The Best American Poetry

Musical Plagiarism Then and Now [by Lewis Saul]

Musical plagiarism was an accepted practice in the 17th and 18th centuries. In fact, is was considered more of an homage.

When discovering the works of Vivaldi, Bach went to work on rewriting them in his own style. No lawsuits were filed.

Here's a great example. Joseph Haydn wrote these very unique eight notes to begin the menuet of his 21st symphony, 1764:

 

 

 

A full 23 years later (1787), Mozart felt no compunction about lifting them whole cloth for his minuet in his famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik:

 

**

Now let's skip ahead to our litigious age where George Harrison's My Sweet Lord and many other accusations of copyright violations were settled in court.

I only provide two examples here, though they differ in the basic intricacies of copyright law.

In this first example, Keith Jarrett laid down a funky little riff based on only two chords (Long As You Know You're Living Yours), but listen to the similarity in the rhythm:

 

 

Now listen to Steely Dan's Gaucho from 1980:

 

After Jarrett filied suit, Fagen & Becker settled by adding his name to the "composed by" credit.

 

Jarrett’s clip is YouTube Premium only. So see this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfVSLdfP1Y8]

The following case is much different. Bill Evans's Peace Piece consists of only two chords (CMaj7 / Gsus9):

 

 

Lady Blackbird copied this for her song Fix It in 2021. The copyright law wouldn't prohibit this, presumably because the chord progression is simple and any composer might think of such a chordal movement:

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) [by Lewis Saul]

HILDGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179)

A woman who was born 925 years ago has had a lot of ink spilled over the centuries for us to know so much about her life.

She was a Benedictine abbess and polymath -- a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.

She described her spiritual awareness as umbra viventis lucis, the reflection of the living Light. Late in life, she tried to describe her experience of this light:

"From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now. The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it 'the reflection of the living Light.' And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam."

 

Her parents sent her to the Disibodenberg monastery when she was still a child, where she met Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim.

 

Theology

Her three great volumes of theology, journals of her visions are:

1. Scivias 
    ("Know the Ways" 1142-1151)
2. Liber Vitae Meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" 1158-1163); and
3. Liber DIvinorum Operum ("Book of Divine Works" 1163-1172)

Music

• Veni creator spiritus (Anonymous 4)
• Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues). This morality play consists of 82 songs, an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, and not the male Patriarchs or Prophets.
• The group Sequentia recorded much of the rest of her music here:
• O quam mirabilis est
• O pulchare facies
• O virga ac diadema purpurae regis
• Instrumental piece I
• O clarrisima mater
• Instrumental piece II
• Spiritui Sancto honor sit
• O virtus sapientiae
• O lucidissima Apostolorum turba
• Instrumental piece III

Scientific and medicinal writings

• Physica
• Nine books describing scientific and medicinal properties of various plants, stones, fish, reptiles and animals.
• Causae et Curae (300 chapters)
• An exploration of the human body, its connections to the rest of the world, and the causes and cures of various diseases.

Lingua ignota (Unknown language)

 

Hildegard invented around 1000 nouns which she glossed over the traditional medieval German and Latin. Scholars disagree on their purpose.

14 Fellini films [by Lewis Saul]

Criterion's FELLINI box

 

14 films, lovingly restored

Criterion put together this gorgeous box set in 2020, in honor of Fellini's 100th birthday.

I hear you, you've seen 'em all. Or most of 'em ...

Maybe you saw La Strada years ago in a semi-mutilated print with emulsion scratches, projector noise, and gate jitter.

Here's your chance to rewatch these restored masterpieces (mostly).

**

My ratings in the 80's indicate a very good film, worth watching. The 90's are must-watch films, worthy of repeat viewings ...

1. Variety Lights (1950)

 

Co-directed with Alberto Lattuada, this tale of the variety acts -- hired by theater owners anxious to draw in customers, which preceded the advertised film to be shown -- was a short-lived phenomena in the war and postwar years of the 40's and early 50's.

The director of this zany troupe of entertainers is Checco (Peppino De Filippo) and his eternal fiancée, Melina (Giulietta Masina, Fellini's wife). A curvaceous newcomer -- Liliana (Carla Del Poggio, Lattuada's wife) talks her way into the act, and of course Checco falls hard for her.

The vaudeville is dated, but extremely entertaining.

89

 

2. The White Sheik (1952)

 

Fellini's solo directing debut came about because Rossellini didn't want to direct Fellini's script. Anxious to get paid, FF pleaded with the producer, until the money men asked him to direct it himself. The nervous young (31) Federico didn't dare refuse.

"Rome!" the straight-laced provincial Ivan (Leopoldo Trieste) exclaims as the train enters the station. His mousy wife, Wanda (Brunella Bovo) trails behind him.

The plot hinges on the duality of the couple -- Ivan has big-shot relatives who plan to take the newlyweds to meet the Pope the next day.

Wanda has other plans. Consumed by the fotoromanzi (which was a staple divertissement of the middle and lower classes) she hid from her husband, she leaves the hotel in search of "The White Sheik" -- Fernando (Alberto Sordi) -- and ends up being cast as a harem girl in the production. [The confounded director (Ernesto Almirante) is a stand-in for future Fellini).

Masina has a cameo as the prostitute, Cabiria. It would be five more years before Fellini fleshed out the character in an early masterpiece.

89

3. I Vitelloni (1953)

 

vitellóne, noun:

Year-old calf, held to fatten in the stable,meat of the slaughtered animal; fig. idle young person of the provinces, often an eternal student

 

IRL, Fellini's youthful gang was just a trio -- but he expanded it to a quintet for this first of his many "I remember" films.

Moraldo (Franco Interlenghi -- the Fellini stand-in, as he is the first to leave the town for Rome), Alberto (Sordi), Fausto (Franco Fabrizi), Leopoldo (Trieste), and Riccardo (Fellini's brother) make up these five unforgettable goofballs. Fellini's genius is apparent in his careful delineation of each of them, with unique cinematic tricks that the viewer catches through dialogue and visuals.

As the old neorealism gave way to a more fanciful style, Fellini seemed to have touched the right nerve with the public, who rewarded the director with his first mildly successful film. It it had flopped, we might never have known the name of the great Federico Fellini.

88

4. La Strada (1954)

 

Casting his wife as Gelsomina was no mere act of nepotism -- she is a star, and as one who grew up in the silent era, absorbed all of Chaplin's tramp mannerisms, and transforms them into the sad clown incarnate here.

You probably know that until very recently, all Italian films were dubbed in post, regardless of the actor's nationality. Fellini -- perhaps more so than any other Italian director -- learned to use the Cinecittà studios as tool to recreate reality.

Anthony Quinn (Zampanò) and Richard Basehart (The Fool) deliver inspired performances.

Despite a deep dive into the issue, I have yet to find any other comments on the great Nina Rota's gentle rip-off of a famous classical work. See for yourselves:

La Strada theme
Dvorak's Serenade for Strings, 4th mvmnt.

90

5. Il Bidone (1955)

 

A flop in '55, thankfully reappraised these days as a very fine film.

 

A bidone is a trash can; thus, a swindler, a dirty con man.

Augusto (Broderick Crawford), Picasso (Basehart) and Roberto (Fabrizi) pull off a scam on a naive country woman. The ruination of her life is completely left off-screen. Fellini makes no comment, as the bandits return to Rome to party.

Masina plays Iris, Picasso's wife, trying desperately to get her hubby to consider changing occupations.

In the final scene Augusto's fate mirrors Zampanò's in La Strada. Will the wretched find salvation, even as they take their final breaths, after living a life of evil?

Fellini isn't saying, so the viewer is forced to confront the very Catholic ideal with his or her own conscience.

89

6. Nights of Cabiria (1957)

 

One can imagine the philandering Fellini saying to his wife, "I'm truly sorry, my dear, but look what I did with Cabiria -- I made you an international star.:

 

And indeed, the Cabiria character is one of Fellini's greatest creations. From the opening scene, the viewer immediately realizes that this woman is terribly naive. Her best friend Wanda (Franca Marzi) knows it. The famous actor, Alberto Lazzari (Amedeo Nazzari) knows it, but doesn't have time to take advantage of it because his girlfriend, Jessy (Dorian Gray) butts in -- even the hypnotist (Aldo Silvani) in the vaudeville show must have sensed it, using his skills to bring out her laughable innocence in front of a crowd of rowdy, horny Italian men.

Worst of all, Oscar (François Périer) knows it.

 

94

7. La Dolce Vita (1960)

 

The adjective Felliniesque enters the world's vocabulary, as well as the eponym for a character named Paparazzo (Walter Santesso).

Marcello (Mastrioianni -- in the first of two consecutive roles as Fellini's doppelgänger) -- is the spectator; a disenchanted tabloid reporter who is too distracted to seek a better office.

Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) is a goddess -- a major distraction from Marcello's fiancée, Emma (Yvonne Furneaux). Then there's Maddalena (Anouk Aimée), who whispers her love through magical conduits in the castle. (Note how beautifully Fellini uses the widescreen format to pin Marcello sitting on a chair in the middle of the huge frame!)

 

There are also a few men around to confound poor lost Marcello. Consider Steiner (a brilliant Alain Cuny), a disturbed intellectual who is the only one around capable of speaking truths to Marcello. Fellini's shocking handling of the character's trajectory is unsettling.

One character worth keeping your eyes on -- although she has only three minutes of screen time) is young Paola (Valeria Ciangottini).

 

This magnificent film might seem like eye-candy at first -- but the discerning viewer will see the wider essence of satire and ironic detachment, which is easy to miss amongst the studio recreation of the Via Veneto and the chicken feathers. Fellini is not recreating all these scenes of revelry and debauchery to elicit your approval.

 

95

8. 8½  (1963)

 

There is nothing in the film universe as unique, unqualifyingly honest and truly spectacular as 8½.

There are various ways of counting the ½: could it be the collaboration on Variety Lights; the segment in Love in the City (1953); or Boccaccio '70 (1962)?

The film director Guido Anselmi (Mastroianni) is stuck in a traffic jam; he escapes and flies away in a Christ-like post until he is in the clouds. Claudia (Cardinale)'s agents pull him down with a rope attached to Guido's ankle. He falls into the ocean and then awakes from his dream in a room at the spa, where he is undergoing a health treatment.

The film is populated with fantastic characters: the rotund, devilish Saraghina (Eddra Gale); a mistress (a luminous Sandra Milo), a wife, Luisa (Aimée, an obvious stand-in for Masina).

There is Guido's intellectual collaborator, Daumier (Jean Rougeul), who never has anything positive to say, and warns Guido that his Catholic guilt and attitude is not clearly expressed as Suetonius did for the Caesars. A nice, obscure reference.

After some brief appearances, the virginal Cardinale peels Guido away from an important screen test, and drives off for a truth session.

