tang dynasty times

Echoes from Ugarit

Don't you wonder if Babylon was really as bad as people say? We are, after all, talking of the Old Testament's city of sin. Located in that land between the rivers, Mesopotamia was a place where almost a dozen city-states rose up --give or take some 5,000 years ago (which is old even by Chinese standards!) Sumer, Ur, Ninevah, Babel, Uruk, Aleppo,  Babylon-- these places flourished right there from the very start of written history and written language. And as it turns out, they were every bit as cosmopolitan as the later city-states of the Silk Road. Dozens of languages co-existed side-by-side-- with six of the major languages sharing the same cuneiform script. The languages (which were mostly unrelated to each other) were used interchangeably-- and often transcribed in parallel translations--hinting at what must have been a surprisingly sophisticated and international world.

As linguistic scholar extraordinaire Nicholos Ostler tells us,

This is a region of so many world firsts for linguistic innovation. Unlike Egypt, China or India, its cities and states had always been consciously multilingual, whether for communication with neighbors who spoke different languages or because their histories had made them adopt a foreign language to dignify court, religion or commerce. This is the area where we find the first conscious use of a classical language; but also by contrast, the first generalized use of a totally foreign language for convenience in communication, as a lingua franca, an early apparent triumphant of diplomatic pragmatism over national sentiment 

In addition to their cosmopolitanism, the Babylonians and their friends were the great list makers (ie memory tools) of the ancient world. Compiled on clay tablets, these lists in cuneiform are what remain so impressive to us today.

Composed of a combination of hieroglyphic characters as well as phonetic symbols their writing system had much in common with Japanese.  Extremely difficult to master, writing things down was left to educated scribes. And, by "writing things down," I mean: use a blunt reed to scratch out what you wanted to say on slabs of clay, which were then fired in a kiln like earthenware pots.

In addition to temples, the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia are known for their museums and libraries-- yes, libraries (They had to have somewhere to store all the tablets). Palace libraries contained countless written in many languages. Composed in Hurrian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Ugaric, there were unending lists, measures and astronomical data. There were also texts on medicine and tales of a Great Flood. All of this, remember, predates the Ancient Greeks by 1000 years and the Bible by even longer.

Thousands and thousands of these clay tablets have been uncovered. The world's first private (ie royal) library was discovered in what was the ancient state of Ugarit, located on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Populated by the Canaanites of the Bible, the people of Ugarit had a reputation every bit as morally degenerate as that of the Babylonians.

And, it was in this degenerate city that the oldest --so far-- clay tablet was unearthed, dating back 3400 years.

Out of all those endless lists of merchant transactions and different fruits and diseases that the ancients Mesopotamians seemed to like jotting down, the oldest surviving piece of writing is not list, but rather is a musical score. This, of course, makes it the oldest musical score on earth! (Don't you love that?) 　→The Hurrian Songs.

Not only is the oldest surviving piece of writing a work of music, but this musical score has vocals and musical notation as well (written at the bottom of the tablet). It is like finding a rare insect in a piece of amber. You cannot help but wish you could bring it back to life.

The tablets had been broken in two and were discovered about two decades apart. And not unlike the story of my favorite Carpaccio painting, when at last the pieces were put together, everything turned into a puzzle. Because now that we had the complete work, the real trouble began; for how was one to reconstruct music written down in a language now dead with no instructions on the tuning of the instrument?

The song itself turns out to be a sad hymn about an infertile woman praying to the Moon Goddess to bless her with a baby. It is very sad and somehow very moving as well. The music was for a harpist (a lyrist) who played facing the vocalist much as shown in the picture at right.

Many scholars have worked at reproducing the ancient song. The most recent attempt by a Dutch professor and musician is here (music starts at :34)

It is truly beautiful. The Dutch scholar, Theo J.H. Krispijn, based his rendition on the content of another recently discovered tablet which had instrument tuning instructions. Basing his song on these tones, he reproduced the music at a concert in Chicago in the late 1990s.

And here is another, much earlier atempt. Made by Anne Kilmer, a professor from Berkeley after 15 years of study in the later 1970s, this version includes a very ancient form of harmony (which had been thought to be a technique totally absent from ancient musical traditions). This earlier one in particular is so like the chanting and music one hears in a Greek Orthodox Church today that it took me by surprise. The music is in the Western "do-re-mi" scale, which is perhaps why it seems so strangely familiar to us today-- considering that it is the world's oldest song.

Finally, it should be pointed out that while found in Ugarit, the tablet was actually written in the Hurric language, which at the time was a language going extinct. Scholars surmise that perhaps the tablet was placed in the library as much for its musical content as it was an effort at preserving a relic of a dying language.

I like to imagine the antiquaniarian impulse in people so ancient themselves. (My man Huizong would have liked that too, I bet).

**

Below is Echoes from Ugarit. Syrian composer & pianist Malek Jandali took the ancient melody and arranged an orchestral piece. Here it is performed by The Syrian Symphony Orchestra and recorded with The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in Moscow

Reading Cloud Atlas and thinking of how things are passed down, I wanted to recommend William Dalrymple's piece on Syria (where ancient Ugarit was located)-- for it is heart-breakingly true that their future lies in ruins.

For more puzzles: Being embodied with Master Wang (知行合一)

 

Don't you wonder if Babylon was really as bad as people say? We are, after all, talking of the Old Testament's city of sin. Located in that land between the rivers, Mesopotamia was a place where almost a dozen city-states rose up --give or take some 5,000 years ago (which is old even by Chinese standards!) Sumer, Ur, Ninevah, Babel, Uruk, Aleppo,  Babylon-- these places flourished right there from the very start of written history and written language. And as it turns out, they were every bit as cosmopolitan as the later city-states of the Silk Road. Dozens of languages co-existed side-by-side-- with six of the major languages sharing the same cuneiform script. The languages (which were mostly unrelated to each other) were used interchangeably-- and often transcribed in parallel translations--hinting at what must have been a surprisingly sophisticated and international world.

As linguistic scholar extraordinaire Nicholos Ostler tells us,

This is a region of so many world firsts for linguistic innovation. Unlike Egypt, China or India, its cities and states had always been consciously multilingual, whether for communication with neighbors who spoke different languages or because their histories had made them adopt a foreign language to dignify court, religion or commerce. This is the area where we find the first conscious use of a classical language; but also by contrast, the first generalized use of a totally foreign language for convenience in communication, as a lingua franca, an early apparent triumphant of diplomatic pragmatism over national sentiment 

In addition to their cosmopolitanism, the Babylonians and their friends were the great list makers (ie memory tools) of the ancient world. Compiled on clay tablets, these lists in cuneiform are what remain so impressive to us today.

Composed of a combination of hieroglyphic characters as well as phonetic symbols their writing system had much in common with Japanese.  Extremely difficult to master, writing things down was left to educated scribes. And, by "writing things down," I mean: use a blunt reed to scratch out what you wanted to say on slabs of clay, which were then fired in a kiln like earthenware pots.

In addition to temples, the great cities of ancient Mesopotamia are known for their museums and libraries-- yes, libraries (They had to have somewhere to store all the tablets). Palace libraries contained countless written in many languages. Composed in Hurrian, Sumerian, Babylonian and Ugaric, there were unending lists, measures and astronomical data. There were also texts on medicine and tales of a Great Flood. All of this, remember, predates the Ancient Greeks by 1000 years and the Bible by even longer.

Thousands and thousands of these clay tablets have been uncovered. The world's first private (ie royal) library was discovered in what was the ancient state of Ugarit, located on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Populated by the Canaanites of the Bible, the people of Ugarit had a reputation every bit as morally degenerate as that of the Babylonians.

And, it was in this degenerate city that the oldest --so far-- clay tablet was unearthed, dating back 3400 years.

Out of all those endless lists of merchant transactions and different fruits and diseases that the ancients Mesopotamians seemed to like jotting down, the oldest surviving piece of writing is not list, but rather is a musical score. This, of course, makes it the oldest musical score on earth! (Don't you love that?) 　→The Hurrian Songs.

Not only is the oldest surviving piece of writing a work of music, but this musical score has vocals and musical notation as well (written at the bottom of the tablet). It is like finding a rare insect in a piece of amber. You cannot help but wish you could bring it back to life.

