I recently finished watching the first season of a BBC television programme called Sacred Music.  The show looked at the history of sacred music in the west, and I enjoyed it tremendously.  The first season consisted of four hour-long episodes.

The first episode was on Gregorian chant and the origins of polyphony at the twelfth-century “school of Notre Dame” in Paris.  The second looked at the flowering of polyphony in the music of Palestrina, with side glances at some of his eminent contemporaries.  The third episode, which I though the best of them, was about the music of William Byrd and Thomas Tallis in Elizabethan England.  The final episode looked at the music of Bach.

The series is hosted by Simon Russell Beale, a former chorister at St. Paul’s Cathedral.  Musical examples and illustrations are provided by Harry Christophers and his choir, The Sixteen, who happen to be one of the best choirs in the world.  Without them the show would still be pretty good; with them it is outstanding.

There are a few irritants and problems.  The historical background is sometimes over-simplified (they really play up the Council of Trent connection in the Palestrina episode), and the producers sometimes fall prey to that overly-dramatic underlining that seems to afflict British television.  The episode on Bach, which ought to have been the best, was marred by an apparently irresistible and chronic desire to lionize Martin Luther.  But those are, all told, fairly minor complaints.  I recommend the show if you’ve an interest in this sort of thing.

I believe that the episodes still air from time to time on BBC TV.  If you don’t have access, you’ll have to shift for yourself (remembering, perhaps, that even a television show can be abstracted to a torrent of bits).  But it will be worth the effort.

Here is a clip from Episode 1, in which we learn about the first two polyphonists whose names have come down to us: Leonin and Perotin.  This is great music, and the scenery is not bad either:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=MIILXC8K

La partitura esta aquí:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=U0EQFCYE

I have some thoughts ensuing from my last post.  The first is about music.  This blog is primarily about classic Christianity as revealed through texts.  A discussion of Haydn’s Creation and the doctrine of creation is not about any classic texts of the faith, and a significant portion of it was about a teaching or idea.  However, a discussion of a piece of classical music such as that is consonant with the aims of Classic Christianity as seen in the sidebar on the main page.

The riches of the Great Tradition are not only locked away between the covers of books.  Another of the places where Christians can find the richness of the past ages is the arts.  Haydn’s Creation carries within it pieces of the tradition, truths that are timeless, enrobing them in the flesh of music.  The beauty of Haydn’s composition sings forth the beauty of creation.

Haydn’s Creation is but one example of many, but is an entrance into one facet of how music can carry the tradition through the ages.  Similar to Creation is Handel’s Messiah, also an oratorio, recounting the life and theology of the Messiah in beautiful music with words all taken from Scripture.  Within that tradition of performance-oriented classical music we also have Bach’s cantatas based on the passion narratives of the Gospels, Brahms’ German Requiem, and Stravinksy’s Symphony of Psalms among others.  All of this music captures in some way some aspect of the Great Tradition.  All of this music is worth listening to as music, as art.  And, I believe, all of this music is a vehicle of God’s grace and revelation.

Most Christian music, however, has been composed for use in worship.  The earliest surviving music is the chant of the ancient churches, Gregorian, Byzantine, Syrian, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Armenian.  Related to these are Anglican plainsong and the chant of the Slavic churches.  This music is filled with an austere beauty and able to create space for worship of a type that modern worship music does not.  The Renaissance produced music so beautiful one imagines that the angels in heaven must use it as they gather around the Throne of the Almighty, especially Palestrina but also Tallis, Allegri, and others.  All of this ancient, beautiful music for worship stands within the same musical tradition and is very valuable.

Composers of classical music have also written music for times of worship.  Tchaikovsky wrote settings for the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.  Monteverdi wrote Vespers.  Verdi and Mozart both wrote Requiems.  Vivaldi wrote a Mass.  Their music has also been applied to hymns by different lyricists, such as Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” providing the tune to “Joyful, Joyful.”

Also important is the tradition of hymnody.  I speak now of music with English lyrics.  These old hymns are worthy to be sung in congregations all of the world.  The best of them have resonant theology with captivating music.  My favourite hymnographers are Charles Wesley and John Mason Neale.  Some of my favourite hymns by other writers are “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” “Alleluia! Sing to Jesus,” “I Cannot Tell Why He Whom Angels Worship,” “As I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” and “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

In modern worship, these hymns sometimes fall through the cracks as we seek to be cool and contemporary and relevant, singing only the newest and hippest songs.  Yet these songs, these tunes with these words, connect us to the tradition of Christians who have gone before us, passing along their thoughts and theology, their beauty and sense of holiness.  I encourage leaders of worship to keep the hymns in the repertoire amongst the newer songs.

Exciting to my mind are some new hymns that have been produced (we’re talking hymn as a musical genre).  The only things that come immediately to mind are “In Christ Alone,” and “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.”  Other musicians who have kept links to the old music, old poems, and old theology have produced new music for liturgical settings, as John Michael Talbot who has essentially produced the entire Mass and Steve Bell who has a version of the Sanctus, “Holy Lord.”  Steve Bell has also recorded musically new yet truly old songs on his album Devotion, though these are not all his own compositions.

A study of the old music is important for those who wish to engage in the creation of new music.  Some churches act as though only the old is worth singing; this is not true, for the old was once the new.  Some churches act as though only the new is worth singing; this is also not true, for the new is untested and untried.  A combination of the two is worth singing, in my opinion.  However, a knowledge of this old music, of Haydn, Palestrina, Tchaikovsky, Wesley,  and Neale, of what has gone before, will undoubtedly deepen the new music, as a knowledge of old poetry can deepen new poetry, that of old theology new theology, that of old paintings new paintings and so forth.

Since we’re talking about music, I do listen to some new Christian music besides John Michael Talbot and Steve Bell.  I am a fan of Rich Mullins and dc Talk (both “old” new music by now), some Newsboys, Jars of Clay, and Third Day as well as a certain amount of new worship songs by the likes of Matt Redman and people whose names escape me (except — because I worship at Little T — Mike Janzen and — because I’m kind of oldskool — Graham Kendrick).

Music is an important part of the life of church, ancient and modern, old and new.  We should tap the resources of this vast tradition that spreads out behind as well as all around us.

Una buona musica si riconosce non dalla piacevolezza immediata, che, anzi, può anche essere un cattivo segno, ma dal fatto che ogni suo particolare, ogni struttura, ogni passaggio non si comprende subito, ma rimanda a qualcosa d’altro e questo continuo rimando ridesta in noi una continua domanda di senso, di significato e di compimento.

Lungi dall’essere un modo arido di ascoltare, cercare di seguire la struttura di un passaggio musicale (ad esempio il susseguirsi dei temi ed il loro riapparire a distanza, le loro trasformazioni) permette di cogliere come ogni evento musicale, ogni passaggio derivato dal precedente e porta al successivo, risvegliando la memoria di passaggi musicali già uditi e risvegliando l’attesa di ciò che si udirà in seguito, e soprattutto, alla fine, risvegliando in questo modo nel nostro cuore il senso dell’attesa e del mistero.

Se ogni particolare rimanda ad altro, infatti, prima o poi si intuisce come tutto il brano rimanda ad una bellezza mai raggiunta e mai pienamente realizzata. Infatti il compositore sente il bisogno di comporre il brano successivo, l’interprete quello di suonare ancora, l’ascoltatore quello di ascoltare nuovamente.

Concentramenti Coppa Italia

FONTE: serieadilettanti.it

Sono rientrata, camminando sollevata da terra, dalla Messa che si è tenuta oggi in S. Ambrogio alle 11. Tanti i motivi di cotale stato di beatitudine. Innanzi tutto, ero nella “mia” Basilica di S. Ambrogio, per me la più bella chiesa di Milano, quella dove andavo a pregare quando frequentavo l’Università Cattolica, lì vicino, e dove, in tempi più recenti, ho avuto la fortuna di cantare col mio coro in più occasioni. Poi, oggi, nell’ambito del festival internazionale della musica “MI-TO“, la messa era accompagnata dall’ensemble Odhecaton (splendido coro polifonico di sole voci maschili: le parti acute erano eseguite da contraltisti, il che rievocava magiche atmosfere antiche, quando le donne non potevano cantare nelle chiese e i cantori erano soltanto maschi) che ha cantato alcuni brani della Missa Papae Marcelli di Pierluigi da Palestrina. Musica angelica, eseguita magistralmente a cappella, che induceva alla meditazione e al raccoglimento. Ma, anche se inserito nell’ambito del MI-TO, questo non era un semplice concerto, era una vera e propria Messa domenicale, celebrata da Mons. Erminio De Scalzi, l’Abate di S. Ambrogio che appena ieri l’Italia intera ha avuto modo di conoscere e, mi auguro, apprezzare, perché ha celebrato la messa funebre di Mike Bongiorno, ripresa in TV. Io posso vantarmi di conoscere “Don Erminio” (permettete che lo chiami così) da tanto tempo: prima di essere nominato Abate di S. Ambrogio, era il parroco della mia chiesa, la parrocchia del Suffragio, quando venni ad abitare in questa zona di Milano; so che, prima ancora, era stato segretario del Card. Martini; inoltre gli sono grata perché è per merito suo se la mia corale  tiene il concerto per l’inaugurazione dell’Anno Giudiziario proprio in S. Ambrogio. Qualche anno fa ci trovammo, alla vigilia del concerto già fissato, con l’Aula Magna del Palazzo di Giustizia che, a causa della caduta di qualche calcinaccio, era stata dichiarata inagibile e, mentre si innalzavano i ponteggi per i necessari lavori di messa in sicurezza, nessun’altra sede (palazzo pubblico o teatro) appariva disponibile in città, ma Don Erminio ci mise prontamente e generosamente a disposizione la Basilica. Quella cornice così bella piacque così tanto alle autorità presenti, che da allora, anche se l’Aula Magna del Tribunale è stata restaurata, il concerto per l’inaugurazione dell’Anno Giudiziario si tiene sempre lì.  Ed è bellissimo cantare sotto i mosaici d’oro di quella Basilica splendida. Ora, se ieri chi non conosceva Don Erminio è rimasto colpito dalle belle parole che ha pronunziato al funerale di Mike Bongiorno, posso dire che quello era niente al confronto di quel che ha detto oggi.  Oggi la Basilica era piena zeppa di gente (guardate la foto della folla in coda fuori, prima dell’inizio della Messa), molta della quale attirata più dal programma musicale e dalla bellezza della Basilica che dal rito religioso. Nella sua omelia, Mons. De Scalzi ha saputo dire parole di apertura, di speranza e di fratellanza per tutti, credenti e non credenti. Ha esordito presentando l’ensemble vocale che ha cantato i brani di Palestrina, ha elogiato l’iniziativa che ha portato la musica sacra ad essere eseguita nella sua sede propria ed è passato così a parlare della “via pulchritudinis“, la via che può condurre a Dio passando attraverso le cose belle, compresa la musica della liturgia. E poi si è allacciato al brano evangelico odierno della liturgia ambrosiana, che parlava di Nicodemo - colui che aveva molti dubbi e, non intendendo manifestarli alla luce del sole, incontrava Gesù nottetempo per discutere con lui – per parlare della fede e dei suoi molteplici aspetti. Ci sono alcuni, ha detto in sostanza Don Erminio (che mi perdonerà se non riporto parola per parola ciò che ha detto: purtroppo non avevo un registratore, sarebbe stato utile) che la fede ce l’hanno anche se non ne sono consapevoli, perché la loro vita, le loro scelte personali, i loro pensieri e le loro azioni sono improntati alla rettitudine. Ed è assai più apprezzabile l’atteggiamento di chi, come Nicodemo, ha dei dubbi, di chi ritiene di avere delle certezze. Credevo di sognare: parole di grande respiro in una società come questa dove ogni giorno si alza qualcuno che si atteggia a unico depositario della verità, che ci fa una lezione saccente sui “fondamenti cristiani della nostra civiltà” e dove ogni pretesto è buono per dividere il mondo in due, i buoni e i cattivi. Ma il momento più commovente è stato quando Mons. De Scalzi ha detto: “Con tutti coloro che oggi hanno pregato Dio, a qualunque popolo, razza, lingua o religione appartengano, diciamo insieme: Padre Nostro…” Mi sono venute le lacrime agli occhi: siamo a Milano, dove il razzismo sta purtroppo dilagando, e non mi pareva vero udire queste parole dal pulpito di S. Ambrogio. Al termine della Messa, Mons. De Scalzi ha ringraziato l’Odhecaton Ensemble per la splendida esecuzione e tutti i presenti per la partecipazione alla Messa (in effetti, sarà stato per l’intensa suggestione della musica, o per le commoventi parole del celebrante, non solo non si sentiva neppure volare una mosca quando cantava il coro, ma tutto il rito è stato seguito con partecipazione e rispetto). Avrei voluto rispondere: grazie a Te, Don Erminio, in questa Italia e in questa Milano abbiamo bisogno di sacerdoti come Te. Pace, Shalom, Salam Aleykum. Sono tornata a casa sentendomi arricchita. Spero che questo cibo dello spirito sia un nutrimento che mi aiuti a superare le grane e le miserie della vita di ogni giorno, non appena, reduce da questa pausa di Paradiso, avrò rimesso i piedi per terra.

