The Arts

Bob Dylan's Revolutionary Trilogy

POSTED DECEMBER 1, 2024

In August 1964, Bob Dylan released his fourth studio album, Another Side of Bob Dylan.  At age 23, Dylan was already among the most well-known and respected singers on the folk music scene.  His early albums were solidly within the folk music genre, and the fully acoustical Another Side of was no exception.  It was, however, a departure from the socially conscious previous albums.  "Chimes of Freedom" was the only song that hearkened back to those earlier albums.  Perhaps because his relationship with Suze Rotolo had ended earlier that year, most of the other songs on the album are intensely personal.  

Bob Dylan: from Bob Dylan to Another Side of Bob Dylan

But then there are the two outliers that pointed towards Dylan's future direction: "Motorpsycho Nightmare" and "I Shall Be Free No. 10", referred to by some as "surrealistic talking blues."  He admired the French surrealist poet Arthur Rimbaud, telling his friends that "Rimbaud's where it's at. That's the kind of stuff means something. That's the kind of writing I'm gonna do."   Also, Dylan had taken his first hit of LSD in April 1964.  His early experimentation with hallucinogens has often been connected with the dramatic development his songwriting would soon take, but Dylan himself has denied any connection. 

Whatever the process by which he got there, Bob Dylan was about to embark on a change that would simultaneously disappoint many of his folk music fans, shake up the world of popular music, and set him on the path to his Nobel Prize in Literature.  In this post, we look at the three revolutionary albums released between March 1965 and June 1966: Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde.

Bringing It All Back Home

Highway 61 Revisited

In August 1965, Columbia Records released Bob Dylan's sixth studio album, Highway 61 Revisited.  Dylan named the album after the major American highway which connected his birthplace of Duluth, Minnesota, to southern cities famed for their musical heritage, including St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, and the Delta blues area of Mississippi.  The album is entirely electric except for the last track, the 11-minute ballad, "Desolation Row".

Blonde on Blonde

June 1966 saw the release of Bob Dylan's two-LP masterpiece Blonde on Blonde, the third of his mid-60s rock albums.  More "bluesy" sound than the earlier two and considered by some to be Dylan's best album, it is my favorite of all of his works.  I had just finished my freshman year in college, and these songs spoke to me.   It was like wherever I was going, Dylan had something relevant to say.  The music ranging from poignant to driven, the imagery of the often surreal lyrics, and the tales of love usually gone wrong made a powerful mix.

Dylan scholar Michael Gray wrote: "To have followed up one masterpiece with another was Dylan's history making achievement here ... Where Highway 61 Revisited has Dylan exposing and confronting like a laser beam in surgery, descending from outside the sickness, Blonde on Blonde offers a persona awash inside the chaos ... We're tossed from song to song ... The feel and the music are on a grand scale, and the language and delivery are a unique mixture of the visionary and the colloquial."  Indeed.

The Bob Dylan YouTube Channel has the complete Blonde on Blonde album here.  Enjoy. For now, I will just say a few words about some of my favorite cuts.

A Schopenhauer Playlist

POSTED OCTOBER 28, 2024

Philosophers, writers and other thinkers have praised and tried to explain the power of music, and among the philosophers, none more so than Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860).  The German philosopher had a profound love for music.  He considered it the highest form of art because it directly manifests the essence of the world, which he referred to as the "Will".  For Schopenhauer, music deeply touches and affects our “innermost nature”- something that we completely understand in our “innermost being”.  He greatly admired, in particular, the compositions of Beethoven, which for Schopenhauer directly manifested the "Will".  Schopenhauer's thinking, in turn, greatly affected composers such as Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, who gave The World as Will and Representation to the conductor Bruno Walter as a Christmas present. 

A Schopenhauer Playlist (Continued - Schopenhauer's Dream)

POSTED NOVEMBER 10, 2024

Rodin, Brâncuși, and Noguchi: the transformation of sculpture in the 20th century

POSTED OCTOBER 9, 2024

With the advent of photography in the mid-19th century, painters began to take the first steps towards non-representational art.*  Forty or so years later, sculptors followed suit.   From the days of the ancient Greeks to the dawn of the 20th century, Western sculptors had created works that were realistic depictions of the human face and form.   That all changed suddenly in the early years of the 20th century.  New art movements such as Cubism, Fauvism and Expressionism broke away from traditional art forms, encouraging experimentation with shapes and colors.  These movements, the availability of new materials, and the social and political transformations following World War I led artists including sculptors to seek new ways to express the complexities of the modern world.

We can follow this transformation of the world of sculpture through the works of a trio of masters - Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brâncuși, and Isamu Noguchi.

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was one of the last in the long line of great representational sculptors whose tradition stretched back uninterruptedly to the Renaissance.  He believed that art should be true to nature, a philosophy that shaped his attitudes to models and materials. Considered by many as the father of modern sculpture, Rodin introduced many innovative practices that paved the way for later sculptors. Some of his key contributions include expressive surface detail to convey emotion and movement, fragmentation focusing on the expressive potential of incomplete forms (for example, The Cathedral) , and a non-narrative approach that was more about capturing the essence and emotion of his subject.  

Below is a video commentary about one his most famous sculptures, The Burghers of Calais, which commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an eleven-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889. 

Constantin Brâncuși (1876 - 1957) was one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th century.  This pioneer of modernism was born in Romania.  As a child, he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907.  He worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin Mercié of the École des Beaux-Arts and was invited to enter the workshop of Auguste Rodin. Even though he admired the eminent Rodin, he left the Rodin studio after only two months, saying, "Nothing can grow under big trees."

Brancusi’s decision to leave Rodin’s studio marked the beginning of a new path in his artistic career. The removal of reality and figuration in his work allowed Brancusi to offer a spiritual dimension deeply rooted in Romanian folk culture. Not only did he pioneer a new kind of three-dimensional representation, he also redefined modernist sculpture.  His style was differentiated from classical sculpting methods, emphasizing the so-called primitive culture. Although he entered the world of the Parisian avant-garde, Constantin Brancusi never lost a kind of peasant lifestyle. He remained attached to traditional materials. He was considered an outsider in the art world of Paris since he was a Romanian immigrant too. Unlike classical sculptures which are carved right to the detail to create idealized figures, Brancusi’s modern sculptures concentrate on the essence of the form. His works are characterized by geometric elegance, excellent craftsmanship, and innovative use of various materials, such as wood, marble, steel, and bronze.

Below is a video commentary on The Kiss, an early (c. 1908) example of his proto-cubist style. This sculpture is considered the first modern sculpture of the twentieth century. 

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) was a Japanese-American artist renowned for his sculptures, landscape architecture, furniture, and stage set designs.  Born in Los Angeles, he traveled extensively, drawing inspiration from his diverse cultural experiences.  Noguchi's work is celebrated for its blend of organic forms and modernist aesthetics, incorporating materials like stone, metal, and wood.

Noguchi was deeply influenced by Constantin Brâncuși, whom he encountered in his twenties. Brancusi's emphasis on abstract forms and his ability to capture the essence of nature resonated with Noguchi and inspired Noguchi to pursue a world where abstract forms were fundamentally connected to nature.  Brancusi's minimalist approach and focus on the intrinsic beauty of materials encouraged Noguchi to explore similar principles in his own work, leading to his distinctive style that blends organic forms with modernist aesthetics.

Below is a video commentary on The Family, a monumental and breathtaking expression of  Isamu Noguchi’s artistic tenets and practice.  The three stone figures represent “a sixteen-foot-high father, a twelve-foot mother, and a six-foot child,” each with its own unique shape, united by the distinct character of Noguchi’s unmistakable visual language. Placed in close proximity, the figures' relationships to each other were carefully set by the artist. Amongst his most ambitious and significant works, The Family, sculpted in 1957, distills the myriad influences and concepts that defined Noguchi’s prolific output into a powerful masterwork.

Notes:

*Impressionism emerged in the latter part of the 19th century in Europe, where artists such as Claude Monet sought to capture light, not through the detail of realism, which after all was being caught by photographers, but with gesture and illusion. The Impressionists were followed by the Post-Impressionists who took the movement away from detailed realism even farther.  While Impressionists focused on capturing light and color through quick brushstrokes, Post-Impressionists sought to convey deeper emotional and symbolic meanings.