The finale -- where Guido cowers beneath his gigantic spaceship set, trying to avoid the inane questions from the press -- reminds me of Bresson's grilling at Cannes, where his final film (L'argent [1983]) was being shown. He simply refused to answer even one of the ridiculous queries of the reporters.

As the decision to cancel the "film" is made, Maurice (Ian Dallas) leads the entire cast in a cheerful round.

Suddenly, Guido regains his confidence. He picks up the bullhorn and begins shouting orders to everyone. He is finally ready to make his film.

 

96

9. Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

Turning the tables, Fellini makes 8½ from Masina's viewpoint.

The film -- his first in color -- Juliet is a coded palette of mostly red and white (heaven and hell?) -- just study the scene with the the androgenous Bishma (Valeska Gert, last seen in 1931's The Threepenny Opera as Frau Peachum!) ...

But the film fails on so many other levels; what are we to make of this weary cuckolded woman who is first curious, then enchanted by her mysterious neighbor, Suzy (a wonderfully kooky Milo) ... and finally terrified when she actually enters her realm?

Giorgio (Mario Pisu) is a handsome stand-in for the unfaithful Fellini -- idealized as a loving, if distant, husband until Juliet discovers the truth.

Many female characters [Valentina (Valentina Cortese) and her mother (Caterina Boratto) seem posed like the dainty ladies of La Belle Époque.

One of the more entertaining characters -- arising out of Juliet's childhood memories -- is her philandering grandfather (Lou Gilbert), who runs off with a young dancer in a rickety aeroplane.

86

10. Fellini Satyricon (1969)

The film posits an entire relatively unknown universe -- full of faces, costumes, masks -- and perhaps most importantly -- behavior that seems totally alien to our modern society.

And it all works. Episodic in nature, Fellini lifted some Petronius intact -- Trimalchio (Mario Romagnoli)'s feast, the widow (Lucia Bosè) and the soldier (Joseph Wheeler), etc. Other scenes emerge purely from Fellini's outrageous imagination.

The leads, Encolpius (spider) (Martin Potter); Ascyltus (spider) (Hiram Keller) and Giton (Max Born) are all splendid.

Check out the Buddy Hackett look-alike with the hand-clappers at 0:26:42!

 

93

11. Roma (1972)

Considered by some as "minor Fellini," this film demands multiple viewings. Fellini has purposely made a non-narrative film with one outlandish image after another, that resists comprehension on first look.

If the dead cows don't get you, the bishop in the blinking neon suit will!

Peter Gonzales is brilliant as the horny 18-year-old Fellini, as is Dolores (Fiona Florence), the come-hither prostitute who Fellini wants to date.

Gore Vidal -- an ex-pat living in Rome -- makes a cameo, seemingly completely self-deprecating, in keeping with all the surrounding satire ...

Perhaps the most touching moment occurs when Fellini follows the great Anna Magnani to her doorway. "Go to bed, Fredri!" she exclaims, seeming truly annoyed.

A long section at a variety show (Fellini cleverly slips in the detail of the exact date, July 19, 1943) recalls Variety Lights, but is infused with pathos and a penetrating stare at the Roman attitude!

 

92

12. Amarcord (1973)

The title is a univerbation of the Romagnol phrase a m'arcôra ("I remember") -- further meaning "nostalgic revocation" in Italian.

Fellini ("I'm a born liar") remembers his childhood in a small town near Rimini as a fictional autobiography.

Titta (Bruno Zanin) might be Fellini; Aurelio (a scene-chewing Armando Brancia) and Miranda (Pupella Maggio) might be his parents. All the unforgettable characters in this film might be memories of a filmmaker far removed from his childhood reality. So we might think of this is "invented memories."

Some great characters: Gradisca (Magali Noël) -- a liberated woman; object of the boys' attention; Uncle Teo (Ciccio Ingrassia) -- furloughed from an insane asylum, is he really crazy for climbing a tree and shouting that he "wants a woman"?; Patacca (Nando Orfei) -- another uncle, effeminate, committed Fascist; the "lawyer" (Luigi Rossi) who narrates the proceedings; and most memorable, the tobacconist (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi), to whom Titta boldly makes an unsuccessful advance:

In its two-hour running time, Amarcord advances through the seasons -- bookended with the coming of spring and the arrival of the "puffballls" (poplar seeds).

If there is a must-see in Fellini's oeuvre, this is it.

 

96

13. And the Ship Sails On (1983)

Set in July 1914 (weeks earlier a Bosnian Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, which was the firecracker that set off World War I).

The wealthy passengers have chartered the Gloria N. to travel to the island where the late great diva, Edmea Tetua (Janet Suzman, seen only in silent B&W film clips) was born, and scatter her ashes in the sea.

Most of the entourage consists of other divas, tenors, and conductors -- with the exception of the young Grand Duke (Fiorenzo Serra) -- presumably a fan of Tetua's -- and his blind sister, The Princess (played by the great dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch).

The film begins in silence and B&W, and gradually gains sound and then color -- a wonderful touch.

Orlando (Freddie Jones) -- a journalist -- is our tour guide, narrating the tale and introducing us to the characters, always looking directly into the camera.

The plot thickens when the captain rescues a group of Serbian refugees. Their dance scene and another where the opera singers delight the scruffy men working the boiler room with some operatic gymnastics are cinematic marvels.

Oh yes -- one more important character -- a lovesick rhinoceros.

90

14. Intervista (1987)

Four films in one:

1. A Japanese television crew films the proceedings;
2. An autobiographical section set in 1940 where the young Fellini (Sergio Rubini) (put a pimple on that nose!) sets out to interview the famous actress Greta Gonda (the gorgeous Antonella Ponziani), and is so nervous he can barely utter a sound;
3. The making of a fictional film, an adaptation of Kafka's Amerika;
4. Intervista itself.

Fellini's up to his old tricks, hanging a bunch of semi-interesting episodic spectacles onto the clothesline of cinema.

The 56-year-old Fellini appears in the film frequently, shouting out fictional orders.

The film is saved by the appearances of Mastroianni and Ekberg.

Mastroianni first appears in an obviously choreographed scene as Mandrake the Magnificent, bursting through the window of the production office (accompanied by balloons and confetti), asking Fellini if he's in his usual trouble with finances or sexual escapades. His magic wand will cause an erection.

Probably staged -- Anita initially refuses Fellini entrance to her gated estate, guarded by snarling dogs, but eventually invites the entire entourage in to feast on roasted chestnuts, wine and Schnapps.

Mandrake magically produces a sheet which serves as a screen as we watch the scene from La Dolce Vita where they dance, and Ekberg sloshes her way through the Trevi fountain. Ekberg's tears of remembrance seem real, as the Japanese reporter tries to do yoga magic on Mastroianni to get him to quit smoking.

The ending is too good to give away. It concerns Indians with TV antennas instead of rifles or bows, and a final nod to his nagging producers who wanted him to at least put in a "ray of sunshine."

 

90

 

lewissaul3.blogspot.com

 

 

MESSIAEN, Olivier: From the Canyons to the Stars [by Lewis Saul]

MESSIAEN, Olivier (1908-1992)

Des canyons aux étoiles (From the Canyons to the Stars) (1974)
Part 1:
1. Le Désert (The desert)
2. Les orioles (The orioles)
3. Ce qui est écrit sur les étoiles (What is written in the stars)
4. Le Cossyphe d'Hueglin (The white-browed robin-chat)
5. Cedar Breaks et le don de crainte (Cedar Breaks and the gift of awe)
Part 2:
6. Appel interstellaire (Interstellar call)
7. Bryce Canyon et les rochers rouge-orange (Bryce Canyon and the red-orange rocks)
Part 3:
8. Les Ressuscités et le chant de l'étoile Aldebaran (The resurrected and the song of the star Aldebaran)
9. Le Moqueur polyglotte (The mockingbird)
10. La Grive des bois (The wood thrush)
11. Omao, leiothrix, elepaio, shama
12. Zion Park et la cité céleste (Zion Park and the celestial city)
ANAM Orchestra
Jacob Abela, piano
Kaylie Melville, xylorimba
Peter Neville, glockenspiel
Ben Jacks, French Horn
Fabian Russell, cond.
(1:37:01)

 

The three most important aspects of Messiaen's music are:

1. His theory of modes of limited transposition; and
2. His synaeshtesia.
3. His use of bird-song.

(Well-explained in these Wikipedia articles.)

 

**

 

Canyons was commissioned by Alice Tully for the 1976 bicentennial. The work is in three parts, written with 12 symmetrically-spaced movements (5/2/5) ...

 

Part 1

1. The Desert.

 

 

He who is to be found is vast: one must discard everything in order to take the first steps towards him."

 

A slow chant in the solo French Horn begins and ends the movement, with the wind machine, cries from a Sahara bird, with a whistling melody that passes from bowed crotales to piccolo to violin harmoncs.

 

2. The Orioles.

 

 

3. What is written in the stars ...

 

MENE TEKEL UPHARSIN (from Daniel 5 -- reading the writing on the wall) ...

 

The message is written in the stars and the clefts of the canyons. The rock-music is followed by the sound of the earth which is represented by a percussion instrument of Messiaen's own invention -- the geophone -- then the sound of the Canyon Wren:

 

 

The music is palindromic, and reverses.

 

4. The White-Browed Robin.

 

 

Moving from Utah to the universe, an African bird is introduced. Repeated phrases become bird-song, and again, the movement is roughly palindromic.

 

5. Cedar Breaks and the Gift of Awe.

 

 

"a vast amphitheatre, dropping to a deep gorge, whose rocks -- orange, yellow, brown, red -- rise in curtain walls, columns, towers, turrets and keeps."

 

Weird sounds -- the trumpet blows into the mouthpiece alone, plays with a wa-wa mute doubled by the glockenspiel and bells. Awe is the American Robin:

 

 

Part 2

6. Interstellar Call.

 

Written earlier (1971) as a memorial to his young pupil Jean-Pierre Guézec.

 

7. Bryce Canyon and the Red-Orange Rocks.

 

"a gigantic circle of rocks -- red, orange, violet -- in fantastic shapes, castles, square towers, round towers, natural windows, bridges, statues, columns, whole cities, with here and there a deep black hole."

 

Blue-and-black Steller's Jay:

 

(brass and percussion near the start)

 

The landscape suggests the Celestial City = chorales, bells, allelulas; much repetition

 

Black holes = tam-tam, low trombones

 

Dance in octaves; E Major ending ...

 

Part 3

 

8. The Resurrected and the Song of the Star Aldebaran.

 

The song of Aldebaran in the strings ... harmonic effects ("add their drops of water, their rustlings of silks").

The resurrected = piccolo, glockenspiel and the highest notes of the piano ...

 

9. The Mockingbird.

 

Piano solo.