The tablets had been broken in two and were discovered about two decades apart. And not unlike the story of my favorite Carpaccio painting, when at last the pieces were put together, everything turned into a puzzle. Because now that we had the complete work, the real trouble began; for how was one to reconstruct music written down in a language now dead with no instructions on the tuning of the instrument?

The song itself turns out to be a sad hymn about an infertile woman praying to the Moon Goddess to bless her with a baby. It is very sad and somehow very moving as well. The music was for a harpist (a lyrist) who played facing the vocalist much as shown in the picture at right.

Many scholars have worked at reproducing the ancient song. The most recent attempt by a Dutch professor and musician is here (music starts at :34)

It is truly beautiful. The Dutch scholar, Theo J.H. Krispijn, based his rendition on the content of another recently discovered tablet which had instrument tuning instructions. Basing his song on these tones, he reproduced the music at a concert in Chicago in the late 1990s.

And here is another, much earlier atempt. Made by Anne Kilmer, a professor from Berkeley after 15 years of study in the later 1970s, this version includes a very ancient form of harmony (which had been thought to be a technique totally absent from ancient musical traditions). This earlier one in particular is so like the chanting and music one hears in a Greek Orthodox Church today that it took me by surprise. The music is in the Western "do-re-mi" scale, which is perhaps why it seems so strangely familiar to us today-- considering that it is the world's oldest song.

Finally, it should be pointed out that while found in Ugarit, the tablet was actually written in the Hurric language, which at the time was a language going extinct. Scholars surmise that perhaps the tablet was placed in the library as much for its musical content as it was an effort at preserving a relic of a dying language.

I like to imagine the antiquaniarian impulse in people so ancient themselves. (My man Huizong would have liked that too, I bet).

**

Below is Echoes from Ugarit. Syrian composer & pianist Malek Jandali took the ancient melody and arranged an orchestral piece. Here it is performed by The Syrian Symphony Orchestra and recorded with The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra in Moscow

Reading Cloud Atlas and thinking of how things are passed down, I wanted to recommend William Dalrymple's piece on Syria (where ancient Ugarit was located)-- for it is heart-breakingly true that their future lies in ruins.

For more puzzles: Being embodied with Master Wang (知行合一)

 

the warmth of his socks (嘯)

大地震の年しめくくる靴下からのあたたかさ　
夏石番矢

The year of a giant earthquake
   ends
with warmth up from my socks
    Ban'ya Natsuishi

 

Like the clear sound of tinkling jade (玉声), Natsuishi's haiku reverberated as music in my heart. For this was, indeed, the year of the giant earthquake. And, for me, it was very much a year of thinking--perhaps not unlike Voltaire did in Candide--about what it is to live through dark times and how we as human beings can make sense of things like mega earthquakes.

But what is it to think about things like this?

Heidegger once said he wanted to differentiate between thinking as pure ratiocination and what he described as the pre-Socratic notion of thinking (noein) as "perceiving," or of being attentive to something. This would be to suggest that through our imaginative attention to the world around us--through this kind of "thinking"-- we take to mind and heart. And then, --in the words of Robert Harrison, we are saved by the vision:

What appears to the eyes then becomes spiritualized and, as spirit, enters the onlooker's inner being, inspiring the soul to emit a sigh. From this sigh of inspiration--this culminating intake and exhalation of breath--the poem we are reading is born.

 

In my own life, I am not sure I have ever lived through a year when things have felt so utterly unstable--from the shaking of the earth and the tsunami, to the news overseas and at home. Yesterday, I stumbled across a blog post about a recent study of income inequality in the roman empire in which even imperial Rome fared better than today's America. And from here on the ground, it sure does feel that way. I wonder who couldn't feel the same that 2011 has been a tumulutuous year. For me, at least, the mood has been of great instability within and without-- as if 10,000 things are out of balance and the center cannot hold...  

But like Natsuishi's haiku above, my year-of-the-great-earthquake also ended with a very quiet appreciation of warmth--of the warmth of family and friends; of music heard in poetry, and always of the natural beauty that surrounds me. Like the warmth of the poet's socks, these small, near and dear things---- sing.

The year of a giant earthquake
ends-- with the geese
returning to the lake
                                 -- Peony

 

If anyone wanted to send in a poem for the end of the year of the great earthquake, that would be wonderful.

**

Painting is a very unsual ZHANG DAQIAN 張大千 (1899-1983) that will appear here again soon, called 
GAZING AT A RED SPIDER (1939年作)

Recommended: My friend Eric Selland's article on the Poetry of Natsuishi Ban'ya  & The Atlantic's Year in Photos 

And from earlier this year: Voltaire and Earthquakes

For music as poetry like "chanting a poem at heaven's gate: 天門一長嘯、万里清風来 (李白) is
one of my favorites of Shin Sasakubo below.

Einstein's Violin

 It was a combination of fine ingredients. The finest wood, superior craftsmanship and chemicals bought at the corner apocathry. Sugar? Borax? Wood soaked in a salt-water solution? Quartz from the mountains and ground-up Venetian glass? Alchemical treatises of the time offered plentiful recipes for preserving wood and furniture. 

Alchemy.

Modern American luthiers really are not engaged in an activity all that different either.  A couple years ago New York luthier, Guy Rabut, on NPR described his own workshop as being an alchemist's den, and talked about how surprisngly unchanged violin-making remains today from what it was in the 18th century. "We use," he says, "the exact same wood, carve using virtually the same tools, and fashion our violins in the same ways, using the same resins and polishes."

Modern-day American luthiers still take about four months to handwork their instruments and so much carving, polishing and adjusting goes into making them, that many musicians believe these hand-crafted instruments possess a personality of their own-- a soul, if you will.

This is the thing. Science just has not figured out everything that there is to know about these violins. Kashmiris will tell you that the more you walk on a fine rug, the more beautiful it will become. These old violins, though, take this to a new level, for as the great violinists tell us, they have to play their instrument constantly to keep it sounding as it should. But no one knows exactly why.

So, in walks Joseph Nagyvary. A man on a quest, he wanted to find out exactly what contributed to the unsurpassed sound of the antique instruments not just for the simple pleasure of uncovering the secret, but because he loved music and wanted modern luthiers to have all the knowledge at their disposal so that they too could produce the best sound quality possible. So, he spent the next 25 years of his life experimenting. It was experiment after experiment.

From 1976-1984, for example, he did a lot of experimenting with shrimp shells!

And, what did a lifetime of work yield?

Well, Nagyvary violins are now a name of their own. Some very famous soloists even use them (including  Yehudi Menuhin, who played on one for 15 years). He goes up again and again in competitions that pit his violins against strads. Playing in front of a panal of music specialists, leading soloists perform blind tests of the two instruments: old and new. Again and again, it's a close draw. One comment seems to come to the surface again and again during these "shows", and that is-- well, the Cremonese instruments sound "warmer."

Still, that really isn't too shabby since that "warmer sound" will cost you several millions of dollars (compared to around $15,000 for a Nagyvary violin and $18,000 for a Rabut). And all the experts point out that these modern great violins may well become the strads of the future-- since time is one of the necessary ingredients of the magic. The instruments need to be played-- for centuries, it seems-- to attain that quality.  

During the 2005 Einstein Centennial Celebration (part of the World Year of Physics), in what was the last event of the year, held in Tokyo, Dr. Nagyvary was invited to give the keynote address. Captivating his audience, he once again described his quest. He then asked Japanese virtuoso Mariko Senju to play one of his instruments (a baby at only 4 weeks old!) and the gathered scientists then analyzed the sound quality. His instruments performed favorably as usual and he was presented with a gold medal and the special silk robe usually presented by the Japanese government to foreign dignataries. He said, "the Japanese treated me like royalty."

Why?

Well, the achievements of his life work as represented by his new violin was one reason. The main reason, though, hints Nagyvary, is that the Japanese love Einstein. Nagyvary said, "Einstein played the violin every day. Many Japanese physicists know this, and some of the older ones there knew Einstein personally, and that was why I was invited to give my presentation." The Japanese physicists, he said, believed that Einstein would have very much enjoyed his speech on the scientific explanation behind the music of the antique violins. 

I think he would have too.

 

A Dream Within a Dream (Adonis Conducts Bruckner)

It came to him in a dream one late summer night in 1881. The master dreamt that a friend paid him a visit and whistling a tune told him, "This music will bring you great success."

