fast food, dudes, or the king is naked or Dudamel and Mahler's 9th

long time. but again there was this event which triggered me.

irritating as hell.

Dudamel conducting Mahler's ninth symphony with LA philharmonic at the Barbican center in London 28th of January 2011.

i cannot find the words to express the horror.

i have nothing against Gustavo which is a very talented young guy.knows Mahler by heart. and has an ok technique to control and lead the orchestra. but thats it. nothing more beyond. this is equivalent to lets say Robert Pattinson playing king Lear at this time of age.i am afraid he is the victim of marketing and greediness.

this symphony which is the farewell and acceptance of fate, life,death - the endless circle of nature and standing above everything looking around\forward\backwards to timelessly to sorrows, memories, happiness and all the fragile texture of human existence- found its musical translation of the meaning in Dudamel hands in either loudness or unbalanced textures. the brass was mostly loud. the harps were not in tune, the strings were OK with warm sound, but in all there was no real balance and no real meanings behind. just people playing "music".

Dudamel's conducting was horrible. in the last movement where it is needed to subdivide the beats , Dudamel was heavily butchering the sub-beats in parallel conducting . instead of having built long meaningful phrases. doing the unexpected. leading the inner energies of the phrases. endlessly walking. Dudamel just cut it with all of his body. this is not music. this is show.

another thing- we couldn't see an crescendo or diminuendo from him. not at all. the music was lacking small nuances which builds it to a big master piece.

this is fast food.Mahler sells. LA phil sells. Dudamel sells. but there is no real event behind this . and that is a shame. this is fraud in broad daylight.

don't get me wrong- i don't even know Dudamel, but the entire marketing if this kid is hollow. he won the Mahler competition. so what? the kids still needs to develop and the whomever let him to conduct this , just hurt him and his natural development.

bluebeard's castle or IS THAT BLUEBEARD'S CASTLE?

after long time of absence, i finally return. i was triggered.

i went to see Bluebeard's castle in the opera house.i was shocked.how so?

few months ago i prepared for Peter Otvos's masterclass- kekszakalu..(Bluebeard's`s castle).

i was very lucky , because i had few readings into the libretto before i prepared the music itself.

my most lucky reading was through woman eyes.that was my 1st reading. unfortunately i started reading all the material around it and got carried away with Balasz Bela`s explanation of the opera, and got stuck with that in my head and forgot all about my first encounter.until i saw it in the opera house - in its new premiere.

only then i realized how much important is the reading through a woman`s eyes. and how this demonstrates the duality and its contradiction in Bartok`s style.the counterpoint of ideas.which is in the center of his musical language.

the opera was played twice that evening:

the 1st time from the man point of view.and this is the most common staging.how machoistic, how manly.how narcissistic the man can be.how fragile.

and the 2nd time from the woman perspective.how odd,strange. how unanticipated.how fragile the womane is.

example:

in the 5th door , imagine that from the woman point of view, after Bluebeard is forcing her to open the 5th door( yes, he is using force), he gives her everything, but this everything is actually empty....there is absolutely nothing there in the big hole that can attract her.

if you get this meaning, how can you portray it musically?

this is one of the most important features of this opera. the prosodic line - and its way to paint it musically.

how did the conductor(Adam Fischer) do it?

just for example- the same 5th door- can sound on that point either powerful (using detache , portamento etc) and Judit replies very fast or

false(using molto legato and less forte than the f1st time it was played) and Judit takes her time to answer and sings her part slow.

her reply is the part the actually defines the real meaning of the Duke`s present- the kingdom.

i leave you to think about it.

Is Pierrot singing? 3/3

In the previous posts,I was trying to understand Pierrot as an poetic idea.as a character and personality.now it is time to check his representation in music.

where to begin??????

if you already listened to a bit of the piece in youtube or in the luna nova,you noticed that this is not exactly singing.it is actually reciting in pitches.saying the words in defined pitches more or less. or just acting it in somewhat graphic prosodic lines.that is the all meaning of Pierrot.as he is anti reflection of the romantic hero,the known concept and convention of singing and melodies goes far beyond our perceptions. he will no longer sing.moreover he will no longer sing any melodies or patterns which are known to us.he shatters everything.



while Siegfried, Rodolfo and the rest of those dudes,had complex infrastructures of motives set by the composers(aka lite motifs),Pierrot is not singing but reciting in different ranges of the voice as a reflection of the feelings a man has.his "melody" is a set of notes which build up in different ways as the poems differ from each other in atmosphere,mood,subject.using the voice in various colors and ranges in prosodic lines is abstracting the speech and music into the pure meaning.the violence ,the fear,the nostalgia etc.in this sense,Schoenberg introduces a new composing mechanism into the world.


how?