The BBC currently broadcasts a TV series called “Sacred Music” (which can be viewed online from within the UK through the BBC’s iPlayer), which looks at the fascinating world of old music. Its most recent episode deals with the music written by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1514/15-1594), a fantastic composer of what falls into the category of early music and early church music.

The music written around that time served mainly one purpose, the purpose of venerating God through sacred music, both instrumental and (more commonly at the time) vocal music. Women at the time did not sing so boy choirs sang the high voices of each piece. The beauty about Palestrina’s music is not merely its harmonic character, but the quality of the different voices that each convey the deeper message of the music: arcs in the music are reflected through the different voices which play with each other. Polyphony, or the use of of several independent melodical voices is one of the central characteristics of Palestrina’s work.

Today his music seems as relevant and touching as ever. The following is a Kyrie from his probably most famous mass, the Missa Papae Marcelli.

Riceviamo e pubblichiamo

segreteria.sindaco@comune.palestrina.rm.it

RICEVIAMO DA info@agireora.org;

http://www.libero-news.it/adnkronos/view/178057

ROMA: GIOCO DELLA PIGNATTA CON CONIGLIO VIVO, DENUNCIATO PARROCO

Roma, 3 set. – (Adnkronos) – Polemiche a Palestrina dopo il cruento
epilogo della festa di Santa Rosalia, che si celebra il 30 agosto nel
comune della provincia di Roma. Il tradizionale gioco della “pignatta”,
infatti, e’ stato organizzato inserendo all’interno di una bisaccia da
abbattere con il bastone un coniglio vivo. Ed ecco che adulti e bambini
hanno cominciato a scagliare il legno sull’animale. Il sacco pero’ si e’
aperto sotto i colpi ricevuti e il coniglio ferito e insanguinato e’
caduto a terra dove sarebbe stato ulteriormente colpito dalla folla se
una ragazza non l’avesse raccolto e portato da un veterinario che ha
provveduto a salvarlo. Il fatto e’ stato riportato dall’associazione di
tutela degli animali AmiCOniglio alla sezione ambiente del Codici che ha
provveduto a sporgere denuncia contro il parroco della chiesa di Santa
Rosalia, nonche’ il sindaco di Palestrina per il reato di maltrattamento
che prevede, laddove ci siano spettacoli di sevizie su animali, la
reclusione fino a quattro mesi e la multa fino a 15.000 euro.
[...]
————————

Scriviamo al Sindaco di Palestrina per esprimere il nostro sdegno per
questo fatto:
segreteria.sindaco@comune.palestrina.rm.it

Messaggio-tipo, da personalizzare SENZA INSULTI:

————
Egregio signor Sindaco,

mi unisco alla protesta per il vergognoso episodio di sevizie a un
coniglietto avvenuto durante un “gioco” alla festa di Santa Rosalia
tenutasi nel vostro Comune il 30 agosto.

Le chiedo se questi maltrattamenti estremi – ovviamente illegali – siano
stati “autorizzati” dal Comune, o se sia stata una decisione presa sul
momento da qualche organizzatore, e in questo ultimo caso chiedo che
vengano trovati e perseguiti i colpevoli.

In attesa di riscontro porgo distinti saluti,
… nome cognome …

Polemiche a Palestrina dopo il cruento epilogo della festa di Santa Rosalia, che si celebra il 30 agosto nel comune della provincia di Roma. Il tradizionale gioco della ”pignatta”, infatti, e’ stato organizzato inserendo all’interno di una bisaccia da abbattere con il bastone un coniglio vivo.

Ed ecco che adulti e bambini hanno cominciato a scagliare il legno sull’animale. Il sacco pero’ si e’ aperto sotto i colpi ricevuti e il coniglio ferito e insanguinato e’ caduto a terra dove sarebbe stato ulteriormente colpito dalla folla se una ragazza non l’avesse raccolto e portato da un veterinario che ha provveduto a salvarlo.

Il fatto e’ stato riportato dall’associazione di tutela degli animali AmiCOniglio alla sezione ambiente del Codici che ha provveduto a sporgere denuncia contro il parroco della chiesa di Santa Rosalia, nonche’ il sindaco di Palestrina per il reato di maltrattamento che prevede, laddove ci siano spettacoli di sevizie su animali, la reclusione fino a quattro mesi e la multa fino a 15.000 euro.

”Questa estate e’ stata funestata da mattanze di animali ad opera di religiosi. Ricordiamo il caso del sacerdote della parrocchia di San Bartolomeo di Sori (Ge) che, lo scorso luglio ha collaborato all’uccisione di due cuccioli di cinghiale con spranghe e bastoni”. E’ quanto dichiara Valentina Coppola, responsabile ambiente del Codici.

”In questi casi – clonclude Coppola -il reato e’ ancor piu’ significativo proprio perche’ commesso da uomini di chiesa che dovrebbero rappresentare esempio di pieta’ e carita’ cristiana. Chiediamo che anche la giustizia ecclesiastica prenda provvedimenti perche’ un tale comportamento mortifica anche la chiesa ed allontana i fedeli. I sindaci, dal canto loro, sappiano che durante sagre, feste di paese e mercati, hanno il dovere di vigilare affinche’ tali reati non avvengano”.

Fonte: Libero News

From Plan B #25 – a special request from Sarah Datblygu. This is round about the best email interview I’ve conducted.

Music That Time Forgot Special: The Tronics/Les Zarjaz
Man, The Tronics were great: cardboard box drums, a few bare guitar lines and a rockabilly swagger, 16-year-old singer Ziro Baby inescapably cool in his mirror shades and lean, leather trousers: wiry and wired. “Strictly shark fucks under no manners,” an ice-cool lady announced at the start of his cult 1981 Alien seven-inch ‘Shark Fucks’, before Ziro launched into a typically deadpan exciting three-chord pop song.

Four singles and a flexi were released between 1980 and 1983, including the immortal shout-out ‘Favourite Girls’ – kinda like Television Personalities do Gene Vincent, but without any mess whatsoever. These followed a brace of cassettes, and preceded the excellent mantra-like 12-inch ‘Tranzister Sister’. There was also an album, the minimalist Love Backed By Force, which I found in a second-hand record bin for £2, round about the best two quid I ever spent, frankly.

All Ziro’s rock’n'roll songs were great, and he was accorded a degree of fame: then he went through a severe reinvention and resurfaced on Alan McGee’s Creation Records, shortly around the time of The Legend!, as Les Zarjaz with two, frankly incomprehensible baroque rock singles – which vied with my own for the honour of worst-selling record on Creation ever (least until that Kevin Rowland album came along).

And then…nothing. Ziro Baby just vanished off the face of the earth. Last I heard he was mining in an Eastern European country. So it was with some considerable excitement I received these replies a few months back…

Could you explain about The Tronics came about?
“I kept seeing this sign in my mind like joined writing on an old fridge in chrome letters saying Tronics.”

And where did Les Zarjaz spring from?
“One night I woke up with a group of baroquabillies standing around my bed. They said to me that I was the 13th Emperor of Rome. I didn’t have to do anything but I could continue to do whatever I wanted. They showed me that my brother Nero was the first truly great Rock and Roll star and why, and that no one has ever surpassed or even equalled him and why.”

What’s your fondest memory of the times (very early Eighties)?
“I don’t really know much. I kind of came in off the street and this is where I am. I found a devotchka to bang some drums and put out [1980 cassette] What’s The Hubbub Bub. People told me I should be famous but I don’t get well with famous, so Tronics was awkward the bigger it got.

“I don’t have many fond memories. I got shot twice, once in the lower part of my back in some dumb bizarre circumstance and another time inadvertently in the leg. I was stabbed a few times, once by some wacky dame with a broken glass trying to mark me so no one else would like me. Being ‘interviewed’ by the police waiting for me outside my apartment was normal.

“The best things for me have always been the feelings I get from people who like my music. At the time of recording ‘Tranzister Sister’ we had screaming girls outside the apartment. For an indie band who never hired publicity agents and who did not have the support of a major label I thought that was pretty cool. Devotchkas screaming ‘Shark Fucks’ at me on stage was a psychological dilemma. I thought it was amazing and unique but at the same time it terrified me.

“My place was full of people when I went to sleep, and when I woke up my place was full of a whole different set of people, many I didn’t know. A fanzine printed my address and phone number and things got worse. It got rough in the end and I had to move. That’s one reason why I have never mingled much ever since. I don’t mix well.

“It also came from an earlier incident where a girlfriend, I think she was a girlfriend, it only lasted a few days, maybe even hours, broke down and was taken to an asylum. I went to visit her the next day as I was concerned. I found her in the security wing and she had told other girls in there that I was Jesus. I saw them coming running down a corridor. It was like a dam breaking in slow motion or a group of wild horses running through a pass in a canyon. They were screaming crazy and heading for me. Lucky for me some nurses forced me out through some strengthened glass doors and locked it. The next thing they all hit the door that was now a glass wall, about two-feet from my face. I stood in the autumn wind and rain, leaves blowing around me under a dim outside door light watching them hitting the door screaming ‘Jesus touch me’ and things like that, playing with their groodies and being dragged off one by one by nurses. It all had an effect on me and I walked away.

“I am not Jesus. We whacked him back in the day for being a sensationalist reactionary. I am not a messiah.”

What were your favourite records back then?
“Anything with a hole and grooves really. I would listen to everything. Even Whistling Reg Harris and his Barking Dog. I could never make a list, most basically it might go something like Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, anything by Phil Spector, The Residents, Bolan, Ramones, Velvet Underground. I listened to and knew so many bands from that time. All of them were great. One that I particularly liked was Eric Hysteric and the Esoterics from Germany.

“I remember liking Red Ballune. I thought Lydia Lunch was the most amazing guitarist. I got to know her. I told her that I was amazed by her guitar and that I was a massive fan. She said that she didn’t like fans but preferred to be friends. I don’t think she understood that I only wanted to be a fan and didn’t want to be a friend. I’m a Rock and Roll fan.

“Another thing is that these groups and people are all from what most people would recognise as Rock and Roll. I have another life where the music I listened to then, same as today, is not from this time. I was into Domenico Scarlatti and Charpentier before anything else.