Waking, he immediately wrote down what he had heard in his dream-- the opening musical theme of what was to become the his greatest popular success, Symphony No 7. 

A dream within a dream. One of my facebook associates says he loves the way the 1st movement of the Bruckner's symphony unfolds right from the beginning. But, he says, the conductor has to handle it right to get the maximum effect.

**

Only a few days before the performance, we had managed to get our favorite seats in the Disney Concert Hall (which remains my favorite piece of architecture in the entire city). And, just like last time, as soon as Adonis saw our seats up in the nose-bleed section, on the side directly facing the conductor and first violin, he smiled happily. And stripping down to his tank top, he demanded his conductor's baton. Before the Bruckner symphony, the Philharmonic played Mozart Symphony No 34. With the notable exception of Eine Kleine, the Kid is just not a Mozart man. He, therefore, not surprisingly, sat through it like me in Church-- inevitably underwhelmed.

After the intermission, we returned to our seats. He didn't immediately demand his baton, so I suppose he was still annoyed about Mozart (this being, no doubt, another bad habit he has picked up from his father).

By this time the stage was jam-packed with musicians. Bruckner's symphony No 7 is HUGE on so many levels, not least the sheer number of musicians.

Pointing to the the cymbal and triangle, I told Adonis: "Just one note, that's all they play"

He looked over at the two musicians seated in chairs in front of their instruments in disbelief and said, "What if they fall asleep and miss their only notes?"  

It is such a long piece of music, and I was worried about how he would do. But, in fact, the music completely held his interest and attention. Adonis conducted in his seat from start to finish. As my dear associate said, so much depends on the conductor. And Escehnbach is a master. Watching Adonis watch Eschenbach, I was deeply impressed by the precision of the conducting-- the way Eschenbach so precisely managed the orchestra so as to draw out just the right sound-- the sound HE imagined-- like he was bringing to life his own personal dream of the music.

Large-scale, unending repetitions of a myriad variations of that first opening theme, the length and power is not unlike Beethoven; and yet Brucker's symphony unfolds so much less urgently, doesn't it? Indeed, parts of it evoke a feeling of timelessness almost reminsicent of a long performance of gamelan. And, yet, this is no eternal recurrance of the same-same, is it? As the music does categorically move teleologically forward through time, triumphantly, like Beethoven.

**

And speaking of Beethoven, I am reading a very interesting article right now by Stanford Professor of Musicology, Stephen Hinton about Beethoven's Ode to Joy (pdf here).

O Freunde, nicht diese Toene!
Sondern lasst uns angenehmere anstimmen und freundenvollere!

O friends! Not these sounds!
But let us strike up more pleasant sounds and more joyful!

Debated and re-interpreted for generations, Stephen Hinton takes up the question as to what sounds Beethoven is referring. O friends! Not these sounds! Hinton asks, What sounds? Wagner opinion, I guess is the one most popularly-held; that Beethoven is negating the immediately proceeding crashing opening-- the infamous  "horror fanfan"-- in order to make way for the pure beauty of the human voice of the choral part that follows. 

Nietzsche, of course, saw things differently.

Hinton, however, steps back and asks this question: at that point in history-- that is to a late 18th century philosopher or aesthetician-- what was the opposite of being "pleasant"?  Was the opposite of pleasant "unpleasant"?

We will never know what Beethoven wanted to say by "more pleasant sounds" and "more joy," but Hinton in his discussion brings out a very interesting hypothesis that during the late 18th century (for Kant, for example),  the opposite of pleasant, rather than being unpleasant was the distinctly German concept of kultur. Hinton calls this "cultured," but what was even meant by that, I wonder. I will have to email our man in Vaud to see what he thinks, but for now, I seem to recall reading somewhere that the German concept kultur does not necessarily map on to the English word culture, but rather it is a closer match for being civilized or even a stand-in word for civilization itself; that is, the highest intellectual and artistic achievements of a particular culture or civilization. 

This is probably something that is in the process of breaking down in our own time where cultural pursuits are becoming more and more like another form of amusement (see this on philistinism)-- but yes, it is fascinating that Beethoven would couch in the most elaborate and elegant "flower of civilization:" German Enlightenemnet music, this call to return to a more "pleasant" sound.

Hence, it is both a philosophical and religious vision that above and beyond the particular achievements of particular civilizations is the unadorned joy of universal brotherhood.

Joy, beautiful spark of gods
Daughter of Elysium,
We enter drunk with fire,
Heavenly one, your sanctuary!
Your magic binds again
What custom strictly divided.
All men become brothers,
Where your gentle wing rests

By this time, of course, in the music we have ascended into the starry sky above and are somewhere on the outskirts of Heaven.

Leonard Bernstein's dream of the Ode to Joy has-- for whatever-- reason always been one of my favorites. And, he once remarked that the music of the Ode to Joy is perhaps the closest that music has ever come to true universality. I guess it is easy to see why the EU would have chosen it as the European Anthem. To stress common humanity as above and beyond the achievements of particular cultures in a way that does not seek to undermine or homogenize would, I think, sum up the EU project. **

Anyway, I think the Readers of these Pages will be relieved to hear that our musicians did not miss their climactic notes. Really, in what is one of the world's great, loooong symphonies, the two musicians (cymbalist and triangle) sat there waiting and waiting and waiting.

Very still, with perfectly straight posture, I thought they were not unlike the way people sit in Tea Ceremony. And watching them I found them to be as arrestingly beautiful as the music. Indeed, I envied them their disciplined and focused, very calm way of attentatively waiting. 

 Waiting for the Moment

**

Leonard Berstein below, but first: two more tea ceremony videos, one by candlelight (something I never had the chance to participate in) and Sazae-san: Tarachan learns tea ceremony

 

Adonis and the Music Box

 
Some of the Dear Readers of These Pages may recall Adonis and his obsession with harpsichords.  Anytime he heard a harpsichord-- whether in a symphony or on a CD-- he would grow very, very still and then the questions would start:

What is that mechanical sound?

What is making that tinkling?

What is that sound like a music box?

And finally-- as luck would have it, Japan's most famous harpsichordist, the great Masaaki Suzuki came and gave a performance in Tochigi. A solo performance, it was an intimate-- salon style-- concert with only about 50 seats available. While among the most child-friendly people in the world, still the other concert goers did raise a few eyebrows as 6 year old Adonis marched in and took a seat in the very front-- right smack in the center!

He was absolutely entranced.

During the performance he did his usual conducting and half way through the Maestro kept looking over and smiling and winking at the Kid as the Maestro played Bach (and the kid conducted Bach). Almost more than the music, Adonis was fascinated by the tuning of the instrument and an elaborate tuning operation was conducted not once, but twice by a man with a very long red necktie and a huge toolbox. Both times, Adonis would leap to his feet and race up on the stage and poke his little nose right up there by the tools until the man with the ridiculously long necktie had to wave him back.

This all, of course, started a music box obsession-- since to his ears, the harpsichord and the sound of a music box were connected.

Many might be aware that Japan is one of the world's great music box-loving countries. The sound of music box music can be heard in famous movies, in department stores and doctor's offices-- and I cannot even count how many small music box museums are located here. And Sankyo is a world-leader in the production of the devices.

This was exactly a year ago, when a few weeks after the harpsichord concert , we were off to a department store in search of a new game cartridge for his Nintendo DS when right off the escalator he spotted a Mashiko-yaki exhibition with a windmill, which on careful inspection contained a musicbox. The nintendo game completely forgotten he said, "please, can I have it?" and carrying it home, he would put it by his futon every night so that first thing in the morning-- as soon as he opened his eyes-- he could listen to its song. 

This is the thing with kids... If not for Adonis and his peculiar predilections, I might never have given music boxes a second thought. It's true when I was about 10, we were up in Solvang-- the little Dutch town north of Santa Barbara, which is famous for its music box shops and I saw a music box that so captured my heart-- and just like Kazuya, I pleaded to anyone within earshot: "please!" Luckily, my Grandmother was there with us and must have sensed how desparately I wanted it: a lacquer music box with orange bamboo.

Anway... I had almost completely forgotten the way a music box can cause such delight.

Mine was just a little 18 note music box hidden in a jewelry box.... just like Adonis' in his windmill.