 

10. The Wood Thrush.

 

A C Major arpeggio ("the new name promised for each soul" [Revelation 2:17]) = stopped horn and alto flute. The horn repeats G-E-C; the new name is bestowed and accepted.

 

11. Omao, Leiothrix, Elepaio, Shama.

 

Hawaiian birds:

 

Omao

 

Leiothrix

 

Elepaio

 

Shama

 

 

12. Zion Park and the Celestial City.

 

"a vision of Paradise in the pink, white, mauve, red and black walls, the green trees and the clear water of Zion Park."

 

Chorale of joy and arrival is interrupted by birdsong choruses until the final A Major (blue, for Messiaen), with horn whoops and chimes, glowing to a tutti fortissimo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Reich: The Cave [by Lewis Saul]

REICH, Steve (1936-       )

The Cave (1993)
The Steve Reich Ensemble
Paul Hillier, cond.
(1:43:29)

The Cave is a multimedia opera in three acts with a libretto by Reich's wife, Beryl Korot.

The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron

This is a sacred place where Muslims, Jews and Christians pray. The music and libretto is derived from, and includes spoken responses from Israeli, Palestinian and American interviewees who were asked questions about the story of Abraham. The sound track also includes readings from the religious texts that detail the story of Abraham, and a recording of the ambient sound that is found in the ancient building that surrounds the sacred site.

I Love Me, Vol. I [by Lewis Saul]

I LOVE ME, VOL. I

 

Pull up.
Was it a hat I saw?
No, it is open on one position.

 

Are we not drawn onwards, we Jews, drawn onward to new era?
Do not refer to Nod ...

Lew, Otto has a hot towel.
Cigar? Toss it in a can, it is so tragic.

Pittsburgh's a bash! (Grub St. tip)

Della called.
No trace -- not one carton.

Tenet

Tenet A is an (Ah, tuez!) euthanasia tenet.
Tenet B is a (Ha! Ha!) sib tenet.
Tenet C is a basis, a basic tenet.
Tenet D is a Hasid tenet.
Tenet E is an Asie tenet.
Tenet F is Asa's "As If" Tenet.
Tenet G is Rip's Pirsig tenet.

Le falafel
Red? No wonder!

Some men interpret nine memos.
Degas aged.
Known wonk.
Epode dope.

YAY!
AZ Zip Pizza!
Party boobytrap!

So, Ed, I vow to do two videos.
No home demo, Hon.

Day came -- not one Macy ad.

My gym taxes sex at my gym.
Too hot to hoot ...

DEIFIED!

 

[from I LOVE ME, VOL. I by S. Wordrow's Palindrome Encyclopedia]

Two Mozart Piano Concertos [by Lewis Saul]

1. Mozart Piano Concerto #3 in D Major, K. 40 (1767)
Murray Perahia, piano/cond.
English Chamber Orchestra

 

At the age of 11, Mozart learned to write piano concerti by taking examples of earlier music -- harpsichord sonatas in this case -- and with his father's help, he rewrote them as piano concerti. Today, we might call this plagiarism, but in those days this was a common method of teaching, with no stigma attached to the borrowing of previously composed material. Besides, Mozart made something very new -- even at this very young age -- by inventing little orchestral flourishes and by composing completely original new ideas. My post. 

 

1. Mozart Piano Concerto #20 in D Minor, K. 466 (1785)
Mitsuko Uchida, piano/cond.
Camerata Salzburg

Now 29, and five years away from death, this was the first piano concerto which he composed in a minor key. Music written in D Minor is usually considered serious and contemplative.

First movement

Mozart dives in with a theme that is hardly melodic. Just try to hum it -- the syncopation in the violins makes it a very unusual theme:

 

 

 

The second theme in the relative F Major is slightly more melodic and upbeat:

 

Now, see how Mozart brings the emotion to the final part of the orchestral introduction ... the piano enters and after a few tonic/dominant chords, he returns to that mysterious opening theme ...

 

 

Mozart gives the soloist a workout before returning to the opening theme:

 

Second movement

In an ABACA form, Mozart moves to the submediant key of B-Flat Major, Mozart relaxes into a simple, but deeply-felt, melody -- begun with solo piano, and then joined by the orchestra:

 

A storm arrives (G minor/C section):

 

 

The movement ends with typical Mozartian grace:

 

Third movement

Known as a Mannheim rocket, the opening motif bursts from the soloist, then is reiterated by the orchestra, which further develops the idea.

Here's the whole performance.

You Can't Always Get What You Want [by Lewis Saul]

Fanny Robbins

We addressed my maternal grandmother's sisters as Tante (tan'-ta), from the old country ...

Tante Fanny was a towering figure. After her husband's death, she took over his business -- a wholesale toy store, on Forbes Avenue, near downtown Pittsburgh.

My earliest memories of her consist of visits to her store -- which she ran with autocratic authority. The place seemed like a magical castle filled from floor to ceiling with the most fantastic toys!

I was probably five or six when I spotted a shiny new toy car on one of the higher shelves. "I must have that little car, mommy," I must have shouted a few times, as my mom explained it that I wasn't getting it.

I began to throw a full-throated tantrum. [Of course, I don't remember this, but my mom told me this story so often that it seems real, even today!]

Tante Fanny:

"Get that child out of my store, and never bring him back again!"

Well, sometime later, mom and Tante Fanny must have withdrawn the severe decree, because I did indeed finally get my precious little car.

But mom was still going to teach me a lesson. After unpacking it, she insisted that every kid in the neighborhood would get to ride in it before I got my turn.

Here I am with my next-door neighbor riding backwards:

When mom was in her 80's and we were reminiscing about this, she turned to me with a sorrowful look and said, "I'm sorry I was so mean."

Cheek to Cheek [by Lewis Saul]

This is dedicated to Leah, who requested it.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Cheek to Cheek (1934-35)

7 versions

Irving Berlin (pictured above) knew as much about music theory as I knew about refrigerator repair. But he had a natural gift for songwriting that few have ever equaled.

This one's a doozy. It breaks with the traditional AABA form with an AABBC form.

Let's look at the details. He begins on the sixth degree of the scale, with the first syllable of Hea-ven -- like a sigh from some angel high above!



Then with ascending steps (and chords):



and the amazing symmetry when he skips back down:

Now the B section -- a simple progression of ii/V/I repeated four times:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then -- with a sudden shift to the minor -- this extraordinary C section, which Berlin cleverly ends with a vi/ii/V to return us to the A section:

 

 

 

 

 

From the original version from the film Top Hat to Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett, this masterpiece never loses its kick.

1. Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers (1935)
(5:02)

from the film Top Hat. Check out that dancing!

2. The Boswell Sisters (1935)
(2:48)

Thanks to Donald Fagen for hipping me to these gals.

3. Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (1956)

EF, vocals

LA, vocals, trumpet

Oscar Peterson, piano

Herb Ellis, guitar

Ray Brown, bass
Buddy Rich, drums
(5:54)

 

4. Frank Sinatra (1959)
(3:06)

 

5. Diana Krall (2008)
DK, piano, vocals
John Clayton, bass
Anthony Wilson, guitar
Jeff Hamilton, drums
Paulinho DaCosta, percussion
(6:23)

 

6. 11-year-old trumpet prodigy (2012)
Geoff Gallante, trumpet
Rossano Sportiello, piano
Nikki Parrott, bass
(7:45)

 

Wow.

 

7. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett (2014)
(2:50)

 

 

Kurosawa's 30 [by Lewis Saul]

In 2010 -- a Baker's Dozen ago -- the Film Forum ran 28 of Akira Kurosawa's 30 films. (Ran [1985] and Madadayo [1993] weren't shown). Your Editor invited me to make a few comments, which I did in a verbose 63,136 words. You can read them here. [This post tracks in at 1,963 words. I'm trying.]

Today, I make an attempt to merely summarize all 30 films -- the worst of which* is still worth seeing.

Wartime

1. Sanshiro Sugata (1943)

 

After a fruitful apprenticeship as an assistant director with Kajirō Yamamoto (Horse, 1941), Kurosawa got his chance to direct when he snapped up the options on a novel by Tsuneo Tomita.

Initially, Kurosawa wanted to be a painter. Just watch the opening shot and one can see the Meiji-era scene come to life. In a pan, we move down an alley and meet Sugata (Susuma Fujita).

The story of human struggle to attain perfection attracted the military censors. They weren't so happy about the love story and thus that subplot was mangled.

Hansuki Murai -- the girl's father -- is played by Takashi Shimura.

 

2. The Most Beautiful (1944)

 

A girls-only factory produces optical devices for fighter planes. Yōko Yaguchi is the heroine. She would soon become Mrs. Akira Kurosawa.

Check out the Eisensteinian montage of the volleyball game.

Shimura plays Chief Goro, the head of the factory.

*3. Sanshiro Sugata Part II (1945)

 

A sorry and soggy sequel. A Turk -- Osman Yusuf -- plays the bullying American sailor. The plot hinges on the superiority of Judo compared to the vicious American sport of boxing. Fujita returns, but Shimura wisely skipped this one. 

4. The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945)

 

Based on the kabuki play Kanjinchō -- itself a remake of the Noh play Ataka -- the 12th-century general Yoshitsune Minamoto and his retainers are disguised as monks and who must evade his evil brother, Yoritomo, who controls the border checkpoint. The ambiguity of the denouement demonstrates the ingenuity of the young Kurosawa.

Shimura plays one of the monks. The comedian, Ken'ichi Enomoto, enlivens this short film with astonishing humor.

Occupation-era

5. No Regrets for Our Youth (1946)

 

General MacArthur and SCAP encouraged Kurosawa to make a film which help the populace understand the earth-shattering transition from militarism to democracy. Set in the mid-30's, Kurosawa seeks to humanize rather than simply caricture the militarists.

Fujita returns as the unfortunate pacifist martyr who is lucky enough to marry the incomparable Setsuko Hara (her first of only two films with Kurosawa). The great Denjirō Ōkōchi is her father.

 

6. One Wonderful Sunday (1947)

 

Struggling young lovers (Isao Numasaki and Chieko Nakakita) meet on Sundays, only to find nothing to do -- they can barely afford a cup of coffee. Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" features prominently in the plot.

7. Drunken Angel (1948)

 

Having discovered Toshiro Mifune and teaming him up with Shimura, Kurosawa finally had made a legitimate masterpiece. Gangster and alcoholic doctor become frenemies, while the viewer is treated to a documentary-like look at postwar Japan.

 

8. The Quiet Duel (1949)

 

A minor picture, liable to induce some cringing at the overwrought characters and their reactions to the then nearly incurable disease of syphillis. Mifune and Shimura are father and son.

 

9. Stray Dog (1949)

 

A fine noir, featuring a young cop (Mifune) learning the ropes from an old pro (Shimura). Mifune has lost his gun to a pickpocket on a sweaty, crowded bus, and we perspire along with him, as we count the number of bullets left.