Sources: rodinmuseum.org, The Evolution of Abstract Art: From Early 20th Century to Modern Minim (vinchyart.com), How Rodin Has Influenced Modern Sculpture • Recyclart , Modern Sculpture - Art History - Oxford Bibliographies. Wikipedia, thecollector.com, smarthistory.org, Biography - The Noguchi Museum, sothebys.com

La Mer

POSTED SEPTEMBER 15, 2024

La Mer (The Sea) is Claude Debussy's masterpiece.  His musical evocation of the sea ranks high among the most beautiful works of Western music.  Composed between 1903 and 1905, the piece premiered in Paris in October 1905.  Inspired by Impressionist and Symbolist art and literature and by Hokusai's "The Great Wave off Kanagawa", which graces the cover of its first edition, La Mer was the second of Debussy's three orchestral works composed in three sections, the others being Nocturnes (1892–1899) and Images pour orchestre (1905–1912).

Debussy's fascination with the sea started when his mother Victorine took her children to visit her sister in law Clémentine, in Cannes at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870.  The young Claude kept a fond memory of his trip to the Côte d'Azur.  In later years, he developed an even greater appreciation of the other seas surrounding France - the Atlantic and the Channel and regularly referenced his awe of the sea and its power, even noting that he had "intended for the noble career of a sailor" in a 1912 letter to his friend and fellow composer André Messager.  

While composing La Mer, he preferred the seascapes available in paintings and literature* over the physical sea itself.  Debussy told friends that he would have liked to become a painter, and his aesthetic was deeply rooted in the Symbolist and Impressionist movements, which emphasized capturing the essence and atmosphere of a subject rather than its literal representation.  According to his biographer, La Mer draws its influences from Monet, Turner, and Hokusai, whose impressionistic styles resonated with his musical vision.

La Mer is subtitled "Three Symphonic Sketches" and the names of the movements provide us with verbal suggestions to stimulate our own sense of imagery:  "From Dawn to Midday on the Sea,"  "Play of the Waves," and "Dialog Of The Wind And The Sea."  Despite the evocative titles of the work's three movements, La Mer is an example of Debussy's wish to create atmospheric music, rather than anything conventionally representational. Liquisearch and Classic FM comment on Debussy's epic, with both highlighting its influence on film scores.

Liquisearch**  calls La Mer "a masterpiece of suggestion and subtlety in its rich depiction of the ocean, which combines unusual orchestration with daring impressionistic harmonies. The work has proven very influential, and its use of sensuous tonal colours and its orchestration methods have influenced many later film scores."

Classic FM crowns La Mer as the "most beautiful depiction of the sea ever written", adding that there "are no ships, swimmers, fishermen or lighthouses in this ocean - everything is just on its own, giving a sense of otherworldliness.  Combining unusual orchestration with daring impressionistic harmonies, La Mer has had a profound effect on music ever since, especially film scores. The music speaks of the serenity, grandeur and mystery..."

Timothy Judd at the Listener's Club provides a brief guide to each of the three movements, which will add to your enjoyment and appreciation of this marvelous work.  Below left is the cover from the first edition, and below right is a live performance by the orchestra and conductor whose recording of La Mer topped Classic FM's list of best performances of La Mer.

Notes

*Debussy was inspired by the literary works of Camille Mauclair, particularly his short story "Mère belle aux Îles Sanguinaires".  Although Debussy initially planned to use this story as a direct inspiration for one of the movements, he later opted for a more abstract approach.

**The Liquisearch website appears to be AI-driven and still under construction.  The "author" also notes "The author, musicologist and pianist Roy Howat has observed, in his book Debussy in Proportion, that the formal boundaries of La Mer correspond exactly to the mathematical ratios called The Golden Section***.  Trezise...finds the intrinsic evidence "remarkable," but cautions that no written or reported evidence suggests that Debussy consciously sought such proportions."

***The Golden Section, also known as the Golden Ratio, is a mathematical ratio equal to roughly 1.618. It is commonly found in nature, and when used in a design, it fosters organic and natural-looking compositions that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. This harmony and proportion has been recognized for thousands of years: from the Pyramids in Giza to the Parthenon in Athens; from Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to the Pepsi logo. (canva)

Sources: France Musique,  NPR , Wikipedia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, thelistenersclub.com/, Liquisearch, canva.com, Classic FM

How Claude Debussy's 10-minute tone poem and only opera revolutionized classical music

POSTED AUGUST 27, 2024

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was one of the most influential and revolutionary composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The innovative harmonic language, evocative imagery and emotional depth of his works make them among the most beloved in the classical repertoire.  

Born to a family of modest means, Debussy's musical talents became evident from an early age, and he was admitted to the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris when he was just 10 years old.  Among his early influences was the Belgian-born French composer César Franck, a key figure in the French Romantic music scene, who introduced Debussy to the world of composition and encouraged him to explore new harmonies and tonalities.  Debussy was also influenced by the works of Richard Wagner, whose innovative use of orchestration and emphasis on the use of leitmotifs* to convey emotions made a lasting impression on Debussy.  

Likewise, the Symbolist poets and Impressionist painters played a crucial role in the development of Debussy's style.  Their works resonated with Debussy’s desire to capture fleeting moments and emotions in his compositions.  Although he himself rejected the term, he is widely regarded as the first of the Impressionist composers.  

The Impressionist Composers  

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune

One of the most iconic examples of Debussy’s unique approach to music is his composition “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun).  This work, based on a poem by the Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé features lush harmonies and a sense of drifting, dreamlike atmosphere that captures the essence of impressionism in music.  Debussy wrote the piece in 1894 at age 32.  He originally intended to write a set of three pieces to include an Interlude and a Paraphrase finale. But in the end, for reasons best known to himself, Debussy decided to combine all his thoughts on the poem to one single movement just ten minutes in length.

In "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune", Debussy stretched the traditional system of keys and tonalities to its limits.   The short piece proved to be a major turning point in classical music.  After "Prélude", some composers felt there was nowhere to go within traditional tonality and they began to experiment with more avant-garde styles of music.  By the first decade of the twentieth century, Arnold Schoenberg and others of the Second Viennese School were composing atonal** music and ushering in the modern era of classical music.

The music itself tells the tale of the mythical faun, playing his pipes alone in the woods. He is enchanted by nymphs and naiads and drifts off to sleep filled with colorful dreams. From the dreamy opening flute tune, the sleepy calm of an afternoon in the forest is evoked through smooth melodies and almost improvisatory passages. 

“Pelléas et Mélisande” 

Claude Debussy's only opera, “Pelléas et Mélisande”, premiered in 1902.  Based on the Symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck***, the opera tells the story of a love triangle between Pelléas, Mélisande, and Golaud and is set in a mysterious and dreamlike world. Debussy’s music beautifully captures the ambiguity and subtlety of human emotions.  The opera’s intricate web of leitmotifs and its evocative orchestration create a rich tapestry of sound, weaving a complex emotional narrative that resonates deeply with audiences. 

Like Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune”, Pelléas et Mélisande” was a revolutionary work.  It broke free from the grandiose and dramatic operatic conventions of its time and influenced generations of future composers****.  Among the innovations:

• Debussy did not use the traditional forms of arias and recitatives, which were common in opera. Instead, he created a continuous musical flow that blurred the lines between spoken dialogue and sung melody.

• He used the orchestra in a more subtle and atmospheric way, focusing on creating mood and color rather than overpowering the singers. This approach was quite different from the grandiose orchestration typical of the time.

• The characters in “Pelléas et Mélisande” are more ambiguous and introspective compared to the more defined and dramatic characters in traditional operas. The plot is also more focused on psychological and emotional subtleties rather than grand, heroic narratives.

Below left is a concert suite based on Debussy's score for the opera.  Below right is a performance of Act II Scene 1, in which Pelléas and Mélisande meet at a fountain whose miraculous water opens the eyes of the blind. Mélisande drops Golaud's ring into the fountain.  

A complete performance of the opera can be found here and a synopsis of the five act opera can be found here.

Notes

*A leitmotif is a short, recurring musical phrase associated with a particular person, place, or idea. The leitmotif technique was perfected by opera composer Richard Wagner in the second half of the 19th century.

**Atonal music is a style of music that lacks a tonal center and doesn't follow the traditional rules of Western music. It doesn't have a key or a hierarchy of notes, and each note is given equal importance.  

***Debussy chose Maurice Maeterlinck’s Symbolist play as the basis for his opera. The text was almost entirely preserved, with minimal cuts, which was unusual since most operas adapted texts more freely.

****Operas by Benjamin Britten, Allen Berg, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel, Béla Bartók, and other composers reflect Debussy's innovations.