Not even a month after he had gotten his windmill, we were back in Los Angeles and when his Grammy asked him what he wanted for his birthday, he stunned her by announcing that he wanted a music box where you could see the music box movements.

And so we headed to Solvang again-- 30 years later.

It was a different shop but the Kid made a beeline for this.

Poor Grammy....she asked, "isn't it a bit much? A $390 music box for a 7 year old?"

And, he looked so heart-broken when I told him he was too young for something so nice. (Unfair since he takes such good care of everything he has)... But still...

Luckily, another music box that played his favorite fur elise and had a California sea turtle on the box case caught his little eagle eye, and we were off the hook.

Adonis adores his music boxes and he constantly is at his desk winding them up and listening to them. He has probably all but forgotten the charming little piano music box. But, isn't it funny how I cannot seem to get it out of my mind. As his birthday is rolling around again, I thought I'd poke around the Japanese auction sights and lo and behold. Only in Japan! I found it for sale in 5 minutes. In perfect condition for an affordable price. And now it is mine.... I wonder if I will be able to contain myself till his birthday?

I personally am holding out for this one with 75 notes. And for ultimate music box bliss, this: the world's first 100 note music box played on two combs. To be delighted.

For more, see Adonis and the Harpsichord.

when the dream is over

Not only would I say it is one of the most beautiful buildings in Los Angeles, but in my opinion it is the only really interesting piece of architecture in the entire city.

Gehry's Walt Disney Theater. I love it and think it is absolutely inspired (and I'm just talking about the exterior right now!)

I had wanted to go to this particular performance to hear Brahm's Symphony No 1-- which I love. Apparently other people had the same idea-- well actually, I think the majority of people were really there to see the soloist, Nikolaj Znaider. My mom had requested the best seats in the house, but even 2 months prior to the performance that meant way up directly above the right side of the orchestra, looking straight down diagonally facing the conductor and the Philharmonic's 1st violonist.

Adonis, seeing where we would be sitting grew beside himself with excitement.

"I've always wanted to sit here!" he said stripping off his sweater and grabbing his conductor's stick, he prepared to watch and do some conducting of his own as the people next to us grew visibly concerned.

Like Huizong facing the impending Jurchen horde, Brahms had his problems as well. And those problems? In a word: Beethoven. How to confront the elephant in the room? Beethoven's presence was enormous and Brahms was all too aware that no matter what he did, the comparison to Beethoven would be inevitable. And so he struggled. And this symphony no 1 took him I think perhaps a decade to realize. And what path would Brahms choose? Well, I think that is what was so interesting about him. For he was to choose to incorporate so much of Beethoven directly into his music.

So, there we were, sitting 2 tiers above the horns-- as Adonis frantically conducted from his seat to Brahm's Tragic Overture-- which speaking of problems, Brahm's friend Clara (the female of the triangle) dismissed as being "not at all melodic."

The Overture, however, was followed by a performance so magnificent that I was actually overwhelmed. Even Adonis quietly put away his stick so he could just watch.

The violinist, Nikolaj Znaider, is considered to be one of the world's best. And, I didn't realize this beforehand, but he plays on a del Gesu. The moment he began playing, my first thought in fact was-- ah, a del Gesu, because there is something about the sound-- which of course I could never describe, being completely unmusical. Except that it reminds me of the tonal quality of a cello. Guarneri del Gesu instruments seem larger and perhaps more masculine than the sounds of other violins. Pagnini famously played on one and maybe because of that they seem to be associated with virtuoso playing... I don't know, but that first note grabbed my attention and I was immediately inspired.

The Violin Concerto in D was created for one of the world's all-time greatest violinists, Joseph Joachim. I guess Joachim was not only a technical genius but he also had these huge oversized hands. Brahms wrote the piece of music with these two facts in mind and the experts say that it remains one of the most challenging pieces of violin music in existence.

Znaider-- who struck me by his calm demeaner was mopping his face with his handkerchief at every pause in the music-- it must have been extraordinarily strenuous. The entire hall was getting hotter and hotter too as you could feel the palpable attention being paid to this man's music. Los Angeles is not New york. But people were growing visibly excited and by the finale- Adonis and I were on the edges of our seats. In fact, when Znaider started passionately playing the Hungarian inspired ending, Adonis jumped up to kiss me on the lips and just stood there standing-- waiting for the end. He couldn't believe the way people all lept to their feet, shouting bravo (or I am not even sure what people were shouting because the applause were so loud).

After the intermission, the orchestra turned to the symphony but I think people were already just too overhwelmed to take in more music. Adonis asked for his stick again and conducted but we were already done (for the dream was over).

**

See this article (orginally from the Wall Street Journal) about Znaider and his del Gesu.

Adonis and the Harpsichord

There is geometry in the humming of the strings
... there is music in the spacing of the spheres... Pythagorus

Last night, Adonis saw his first harpsichord concert.

He has been interested, though, in the the instrument for some time. Whenever he hears it in some music we are listening to or when he detects its tinkling notes among the other instruments at a concert, he will inevitably ask,

What is that mechanical sound?

What is making that tinkling?

What is that sound like a music box?

There must be a disconnect between the way the instrument looks, and the sound it produces, because I must have told him a dozen times-- it's the harpsichord!! I guess he didn't believe me. (Wise little boy too because I am often wrong). This has gone on for a year or so, and so when I found out that the Tochigi Music Festival was featuring a harpsichord recital by Japan's most prominent harpsichordist, Suzuki Masaaki, I thought, why not?

We got seats right in the very front row-- smack in the middle. Even the incredibly child-tolerant Japanese concert-goers looked worried.

A six year old boy at a baroque harpsichord concert? No one would have blinked an eyelash at a symphony or even a superstar soloist concert, but this was a very different kind of affair.

Luckily The Kid was clearly already interested before the music even started when a man came out on stage with a large red tool box and spent 15 minutes fine-tuning the chords. Adonis was fascinated. His violin just takes a moment to tune, but this was like brain surgery with the man's unusually long necktie dangling down on the black keys.

The instrument itself harkened back to another world.

A world that neither Adonis or any of the people there would really know about, but a world when musical performances played a larger part in people's lives. And, I don't just mean Baroque drawing room music like the harpsichord or the viol, but in the late Renaissance and early Baroque, the violin was still a "street instrument" and there was, I learn, a very vibrant street music scene.

Composers of the time were like craftsman and were commissioned to create music for specific ocassions. Last night, listening to Suzuki playing Bach on his Flemmish harpsichord, called a cembalo in Japanese (from the Italian word), I imagine it was originally performed at small banquets or in ensembles for dancing.

The recital last night was very intimate in that way. There were maybe 50 people and the chairs were brought right up within a few meters of the instrument. The were no spotlights and we could make eye contact with the musician who smiled as he noticed Adonis swinging his legs and tapping his fingers.

The instrument itself was just beautiful. Hand-crafted in Holland, it was a Flemish-style harpsichord with a double manual in the most opaque shade of black. There was a Latin motto (which I couldn't read but contained the word "muse") above the painted sound board.

Adonis kept repeating: You know I've always wanted a music box.

And, I suppose that's what it most reminded me of too, the beautiful music box music you hear in an Ozu film.

I was going to say the sound is like tinkling jade, but in fact, it doesn't really reverberate in the same way the ancient philosophers insisted jade does when struck. Utterly unlike a bell or chime, it has the most peculiar mechinical sound.

During the intermission, the man with the overly long necktie came back on stage with all his tools and then painfully re-tuned each and every key once more. Adonis had his head right down by the keys so he could hear them reverberate (until he was ordered back away from the instrument)

Just prior to the recital, in the concert hall lobby there was another harpsichordist playing Renaissance music with a viol player (Shakespeare's viol de gambo). The musicians played as people walked in and out.

And then today, we went to a concert featuring a very young national-competition-winning violinist, who played along with the lovliest pianist performing on a fortepiano. Another precurser to the piano, it sounded like a more charming version of the modern instrument, though its construction had more in common with the harpsichord of the evening before.

Held in one of Tochigi's historic buildings, it was another intimate ocassion. There were maybe 50 people in attendance and we were not even a meter from the beautiful violinist. The 150 year old wooden building with its old-fashion glass windows had surprisingly outstanding acoustics and, how do I explain it? It was like being in another world where music was played for very small groups as part of a social gathering.

