intricacies of the, not at

all predictable, plot, as had been the case in the more

regimented Classical model, Beethoven takes you,

instead of around the corner, into the clouds, into a

spiritualized heaven, a place of profound existential

introspection

 

try listening to the 14th String Quartet attentively

without thinking about your soul, its existence,

its mission, in the very face of its ineradicable,

and fateful, actuality, the human conundrum,

Beethoven lets us know we’re not alone

 

some mountaintop Sermon indeed, watch what

happens to your sensibility, your very sacred self,

or maybe I should say, listen 

 

 

may your path be decked meanwhile with laurels,

and your days be blessed with grace, be it ever

so merely, maybe, human

 

who knows 

 

 

sincerely

 

Richard

 

psst: if you’ll allow me to pursue my series of

          similarities you’ll imagine piano sonata

          no 32 as Beethoven’s “Last Supper“,

          this one in particular five luminous stars    

 

 

 

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Schubert – Piano Sonata D959‏ Saturday, Apr 20 2013

 

to my utter surprise when I checked I’d never

but only once in the many months I haven’t

been able to shut up since I started spouting

my bristling endorsements, like a very rushing

river gushing with the overflowing bounty of

an inveterate spring, mentioned Schubert, an

incandescent voice from surely heaven 

 

it was about his String Quartet in C major, the

D956, not surprisingly, it is utterly enchanting,

D for Otto Erich Deutsch still, incidentally  

 

here’s an alternate version of it, an utterly

inspired one

  

 

but if I’ve reintroduced Schubert it’s specifically

this time to compare him with Beethoven, they’re

easily confounded, I even did it once myself, to

my crushing embarrassment, in erudite and

unflinching company, oof, I cringe to even

remember it   

 

the D959, moments only after the 956 of course,

has all the idioms of a Beethoven, and exercises

them as expertly, the beat, however, is always

on, unlike Beethoven, who’s beat is always off,

contrary, rebellious, against the prevailing

order 

 

though this variance might seem slight, one

senses already in the younger and later

Schubert a return to form, elegance, and civility,

the First Empire had indeed taken hold during

the transformation of Napoleon from hero of

the Revolution to a different incarnation of

Emperor, Chopin as well would be beholden

to later similarly reinstated French courts

 

so seemingly trivial an alteration speaks

volumes when one attentively listens, one

must do this with one’s heart

 

 

such a return to aristocratic principles is not

uncommon, incidentally, we seem, indeed, to

thirst for dynasties, if you’ll note the return of

late, of the Bushes, the Clintons, and most

recently the Canadian Trudeaux

 

Putin is another, though arguably somewhat

less democratic, version of that principle

  

 

Beethoven is off the beat then, Schubert on, you

won’t find much else that’s different upon first

listening, you’ll note only that their music is very

much the same, rigorous beat, tonal, essentially,

harmonics, and the return eventually of the

melodies, Classical imperatives, but with the

distinction of the new Romantic,

transformational however, sensibilities

 

 

Schubert might’ve even outpaced Beethoven

had he survived, I think, but he didn’t, he died

much too young, at the most tender age of

only 31, younger even than the more

celebrated Mozart, famous for succumbing 

prematurely at the still early age of 36 

 

may they rest, may they all rest, Schubert,

Mozart, and the somewhat longer-lived

Beethoven, still early deceased at 56, in

eternal peace, for they have brought us

but wonders  

 

 

Richard 

 

psst: here’s a movie to go with the earlier

         Schubert, “The Company of Strangers“,

          the very best film Canada has ever had

          to offer, bar none, a gaggle of old women

          are stranded in the Laurentians after their

          tour bus breaks down, Schubert would’ve 

          loved it

 

          and been honoured      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Beethoven’s piano sonata no 29, “Hammerklavier”, revisited, as promised Wednesday, Apr 17 2013

 

upon listening to Beethoven’s 29th sonata 

one doesn’t imagine its originality, having

been showered for centuries now with its

miracles and majesties, nothing would’ve

been heard like it before, so great a project,

a work of not only temporal magnitude, an

astonishing fifty minutes, but evidently of

more than just mere entertainment, a work

of philosophical, even, amplitude 

 