Sources: Long Island Music Magazine, classicfm.com, Wikipedia,  theconversation.com, Ourmusicworld 

The Art of Picasso: Neoclassicism and Surrealism (1917-1935)

July 1, 2024

In the period between World War I and the Spanish Civil War, Pablo Picasso would try his hand at two very different styles - neoclassicism and surrealism.  The former was a form of realism, which he had not practiced in many years; the latter, a modern art form launched in Paris in 1925 that was influenced by the Dada-ists, Giorgio de Chirico, psychoanalysis, Karl Marx, and primitivism.

Neoclassicism (1917-1925)

For nearly 20 years, Picasso had been experimenting and developing new methods of painting.  The Blue Period, the Rose Period, Cubism, the African Period - these produced many of his greatest and best-known works.  Then, as the Great War was ending, he once again began painting in a representational style, one that more realistically portrayed the human face and form.  In 1917, he visited Italy for the first time. Enchanted by the classical statuary, ancient ruins and frescos, Picasso returned to Paris, where the influences of the French neoclassicists Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Nicolas Poussin also took hold.  

After the war, artists across Europe were calling for le rappel à l’ordre — the return to order — summoning a revival of the arts of antiquity and classical traditions.   However, what has been called Picasso's 'return to order' was not an intellectual decision dictated by the theoretical debates circulating in Paris. Rather, it was driven by his "personal contact with works of art which were fresh to him, and by his delighted sense of discovery and recognition."

In addition, Picasso’s first wife, the Russian ballerina Olga Khokhlova, whom he married in 1918, had a poise and grace that lent themselves to the artist’s neoclassical phase.  Picasso produced many portraits of her during his neoclassical phase.  Her classical beauty also informed other works from this period that referenced Greco-Roman literature and the mythic past. 

Below left to right: Olga in an Armchair (1918), Seated Nude Drying Her Foot (1921), Woman in White (1923)

Surrealism (1925-1935)

During the 1920s, Surrealism became the prevailing movement of the avant-garde, and Picasso again moved away from naturalism. In 1925, as Andre Breton issued his Surrealism Manifesto, Picasso began working in a Surrealist style, characterized by dreamy depictions of figures with disorganized facial features and twisted bodies. This “surreal” quality is emphasized by an unnatural palette of bright tones and clashing colors, as well as a skewed sense of perspective and a contrast between organic and geometric forms.  Although Picasso maintained his independence from André Breton’s circle, his work took on a psychological power that aligned with that of his Surrealist contemporaries.  

The Surrealists (July 16. 2019)

In this period, Picasso created some works that drew on his Cubist past.  In 1926, he made several "Guitar" assemblages of canvas, rope, glued paper, wallpaper, nails and hooks, all variations considered surrealist and based on a principle of Cubist construction. [below left]

Picasso's turbulent personal life during this time also affected his work.  It became the second ingredient in the volatile mix of emotion and influence that was driving him.  His Surrealist works stand out as some of his most radical and disturbing evocations of the female form. "The work of Large Nude in a Red Armchair [below center] was created by Picasso in the chaotic year of 1929, marked by Olga Picasso's illness and the emergence of the artist's romance with Marie-Thérèse Walter. This portrait, imbued with a unique graphic violence, not only captures the figure of Olga at a specific moment, but also reveals the emotional turmoil and transformation of Picasso himself." [celebracionpicasso.es]

The provocative Minotaruomachy from 1935 [below right] is full of symbolic content.  "The main protagonists—a young girl with a candle and a bouquet of flowers, and a huge Minotaur, a mythological creature with a human body and a bull's head—appear frozen in their confrontation. Between them a wounded female bullfighter is flung across a lacerated horse that snarls with teeth bared. Above, two girls with doves, symbols of peace, peer out from a window, while a bearded man appears on a ladder at the left." [MoMA]

The Minotaur was a frequent theme in Picasso's paintings from this time. This disturbing representation is also prophetic of the Spanish Civil War, which began in 1936.  Indeed, Minotauromachy was as a visual source for Guernica, Picasso's famous mural of 1937 about that conflict, which contains some of the same imagery that is seen here. 

Guernica (Jan 31, 2018)

Other sources/learn more: museepicassoparis, .christies.com,  mymodernmet.com

To the Lighthouse

POSTED JUNE 14, 2024

I recently read, for the first time, To the Lighthouse, a marvelous book by Virginia Woolf written in a stream-of-consciousness style.  On Time magazine's All-Time Top 100 Novels, To the Lighthouse follows the daily life of the Ramsay family and their friends during vacations in a summer home on the Isle of Skye.  The story focuses on two specific days at the house, set ten years apart - in 1910 and in 1920, before and after The Great War, a time of great change and upheaval.  

Each of the novel's three sections ("The Window," "Time Passes," and "The Lighthouse") is told from various narrators' perspectives. Woolf uses these shifting perspectives to reveal  her characters through their inner thoughts, which range from the mundane through the existential.  Here are some my favorite passages:

"It was almost impossible to dislike anyone if one looked at them"

"For one's children often gave one's own perceptions a little thrust forwards."

"Always, Mrs. Ramsay felt, one helped oneself out of solitude reluctantly by laying hold of some little odd or end, some sound, some sight."

"Everything seemed possible.  Everything seemed right."

"What is the meaning of life?  That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years.  The great revelation had never come.  The great revelation perhaps never did come.  Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark..."

"Mrs. Ramsay making of the moment something permanent...this was of the nature of a revelation.  In the midst of chaos there was shape; this eternal passing and flowing (she looked at the clouds going and the leaves shaking) was struck into stability.  Life stand still here, Mrs. Ramsay said."

"What was it then? What did it mean?...Could it be, even for the elderly, that this was life? - startling, unexpected, unknown?"

"She alone spoke the truth; to her alone could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction for him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into one's head."

The term “stream of consciousness” originated in the 19th century, when psychologists coined the term to describe the constant flow of subjective thoughts, feelings, memories, and observations that all people experience.  The stream of consciousness technique in writing draws inspiration from these psychological insights into how our minds process information. It became popular in modernist literature during the early to mid-20th century. The technique aims to depict a character's inner thoughts and feelings as a continuous, non-linear flow, often disjointed. The goal is to simulate how the conscious mind experiences thoughts, where one mental event leads to another through association.

Virginia Woolf was a master of the stream-of-consciousness technique and some of the greatest works of the twentieth century - such as James Joyce's Ulysses and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury - utilize it.  Other stream-of-consciousness writers are discussed in the link below left.

Virginia Woolf was also a pioneering feminist writer and, not surprisingly, the strongest characters in To the Lighthouse are women.  The novel was published in 1927, just one year before the women of England, Scotland, and Wales gained the right to vote.  More than just a women's writer, her appeal transcends gender.  As a great observer of everyday life,  she is one of the great "pleasure-givers of modern literature". [below right]

Brahms and Tchaikovsky: the Violin Concertos

POSTED MAY 14, 2024

May 7 was the birthday* of two of the greatest composers of the Late Romantic Era.  Johannes Brahms and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky were both born on that day - Brahms in 1833 in Hamburg Germany; Tchaikovsky in 1840 in Votkinsk Russia.  Both were composers of majestic symphonies and challenging concertos, with each having his own distinctive style.  Brahms emphasized structure and complexity; Tchaikovsky, emotional expression and orchestral color.**

Both Tchaikovsky and Brahms created Violin Concertos in D Major.  Tchaikovsky's has long been one of my favorites, but I just discovered Brahms' while researching this post.  Both are amazingly beautiful, both are in D Major, and both are among the more challenging pieces for violin.

The Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, was the only concerto for violin composed by Tchaikovsky.  Composed in 1878, it is one of the best-known violin concertos. The concerto was composed in Clarens, Switzerland, where Tchaikovsky was recovering from the fallout of his ill-fated marriage.  The piece opens with an introduction for the orchestra that begins calmly, but soon becomes passionate.  This gives way to the entrance of the soloist, who introduces the first movement’s main melody, one of Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful themes. If you don't begin to love classical music at about the 6:10 mark, well maybe give it another try in a year or two. [Below left]

Brahms too composed just one violin concerto, and, like Tchaikovsky, he composed it in 1878.  Brahms' Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77, is also one of the most beloved and most performed violin concertos.  Brahms had modeled the piece on a work by his idol, Beethoven.  It premiered to mixed reviews because of its difficulty.  In its day, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto had also been accused of unwarranted difficulties, and early audiences often missed its profound content. Brahms placed his concerto in the key of D major, the key of Beethoven’s most renowned violin concerto.***  All of Brahms's concertos end in his Hungarian/Gypsy mode, and "this one is the most uproarious of the lot." [Below right]

Notes

*You may see some references to Tchaikovsky's birthdate as being April 25.  That is because Russia, unlike most of Europe, did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1918.   Pope Gregory XIII introduced what came to be known as the Gregorian (or New Style) Calendar in 1582 because the Julian Calendar (Old Style) then in use had become 11 days out of synch with the solar year.  For some interesting facts about the Gregorian Calendar click here.

