Chilly Dovebber with his boadig blast Dow cubs add stribs the bedow add the lawd, Eved October's suddy days are bast— And Subber's gawd!
I kdow dot what it is to which I cligg, That stirs to sogg and sorrow, yet I trust That still I sigg, but as the liddets sigg— Because I bust.
Add now, farewell to roses add to birds, To laded fields and tigkligg streablets eke; Farewell to all articulated words I fain would speak.
Farewell, by cherished strolliggs od the sward, Greed glades and forest shades, farewell to you; With sorrowing heart I, wretched add forlord, Bid you—achew!!!
((from *The Penguin Book of Nonsense Verse*, Quentin Blake, ed., 1995)
MELANCHOLY DAYS
Chilly November with his moaning blast Now comes and strips the meadow and the lawn; Even October's sunny days are past— And summer's gone!
I know not what it is to which I cling, That stirs to song and sorrow, yet I trust That still I sing, but as the linnets sing— Because I must.
And now, farewell to roses and to birds, To laden fields and tinkling streamlets eke; Farewell to all articulated words I fain would speak.
Farewell, my cherished strollings on the sward, Green glades and forest shades, farewell to you; With sorrowing heart I, wretched and forlorn, Bid you—adieu!
Henry David Thoreau, while barely catapulting out of his own 20's, was nevertheless ready to dispense valuable advice on creativity and the energy necessary to sustain a life of purposeful alertness. Here he is speaking on mornings.
"The most memorable season of the day, the awakening hour.
For an hour, at least, some part of us awakes which slumbers all the rest of the day and night.
Be awakened by our Genius, not by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor.
Be awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, not factory bells.
Be awakened to a higher life than we fell asleep from; and thus the darkness bear its fruit, and prove itself to be good, no less than the light."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I love these quotes. And largely, I love mornings. Though, in those funny creative collisions and collusions so common to early parenthood--timeless days, endless nights--one December, I found myself reading Henry David Thoreau's Walden over my infant's sleepy head. You may imagine I got a bit of a kick out of the statement on mornings that Thoreau makes above. And still today, on this "shortest day of the year", I curse at my 'nudging mechanical servitor' and solemnly swear that my rescue dog--the newest "baby" to interfere with my sleep--must be by tautology, logic, and luck, my personal genius. Now if only I could teach him to use a pencil....
My first memory of the alphabet is seeing the letters—they
were about the size of a mug—printed on one of those long pieces of posterboard
that is meant to rest above the blackboard. I think there were apples and worms
next to the letters, and the worms may have even had glasses. What fascinated
me were the shapes of the letters, especially those that had tails facing this
way or that. And I can’t forget the serious, attentive looking capitals standing
next to the miniscules so that the whole picture looked like a silhouette of
the Alps or a train of parents and children waiting outside a store the morning
after Thanksgiving.
I’ve always wanted to write an
abecedarian, to use the structure of my favorite mountain range to order my
thoughts in the way those giants Czeslaw Milosz and Ezra Pound once did, but I
could never decide on what would be worth sharing. The last year or so as I’ve
been happily answering the smart, probing questions of interviewers, I’ve been
anxiously hoping no one would ask the dreaded question: “Who are your
influences?” It would be like a geneticist walking up to someone on the street
and saying,
“Here’s a pencil and paper. Now sketch your genome.” It would be
impossible to remember every distant cousin and great-great grandparent on
someone’s side twice removed, much less to whom you owe your odd-shaped toes or
your long eyelashs. The same is true for literary influence. What’s more, I
object to a literary family being shaped like a tree because it implies that
Homer or the writer of Gilgamesh is the old, hidden root to our twigs when
nothing could be further from the truth because I just saw Homer in a
bookstore; he was lounging on a whole shelf in fact, and looked as vibrant and
full of fire as any debut author.