“I know the other things I mentioned may be more relevant to your readers but what they might not be aware of is that Baroque music is Rock and Roll in its most pure form. There is nothing else on the same level in Rock and Roll. When I was not listening to Little Richard I would listen to Palestrina and Monteverdi.

“I’m not talking middle class, snobby, crazy about the classics, Classic FM cal. Vivaldi and Bach were never middle class. Baroquabilly is for everyone not just rich people.

“The main reason I got into Clockwork Orange when I was 14 was that the main character, Alex, was this 14-year-old kid, listening to Bach and Beethoven and wandering wide in the night, with his Pe and Em telling him to itty of to skollywol in the morning with Alex saying not going today, got a headache, I’ll be all right as dodgers later. I have never been into Beethoven like that so much but other similarities to my own life took my attention. It was like the book was talking about me. I was the only 14-year-old kid I knew who listened to Bach, dressed in black and hung out at night. The morning skollywol ritual with my Em was identical.

“That’s why ‘Shark Fucks’ has more to do with Handel than might be easily recognised and why I eventually left the cocoon. Tronics was a pupa for Zarjaz.”

How important were the Eighties?
“Every truly great era has a music and art together. Art and music go together like cock in pussy.  Fifties, Sixties, the punk scene, but today I can’t think of anything. Some maybe’s but nothing outstanding. We have no Salvador Dali. We are only told what it is great and unfortunately many will believe it.

“In the Eighties people began to ask to see my CV. By the Nineties musicians were asking if I wanted to see their CV. We are living in a kind of cultural dark ages. Art and music is repressed, kept down and out in favour of acceptable stereotypes that other stereotypes relate to.

I have a distant memory of seeing Tronics play on a bill at The Venue, Victoria in around ‘82. Did Tronics play many big shows?
“Every show I do is big. In terms of size of venue, not that much, but at that time I don’t think people really thought in those terms. I mean on the independent scene that is. I don’t think big venues were considered or it came into our heads. It was more like having no distinct line between the band and everyone else.

“Some punk bands were making it big and big stars, but doesn’t that suck really? I think if you release ‘Shark Fucks’ it’s pretty certain you might not be asked to play alongside U2 at the stadium.

“I was outside of everything, had few clothes and no clothes in one piece, starving, out of my head and wandering around like the living dead with a guitar, but I was not a victim.

“At one time you needed to be black to be in Rock and Roll. By the end of the Eighties if you wanted to make records it was required of you to be milk white with a mock Seventies hair style, otherwise there was no budget for you. Many people asked me to do that and be that. They offered me heap big budget and big gigs. I turn down so many gigs.”

How does it feel to be revered as a cult?
“Serious and exciting.”

What do you do now?
“Some people say I spend too much time in the sea but I have several projects I am working on. I took some time out recently and this delayed the next Freakapuss album but I’m on to the release now. Other than that I study, collect Roman money and prehistoric dinosaur teeth, T-Rex, Raptor and Megalodon. I watch as many starry movies as I can, I like to drive at 30 kmh given there being no one behind me. I keep to the back streets. Now was that Barking Reg Harris and his Whistling Dog”

I’ve placed a link to the original layout here. I have a vague recollection that it might contain more quotes or is better-edited, or something. It was all very last minute.

