Award-winning Multilingual Arts and Culture Blog Since 2006
It takes a great deal to make a successful American, but to make a happy Venetian takes only a handful of quick sensibility. – Henry James
Кто не знает иностранных языков, тот не имеет понятия о своем собственном. – И.-В. Гёте
The Quotes on the Front Page are back, this time in a bilingual edition and in a form that can easily added to Pinterest or saved for good memory as an image.
Whenever my native country’s people win awards and receive accolades, I feel immensely proud and happy. Alexander Sokurov has won the Golden Lion at the 68th Venice International Film Festival for his adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. I am proud and happy.
The film’s official release date is December 8, 2011. You did know it’s my birthday on December 9, didn’t you?
And this is the video of the awards ceremony. The Golden Lion comes at the very end. Sokurov says: “It (the Lion) is so small, and we had to walk such a long way to get it. I am grateful to be living in the cinema. Our film had a truly international cast and crew. At one point we counted people from 38 countries on the set. Grazie“.
An adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s seminal masterpiece marks the end of Sokurov’s cinematographic enquiry into the nature of human power. His previous films studied the notion in the context of the great political, if controversial, figures of the 20th century – Vladimir Lenin of Russia (Taurus), Adolf Hitler of Germany (Moloch), and Emperor Hirohito of Japan (The Sun). Faust, in the words of the film’s producer, Andrey Sigle, “has no particular relevance to contemporary events in the world—it is set in the early 19th century—but reflects Sokurov’s enduring attempts to understand man and his inner forces“.
Update:
There is a wonderful arrangement of The Lonely Shepherd by Zamfir and Nana Mouskouri that I wanted to share with you. Also this is one of the top posts on the blog, and I think it will be interesting to many new readers. Unfortunately, the way YouTube works these days, not only the embedded video may become unavailable, it may not be showing in your country due to copyright restrictions. But let’s hope most of you will be able to watch this beautiful performance and once again listen to the enchanting melody.
Most importantly, as you know (or will know) from the post, this melody has accompanied me throughout my life, so it is touching in its way to hear your comments and to realise that we all share something so dear. Thank you all very much for this.
In hindsight… could Mother Nature’s Son be the Lonely Shepherd?
I‘ve had this thought for a while, but never took it very seriously… The answer is, of course, that he could well be. Either the protagonist of Beatles song could be the Lonely Shepherd; or the Lonely Shepherd could be Mother Nature’s son. Paul McCartney wrote another of his solo songs when the band was in India, and reportedly it was inspired by a lecture by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. As a matter of fact, it was 40th anniversary of this song release in 2008.
Having said that, the vision McCartney conveys in this song is that of a dreamy, poor but fairly happy child. I dare say the image I’ve always had in my head when listening to The Lonely Shepherd was that of a young man. I’ve never contemplated much the meaning of “loneliness”, neither did I consider The Lonely Shepherd to be primarily a love song. But, of course, as boys grow older, Mother Nature’s Son could very well develop into a romantic young man…
Original post – 09 December, 2006
I remember loving this melody since I was three or four, but my mother told me recently that I was humming it to myself when still in a pram, and that was long before I was even three years old. In all these years it has always been my favourite piece of instrumental music. It’s kind of shame to think that on YouTube and elsewhere it is often defined as a soundtrack to Kill Bill, considering for how long even I have known it. I love the melancholy and grace of this melody, and it was nice to see it performed by the James Last Orchestra (which I adore) and Gheorghe Zamfir. Unfortunately, I used to have two YouTube videos embedded here previously, first one, then another, and both are no longer available (see the explanation below), so I decided to take the picture down, as well.
You can still, however, scour YouTube, and, judging by some of the comments, this amazing music and a fantastic inspiring performance don’t leave anybody unmoved. Myself and everyone who visits this page are, I am sure, very thankful to all of you who have already shared their appreciation of this wonderful composition. As before, if you have any special notes or memories about this music and don’t mind sharing them, leave a comment! 🙂
Links:
Official site of Gheorghe Zamfir (English, French and German versions)
Wikipedia entry for James Last Orchestra
James Last and His Orchestra – fansite created by Last’s German fan, Günter Krüger (English and German version).