In Austria, in Italy, in Prague, fine music remains part of everyday life. You hear it on the street corners and stumble upon practices or performances almost anywhere you go, it seems. Somehow it remains, I think, more incorporated into everyday life. This weekend was like that-- and I think Adonis is lucky, not only that he can play his violin, but more that he has developed an ear that can pick out the mechinal tinkling sound of a harpsicord from among the other instruments of the symphony.  

 

**

On this concept of the banishment of the arts to museums or concert halls, I have written at length here already. Listening to a recent Philosopher's Zone program on Enlightenment concepts of the arts, the guest philosopher was explaining some of the ways that the enlightenment philosophers sought to assign value to art (How can we say that one art is superior to another). I am not interested in this question, except in one sense. 

Jonathan Le Cocq:

But implicit in taking that view of what's good in art, you have to accept that there's going to be a pretty high level of technical skill involved in it. That is, that an artist is engaged in a kind of problem-solving activity, and part of what we perceive in great art is that application of human understanding in solving problems and in working with material. Now I think what we have in the case of a great deal of contemporary art are works where all of the value is placed in the concept. It's the original conceptual idea that comes to the forefront, but there's not a great deal as it were, technical execution that you can admire and that you can follow. So it might be an extremely stimulating idea to say, bisect a cow, and put it in formaldehyde so that you can walk between it, and I think it can be a very valuable thing to do, it can make an interesting, useful, worthwhile experience and that type of art can be exciting and can be intriguing. But I think it's going to be a challenge for it to be called great art, or if you like to be comparable to art of previous generations where you have this blend of execution or problem-solving and conception.

When this sense of craftsmanship or high technical ability is conflated with concept then, of course, almost anything can be considered art and indeed this is perhaps why art is coming to be experienced almost as a form of  entertainment or amusement. A commitment to craftsmanship is something equated with the Japanese and yet I think it is something we also really see in Europe.

I am reading Parag Khanna's The Second World and have empires on my mind today. In fact, I have Europe on my mind. And, I am seeing Japan, while it remains under the US military umbrella, still just naturally tends to move in similar directions as Europe: from food to the environment. I wonder if we will ever see a day where the EU grows to such an extent that Japan could join? Now, that would be a day to see...

Adonis saw his first orchestra yesterday

Adonis saw his first symphony orchestra yesterday. He couldn't keep his eyes off the violins.  It was an orchestra afterall, and an orchestra belongs to the strings...

There was a radio program on NPR about American violinist, Robert McDuffie. An elegant Southerner, he-- in the great company of so many of the famous soloists of today-- studied at Julliard under Dorothy Delay. Several years ago, the gentleman fell helplessly and, yes, hopelessly in love with the 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin, the "Ladenburg."  

Played by history's most famous violinist, Paganini, McDuffie said it was love at first sight, It was, he insisted, perfect for him. Sounds great, but how to pay for it? At $3.5 million dollars, this was no simple matter. He contacted banks and foundations, but no one would get on board. You can read about the plan he came up with by following the links below, but in a nutshell: he formed a corporation, found investors and the rest is beautiful music history.

What is interesting to me was what was his part of the bargain. While the other investors were putting up millions of dollars, McDuffie was in charge of the insurance and upkeep. Which means basically that he was in charge of playing the instrument.

This is the thing. Science just has not figured out everything that there is to know about these violins. Kashmiris will tell you that the more you walk on a fine rug, the more beautiful it will become. These old violins, though, take this to a new level, for as the great violinists tell us, they have to play their instrument constantly to keep it sounding as it should. But no one knows exactly why.

 The violin-- it seems simple. Like its older cousins, the Chinese erhu, the Indian Esraj, and the Middle Eastern rebab (which is the violin's direct ancestor), it is a bowed instrument. Horse-hair bow rubs against sheep gut string to create vibrations which are then revereberated inside a soundbox to produce a louder sound. It is simple, and yet-- even modern scientists cannot explain what creates the difference in sound between a strad and even the best modern instrument. And, everyone tells us there *is* a difference.

The magic appears to be in the details. The age of the wood, how the wood was treated-- and the varnish, of course, is thought to be one of the most important missing pieces to the musical puzzle. Here is varnish expert, Joe Robson, in the latest edition of Strad Magazine:

"There is a genuine, well-deserved mystery surrounding the making of the violin. The combination of materials, from the wood to the strings, fittings and varnish, as well as the interaction of the luthier with these materials is-- to say the least-- complex. Likewise, there is a great deal of mystery surrounding the violin varnish itelf. Classic Cremonese varnish in particular has a warmth of color, a livliness of reflection, a clarity and a longevity which have made it the pinnacle of violin coatings..."

I was utterly intrigued by this article. For, of course, anyone who knows me, knows that I don't only love a good mystery, but have been long fascinated by tree sap. Even more amazing then honey, tree sap is perfume, medicine, amber and all the miraculous lacquers of the East.

In his much-loved book, the Golden Peaches of Samarkand, Edward Schafer gives us an elaborate list of Tang exotics-- and of these, the aromatics of SE Asia were treasured almost above all. I've been trying to finish up a post about a great Japanese emperor of the 8th century. Emperor Shomu and his court lived in an exquisite cloud of aromatics; a truly dream-like world of perfumed baths and robes infused with the scent of precious incense brought from the exotic lands to the west.

There was aloeswood, camphor, and sandalwood from Southeast Asia; cinnamon and musk from Vietnam and Frankinscence from Somiland. Cloves were used to freshen the breath. These aromatics were used to treat both body and spirit as they affected the totality of the person: body, mind and soul.

One of his most valued possessions-- a gift from the Tang court-- was a piece of aloeswood. So precious was this piece of incense, it was given a name: Ranjatai*. Only about 61 inches long, the piece of diseased wood weighs some 25 pounds! Native to the aquilaria tree of Southeast Asia, aloeswood has been an important item of trade for centuries and centuries. The tree alone does not produce the wood for incense, however, as the miraculous perfume is only created when an aquilaria tree is infected with a fungus. It is this infection that produces the fragrant resin-like substance. The fragrance is deeply penetrating and is usually described as warm and woody.

 The small chips of diseased wood are permeated with this resin, which is what gives it its miraculous perfume (which in this case has lasted 1500 years). More similar to myrrh, perhaps, the main ingredient of violin varnish is resin, which are the solids found in tree sap. There are three main types of resins: amber (made from fossilized sap up to 90 million years old), copal resins (crystallized sap from Mediterranean evergreen trees), and pitch. Made from the sap of a variety of pine species, including the Aleppo pine, this was most probably what Stradavari and the other great Cremonese masters used for their varnish.

Beautiful Greek pitch-- this is what rosin (which is also essential to making music on the violin) is made from as well. Can you imagine? The finest, most exquisitely beautiful violin music depends on the delicate interaction of human hand with horsehair bow, sheep gut strings and pine sap. Alchemy.

**

Robert McDuffie

 Robert McDuffie
--NPR: Interview:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4811389
-- The Love Affair:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1118419
--An article about the violin:
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/arts/Content?oid=oid:46970

Interesting Christian Science Monitor article on Stradivari's mysterious varnish
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1129/p17s1-stgn.html

Strings Magazine article on the production of California-made rosins
http://www.stringsmagazine.com/issues/strings98/rosin.html

This interesting video and article were linked on my other post, but here again:
The Mystery of Stardivarius (24 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy1LD2oxVjU

Did "Little Ice Age" Create Stradivarius Violins' Famous Tone?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0107_040107_violin.html

Primavera 春

 

As the beautiful lady dressed in a green gown stepped onto the stage, Adonis whispered, "Who is that?" He was, of course, expecting a woman with flowing long black hair dressed in a red dress. Instead, appearing before us was a vision in shimmering "spring green." Sometimes called "foam green"-- her dress was a shade of green traditionally not seen in Japan and so was a color that you could easily forget even existed.  

Carrying her priceless Stadivarius, with her shimmering diamond earrings and rhinestone hairclips pinning back her hair into a tidy bun, she looked like the goddess Flora from  Botticelli's painting. Primavera.

Our boy, at first, was not thrilled (he was, afterall, expecting a woman in a sexy red dress).