**Color is a more informal name for timbre: the way the same note played on different instruments sounds different.  Neat article that starts with Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock performance of the Star Spangled Banner can be found here.

***So, three of the greatest violin concertos in the classical repertoire were composed in the key of D Major.  Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major can be heard  here. The emotions associated with specific major and minor keys were described more than two centuries ago.  One of the most influential descriptions of characteristics shared in German-speaking cultures in the late 18th and early 19th century was from from Christian Schubart.  For D Major, he writes (translated): "The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war-cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key."  For more on keys and emotions, see Musical Keys and Our Emotions 2/3/2018

Sources: Houston Symphony, Wikipedia, Rhode Island Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra

Gothic Europe: St. Denis, Salisbury Cathedral, St. Stephen's, St. Vitus and Milan's Duomo

POSTED APRIL 26, 2024

In this post, we look at five masterpieces of Gothic architecture in five different countries.  They span the entire history of Gothic architecture - from the first structure to employ all of the elements of Gothic architecture to a cathedral six centuries in the making with the final details completed in 1965.

Saint-Denis, France

Located just north of Paris, Saint-Denis is the second most populous suburb of the City of Light.  The Basilica of Saint-Denis is a large former medieval abbey church and present cathedral there. The building is of singular importance historically and architecturally as its choir, completed in 1144, is widely considered the first structure to employ all of the elements of Gothic architecture.  

In the 12th century, the Abbot Suger rebuilt portions of the abbey church using innovative structural and decorative features. In doing so, he created the first truly Gothic building.  In the following century the master-builder Pierre de Montreuil rebuilt the nave and the transepts in the new Rayonnant Gothic style, which became the defining style of the High Gothic period. French architects turned their attention from building cathedral of greater size and height towards bringing greater light into the cathedral interiors and adding more extensive decoration. 

For twelve centuries, except for a few kings of the Merovingian (500–751) and Capetian (987–1328) dynasties, all the French kings—from Dagobert I (reigned 629–639) to Louis XVIII (reigned 1814–24)—as well as their close relatives and a number of their outstanding subjects, were buried in the basilica.  Their tombs were desecrated and removed during the French Revolution, but they were later reassembled in the church and now constitute a remarkable collection of French funerary sculpture. 

Clockwise from the top left: Altar and stained glass windows, exterior, sepulchral sculpture of Catherine de' Medici and Henry II

Salisbury, England

Widely recognized as one of the finest examples of English Gothic Architecture, Salisbury Cathedral is a magnificent building.  Its main body was built between 1220 and 1258 and was completed in 1330.  Among the many superlatives applied to Salisbury Cathedral:  it has the tallest spire in Britain (404 feet); it houses the best preserved of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta* (1215); it has the oldest working clock in Europe (1386); it has the largest cathedral cloisters and cathedral close in Britain; the choir (or quire) stalls are the largest and earliest complete set in Britain; the vault is the highest in Britain.

Below from the left: Salisbury Cathedral, interior with vaulted ceiling and columnar arches, sculpture of Bishop Richard Poole who oversaw the early years of the construction of the cathedral.

Note: *The Magna Carta is the foundational document of Anglo-American law. It established the principle that the king is subject to the rule of law and documented the liberties held by “free men,” laying the ground for individual rights.  

Vienna, Austria

The beautiful Saint Stephen's Cathedral is Austria's most important Gothic building.  Located in the heart of Vienna, it has come to be a symbol of the city's identity and synonymous with the reconstruction of the Republic after the Second World War**.  Built between 1304 and 1340 on the ruins of an old Romanesque church, St. Stephen's was expanded several times and its interior changed repeatedly over the centuries.

The church was dedicated to St. Stephen and so was oriented toward the sunrise on his feast day of 26 December in the year that construction began. Built of limestone, the cathedral is 107 meters (351 ft) long, 40 meters (130 ft) wide, and 136 meters (446 ft) tall at its highest point - the Gothic-style Steffl ("Little Stephan") tower, which can be seen all over Vienna.  Even more eye-catching is the cathedral's striking multi-colored roof, made up of 230,000 glazed tiles in ornate chevron patterns and the distinctive double-headed eagle, a symbol of the historic Habsburg dynasty.   The cathedral has 22 bells with the north tower housing the cathedral's famous bell, the Pummerin, one of the largest in the world.  One story has Beethoven discovering the totality of his deafness when he saw birds flying out of St. Stephen's bell tower as a result of the bells' tolling but realized he could not hear the bells.  

The main part of the church contains 18 altars, with more in the various chapels.  The most famous are the High Altar, built over seven years from 1641 to 1647 as part of the first refurbishment of the cathedral in the baroque style, [below center] and the Wiener Neustadt Altar, composed of two triptychs, the upper being four times taller than the lower one. [below right]

The Vienna/Now website has a short video tour of St. Stephen's, which you can find here.

Note: **During World War II, the cathedral was saved from intentional destruction at the hands of retreating German forces when Wehrmacht Captain Gerhard Klinkicht disregarded orders from the city commandant to "fire a hundred shells and reduce it to rubble". On 12 April 1945, civilian looters lit fires in nearby shops as Soviet Army troops entered the city. The winds carried the fire to the cathedral, where it severely damaged the roof, causing it to collapse. Fortunately, protective brick shells built around the pulpit, Frederick III's tomb, and other treasures, minimized damage to the most valuable artworks.  Reconstruction began immediately after the war, with a limited reopening 12 December 1948 and a full reopening 23 April 1952.

Prague, Czechoslovakia

Prague is called “the City of a Hundred Spires” for the numerous church steeples towering into the sky.   Two of the most dominating of those spires [below left] belong to St. Vitus Cathedral.  St. Vitus is the centerpiece of the Prague Castle complex and the nearest thing the country has to a "national church", housing the tombs of several Bohemian Kings and Holy Roman Emperors.   

The current cathedral is the third of a series of religious buildings at the site, all dedicated to St. Vitus.  The first was a Romanesque rotunda founded by none other than "the Good King Wenceslas" of Bohemia.  Construction of the present-day Gothic cathedral of St. Vitus began on 21 November 1344, when the city was elevated to an archbishopric. King John of Bohemia laid the foundation stone for the new building.  

The first master builder was Matthias of Arras, a Frenchman summoned from the Papal Palace in Avignon. Matthias designed the overall layout of the building and many of its components along the lines of French Gothic.  After his death in 1352, 23-year-old Peter Parler assumed the role of master builder.  He completed all of Matthias' plans and then struck out on his own.  Parler's bold and innovative design brought in a unique new synthesis of Gothic elements in architecture. This is best exemplified in the vaults he designed for the choir. The so-called net-vaults have double diagonal ribs that span the width of the choir-bay. The crossing pairs of ribs create a net-like construction, which considerably strengthens the vault. They also give a lively ornamentation to the ceiling, as the interlocking vaulted bays create a dynamic zigzag pattern the length of the cathedral. 

The heart of the cathedral and a masterpiece of Czech Gothic architecture is St. Wenceslas Chapel. This beautifully decorated chapel is dedicated to the patron of the Czechs, St Wenceslas, the "good King Wenceslas" of the Christmas carol. The chapel was built on the former place of Romanesque rotunda where Wenceslas was buried and still keeps the relics of the saint. Peter Parler designed the chapel as requested by Charles IV.  In earlir times, it was the place of coronations.  The lower parts of the walls are decorated with more than 1300 gems, made in Bohemia. The joints between them are covered with gold. The ornate Gothic frescoes on the walls shows the scenes from St Wenceslas’s live and from the Bible. Charles IV is also immortalized as a figure in the painting depicting the Crucifixion. 

St. Vitus is also the home of a stained glass window designed by the famed Czech painter Alphonse Mucha.  Installed in the north nave in 1931,  the window portrays the boy St. Wenceslas with his grandmother St. Ludmila in the center, surrounded by episodes from the lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius who spread Christianity among the Slavs.