 

10. Scandal (1950)

 

Considered a minor picture by most critics, but this reviewer begs to disagree. Mifune is a serious painter, whose career is threatened by a scandal sheet which prints a false rumor about an illicit affair with a famous singer (the gorgeous Shirley Yamaguchi). Shimura is his bedraggled lawyer, who must win the libel case in court, despite being bribed by the deep-pocketed opposition.

There is one unusual spiral wipe.

11. Rashomon (1950)

 

Marge: "You said you liked Japanese films?"
Homer: "That's not the way I remember it!"

12. The Idiot (1951)

 

Kurosawa -- a lifelong fan of Dostoevsky -- was furious when the producers couldn't stomach the running time. "Cut the damn thing right down the middle of the strip," he cried, more or less disowning the truncated release print.

Setsuko Hara returns as Nastasya/Taeko Nasu, the woman who stands between Masayuki Mori (Myshkin/Kameda) and Mifune (Rogózhin/Akama).

Post-occupation

13. Ikiru (1952)

 

Mifune took a leave of absence, leaving Shimura to star in this unforgettable tale of "it's-never-too-late," inspired by a short story by Tolstoy.

14. Seven Samurai (1954)

 

My old 8,984-word post will have to do. I was really into studying filmic punctuation back then -- There are 1,467 total cuts in the film; 1,399 straight cuts; 15 fade-to-blacks; 32 horizontal wipes left; 13 horizontal wipes right; and eight dissolves.

15. I Live in Fear (1955)

 

The 35-year-old Mifune plays an elderly factory owner who wants to move his entire family (mistresses included) to Brazil, where he believes they would be safe from a nuclear bomb. Godzilla -- from the previous year -- was meant to reflect similar fears then ever present in the Japanese public.

Shimura is a dentist who volunteers in a family court assigned to help the family sort things out.

 

16. Throne of Blood (1957)

 

Minoru Chiaki (Woodchopping samurai of the Seven) co-stars with Mifune as warlord generals in this adaption of Macbeth.

 

17. The Lower Depths (1957)

 

Based on the play by Gorky. A masterpiece of ensemble theater, Kurosawa as at the top of his game here. Mifune plays the thief (Vaska/Sutekichi), but Kamatari Fujiwara steals the show as The Actor. Bokuzen Hidari (Luka/Kahei) is golden as The Pilgrim.

Look for an incredible musical performance in the final scene. It may sound like a jazz improvisation to Western ears, but is called bakabayashi -- literally, "fools' orchestra" -- and has the poverty-stricken characters singing about the "avarice and hypocrisy of the Buddhist monks," as they sing sarcastic praises of all the  things salvation money can buy.

18. The Hidden Fortress (1958)

As the widescreen format reached Japan, Kurosawa immediately took advantage. This wonderful adventure romp stars Mifune as a general on an important mission and Fujiwara and Chiaki as two peasants along for the ride. (The latter was the inspiration for the droids in Star Wars.)

19. The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

 

Time to get serious again. Loosely based on Hamlet, Mifune plays Kōichi Nishi, buttoned-down secretary to Iwabuchi, the important Vice President of the "Public Corporation" (Mori, aged beautifully). Nishi is not what he seems, however, his late father standing in for Hamlet's ghost ...

 

20. Yojimbo (1961)

 

Forever copied, but never equaled, this megahit features Mifune as a ronin, with smarts. If you ever wonder why John Belushi's SNL samurai imitation is always scratching himself -- as Mifune does here -- it is because he never had clean clothes, and was being bitten by fleas.

 

21. Sanjuro (1962)

 

The studio, of course, demanded a sequel, and Kurosawa was not about repeat his youthful mistake with Sugata II.

 

Although Mifune's ronin yojimbo is the same character (thirty [sanjuro] going on ...), this is a very different film than Yojimbo, set in a different time-period and involving very different circumstances.

Now the wise ronin is made to advise ten young, rather stupid, samurai retainers of a lord thought to be corrupt. Once again, the widescreen format allows for amazing compositions. Tatsuya Nakadai is the delicious villain who makes film history in the final scene.

 

22. High and Low (1963)

 

Loosely based on King's Ransom by Ed McBain, this powerful police procedural has Mifune playing a shoe company executive who is unwillingly drawn into a kidnapping. The film is bifurcated into two equally suspenseful halves. The young Tsutomu Yamazaki (Tampopo) is the kidnapper.

23. Red Beard (1965)

 

In Kurosawa's final black-and-white film, and Mifune's swan song with the director, he is again beautifully aged to play "Red Beard" -- a Japanese expression for any physician who was trained in the medical arts at Nagasaki by the red bearded Dutch.

In fact, it is the young Yasumoto (Yūzō Kayama) who passes on his Nagasaki training to the elder Mifune.

185 minutes flies by in this -- one of Kurosawa's great masterpieces.

 

Post-Mifune

24. Dodes'ka-Den (1970)

 

He surely must have missed Mifune as often as he cursed television for drying up the money he required to make films. Joining with three other prominent Japanese directors, "The Four Knights" club was formed with the intention of producing each others films.

Kurosawa went first with this tale of a retarded boy who pretends to be a trolley car (thus the title: dodes'ka-den is the sound he makes imitating the engine), along with all the inhabitants of a Tokyo slum. A fascinating watch, the film tanked and Kurosawa tried to kill himself. Thank God, he did not succeed.

 

25. Dersu Uzala (1975)

 

But with no funding available to him, he set off to the Soviet Union to visit Tarkovsky, who was in post with Solaris. Inspired, he signed onto Mosfilm, and went as far away from civilization as possible -- to the frozen tundra of Siberia.

Here he found his Dersu (Maxim Munzuk) -- a Tuvan actor -- and made an extraordinary film about humanity surviving in the indifferent conditions of Mother Nature. Vastly underappreciated.

26. Kagemusha (1980)

 

Finally, three very successful American directors (Lucas, Spielberg and Coppola) recognized a genius in trouble and provided much-needed financing.

In the five-year period between films, Kurosawa had hand-painted complete storyboards and the only major hiccup in the production occurred in casting. Kurosawa imagined that the great Shintaro Katsu (Zatoichi) would make a great Kagemusha (shadow-warrior) in a 16th-century story involving a great warlord who employed his look-alike brother as a double. Realizing the need for a third "double," they recruited a thief was about to be crucified as a stand-by. Katsu was to play both the warlord and the thief.

But his swelled ego blew his chance on the first day of shooting (he brought along his own film crew and argued with AK, until he was thrown off the lot.) "Call up Nakadai -- see if he's available," and the whole thing was fixed. Nakadai played the dual roles, with Yamazaki (High and Low) playing the brother.

 

27. Ran (1985)

 

King Lear, with sons instead of daughters. Color-coordinated so as to never lose track of who's who, Kurosawa raised the epic to new levels. Nakadai stars.

28. Dreams (1990)

 

Eight vignettes, each preceded by a caption "and I dreamed that ..."

Uneven, but the episodes that work really work! The first two for example: "Sunshine Through the Rain," and "The Peach Orchard" are miniature masterpieces. Disappointments follow until we reach "The Crow" starring Martin Scorsese as Vincent Van Gogh. The final dream "Village of the Watermills" stars the great 86-year-old Chishū Ryū playing a man who is 105.

29. Rhapsody in August (1991)

 

Ooh, how the American critics savaged this for just one scene where the kids ask why there is no American memorial in the Nagasaki Peace Park. "Because they were the ones that dropped the bomb."

A survivor is grandma to a bunch of thoroughly Americanized kids, who gradually come to realize the horror that was visited upon her in her youth. Richard Gere steps in to smooth things over, and a Schubert song on an out-of-tune organ plays a big part in the story.

Watch for the ants crawling up the rose in the Sutra scene.

30. Madadayo (1993)

 

The 83-year-old filmmaker was "not yet" done. This heartwarming tale of a German professor traverses time and space and features a lot of beer drinking. The title refers to a kid's expression when playing hide-and-seek: "Are you ready?" ... "Not yet!" (Madadayo).

Oh Lydia ... a review of FIELDS's TÁR [2022]

Oh Lydia, Oh Lydia.

Have you met Lydia?

 

Classical musicians tend to wince at Hollywood’s depictions of their art.

 

The reasons vary, but principally it involves the painful spectacle of watching actors try to pretend to play an instrument, or conduct. It usually looks quite unrealistic to serious musicians.

 

A quick look at just a few of the successful and not-so successful efforts over the years:

• Deception (1946)
• Humoresque (1946)
• The directors had the sense to avoid the stars hands, and used doubles at appropriate moments. Still moments of disappointment in both films.
• Unfaithfully Yours (1948)
• One of my favorites, for although Rex Harrison doesn’t conduct well, the music and scenario are so well done that we have to forgive his occasional ridiculous stabs with his baton, and commend Sturges for making us laugh so hard.
• One good joke from the tailor: “Nobody handles Handel like you do!”
• The Competition (1980)
• Again, well done with only a few anguished moments when we watch Dreyfuss or Irving try to play. Hand doubles are well placed, especially in the devilishly difficult Prokofiev.
• Amadeus (1984)
• Hulce learned to do what he needed. His acting carried the rest and helped create one of the very best films about classical music.
• Eroica (2003)
• This too-little-known BBC production — in my humble opinion — is the greatest film about classical music. The viewer is privileged to sit in on the very first rehearsal of the colossal Third Symphony (“Eroica”) of Beethoven. We watch a real orchestra purposely mess up at the start (and that is hard to do, folks!) and Ian Hart is the best Beethoven on screen, ever …
• The Soloist (2009)
• Although apparently Jamie Foxx learned some rudimentary cello technique, again the filmmakers avoided shots where we would see both his face and hands at the same time, and used doubles appropriately. A severely underrated film.
• A Late Quartet (2012)
• My disappointment was hard to swallow, because the subject of this film is a work that is near and dear to my heart — Beethoven’s C-Sharp Minor Quartet, Op. 131. It was painful to watch shots where Hoffman is trying to fake it. There’s only a few, but it ruins the picture.
• Youth (2015)
• The amazing Paolo Sorrentino directed this masterpiece about a composer/conductor (Michael Caine). Caine conducts only twice during the film -- once to an orchestra of cows and cowbells (!) and once to a real orchestra (no baton, smooth hands) ...