What follows is an attempt to head
off that question of forebears. Some purists will see my alphabet as messy or
even sacrilegious since I’ve opened the doors and let in the digraphs, those
crazy uncles that never get invited to family reunions. If I made this list
tomorrow, it would surely be different. Happily so, indeed.
a – Anna Akhmatova
b – Elizabeth Bishop
c – Amy Clampitt
ch – Charles M. Schultz
d – Annie Dillard
e – Ralph Waldo Emerson
f – Flannery O’Connor
ph – Philip Levine
g – Gerald Stern
h – Seamus Heaney
i – Isaac Babel
j – Jorie Graham
k – Franz Kafka
l – Stan Lee
m – Czeslaw Milosz
mc – Cormac McCarthy
n – Pablo Neruda
o – Sharon Olds
p – “Papa” Hemingway
q – David Quammen
r – Robert Frost
s – Mark Strand
sh – Sam Shepard
t – Leo Tolstoy
th – Henry David Thoreau
u – Du Fu
v – Vasko Popa
w – William Carlos Williams
wh – Walt Whitman
x – is for the anonymous author of “Tom O’Bedlam”
y – W.B. Yeats
z – Zbigniew Herbert
& – is for Jack Gilbert who is not last but first on my
list when I start over tomorrow.
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Dear Howard:one shd. Never
attempt FLAN in an unfamiliar and very bad oven – so forgive me if
these are full of the unforgivable holes .. .I do hope you’re feeling
better – Much love -
-- Undated note from Elizabeth Bishop to Howard Moss
Have you ever made flan?I have, many times. Flan is a light custard dessert that
makes a great finish to a heavy meal. Flan isn’t difficult to assemble -- there
aren’t many
ingredients (at its most basic, there’s milk, sugar, and eggs) and the
method
is straightforward -- but a lot can go wrong in the baking.If you leave it in the oven for too long or if the temperature is off its mark, the
mixture can end up resembling scrambled eggs.If you take it out of the oven too soon, you’ll have an unappealing
puddle of soup.I’m not sure of what
could have caused the holes in the version Bishop delivered to Moss, her friend andeditor at The New Yorker, but given her
characteristic modesty, I have a feeling that Moss was quite happy with his get-well
gift.
Through the magic weirdness that is Facebook, I caught this update on
poet Gabriel Gudding’s page: “Gabriel received the flan
and warm smiles and t-shirt from Didi just now on the porch in the marmalade
light and snow.”Now there’s a lovely line, yes?Bishop's spirit lives on in more than her writing! The Didi Gabe refers to is poet Didi Menendez, editor of
MiPoesias, Ocho, and Oranges and Sardines. She and Gabe are neighbors. Lucky him.
Didi
was happy to pass along her recipe (below the jump), but
notes that credit goes “to an aunt of a cousin I visited in 1979 in
Naples Florida
although the almond extract part is my version and not part of the
original
recipe. Also the cheese variation comes from my mother Salome and I am
not sure
where she picked it up -- possibly on a bus on her way to work or back
from
working in the factory when we were kids.” Didi's recipe is my
favorite kind - it assumes that the cook has a certain amount of
comfort and experience in the kitchen. It's the kind of recipe
exchanged between friends and family who know each others' habits.
It was August and I was on my way to the Bread Loaf Writers’
Conference for the first time. For some reason I don’t remember (bad weather, a
loose screw), my plane from La Guardia to Vermont was grounded and I would have
to stay the night in Flushing. While I was disappointed I was going to miss the
C.K. Williams reading that night, what really bummed me out was the thought that
the other writers also accepted as scholars would have their meet and greet,
bond, and I would be the odd man out. It had been years since I had last been
part of a community of writers so I had wanted to make a good impression in the
hope that I would leave Vermont with two or three new friendships.
When
I arrived the next day, I was relieved to learn that the scholars had not met
yet. As we went around the room and introduced ourselves, I remember thinking
how they seemed very down to earth and not intimidating at all as I had thought
writers as accomplished as they were (some of them already had books!) might
be. I can’t remember if it was then or the next day but at some point we
decided that we should have at least one meal together. After that meal,
everywhere I went I saw clusters of us sitting together at readings or lounging
at the barn or eating breakfast. Something special had happened that first time
we broke bread. That new bond we had with each other was cemented during the
scholar reading when we all read some of our work in the Little Theater to the
Bread Loaf community. Sasha West, the last of our group to read, captured the
magic of that night best when she took the podium and said, “I just fell in
love hard, 14 times.”