• the lack of "known" harmonies -the "cell harmony"(this "modern music") is the result of a process started at the time of Wagner (the 1st chord of Tristan und Isolde),slowly growing to its peak in the last movm` of Mahler 9th symphony or early works by Schoenberg(Gurre-lieder etc).the frame of harmony which already had already expressed everything possible, and stretched the borders of tonality to its extreme (all those dissonances which has nowhere to go) .the collection of notes which represents Pierrot,can work either in linear(motivically) or horizontal(harmonically) way.the roots for this are already set up in op. 11-3 piano pieces which Schoenberg wrote earlier.this mechanism is a root itself to the serial and 12 tone music.the only user of known patterns are in the valse somehow,and more recognizable in the "alter duft".the last poem where Pierrot goes back to Beragmo.that is the only place in this piece where there is a familiar romantic-nostalgic pattern.and that is the whole idea.creating a non familiar land,where you recognise only one old smell which brings you home.......
  
  later you can encounter this "trick " in pieces by Boulez,or Berg`s violin concerto or in Berio`s pieces.
  

• the use of sparchgesang,the pitch reciting,is also the experiments of a new mean in music.the abstraction of the music itself.later we find it in much developed manner in the opera Moses und Aaron where god is represented by a mixed choir of which 6 are reciting in defined pitches(sparchgesnag) and the other4 are singing the music itself.the part is written in heterophony which means they are altogether singing\reciting more or less (and not precise!) at the same time creating somewhat of a delay.what could i tell you .you must hear it for yourself.the next episode of music after this is of course the electronic music and sound effects.

• the orchestration which the composer uses in order to "help" both Pierrot and the audience(!) understand and expresses the mood of each poem and thus reflect Pierrot inner feeling is an exquisite demonstration of how the composer masters the text-character-mood-instrumental relationships of this small ensemble.that is yet another root of the farewell from all those super grand monumental orchestras that reigned the stages until not so long ago.in fact there is a nice essay written by Schoenberg on orchestration,in which he states his idea of small ensembles in usage rather than the large orchestra,explaining how -"Indeed, if our orchestra consisted of a smaller number of colors, it would be
  possible to approximate the excellent balance of the string quartet. There, each of
  the four players -- though only three different colors -- is able to make his part
  come through, so long as he is using a register of his instrument that contrasts with
  the other instruments"- for example.in this case as you noticed,3 string and 3 wind 1 voice and 1 piano.

• there is also the experiment of how the sounds of words and vowels interacts with the prosodic features of Pierrot`s line.if you have ever seen Bernstein in his Harvard Lectures,speaks about the formation of the general language and words according to Chomsky,Shceonberg experiments this matter in the prosodic feature(which Bernstein in his point of view does not approach).

those are only few main points of the style of this piece.but those are already the foundations of the expressionism-entire era.with the same equivalents in cinema(Fritz Lang and his Metropolis or in art Kokoshka)

I could continue on and on,but you might find information also in this book.

to conclude I would like to refer to the performance itself.

after reviewing all the information analysed,the approach of the is debatable.one thing is sure,this is an extremely difficult piece to conduct.some of the poems are quite tricky,meters are being broken,subdivision etc.in this opportunity i would like to state ,that when i had the opportunity with the orquestra de cadaques to rehearse 2 numbers,they were in such a high level.meaning,very eloquent ,rhythmic.on the 1st rehearsal they got everything sorted out,which left place to dedicate the remaining time for the musical expressions.

and how?

by passing your inner understanding of meaning to the players.from the mood,through the colors of the voice,instruments.the phrasing both with the singer,and the ensemble.phrasing meaning articulation,diction.the consideration in regards to voice range and its colors and prosodic meaning.that is the concept.but this is the essence of all the information i have reviewed so far.and never forget-Pierrot is primary the artist himself!and now a word about the moon-the light of the moon is the mirror of the sun.and in a Zizekien view,that is the shadow of the alterego-the one the artist is connecting in the creation.........

in this quest,I permitted myself to listen to various recording.the web is full of recordings.I would like to state that also that is the source to understand HOW NOT TO PERFORM PIERROT,as there are so many charlatans that you can hear on them that the technical level is still poor.or old hens(or young) which think they can just shout the part of Pierrot ,and thus to be called an artist or a performer.i am sure you can distinguish them for yourself.however I would like to review the work of Boulez.

two interesting recordings.both convincing.one is sung!the other recited!