(Familia, 2005)
Însuşi faptul de a se programa într-un concert al filarmonicii din Oradea (cu două zile înainte de Crăciunul anului 2004) Missa Solemnis în Re major op. 123 de Beethoven e un eveniment în sine. Concertul a fost dirijat de Ervin Acél, corul filarmonicii a fost pregătit de Avram Geoldeş, iar soliştii invitaţi au fost soprana Irina Iordăchescu, mezzo-soprana Lucia Papa, tenorul Marius Budoiu şi basul Gheorghe Roşu.
Ar fi ridicolă şi inoperantă o comparaţie între zecile, poate sutele de capodopere lăsate de Beethoven, dar Missa Solemnis ocupă un loc cu totul special. „Am auzit spunându-se că a doua Missă (Missa Solemnis – n. n.) e considerată de el cea mai bună lucrare a sa” (Edward Schulz, 1823). Impulsul creării unei mari compoziţii religioase a survenit într-un moment excepţional din viaţa lui Beethoven, când el a renăscut după câţiva ani de criză în plan artistic şi personal (1814–1818). Comanda exterioară a lucrării, pentru slujba de înscăunare a arhiducelui Rudolf, protectorul său, ca arhiepiscop de Olmütz (Olomouc) în 1820, a fost doar un pretext nimerit. Dar după ce entuziasmul din 1818–1820 s-a estompat, strecurându-se în locul lui emoţii mai interiorizate şi chiar angoase până în 1822, când a terminat-o în sfârşit, rămâne întrebarea dacă prilejul festiv nu a influenţat prea mult caracterul acestei lucrări. Fiindcă încă din 1819-1820 şi apoi din nou în 1824, Beethoven proiecta o a treia Missă, în do diez minor, cu orchestra redusă la suflători şi orgă (cel puţin pentru „Kyrie”), deci implicit cu un caracter mai recules, oarecum conform admiraţiei sale declarate pentru Palestrina şi adevărata muzică religioasă, a cappella.
Totuşi, grandoarea Missei în Re şi absoluta sinceritate emoţională pe care şi-a impus-o, mult sporite şi faţă de Missa în Do major op. 86 (1807), au dus-o la dimensiuni duble faţă de celelalte misse ale perioadei clasicismului. Această extensie la dimensiuni duble faţă de cele uzuale ale diferitelor genuri se observă şi la alte lucrări foarte importante pentru Beethoven, de ex. Simfoniile a III-a „Eroica”, a VI-a „Pastorala” şi a IX-a, Concertul pentru vioară, Sonata nr. 29 pentru pian op. 106, Variaţiunile Diabelli, Cvartetele op. 132, 130 şi 131. Unificarea fiecăreia dintre marile secţiuni ale textului liturgic („Kyrie”, „Gloria”, „Credo”, „Sanctus – Benedictus” şi „Agnus Dei”) oarecum în felul unei mişcări de simfonie provine aici din missele lui Haydn, dar Beethoven era totuşi un simfonist mult mai mare, aşa că la el această unitate e de cele mai multe ori cu adevărat organică şi simfonică. Şi chiar când nu e, voinţa formidabilă către coeziune pare suficient de convingătoare în sine. Mai ales în „Gloria” şi „Credo”, unitatea e construită prin numeroasele şi mult-comentatele episoade instrumentale de legătură, precum şi prin „leit-motive” ca în missele din secolul al XVII-lea, cel mai important fiind motivul generator sol – fa diez – si – la – sol – fa diez („eleison”), ce apare de la începutul lui „Kyrie” şi se transfigurează uimitor în Preludiul la „Benedictus”. Uneori, instrumentele au chiar rolul tematic principal, în timp ce vocile declamă textul, procedeu modern pe-atunci, prefigurat şi în „Dort im ruhigen Tal”, al treilea lied din sublimul ciclu „Către iubita îndepărtată” (1816).
Şi asta în ciuda sarcinii suplimentare supraomeneşti pe care şi-a impus-o Beethoven de a ilustra muzical aproape fiecare cuvânt. Această minuţiozitate n-a fost nici măcar intenţionată de vechii maeştri, în frunte cu Bach şi Mozart, mai ales că ei tratau în mai multe numere separate fiecare secţiune a missei. Nici chiar ei nu-i puteau furniza un model prin realizările lor de vârf, fiindcă enorma Missa în si minor de Bach e o colecţie de piese diferite, adăugate mult mai târziu Missei de tip luteran („Kyrie” şi „Gloria”) din 1733, şi nu s-a cântat integral decât în concertele moderne, iar Missa în do minor KV 427 de Mozart, puternic influenţată pe alocuri de Handel şi care ar fi atins dimensiuni comparabile cu Missa Solemnis de Beethoven, a rămas neterminată şi a fost transformată în oratoriul în limba italiană „David penitent” KV 469.
O analiză la Missa Solemnis e inepuizabilă şi oricum nu-şi are locul aici. Printre alţii, Romain Rolland a intuit multe adevăruri despre creativitatea şi spiritualitatea lui Beethoven în ciclul „Marile epoci creatoare”, 1928-1945 (volumul „Cântecul învierii”, din 1937, conţine un amplu capitol despre Missa Solemnis). Ceea ce merită măcar punctat pe parcurs în continuare, graţie cercetărilor mai recente şi nu atât de răspândite (în principal studiul lui Warren Kirkendale „New Roads to Old Ideas in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis”, în volumul „The Creative World of Beethoven”, editat de Paul Henry Lang, Norton & Co., New York 1971), e legătura lui Beethoven cu marea tradiţie a muzicii religioase occidentale, pe care o studia mulţumită bibliotecii arhiducelui Rudolf, ceea ce infirmă falsa lui imagine de prim romantic, total subiectiv şi „expresionist”. De exemplu, în „Kyrie”, însăşi formula ritmică utilizată de Beethoven pe cuvântul Kyrie e un arhetip din missele barocului, în majoritatea cazurilor apărând într-o Missa Solemnis, adică în a cărei orchestră erau incluse trompete şi timpani pentru a-i reda caracterul festiv. Notele repetate simbolizează apatheia, impasibilitatea lui Dumnezeu Tatăl, iar schimbarea de măsură la „Christe eleison” (trei doimi) semnifică elementul uman survenit prin Hristos. În „Gloria”, alura ascendentă a primei teme e o anabasis corespunzând cu ridicarea cu bucurie a mâinilor de către preotul ce oficiază liturghia. „Et in terra pax” e aproape identic cu „and peace on earth” din corul „Glory to God” („Mesia” de Handel). La „adoramus” tonul e coborât, aşa cum preotul înclină capul, iar prima apariţie a trombonilor, la prelungul acord pe cuvântul „omnipotens”, precum şi saltul de octavă al vocilor (la bas, duodecimă) sunt o reflectare a atotputerniciei divine. La „qui sedes ad dexteram patris” şi „qui tollis peccata mundi”, acompaniamentul include tremolo-uri simbolizând înfiorarea în faţa Tronului Judecăţii (ca şi la „et iterum venturus est” din „Credo”), respectiv în faţa sacrificiului lui Iisus, precum şi ritmul punctat cunoscut din uvertura franceză de pe vremea Regelui Soare şi devenit de mult un topos pentru ideea de măreţie. Etc., etc.
Această compoziţie crucială i-a fascinat şi i-a influenţat decisiv în plan muzical şi uman pe mulţi, de la marele dirijor Wilhelm Furtwängler la (cu voia dv.) autorul acestor rânduri. „Am dirijat-o de mai multe ori, spunea Furtwängler. Toate marile lucrări simfonice ale lui Beethoven sunt astfel scrise încât un dirijor capabil poate să scoată ceea ce a vrut Beethoven. Dar cu Missa (Solemnis – n. n.), lucrarea lui capitală, lucrurile stau altfel. Ea nu mi-a reuşit niciodată în asemenea măsură încât să fiu mulţumit. N-am reuşit să scot niciodată ceea ce zace în ea şi zău că nu se cade să-l reinstrumentăm pe Beethoven. Aşa că nu-mi rămâne altceva de făcut decât să iau hotărârea de a nu mai prezenta această lucrare. Şi cât de bine o cunosc…” Poate că marele interpret şi admirator al lui Beethoven şi-ar fi revizuit hotărârea dacă viaţa i-ar fi permis să descopere curentul de autenticitate în prezentarea muzicii vechi, care a început să se nască după moartea lui. Fiindcă dincolo de o profundă experienţă de viaţă şi spirituală, redarea acestei lucrări necesită acel sunet clar, specific vechilor instrumente şi care nu acoperă vocile, precum şi rafinamentul în frazare pe care ele îl permit, spre deosebire de volumul (în sens subiectiv, de masivitate, nu numai de intensitate sonoră) al celor moderne. Interpretările muzicii vechi cu instrumente de epocă nu sunt o marotă, sound-ul lor e de dorit nu doar fiindcă „aşa era atunci”, ci pur şi simplu fiindcă e mai frumos, mai fin şi mai clar decât al celor cu instrumente şi stiluri moderne, cu forţa lor brută şi vibrato-ul lor exagerat şi păstos. În săli mai mici, instrumentele de epocă au efecte chiar mai puternice şi mai surprinzătoare, iar oricum muzica bună a fost întotdeauna rezervată celor puţini. Lucrarea preferată a lui Beethoven merită curăţată de tonul brahmsian pompos şi nepotrivit ce s-a depus pe ea de atâtea decenii, revitalizându-i-se diversitatea de emoţii, texturi şi nuanţe.
Dintre înregistrările autentice de până acum cu Missa Solemnis, cele mai apreciate în lume sunt cele dirijate de Philippe Herreweghe (cu La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale şi Orchestre des Champs Elysées), Sir John Eliot Gardiner (cu corul Monteverdi şi Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique) şi Terje Kvam (cu corul catedralei din Oslo şi Hanover Band) – curioşii pot verifica pe Internet, între două chat-uri, dând o căutare mai utilă: „Beethoven Missa Solemnis period instruments”. Un antidot la posibila autosuficienţă provincială care ne paşte mereu e faptul că nici una din versiunile acestea lăudate cu entuziasm, datorate unor mari interpreţi şi unor ansambluri specializate în muzica veche, nu a întrunit sufragii unanime şi nu a scăpat de unele critici. Interesant e că unele comentarii ale acestor înregistrări subliniază scrupulozitatea lui Gardiner şi grija lui pentru detaliu, întrucâtva în detrimentul unei anume călduri spirituale (mai proprie versiunii lui Herreweghe), ceea ce observasem în mod independent încă în 2002 în „Familia” nr. 9 în legătură cu înregistrările respectivilor cu Simfonia a IX-a. Dar dincolo de această mică satisfacţie la adresa intuiţiei şi simţirii personale, şi mai interesant e că efectivul corului Monteverdi (pe care Gardiner l-a fondat în 1964, când era încă student la Cambridge) numără doar 36 de persoane! Iar exegeza elogiază grija deosebită pentru cultivarea unei emisii vocale diferenţiate pe care Gardiner a depus-o cu acest mic ansamblu, reuşind şi efectele de forţă cerute de multe ori de partitură şi ţinând piept orchestrei uluitor de eficient.
În concertul de la Oradea, numai vocile feminine din cor au fost 35 (pe lângă cei 21 de bărbaţi), în majoritatea timpului fiind practic singurele care au dominat orchestra, fără să-şi rateze nici dificilele note supraacute, ceea ce le atrage meritate felicitări. Componenţa numerică a orchestrei orădene (17 viori, 5 viole, 5 violoncele, 5 contrabaşi, plus suflătorii), deşi mai puţin echilibrată, nu a fost mult diferită de cea a orchestrei lui Herreweghe (20 viori, 7 viole, 5 violoncele, 4 contrabaşi etc.), dar corul lui număra doar 23 de femei (şi tot 21 de bărbaţi). E evident şi din aceste comparaţii că doar tonul masiv al instrumentelor moderne (sau cel puţin maniera modernă de emisie a sunetului instrumental) e cel care creează probleme vocilor. În ce priveşte cvartetul de voci soliste, el a fost cu totul dezechilibrat de tenorul Marius Budoiu, care i-a acoperit pe toţi ca un veritabil primo uomo, uneori chiar cu strigăte stridente, cum a fost la „passus” din „Credo” (şi ţinea lângă el pe scenă un frumos flacon verde, de plastic). Şi în această lucrare, scriitura vocilor soliste e polifonică, în felul unui mic cor sau a unui cvartet de coarde, pe urmele celei a lui Mozart din Requiem, aşa că toţi patru soliştii trebuie să aibă importanţă egală şi o omogenitate desăvârşită a sonorităţii rezultante. Ce să mai spunem de vibrato-ul imens şi de intonaţia operistică, după ce chiar Beethoven critica deja muzica religioasă a vremii sale pentru influenţa operei italiene? Sau, dacă vrem să fim foarte riguroşi, ce să mai zicem de pronunţia italiană pentru „qui tollis”: „cui tollis” în loc de cea corectă, „cvi tollis”? (Pentru maximă autenticitate în înregistrarea Requiem-ului de Mozart cu Les Arts Florissants, William Christie a angajat experţi în pronunţia latinei în Austria anilor 1790! Un capitol din broşura discului respectiv tratează numai această chestiune)
Şi-aşa, prezentarea muzicii bisericeşti în concert (şi, la Oradea, fără orga cerută de partitură) e în general destul de ciudată. De altfel, după prima audiţie absolută de la Sankt Petersburg (7 aprilie 1824), într-un concert caritabil iniţiat de prinţul Nikolai Galiţân, mare admirator al lui Beethoven, prima audiţie vieneză (şi fragmentară) a avut loc tot în concert (7 mai 1824, împreună cu uvertura la „Sfinţirea casei” şi cu Simfonia a IX-a), cu titlul cenzurat „Trei mari imnuri” (textul latin al primei Misse, în Do major, fusese tradus în germană fiindcă Biserica romano-catolică nu admitea să se cânte textul liturgic originar în concert într-un teatru, considerat loc de pierzanie). Însuşi Beethoven a plănuit această prezentare a Missei Solemnis în concert, în maniera unui oratoriu, după ce prilejul ecleziastic festiv care o comandase a trecut.
Din toate aceste elemente reiese că Missa Solemnis e un ocean cu mulţi şi foarte diferiţi afluenţi. Dar punctul nodal e că „prin elaborarea acestei mari Misse, principalul meu scop a fost să trezesc şi să fac durabile sentimentele religioase în cântăreţi şi în public” (Beethoven). O interpretare mai degrabă pompoasă şi uniformizatoare, cum a fost în linii mari cea de la Oradea, sacrifică toată poezia intimă dulce-amară atât de tipic beethoveniană (ce ar fi necesitat măcar un real pianissimo), precum şi multitudinea de nuanţe şi tranziţii, unele extrem de subtile şi rafinate, accentele, eforturile supraomeneşti către certitudine.
De exemplu, unde a văzut dirijorul acel crescendo pe care l-a cerut timpanistului înainte de erupţia lui „quoniam tu solus sanctus” din „Gloria”? Cel puţin în ediţia Dover (New York 1991), republicare după Opere complete (Breitkopf und Härtel, Leipzig 1864), cele două măsuri de tremolo la timpani au doar un pp. E drept că multă lume, inclusiv subsemnatul mai demult, simte nevoia unui crescendo pe acest tremolo de timpani, iar efectul lui astfel e remarcabil. Totuşi, Beethoven nu l-a dorit aşa, iar opţiunea lui îşi are efectul de surpriză specific. Tempourile amplei fugi „in gloria Dei patris, amen” care urmează au fost luate destul de prudent, ca şi în multe alte ocazii pe parcursul concertului, dar mai problematică a fost introducerea în ultimele două-trei măsuri ale fugii a unui emfatic ritardando inexistent în partitură (falsificând astfel efectul de nesuprapunere ritmică a corului cu orchestra dorit de Beethoven, ca şi cum cântăreţilor li se taie răsuflarea de bucuria nebună a acesei secţiuni  – al cărei tempo trebuie să fie Presto).
În „Credo”, care e o profesiune de credinţă către Sfânta Treime, ilustrarea muzicală a fiecăreia dintre Persoanele divine are o introducere orchestrală, ca pentru divinităţile şi regii din opera barocului: primele două sunt identice, iar a treia e uşor modificată fiindcă Sfântul Duh e „diferit”. „Deum de Deo” şi „Deum verum de Deo vero” sunt cântate unisonic, pe arpegiul tonic, sugerând autoritatea şi stabilitatea dogmei, iar „lumen de lumine” în Do major (tonalitatea cea mai „luminoasă”) e o aluzie clară la lumina din text. „Et incarnatus” e scris în stil de cantus planus, în modul doric, fiindcă „în vechile moduri bisericeşti, devoţiunea e divină” (Beethoven, 1809) – a se corela şi cu planul din 1818 al unei „Cantique” pentru Simfonia a X-a („cânt devoţional pentru o simfonie, în moduri vechi”), precum şi cu sublimul „Cânt sacru de recunoştinţă al unui însănătoşit către Divinitate” în modul hipolidic, partea a treia din Cvartetul în la minor op. 132 – lidicul era considerat revitalizant pentru suflet şi trup, după cum îi scria Cassiodorus lui Boethius (Zarlino, „Istituzioni harmoniche”, 1558). Nici alegerea doricului pentru „incarnatus” n-a fost întâmplătoare, ca de obicei la Beethoven: conform aceleiaşi surse, doricul e „modest şi cast”. Mai mult, imnul catolic „Ave maris stella” şi conductul monofon al lui Pérotin „Beata viscera Mariae Virginis” încep cu aceleaşi trei-patru note ca şi „et incarnatus” al lui Beethoven! Faţă de vechimea acestor trimiteri, prezenţa pastorală a flautului (de la „de Spiritu Sancto”) şi trilurile lui simbolizând Sfântul Duh ca porumbel sunt aproape nişte locuri comune, în tradiţia missei baroce şi clasice.
De remarcat în concertul orădean a fost încredinţarea începutului lui „et incarnatus” est vocii tenorului solo, conform copiei pe curat făcute în 1823 pentru arhiducele Rudolf, precum şi primei ediţii (postumă, la Schott şi fiii, Mainz 1827), contrar practicii curente de a-l încredinţa tenorilor din cor, cum cer manuscrisul autorului şi ediţia din Opere complete (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1864). Ambele versiuni au farmecul şi justificarea lor. La „Crucifixus” abundă formulele ritmice în contratimp (tmesis), tremolo-ul, sincopele, septimele micşorate ca unul din cele mai dramatice elemente de expresie muzicală din epocă, precum şi intervalele melodice „încrucişate” (de ex., la tenor în măsura 158). După alte aluzii arhetipale, secvenţa se încheie cu o coroană pe o cvartă, adică pe un acord incomplet (deci moartea lui Iisus nu e o încheiere), vocile de tenor anunţă Învierea aşa cum testis din vechile Patimi ale barocului era tot o voce de tenor, iar cuvintele „secundum scripturas” sunt cântate de cor a cappella, în stilul lui Palestrina, ca o referire la vechimea şi autoritatea dogmei. După o incursiune în la bemol minor, tonalitate rarisimă pe atunci (extremum judicium), „judicare” declamat în note lungi semnifică detaşarea divină (cum tranquillitate judicas). Detaliile semnificative sunt şi aici nenumărate: et mortuos e tratat brusc piano, în note lungi şi joase şi în acorduri fără terţă (componenta care dă modul major sau minor al unui acord). Motivele din „et exspecto” sunt anticipate de orchestră, iar mult comentata escamotare declamativă de la secţiunea despre Sfântul Duh poate fi nu atât o lipsă de interes, ci mai degrabă semnifică tocmai dogma dincolo de discuţii („Religia şi basul general sunt lucruri aparte/închise în sine, asupra cărora n-are rost să discuţi” – Beethoven).
Tema imensei fugi în două secţiuni „et vitam venturi saeculi”, cu arpegiul ei tonic, dă un sens de împlinire, dar blând şi plin de pace în prima secţiune prin răspunsul la cvartă în loc de cvintă. Lungimea acestei fugi care a necesitat eforturi supraomeneşti şi l-a adus pe Beethoven într-o stare de exaltare cu totul neobişnuită (a se vedea relatarea lui Schindler din vara lui 1819) simbolizează eternitatea din viaţa veacului ce va să vină, ca şi secvenţa pe cuvântul „saeculi” întinsă pe măsurile 351 – 356. „Plaudite, amici” (aplaudaţi, prieteni), a scris sarcastic Beethoven pe o schiţă a acestei fugi, cu trimitere la admiraţia previzibilă a „prietenilor” ce-i criticau mai mult sau mai puţin direct ştiinţa componistică. Redarea în concert a fugii n-a avut în prima ei parte caracterul aproape imaterial şi contemplativ intenţionat de autor (Allegretto ma non troppo – adică repejor, dar nu prea -, în măsură de trei doimi, puţini cresc. şi forte, iar fortissimo abia la sfârşit), fiind luată prea rapid şi sonor. Ca atare, nici secţiunea a doua a fugii n-a avut efectul de contrast dorit prin entuziasmul ei formidabil din partitură (Allegro con moto).
Aici revine în memorie documentarul unei înregistrări cu Variaţiunile Diabelli de către tânărul pianist de mare talent Piotr Andreszewski, difuzat de Mezzo TV. Vorbind de extraordinara elevaţie şi încărcătură spirituală a capodoperelor lui Beethoven, Andreszewski, care nu e un adept al instrumentelor de epocă, a exemplificat cântând reducţia la pian a primei secţiuni a acestei fugi. Fervoarea cuvintelor lui întretăiate de muzica sublimă nu se poate reda, esenţial e că el ilustra astfel ceea ce considera pe drept cuvânt a fi miezul creaţiei lui Beethoven, evident mai ales în Missa Solemnis: „acele urcuşuri continue către lumină – şi acele recăderi – şi reculegeri – şi iar urcuşuri – şi efortul pe care ele îl cer…” Iată un artist, iată un om care a înţeles.
Participarea alămurilor în „Sanctus” e o trimitere la „trâmbiţele” îngerilor şi ale preoţilor din imnul serafimilor deasupra Templului (Isaia, 6:3). Tremolo-ul (tremor) pe un acord de nonă micşorată, ca la sublimul „über Sternen muss er wohnen” din Simfonia a IX-a, reflectă înfiorarea în faţa viziunii supraumane. Apoi survine însă una din cele mai dificile probleme de interpretare sub aspect strict auditiv, ceea ce generează de obicei corectarea lui Beethoven de care se ferea Furtwängler. Exuberantele „Pleni sunt caeli” şi „Osanna” sunt scrise pentru soliştii vocali şi orchestra aproape completă (fără tromboni până spre sfârşit), forte şi apoi fortissimo. În concertele moderne, ele se încredinţează corului, cum a fost şi la Oradea; mai mult, „Osanna” s-a cântat prea lent, deşi e scris în Presto. La obiecţiile lui Schindler asupra posibilităţii unei audiţii bune, pentru ca vocile să nu fie acoperite de instrumente, Beethoven a răspuns răspicat: „Trebuie să fie voci soliste!”. Poate voia să estompeze această izbucnire pentru a asigura unitate părţii, sau poate era o aluzie la cele patru făpturi din Apocalipsă care îl laudă pe Dumnezeu cu primele cuvinte din „Sanctus” (Apoc., 4:8). Problema e destul de delicată azi, dar înregistrările cu instrumente de epocă respectă bineînţeles dorinţa autorului şi sunt perfect inteligibile, inclusiv înregistrarea lui Herreweghe, făcută în concert public (la „Auditorium Stravinski” din Montreux, în 1995).
Când „Sanctus” se lungea polifonic, Consacrarea preceda „Benedictus”, nu-l urma. Ca atare, sublima introducere orchestrală la „Benedictus” e un fel de preludiu ca de orgă, în registru grav şi dulce, în stil de improvizaţie polifonică, cu armonii sonore, suspensii şi pedale, amintind iar de „Ihr stürtzt nieder, Millionen” din Simfonia a IX-a (un alt moment când mulţimea îngenunchează). Acest Preludiu a reliefat cel mai evident dezechilibrul între compartimentele corzilor grave din orchestra orădeană în acest concert (prea puţine viole şi prea mulţi contrabaşi), fiind scris pentru sonorităţile învăluite ale unui ansamblu de viole şi violoncele divisi, contrabaşi, flaute în registrul grav, fagoturi, contrafagot şi orgă. Extaticul „Benedictus” în tonalitatea blândă a subdominantei simbolizează coborârea lui Hristos în ostia de pe altar (katabasis, coborâre, la flaut şi vioara solo). Solo-ul de vioară a fost interpretat de Florin Avram, concert-maestrul din acea seară, stând în picioare, ca la un concert pentru vioară şi orchestră, iar tempo-ul a fost accelerat în mod nejustificat la „Osanna”, a cărui încheiere prea puternică a fost departe de acel crescendo – decrescendo scris de Beethoven.
În „Agnus Dei”, începutul se făcea în mod tradiţional în relativa sau tonica minoră, „dona nobis pacem” revenind pe tonica majoră; în Missa Solemnis, îndureratul „miserere” e în relativa si minor („tonalitatea neagră” – Beethoven). Fanfarele ce întrerup prima dată ruga pentru pace provin nu numai de la Haydn (Missa in tempore belli), ci încă din vechile misse votive (Missa pro pace, sau Missae tempori hostili din „Sacramentariul Leonin”, cea mai veche colecţie de rugăciuni pentru Missa – în „Agnus” se inserau deseori tropi explicativi ai ideilor textului, uneori sub amprenta momentului). După Alain de Lille („Summa de arte praedicatoria”), pacea implorată are trei componente: pax temporis (exterioară), pax pectoris (interioară) şi pax aeternitatis (pentru morţi, în Missa pro requiem). Iar conform papei Inocenţiu al III-lea, primul „miserere nobis” se referă la suflet, al doilea la trup, iar „dona nobis pacem”, la ambele. Una din temele lui Beethoven din „dona nobis pacem”, sugerând stabilitate prin cvartele ei, e aproape un citat după o temă („and He shall reign for ever and ever”) a faimosului cor „Halleluiah” din oratoriul „Mesia” de Handel, modelul venerat al lui Beethoven. Încheierea destul de abruptă şi fără festivism a Missei Solemnis, care a alimentat atâtea speculaţii referitor la credinţa lui Beethoven, îmi pare mai degrabă apropiată prin discreţie şi împăcare, dar şi prin alura generală, codei finalului din Simfonia Pastorală, şi el tot în măsura de şase optimi.
Întotdeauna va rămâne ceva nespus despre o asemenea lucrare şi aşa e bine să fie. În concluzie, pentru Oradea e o realizare şi faptul că acest concert a putut avea loc. Să sperăm că e un început care va fi continuat şi perfecţionat, fiindcă, după cum zice o veche vorbă mare dar adevărată, nu noi reluăm capodoperele, ci capodoperele ne reiau pe noi.