One
afternoon when a bunch of us were sitting around a picnic table we did what
writers do and had a sublime moment of silliness when we decided we didn’t want
to be called by the bland, generic name Scholars anymore. I can’t remember what
other names were suggested, but Voltron is the one that stuck. Being children
of the 80s, most of us had grown up with the cartoon series, Voltron: Defender of the Universe. In
each episode young pilots flying planes shaped like lions would battle evil.
Whenever a fight was about to overwhelm them individually, all of the vehicles
would join together to form a giant robot.
Before long, the Bread Loaf
community started seeing weird signs with VOLTRON!!!! printed on them popping
up all over the place.
While few people knew what any of this meant, we didn’t
care. We were Voltron and that was that. Even though we haven’t all been
reunited since that wonderful summer three years ago, I’ve leaned on my Voltron
brothers and sisters more times than I can count. I had hoped to leave Bread
Loaf with a few friends and instead found a family in my fellow Voltroids James
Arthur, Kara Candito, Eduardo C. Corral, Heidi Durrow, Alan Heathcock, Dave
Lucas, Marie Mockett, Celeste Ng, Elena Passarello, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Jim
Ruland, Hasanthika Sirisena, and Sasha West.
If you see me in church this weekend, I’ll be crying.
Wait. Scratch that.
I’ll be weeping.
Hmm. No. That’s not right either.
Try: Sobbing. Bawling. Engaging in a back-pew sort of break-down best reserved for funerals (and only really, really, really tragic ones at that).
I know. It totally doesn’t make sense. In the fairy tale of Holy Week, Easter’s the happy ending. It’s the Resurrection! It’s death undone! It’s every promise rendered right! It’s bunnies and chocolate! Jesus, Jill. Jill—it’s Jesus!
AND YET: The minute that stone is rolled away I lose my shit. Crude, but there’s no other way to put it.
Easter fucks me up.*
A digression, not particularly brief. Indulge, please:
Indomitable faith isn’t my strong suit. I’m pretty good at misgiving; doubt’s my specialty. Trust? A habit I’ve unlearned. My conviction is never convinced and what assurance I do have is never, but never blessèd. Therefore my belief in God comes and goes in the manner of a city train: it chugs from Skepticism as if it were a northern suburb and it runs all the way down to Denial, an outlying town at the end of the line. And while I do indeed disembark at Spirituality Central Station often enough to know which tram will get me to the cathedral without having to look it up in a Frommer’s, at some point I get back on the train. It’s inevitable. To do otherwise would to not be Jill. This is part of the problem.
But even in doubt, I have always prayed. I pray, in fact, in the manner that Sugar advises us to write which is like a motherfucker. I pray like Shaft prays. Eat your heart out, Roundtree. Can you dig it? I pray aloud. I pray loudly. I pray all day long, though my self-appointed hour is five am. I take a pre-dawn walk and speak to the sky. God’s come to expect me at that time.
(Lest you find me too virtuous for my vestments, I ought to confess it took months for me to train myself to pray for other people beyond ‘andgodpleaseblesssoandsoamen.’ Mostly when I pray I’m thrice a singer’s third syllable solfège: Mi, mi, mi. Not so proud, not so pious.)
But I pray. Boldly. Like how Luther says to sin. I’m not very nice about it. I’m adamant. My most-prayed prayer? What Jacob told the angel. I will not let you go until you bless me. To which I add: And then, I still won’t let you go. To which I also add: Dammit.
And so I doubt. And so I pray. I’m ok with that. I don’t think it’s so unusual. I’m not the only one of us who walks and chews gum at the same time. This is a tension I’ve held for years. Tension, you know, is sometimes called for. A guy-wire must be taut to be of any stabilizing use. And what this tensity has taught me is that slackening isn’t always safe. I’m tempted to retell the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, but I won’t. Except to say: Bridegroom awaits. Better watch out, not cry, not pout. Here come da judge. Here come da judge.