Images clockwise from the top left: St. Vitus Cathedral at night, Parler's net vault ceiling, the Stained Glass Window designed by Czech painter Alphonse Mucha, a detail from the window, St. Wencesals Chapel.

Sources: Britannica - 1, Wikipedia, Khan Academy, Travel Digg, Vienna Now, Introducing Vienna, Discover Walks, Annie Hoa, Delve into Europe, Mucha Foundation, flickr, Amazing Czechia, Prague.net, Viaggio Sotta Casa, Crow Canyon Journal

Gothic Europe: Notre Dame, Kölner Dom, and Mont Saint Michel

POSTED APRIL 1, 2024

Gothic architecture flourished in Europe during the Middle Ages.  Originating in northern France in the 12th century, it evolved during the construction of the great churches and cathedrals in the Paris region and then spread across Europe.  It held sway until the 16th century when it was replaced by the Renaissance style of architecture.  

Gothic architecture, despite its name, was not directly developed by the Goths themselves.  The term Gothic was coined by Italian writers of the Renaissance, who attributed the invention (and what to them was the "nonclassical" ugliness) of medieval architecture to the barbarian Gothic tribes that had destroyed the Roman Empire and its classical culture in the 5th century [below].  

The Gothic emerged from the Romanesque (which was distinctive for rounded arches) and relied on a visual style developed in the Islamic world: pointed arches, which could bear more stress than the rounded. Employing this technique could allow walls to stretch even higher than before. Directing the gaze heavenward, the pointed arch helped emphasize the height of naves, and their use drove the development of another key feature of the Gothic: ribbed vaults in the ceiling.

Renaissance writers not withstanding, Gothic structures across Europe are revered for their beauty and as poignant reminders of the Medieval Ages.  We'll look at three of them after briefly examining a few of the actual contributions of the Goths to Europe.

Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris

In a city renowned for its stunning architecture, Notre Dame Cathedral stands out as one of Paris' most recognizable and famous buildings.  Notre Dame Cathedral was constructed between 1163-1345, during a time when architects were pushing technology to its limits in the quest to make a taller building with thinner walls and more windows.  

It is one of the first buildings to use a flying buttress, an arch that extends from the exterior wall to a masonry tower. A quintessential feature of Gothic architecture, the flying buttress helps redistribute the weight of the massive walls, which allows large stained glass windows to be installed.  The original plans for Notre Dame called for much thicker walls to hold up a heavy roof. Several lead architects worked on Notre Dame in the two centuries of construction, and over time they figured out that the way to support Notre Dame's enormous, spectacular stained glass windows and 115-foot (35-meter) ceiling was to add flying buttresses to keep the walls from flopping outward.

Mont Saint Michel

Just off the northern coast of France lies the Mont-Saint-Michel, one of Europe’s most unforgettable sights.  Set in a bay shared by Normandy and Brittany, the mount is visible for many miles.  Rising from the sea, the Benedictine abbey is a reminder of the role that monks and nuns played in preserving Western culture during the Dark Ages.  [sidebar]

The buildings of the Abbey wrap themselves around the point of the rock. They offer a panorama of the technical knowledge of medieval religious architecture, from the Carolingian period (c 750 - 900) to the Gothic.  At the top, the abbey church rests on crypts built into the rocks themselves.  The Abbey of the Mont-Saint-Michel became a renowned center of learning, attracting some of the greatest minds and manuscript illuminators in Europe.

Six Women Artists You Should Know

POSTED MARCH 6, 2024

Since the days of the Italian Renaissance, women have influenced the development of the visual arts.  Defying societal conventions, they have left their mark on the art world.  Here we take a look at six such women artists.

Sources: 14 Famous Female Artists You Need to Know (mymodernmet.com) , Woman at Her Toilette | The Art Institute of Chicago (artic.edu), The Child's Bath | The Art Institute of Chicago (artic.edu), https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/13-women-photographers/, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (University of Oregon), Wikipedia

African-American Composers

POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2024

Of course, there is no way I could even begin to cover a small fraction of great African-American composers in a single post.  So instead what I've done is select a handful of compositions that I really like, link to a video of a performance of each, and give some background on the music and the composer.

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)

Scott Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, developing his own musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. While in Texarkana, he formed a vocal quartet and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s, he left his job as a railroad laborer and traveled the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which helped make ragtime a national craze.   He composed more than 40 ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas.

Florence B. Price (1887 - 1953)

Florence Beatrice Price (née Smith) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, one of three children in a mixed-race family.  She was educated at the New England Conservatory of Music and was active in Chicago from 1927 until her death in 1953.  She wrote four symphonies and other large-scale orchestral pieces; concertos for the piano and the violin; two string quartets, and other chamber and instrumental pieces, as well as large-scale choral works, songs and numerous solo organ and piano pieces – including her 1931 Piano Sonata that won the Rodman Wanamaker Contest in Musical Composition.  

In 1933, she made history when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performed her Symphony in E minor (Symphony No. 1), making her the first female Black composer to have a symphony performed by a major US orchestra.  The symphony combines the Western symphonic tradition – the influences of composers like Dvořák and Tchaikovsky are apparent – with West-African musical styles. Specifically the ‘Juba Dance’, a pre-cursor to ragtime, which the third movement of the work is built around and named after. 

Notes: 

*The Library of Congress website (of all places) has this explanation of syncopation from a post on the history of Ragtime: "syncopation--the displacing of the beat from its regular and assumed course of meter. Syncopation caused an individual to feel a propulsion, swing, and if played correctly, a musical looseness generally unknown to the public at large."

**"Take My Hand, Precious Lord" was a favorite song of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was played at his funeral.  It was also performed by Beyoncé at the 2015 Grammys.  Some more information on the hymn can be found here.

Sources: Library of Congress, Thomas Andrew Dorsey | Biography, Songs & Father of Gospel Music | Britannica, 10 of Florence Price’s all-time best pieces of music - Classic FM, https://music.unc.edu/module-1-prices-symphony-no-1-in-e-minor/, https://www.britannica.com/art/sonata-form, Wikipedia

Italy, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Strauss

POSTED JANUARY 25, 2024

Besides the achievements of its own artists, composers and writers, Italy has, for centuries, inspired the creative works of many from the northern climes of Europe.  

The Northern European Renaissance began around 1430 when artist Jan van Eyck began to borrow the Italian Renaissance techniques of linear perspective, naturalistic observation, and a realistic figurative approach for his paintings. From about 1450, ideas such as humanism began to spread around Europe and resulted in renaissance movements in Germany, France, England, the Netherlands, and Poland. 

In the 17th century, opera was invented in Italy and soon became popular across all of Europe.  By 1650 Italian operas were being performed in France, German-speaking lands, and other European cultural centers. 

In the 18th century, a "Grand Tour" of continental Europe  became a coming-of-age ritual for many of England's well-to-do young men - a final step, as it were, in their education.  The essential place to visit on this Grand Tour was Italy.  In 1744, the British traveler Charles Thompson described himself as "being impatiently desirous of viewing a country so famous in history, which once gave laws to the world; which is at present the greatest school of music and painting, contains the noblest productions of statuary and architecture, and abounds with cabinets of rarities, and collections of all kinds of antiquities..."

The Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century put an end to the Grand Tour, but afterwards travelers returned to the "country of sunshine and warmth, of folksong and dance, and of landscapes from seaside to mountain" for enjoyment as well as artistic inspiration.  J.M.W Turner made three trips to Venice, and his paintings of "La Serenissima" are among his most expressive and luminous works.  Composers also went south and came back inspired by the folk songs and dance music they found there.  In this post we'll look at three well-known composers who produced works informed by their experiences in Italy: Felix Mendelssohn, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss.

Mendelssohn

The Italian Symphony (Symphony No.4 in A Major) is one of Felix Mendelssohn’s most popular and beloved works, and a masterpiece of romantic music. It captures the essence of Italy with its vivid melodies, rich harmonies, and brilliant orchestration. The symphony was inspired by his tour of Italy in 1830-31, where he was captivated by the color and atmosphere of the country. He wrote to his father that Italy was “the supreme joy in life” and to his sister that the symphony would be “the jolliest piece I have ever done.”  Mendelssohn completed the symphony in Berlin in 1833 in response to an invitation for a symphony from the London (now Royal) Philharmonic Society. The symphony’s success, and Mendelssohn’s popularity, influenced the course of British music for the rest of the century.