TODAY

It hasn’t been easy, I must confess.
Going back to the very same place on the very same day exactly ten years after, was a touching experience.
First impression. That place today looks smaller, so that I could realize how close I was to Mark Sandman in 1999.
It’s a basketball field, with a couple of concrete terraces where I sat ten years ago, waiting to know more. Could still see myself there.

I arrive early. It’s raining. Someone at the bar tells me it is the first time in twenty years of “Nel Nome del Rock” festival that rains. It is not just a shower, it is an Italian summer thunderstorm lasting a couple of hours and threatening the entire show.

I feel impatient, standing under a tent, looking at the sky and talking to some American guys who I have already met in London. They are shooting a documentary about Mark’s life.

The band is somewhere in town, nowhere close. Dana Colley and family, Jerome Deupree (the first Morphine drummer) and Jeremy Lyons whom, in few hours, is going to have the role of the musician replacing Mark Sandman. He will be playing Mark’s songs in Mark’s band, on the stage where Mark died. I reckon you need a total dedication to music and very strong nerves.

Bill Conway the second Morphine drummer couldn’t come. He was the one drumming that night in Palestrina in 1999. Dana Colley tonight is the only who was on stage ten years ago.
I finally manage to introduce myself to him while eating a very Italian pasta in the backstage. He, as always, is in a positive mood. I have never been a fan(atic) but greeting Dana and realizing he knows who I am is fulfilling.

Rain stops, Members of Morphine with Jeremy Lyons are definitely going to walk the stage.

Morphine new recorded music stopped with The Night, Morphine CDs didn’t.

The following years saw some interesting releases.
Bootleg Detroit, is a live album. Basically an official bootleg registered on tape by a fan at a gig in Detroit.
It sounds as lo-fi as possible, but it preserves the intimacy of one of their live shows.
I wouldn’t suggest it to get in touch with the band but would definitely if you love this demo-tape approach to music.

What is a key collection for anyone wanting to get to know Morphine without wanting to buy 5 albums, is their Best of. It comes with a couple of unpublished tracks but truly contains the very best of the band. An album that was always on my CD pouch when travelling with my portable CD player in the pre-iPod era.
Important suggestion, get the European edition which is complete and includes tracks from any of their five albums.
The American version, instead, called Best of 1992-1995, stops at Yes.
This is because of a Label conflict. in USA Dreamwork issued their last two albums, while on EU they are all distributed by Rykodisc.

To complete Morphine discography there is an album B-Sides and Otherwise released in 1997. The kind of product aimed to fans wanting everything. It contains every other thing the band has been recording which is not on the albums.

There have been rumours of a Morphine box for a long time, I guess the Dreamwork-Rykodisc dispute as well as the recent Rykodisc merge into something else has slowed down the release.

Having my press pass is my bit of pride of the night. Ten years and I am finally beyond the barrier.

When Members of Morphine come on stage it is very emotional. All the memories came back to surface, as it was yesterday.
The same plastic sunflowers decorate the stage as in the past.

Dana Colley stands on the left, on what was Mark’s spot. Jeremy Lyons stands on the right and Jerome Deupree has his drum kit behind a big hand painted sunflower. It is titled The Morphine Family and contains a lot of writings from the band’s friends. It goes without saying the deepest is:

“Sono triste di lasciare Palestrina ma il mio cuore rimarrà sempre con voi”
Da Mark e Sabine

which translate something as:

“I am sad to leave Palestrina, but my heart will always be with you”
From Mark and Sabine (which was Mark’s girlfriend).

The shock following Mark’s death didn’t stop the other guys being involved with music.
For about a year they toured the music of Morphine with a big band called, Orchestra Morphine. Among the musicians there was a girl, Laurie Sargent.

Orchestra Morphine project naturally merged into Twinemen.
Dana Colley and Bill Conway brought Laurie Sargent into this band.
Coincidentally I was in Boston in summer 2002. Browsing record shops in search of Morphine rarities, I stumbled upon the Twinemen self titled first album, just issued.
It has a Mark Sandman drawing on the cover.

The music, mixes reminiscence of Morphine jazz-ish songs with some more atmospheric lounge sound. It’s different and, I must admit, not as good.
This didn’t prevent me, now a UK resident, to buy a ticket for their gig at the Camden Underworld in London few years ago.
Once there all I found was a sign on the door saying “Tonight’s concert has been cancelled”. I will discover not enough tickets were sold.

Twinemen released another couple of albums on Hi-N-Dry. The record label founded by Mark Sandman, today managed by the three Twinemen themselves.

The concert opens with Have a Lucky Day, which I couldn’t take only as a good wish. I knew I should expect something like this, but it is not easy, is it?