Mariko Senju is one of Japan's most famous contemporary violinists. Starting the violin at two years and three months old, she was surrounded from the very start by outstanding teachers and supportive parents. Her older brother is a famous song writer and beause the two of them have appeared on TV a countless numerous of times, Senju is a household name in Japan and her CDs sell in record-breaking numbers. (Such is the power of TV perhaps). 

Accompanied by pianist Satoshi Sando, the performance was very reminiscent of a DVD we have of Gil Shaham and his sister's Orli performing the Mozart Violin Sonatas. In the Shaham DVD, Gil Shaham (on the violin) along with his sister Orli (on the piano) perform Mozart's highly elegant sonatas (which I hear Mozart wrote for himself and his wife to play) in the incomparably elegant surroundings of the Palais Daun-Kinsky in Vienna. Everything about it is so Viennese, really. It is pure elegance.  

That is not why we were there, though, as ee were there for one reason: to hear the sound of her famous Stradivarius "Duranti."

First owned by Pope Clement XIV (an Italian-born Pope who was known for his being both a scholar and man of science), the violin then passed into the hands of a French aristocrat. In 1922, the violin was then sold to a family of Swiss millionaires. When it came time to sell, the Swiss millionaire had one stipulation- he wanted the instrument to go to a person who could actually play it (a request not uncommon, it seems).

Senju purchased the violin in 2002, and she would write repeatedly about how this instrument completely transformed the way she made music:

"The encounter with Duranti drew me back to starting at zero again. All music I had played was equal to nothing. I thought that I could start my real life of music now."

In fact, Senju, had to stop performing for several years since it took her that long to make the necessary adjustments to her playing. If I were suddenly to fall into possession of a Ferrari I am sure I would have to go back and re-learn to drive in a completely different way. And that was perhaps my first impression watching her play-- that it did not look effortless at all. In fact, watching her I felt almost that the instrument was somehow too much for her. During the concert, she remarked that,

"People remark the performing requires stamina and concentration-- which is more important? Well, the people in the front row can probably see my muscles straining! I lose 2 kilograms per performance-- which probably sounds like a good thing, but in fact, I am under pressure to put the weight back on before my next performance. I am, therefore, required to eat lots of meat!"

This concert was interesting because between sets of music, Senju would come back on stage and talk! While she spoke of the music itself, more than anything it was the violin.

"It is incredibly delicate and sensitive to changes in humidity..."

A rainy day, she had been on the phone to the concert hall at 9am that morning, she said, to instruct them on optimal air conditioning for her baby. The comfort of 500 concert goers would have to take a backseat for her baby!

In her beautiful gown, her velvety voice in elegant Japanese was as lovely as her playing. And regarding her playing, it was flawless, but her star-status in Japan probably, if truth be told, is not just about musical ability, but rather the entire package.

Senju has been surrounded by the finest education and cultivation all her life. Watching her, I couldn't help but be impressed. Yes, inner beauty together with outer beauty makes a woman extremely powerful and-- yes-- unstoppable. 

The first part of the concert (which our boy slept though) was devoted to very romantic and dreamy music-- First was Bach's Aria in G (Air); followed by Beethovan's Sonata No 5 "Spring"; and then came Mendohssohn's Spring Song-- which is almost like a lullaby! Well, you could hardly blame our boy for sleeping!

I-- on the other hand-- was entranced and delighted. From the color of her dress to the dreamy music; the charming conversation; and the handsome pianist-- all that was lacking was the Viennese Palace.

Luckily, there was a break and we were able to revive Adonis with some cold apple juice.

He was still complaining that he wanted the lady in the red dress as we returned to our seat after the 15 minute intermission.

The second part of the performance was also primarily taken up with sweet, romantic music. Senju-- like Joshua Bell-- is a big fan of Fritz Kreisler. She started with Love's Joy and then performed Love's Sorrow (Here is Joshua Bell playing the two: Liebesleid and Liebesfreud). Senju comented about how much she loved Kreisler's music because, as a violinist himself, he composed music which brought out the best of the instrument.

She then played his Praeludium & Allegro (listen here) With a huge smile on her face-- explained that it was a piece she had played as a child. She said, most children practice this piece, and "Like many, it was with this piece that I decided to dedicate myself to the violin." Listening, it sounded so passionate that I couldn't imagine a young child playing it, but here is an 8 year old playing it very well-- it has a completely different impact from a child's violin-- slower and sweeter). 

Finally, the piece I had been waiting for: Sarasate's Gypsy Aire (here is Bojidara Kouzmanova's rendition). Sarasate is one of my favorite composer's and this is one of my favorite of his compositions... I love it! It was the finale of the concert and really very beautiful.

Like I said,  we were there to listen to her Strad. I had never had the chance to hear a live perdformance of a Stradivarius, and I was curious-- how different a sound could they really produce? Well, the phrase "crystal clear" kept coming to mind. Listening, I recalled how I had once read that a Stradivarius is capable of producing a sound like a laser beam. Well, when she hit the high notes in particular, they were so clear and so incredibly sharp, that I could readily understand the reference. Her high notes were truly crystal clear. And she kept reminding us, "There are no microphones..."

I was going to end with a video of Senju playing Bach, but I found this Itzak Perlman video instead:

 

 

 

<

As the beautiful lady dressed in a green gown stepped onto the stage, Adonis whispered, "Who is that?" He was, of course, expecting a woman with flowing long black hair dressed in a red dress. Instead, appearing before us was a vision in shimmering "spring green." Sometimes called "foam green"-- her dress was a shade of green traditionally not seen in Japan and so was a color that you could easily forget even existed.  

Carrying her priceless Stadivarius, with her shimmering diamond earrings and rhinestone hairclips pinning back her hair into a tidy bun, she looked like the goddess Flora from  Botticelli's painting. Primavera.

Our boy, at first, was not thrilled (he was, afterall, expecting a woman in a sexy red dress).

Mariko Senju is one of Japan's most famous contemporary violinists. Starting the violin at two years and three months old, she was surrounded from the very start by outstanding teachers and supportive parents. Her older brother is a famous song writer and beause the two of them have appeared on TV a countless numerous of times, Senju is a household name in Japan and her CDs sell in record-breaking numbers. (Such is the power of TV perhaps). 

Accompanied by pianist Satoshi Sando, the performance was very reminiscent of a DVD we have of Gil Shaham and his sister's Orli performing the Mozart Violin Sonatas. In the Shaham DVD, Gil Shaham (on the violin) along with his sister Orli (on the piano) perform Mozart's highly elegant sonatas (which I hear Mozart wrote for himself and his wife to play) in the incomparably elegant surroundings of the Palais Daun-Kinsky in Vienna. Everything about it is so Viennese, really. It is pure elegance.  

That is not why we were there, though, as ee were there for one reason: to hear the sound of her famous Stradivarius "Duranti."

First owned by Pope Clement XIV (an Italian-born Pope who was known for his being both a scholar and man of science), the violin then passed into the hands of a French aristocrat. In 1922, the violin was then sold to a family of Swiss millionaires. When it came time to sell, the Swiss millionaire had one stipulation- he wanted the instrument to go to a person who could actually play it (a request not uncommon, it seems).

Senju purchased the violin in 2002, and she would write repeatedly about how this instrument completely transformed the way she made music:

"The encounter with Duranti drew me back to starting at zero again. All music I had played was equal to nothing. I thought that I could start my real life of music now."

In fact, Senju, had to stop performing for several years since it took her that long to make the necessary adjustments to her playing. If I were suddenly to fall into possession of a Ferrari I am sure I would have to go back and re-learn to drive in a completely different way. And that was perhaps my first impression watching her play-- that it did not look effortless at all. In fact, watching her I felt almost that the instrument was somehow too much for her. During the concert, she remarked that,

"People remark the performing requires stamina and concentration-- which is more important? Well, the people in the front row can probably see my muscles straining! I lose 2 kilograms per performance-- which probably sounds like a good thing, but in fact, I am under pressure to put the weight back on before my next performance. I am, therefore, required to eat lots of meat!"

This concert was interesting because between sets of music, Senju would come back on stage and talk! While she spoke of the music itself, more than anything it was the violin.

"It is incredibly delicate and sensitive to changes in humidity..."

A rainy day, she had been on the phone to the concert hall at 9am that morning, she said, to instruct them on optimal air conditioning for her baby. The comfort of 500 concert goers would have to take a backseat for her baby!

