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Month: May 2013

Le Sacre Du Printemps By Igor Stravinsky Celebrates 100th Anniversary

The legend has it that Igor Stravinsky received an idea for his famous ballet in his sleep. Whether or not this is true, the potency of his imagination and the ability to bring it to the material world of music and dance has never ceased to astonish the audience. It could be a huge disappointment, like that at the ballet’s first night in Paris on May 29, 1913 – or it could be a genuine amazement that subsequently engulfed the public. So much did it amaze people that a street in Montreuil where Stravinsky lived and composed Le Sacre du Printemps was renamed after the ballet. There is no Romeo and Juliet Street anywhere, is there?

Nicholai Roerich, The Rite of Spring (Wikimedia Commons)

This was probably the peak of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes time in Paris. Despite the public reaction, Dyaghilev himself was convinced that in reality the spectators had already understood the cultural value of the ballet, and time would let them acknowledge it fully. As it happens, he was correct although the immediate impact was far from favourable, including Nizhinsky’s breakdown.

Stravinsky co-wrote the libretto with one of the most original artists of the period, Nicholai Roerich, who also created stage decorations and costumes for the ballet. Today the sketches and costumes are exhibited at theatre museums.

The ballet’s 100th anniversary is celebrated worldwide today, with the autograph of the first page of the score being shared on the Internet. An excellent article in The Guardian by George Benjamin studies the intricancies of the score and how they reflected the great age of scientific, industrial, and cultural advances, about to collapse in the fire of the World War One.

The Riotous Premiere is fully dedicated to the Parisian first night, while also allowing to explore the score in depth. However, the growing popularity and the number of renditions somewhat justify the fear of The Guardian’s author that the performance that used to be a Titanic labour even to Stravinsky is now becoming more and more accessible and routine.

Perhaps, not everything is lost for the ballet itself: Sasha Waltz, a renowned German choreographer whose exploits also rage the public from time to time staged the anniversary performance at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, on air today at TV Kultura channel in Russia. Waltz’s version is characterised by almost unstoppable movement, without well-known classical pas, and the music is punctuated by the moments of silence, as if to better expose the beauty of this fantastic score. Waltz withstood a temptation to undress her dancers; instead she covered the stage with soil, to better reflect the dynamics of the Russian pagan dances. In her own words, Waltz had to search for suitable images to reflect the impetuous music that changes its rhythm, colour, and quality all the time. “For me this was a challenge“, she explained.

The orchestra at tonight’s Russian premiere is led by Valery Gergiev.

Igor Stravinsky, An Autograph of the First Page of the Score
to The Rite of Spring (courtesy of the Paul Sacher Stiftung
via Igor Stravinsky Facebook Page)

 

 

London Music: Rathbone Place And St. Pancras Improvisations

It’s sometimes difficult to find a reason to use the word “serendipity”, however the videos may well justify it. It’s when a great thing happens naturally, without you planning for it. First, in Rathbone Place a guy from Hobgoblin music shop and a cyclist across the road improvised a James Brown cover. Imagine sitting still, sipping your perfect Illy coffee in a cafe in the same street? I cannot, so I put my cup down and recorded the singer. And when I arrived from Paris I was greeted by a practising amateur pianist, whom I also decided to record. As they began to offer piano music as a free entertainment in one of Moscow’s railway terminals, I wondered if the guy was also being paid to play. No, he replied, but the piano is free to use, so he takes this as an opportunity to exercise.

I’m sad I cannot include an audio recording of Paul Dean’s magnificent organ recital at St. Paul’s Cathedral, but perhaps I’ll find the means to let you hear how good he is (and so is the organ music).

Over to you, guys 🙂

London 2013 – A Bookstore Shelf


London 2013, originally uploaded by loscuadernosdejulia.

This is a real bookshelf in a real bookstore in Holborn district of London. I was impressed by the range of titles: James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, Stief Larsson, John Fowles, Oscar Wilde, John Keats, William Blake, William Wordsworth and Geoffrey Chaucer (the latter five – on the bottom shelf), etc, etc. But little could be as grotesque as placing Fifty Shades Freed next to Joyce’s Ulysses, the former being criticised for the quality of prose, and the latter being praised for the exact same thing.

One may say that it is a strange sign of our times when novels, so different, can not only stand on the same shelf, but practically rub shoulders with one another.

Attending a Service On the Russian Easter In Aldgate

 

It’s amazing what you can find in London! I stumbled upon a lovely church in Aldgate and went in for a “look”. I ended up attending a church service that coincided with the Russian Easter. A mere hour and a half before that I had attended an organ recital by Paul Dean at St. Paul’s Cathedral, which was splendid.