It’s not the doubt, then, that ramrods me at Easter exactly.
It’s Easter’s premise.
You wanna get to Heaven? Baby, you gots to die.
I don't believe in death. In the manner of a home owner association president who doesn’t support retail zoning. “I don’t believe in having a Stop-n-Go so close to our school! The children will buy Red Bull and Slim Jims and ruin their suppers!” she might say. Likewise, me. I don’t believe in death anywhere at all. I don’t sustain it, I didn’t vote for it, I didn’t second the motion, canvas the neighborhood, or circulate a petition. No one should ever have to die is I what I think. I reserve the right to think. I feel this deeply, more profoundly than I will ever be able to articulate. Slim Jims, Red Bulls, Slurpees and scratch-off lotto tickets my ass. Take your caskets and your headstones and your lilies and that weird green Astroturf stuff they roll out over by the gravesite so the folding chairs won’t wobble so much and shove those into the subdivision’s clubhouse. I’m going swimming.
But on the third day, according to the scriptures, He rose again.
Hmm.
Let’s think about that.
Nevermind the water, the wine, the walking on the sea, the stilling of the tempest, the healings, the feeding of the thousands from what amounted to a few grocery bags of Lunchables—THIS is the miracle. THIS is the big show. THIS is the magic a-happenin’. We’re in David Blaine territory now. It’s only been Doug Henning to this point.
Several months ago (and I will keep this brief) I was seized with a particular terror that was manifesting (sorry, is manifesting) as atheism. The panic is physical—physics, actually and entirely—and not existential, and it constellates around infinity and the tangible something that nothing is (like, when you take everything away—what’s that?). I’m not the only poet who has wondered where time goes when it’s over or if God is God, then who made Him? This isn’t unique to me. But it’s the center point in a very menacing wheel of ache in perpetual spin. And so I think often (too often) about these horrors. If I ever go truly mad, it will be from pondering this. I promise you.
Because I don’t get it.
Therefore when Jesus jumps out of his Hobbit hole and yells ‘Surprise!’ all I can do is make like a wail and blubber.
Because I don’t get that, either.
And you kind of need to be on board (at least a little bit) with the whole resurrection scenario in order to be a Christian.
I want an answer. I always want an answer. Not a figurative answer. A literal one. A flesh and bone answer. A wrap my arms around it answer. I want my parents back. My dead friends. Other family I’ve lost. The people I’ve yet to lose.
Where did you go, Jesus, I'm dying (ha!) to ask. How did you return? Did it hurt getting stuffed back into your body? Do you remember what happened in between those two events? Where is everyone else? Do they want to come back? Where you gonna put everyone? What happens if someone’s body got burned? Whose do they get? Why do you have to die to live forever?
Yup, I will cry in church. I will weep for fear and the fact of all my failures. What I have done and what, as the order of confession reads, I have left undone (which is much and much). I will cry because when someone says The Lord is risen I will reply He is risen…perhaps?, and that’s not the answer you’re supposed to give. I cry over orphans and widows. How it’s indulgent to be so vexed when there are those in the world with traumas more dire than this. I’ll cry because I wasn’t there when Jesus came back but Thomas was and even he doubted. That ain’t right. Because I’m 40, and everything I should know better than, I don’t. Because the only thing that comforts me is God. But we’ve reached an impasse, us. Because I feel safer in the dark than I do in the light and there’s something very wrong with that. I’ll cry because when Mary gets to the tomb she mistakes the risen Christ for the gardener, a detail that’s always bothered me—is Jesus pulling a fast one? That's not nice. I’ll cry because I’m noisy and slobbish and hypersexed and a hypochondriac. Because grey areas are lost on me. I’ll cry because I’m worried that my Easter dress makes my ass look fat and then I’ll cry because I am a vain, vain woman. Because I’m tired. And I always bite off more than I can chew. Because I want you to like me. I want God to like me. Because I want God to be. That’s my new most often supplication: Be there. As if the absence of God has ears. Because fuck this shit about Christ giving us our bodies back—don’t take them from us in the first place. I’ll weep because Easter Vigil is a beautiful service and I carry my emotions just under the skin. Because I hide nothing. Because I can’t. I’ll cry for the impossible mechanics of a resurrection and the terrible physics of infinity.