Beethoven is not just trying to delight, he’s

trying to engage here, bring together, stir,

more profound human responses, evoke

thought, responsibility, compassion, a

spiritual complicity in the new

post-Revolutionary secular order, he is

establishing new metaphysical ground 

 

the subject is existential, the audience

no longer merely aristocratic, masses

now were talking, an affluent bourgeoisie, 

artists were responding to a new Romantic

Age, about rights, and what it means to be

human, both men and women, incidentally

- and I stress that newly pertinent at the time 

conjunction - above and beyond those of

God, for each couldn’t both hold the

supreme, the earlier Classical, pinnacle,

the rights of Gods and, by extension, 

Kings, Queens if you lived in England,

Russia   

 

secularism was needing new oracles  

 

see Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for

instance, for the emergence of

women 

 

see also, of course, otherwise, 

Beethoven

 

 

the difference with Beethoven is that

he achieved, ultimately, profound

wisdom, I can think of no other

comparable poet, save, of course,

Marcel Proust, both of whom proved

to be, in the same breath, philosophers,

able to stake that exalted claim, certainly

no painter, a difficult medium through

which to philosophize admittedly, to

bring logical and existential constructions

together to enunciate a transcendental

vision 

 

then again, before Proust and Beethoven,

who’d ‘a’ thunk one could’ve transformed

words or music into very grace, mystically

transubstantiated gold, notwithstanding

the misguided alchemists   

 

 

Pink Floyd did some of that in the Seventies

but retreated into historic and more personal,

less oracular, reminiscences, philosophizing

isn’t easy, see the punishment of Prometheus,

or, for that matter, John Lennon

   

 

Beethoven was completely deaf by the time

he composed the “Hammerklavier“, lost in

his own isolation, like Homer, blind to, 

though obviously not unaware of, his art 

 

not lost, not unaware either, more like

having been given extrasensory, outright

extraordinary, manifestly, perception 

 

to our utter and everlasting, both of them, 

benefit 

 

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

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“Mrs Dalloway”‏ Tuesday, Apr 16 2013

if you’re not afraid of Virginia Woolf
you might enjoy “Mrs Dalloway“, the 
film version of one of her novels,
introspective, discreet ever, and 
only carefully and politely ever ardent,

existentially awash in civilities, with

feeble only attempts at philosophically

sounder, maybe, positions, all ultimately,

of course, inconclusive, an aristocratic

inversion of Van Gogh, but with statelier,

which is to say, more opulent, 

surroundings and, of course, corollary

attendant pretensions, all of it, incidentally, 

marvelously filmed  
 
the performances are all first rate, with

Vanessa Redgrave being, as usual,

resplendent
 
but Rupert Graves, as the shell-shocked
First-World-War veteran, turns in a

wrenching performance, one you’re not

likely to soon forget, one pointedly at

odds with the gentried airs of the rest of

the story, a terse, and damning, Woolfian

comment, who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf 

indeed, the institutionalization of

murderous insensitivities, and the

consequent blight of the blunting

of love  

 

nor did Virginia Woolf survive her own

condemnation, of course, famously

taking her own life in 1941   

 
 
all the other performances here are 

impeccable, up, admirably, each, to

the illustrious task  
 
I could’ve done without the two

time periods, however, Virginia Woolf,

the wordsmith, had it all going in her,

which is to say, Mrs Dalloway’s, 

sedentary head, leading up to her,

their, climactic party

 

 

may Septimus Warren Smith meanwhile,

and all others like him, rest ever in

ascendant, and proliferating, peace       
 
  
Richard

 

 

 

 

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Beethoven piano sonata no 29, the “Hammerklavier” Monday, Apr 15 2013

take a few minutes, well, nearly an hour,

to watch, imbibe, incorporate, integrate,

this video, to smell this miraculous

flower, Beethoven’s piano sonata no 29,

the monumental “Hammerklavier“, the

equivalent, to my mind, of the Eiffel

Tower, the Coliseum, the Parthenon, 

Homer’s “Iliad“, I promise it will

transform you

 

 I’ll talk about it later, I also promise 

 

 

Richard  

 

psst: you might need some Kleenex

 

 

 

 

 

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Beethoven piano sonata no 28 in A major, opus 101 Saturday, Apr 13 2013

 

 

 

                                                                          “The Angel“                                 

 