The symphony has four movements, each evoking a different aspect of Italy. From its unforgettable opening theme, the first movement is lively and cheerful, reflecting the sunny landscapes of Rome and Naples. The second movement is a slow and solemn march, inspired by a religious procession that Mendelssohn witnessed in Naples. The third movement is a graceful minuet, reminiscent of the elegant art and culture of Florence and Venice. The fourth movement is a fiery and energetic salterello, a folk dance from southern Italy and a "cousin" of  which, the tarentella, made its appearance at numerous weddings of my large extended Italian family, including my own.

Tchaikovsky

Italy had a significant impact on the music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who developed a lifelong passion for Italian music after studying with an Italian singing instructor, Luigi Piccioli, at age 17. Tchaikovsky incorporated Italian folk songs and street music into some of his compositions, such as the Capriccio Italien, which was inspired by his visit to Rome in 1880. While in the Eternal City, he saw the Carnivale in full swing, and soaked up the Italian folk music and street songs. He incorporates them quite freely in the piece and even makes use of a bugle call that he overheard from his hotel played by an Italian cavalry regiment.  The 15-minute Capriccio Italien opens in a somber mood but high spirits kick in (at about the 5 minute mark in the video below) and it’s hard to resist moving to the piece’s infectious rhythmic energy.  

Tchaikovsky composed Souvenir de Florence, a sextet for strings.  More joyful and exuberant than much of his work, the title reflects his fond memories of Florence, Italy, where he had spent some time working on his opera The Queen of Spades and attending the premiere of his ballet The Sleeping Beauty. However, the music does not explicitly evoke Italian themes or styles, but rather showcases Tchaikovsky’s Romantic and Russian influences.  Although influenced greatly by Italian music, Tchaikovsky remained faithful to his Russian roots, and his music blended the elements of both Russian and Italian traditions, creating a unique and expressive musical language.

Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss followed the well-worn trail south to Italy when he went on a tour funded by his father.  Aus Italien (From Italy) is a tone poem for full orchestra composed in 1886. It was inspired by the composer's visit to Italy in the summer of the same year, where he travelled to Rome, Bologna, Naples, Sorrento, Salerno, and Capri.  After his travels, Strauss returned inspired to create his tone poem. Considered his first step in program music (later to come to fruition in works such as  Also sprach Zarathustra), Aus Italien is a symphonic fantasy in four movements.  

About the first movement, ‘Auf der Campagna,’ Strauss said it was his feelings at seeing the Italian countryside in sunshine, as seen from the Villa d’Este at Tivoli. The sun rises and the world is revealed.  The Brahms-like second movement, ‘In Roms Ruinen', takes us to Rome’s past and its relics.  In the third movement, ‘Am Strande von Sorrent’, we have Strauss’ first attempts at musical pictorialism: the leaves move in the wind, the birds sing, and we have the sound of the sea at his feet as he stands on the shore in Sorrento.  Strauss based the fourth movement on what he thought was a ‘Neapolisches Volksleben’ (Neapolitan folk song) but what turned out to be a song written only 6 years earlier by Luigi Denza, Funiculì, funiculà. Denza sued Strauss and won; Strauss had to pay him a royalty for the use of his in-copyright material.  The song celebrated the opening of the funicular railway at Mount Vesuvius and was undoubtedly familiar to my grandparents all of whom were from that region.  And yes, like the tarantella, this song too was played at all our family weddings.

Sources: The Art Story, Student of History, San Francisco Opera, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Interlude, Britannica, Wikipedia, San Francisco Symphony, U Discover Music, Classic Alex Burns,  Andante Moderato, Ilary Rhind Klange (YouTube Channel)

Postscript

Below left is a video of tarantella dancers.  Below right is Luciano Pavarotti singing Funiculì, funiculà.

Art as Resistance

POSTED JANUARY 2, 2024

Artists from around the world have contested tyranny and subjugation for more than two centuries.  From the Napoleonic Wars in Europe to the Spanish Civil War to the U.S. war in Vietnam to the legacy of colonialism in Africa and elsewhere, artists and writers have stood up for the oppressed.  Today, a long-oppressed people is in danger of having its culture erased.  Among the more than 20,000 killed in the Israeli assault on Gaza are poets, writers and artists.   The art community of Gaza, once a vibrant reflection of Palestinian resilience, is now grappling with the loss of voices crucial to its essence.   

Europe

Particularly relevant and eerily prophetic of the situation in Gaza today are two paintings by the great Spanish artists, Francisco Goya and Pablo Picasso - one depicts the indiscriminate killing of civilians in reprisal for a guerilla attack; the other, the bombardment and complete destruction of a village with the vast majority of the victims women and children.

Colonialism

While Goya and Picasso paint atrocities taking place in their homeland, contemporary artists have produced works depicting the colonial experience, one at the heart of  the Palestinian experience since their many years under colonial rule and military occupation.

Yinka Shonibare was born in London and raised in Nigeria. In a lot of his works, you'll see people dressed in these batik fabrics. These are patterns that people have often considered as generally "African."  In fact, it was inspired by designs in Dutch Indonesia, produced in England and then sold back to West African colonized lands. The history of colonialism has often featured false narratives taught to school children for decades.*  In his sculpture "Scramble for Africa" (2003) [below], Shonibare features the batik fabric design to subtly wake us up to some of the things we don't know about colonialism and to challenge some of the things we think we do.

The Canadian Cree artist Kent Monkman turns the often-state-sanctioned massive-nationalist-narrative painting upside down in "The Scoop" (2018) [below]. The colors and the arrangement of figures mimic the huge paintings, but what's actually happeningis the kidnapping of Indigenous children from their parents and their homes to be taken to residential school where they were cut off from their language, culture and families. 

Palestine

"The world has visited many terrible things on the Palestinian people, none more shameful than robbing them of their basic humanity." - Anthony Bourdain

Occupied Palestine is home to one of the most oppressed and marginalized peoples in the world.  [See "The Hundreds' Year War on Palestine" below**.] Struggling for their very existence as individuals and as a people, art has been a vital element of the Palestinian resistance and an instrument to reaffirm their political existence.  From the traditional painters and writers to the young skateboarders and graffiti artists, they have tried to bring the true story of Palestine to the outside world.  It has not been easy.  Today, even in the face of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Western governments and cultural institutions and social media outlets are trying to silence both them and those who support Palestinian human rights.  [See "Silencing Palestine" below***.]

Here are three works depicting life under the Occupation by Palestinian artists Sliman Mansour, Malak Mattar, and Heba Zagout.

Sliman Mansour

Sliman Mansour is a Palestinian painter, sculptor, author and cartoonist.  Born in 1947, Mansour is considered a leading figure among contemporary Palestinian artists.  Much of his work is seen as a cultural commentary of 20th century Palestinian experience and captures the Palestinian concept of sumud, meaning "steadfastness"or "steadfast perseverance".  The concept emerged among the Palestinian people in the wake the 1967 Six-Day War as a consequence of their oppression and the resistance it inspired.  His paintings which have been exhibited around the world reflect the Palestinian struggle and include images of women in Palestinian traditional costumes and Levantine tree-filled landscapes.  Below is his 1976 painting "Confiscation" referring to the illegal taking of Palestinian land by Israel, a theft that continues to this day.  

Malak Mattar 

One of the most prominent Gen Z Palestinian voices in the artworld, Malak Mattar is a painter, illustrator and author of children's books. Born and raised in Gaza, Mattar’s work reflects the everyday realities of those living there. She was first inspired to create art when she was 13-years-old, to release the negative energy, anxiety and terror that she felt during Israel's 2014 assault on Gaza.  Mattar is known for her bold, impactful colors and powerfully expressionist faces.  Below is her "When Family Is The Only Shelter" painted during the 2021 Israeli invasion of Gaza. 

Heba Zagout

Heba Zagout was a visual artist and fine arts educator whose work frequently centered on themes such as women, the homeland, nature, and the profound bond between mothers and children.  She also depicted scenes from the Old City of  occupied East Jerusalem, the revered Al Aqsa mosque, and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.   One of her most beautiful and famous paintings is "Jerusalem Is My City" [below].

In 2021 Heba Zagout created an artwork entitled "Gaza Peace" [below]. Colored in various shades of black, white and gray, the  painting depicts Gaza as a harmonious and peaceful city decorated with dozens of religious shrines, temples, and churches that, despite being densely packed, seem to beautifully coexist. The artist and mother of four "held a profoundly resilient spirit that often manifested in her artwork through symbols of peace and coexistence."  Tragically she did not live to see her dreams of peace fulfilled.  Heba Zagout and her young son were killed in an Israeli bombing raid on October 13.  In one of her last Instagram posts, Zagout wrote, “looking for happy dreams, clinging to life, love, and hope.” 

