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Category: concerts to ponder
_____________________
for Donna
a few days before a dear friend was due
to pass away, which is to say with medical
assistance, I had taped from television,
whether coincidentally or not, Antonin
listened to it
on the day of the procedure, I lit candles,
put the music on, and sat in attendance
the piece is somber, probably reserved for
somber occasions, but upon their instance,
the work is glorious, and salutary
of Chartres, suffused with the solemnity
and the splendour appropriate to such
a fateful moment
may you journey forth in peace,
dear friend
R ! chard

__________
like with Shakespeare, some of Beethoven’s
work doesn’t reach the heights I find in their
is, to my mind, such a piece, though it’s not at
all not impressive
my complaint is that the musical motive, the
original theme, the cluster, merely, of notes
that make up the matter of the ensuing
harmonic explorations, in all of the three
movements of the Fourth, is lost in his
excessive elaborations, one is distracted by
the soloist’s dazzling showmanship rather
than by the work’s metaphysical magic, as
is conversely the case rather in Beethoven’s
sister concertos, his One, Two, Three, and
Five
most notably, the Fourth‘s slow movement,
the andante con moto, slow, but not unduly,
passes by in an instant, nearly imperceptibly,
but for the conspicuousness of its plodding
rhythm, you wonder what just happened,
what did I miss
the first movement, the allegro moderato,
or slightly slower than allegro, begins highly
unconventionally with the soloist at the helm,
setting up the conversation, as it were, the
subject of the matter
that an individual, a commoner, would’ve
dared to initiate a dialogue of purported
significance in a culture where subjects
would have known their place, like later,
for instance, a woman asserting her
position in a patriarchal society, would’ve
been shocking, and highly controversial
but Beethoven raps out a rhythm, four
quick notes followed by four quick notes
followed by the same four notes again,
ra ta ta tat, ra ta ta tat, ra ta ta tat, like
someone knocking at a door, however
plaintively, requiring attention, before the
orchestra responds, determinedly and
categorically, though the soloist will ever
remain the prime, and manifest, mover
this is not a tune, this is a statement
this is also the 18th Century’s introduction
to the Romantic Period, where individual
voices were stating their answer to the
question of the disintegration of the
aristocratic as well as the religious
ideals which had prevailed throughout
the earlier Christian centuries, when
their controlling dogmas, however still
entrenched, were being questioned,
and rejected, as evidenced by both the
constitutional dictates of the American ,
and the French Revolutions, which
were installing, codifying for their
progeny, their individual continents,
and for very history, the idea of Human,
as opposed to the traditionally assumed
Divine, Rights
secular voices would consequently
sprout in myriad profusion
throughout the ensuing 19th Century
in order to people with personalities,
as distinct from omnipotent, whether
secular or ecclesiastical, established
figures, to shape the ideologies of the
impending future, for better or for
worse
but I digress, exponentially
the third movement of the Fourth Piano
Concerto reminds me, in all its urgency,
Overture, of which I suspect it might
have been an inspiration, the work
better known to many of my generation
Lone Ranger indeed, Beethoven was
already leaving his indelible, not to
mention generative, mark on our
present, 21st Century, culture
R ! chard

___________
if you’ve listened to the first two
Beethoven piano concertos here,
you’ll find the Third to be very
similar in structure, the first
movement is an allegro, which is
to say it’s fast, and in the manner
of Beethoven, brash, tempestuous,
exhilarating, the second, slow, an
adagio, or a largo, is plaintive,
melancholy, mournful, the third,
brisk, ebullient, commanding, is
again an allegro
the form is descended from Mozart
and the Classical Period, of which
Beethoven is the tail end, but the
entrails of his pieces are entirely
upended and revolutionary
Beethoven demands your attention,
his music is no longer the backdrop
for social gatherings of the
aristocracy, but performances for
intent audiences
compare, for instance, Mozart’s
demure affair, however
impressive
there are several similarities, both
pieces are in C minor, a downcast
key traditionally, but most notably,
the intial musical motive, or idea,
at the top of either concerto, their
first few introductory notes, are
the same, you’ll recognize them
but Mozart is never in your face,
insisting upon your attention with
eccentric rhythms and jerky
musical progressions, not to
mention loud and aggressive
presents, but lulls one, rather,
into his reverie with an ever
polite discourse from a
deferential soloist, courteous
and beholden, however ever
illustrious, from the first note
to the last
in the visual arts, it’d be like
comparing a Courbet, say, to a
Monet, it’s a question, given
their overlapping time periods,
of accent, and sentiment
you’ll need in either case, of
either, a keen ear, a keen eye
R ! chard

________
a concerto is a movie, but for the ears,
one listens, rather than looks, for one’s
information
quite specifically, Beethoven introduces
drama into his inventions, where earlier
there’d been merely an invitation to the
dance, minuets, for instance, gigues, or
disparate, disorganized, appeals,
otherwise, to our more interior, whether
secular or mystical, emotions, see in
this context, for instance, early adagios,
heart-wrenching, melting often, odes
these, or the even slower largos, fit
neatly, however, into Beethoven’s
compositional scheme of things,
between the introductory allegros,
often con brio, and the closing,
and equally spirited rondos, by
becoming the pivotal element in
his intended musical evening, the
core of his narrative presentation,
the plangent centre of his three
part play, film
R ! chard