In her beautiful gown, her velvety voice in elegant Japanese was as lovely as her playing. And regarding her playing, it was flawless, but her star-status in Japan probably, if truth be told, is not just about musical ability, but rather the entire package.

Senju has been surrounded by the finest education and cultivation all her life. Watching her, I couldn't help but be impressed. Yes, inner beauty together with outer beauty makes a woman extremely powerful and-- yes-- unstoppable. 

The first part of the concert (which our boy slept though) was devoted to very romantic and dreamy music-- First was Bach's Aria in G (Air); followed by Beethovan's Sonata No 5 "Spring"; and then came Mendohssohn's Spring Song-- which is almost like a lullaby! Well, you could hardly blame our boy for sleeping!

I-- on the other hand-- was entranced and delighted. From the color of her dress to the dreamy music; the charming conversation; and the handsome pianist-- all that was lacking was the Viennese Palace.

Luckily, there was a break and we were able to revive Adonis with some cold apple juice.

He was still complaining that he wanted the lady in the red dress as we returned to our seat after the 15 minute intermission.

The second part of the performance was also primarily taken up with sweet, romantic music. Senju-- like Joshua Bell-- is a big fan of Fritz Kreisler. She started with Love's Joy and then performed Love's Sorrow (Here is Joshua Bell playing the two: Liebesleid and Liebesfreud). Senju comented about how much she loved Kreisler's music because, as a violinist himself, he composed music which brought out the best of the instrument.

She then played his Praeludium & Allegro (listen here) With a huge smile on her face-- explained that it was a piece she had played as a child. She said, most children practice this piece, and "Like many, it was with this piece that I decided to dedicate myself to the violin." Listening, it sounded so passionate that I couldn't imagine a young child playing it, but here is an 8 year old playing it very well-- it has a completely different impact from a child's violin-- slower and sweeter). 

Finally, the piece I had been waiting for: Sarasate's Gypsy Aire (here is Bojidara Kouzmanova's rendition). Sarasate is one of my favorite composer's and this is one of my favorite of his compositions... I love it! It was the finale of the concert and really very beautiful.

Like I said,  we were there to listen to her Strad. I had never had the chance to hear a live perdformance of a Stradivarius, and I was curious-- how different a sound could they really produce? Well, the phrase "crystal clear" kept coming to mind. Listening, I recalled how I had once read that a Stradivarius is capable of producing a sound like a laser beam. Well, when she hit the high notes in particular, they were so clear and so incredibly sharp, that I could readily understand the reference. Her high notes were truly crystal clear. And she kept reminding us, "There are no microphones..."

I was going to end with a video of Senju playing Bach, but I found this Itzak Perlman video instead:

 

 

 

<

As the beautiful lady dressed in a green gown stepped onto the stage, Adonis whispered, "Who is that?" He was, of course, expecting a woman with flowing long black hair dressed in a red dress. Instead, appearing before us was a vision in shimmering "spring green." Sometimes called "foam green"-- her dress was a shade of green traditionally not seen in Japan and so was a color that you could easily forget even existed.  

Carrying her priceless Stadivarius, with her shimmering diamond earrings and rhinestone hairclips pinning back her hair into a tidy bun, she looked like the goddess Flora from  Botticelli's painting. Primavera.

Our boy, at first, was not thrilled (he was, afterall, expecting a woman in a sexy red dress).

Mariko Senju is one of Japan's most famous contemporary violinists. Starting the violin at two years and three months old, she was surrounded from the very start by outstanding teachers and supportive parents. Her older brother is a famous song writer and beause the two of them have appeared on TV a countless numerous of times, Senju is a household name in Japan and her CDs sell in record-breaking numbers. (Such is the power of TV perhaps). 

Accompanied by pianist Satoshi Sando, the performance was very reminiscent of a DVD we have of Gil Shaham and his sister's Orli performing the Mozart Violin Sonatas. In the Shaham DVD, Gil Shaham (on the violin) along with his sister Orli (on the piano) perform Mozart's highly elegant sonatas (which I hear Mozart wrote for himself and his wife to play) in the incomparably elegant surroundings of the Palais Daun-Kinsky in Vienna. Everything about it is so Viennese, really. It is pure elegance.  

That is not why we were there, though, as ee were there for one reason: to hear the sound of her famous Stradivarius "Duranti."

First owned by Pope Clement XIV (an Italian-born Pope who was known for his being both a scholar and man of science), the violin then passed into the hands of a French aristocrat. In 1922, the violin was then sold to a family of Swiss millionaires. When it came time to sell, the Swiss millionaire had one stipulation- he wanted the instrument to go to a person who could actually play it (a request not uncommon, it seems).

Senju purchased the violin in 2002, and she would write repeatedly about how this instrument completely transformed the way she made music:

"The encounter with Duranti drew me back to starting at zero again. All music I had played was equal to nothing. I thought that I could start my real life of music now."

In fact, Senju, had to stop performing for several years since it took her that long to make the necessary adjustments to her playing. If I were suddenly to fall into possession of a Ferrari I am sure I would have to go back and re-learn to drive in a completely different way. And that was perhaps my first impression watching her play-- that it did not look effortless at all. In fact, watching her I felt almost that the instrument was somehow too much for her. During the concert, she remarked that,

"People remark the performing requires stamina and concentration-- which is more important? Well, the people in the front row can probably see my muscles straining! I lose 2 kilograms per performance-- which probably sounds like a good thing, but in fact, I am under pressure to put the weight back on before my next performance. I am, therefore, required to eat lots of meat!"

This concert was interesting because between sets of music, Senju would come back on stage and talk! While she spoke of the music itself, more than anything it was the violin.

"It is incredibly delicate and sensitive to changes in humidity..."

A rainy day, she had been on the phone to the concert hall at 9am that morning, she said, to instruct them on optimal air conditioning for her baby. The comfort of 500 concert goers would have to take a backseat for her baby!

In her beautiful gown, her velvety voice in elegant Japanese was as lovely as her playing. And regarding her playing, it was flawless, but her star-status in Japan probably, if truth be told, is not just about musical ability, but rather the entire package.

Senju has been surrounded by the finest education and cultivation all her life. Watching her, I couldn't help but be impressed. Yes, inner beauty together with outer beauty makes a woman extremely powerful and-- yes-- unstoppable. 

The first part of the concert (which our boy slept though) was devoted to very romantic and dreamy music-- First was Bach's Aria in G (Air); followed by Beethovan's Sonata No 5 "Spring"; and then came Mendohssohn's Spring Song-- which is almost like a lullaby! Well, you could hardly blame our boy for sleeping!

I-- on the other hand-- was entranced and delighted. From the color of her dress to the dreamy music; the charming conversation; and the handsome pianist-- all that was lacking was the Viennese Palace.

Luckily, there was a break and we were able to revive Adonis with some cold apple juice.

He was still complaining that he wanted the lady in the red dress as we returned to our seat after the 15 minute intermission.

The second part of the performance was also primarily taken up with sweet, romantic music. Senju-- like Joshua Bell-- is a big fan of Fritz Kreisler. She started with Love's Joy and then performed Love's Sorrow (Here is Joshua Bell playing the two: Liebesleid and Liebesfreud). Senju comented about how much she loved Kreisler's music because, as a violinist himself, he composed music which brought out the best of the instrument.

She then played his Praeludium & Allegro (listen here) With a huge smile on her face-- explained that it was a piece she had played as a child. She said, most children practice this piece, and "Like many, it was with this piece that I decided to dedicate myself to the violin." Listening, it sounded so passionate that I couldn't imagine a young child playing it, but here is an 8 year old playing it very well-- it has a completely different impact from a child's violin-- slower and sweeter). 

Finally, the piece I had been waiting for: Sarasate's Gypsy Aire (here is Bojidara Kouzmanova's rendition). Sarasate is one of my favorite composer's and this is one of my favorite of his compositions... I love it! It was the finale of the concert and really very beautiful.

Like I said,  we were there to listen to her Strad. I had never had the chance to hear a live perdformance of a Stradivarius, and I was curious-- how different a sound could they really produce? Well, the phrase "crystal clear" kept coming to mind. Listening, I recalled how I had once read that a Stradivarius is capable of producing a sound like a laser beam. Well, when she hit the high notes in particular, they were so clear and so incredibly sharp, that I could readily understand the reference. Her high notes were truly crystal clear. And she kept reminding us, "There are no microphones..."