Below left is a link to GQ Middle East's tribute to Heba Zagout.  Below right is a link to an Al Jazeera program on Palestinian art as a form of resistance.

Sources: Al Jazeera - 1, CBC, The Guardian, TRT World, GQ Middle East - 1, GQ Middle East - 2, Al Jazeera - 2

Notes

*An excellent corrective for the misinformation taught to students in the United States is Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States.  Zinn's ground-braking work focuses on the marginalized and the oppressed as opposed to the elites in power.

**The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: What Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States does for the usual American history narrative here, Rashid Khalidi's The Hundred Years' War on Palestine does for Palestine.  Je'ev Jabotinsky's quote from 1925, “If you wish to colonize a land in which people are already living, you must find a garrison for the land, or find a benefactor who will provide a garrison on your behalf.… Zionism is a colonizing venture and, therefore, it stands or falls on the question of armed forces," summarizes the Palestinian experience in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire since the early 16th century.  This ended after the Turks were defeated in World War I.  Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the establishment of the so-called Palestine Mandate, the British colonial power began implementing its plan of creating a Jewish state on Palestinian land.  As the British - Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has written, "Britain had no moral or political or legal right to promise the land that belonged to the Arabs to another people."   

The Zionist strategy of expelling Palestinians from their land was a slow and deliberate process. According to Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, Zionist leaders and military commanders met regularly from March 1947 to March 1948, when they finalized plans to ethnically cleanse Palestine.  By early 1948, Zionist forces had captured dozens of villages and cities, displacing thousands of Palestinians, even while the British Mandate was still in effect. In many cases, they carried out organized massacres. The message was simple: Palestinians must leave their land or be killed.  In the Nakba ("catastrophe") of 1948, 15,000 Palestinians were killed and three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced to leave their homes. On May 14, 1948, the state of Israel was created and the Palestinians officially became a stateless people.  Palestine has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967, and Gaza ("the world's largest outdoor prison") has been crippled by a brutal land, sea and air blockade since 2007.

***Silencing Palestine: As a genocide proceeds, the Western world not only sits and watches but also silences voices calling for an end to the violence and oppression.

• An award ceremony for the Palestine-born novelist and essayist Adania Shibli is cancelled by the Frankfurt book fair because of “the war started by Hamas”.  Over 600 writers, academics, and publishing professionals protest the cancellation of the event and call for an end to indiscriminate violence in Gaza.

• A day after Pulitzer Prize-winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen signed the open letter condemning Israel's "indiscriminate violence" against Palestinians in Gaza, New York's 92nd Street Y cancelled his scheduled talk there without explanation.

• A cultural center in Berlin has its funding cut and will be shut down after hosting an event from the organization Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East.

• David Velasco, editor of Artforum, a leading art magazine, is fired for signing an open letter calling for “Palestinian liberation and… an end to the killing and harming of all civilians [and] an immediate ceasefire”.

• Social media platforms remove content from, or suspend accounts of, Palestinian activists, journalists and news sites. Instagram adds “Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom” to the bios of Palestinian users. (It later apologizes, claiming a bug in auto-translation.)

• Veteran Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam was co-curating a planned photography exhibition in Germany.  The German Biennale for Contemporary Photography drops him after he posts decrying the violence in Gaza.

The Christmas Story through the eyes of the Grand Masters

POSTED DECEMBER 13, 2023

Renaissance and Baroque painters found the Christmas Story to be a source of inspiration for thousands of paintings.  Born in poverty to a teenage mother in an occupied land, Jesus's infancy gave little hint of the great teacher He would become, the ignominious death He would suffer, and the salvation He would bring to the world by that death.  The Christmas season is, ultimately, one of hope.  For what could give us more hope than the birth of a child - which is, in the words of Carl Sandburg, "God's opinion that the world should go on"*

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.  They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. - Matthew 2:9 - 11

The Adoration of the Magi is a 1619 Baroque painting by the Spanish grand master Diego Velázquez now held in the Museo del Prado. It shows three kings presenting gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh** to the Christ child: Melchior, who kneels in the foreground; Balthazar, who stands behind him wearing a red cape and a lace collar; and Caspar, who appears between the other two.  They represent the three known continents of Jesus' time - Europe, Africa, and Asia. An unidentified young man who stands behind Balthazar is looking on. Kneeling near the Virgin's left shoulder is Saint Joseph. The size and format of the painting indicate that it was made for an altarpiece. 

Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist and impressionist painters in the 19th century as well as modern artists of the 20th century.  His most famous painting, Las Meninas, like the Adoration of the Magi, resides in Museo del Prado in Madrid.

Note: 

*The complete quote by the American poet Carl Sandburg is "A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.”

**Symbolizing three aspects of Christ's future life: gold representing kingship; frankincense, worship; and myrrh, death and mourning. 

Sources: 10 Most Famous Christmas Paintings - Artst, The Christmas Story Told in 10 Old Master Paintings (artnet.com), https://www.artchive.com/artwork/the-cestello-annunciation-sandro-botticelli-c-1489/, https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.432.html, https://www.ranker.com/list/famous-adoration-of-the-magi-in-art-art/reference, The Guardian, the Bible, Wikipedia

Mozart's Serenades

POSTED NOVEMBER 7, 2023

The serenade is a type of chamber music. Typically calm, light pieces of music, serenades were often composed  in honor of someone or something and often performed during the evening and outdoors.  As one musicologist put it, we can think of serenades as "some of the party music for the day: small ensemble music to be played in the background as your guests talked with their drinks in hand." Serenades were particularly popular with composers in the Classical era, and Mozart created thirteen such compositions, several of which remain mainstays of orchestral repertoires to this day.  His works are among the most famous examples of the serenade from the 18th century.  His serenades contain a multiplicity of movements ranging from four to ten and were often purely instrumental pieces, written for special occasions such as those commissioned for wedding ceremonies. 

The most typical ensemble for a serenade was a wind ensemble augmented with basses and violas: instrumentalists who could stand, since the works were often performed outdoors. Frequently the serenades began and ended with movements of a march-like character—since the instrumentalists often had to march to and from the place of performance. 

Among his best-known serenades are the Haffner Serenade (No.7), the "Gran Partita" (No.10), and  "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" (No. 13), one of Mozart's most famous works. In this post we'll examine in some detail Mozart's boundary-pushing Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, “Gran Partita”.  Here are links to performances of the Haffner Serenade and "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik":

Mozart Serenade No. 7 for Orchestra in D major, "Haffner Serenade"

"Eine kleine Nachtmusik", Serenade No. 13 in G major

The Haffner Serenade was composed for the July 1776 wedding of Elisabeth Haffner and Franz Xaver Späth, which joined two of the most powerful Salzburg families. "Eine kleine Nachtmusik", Mozart's last serenade, was published posthumously.  The specific occasion, if any, for which  was composed has never been determined.

Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, “Gran Partita”

The seven movement piece is scored for  two oboes, two clarinets, two basset horns, two bassoons, four horns and a double bass.   Although the choice of these 13 instruments was somewhat unusual, in writing this serenade Mozart was following well-established tradition. During the latter part of the eighteenth century multi-movement works of a predominantly light-hearted, entertaining nature for various combinations of instruments were produced throughout the countries of central Europe. Interchangeably titled “divertimento,” “cassation,” “notturno” or “serenade,”  these works found their origin in the desire for entertaining “background” music for court functions—not as concert works.  With the Serenade in Bb, however, Mozart began to transform works of this genre into genuine concert pieces, albeit ones in which the “outdoor” origin of the musical style remains clearly visible.

Michael Votta's program note at the UM Wind Orchetra website summarizes the work nicely: "After an opening sonata-form movement, the remaining six movements comprise pairs of slow movements, minuets and finales.  One member of each pair tends to show Mozart at his most elegant and compositionally sophisticated while the other tends toward rollicking dance music* more reminiscent of a 'town band” than of the Emperor’s elegant Harmonie**." He notes that the Serenade in B-flat is "a work that truly bridges the gulf between garden party and concert music."

Despite the standing which Mozart’s works occupy in the concert repertoire, the genesis of some of his greatest compositions— including this serenade — remain shrouded in mystery.  Almost no other work of Mozart has been the subject of so many contradictory theories concerning the history of its composition, as the Gran Partita.  It's been thought to be composed, variously, around 1780 for a concert in Munich, in Vienna around end of 1783 or early 1784, and for the occasion of his own wedding in 1782.

