music

Glenn Gould’s Inner Life

Posted in art, music on April 20th, 2011 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

We’ve just seen a great documentary with the unfortunate title, “Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould”.

Documentaries are dependent on subject. The Civil War documentary by Ken Burns was his best because of the wonderful letters and photographs. Burns has never matched that fine piece.

Gould, some kind of genius, was a riveting subject. Photogenic — you would cast him as the eccentric, poetic soul, too fine grained for this world — an articulate, wonderfully talented individual; the man was a Seeker. Gould lived music, inhaled it, inhabited it when he played. He is renowned for clarity and extraordinary technique. His deep psychic connection to the great architect of music, the genius Bach, makes complete sense — they are so opposite in their tendencies.

Watching Gould perform is like watching a sentient spider delicately crafting a web. He sat on a low chair, an artifact his childhood — and partly because he had a back injury as a child. This enhances the sensation of watching a magician at work as he chants along with the music. He invests the music and loses all sense of self. The noted “oddness,” he wore gloves to protect his hands and an overcoat even in warm weather, weren’t affectations, although later he saw the utility of such eccentricity for an audience more drawn to surface than substance. It would draw them to him. In England he would simply be called an eccentric without disparagement but in consensus America he stood out.

Gould’s inner struggle seemed to me a battle between the performer and the artist within. Performers need an audience; they need the feedback and the applause. It is at root a shallow relationship. But the artist works alone and digs deep, trying to reach that deeper self that he might touch the audience at some primal human level. Gould finally surrendered to the artist in himself, worked in the studio, not publicly performing, but instead leading the way to electronic renditions. The problem is that he was a performer. He was riveting to watch, in his confidence and ecstatic trance; there was no way he could improve the improvisational fascination of his performances with a perfection of sound.

It was such a wonderfully done documentary. Beautifully integrating photos and video and incredible music. There is a real sense of the human being, Glenn Gould, communicated in this film by these empathetic filmmakers.

The Meeting Place of the Dylans

Posted in art, music, writers-poetry on November 24th, 2010 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

Creative work often strays so far from its source material that it sometimes is interesting to revisit the original inspiration.

This site notes the White Horse Tavern was the source of “Those Were the Days,” a beautiful, wistful song. The tavern was a meeting place for Allen Ginsberg, Jim Morrison, James Baldwin, both great “Dylans,” Bob and Dylan Thomas; Dylan Thomas’ given name was taken as honorific by Bob Zimmerman .

Creative work mixes “reality,” whatever that is, with the temperament (“Art is life filtered through a temperament.” —Zola) with the evanescent grasp of memory.

ornament2

Wikipedia quotes Dylan Thomas,

I should say I wanted to write poetry in the beginning because I had fallen in love with words. The first poems I knew were nursery rhymes and before I could read them for myself I had come to love the words of them. The words alone. What the words stood for was of a very secondary importance. [...] I fell in love, that is the only expression I can think of, at once, and am still at the mercy of words, though sometimes now, knowing a little of their behavior very well, I think I can influence them slightly and have even learned to beat them now and then, which they appear to enjoy. I tumbled for words at once. And, when I began to read the nursery rhymes for myself, and, later, to read other verses and ballads, I knew that I had discovered the most important things, to me, that could be ever.

It’s funny how profound those early encounters with the medium are for artists. I remember how I loved cartoons in the newspaper when I was young. I also remember, like Dylan Thomas, my reaction was purely aesthetic. I would study the lines and forms in cartoons with an infatuation that had nothing to do with content. I knew something was different in my reaction from that of my friends, for whom it was just a good laugh — although I had no idea why I felt that way. The pure sensual beauty of the lines and the magic of the suggestive images enthralled.

Wiki also notes that a monument to Dylan Thomas has an inscription from his work:

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

“Though I sang in my chains like the sea.” Fantastic.