Claire follows and I have to stop taking pictures to listen. I realize how much I love and I miss this music.
Scratch, Sheila… the magic music of Morphine is permeating Palestrina’s humid air, again.
The atmosphere is relaxed, there is no three songs rule for photographers and I stay there to finish my films with no rush. I choose my favourite angles with the eyes, while the ears are pleased by Dana baritone’s sax.

Jeremy Lyons plays a 2 string slide bass, it is not Mark’s bass but manages to get a sound which is quite close. The voice is not, obviously, but when he uses that retro mic Mark used gives goosebumps.

In the middle of the show, just after Thursday (or was it before?), Dana makes a speech to the crowd.
First in English, then in Italian.
He thanks the people of Palestrina for being friend and always being close to them.
He says how happy it was to come back here with his family.
He thanks Mark Sandman and states that place is almost sacred to them.
It’s touching, Dana is almost moved to tears, with bright eyes he takes back is big sax and plays out loud. The big trees vibrate, silent witnesses.

At this point Hi-N-Dry seems to be the key activity to Dana and Bill, but they never stopped playing music. Last year, surfing the ever revealing waves of internet, I discovered another project.

A.K.A.C.O.D., clearly not the best name you want to call a band, (it stands for “As Known As Colley, Ortiz and Dersch”) is Dana Colley playing with Monique Ortiz on bass and Larry Dersch on drums.
Another Morphine-like line-up. Ortiz occasionally plays slide bass and when it happens music gets as close as it has ever been to Morphine since 1999.
The Happiness album is good. A low-rock feel a dark atmosphere someway reminescent of Nick Cave but the desire to sound like Morphine reveals its impossibility without Mark Sandman songwriting.

In the middle of the gig there is a break with few songs that the three wrote recently. Jeremy Lyons moves to guitar. It’s not Morphine for a while, nostalgia leaves space to something different which pleases the part of the audience unaware of the bands legacy and leave the fans in wait of more hits. We are all here for a celebration.

All Wrong, Buena, Honey White arrive towards the end, and retain the magic. Dana doesn’t play neither other saxes nor two saxes at the same time but his groove is still there, as catchy as always.
Jerome has a different drumming than Bill Conway. He seems more comfortable with the songs he recorded on the first 2 albums than with Bill material. I guess very few people would even notice the difference.

So what has happened during these 10 years on Mark Sandman name?

Quite a few things.
He got a square to his name in Boston.
His apartment became the Hi-N-Dry recording studio and, I have been told in a comment, his bass is proudly hanging on one of the walls.

A Memorial Fund has been created after his death. Mark Sandman Music Education Fund is a no-profit organization that aims to help children in the Boston area to learn how to play music.
If you have money to give or want to get involved, monitor the Hi-N-Dry website and join their newsletter.

Music wise, Hi-n-Dry has released a beautiful package. 2CDs and 1DVD of Mark Sandman related projects. It’s called Sandbox. There is not Morphine music in it (usual copyrights stuff, I guess) but this wonderful box, must not be read as a fans-only item.
It shows how good Mark Sandman was as songwriter with Threat Her Right and some solo things. There are terrific tunes in there, tunes for which much bigger artists would sell the soul to the devil to write.

The Palestrina encore is with the unmissable Cure for Pain. French Fries With Pepper has the addition of a trio of women on back vocals.

Concerts ends in a party mood. Dana Colley is touched by people response, his entire family is here. He calls his children on stage more then once, it looks he needs them to give him strength.

It is a celebration of Music, no space left for sadness.
I am very happy to have flown back here from UK. Now my memories will not be linked only to a dramatic moment but to a great show that existed because of it.

There is always a way out of darkness, Morphine music is one, and Members of Morphine lesson is another.
I don’t know if I ever listen to Morphine music live again, but driving back home I couldn’t avoid to play that Best of Morphine CD. It’s on my i-Pod now.

<<< PART1

Photo Tip

I didn’t want to put a photo tip on this 2-parts special issue on Morphine, but after what happened I feel I have to.

As I wrote previously, a big poster with my picture of Mark was to be on stage. You haven’t seen it, because It was not. A sad but well precedented concert photographer’s situation.

Few months ago I sent to the organizers my photos of Morphine last gig, they loved them so much that they started to use their favourite to paint a big panel (did they?) and proposed me to do an exhibition at the festival.

When I was told, at the condition the use was related only to the promotion of the festival which is a no-profit charity institution, I agreed to give the rights for free in change of just credits.
I didn’t want to exploit neither the low budget I know they have nor, most important, Mark Sandman’s night.

They got so happy with the result to came back to me saying they were going to print T-Shirts and limited edition posters with the drawing derived from my image. I was very happy too, of course.
But at that point, being the merchandise sold for a profit, I asked for a percentage.
Being the one who supplied the image for the artwork I think it is fair enough to be acknowledged.

I got no answer. I insisted and received a reply which was at the same time arrogant, defensive and devaluating.
They wrote that being the image a drawing inspired from my picture, it wasn’t my image anymore and I shouldn’t have any right on it.
I said I wasn’t sure that it was such a case and asked to see the artwork to verify.
It is here below, next to my original photo.

Crystal clear isn’t it? This is not an artwork inspired by whatever. This is my image transformed in B&W with a 30 seconds photoshop intervention and a writing added to the bottom. I stood for my request, I got no answer since.

Once in Palestrina, I understand neither posters nor T-shirts have been printed with my picture.
Most interesting there was not even the big poster decorating the backstage.
The only pictures of Morphine last gig, that everyone wanted there because “Mark would have loved them” simply haven’t been used.

The organizer didn’t even manage to approach me, “it’s very busy”. When I insisted to meet him he went like “Oh hello, you are Valerio” and walked away.

The official reason I was given, by someone else who I asked, is that they didn’t have time to print the material. Which is not very believable.

This is what we, as music photographers, pass through regularly.
Either we give pictures for free or we don’t have pictures used or published.

I will always stand against it, not because I want to make money out of live music photography, which is an illusion, but to protect the dignity of photographers that instead of people working for the sake of music are seen as some sort of virtual sources of images, with no rights.
Unfortunately for one that resists there are 10 out there to give away photographs.

In this unique occasion, being the only one having pictures of Morphine last gig, there was no one else so no Morphine related merchandise at the Morphine celebration gig.
The fans couldn’t get their Mark Sandman T-Shirt, the organizers didn’t make easy money selling them and I haven’t got a big poster on the backstage. It is an all-lose situation. Silly isn’t it?

10 YEARS AGO

MARK SANDMAN (1952-1999)

When I started Live on 35mm, almost 2 years and 100 bands ago, I didn’t have a clue where I was going with this site, but I knew that if it lasted until the 3rd of July 2009 I had one band to publish. That day has come.

That band is Morphine.
This article is dedicated to the memory of their leader: Mark Sandman.

This is a unique post on several levels and very personal.
It contains the only pictures available (as far as I am aware) of the Morphine last concert, taken literally minutes before Mark Sandman collapsed on stage, dying of a heart attack.
Sandman life and the career of one of my favourite bands abruptly terminated exactly 10 years ago, in front of me on the stage of a small Italian festival.

These are my memories of that night.
Yes, I was there and I had my beloved camera with me.
Not yet a music photographer, after that night I decided I would try to be.
Already a live music lover, after that night I promised to myself I wouldn’t stop going to concerts.
There are defining moments in everyone’s story. This was clearly one of mine.

I drove from Rome for the short journey to Palestrina well in advance. I was in an iper-excited mood. A free small festival on a summer night and Morphine, that I have been looking forward to seeing live for at least the previous three years, were headlining.
(Not counting that a newly formed band, born from the ashes of Kyuss and bizarrely named Queens of the Stone Age, was playing the day after!).

Morphine are the most peculiar and underrated band to have ever appeared in the music scene. Fact. Take the word “music” in the widest sense.

During the eighties Mark Sandman and his tritar (a sort of three strings guitar), was leading the Boston outfit Treat Her Rights with Dave Champagne on (a proper) guitar, Jim Fitting on harmonica and Bill Conway (later with Morphine too) on drums.

Unfortunately Treat Her Right blues-rock project never managed to break beyond the Boston scene. After the third brilliant album, What’s Good For You, the band dismantled.
Many lo-fi blues bands still owe a lot to them. The sound of Detroit contemporary blues rotating around Jack White, just to name one, with bands as Soledad Brothers, Cut in The Hill Gang are deeply rooted into Treat Her Right music.

In 1989 Mark Sandman recruited saxophonist Dana Colley from another Boston band, Three Colors, and drummer Jeromee Dupree.
Morphine were just born.

Dana Colley saxes replace Jim Fitting harmonica complementing the low sound of Morphine with a dark, jazzy edge. The union of Sandman bass and Colley sax works so well that nothing will match since.

Sandman is almost permanently on a 2 strings slide bass, Colley privileges the baritone among his saxophones collection (he often plays two at the same time). The clever drumming of Dupree thickens the mix.
The band naturally has a deep sound that fits Sandman voice, often filtered through his retro-sounding microphones.
If low-rock is a genre, Morphine are the ones who invented it. No other band depicts the smoky club atmosphere as Morphine did.

A trio formed by a bass player, a drummer and a sax is an oddity that should generate the curiosity of music lovers.
The only other band I know on such a line-up is John Zorn grindcore jazz trio Painkiller. Zorn sax is joined on bass by dub master Bill Laswell and Napalm Death’s Mick Harris on drums. Both bands formed at the beginning of the 90s but they position themselves at the very extremes of the audible music spectrum.

When I arrived to Palestrina there was quite a big crowd. Morphine, thanks to Radio Rock, were quite known in Rome. I had to fight a bit to get to the front but nothing would stop me at that time. I wanted to be there, see their eyes, feel the breath, enjoy the music. I wanted to photograph them.

The concert started. They played few songs, don’t know how many. I sincerely cannot recall how long the concert lasted. I’d love to know, but I really can’t. I was shocked.

Sandman at a first impression reminded me of Lou Reed. Dana had his long hair cut. Bill is on drums at the back surrounded by flowers. Everything looks perfect.

I started to take pictures as soon as they came on stage, a security guy stopped me once. I wasn’t an official photographer.
I timidly restarted taking some pictures after a while, you expect Italian rules are loose. Not that night, he came back threatening to take my camera. I told myself, OK wait few minutes, he will calm down I’ll snap towards the end.
There will not be an end, I regret having listened to him since.

There was another photographer there. An official photographer. He was in the pit, beyond the barrier. My usual place nowadays, not at that time. I envied him.
I have never seen those pictures anywhere, though. I wonder what happened.

Morphine first record, Good, was released in 1991 on a local label and attracted the attention of Rykodisk who signed them and re-released the album the following year.
Despite it won’t go much beyond the Boston Area, it is a brilliant album that contains some of the defining Morphine songs. Have a Lucky Day, You Look Like Rain and The Saddest Song are in it.

Cure For Pain, apart from the fact of being the greatest title you can give to an album if you play in a band called Morphine, is a masterpiece.
It’s 1993. The sounds of the debut matures, the original drummer Jeremee Dupree still records most of tracks but can’t continue for some personal problems. Bill Conway, from Treat her Rights, will replace him on drums from now on.
The songs get a more defined structure, the album is more accessible. I really find difficult to choose the best tracks out of those thirteen pearls. I am listening to it now after 15 years and they retain all their fascination. Buena, Thursday, All Wrong, Cure For Pain, Sheila and the instrumental tribute Miles Davis Funeral won’t be left out in my personal “Best of” compilation.