Whatever its origin, it is a beautiful piece of music [link below left] that pushed the boundaries of the traditional Harmonie ensemble of Austrian nobility from five, six, or eight musicians to thirteen. [link below right]

*I'm not sure what passed for "rollicking dance music" in the late 18th century but there are definite differences in style among the movements in this beautiful work.  

**Harmonie is a German word that, in the context of the history of music, designates an ensemble of wind instruments (usually about five to eight players) employed by an aristocratic patron, particularly during the Classical era of the 18th century. The Harmonie would be employed for outdoor or recreational music, or as a wind section of an orchestra.

Sources: Interlude, Lumen Learning, UM Wind Orchestra, Sarasota Orchestra, Britannica, Wikipedia

The Greatest Novels Ever Written: Three Lists

POSTED OCTOBER 22, 2023

What makes for a great novel? Among the elements that literature experts tell us "make a novel great" are a compelling story that engages the reader, a good setting that creates a sense of place and time, complex issues that are dealt with in an intelligent way, and diverse and developed characters that have realistic motivations and conflicts.  

For me, a variant on the last element is especially important.  To enjoy a novel or a film or a play or a TV series, I need characters who engage my emotions and with whom I can empathize.   Now, I know that "enjoying" does not make a book "great", but if a work of fiction doesn't have characters that engage you, why bother spending 2, 6, 8, or 10 hours of your life reading or viewing it?

Below are links to three lists of the greatest novels.  The variety of the selections is stunning, and just two novels were in the top dozen on all three lists - One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Several were in the top dozen on two of the three lists: To Kill a Mockingbird, Jane Eyre, and Don Quixote.  Interestingly, the top selection on each list does not even appear in the top dozen of the other lists (Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice, In Search of Lost Time).

Smarter, kinder, calmer: why we should read every day (May 12, 2021) 

Magical Realism: Gabriel García Márquez' "One Hundred Years of Solitude" (April 6, 2020)

A 'very premature' 21st century literary canon and PBS viewers choose America's favorite novel  (October 23, 2018)

Mozart's Operas

POSTED OCTOBER 5, 2023

Developing from traditions of staged sung music and drama dating back to the Middle Ages, opera was "born" in Italy around the year 1600.  By the end of the Baroque era (1750), opera had taken all of  Europe by storm "and was a spectacular, expensive affair full of florid arias and ornate stage sets with moving parts".  In other words, much like opera today.

A Night at the Opera - June 29, 2019

The Art of Picasso: Picasso and the Mediterranean

POSTED SEPTEMBER 4, 2023

After World War II, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) returned to his beloved Mediterranean coast from Paris.  In September 1946, he was invited by the curator of the Château Grimaldi - Musée d'Antibes to stay and set up his studio in one of the rooms of the château. He painted some twenty works there, evoking Mediterranean themes, which form part of the museum's collection, now dedicated to Picasso.  Spending his summers on the Mediterranean coast since his arrival in France, Picasso had settled there and had become interested in pottery and ceramics, while continuing to paint, inspired by the landscape and ancient culture that surrounded him.

Speaking about the exhibition "Picasso - The Mediterranean Years", his British-born biographer, John Richardson said, "In a way most of Picasso's life was a Mediterranean period. He was born in Malaga in Spain and from 1918 took a house in Antibes or nearby every summer.  His big stylistic discoveries were almost all made in the south. After three of four months he'd go back to Paris and work on what he'd discovered."  

The "Mediterranean Years" exhibition featured 150 works created by Picasso from 1945 to 1962.  Unfortunately for the exhibit, that excluded his most famous Mediterranean work, Night Fishing at Antibes (below left).  

Picasso was inspired to paint this dream-like scene after observing fisherman in Antibes using acetylene lamps at night to lure fish.  The central figure is a large-headed man spear-fishing off the coast of Antibes.  Two young women to the right of the painting - one on a bicycle enjoying an ice cream -  are watching the action while another fisherman is peering over the side of the boat into the water trying, unsuccessfully it seems, to catch a fish with a line attached to his foot.  The large areas of black contrast with the brighter highlighted fishing scene.

The scale of the painting (nearly 7 ft high and more than 11 ft long) has suggested to some that this is more than just an idyllic beach tableau from an August night in 1939.  The interspersion of black throughout the scene, the almost ritualistic killing of the fish, and the strange moon (?) that may or may not be an ancient symbol of death have suggested to some that the painting reflects the rising political tensions just prior to the outbreak of World War II or perhaps the outcome of the Spanish Civil War.  If so, Night  Fishing at Antibes is nowhere near as directly stated as his more famous Guernica, which was painted two years earlier during the Spanish Civil War. 

Perhaps Night Fishing is just an idyllic summer beach scene.  Or perhaps it is one with a foreboding that this enjoyable personal time will not last.  One of the great things about non-representational art is that it is so open to personal interpretation. 

Although several of his works from the post war period reflect his concerns with war and peace (notably his Peace Doves from the late 40s thru the early 60s) and Massacre in Korea from 1951), most often his sketches and paintings reflected his personal life.  His Portrait of Françoise from 1946 below right is one of the most lyrical of portraits of Françoise Gilot, his partner and muse for nearly a decade and the mother of two of his four children.  Françoise, who died earlier this year at age 101, was an artist in her own right and was the only woman to end her relationship with Picasso.  Unlike his two wives and other mistresses, Françoise Gilot rebuilt her life after she ended the relationship in 1953, almost a decade after it had begun despite an age difference of 40 years. She continued painting and exhibiting her work and wrote books. Her 1964 memoir Life with Picasso was an international best seller.  In 1970, she married Jonas Salk, the American medical researcher who developed the first safe polio vaccine, and lived part of the time in California.  

We'll close this post with Picasso's smallest and largest creations, both from the post-war Mediterranean years.

As he was beginning his ceramics work, Picasso looked to ordinary objects as a ground for his creative experiments.  Engraved pebbles, picked on the beaches of Golfe Juan and Antibes, began to appear in his works.  Below left is a 1949 photograph of Pebble Sculpture,  an etching that Picasso made on a pebble in 1946.  

Below right is Picasso's monumental mural The Fall of Icarus.  Commissioned by UNESCO in 1957 to decorate its Paris headquarters and completed by Picasso in 1958, the mural is immense in size, measuring nearly 100 square meters and comprising 40 wooden panels painted in acrylic. It depicts a beach scene that features several figures. On the center left, a figure is shown to be falling from the sky towards the blue ocean.  The image has been interpreted in various ways, such as a possible depiction of the struggle between good and evil and as a reference to the mythological theme of the fall of Icarus.  Picasso himself maintained that the mural is simply a scene of people bathing.

Sources: Musée Picasso Paris, BBC, Wikipedia, Pablo Ruiz Picasso.net

Mozart and the Symphony

POSTED AUGUST 10, 2023

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) composed 41 symphonies* during his short lifetime.  He wrote his first (Symphony No. 1 in E flat major) when he was about 9 years old.  His last, the magnificent "Jupiter" symphony (Symphony No. 41 in C major), was completed three years before his death and is considered to be one of the greatest ever written.  In the interim, Mozart defined the symphony as we know it today and opened the door to the Romantic era of classical music.  

Bob Dylan: from Bob Dylan to Another Side of Bob Dylan 

POSTED JUNE 2, 2023

Nobel Prize Laureate Bob Dylan turned 82 on May 24.  Over the 60 plus years of his career, Dylan has written more than 500 songs, which have been recorded by more than 2000 artists.   Like troubadours of old, he has been bringing his music and songs to the people - performing (so far) 3,900 concerts for audiences around the world.   I've been to several of these concerts, and you don't go to these performances for his singing talent or for his audience interaction.  You go for the artistry embodied in his lyrics.

Britannica Encyclopedia notes that Dylan has been hailed as the "Shakespeare of his generation" and that he "set the standard for lyric-writing", and the Nobel Committee's 2016 Award Citation praises him for "having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition."

In early days, besides going to his concerts for the marvelous lyrics - it was like hearing a poem read by the poet who wrote it - you also went to hear his mastery and adaptation of the folk music form, his message of social change and his antiwar sentiments, and to be among fellow travelers in the turbulent 1960's.  Bob Dylan's early albums spoke to me and were part of my coming of age.  Here is a personal look (and look back) at them.