And the dead. I'll cry for the dead. The dead. The dead. The goddamned dead. Or is it the godblessed dead? Which is it, Lord? Tell me. You tell me now which it is. I will not let you go until you tell me which it is.
And even then…
Dammit.
* I actually gave up the f-word (saying it) for Lent. Or, tried to. I've found, however, that as Easter nears and I get more tweaked about this stuff... well, I get more tweaked. There's no other way to put it. Easter fucks me up.
The day before I was to have my teeth cleaned, I was telling
my wife over the phone how the dentist’s office had said I would be free at
10:00 from their chamber of hooks and mouth vacuums and that ugly, cycloptic
light with the orange bulb they crane over you. Because it sounded like I was
saying 8:10 instead of “at 10:00,” what began as an ordinary comment quickly
turned into a back and forth worthy of my beloved Abbott and Costello.
I
don’t recall mumbling my way through high school or college, though I was soft
spoken, as friends have reminded me. What happened to my voice, I don’t know.
There are times when my speech has been so garbled, I’ve had to apologize and
excuse myself from the phone so I could lick my lips, clear my throat, or open
and close my mouth to loosen the muscles of my face as if I were doing some
kind of demented mouth yoga, anything to try and improve my annunciation so
that I didn’t sound like Boomhauer from King
of the Hill, a character whom I love and, not surprising, have no trouble
understanding.
The
paradox of my mumbling is that when I read a poem out loud, I’ve been told my
words go from being heavy and thick to a soft, crisp baritone. When this
happens, I think I must be engaging more of my body in the act of speaking. My
posture is better. I probably inhale more air and project. I open my lips wider
and wrap them more firmly around each vowel. Performing a poem is almost akin
to entering the Matrix, a place where I’m a better version of myself, minus the
tacky trench coat.
Whenever strangers compliment me
after a reading, I have always assumed they were being kind because to my ear
there’s little difference between my speaking and reading voices. One kind
gentleman went so far as to joke that if the poetry thing didn’t work out,
there was always radio where I could become the voice of America.
“The voice of America” has a nice
ring to it, though I don’t think she would want me to speak for her because
there’s no telling what I might say about how she treats her tired and poor
huddled from sea to shining sea. Worse yet, I might become a voice of “reason”
for the left like Beck or Limbaugh are for the right. If that happened I would
no doubt have nightmares in which my fellow soft baritones like Nat King Cole
and Keanu Reeves would reproach me for misusing my instrument.
It’s better not to anger Neo or the
King. Better to keep my feet on the ground and out of my mouth and instead
write poems about dentists or cartoons or yoga in the hope that centuries from
now my voice might be one of a thousand in a dusty library whispering from the
page about the truth, which never hurt anyone or led people astray, unlike the
Truth that continues to bring nations of innocents to their knees.
The composer Lewis Saul was prompted to write to us about the current movie release "A Late Quartet" and his reaction to the trailer. Lewis had earlier written about the Beethoven String Quartet in C Minor, the subject of the film and one of his most beloved pieces of music.
December 17, 2012:
I have not yet seen the entire film. Watching this trailer, I wonder how
many of you -- trained musicians or not -- can tell that the actors are
"faking" it? Does it bother you?
Obviously, good directors do everything they can to "shield" the
audience from seeing this sort of thing -- but as a musician, and IN
PARTICULAR -- as someone who considers this marvelous piece of music to
be one of the most sublime compositions ever created by human spirit, I
am hoping it won't ruin any part of the film for me!
With that in mind, I thought folks who have already seen the film might
enjoy reading my post on this unbelievably potent and heavenly work. Or
read my post, then go see the film.
I still cannot believe they made a movie about the Great Opus 131, and I can't wait to see it. Soap opera and everything."
Here's Lewis's original post from July 12, 2010: Op. 131:
The Seven Most Meaningful Compositions That I Will Love Forever -- II. BEETHOVEN: String Quartet in C# Minor, Op. 131 (1825)
It was forty years ago today ...