Abayudaya

Posted in books, jewish-israel, music on January 4th, 2010 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

The moving tale of the Ugandan Jews, called the Abayudaya, is described by photojournalist Richard Sobol:

For four generations the Abayudaya Jewish Community in Eastern Uganda has survived despite numerous hardships. Living in virtual isolation until the early 1990′s these struggling subsistence farmers have observed Jewish customs and celebrated the Sabbath and Festivals of the Jewish calendar together as families. Guided by their faith in the Jewish Laws of the Torah, they pray together in mud huts designated as synagogues and chant Hebrew prayers to an Afro beat. Spread out over many miles, the 600 members of this community have held on to their beliefs through civil wars and periods of religious intolerance. Although their faith has at times added to their economic perils, they affirm the power of religion each day, in a life filled with dignity and grace.

uganda_image05.jpg

(Image © Richard Sobol and used with permission. All rights reserved.)

Richard’s photos are luminous with the human spirit.

≡≡≡≡≡≡

Richard’s site, with some of his photos.

Richard’s book, Abayudaya: The Jews of Uganda.

This wiki entry tells the remarkable tale.

The centerpiece, and not to be missed: You can hear the Abayudaya’s music here. The music reminds me of Paul Simon’s work with South African musicians. The Abayudaya’s music is sweeter, lighter, and more resonant.

≡≡≡≡≡≡

Tangentially related, but of great interest, is this bhtv online discussion about faith and its relation to science. Nick Wade, NYT science reporter, is enormously informative.

Paris Metro Mozart

Posted in art, music on August 5th, 2009 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

The Paris Metro hosts Mozart’s Divertimento in D Major.

A ray of joy in the summer doldrums.

Pandora Rethink

Posted in music on January 26th, 2009 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

Pandora.com seemed, when we first started listening, something of a gimmick with the music DNA stuff (their trendy denotation), which we then abandoned for Deezer.com. Deezer lets you choose particular works for playlists.

But on a recent tryout: Pandora has come of age. I don’t know if they have simply filled out their library — I think I heard they came to an agreement with the record labels — or their DNA has become more robustious — but it’s better; the pleasure of listening to a type music you like and having a Quickmix of several genres makes Pandora something we want to listen to all the time. It even fulfills the promise of finding music you might not have come across otherwise. Deezer has, somewhat less successfully, attempted to copy the idea.

Rodrigo and Gabriela

Posted in music on May 14th, 2008 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

We stumbled on a late night video of Rodrigo and Gabriela and watched the whole thing. Usually the special effects and abrupt editing wear off in music videos, but the two had a charismatic presence. Not to mention that the music is just great.

Rodrigo and Gabriela describe their style as ‘Fusion music’: “It’s mainly got Latin harmonies and rhythms but the structure is rock. It’s not jazz because it’s structured, and we don’t improvise; our solos are exactly what’s on the record…”

This isn’t the video I saw, but it gives you an idea of their expressive, trance ecstatic presence onstage — united in the driving energy, but contained, alone, surfing the flow of the music:

Unlike many paired musicians, they seem perfectly balanced, unique but equal contributors, in what they bring to the dramatic sound.

≡≡≡≡≡≡

Here’s another performance, of Diablo Rojo, in Europe, with an appreciative audience.

Gogol Bordello

Posted in music on March 4th, 2008 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

Gogol Bordello is the world’s greatest band. They live up to their origins as a house and party band, but they are more than that. They call themselves a Gypsy punk band, but their style overflows into an energy that reminds you of Klezmer and the ecstatic traditions going back to the Beginning. Here is a selection. It makes you smile with delight.

free music

Deezer

Posted in music on September 23rd, 2007 by Ira Altschiller – Comments Off

Pandora.com, the online radio site, never quite got it right because of the restrictions placed on it by the music companies. If you wanted to hear a steady diet of Tom Waits you would get one Tom Waits song and others they felt were related. Pandora fancied it up: it was a “music genome project”. But you wanted Waits, not an intern’s judgment of what other things you would like.

Now a French company has done it — they negotiated an ad sharing deal with the music consortiums. Deezer is a site you can search for, say, Tom Waits, and get a long list that plays all…Tom Waits.

The library at present is not as large as you might like, but the idea is great, and despite a few glitches when setting up playlists (you have to register), deezer is very well implemented.

Here is a sample playlist:

free music

First Sarkozy, now deezer.com — La France may be finding its way.