An excerpt from The Lonely Shepherd on Last.fm.
Update:
This is a poem by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, called The Shepherd’s Lament (1803). I think there may certainly be a connection between this poem and the melody that we all love.
THE SHEPHERD’S LAMENT.
On yonder lofty mountain
A thousand times I stand,
And on my staff reclining,
Look down on the smiling land.
My grazing flocks then I follow,
My dog protecting them well;
I find myself in the valley,
But how, I scarcely can tell.
The whole of the meadow is cover’d
With flowers of beauty rare;
I pluck them, but pluck them unknowing
To whom the offering to bear.
In rain and storm and tempest,
I tarry beneath the tree,
But closed remaineth yon portal;
‘Tis all but a vision to me.
High over yonder dwelling,
There rises a rainbow gay;
But she from home hath departed
And wander’d far, far away.
Yes, far away bath she wander’d,
Perchance e’en over the sea;
Move onward, ye sheep, then, move onward!
Full sad the shepherd must be.
And one more update:
Unfortunately, I noticed lately that many of the videos I’ve blogged about, including this (now former) performance of The Lonely Shepherd, have been removed from YouTube. I have no clue as to what the reason is, especially because many more videos have been suspended that I used to watch a lot (I don’t have a YouTube account myself). I doubt the issue is in the copyright, since some versions of those video clips still exist in other users’ folders, but of a much poorer quality. Whether or not it may have to do with YouTube and Google merge, I don’t know, if you are familiar with the problem and know what happened, please do leave a comment and put my angry mind to rest.
In the meantime, there is a different version on my blog; if one day it stops working, we’ll know, why. I do hope this won’t happen – The Lonely Shepherd is a popular melody in every sense of the word: many people like it, and it’s very well-known. And because this is a televised version of the performance anyway, I cannot see the reason why the fans of Zamfir and James Last should not enjoy the chance of watching it – it is quite obvious that sitting in a concert hall listening to a live performance would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, incomparable to any video recording.
Before the end of this week (before Friday 13th, that is) you have the chance to vote for the 13th member of the Shakespeare Hall of Fame. The names range from Sarah Bernhardt to David Tennant, with the inclusion of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Boris Pasternak. The Russian LiveJournal users (including me) would very much like to see the Nobel Prize winning Russian author Pasternak to be included. However, as I remarked jokingly in my LJ post, if I send the link to my Italian friend, he will certainly choose Virginia Woolf.
And now there is a plenty of time to plan your visit to Leeds on March 10th. You can do this either because of Richard Wagner… or because of Slavoj Žižek. In the talk and on-stage interview, chaired by Professor Derek Scott of the University of Leeds, Prof Žižek is going to delight his listeners with the talk titled “Brunhilde’s act, or, why was it so difficult for Wagner to find a proper ending for his twilight of the gods?” The event is at the Howard Assembly Room, and tickets cost just £3. Read on for more information. Many thanks to Kishore Budha for announcing the event on Facebook.
To finish, a quote from the very end of Maugham’s Theatre, very appropriate, given our different attitudes to theatre, Žižek, Wagner, and, well, even Shakespeare:
A head-waiter came up to her with an ingratiating smile.
‘Everything all right, Miss Lambert?’
‘Lovely. You know, it’s strange how people differ. Mrs Siddons was a rare one for chops; I’m not a bit like her in that; I’m a rare one for steaks’.
Within a beauteous garden;And see, a goat is sitting by,As if he were its warden.
The tree is guarded badly;
For round the other side there whirrs
And hums a beetle madly.
Nibbles the branches tall so;
A mighty longing feels the goat
Gently to climb up also.
The tree all leafless standing;
It looks a type of misery,
Help of the gods demanding.
Who hold wise saws respected:
From he-goat and from beetle’s-tooth
A tree should be protected!