I was going to end with a video of Senju playing Bach, but I found this Itzak Perlman video instead:

 

 

 

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NHK (Part 7) A Journey into Music

From Turfan (NHK Part 6), the team headed due west. Traveling in two large mini-buses, they traveled straight across the Lop Desert and before long were traveling the mountain road the clings to the southern rim of the Tianshan mountains. 天山　The Heavenly Mountains. Passing through the rough terrain of the Iron Gate, the team was following at this point very closely in the footsteps of the great monk, Xuanzang.

Like the Tang dynasty monk, the NHK team was also heading west toward Kucha.

I have already written about the legendary dances of Kucha. Indeed, their praises have hardly been sung enough:

Of all the glorious Buddhist Kingdoms located around the Taklamakan Desert--from Khotan to Dunhuang-- Kucha was the largest. And Kucha was famous-- very famous-- for its dances, music and instruments.

Located on the Northern Route, not far from present-day Aksu, it was a place where Theravada Buddhism reigned. The King was particularly devout and it was said the city was full of temples, monks and music. The palace was made of gold, as the kingdom was wealthy from its rich mineral deposits of gold, copper and iron. Another highly cosmopolitan Silk Road garrison city-state, a dozen languages could be heard in the marketplaces, including Chinese, Tibetan, Persian and Kuchean (which was itself an Indo-Euopean language).

Susan Whitfield in her wondrous, Life Along the Silkroad, desribes Kuchean dance as being "not unlike Indian dance, with its emphasis on hip movements, changes of gesture and expressive eyes, but it also adapted dance forms taken from other places, such as the famous Sogdian 'whirling dance,' performed by both men and women."

"Music, song and dance," says Whitfield, "were Silk Road commodities, bought and sold like silver and jade. Itinerent dance troops from India, Burma, Cambodia and Sogdiana performed at both the royal court and the public marketplace in every silk road town." We have Tang period pottery of "Western" dancers and musicians on camelback. These statutes still fascinate and are proudly preserved in museum collectons in many places from Shanghai and Tokyo to Paris. 

The dances of the Silk Road were taken up by the Tang Court and there they were performed with native and other foreign elements to be transformed into the music and dance that today is known as ancient Tang music. And, what is perhaps the most fascinating part of the entire story, this music and these dances were then "borrowed"-- in what is often referred to as the "great borrowing of continental culture"-- by the ancient Japanese of the Nara period.

The NHK Team planned to travel to Kucha and see if the city still lived up to its musical reputation. At first, I thought, "that doesn't even make sense!" For the same race of people doesn't even inhabit the city anymore. The Kucha we know from Tang histories were Indo-European in both language and race. Perhaps they were Persians? Perhaps they were people from even further West as their art seems to hint. In any event the Turkish Uighurs of today didn't move into the region until well into the 9th century.

And yet, we are shown dance after glorious dance!  There are harvest dances and lullabies; a harvest festival is filmed with various traditional instruments such as the dop, dotar, asatar-- we are talking about drums, hammered dulcimers and stringed instruments of various types. Music dominates every scene. There are so many to describe, but I personally was transfixed by a traditional love song sung by an elderly, toothless woman who accompanied herself on the long-necked dutar lute.   

A woman as beautiful as the moon
Your waist, like a willow
A woman as beautiful as the moon
You await your lover

Your heart burning
You are like the brilliant shimmering moon
Shining in the great wide night sky

She crooned beautifully the passionate lyrics. Apparently the song was popular 200 years ago!

A modern troupe of Uighur dancers was working to reconstruct the ancient Buddhist dances and music of the Tang dynasty. They were extremely popular in Kucha during the NHK visit. While the music is-- to my ears-- Central Asian, the dances clearly derive from Southern India-- with the expressive eyes, moving hips, and symbolic hand gestures you see in India; in the tradition of that country's great dance dramas, the dances recounted  Buddhist or Chinese legends which their audiences knew well.

India, of course, had peaceful relations with Central Asia for a 1000 years. And, while not on "The Silk Road"-- there were, of course, various "silk road" routes that traveled straight south over the Karakoram into India and Pakistan. Great Kingdoms dominated a great stretech of land in roughly the area we call India from the time of Ashoka onward, and religion (Buddhism), philosophy and art flowed straight north-- northwest to Bamiyan and northeast to the Oases "Pearls of the Taklamakan."

The NHK team sought to interview the dancers and musicians about the ancient instruments. They showed photographs of the ancient instruments-- priceless treasures-- stored in the Shosoin. While none of them could identify any of the instruments by the pictures, when the NHK team played a recording of the famous Shosoin 5 string biwa (or lute), they all burst into smiles.

Decorated with mother-of-pearl inlay, the instrument is adorned with Central Asian themes (like a man on a camel). Deriving from an ancient Persian instrument, the five-string biwa was extremely popular at the Tang Court. And, to call it rare would be an under-statement as it is the sole remaining 5-string biwa in existence!

I was amazed that they would even dare play it-- but, I remembered what violinists say about their strads that if the violins are not played, they cease to be able to make beautiful sounds. The Uighur musicians looked delighted and proclaimed that their own music is based on a stringed instrument with a very similar sound.

Considering that the music and dance of the ancient people of Kucha, after becoming "all the rage" at the Tang Court of the 8th century, then went on to cross the ocean where they have been preseved forever after in the court music of Japan boggles the mind. In that sense, I suppose it is not surprising that vestiges of that great musical tradition continue to live on in Kucha today.

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There exists a great arch of exquisite Buddhist cave art across the stretch of Asia. The tradition has its origins and Ajanta and reaches all the way across the Taklamakan Desert-- deep into the heart of China. And like the music of Kucha, the mural painting techniques crossed the ocean as well, and we can see temple murals in Nara (Horyuji etc.) which are derived from this very tradition. For this reason-- among others-- the Japanese have long been fascinated with the Silk Road, in particular the sites in Western China that I have been writing so much about.

Not far from Kucha is what is considered to be the most beautiful cave art of Western China, the Caves at Kizil. I have already written about the discovery and "removal" to Germany of many of the treasures of the cave here. The NHK team, however, went on to visit the Music Cave-- which is perhaps Kizil's greatest claim to fame! Unfortunately, I cannot find any images online, but one of the most interesting aspects of the caves, above and beyond the beauty of the painting and the early date of their creation (3rd-4th century!), is the Music Cave.

Officially known as Cave 38, the walls and ceiling of the cave are devoted to scenes of music. The NHK team is incredulous for every single instrument they find has its exact counterpart in the gagaku "elegant music" tradition preserved at the Japanese Court. The narrator names all the instruments:

The transverse flute 横笛; sometimes known as the dragon flute 竜笛 is said to signify the sound of dragons rising into the heavens

The hichiriki 篳篥-- sometimes called a Japanese oboe; it is the most important instrument in the orchestra

The sho mouth organ 笙

Several of the drums; both the 4 and 5 string biwa (!) and a genkan, which is like a banjo (pictured left).

The NHK team is-- of course-- delighted to spot the 5 string biwa-- as Japan preserves the world's sole remaining instrument. Seeing that the caves date from the 3rd-4th century, the instrument was already ancient by the time it was adopted for Japanese Court Music in the late 8th century. The narrator exclaims, "No matter where one's eyes rest, we find a musical instrument that is so familiar to us. Each and every instrument we see on these walls has their counterpart in the Japanese gagaku orchestra."

Finally, one more note about the Music Cave.  According to this article, Amazingly, "it was found out that looking closely into the gestures and position of the musicians' hands on the instrument, all stopped at the same meter!"

Finally, an article by an Indian scholar of Central Asian art here and a video of a gagaku performance held last year at the famous Kasuga Grand Shrine in Nara. My Gagaku handbook says that Kasuga Shrine, which itself dates from the 8th century, has Japan's most numerous theater venues-- including a beautiful "floating stage" perched above the shrine garden pond. Shown in the video is the Apple Garden stage located just in front of the main shrine building. The event is the yearly Opening Ceremony of Dance and Music 舞楽始式-- which is basicaly the first classical performance of the year.