The peak is yet to come. Yes follows a couple of years later and is another masterpiece!
I mean, you don’t become the most underrated band ever with just 2 singles, do you? These three albums are awesome.
On Yes, Morphine are on top form and on a variable mood, in a positive sense.
The album is assorted, multi flavour. From the opening Honey White with its saxophone catchy riff to the most beautiful sad song ever written, Gone For Good, which closes it, Yes doesn’t fail throughout its length.
In addition to the two above Whisper, Yes and Supersex are Morphine at their peak. The world starts noticing.

I will never forget that moment.
Mark Sandman said hello to the people of Palestrina, announced Supersex and just started sliding his two strings. A couple of notes into, music stopped, he was on the ground.

I firstly thought of a staged act, a sort of fake drama that would fit his humour. I had not seen Morphine live. It’s 1999 internet was very young and Youtube wasn’t even born. I didn’t really know what to expect from them live beyond the music.

I understand that something went wrong moments after. Dana Colley got rid of his sax literally throwing it to the ground and jumped on Mark’s body. That was an impulsive act of terror and desperation.
Dana knew what Mark used to do on stage and that wasn’t expected. Bill followed and in few seconds all their crew was around Mark body.
Thinking at the silence of the crowd, the silence of the stage, still makes me shiver.
That feeling you get when you perceive something wrong happened, something very serious but you don’t want to believe and start magic thinking.

Audience thought it was a temporary accident and asked when the concert was going to restart. I had a bad feeling.
Minutes passed before someone made clear that the concert was not going to restart. Mark went with an ambulance.
No one knew what happened. I had a bad feeling.
I am not good at “living without knowing”. I sat on some concrete terraces on the side of the field, waiting to know.

Like Swimming was the latest album Morphine issued when they were touring. It came out in 1997 on Dreamwork, a new label.
After three masterpieces this had to be the one to send Morphine into orbit. The one to give them success beyond the circle of devotees.
Unfortunately it failed to deliver, despite it is not a bad album and contains at least a couple of beautiful song as French Fries With Pepper and Early To Bed, it is less accessible without being intriguing.
I never managed to get into it completely, some songs sound classic Morphine tunes, other go somewhere without really knowing where.
It sits in the middle between an exhausted past and a future lacking a clear direction.

Following what just happened in front of me, I thought that was their last album. Hopefully it was not.
Morphine had just finished recording The Night before coming to Italy. It will come out posthumous at the beginning of 2000.
It is a much more convincing piece of work than Like Swimming and, most important, this time it gives a taste of where Morphine were about to going. It is not yet fully mature but is sophisticate and sign of a transition in progress are evident. Their instruments palette is expanded, several musicians joined the recording sessions. Strings, organ, guitars hot up the arrangements. The Night, the title track opening the album, is one of my favourite Morphine tracks and one of the most sensual songs I have ever heard.

After a long time, much longer than the concert, I found the strength to approach the people dismantling the stage and ask.
No one was willing to answer. I insisted until a guy made a gesture with his hands. His body language was indisputable. Mark was dead.
It felt so unbelievable I didn’t have tears to cry. Years waiting to see Morphine live I ended up seeing Morphine’s death. It was unfair.

I sat down on the concrete floor. I saw Mark’s bass being put back into its case. Someone put one of the flowers on stage into it. It closed in front of me, as a coffin’.
I felt tears coming down. I wonder where that bass is today.

In the next couple of hours I drove back home, walked straight in the darkroom, rewind the unfinished film, developed the negatives and printed the photos.
A scene that reminds of Antonioni’s Blowup. I desperately needed to see that I got something. I wanted to see Mark playing again. I needed to have something physical to handle.

I printed two copies of those pictures that same night. One for me, I posted the other to the band. Then I couldn’t cope with them for years, I didn’t want to earn money out of them, I haven’t even looked at them.

Now they are here, for you.
If even just one of the readers discovers how great Morphine are, I reached my goal.

I have never been to Palestrina since. Emotionally distraught I couldn’t cope.
I missed the Queens of The Stone Age the day after and all the other “Nel Nome Del Rock” festival editions in the following years.

I am flying back to Palestrina this year, though. It is the 20th festival and on the midnight of the 2nd of July Dana Colley, Bill Conway and Jeromee Dupree will walk back to that stage joined by Jeremy Lyons to play a special gig to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Mark’s dead with Morphine’s music.

My picture of Mark on top here has been printed in a giant poster and decorates the back of the stage.
You’ll get a full reportage of this event next on Live on 35mm and you will discover how Mark Sandman legacy is being kept alive.

Part 2 >>>

El Cementerio de San Eufrasio, el cementerio viejo, es un lugar mágico para pasear. El otro día me llamó la atención esta frase latina en la portada de un panteón: EXSULTABUNT OSSA HUMILIATA. La frase me llevó a la historia de Betsabé que os cuento con las palabras de Manuel Vicent :

“Un día de verano se levantó de la siesta el rey David y desde la azotea de palacio vio a una joven de extraordinaria belleza que se estaba bañando desnuda en el jardín de su casa. El rey David quiso saber quién era aquella muchacha. Le dijeron que se llamaba Betsabé, la hija de Eliam, mujer de Urías. El rey mandó a un mensajero que le hablara de su parte, la hizo venir a palacio y llegada a su presencia la poseyó sin más preámbulo, durmió con ella, la cual después se purificó de su inmundicia y volvió preñada a casa. Betsabé le mandó recado al rey. “He concebido”, le dijo. En ese tiempo, Israel estaba en guerra con los ammonitas y tenía sitiada la ciudad de Raba. El rey David llamó a Urías, marido de Betsabé, lo sentó a su mesa, lo agasajó con un gran banquete y trató de embriagarle. Después ordenó a Joab, jefe del ejército, que lo colocara en el lugar más peligroso de la primera línea de combate para que fuera herido y muriera, cosa que sucedió tal como pensaba. Desde lo alto de la muralla lo mató un ballestero y el rey David fingió gran dolor, pero enseguida tomó a Betsabé por esposa y ella parió un hijo, que no fue del agrado de Yavhé por ser fruto de adulterio. De hecho, la criatura fue sacrificada. Con un poco de penitencia, el rey obtuvo el perdón y a continuación David consoló a Betsabé, durmió con ella y de esa coyunda nació el sabio Salomón.”

Según la tradición judía, David, reconociendo su error, cantó, en son de penitencia, un salmo: el Miserere, adaptado a la música polifónica por Palestrina y que todos los miércoles y viernes santos puede escucharse en la Capilla Sixtina y, desde 1860, todos los martes santos en la catedral de Baeza, en la versión de Hilarión Eslava. Una de sus partes es: Auditui meo dabis gaudium et lætitiam, et exsultabunt ossa humiliata – A mi oído darás gozo y alegría, y se regocijarán mis huesos abatidos.

The REAL beginning of opera, as most die-hards know, was with Jacopo Peri.  And what most people who are smarter than I know is that, while one of his operas (Dafne) was lost, his other opera (Euridice) has survived.  To the point where it’s on at least four recordings.  And it predates Monteverdi by seven years.  So….fail on my part.

And yes, I almost typed “#fail” instead of “fail.”

On the other hand, it was nice STARTING with Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and traveling back about a decade to an earlier opera based on the same story.  Even though it was only a seven-year gap, the difference between the two works (which, in Italian, would be opere, the plural of opera…there’s your semantics lesson for the day) is palpable.  The Grove Dictionary says of Peri that even in his lifetime, his composition style was going out the door in favor of young renegades like Claudio over in Mantova/Venice.  But when we talk of the Camerata, we’re namely talking about Peri and his buddy Giulio Caccini.  Not only did these guys pave the way for opera, they also paved the way for baroque music.  They threw contrapuntal music like that of Palestrina to the curb and gave us a streamlined monody–which is one of the bricks and mortar elements of opera.  On paper it looks pretty mundane, but check it out in action:

Palestrina’s “Nunc Dimittis”:

Peri’s “Prologo ‘La Tragedia’ e Coro ‘Se de’ boschi’” from Euridice

The orchestration is sparse; way moreso than Monteverdi or later.  It’s an opera so well-suited for the Medici court (in fact, it was written for a Medici wedding at the Palazzo Pitti), or–in the 19th Century–a parlour.  I’m trying not to get ahead of myself with opera history in this project, but it is fascinating to see how opera (like so many things) goes in these life cycles of highs and lows in terms of orchestration.  Chamber to grand to chamber to grand.  Unlike L’Orfeo, I’ve never seen this live (obv.), but what’s also obv. is that Peri probably never thought that someone would come up with the technology to record his music and re-play it on an electronic device.  It was a hindrance here in terms of active listening, no musical arc to complement the story or character’s arcs, and it seems like an easy gig for the singers.  That being said, it was an incredibly meditative afternoon.  And Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini will give me plenty of aural theatrics.

If that oversight weren’t enough, there was another Euridice, inspired by Peri and written by Caccini (thereby cementing the two as one of the original bromances in my mind) in 1602.  Many felt at the time, Caccini included, that Peri’s was the superior of the two and therfore Giulio’s hasn’t gotten the love it deserves.  Listening to this after Peri’s (because that’s how you properly do chrono order), I actually felt a greater dramatic arc.  Perhaps I lucked out with a good recording, but there were shifts in music that served as preludes to Monteverdi’s later work.  In addition to its Florentine/Venetian sounds, there are also echoes of Catalan, especially if you listen to “Llibre Vermell de Montserrat” (try the Waverly Consort’s recording) before or after.  Call me sacreligious, but I think Caccini may even bridge the gap between the medieval and the baroque far better than Papa Peri.  And why his Euridice barely survived (I think the recording I have from 2008 is the first and/or only recording currently available), I’d want it on my team over Jacopo’s any day.

And I’m sure there’s some musicologist out there who now thinks I’ll burn in hell.

I’ve been swamped with work and my internet service has been down for weeks. But enough chit-chat: let’s get down to business, like good human peons playing grown-up in the “real world”. I’m not here to hold your hand, I’m here to toss you headfirst into the musical labyrinth.

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The singer from Anthem, Eizo Sakamoto, has some solo projects (where he actually sings some of the music from Fist of the North Star, among other things). But check these tracks out from his 2000 album Metal Icchousen; mad crazy fast Marty Friedman arena metal!

Taishuu Sakaba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFdJLkVhddw

Or how about a classic Manowar cover? (I sure hope Eizo doesn’t live with his parents)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V8A2XxJsY8

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Renaissance choral music was pretty tight. If that bores you, I should mention it’s the stuff that the cathedral music in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is referencing/copying. Of course, SotN is able to do a lot more stuff with it because Konami’s musicians weren’t limited by weird church music theory laws and Satanic bishops, and had organs and percussion to throw into the mix.

Check out these tight period composers:

Arcadeldt — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-crvm7AmOU

Palestrina — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3dvvuCMVbk

Tomas Tallis — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq5rXwWp8UM

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If, for some reason, you want to have an OOBE (out of body experience) that is beyond your control, put on your headphones and listen to these samples from one of Coil’s last project, The Coilans .

It was done on some archaic experimental Soviet synthesizer with 100 oscillators or something, and they made the music by inserting metal sheets with magical glyphs or sigils engraved upon them. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

My God it’s been cold the last two days – but I’m loving it! (to take a leaf out of McD’s) Gives me a chance to wear my lovely new coat! It’s incredibly warm, found it in Wellington last week when I was down there for the NZQA Scholarship presentation. It’s not been cold enough to wear it til now so I’m embracing the cold. I love the feeling of walking around in a warm, fashionable coat around town; although I’ve also had the cravings of being in New York where everyone’s in coats and lookin good. Everyone here, including me, only wears hoodies and jeans in winter. Thankfully i’ve a new coat

There’s this guy I’m kinda in love with and I have no idea why. I briefly met him at the supermarket two weeks ago (he’s a checkout operator at the local store) as I was getting a few things and due to me being anti-social had my earphones in, so not too many a word was exchanged He’s tall, blonde-ish, blue eyes, CUTE as in geeky-cute, really cute… now the trouble is (and always is) I don’t know if he would swing that way. So the obvious thing would be just to straight up ask him next time I see him, but it’s just such a awkward question especially if some random asked you. I mean if some one asked me while I was working I probably would say no.. protection thing maybe.. So (i think) he works Thursday nights, yet I was too afraid to go down there tonight even though we actually needed some groceries.