_________________
in order to abate my discomfort, my
consternation, after meeting up with
one of the candidates I considered
favouring in the upcoming election,
incontrovertibly, from the first few
notes, did the trick, took me out of
politics and the uncomfortable
present, into metaphysical
pertinence, and magic
I’d referred to the issue of blackface,
a searing issue at present in the
media, I said, what about Laurence
Domingo doing the very same Moor,
not to mention Al Jolson doing,
unforgettably, “My Mammy“
but picked up that neither the
candidate, nor his mentor, standing
by his side, had any idea what I was
talking about
Placido Domingo, I said, one of The
the aspiring representative indicated
a dim recollection, his accompanist
admitted to having nebulously heard
of him, them, somewhere
OMGess, I reared, I’m talking to the
next generation, maybe even the
generation after that, who have no
recollection, no understanding of
where I come from, it was, to say
the least, unsettling, discomfitting,
sobering
there was no one at home with whom
to commiserate when I arrived,
answering machines only at the end
of every line, I resorted, therefore,
not unwisely as it turned out, to the
a lifesaver
R ! chard

____________
my sister is not well, her situation,
though blessed throughout with
grace, is dire, in such moments I
turn to music for consolation, for
courage, and for a serene
acquiescence to whatever might
be the outcome, the hour that I
spend thus with her becomes in
that light a meditation, a mass,
a private prayer
I’ve lit a trinity of candles in her
honour, one nearby for our dad,
gone these already thirty years,
on something of an altar I’ve
fashioned, however all the while
unconsciously, about my
fireplace, by their flickering
silence, I find a place for
solemn contemplation
mind Haydn’s greatest
masterpiece, its subject is
self-explanatory, but you might
want to read again here what I
wrote about it earlier for
greater context
for which it had been originally
composed
R ! chard

_________
it’s funny, upon the imminent demise of
of my only sister, I chose to listen to,
instinctively, for solace, Bruckner’s
everywhere in my apartment, at
dusk, like settings, for my somber
reveries
listen, you might understand why
Bruckner was a profoundly Catholic
composer, composing liturgical
works expressive of his profound
beliefs, fit, aurally, for, indeed,
cathedrals, ceremonial, arresting
his 7th, grand and utterly convincing,
is not an ineffective consolation, is
not an easily disregarded promise
of something, however ephemerally
manifested, beyond the meagre
aspirations of merely faith
and which finally produces an epiphany,
a human understanding, that just being,
just responding to our condition, within
the confines of our station, is,
eventually, nothing short of grace
art, in other words, is praying
R ! chard

_________
if a sonata is a piece of music with more
than one section, by definition a rhapsody
is not a sonata, a rhapsody has only one
section, only one movement, all that is
required, therefore, essentially, of a
rhapsody, is that it be – a subjunctive
here, incidentally, the mood of aspiration,
high hopes, ideals – that it be, I reiterate,
rhapsodic
in the spirit of juxtaposition, here are two
rhapsodies, the first, George Gershwin’s
how are they different, you tell me
I’ll just point out that the one seems, to
my ears, steeped still in the Romantic
Period, the early 19th Century, despite
its publishing date, 1934, the other,
earlier, composition, 1924, sounds like
full blown, in comparison, 20th Century
America, the future
Old Europe, in other words, meets the
New World, however chronologically
counterintuitively
listen, you can hear all of it, both are,
either era, extraordinary, time is what
eventually tells
R ! chard

_____
for Barbara, who dutifully
kicked me in the psyche
or a violin, concerto, I’ve only known it as a
keyboard concerto till now, when looking
for it for a friend, I happened upon this
recently published rendering of an event
Amsterdam in front of the very
epochs coming iconically together
which is why, incidentally, I love Europe,
Disneyland for adults, where epochal
periods come together like fantasies,
tossing back at us their manifest, their
multifarious, and mythic glories
what do you think, which came first, the
chicken or the egg, the keyboard or the
I think, however prejudicially, the
keyboard, but what do I know
enjoy either, they’re both riveting
R ! chard
psst: note how the painted faces and the real

_______________
much like adagios, andantes, the
next step up with respect to pace
in musical compositions from
adagios, are rarely intended to be
alone, are part, most often, of a
larger creative intention, though
they must appear singly here and
there somewhere in the literature,
though where, I don’t yet know
and I’ve looked
remember, a Mozart, not surprisingly,
he was young and exuberant, adagios
would’ve been not immediately given
to so youthful an artist, consequently
less prevalent in their music, nor his,
Beethoven would be more ripe for
adagios, indeed crushing adagios,
eventually, in a more conflicted time,
but that’s another story
it’s the middle movement of his
less, itself, a monument to Western
a work that for my generation most
defined the essential Mozart
note that the anguish, at even this
accelerated tempo, from the
foundational adagio, is crushing
still and, still, utterly unforgettable
R ! chard