So now let’s talk about TÁR. If you haven’t seen the film, and intend to, stop reading here. SPOILERS AHEAD:

 

Things they got right:

• Name-checking the great female conductors of our day — Marin Alsop, JoAnn Falletta, Laurence Equilbey, Nathalie Stuzmann … However, Alsop gave the film a scathing review.
• “Women who came before us; women who did the real lifting!”
• “Who, for instance?”
• “First and foremost, Nadia Boulanger.” [I studied with her for nearly two years.]
• Boulanger did conduct, but her main emphasis was always on teaching.
• “Now, my left hand shapes, but my right hand, the second hand, marks time and moves it forward.”
• This is essentially a perfect description of conducting. Blanchett does a fairly good job, in general, although on several occasions she seems to be stabbing the air without purpose.
• The Lully story … true! LT seem to have stabbed herself in the foot, as well, by the end ...
• A young girl is talking to LT about her Rite of Spring performance.
• “It’s the 11 pistol shots…”
• A pretty cool reference to one bar of music with 11 dissonant repeated chords. To my ears, it sounds more like a cannon:

 

• Refusing to permit Eliot to look at her performance score, she rightly tells him: “There’s no glory for a robot.”
• I had to look this one up: “It sounds like a René Redzepi recipe for reindeer.”
• “Very Punkt contrapunkte.” This is an incredibly obscure reference to a parody from the Hoffnung Festival — one of the inspirations for Peter Schickele’s  P.D.Q. Bach … listen to it here.
• “ … standing on the podium with a 433, trying to sell a car without an engine.”
• Referencing John Cage’s famous composition 4’33”.
• Refuting Max’s comment about Bach (below):
• “What about Beethoven? For me, as a U-haul lesbian (huh?), I’m not too sure about old Ludwig. But then, I face him, and I find myself nose-to-nose with his magnitude and inevitability.”
• Blanchett — who apparently actually learned the Bach C Major Prelude — makes a fantastic musical joke about Glenn Gould, punctuated a legato passage with staccato!
• “Let’s slow this down to 60 beats a minute.” Sharon and Lydia dance to Neil Hefti’s “Lil’ Darlin’.” Sharon: “Actually, it’s 64 beats.” That’s an incredible ear to discern those extra four beats!
• [Peter Erskine tells an even more remarkable story about tempo when playing with Steely Dan, in his book No Beethoven:
• "Playing "Hey Nineteen," at 118 BPM, I noticed that the horns had a tendency to push the time a bit, so I thought it might be a good idea to bump up the tempo from 118 to 119 PBM. And so I did, in Cincinnati, without telling anyone and thinking none were the wiser. The next afternoon, Donald and Walter turned to me and said, 'that felt kinda FAST last night.' I replied, 'Wow, that's really something that you guys noticed.' They laughed a bit and then said, real serious, 'Yeah, well ... DON'T DO THAT AGAIN.'"]
• The cello auditions. The filmmakers got it right by having the applicants play behind a screen so that no judgments can be made about appearance or sex. Nevertheless, LT sees #3 leaving with women’s 👠 … ah, will this affect her decision? Hmm.
• Like her (supposed) mentor — Lenny — she speaks fluent German.
• The conversation in the recording booth rings true … whether she wants .wav files or mp3s.
• The little sounds that bother LT. So true! A humming refrigerator, a noisy car vent, in an otherwise silent environment will drive me crazy!
• “Forget the Visconti!” A reference to Death in Venice, which is saturated with music from the Adagietto movement.
• LT enters Sebastian’s office. She notices a bust on his shelves. “Is that Kalinnikov?” A wonderful reference to an obscure, but fantastic Russian composer who died at age 34.
• Andris Davis (Julian Glover): “Thank God I was never pulled from the podium like Jimmy Levine ..,. or hunted like Charles Dutoit.” Ouch.
• Good discussion about Furtwängler and Karajan re ties with the Nazi regime.
• The accordion scene is precious: Apartment for sale / your mother’s buried deep, and now you’re gonna go to hell / your sister’s in jail / you are all going to hell
• The Bernstein Young People's Concert tape she watches is the end of Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. We witness the depth of feeling produced by the music. Lenny stops, just as Tchaikovsky climaxes on a secondary dominant: F-Sharp Major to B Major to E Major, the tonic ...

 

Things they got wrong:

• LT is spreading records on the floor (note that most of them are Deutsche Grammaphon recordings, the company that produced the soundtrack!) She positions two recordings of the Fifth into close-up, both DG recordings: Abbado and Bernstein, both with the Berlin Philharmonic.
• Serious conductors do not listen to recordings of other conductors, once they have attained the professional standing that the filmmakers want you to believe LT has attained. Yes, in their youth they may have listened and made mental notes about what they liked and didn’t, perhaps — but a serious conductor must form his or her own ideas, without the influence of previous recordings.
• “She’s become particularly well-known for commissioning contemporary work from among others Jennifer Higdon, Caroline Shaw, Julia Wolfe and Hildur Guonadóttir. And she’s made a point of programming their works alongside composers of the canon.”
• Oh really? Nice name checks of some great composers (who happen to be female; Guonadóttir wrote the score for TÁR) — but LT show antipathy, close to outright hatred of the modern music she hears during the Juilliard scene.
• She’s won an EGOT.
• A serious classical musician is not today and would not in the foreseeable future be a candidate for these non-classical categories. Quite ridiculous.
• The scene at Juilliard begins with the students playing a piece called Ró by Anna Thorvaldsdottir. It is delightful, but LT begins to tear it apart without much thought. “It must be a pleasure to preside over a bed of strings who behave as if they’re tuning …” Is she really a champion of modern music? By female composers? 😳 …
• Juilliard scene … Max: “I’m not really into Bach.”
• Possibly the most ridiculous scene in the film. It’s almost impossible to imagine a conducting or composition student being “not really into Bach.”
• “Honestly, as a BIPOC, pangender person, I would say Bach’s misogynistic life makes it kind of impossible for me to take his music seriously.” WTF??
• This entire scene blows up right then and there.
• “Have you read the Schweitzer book?” Again, a ridiculous response. She’s asking him if he’s read a book about Bach, rather than his actual music.
• She twists a Varèse quote out of context to make him seem antisemitic.
• The last few bars of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony on the radio are waking up LT. She tries to identify the conductor: “Lenny? Walter? (Bruno) … “Oh, it’s you, MTT.” (Michael Tilson Thomas). “Why do you insist on holding things up like that? Your business here is rejoicing, not screaming like a fucking porn star.”
• Now without getting too deeply into the weeds, these last few bars of DS’s most famous symphony actually are quite controversial. It is now thought that these triumphant-sounding final bars are DS imitating Stalin, hitting the people with a stick and saying, “it is your business to rejoice — so rejoice!” MTT had it right.
• Sebastian — the assistant conductor — gives LT advice on the relative dynamics of the clarinet part. Completely ridiculous and would never happen professionally … for purposes of the film, though, it gives LT an excuse to “rotate him out.”
• Her original composition which she works on at the piano from time to time is banal and uninteresting. It is all melody without a hint of any accompanying harmony. This might have been to enable CB to handle it.
• For such a supposedly important live concert recording, to wait until the last moment to decide on a “companion” piece — in this case, the Elgar Cello Concerto, which is there for purposes of plot, of course — is pretty much unheard of … Poor Gosia!
• LT & Olga (Sophie Kauer, a real cellist) are working on the Elgar. [Props to CB for learning a few chords …]. Then they take a break and Olga sits at the piano plunking out LT’s composition. She suggests changing one note, and LT can hardly contain her ecstasy at this beautiful young genius. Ugh, how terribly fake. Like a serious composer would take advice from anyone!
• The close-up on the bass drum is beautiful. Blanchett's conducting here is terrible!
• "They’re just getting caught up in the power of your glissando and trying to match it ..."
• Another ridiculous phrase. There is no glissando and no one is trying to "match" it. A better phrase might have been something like, "The orchestra is overpowering you, even though you are playing fortissimo."
• The close-up of the "For Petra" score shows simple, very juvenile music.
• From IMDb trivia:
• "According to Field, LT never met Bernstein, whom she claims as a mentor. The closest she got to him was through the VHS tapes we see in the house she grew up in. 'He was a genuine figure in her childhood imagination, a very real person for her in a non-cynical way, in a non-opportunistic way. And maybe it's something she tried on. That's how lies happen.'"
• This is all ridiculous. The Bernstein mentorship is a huge part of her resumé. I guess this is a case of George Santos.
• The scene where they are bringing up allegations of sexual impropriety is meant to remind us of LEVINE. Nowhere does the film show LT doing anything like what got JL in trouble. She may be manipulative ... perhaps playing favorites -- but she's not guilty of any sexual impropriety like JL was.

Overall, TÁR is a wonderful thought-provoking film. It is especially rewarding on a second viewing ... Fields has hidden many Easter Egg plot points in various scenes -- some for just a few frames -- which help to fill in some of the mysteries. **** out of *****

RENOIR: Grand Illusion (1938) [by Lewis Saul]

 

 

Screenplay by Charles Spaak and Jean Renoir.

Renoir was 43 when he directed Grand Illusion.

One of the greatest filmmakers of all time, Renoir directed several terrific films before this one: Boudu Saved From Drowning (1932) -- an electric performance by Michel Simon -- and The Lower Depths (1936); and a few great ones after this one, Rules of the Game (1939), for example.

But I don't believe he made a greater film than this one, filmed between the two world wars.

**

 

If you haven’t seen this great masterpiece, do so immediately. We’ll wait.

 

SPOILERS AHEAD

 

Check it out:

• Lt. Maréchal (Jean Gabin) is singing along to a gramophone record of an old French song, “Frou Frou.” The gramophone itself clues us in that this is World War I.
• A dissolve and Captain von Rauffenstein (Erich von Stroheim) and his aide walk through the door. The transition is disconcerting. It is difficult to know where we are. A different gramophone dominates the right side of the frame and the observant viewer will notice that right behind it there is a poster on the wall — in German! Stroheim throws back a brandy with his stiff, unbending posture. Note how Renoir parallels this action in the scene when Boeldieu dies.
• Another dissolve and we are looking at the countryside through the window of a train. In a few seconds we land on a sign which reads, “Prisoner-of-War Camp Nr. 17 — Officers’ Camp.”
• The prisoners are lined up in a courtyard. Captain Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Maréchal both yawn. The camp regulations are read. A humorous bit of business occurs towards the end of the commandant’s long list of “forbidden” actions: an older German officer begins to intone “strictly forbidden, gentlemen!” in German, after the commandant recites the rules. Maréchal — amused — repeats the German phrase to Boeldieu, ironically.
• We meet a Frenchman, a Jew named Rosenthal (Marcel Dalio) who is opening a large parcel from home, stuffed with delicacies which — as we will see in a few frames — is better food than what the Germans are eating.
• GERMAN OFFICER #1: “This tastes like an old sock.”
• GERMAN OFFICER #2: “What do they feed the French?”
• GERMAN OFFICER #3: “Cabbage. But they have their parcels.”
• GERMAN OFFICER #1: “And the Russians?”
• GERMAN OFFICER #3: “Cabbage roots. But no parcels.”
• GERMAN OFFICER #2: “And the English?”
• GERMAN OFFICER #3: (in English): “Plum pudding!”
• Cartier (a fantastic Julien Carette) is crawling through the escape tunnel the prisoners are digging. Something is happening outside, and one of them pretends to go to the latrine to check it out. He runs into the German officer, Sgt. Arthur (Werner Florian) who is accompanying a detail carrying a dead body on a stretcher. Arthur informs him that the man was shot trying to escape.
• After getting rid of some tunnel dirt in the garden (a scene reprised in John Sturges’ The Great Escape [1963]), the men gather around a trunk of feminine clothing. A young, angel-faced soldier is talked into trying on a dress. “Funny, isn’t it?” he repeats as he preens.
• But no one is laughing. Renoir gives us a gorgeous, slow leftward pan, revealing face after face of these women-starved men, stunned with shock at the sight of this beautiful “woman.”
• Renoir pulls the camera back as we see the men working on their “costumes.” Note how he never lets the scene become static — everyone is busy with their work, and the dialogue flows naturally.
• As the conversation winds down, the fifes begin to play outside. From a tight shot, he pulls the camera back as the men huddle around the window. He is shooting from outside the window now. Very effective composition.
• Cartier’s shtick when he burns the pants he was ironing is hilarious.
• After a FTB, we see a poster proclaiming a German victory at Douamont (the date would be February 26, 1916) …
• Later, Maréchal interrupts the variety show with the news that the allies have retaken Douamont. He orders the band to play The Marseillaise. Gabin moves towards the edge of the stage and glares ferociously at some German officers, as the surging patriotic feelings from the song swell up in the background. Michael Curtiz seems to have been inspired by this scene in his 1942 film, Casablanca.
• Elision: Maréchal is in solitary. We aren’t given any explanation, but it will later become clear that he probably was caught trying to escape.
• Yet another poster: “German Troups Recapture Douamont” (April 17, 1916) …
• [note all the parallelism in this film!]
• MONTAGE of the train ride to Wintersborn … another parallel.
• Another multilingual conversation:
• RAUFFENSTEIN: (showing a large gun): “We have 25 more guns like this one.”
• BOELDIEU: “Uh-huh.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “I suppose you know the Maxim gun?”
• MARÉCHAL: “Very well, sir.” (He jabs a finger towards his broken arm.) “But personally, I prefer the restaurant!”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Touché … Maxim.” (He suddenly switches to English.) “That reminds me. I used to know a girl there in 1913. Her name was, ah — Fifi.”
• BOELDIEU: “So did I!”
• Rauffenstein is showing off the impossibility of escape:
• “A 120-foot drop!” (He has inadvertently told them the exact amount of rope they will need!)
• BOELDIEU: “So kind of you to show us around the grounds.”
• The five new roommates are discussing the diseases of the different classes (Rosenthal caught something from a “brunette” who was a friend of his mother!)
• ROSENTHAL: “We’d each die of our own class diseases, if war didn’t make all germs equal.”
• Rosenthal has some kind of hand-made map. Maréchal comes over to see it. Notice the detail in the set design! Renoir pulls back the camera ever so slightly, and we suddenly notice a new character on the right side of the frame — a Black man, who is working on some kind of wood burning art.
• The map will become an important artifact much later. Kurosawa was inspired by ideas like this.
• ROSENTHAL: “That means walking 15 nights on six lumps of sugar and two biscuits a day.” Again, prefiguring a future scene …
• Maréchal is braiding a long section of rope. The lookout alerts everyone that the guards are coming to search the room. Boeldieu hides the rope outside the window.
• Inspection. Notice the way Renoir handles this scene; he creates a dramatic entrance for Rauffenstein. Six guards enter the room. The camera faces the door, and remains there until all six guards have walked past. He then pans left to Maréchal reading, while a guard searches his pillow. Reading from a book:
• “I am weary as a girl after 22 nights of love.” “Twenty-two nights of love. Imagine that!”
• The camera pulls back slightly and pans to the next prisoner, who is also reading a book. The guard taps his leg and he lifts them, allowing the guard to search his blanket.
• Another leftward pan and we settle on the Teacher (John Dasté) and his guard, who makes him stand up and inspects the stool he was sitting on.
• The camera pans left again, to a guard who is just standing there. Suddenly his expression changes and he snaps to attention and barks: “Achtung!”
• The camera now pans right, as Rauffenstein makes a dignified entrance. “Continue!”
• A conversation that would never occur in the next world war: Boeldieu rises as Rauffenstein approaches. They salute each other:
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Give me your word that you’ve nothing in here against regulations.”
• BOELDIEU: (for a split second, Boeldieu offers up the tiniest of smirks [after all, the rope is hanging outside the window and is — truthfully — not “in here.”]) “You have my word.” Raufffenstein bows slightly and salutes … “But why my word and not theirs?” He indicates the others with a shake of his head.
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “The word of a … Rosenthal … and a Maréchal?”
• BOELDIEU (firmly): “It’s as good as ours.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN (not convinced): “Perhaps.”
• FTB. Boeldieu and Rauffenstein are in the Prussian’s chapel-like large room, conversing about their mutual acquaintance, Boeldieu’s cousin, the Count. Notice the way that the two are virtually mirroring each other’s movements — the walk, the cigarettes, etc. And then a perfect parallel of the previous search scene, with a bit more detail:
• BOELDIEU: “Why did you make an exception of me by inviting me here?”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Why? Because your name is Boeldieu, career officer in the French Army, and I am Rauffenstein, career officer in the German Imperial Army.”
• BOELDIEU: “But my comrades are officers, as well.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “A Maréchal and a Rosenthal, officers?
• BOELDIEU: “They’re fine soldiers.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Charming legacy of the French Revolution.”
• BOELDIEU: “Neither you nor I can stop the march of time.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Boeldieu … I don’t know who will win this war. But whatever the outcome, it will mean the end of the Rauffensteins and the Boeldieus.”
• BOELDIEU: “We’re no longer needed.”
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “And don’t you find that a pity?”
• BOELDIEU: “Perhaps …”
• Boeldieu’s plan is to stage a concert (the arts are “allowed”) with flutes and anything the prisoners can bang on …
• Another lovely composition. Maréchal on the left, Boeldieu on the right, and in the center a large cage with a squirrel within. Both Gabin and Fresnay have lots of cute business with the little fella.
• Just as Boeldieu predicted, the prisoners are lined up in the yard after their cacophonous concert. Roll call. Boeldieu’s name is called; no response. We hear a flute. Maréchal and the others look up, trying to locate the source of the sound.
• Cut to Rauffenstein, also looking for the culprit. The camera pans the walls of the fortress, and finds Boeldieu sitting on a beam, playing his flute.
• (Kosma’s score kicks into full gear here (wonderful!)
• All hell breaks loose. Cut to Maréchal and Rosenthal tying their rope to the window. Rosenthal goes first. Renoir ratchets up the tension by having Maréchal hide behind a post, as some guards walk by. He then makes it down, and the two men scurry off into the night.
• Where did they go? Eight minutes of film will elapse before we discover what happened.
• Cut to the guards, shining a spotlight on Boeldieu. He taunts them with his flute. They begin to fire at him.
• Cut to Rauffenstein, hearing the gunfire. He is alarmed. He arrives on the scene and tries to reason with Boeldieu — in English!
• RAUFFENSTEIN: “Have you really gone insane?”
• BOELDIEU: “I am perfectly sane!”
• After several warnings, Rauffenstein shoots him. Guards arrive to inform him about the escape. He leaves, moving past the camera, which does a quick rack-focus on the soldier who remains in the frame. Brief, but beautiful.
• Cut to a disconcerting ECU of a box which contains religious paraphernalia (a crucifix, two candles, etc.) … the camera stays close on the man holding the box. He is wearing a crucifix and German “iron cross.” He turns, as Renoir pulls the camera back a bit to reveal Rauffenstein and his aide. The priest puts on his coat which has a Red Cross armband on it.
• A lot of filmic information to absorb in a few seconds. Why a priest? Renoir is conveying that Boeldieu is not yet dead, but seriously injured.
• Last line from his deathbed:
• “For a commoner, dying in war is a tragedy. But for you and me, it’s a good way out.”
• Rauffenstein gets up for a drink. Boeldieu dies. Rauffenstein closes his eyes and gets up and goes to the window, where he prunes a dead bloom from his plant.
• Renoir now turns away from everything and everyone with whom we have spent the past hour or so. The film now becomes a duet, a trio … a quartet …
• Another disconcerting cut to a woman walking down a country road with a white horse.
• Renoir can be devilish with his set-ups. Here he pans 90 degrees right and stops — we expect to see our heroes. We do not. But momentarily, we hear Maréchal’s voice:
• “We should’ve avoided the road.”
• The camera now pans downward and we find the two men, huddled in the tall reeds.
• There is a lovely axial cut here, where the medium shot turns into a close-up.
• Again, some clever presagement:
• ROSENTHAL: “He’s gone.”
• MARÉCHAL: “What? Didn’t you notice it was a woman?”
• (It’s impossible to tell for sure if this is Elsa (Dita Parlo) or not, but this bit of dialogue reverberates later then they are lucky enough to stumble upon a house with only a woman and a child in it.)
• Rosenthal has a bad leg and is in obvious distress. Maréchal offers him his sugar ration. There is not much left. He gives the sugar to Rosenthal, who catches on and realizes that Maréchal has been doing without, saving what’s left for the crippled man. Maréchal is returning Rosenthal’s previous kindness when he shared his parcels.
• The journey continues. Rosenthal is resting, holding up his bad leg and balancing himself with a staff.
• MARÉCHAL: “You coming or what?”
• ROSENTHAL (starting to walk): “I’m doing the best I can.”
• They trudge along. Suddenly, some spectacular scenery comes into view. Watch carefully! Rosenthal seems to take a moment to appreciate the beauty. He turns his head, taking it all in, despite the misery.
• The companions are starting to get testy:
• MARÉCHAL: “You and your foot!”
• ROSENTHAL: “It’s not my fault! I slipped.”
• Immediately after this line, Renoir holds the camera on the scenery, as the two men pass the camera.
• Cut to a new view of a sloping mountain. The men re-enter the frame. The tension bursts:
• MARÉCHAL: “You slipped! That’s all I hear. If you get us caught, you’ll explain you slipped? We’re out of food. Might as well give up now.”
• ROSENTHAL: “Gladly. I’ve had enough too.”
• MARÉCHAL: “Had enough of me?”
• ROSENTHAL: “Damn right! If you only knew how you make me sick!”
• MARÉCHAL: “Well, the feeling’s mutual. You’re a dead weight. A ball and chain. I never could stomach Jews!”
• ROSENTHAL: “A bit late to realize that! Clear out, you’re dying to.”
• MARÉCHAL: “You said it!”
• ROSENTHAL: “Get lost! I’m sick of your ugly mug!”
• MARÉCHAL: “I’m going! You’re on your own now! So long! (Maréchal leaves.)
• ROSENTHAL: “So long! Go ahead! (he raises his staff above his head) … “I’m so happy I could sing …” (singing): “There once was a little steamboat / which had ne-ne-never gone to sea …”
• Cut to Maréchal, who continues the song:
• “After five or six weeks at sea / the supplies were al-al-almost gone for good.”
• He gradually stops singing, realizing the ugly reality of the last line. Note the camera’s hold on the countryside, as Gabin walks out of the frame again!
• Cut to Rosenthal, sitting, forlorn. He is centered perfectly in the frame. Suddenly, Maréchal appears, only his torso in the frame.
• ROSENTHAL: “Why’d you come back?”
• The camera pans up to Maréchal’s face.
• “Come on. Let’s go, fella.”
• He tenderly helps Rosenthal to his feet, as they exit the frame. Renoir again holds on the background for a second …
• DISSOLVE to yet another scenic backdrop. Maréchal is helping Rosenthal along, as they trudge up a steep hill.
• The richness of all that follows would not have been as powerful if Renoir had not taken the time to give us the men’s travels and travails.
• They arrive at Elsa’s little cottage house. They hide in the barn. They hear something. Maréchal stands ready with a big club. A cow walks in … followed by Elsa, making her entrance in the film at the 1:34 mark (she’s billed second in the credits!)
• Because the cultured Rosenthal can speak German, they can communicate with Elsa.
• FTB. Picture of Elsa’s dead husband, killed at Verdun.
• ELSA: “The table’s too big now”
• … as Renoir’s camera moves to the big table, which could seat eight — finally revealing little Lotte (Little Peters, who died of the flu just weeks before the film was released).
• Maréchal’s duet with the cow:
• “Relax, it’s only me! You don’t mind if a Frenchman feeds you?” (he gives the cow a firm pat) … “you smell like my grandfather’s cows. A good smell.” (he lets out a little laugh) …
• “You’re a good cow from Würtemberg and I’m a working man from Paris, but we can still be pals! You’re a poor cow. I’m a poor soldier. We each do our best.”
• Again, he gives the cow a little thump. He leaves the barn. But Renoir keeps the camera on Bessie. She lets out a loud moo.
• Renoir gives us some important information in a throwaway line. Elsa asks Maréchal to get some water in German. Rosenthal quickly translates, but Maréchal says he understood her.
• “For 18 months I never understood the guards. But her, I understand!”
• Thus we know how long they were imprisoned.
• FTB. They have constructed a little manger for Christmas. Rosenthal has carved some potatoes into little toy figures …
• ROSENTHAL: “Isn’t my little donkey cute? And my ox? And the infant Jesus?” He smiles broadly, turning towards Maréchal: “An ancestor of mine.”
• They’ve been there awhile now. The attraction between Elsa and Maréchal is evident.
• They’ve bid each other “bon soir.” He and Rosenthal enter the bedroom and close the door behind them.
• CUT. We see that there are two connecting rooms. Maréchal closes the door to his own room and picks up a little apple from the bureau, which he begins to eat. (The music swells.) Just as he reaches the other door — still open — Renoir shows us his mastery of composition …
• The camera is behind Maréchal with Elsa, beautiful in black, is just above Gabin’s right shoulder. He walks towards her, slowly. They embrace, and …
• FTB. (this is the only example in the entire film where we run into a rough splice, not corrected in the restoration.) The “swelling” music of the love scene is brutally interrupted by a new cue … faster, jaunty.
• FTB. The men are talking just outside the house. Maréchal can’t bring himself to tell Elsa that they are leaving. Rosenthal volunteers to do it.
• He enters the house and speaks with Elsa. He then opens the window, revealing Maréchal. Note the composition! The open window is like a painting framed within another painting!
• They say goodbye. The men disappear into the darkness and Renoir cuts back to Elsa, putting away the dishes.
• FTB. Huge snowy mountains. The camera tracking here is virtually identical (parallelism) to the previous scene when we first spot the two men in the ditch by the reeds! Ninety degrees to the right and then downward, where we find the two men in deep snow. Even the conversation is similar — about whether or not to leave this spot or wait until it gets dark …
• MARÉCHAL: “We’ve got to end this war and make it the last.”
• ROSENTHAL: “Don’t count on it”
• How prescient!
• CUT to German soldiers, following the tracks in the snow. One of the soldiers points. Others raise their guns. A few shots are fired before the sergeant tells them to stop firing — they’ve already reached Switzerland.
• SERGEANT: “Don’t shoot, they’re in Switzerland.”
• SOLDIER: “Good for them.”
• Final shot: the two men are trudging through a field of virgin snow.