                                                                                  Erte

 

                                                                                   ___

 

 

Beethoven’s piano sonata no 28, opus 101,

in A major, is the first of what is considered

to be his late piano sonatas, as opposed to

early and middle, three entirely distinct

periods that are easily recognizable upon

closer listening, the early ones are bold, 

even headstrong, with Beethoven’s ever

characteristic vigor and Promethean authority,

the length themselves of his early works are

a testament to his sense of his own great

personal validity, the first four, to my mind,

go on much longer than often enough they

should, a typically youthful presumption on

his part, and are musically at best trite, I find,  

after their first expositions, the repeats come

as redundant, and tolerable merely, surprises,

even the famous 8th, the “Pathétique“, opus 13, 

is, I think, too brash and impudent, however in

this manner, nevertheless admittedly, entirely

effective, listen 

 

the “Pastorale“, of the middle period, opus 28,

no 15, is where I deem the music to become

henceforward sublime, it has a settled

confidence that brims with not only technical

wizardry but with also positively enchanting 

and entrancing musical ideas, bursting like

very flowers in springtime, with colour and

inspired, effervescent, imagination  

 

the late period is where Beethoven becomes,

however, a sage, a prophet, and indeed a

hierarch in the new secular order of a

reconstituted Heaven, after all, someone

had to take the place of the now discredited

angels, Nietzsche called them Übermenschen,

Supermen  

 

 

the 28th sonata starts out slowly, or rather,

more slowly than the earlier forthright ones,

already a sign of less physical, more

measured and considered reponses, my

impression here is of a grandfather visiting

his granchildren, jovial but not too disportive,

merely jaunty, always cheery but for a moment

of haunting melancholy, at the adagio, before

becoming congenial and avuncular again,

with then a big, boastful ending, snapping

staunchly his patriarchal suspenders,

getting the last, and traditional, word, with

a firm, which is to say, a foursquare-major-

chord, finish, the aural equivalent of turning

out the lights    

 

musically, however, the progressions are

exploratory, incremental, more and more

layered with possible, and often apparently

rejected outcomes, in order to try out

something more fitting, maybe, more

accurate, a deconstruction, in other words,  

of musical ideas, an investigation, in search

of a viable musically cohesive path   

 

 

in the 28th sonata Beethoven, I think, is

doodling, however, coming up with the

methods of his great addresses, the

language here is not yet philosophically

precise, a smattering merely of pianistically

plausible ideas, musical sketches, the first

stirrings here, you’ll gather, of formal jazz     

 

in the next sonata, the 29th, the still

unsurpassed “Hammerklavier”, he writes

the definitive book, speaking for music in

the forthcoming history of the world, and

determining its future path, we are still

moving along on his transcendent carpet,

no one ‘s come along still to give us a

more assured ride, kind of like Homer,

some would say Shakespeare, others

Albert Einstein, other, incidentally,

post-Christian, post Revolutionary 

Supermen

 

 

who do you presently pray to, who are

your angels, who your Superwomen,

-men, towards what do you aspire, 

towards whom   

 

Superwomen, -men, incidentally,

cultivate their own efflorescence,

manifest their own, I think, destinies,

or, if you like, their own Heaven  

 

much as I believe angels also do  

 

 

Mozart’s “Fantasy in C minor” on the

same program shows him in a nearly

Beethovenian mode atavistically, much

more somber than he usually is, but he’s

nevertheless easily distinguished by 

his much less intricate musical

accompaniment and his much more

rigorous melodic line, you’re more

likely to hum it    

 

Mozart also composes from the nursery,

I find, the exhilaration of playful discovery,

you can see the toy soldiers, the golden

tresses on little milkmaids in dirndls with

red circles for cheeks

 

Mozart’s pieces are like nursery rhymes

 

Beethoven progresses to literature

 

 

before you judge me too harsh on Mozart,

by the way, consider that my favourite

piece of the two in this program is the

Mozart, it’s like comparing apples and

oranges, though, it depends on your

mood that day which you’ll favour

 

 

cheers  

 

Richard

 

psst: just in case you missed it, this version

          of the“Pathétique” is the best I’ve ever

          heard, indeed, of all the pieces here

          the most extraordinary, don’t miss it

 

 

 

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