Eeeck I hate growing up and becoming my ‘own person’. I wish I was hard-out straight and slightly homophobic, kinda. Life would be too simple then ae. I don’t know why I’m attracted to guys… There’s just something about them. The physique, the hair, the stubble, even the face structure (lol). I always see bloody handsome guys on the street. Like this absolutely beautiful guy i saw today, kinda stared at him as we walked by. He looked at me so I looked away haha. But sighhhs. Then when we were cologne shopping today, I could just imagine some guy wearing someArmani Code or my own Ralph Lauren Polo Double Black and me smelling it as we embrace… (slightly pitiful i know; i’m a somewhat hopeless romantic). I have some Armani Code on my wrist and every time I smell it I just want to be held tenderly by someone else wearing the beautifully smelling fragrance.

As of late, I guess I’ve been going through many a phase – the “oh I’m so lonely” mindset contrasting with the “happy to be single” one. I’m not looking for someone to fill a bottomless void like drugs/alc etc. but it would be sooo nice just for there to be someone to be able to hug and be intimate with; my cat is just pissing me off as a result haha which is kinda sad. (He tries to always sit on me and hang around, but I’m just finding it annoying more than anything. Its sad that all my recipient love comes from a cat at the moment.) Tonight, like last night, kinda turned into a ‘lonely’ night.

Listening to Owl City’s On The Wing [my favourite] made me long so badly for a significant other. Whenever I hear it, I picture a couple frolicking about, enjoying one another’s company, in love… And I suppose I’m just all bummed cause there’s a possibility I could have that, but need to take a big risk. But life is short, so why don’t I just take risks and do it argh. Perhaps the possibility of a rejection out-fears me than the actual asking process.

I nearly asked a guy out before, couple months back. Had a similar dilemma, except there was more pressure on me to do it straight away, and was about to do it, until i realised he wasn’t actually as good looking as I had kinda fantasised him to be after an hour or two of deliberation. So is supermarket guy a similar story? Don’t know. DAMN i couldn’t even learn his name, apparently they don’t print who you were served by anymore on the receipts CRY.

Also, yet again I’m not sure if I like these two girls, like I could like them a lot, one’s more than the other too, but I guess I haven’t made any moves as I just don’t wanna mess them about especially while I’m still so unsure about what I want. And it still sucks cause the only thing I can talk to on all these things is this stupid blog that no one but me seems to read. So what the hell. Someone, please find my kinda uninteresting but complicated life interesting enough to read this and comment/talk to meeee. Like i’ve said before, can’t really talk to friends bout this cause most of them don’t know and the ones that do are either people that I could potentially go out with so don’t wanna scare them with a gay-crush of mine haha.

Also, I hate girly guys. UGH. Just cause your gay doesn’t mean you need to be a girl. If I wanted to date a girl, I would date one of the female sex. Getting more complicated, explains why I have trouble with guys haha. Cause I’m attracted to more masculine/’guy’ guys, yet they area generally the straight ones. =’( Damn stereotypes from the media making gay people think they have to be complete girls.

Reflecting my opposite mood swings, I’ve been spamming music such as The Mint Chicks, The White Stripes and The Kills during my upbeat periods and conversely the likes of Renaissance choral masses of Palestrina and Lassus which are just some of the most beautiful pieces of music. Relaxing and also seem to be in harmony with the human spirit.

Wow, this post has turned pretty much into half an assignment length essay! Flip… why is it so much easier to rant about my messed up love-life than write essays about say influential moments in music history, for example.

CCC reprint from Victoria Times Colonist, Wednesday, May 20, 2009, page C10

‘Choir ends season with a bang’

New music director will be introduced prior to concert

KEVIN BASSANA: Classical music

kevinbazzana@shaw.ca

timescolonist.com

This Saturday, in the final concert of its season, the lately leaderless Victoria Philharmonic Choir will introduce its new music director to the public.

The choir gave its first concert in November 2005, under the direction of founder Simon Capet, who continued as music director through the first concert of the current season, last November, but subsequently resigned.

The choir has since performed only in March, when it joined two other choirs and the Victoria Symphony in Orff’s Carmina Burana.

For those concerts in Duncan and Victoria, the choir was prepared by the Victoria Symphony’s resident conductor, Giuseppe Pietraroia.

After assessing about 30 applications from across North America and working with three applicants on a trial basis, the choir recently settled on a new music director, who is both eminently qualified and close to home – Peter Butterfield.

Butterfield grew up in Victoria, part of a well-known family of musicians; his brother Benjamin is a tenor, his brother Christopher a composer (both teach at the University of Victoria).  Peter, too, is a tenor, trained initially in Montreal, where he made his debut in 1982; he moved to Europe in 1987 and continued his training in Manchester, Florence and London.

His extensive performing experience includes stints with the King’s College Choir, Cambridge (under David Willcocks), the Monteverdi Choir (under John Eliot Gardiner), the Winchester Cathedral Choir, the BBC Northern Singers, the Bayreuth Festival Chorus, and opera companies in Florence and Monte Carlo.  He has performed across Canada too, and made recordings.

Butterfield took up conducting in 1995, and has led choral groups in England and Florence.  

In 2001, after a decade based in England, he moved to Vancouver, where he briefly led the Vancouver Cantata Singers before establishing, in 2003, the semi-professional chamber choir VancouverVoices.  At a Vancouver Symphony concert in 2007, he impressed many people when, summoned from the audience, he took over from an ailing Ben Heppner in the middle of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, though he had not sung the difficult solo-tenor part in 20 years.

The Victoria Philharmonic Choir has performed music by many composers over the years (Bach, Pergolesi, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Salieri, Beethoven, Bruckner), and has given some concerts of special note: a programme devoted to the Welsh composer Karl Jenkins (who co-conducted); a provocative, controversial staging of Handel’s oratorio Samson; Dvorak’s cantata The Spectre’s Bride dramatized with shadow puppets; Grieg’s Peer Gynt music in collaboration with the Victoria Symphony. 

Saturday’s ambitious programme, offering four centuries’ worth of widely varying repertoire, will further expand the choir’s reach while giving the new music director an excellent forum in which to show off his chops.

The first half will comprise nine short works (mostly motets) by Palestrina, Byrd, Mendelsohn, (the bicentenary of whose birth is being celebrated this year), Stanford, Bruckner and Poulenc.

The second half will be dovoted to the French composer and organist Maurice Durufle (1902 – 1986), offering two works, both of which are based on Gregorian chant: the short a cappella motet Ubi caritas (1960), and the exquisitely beautiful Requiem (1947), Durufle’s masterpiece.  While not devoid of spiritual struggle, this Requiem ultimately conveys (in Durufle’s words) “the idea of peace, of faith and of hope.”

As in Faure’s Requiem, the music is serence, meditative, luminous, rather than dark or dramatic; conspicuously absent among the nine movements is the fire-and-brimstone of a Dies Irae.

The Requiem was originally scored for large orchestra and organ, though the Philharmonic Choir, which has about 45 members, will perform it in Durufle’s 1948 version for solo organ; there are solo parts for a mezzo-soprano and a cellist.

CCC

Una serie di immagini di pavimentazioni  a Cisterna di Latina

Al visitatore ignaro della situazione italiana, in particolare nel centro Italia, potrebbe venire in mente che siffatta pavimentazione sia in realtà un’istallazione artistica, una libera citazione (con tutto il rispetto parlando) del Memoriale di Eisenman a Berlino, una scultura regalata alla cittadinanza dalla Biennale di Venezia, la rappresentazione delle vicissitudini che l’essere umano è costretto a subire nella moderna società… Oppure la memoria di un passato primordiale – la pavimentazione del tempio della Grande Madre, la strada che conduceva dal santuario di Anxur a quello di Palestrina – lasciata per testimoniare alle future generazioni il modo di abitare e di vivere di una società… niente di tutto questo! È solamente la pavimentazione stradale a cui siamo stati costretti ad abituarci per l’incuria, l’ignoranza, la depravata gestione delle risorse, l’inciviltà, l’insensibilità, la grettezza psicologica che si è ormai sparsa come un gas pestilenziale sulla nostra bella nazione (ripeto, in particolare nel Lazio).

Sopra: la stratificazione di elementi e materiali diversi rappresenta il travaglio costruttivo di un’intera società

Perché non ci chiediamo che idea possano effettivamente farsi i turisti che per loro sventura incappino in una di queste meraviglie? E le difficoltà di un disabile o di un anziano ad attraversare una pietraia simile?

Non è possibile rassegnarsi in un paese evoluto e presuntuosamente civile come il nostro a delle immagini simili!

Sopra: un marciapiede degno delle migliori operazioni del grande Burri, si mostra agli occhi esterrefatti del visitatore in tutta la sua indicibile potenza espressiva

Nagy felség, diadalmas Úr, ó csodálatos Jézusunk.

Mily jó vagy fogyhatatlanul, áhítunk mondhatatlanul.

Légy velünk, Jézus, el ne hagyj, fényedből fényességet adj,

hogy lelki köd ne szálljon ránk, oltalmazz minket égi láng.

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Saint Bernardino of Siena, Vincenzo Foppa, 1500 körül

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Fekete vagyok, de szép

Jasna Gora-i Fekete Szűz (14. szd.)

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Happy Easter! “He is risen.  He is risen indeed!”

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Alles over Rome (Palestrina)… Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica

Deze Rome informatie blog is geschreven voor de Nederlandstalige gasten van B&B Little Italy Rome en Bed and Breakfast Chaplin Hostel.

Indien de Chaplin en de Little Italy niet precies zijn waar U naar op zoek bent of U slaapt liever in een hotel dan in een bed and breakfast in Rome, kunnen we U de Venere website aanbevelen voor het vinden van goedkope of luxe accommodatie in de Eeuwige Stad. U kunt zelf Uw budget en de wijk waar U wilt logeren invullen en krijgt dan een lijst met beschikbare hotels in Rome op de door U gewenste dagen. Meningen van gasten maken de keuze makkelijker en uiteraard kan reserveren online.

De helft van de Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica bevindt zich buiten Rome, in het Palazzo Barberini in het heuvelstadje Palestrina.

Aan de bouw van het palazzo hebben, onder pauselijke invloed, zowel Bernini als Borromini meegewerkt.

In het museum zijn vooral Romeinse en Etruskische objecten zoals urnes te bezichtigen. Het beroemdste werk is echter een mozaiek dat de overstroming van de rivier de Nijl berbeeldt, alsmede jachttaferelen, ibissen en Romeinse krijgers.

Ook zijn er schilderijen te zien van zowel Italiaanse (Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Perugino, Caravaggio, Raphael, om er enkelen te noemen) als Nederlandse en Vlaamse meesters te bezichtigen. De plafondschilderingen in de Gran Salone zijn gemaakt door Pietro da Cortona.

De andere helft van de Galleria nazionale d’Arte Antica bevindt zich in het Palazzo Corsini in Rome zelf.

Voor reserveringen kunt U +39 06-32810 bellen.

Indien U meer informatie heeft over de Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica in Palestrina, of mooie foto’s helpt U a.u.b. deze website beter te maken door ons Uw feedback te sturen.

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