At the church I was in for a few surprises. One, it was a Reformed Scottish church, and two, the service rested heavily on reading the Psalter and singing psalms. Last time I sang psalms was at the Advent service in Birmingham in 2008, where the text was projected on large screens. Here we each had a book of Psalms given before the sermon, and I had time to familiarise myself with the text of Psalm 122.
Along with several others, Psalm 122 constitutes the Book of Accents that pilgrims used to take with them, to read and sing during the pilgrimage. It is the story of joy of embracing Jerusalem and of dedication to praising it.
The preacher was one of a kind – slim, light ginger headed Scot, dressed in grey suit, accompanied with a tie with doggy print. I mean, on the tie dogs were printed. The manner was somewhat American, that coachy style of addressing the audience. I cannot say I disliked it, but my first question was if all Scottish Church preachers were like him. Apparently, he’s walking his own line in this.
Although I’m not religious as far as official church doctrines and rituals are concerned, I do like going into a church, either for a visit or even for a sermon. I must admit I prefer foreign churches for this, and as my experience here is by and large limited to Britain, British clergy and believers have always been very nice. They gladly break the ice and start a conversation. In a Russian church you sometimes feel like the building itself is making you a favour, not to mention people. As soon as the sermon finishes, the guards practically drive you out of the building. You will agree this is not the way to feel in what is supposed to be God’s home.
My childhood was marked by reading a book “The Bible for believers and non-believers”, written in late 1920s in the USSR and propagating the ideas, which gist you can easily imagine. In my youth I came across more books that questioned the Bible and various concepts relating to God. However, it was only in England that I began to reconsider certain ideas, and, as I said before, although I still remain outside a church or confession, I’m much more accommodating of an idea of the Higher Reason being involved in our lives. In doing so, I am more inclined to the Judaic concepts rather than Christian, insofar as the figure of God is concerned.  But as yet I don’t observe Saturday!
So, after the sermon I went for a walk around Islington, of which George Mikes wrote that all poor people migrated there and turned it into a fashionable district. I don’t know how “poor” Islington people are 50 years later, but the area is buzzing with building and development, so it certainly remains fashionable.
And near the church there was a fountain with some lovely inhabitants – see in the photo!

 

 

 

Les Notes Parisiennes

Et bon, mes chers lecteurs, enfin j’ai visite Paris. Pardonnez-moi l’absence des articles, mais il n’y a pas de langue francaise a mon telephone.

Those of you who have been reading the blog for a while will know that this was a very long-lasting dream that has finally come true. According to the French themselves, I speak their language very well, although this was the first time I really had to converse with native speakers. I managed to keep my writing skills up, while living in the UK, but I was quite fearful for the spoken language. Thankfully, there is nothing to fear about any longer.

I’ve only had two days, so I somehow chose to visit the Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, the Pere Lachese cemetery, and the Louvre. Maybe I should have made a different choice, but the positive impressions abound anyway. In addition to visiting these great sites, I ate at various lovely places where there was always good food and good service, both at good value. The majority thought I was English, if I had to “switch” the language to better express myself. I took buses and metro, I climbed 300 stairs up the Sacre Coeur to see the unforgettable Parisian panorama in broad daylight. Naturally, I chose to use the ascenseur (elevator) to visit la Tour Eiffel, for otherwise I’d overdo climbing for the day. I was still rewarded with spectacular views of Paris by night and a short illumination.

The French were generally very helpful – perhaps because they sensed the chance to practise their English. As soon as I arrived and was trying to figure out where to go, a map in my hand, a lovely French lady came up and offered me help. I always do this kind of thing in Moscow, so it looks like this was the instance of “the good you do comes back to you“.

And then there were two funny situations, both at the Eiffel Tower. First, I saw two security guards studying a small bottle of champagne they confiscated from someone. The conversation went thus:

I: “Are you going to give it back, if they ask?”
Guard: “Me? This is going to cost!” – and he made a gesture with his fingers, hinting at the money they’d have to pay to get the bottle back.

Obviously, this was a joke.

A better one followed during my own security check before going for the elevator. Our conversation:

Guard: Knives? Pistols?
I: Of course, not!
Guard: A bomb?
I: Well, I haven’t thought about it.

At one of the bistros where I stopped we had a pleasant conversation with a gentleman from Biarritz. Eventually, we arrived to a conclusion that Biarritz was even more expensive than Nice because of its exclusivity. In return, I explained the meaning of the word “issue”, and how it can be used in English language.

Prior to going to Paris I read Villa “Amalia” by Pascal Quignard. It was a Russian translation, a moving story of a woman-artist. I remember trying to read Dance, Dance, Dance by Mourakami in English years ago, and I couldn’t even wade through it because it felt like I was “reading” a film by some Asian director, Wong Kar-wai or something. As much as I love Kar-wai’s films, “reading” it in another author’s novel was too much. I didn’t get past a few opening chapters.

With Villa “Amalia” there was also a feeling that it was a very cinematographic novel, I could easily see it being adapted to the screen, and the little parts, into which the bigger chapters are broken, may in fact be separate scenes in a feature. Thanks to this, the novel is every bit a French film at its best: rich yet succinct, and always with a good “afterthought”, as in “aftertaste”. Isabelle Huppert could certainly play Anna Hidden. I guess this plainly shows me as a huge French cinema fan.

In the story, as well, “Hidden” is a pseudonym. The protagonist is half-Jewish, she took the pseudo after a suggestion from her lover, but her father has spent a lifetime escaping various things, family included. Anna herself “hides” from relationships and, at some point, from people, while retaining her privacy. And as she is not widely known by face, she remains “hidden”. Apart from everything else in the novel, this is a beautiful play on words from another language, to portray a character.

And on the way back from Paris I was again reading Les Champs Magnetiques by A. Breton and Ph. Soupault.

Donc, a bientot!

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