 

 

All The Things You Are [by Lewis Saul]

VARIOUS ARTISTS

All the Things You Are

Ten versions

Oh, I coulda picked 20 or 30, there are so many great recordings of this oft-played standard by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, which is from the 1939 musical Very Warm for May.

The intro appears in #3, 4, 9 and 10. Probably written by Bird or Diz, so as to have something prior to diving into the tune.

This ingenious composition relies on a constant shuffle of secondary dominants. Right after the first tonic, Kern spins a vi/ii/V/I to D-Flat Major, then again vi/ii/v/I to E-Flat Major. Then G Major, E Major, and finally A-Flat Major, the parallel tonic, before dropping a semitone to introduce ii/V back to the original tonic, F Minor..

1. Tommy Dorsey (1939)
Jack Leonard, vocal
(3:19)

Dorsey's warm tone and a beautifully filled-in arrangement sets up Leonard's vocal, with Dorsey playing behind him with a mute.

2. Frank Sinatra (1945)
Ken Lane Singers
(3:03)

Towards the end, he takes it up a half-step and finishes on a high G-Flat!

3. Charlie Parker (1947)
CP, alto saxophone
Miles Davis, trumpet
Duke Jordan, piano
Tommy Potter, bass
Max Roach, drums
(3:08)

A nice intro, which both Bird and Dizzy use, as well as Scofield and Mehldau (below). Bird plays the head with lots of little flourishes, but never loses the melodic line. Miles solos first, muted. Jordan goes next, back to Miles and Bird together; they finish with the intro music ...

4. Dizzy Gillespie (1955)
DG, trumpet
Charlie Parker, alto saxophone
Clyde Hart, piano
Frank Paparelli, guitar
Slam Stewart, bass
Cozy Cole, drums
(2:52)

Gillespie plays the head with a mute. Bird takes the B section. Stewart takes over, bowed, followed by Hart, Paparelli (B section); then Dizzy returns, followed by the intro as ending.

5. Art Tatum & Ben Webster (1956)
AT, piano
BW, tenor saxophone
Red Callender, bass
Bill Douglas, drums
(7:22)

At a very relaxed tempo, Tatum begins alone for two choruses, then the breathy Webster blows through the wind (what a sound!) ... Tatum returns with some soulful improvisation -- when Webster pops back in, Tatum is in full 88-key accompaniment!

6. Ella Fitzgerald (1963)
(3:19)

Nelson Riddle arrangement. Ella sings it pretty straight, but what pure vocal tone! Riddle writes out a softly fading finish.

7. Oscar Peterson (1970)
OP, piano
George Mraz, bass
Ray Price, drums
(6:10)

A little Latin tinge. Peterson plays bunch of cool substitutions in the head, and the he's off and running, bopping around the changes, but without ever covering up the harmonies. He also runs the gamut with dynamics -- smashing octaves melting into superb quiet coolness.

He finishes the tune playing over a two-bar riff (Fm7/Bbm7) ...

8. Tommy Flanagan (1978)
TF, piano
Keeter Betts, bass
Jimmy Smith, drums
(5:57)

Live at Carnegie Hall. Flanagan's solo alternates between strong block chords and high-wire ripplings. An amazing pianist.

9. John Scofield (1988)
JS, guitar
Anthony Cox, bass
Terry Lynne Carrington, drums
(7:40)

Scofield (electric guitar) runs through the head by himself, barely touching the  melody until the turnaround. He plucks out notes from the chord structure like he's catching raindrops.

Carrington is one my favorite drummers. She's like Elvin or Tony Williams -- keeping time while punching all kinds of offbeats and cymbals crashing -- without ever getting in Scofield's way.

Cox takes a beautiful solo, Carrington's brush work keeping things crisp, while Scofield comps, then gradually returns, again just touching the melodic outline. He then switches things up and finishes the tune with the Phrygian Parker intro.

10. Brad Mehldau (1999)
BM, piano
Larry Grenadier, bass
Jorge Rossy, drums
(13:44)

Live at the Village Vanguard.

Mehldau plays by himself, jerkily circling around the melody/harmony, with both hands syncopating -- resulting in a cloud of rhythmic uncertainty. It's captivating.

The bass and drums join in around the two-minute mark. Grenadier's solo is also heavily syncopated -- but this band always knows where one is!

Mehldau also introduces the Parker intro, over which Rossy solos.

One of the truly great talents of our day.

Weather Report [by Lewis Saul]

Warm and sunny, with intermittent showers of be-bop, funk, and ... jazz fusion.

At some point in the 80's that term became a bad word. Perhaps jazz fission would have been better. (clean energy)

**

Weather Report was born after the great Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter ended their tenure with Miles Davis with two spectacular albums, In a Silent Way (1969) and Bitches Brew.(1970), and decided to form their own group.

They released 15 albums, pretty much once a year between 1971 and 1986. Choosing one track per album is today's challenge:

1. Weather Report (1971)

Milky Way

2. I Sing the Body Electric (1972)

Unknown Soldier

3. Sweetnighter (1973)

Boogie Woogie Waltz

4. Mysterious Traveller (1974)

Cucumber Slumber

5. Tale Spinnin' (1975)

Between the Thighs

6. Black Market (1976)

Cannon Ball

7. Heavy Weather (1977)

Palladium

8. Mr. Gone (1978)

River People

9. 8:30 (1979)

Sightseeing

10. Night Passage (1980)

Fast City

11. Weather Report (1982)

N.Y.C.

12. Procession (1983)

Where the Moon Goes

13. Domino Theory (1984)

D-Flat Waltz

14. Sportin' Life (1985)

Corner Pocket

15. This is This! (1986)

Update

Non-Narrative Cinema [by Lewis Saul]

Fade to black. Wiggly dissolve. Cut to a super:

Ext. 1982. A movie theater marquee advertising E.T. .I'm dating the woman who is now my wife (40 years and counting). As we're leaving the theater, I notice that I'm crying. But it's weird because I'm pissed that I'm crying! In the car, I'm figuring it all out. Spielberg was a clever manipulator, but the real culprit was John Williams! It was the music that combined with the image to pull at my heartstrings. How'd he do that?