No, that can't be right -- it just sounded nice! But it was like 39 or so -- and it was Paris -- a Montparnasse cafe in fact and it was raining lightly (probably) and I knew a poet (definitely) who expressed his unreserved enthusiasm for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Op. 125 -- particularly the final movement, the "Ode To Joy," where Beethoven unleashes all the forces at his disposal, including vocal soloists and chorus.
I tried to explain to this poet how Beethoven -- using only the simplest and most basic harmonic structure (think two-chord rock 'n roll) -- spins the earth around with powerful orchestration and unbelievablly brilliant variation in color and temperment ...
... but the best part was that this particular poet taught me the meaning of the German words which I had never really taken the trouble to learn.
Muß ein lieber vater wohnen means a lot more to me now thanks to this wonderful poet friend who turned me on to James Joyce, playfully informed me that Joan Miró was not a woman -- and had the good sense to bring Frank Zappa along as the soundtrack to our local hysteria ...
**
Much like his musical output as a whole, Beethoven’s 17 string quartets can be divided into three convenient periods: Early, Middle and Late.
Early: Opus 18, Nos. 1-6, all written between 1798-1800; Middle: Opus 59, Nos. 1-3 (1805/6); Op. 74, the “Harp” (1809), and Op. 95 (1810); Late: Op. 127, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135 (1823-26)
I cannot recall when I first heard a Late Beethoven quartet. It must have been my senior year of high school at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where my composition teacher had pointed me towards the microfiche machine and a few spools of microfilm which contained the Complete Works of Beethoven! How I used to pour over those beautiful scores, surfing the microfilm the way we do the net today -- carefully studying these (mostly) unfamiliar scores.
After thoroughly absorbing the Late Quartets, I began to feel a particular fondness and appreciation of Op. 131 -- not that the others are not equally brilliant and exciting, world-shaking music -- but 131 became a focal point for my idea about what it means to write for these four stringed instruments …
~~
HOW I BECAME SUCH A HUGE AMADEUS FAN
I have 15 or 20 different recordings of the string quartets. The Amadeus Quartet recordings from the 1960’s -- recently reissued on CD -- are my favorites, by far!
I still have the original 10-LP DGG set and listen to it often, marveling at how much better analog vinyl sounds than squeezy-thin dynamic range and contrast CDs. I’ve never heard better performances -- particular the Late Quartets.
Unlike most quartets with a famous name, who routinely replace departing players (“Juilliard,” “Tokyo,” “Turtle Island”), The Amadeus Quartet had always agreed that “ … if any member could no longer play, for whatever reason, the Quartet would not continue” -- and when Peter Schidlof, the violist, died in 1987, The Amadeus Quartet disbanded.
I had the good fortune to hear the Tokyo Quartet play this here in Tucson in April of 2008. My review of that performance is here.
HOW FIVE BECAME SIX AND OTHER DETAILS
Op. 133 (“Grosse Fuge”) was originally the last movement of Op. 130. Shockingly, Beethoven listened to reason and his publisher and agreed to replace the mammoth movement with a light dance movement (one of the very last things he ever wrote!), which now stands as the Finale to Op. 130.
Op. 133 was published separately -- although more and more quartets today are playing this as the Finale of Op. 130, a strange historic reconstruction …
What makes these late quartets so special?
First of all, if you are familiar with the Ninth (Op. 125) and/or the Missa Solemnis (Op. 123) or the Diabelli Variations (Op. 120), you already know that his style and perhaps even his fundamental musical language had changed dramatically from his output of the previous decade or so.
But the string quartet being the intimate, ultimate form for any composer (true today, methinx), Beethoven seems to have deliberately set out to not only “change” music -- but to revolutionize it!
