how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, cont.

 

        The Stolen Kiss (1788)

 

       Jean-Honoré Fragonard

 

               _____________

 

 

if you listened to the couple of pieces I

recommended in my last commentary,

you would’ve indeed recognized, if

even only subconsciously, that the

first work wasn’t composed by the

composer of the other, that different

spirits infused either

 

a visual representation of the same

thing might be to juxtapose a

contemporary painting of the one

epoch with a corresponding painting

of the other

 

over a hundred years had passed

between Mozart and Prokofiev,

Mozart’s Piano Sonata no 18, K576

– his last piano sonata, incidentally,

he died a short two years later –

was written in 1789, the year of the

French Revolution, a still safe

distance from Vienna, where

Mozart could still cater to an,

however endangered, species

 

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, a contemporary

painter, 1732 – 1806, had been doing the

same thing, The Stolen Kiss, 1788, for

instance, a mere year earlier, see above

 

meanwhile, over a hundred years later,

inches only away from the First World

War, Matisse is doing in art what

Prokofiev is doing in music, taking the

temperature of his own time, Seated

Riffian (1911 –1912) – a Riffian, a Berber,

a North African tribesman – see below,

to corroborate Prokofiev’s equally

emblematic vision of their shared era

                  

you can hear this in the music

 

mostly through the difference in the use

of volume, languorous softs, thunderous

louds, but also in the more expansive use

of pace, fast, slow, the rapidity of some

notes, the embrace, the extended caress,

of others, in the later composition

 

which, in a word, follows the development

of the piano from harpsichord to the

instrument we’re used to today

 

Mozart still had the harpsichord in his ear,

he was writing for the fortepiano, which

evolved, through the pianoforte, to the

piano we know of today, no flexibility of

pace, no flexibility of volume then, listen,

hear, you can hear it in the juxtaposition

 

we hear a lot more than we think we

hear

                  

 

R ! chard

                  

                  __________

                  

                  

        

        Seated Riffian (1911 – 1912)

                

                Henri Matisse

                  

                  __________

“Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs”‏

“Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs“ is an

enchanted movie for children of all ages, that

means especially you, Manolito, that means

especially you, Aidan

 

you might however notice, in a more analytical

vein, the introduction of German Expressionism

already in more popular culture, Nolde, Kirchner,

even some Edvard Munch, the Norwegian, in the

bold, garish colours that expressed horror and

perversion for them following the First World War,

and did the same for Walt Disney later if you’ll

consider the evil queen’s mirror and mask, or

van Gogh branches in the threatening forest, flat

surfaces, notably on faces for instance, touched

with only daubs of colour for only perfunctory

shading and character, prefiguring incidentally,

Andy Warhol‘s Pop Art

 

artists talk to each other

 

  

musical atonalities, also, show up, to attest to

modernity, in the music tooted out by the pipe

organ, delivering ornery pipes and a climactic

cuckoo who can only emit a shrill, discordant 

screech, we can thank especially Prokofiev,

the popinjay among the atonalists, for that,

with necessary nods to, for their more

theoretical groundwork, the more exacting

Stravinsky and the too dour, not to mention

for many too dire, Schoenberg  

 

Walt Disney was introducing modern art not so

surreptitiously at all to the larger popular culture,

acclimatizing children especially to the new

upended and revolutionizing art, crayons at

the behest of individuality 

 

 

you’ll also find interesting that Snow White 

succumbs to an apple, much like Mother Eve, 

both of whom are absolved, it’s worth pointing 

out, by nothing other than transcendental,

transformational, regenerative and ever

inspirational, Love

 

think about it  

 

 

Richard

 

 

 

 

 

Mozart Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, K365‏

 

                               “Blind Man’s Bluff” (1769-70)

                                               Jean-Honoré Fragonard

 

                                                      _______________

 

 

the spirituality that is everywhere in Bach, the

sense of musical exploration and ultimate solace,

will not be found again in the history of music

for another hundred years, in Anton Bruckner

then, 1824 – 1896, a profoundly devout Catholic

organist – Bach, 1685 – 1750, was Lutheran –

then for another hundred years again, in Olivier

Messiaen, 1908 – 1992, again a profoundly

devout Catholic organist, perhaps a

reincarnation, like a Dalai Lama 

 

already in his day Bach was being considered

old-fashioned, gasp, the new age was revelling

in courtly extravagance, see also for instance

François Boucher, and Fragonard, featured for

your convenience above

   

Mozart would fit right in, for a good time call

Wolfgang Amadeus  

 

 

Mozart takes the tools that Bach created, the

newly installed well-tempered clavier and does

what kids do with their parents heritage, play

with it, Mozart doesn’t explore, he entertains,

notes are the toys in his sandbox, and he makes

the very most of it, never leaving his kindergarten

sanctum, nor would anybody be as effervescent

again for, this time, another 150 years, with

Prokofiev, 1891 – 1953, even more outrageous,

though ultimately not for that more famous,  

being perhaps for many too out there, fun like

a jack-in-the-box, too unnervingly unpredictable, 

still 

 

Mozart, though eminently delightful, is

appropriately predictable for his epoch

 

 

the Concerto for Two Pianos of Mozart, K365, 

of all of his works my favourite, is what I put

on for instant exhilaration

 

it never fails me

 

 

enjoy

 

Richard 

 

 

 

 

 

Sergei Prokofiev’s piano concerto no 3, opus 26‏

Yuja Wang in many ways isn’t Martha Argerich, but in 
many ways she’s just as extraordinary
 
here she is with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
under Daniele Gatti in Amsterdam, October 3, 1910

disregard the written advice that you are watching

Strauss’ “Don Juan” at the beginning of the second

movement, this is Prokofiev’s piano concerto no 3, 

opus 26, throughout  

 

 
Sergei Prokofiev is the mad boy of music, a Harlequin,

a Pinocchio, the fool in Shakespeare, the court jester,

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”‘s Puck, unpredictable,

effevescent, mercurial, irrepressible

 
in art I would compare him to maybe Miró, fanciful
though much more electric, with a touch of, say, the

more impish, mischievous Hieronymus Bosch     
 
try not to be jolted, try not to be projected from your

seat, this is 1921, this is the Twentieth Century,

Prokofiev turns the heat on it right up  

 

 

Richard