Thus began my a voyage of self-education in the process of cinema, and love of film that made me more a participant and less a customer.

Non-narrative films have an appeal to me that is absent in Hollywood blockbusters. I will limit myself to eight films which have little or no story, but thrill me (and I hope you!) from the early days of cinema up to the present time:

• BUÑUEL and DALI: Un Chien Andalou (1929)
• DZIGA VERTOV: A Man With a Movie Camera (1929)
• SERGEI PARAJANOV: The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
•     see also LADY GAGA's music video 911.
• HOLLIS FRAMPTON: Zorn's Lemma (1970)
• STAN BRAKHAGE: The Dante Quartet (1987)
• ABBAS KIAROSTAMI: 24 Frames (2017) [trailer]
• MICHAEL McDONAGH: The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) [trailer]
• ALEJANDRO IÑÁRRITU: Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths (2022) [trailer]

I leave you with some words from the late Kiarostami:

Cinema means we are left alone to a world that is opening to us; if not, as it has turned today, it is just a bigger version of a TV series, and I don't see the point of bothering to leave our comfortable homes and come in the theater to see the same thing all together, to make sure that we have the same opinions and the same feelings; we cry at the same moment and we laugh at the same moment, and we judge the same way, and we're able to discuss the same subject -- that's not what cinema is meant for. For me, we are here to be really able to experience a unique personal relationship to a different world.

Karlheinz Stockhausen [by Lewis Saul]

Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) would not make many Top Ten Composers of All Time list -- but he makes mine!

I first encountered his music when I was 15 (1967), and I knew the tingling in my ears meant that I had found something special. My beloved late father -- who could sit and listen to Heifetz's recording of the Beethoven Violin Concerto on forever-repeat -- used to ask me why I considered this stuff music at all! Yet, he patiently listened, his body twitching when things got too weird, but I think he understood why I was so drawn to the awesome newness of these works.

I hardly expect to change too many minds -- most people yell "noise" at the first moment -- but I present you here 12 opportunities to sample a fraction of his work in chronological order on YouTube. Give it a chance. Open Thy Ears ...

1. Chöre für Doris (1950). A student work, Stockhausen sets three poems by Paul Verlaine, for a cappella chorus -- 1) Die Nachtigall (The Nightingale); 2. Armer junger Hirt (A Poor Young Shepherd); and 3. Agnus Dei. He is learning how to actualize serial (12-tone) principles, much like the early works of his fellow student, Pierre Boulez.
2. Kontra-Punkte (1952-53). For ten instruments, this performance by Ensemble Linea is excellent. As the title suggests, this composition is interested in a pointillistic approach to counterpoint. Each instrument plays a unique series of notes which combines with others to create an ethereal polyphony.
3. Zeitmasse (1955-56). For woodwind quintet, except he replaces the French Horn with an English Horn. Again, the title tells all. Here he is concerned with time -- foreshortened, quickened, and suspended in air molecules. The music is breathtaking and magical -- the five members of the London Sinfonietta play with extraordinary comprehension and passion.
4. Gruppen for three orchestras (1955-57). These French musicians perform! The work again uses a pointillistic approach to creating a whole. All three groups are completely synchronized, but in a live performance, the listener hears the voices coming from the different directions.
5. Gesang der Jüngling (1955-56). Here -- in one of Stockhausen's early attempts at combining a human musical instrument (in this case, a boy soprano) with electronic sounds -- he works with pitch resonance and electronically-produced phonemes. Stockhausen uses three types of electronic sound: 1) sine tones; 2) pulses/clicks; and 3) filtered white noise. The text is from the Book of Daniel.
6. Klavierstuck XI (1956). The great French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard performs the 11th of Stockhausen's "piano pieces." Similar to Zyklus (below), the score consists of 19 fragments spread out over a single large page. The performer determines the sequence and finishes at a pre-determined point.
7. Zyklus (1959). For solo percussionist. Alexander Smith delivers a knock-out performance of a spiral score which the performer must cut-and-paste, choose a starting point, and create a "cycle" of every imaginable percussive sound to create a unified whole. Smith's videographer also did a magnificent job.
8. Carré for four orchestras and four choirs (1959-60). Like Gruppen, spatial distribution of sound is the main concern. Eight basic categories of sound form the foundation (type, attack, gestalt variation, density, register, duration, amplitude, and color) are all further subdivided into four more detailed groups.
9. Hymnen (1966-67). Here is Stockhausen's greatest masterpiece, imho. The piece uses both electronic and concrete (real sounds) and is divided into four "regions" which feature various national anthems: Region I uses The Internationale and La Marseillaise; Region II features the Deutschlandlied, a group of African anthems, the beginning of Russian anthem, and a fragment of the Nazi-era Horst-Wessel-Lied; Region III continues the Russian, the Star-Spangled Banner, and the Marcha Real; Region IV features the Swiss Psalm.
10. Stimmung (1968). For six singers who begin from a low B-Flat fundamental and in just intonation expand upwards through overtone singing. Stockhausen was inspired by his own meditation, creating vocal sounds that originate from different parts of the body -- nasal, for example. Incorporated into the structure are "magic words" -- gods and goddesses from many cultures; Aztec, aboriginal, ancient Greek, etc. This video streams a spectral analysis of the music from the Paul Hiller Theatre of Voices.
11. Mantra (1970). For two ring-modulated pianos, with woodblocks, antique cymbals and short-wave radio. As usual, the structure is well thought out and complex.
12. Licht (Die sieben Tage der Woche) (1977-2003) A cycle of seven operas -- one for each day of the week. Licht consists of 29 hours of music.

Hanukkah ca. 1960 [by Lewis Saul]

There I am stage right with older sister Wendy; and Lynn (z'l) and little bro, Alan.

It looks like I got some kind of game -- but it was Lynn who knew what I really wanted.

A Hanukkah or two after this pic, she got me the Nine Beethoven symphonies scores, which was the greatest present anyone's ever given me. By the time I was 11 or 12, I had committed most of the music to memory.

I look over my studio today, and there are scores everywhere! Thanks, Lynn for starting me on this fabulous eternal journey.

Dmitri Shostakovich: The Nose, Op. 15 (1927-28) [by Lewis Saul]

The Nose, Op. 15 (1927-28)
Royal Opera House
Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Ingo Meszmacher, cond.
(2:13:27)

 

The 22-year-old wrote his first opera (although he began others, the only other satisfactorily complete one is Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk [see my post]) a mere decade after the Revolution.

Based on the short story of the same title by Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852), this short window of relative artistic freedom in the pre-Stalinist Soviet Union allowed Shostakovich to create such a satiric and grotesque parody of the bureaucracy.

The Gogol (read it here) begins:

"In a certain Russian ministerial department --

But it is perhaps better that I do not mention which department it was. There are in the whole of Russia no persons more sensitive than Government officials. Each of them believes if he is annoyed in any way, that the whole official class is insulted in his person."

 

Gerard McBurney:

"The Nose is one of the young Shostakovich's greatest masterpieces, an electrifying tour de force of vocal acrobatics, wild instrumental colours and theatrical absurdity, all shot through with a blistering mixture of laughter and rage ... the result, in Shostakovich's ruthlessly irreverent hands, is like an operatic version of Charlie Chaplin or Monty Python ... despite its magnificently absurd subject and virtuosic music, The Nose is a perfectly practical work and provides a hugely entertaining evening in the theatre."

 

Woody Allen borrowed the material for an even sillier take on the whole thing with Sleeper (1973).

This amazing production is in English, with subtitles.

The opera begins at 0:09:23:

 

The percussion Entr'acte as the people dance around the nose.

The Policemen's Dance (Galop)

Dance of the Noses (you'll not want to miss this one!)

 

Act III: Scene at the Police Station

Four Interesting Covers [by Lewis Saul]

A cover song is a new recording of a previously released song that someone else wrote.

So the first two examples don't really fit that definition -- they are more like transformations:

1. Miles Davis was 19-years-old when he took the bandstand with Charlie Parker and played this solo on the tune Now's the Time from 1945:
       Now let us travel forward to 1958 when Miles recorded Straight No Chaser. This is Red Garland, playing Miles's famous solo in block chords.
   
2. Let's listen to Bird playing a solo on Lady Be Good from 1946 ...
       And now listen to Eddie Jefferson putting words to the solo from the James Moody album Cookin' the Blues from 1961. [thanks to Jamie Katz for turning me on to this ...]
3. Whoosh, back to 1930! Duke Ellington's Rockin' in Rhythm.
       And now Weather Report's cover from the 1980 album Night Passage. Listen to how Zawinul & Co. transformed all those big-band sounds into an exciting modern sonic palette.
4. Ellington again -- this time from 1927! East St. Louis Toodle-Oo
       And in the sole track from Steely Dan's discography without lyrics, we get another amazing modern cover with guitars replacing saxes, from the album Pretzel Logic (1974) -- remaining amazingly faithful to the original.

William Makepeace Thackeray: Pendennis [by Lewis Saul]

Fifty years ago, your Editor, a few friends and I were drinking strong black coffee at a nice little café in the Montparnasse district of Paris. I was studying music composition and -- frankly -- had never read anything other than texts on music (with the exception of Theodore Dreiser, a high-school independent study project).

The conversation was filled with author names which were totally unfamiliar to me -- James Joyce, Henry Miller, and David insisted that I also read some good poetry, like Apollinaire and Mayakovsky (not to be confused with Nikolai, the composer).

Having never gone to college, this started me on my journey with literature. (Thank you, David!)

A few years later, Stanley Kubrick released his masterpiece, Barry Lyndon, based on the novel by somebody named William Makepeace Thackeray. The film had extensive narration, which sounded like it was lifted straight from the book.

Fast forward to this century, and I had seen the film Vanity Fair, written by the same dude with this weird name. I had to check it out. As is my wont, I decided to go for the guy's complete works. I found this slightly mildewy 1903 edition on Ebay:


I devoured Barry Lyndon and Vanity Fair and just yesterday completed Pendennis, written in 1849-50.

The book begins with Arthur Pendennis at 13, away from his country home at College (I guess that's what they called Junior High back then). He is an average student -- deficient in Greek -- and is plucked! (dismissed) ...

Ashamed and demoralized, he determines to set himself right. There is his saintly mother, Helen; his step-sister Laura, his severe uncle, The Major, retired on half-pay from service in India and a host of other characters who one gets to know intimately through the nearly 800 pages of this two-volume edition.

We are swept along with events in London and the countryside as Pen eventually reaches the age of 26. Thackery masterfully keeps things moving, ending chapters on a cliffhanger and abruptly changing scenes and characters.

The classism and misogyny are to be expected, I suppose. But even there, Thackeray has great fun with some minor characters of a lower (but only slightly) strata in "society."

A great read and a tremendous morality tale.

P.S. Myakovsky's A Cloud in Trousers is an awesome poem!