Briefly, the other Late Quartets:
Op. 127 (Eb Major). The “Eroica” (or “heroic”) key! The quartet begins with massed tonics (seven or eight notes played by four) going to dominant seventh chords in -- respectively -- second and third inversions -- all leading to a quick transition to a delightful, slippery Allegro trip in ¾ time, which ends simply. The second movement is an astonishing series of variations on a simple, rising theme in Ab Major. The notes become blacker and blacker (faster rhythms) as the movement progresses, modulating to E Major a few times, before a beautiful ending; simplicity itself. The third movement (“Scherzando vivace”) is the usual jocular Beethoven, but in this Late period, the joke is a bit bizarre and otherworldly -- particularly in the Trio, which sweeps by like a witch on a broomstick. The Finale is a regular rondo-type 4th movement -- but the theme has a very bizarre (“Late”) element to it -- the Ab changing to an A-natural after two repetitions:
Op. 130 (Bb Major). Not only did Beethoven search out new sounds and explore novel harmonic territory, but he obviously felt constrained by the typical four-movement form (Op. 127, for example). Here he burst forth with six separate movements!
I. Adagio - Allegro. A wonderful example of beginning with a fairly typical sonata-form type of exposition and quickly changing key and mood (there are some major seventh chords in this section which are astonishingly beautiful for 1826 or anytime!)
II. Presto. A thrilling fun ride. Beethoven screws with your head as he jumps from duple to triple meter;
III. Andante. Gradually increases in intensity until it fairly busts apart at the end!
IV. Alla danza tedesca. A light joyful dance -- four voices in perfect balance;
V. Cavatina -- Adagio. This short movement is rightfully proclaimed a mini-masterpiece. The middle section (Beklemmt [“anguished”]) is positively 20th-century sounding!
VI. Finale. A bouncy happy replacement for what used to be a massive double-fugue (see below).
Op. 132 (A Minor). Beethoven makes do with only five movements in this soul-shaking masterpiece. That he opens with a low G# (the “leading tone” to A, the tonic) on the cello was in itself a revolutionary thing to do -- but Beethoven pushes the form to its limits in these quartets. Here -- as in 130 and many other late, and even early and middle works -- he moves back and forth between slow and fast. A Minor is a “dark” key -- and he ends the movement with the first violin sawing back and forth on the same E on two different strings. The second movement (A Major, ¾) also begins on a G#! The trio uses the first violin’s A string to make a bagpipes-type sound. Then follows the famous “Lydian” hymn of thanksgiving, a march and a dazzling ¾ Allegro appasionato to close things out.
Op. 133 (Bb Major). This massive double-fugue which must be heard to be believed. There is a massive amount of ink, virtual and real, spilled over this masterpiece. One of my favorites is here.
Op. 135 (F Major). Famously, Beethoven “prefaced” the music with actual musical notation (which does not appear in the actual work itself) from a goofy canon he had written several months earlier. (Beethoven wrote many such canons. Some are very funny.)
Thus, we are given an unusual visual clue to what was on Beethoven’s mind! The final movement literally explodes with these questions. Must it be? Yep? Etc.
OPUS 131 in C# Minor (39:17)
1. Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo -- attacca: (6:58) 2. Allegro molto vivace -- attacca: (3:05) 3. Allegro moderato -- attacca: (0:56) 4. Andante, ma non troppo e molto cantabile -- Andante moderato e lusinghiero -- Adagio -- Allegretto -- Adagio, ma non troppo e semplice -- Allegretto (14:17) 5. Presto -- Molto poco adagio -- attacca: (5:27) 6. Adagio quasi un poco andante -- attacca: (2:04) 7. Allegro (6:30)
No one had ever written a string quartet in seven movements before!
The word “attacca” means that the players proceed directly to the next movement without pause. Therefore, a listener with no program might conclude that the piece is in two very long movements! (The only pause occurs after the fourth movement).
In fact, the quartet is really in five moments -- Nos. 3 and 6 are really just short introductions to Nos. 4 and 7, respectively.
1. Adagio, ma non troppo e molto espressivo -- attacca: (6:58)
A fugue of unsurpassed beauty, intensity, majesty -- and of course, inventiveness! The first violin (notation above) opens with the dominant note (G#) which lands on the leading tone (B#), followed by the tonic (C#).
The fourth note (the first beat of the second full bar) dips down to the submediant (A) and is held for three beats -- almost like a divine sigh -- before it continues on its way towards the second entry in the second violin, played a fifth lower. The texture thickens magnificently as the viola enters back in the tonic and the cello follows, again a fifth lower. With much typical fugal imitation, the music continues along, moved steadily by the quarter-note pulse, surging towards something.
Using an enharmonic (D#/Eb), he modulates to six flats; nine bars later to G# Minor (eighth-notes are introduced), and then to A Major, where we then encounter the First and Second violins in a delicious duet:
Soon, the pulse picks up again (more eighth-notes); the theme is heard in various disguises; and then the sun seems to set:
This gorgeous, peaceful ending is actually no ending at all!
Beethoven immediately repeats the octave skip, but a half-step higher, as he moves to D Major for the
2. Allegro molto vivace -- attacca: (3:05)
second movement -- a delightful romp in 6/8. Beethoven at first holds back a bit with a fermata and ritard, but eventually the quartet shouts out a slippery bit of off-beat sforzandi in unison much of the time -- until the music simply dies away …
3. Allegro moderato -- attacca: (0:56)
This quick transitional movement features a wonderful run in the first violin:
…
and ends on a nice loud dominant chord.
4. Andante, ma non troppo e molto cantabile -- Andante moderato e lusinghiero -- Adagio -- Allegretto -- Adagio, ma non troppo e semplice -- Allegretto (14:17)
This massive theme and variations begins with a theme which speaks to simplicity itself. There is barely anything to it.
A long passionate section follows and transforms itself with dotted rhythms and a sweeping lick (a 16th and two 32nds) until concluding with a light flurry of 32nd notes leading right into a 4/4 march variation.
Sometimes I get nostalgic and think about my classmates from
my MFA years and how I adored so many of the poems I had the privilege of
reading in those workshops and how much they taught me and spurred me to try
new things. There was the one poem by Rebecca Vano that was an autumn scene I
think, and there might have been a stick, or was it a squirrel; I can’t
remember now that ten years have passed but what I do remember is thinking that
nature was alive in her poem like it is in the best work of Snyder or Kinnell, that
it wasn’t just landscape, a prop, rather the real deal. There was dirt in her
poem, if not stated, then implied for sure, and wind and light and they lived
and existed there as just themselves, not as hokey symbols.
I wanted that kind of presence in my
poems. I can’t even claim to have had a floor with cheap carpet in my poems
back then, much less the true ground. I wish more poems had real earth in them
like Rebecca’s poem. Or more characters responding to other characters and not
just our 21st century speaker in the way her husband David Vano’s
poems were dramatic and electric. It was David who first introduced me to Jack
Gilbert’s work, Monolithos I think it
was, and then to Frank Bidart. I still remember Orpheus being torn to bits in one
of David’s poems and how in spite of his death there was still music, and I
think maybe there was a river too, and maybe it had rocks over which the water
flowed, rocks against which the head of Orpheus rested and sang. I wanted that
kind of drama in my poems, the kind Frost and Yeats made their own.
I’ve missed reading the poems of
the Vanos these last ten odd years and so it was with great delight when a
couple of months ago David wrote me and said he had a new poem in the hopper
and would I read it. Of course!, I shouted across the electronic ether and so
before long I was in it again, a student happily lost in David’s poem, happily
reveling in lines like this:
Now there are villagers who believe
that the Giant Swift was no swift but God
and that since
God had withdrawn His antiquarian gaze from this dark village,
we would be
abandoned like dreams or the world’s poor. But in that night…
These lines unfold across the page like a wing. How lucky I
felt to again be able to watch his mind take flight. I can only hope he will
send me more. Maybe Christmas or the New Year will even bring me a poem by
Rebecca. Or Groundhog Day or St. Patrick’s will bring more poems by David
and did I mention he’s a wonderful painter too!
Perhaps it’ll be Easter that brings
me the voices of other friends I haven’t read in far too long. Maybe I
shouldn’t wait on fortune or destiny or happenstance. Maybe today we should all
make our own luck and choose a friend we haven’t heard from in awhile and say, “I
missed you and thought I’d write you a little something.”