I am aware of Schoenberg's intention.I would just add,that the sung version,is just a compass to the what seems to me the way how Pierrot should be sound...

with this I bring down the curtain about Pierrot.and since this Pierrot made me hungry,I will write in my next post,about a nice chunk of bloody-rare-barley-medium of roast beef sliced thin and lying comfortably on a slice of country bread covered with homemade red grapes jam...................

Pierrot 2/3

In the last blog i was referring generally to Pierrot.i will have now a deeper look at him.


in this quest of deciphering Pierrot,i am not hesitating to find some psychoanalytic lines to his character.this is much the influence of Lacan and Zizek,who i am influenced by in my analytic prism.their point of view is ,not only looking at the material itself and the way of its development into a meaningful item ,but also the deep and obscured psychic backgrounds of the exhibit.

before getting to the music itself, I look around to the characters who created the final Pierrot as we encounter in Schoenberg piece. I see much the structure of the piece as organized by Schoenberg.

I review the other pieces written by Albert Giraud, such as the sequence to Pierrot:
Pierrot the narcissist- a drama in which we see Pierrot years after we had met him for the first time. he is already fed up with everyone.the lunar madness became narcissism. you can read the play in the link and judge for yourself the situation of which a denied person had turned into.
as i have written in the previous blog,no more humanism.the rise of selfishness!

as you might have noticed while opening the links ,the piece consists of 21 poems.
(and this is one of the most clear webliographies for that-both the translation and the original text, the music-though not the most great performance,but didactic and efficient)

Those poems are represented in a psychoanalytic way:

In the 1st part (the first seven poems) the yearning for love - (of a woman-Columbine or Aliane) - and the fulfillment of those passions in a physical way described in metaphoric abstract. (bear in mind that in that time, Arnold`s Schoenberg’s wife –left him with his daughter.)Tender fantasies which can be understood as great pain

The 2nd part is the disappointment of fellow mankind and shouting visions of violence to all. (Bear in mind the divorce and the critics who did not approve of this kind of music) blasphemy-the twilight of religion.

The 3rd part is the nostalgia.that strong feeling rises to most of us, when we are alone, and have only ourselves to ourselves and we self pity.
Again the wife left, the critics don’t like your art. What is the art you yourself you like? How can you create some message which will come thorough to people? how can this freedom of new style created can charm the vast audience?understood?

This is to be locked in a big white room all by yourself and no-one to talk to.

We, the audience, are evil, we are cruel. We are miserable.we want companionship and comforts to our loneliness.we want to be the leaders. We want to be understood. We hate all those who mock our effort to think outside the box. When it does not work. we refer to one of the most painful feeling ,the nostalgic-pay attention that in this part of Pierrot –there are a lot of known patterns coming to our ears:form the barcarole(finally something which resembles a “normal melody”) alter duft(mein sinne-melody with implied harmony) the waltzer etc.

Pierrot uses three colors: white black and red. (Familiar?)

Red is the passion –the blood, the violence. The power. as an aesthetic mechanism,it is the color which inserts dynamic into the plot(visually speaking-cinematographic or art etc.)
White is the relaxation, the nostalgia-the stage. -
Black –is the violence, the big nothing, the abyss of fear, the loneliness.

in a Zizekien manner,it is the ego,alter ego and super ego.perfect psychopath.

we can see so far that not only Pierrot is far from what we knew about him as the crying clown(see all the nice,soft melancholic images of the classic Pierrot) but is pretty much a result of a persona who is submissive to the crowd.the unwanted underdog,the looser, turns into the psychopath,lonely,blood thirsty, selfish,low self esteemed person,artist who nobody cares to understand.

and we made him as such.

in the next blog i will approach what i have written so far, its translation to music itself.

Pierrot is looking for Richard(1/3)

Half a year ago I came back from preliminary audition to the Cadaques conducting competition.
The fact is that I didn’t enter the 1st round. The truth is that despite this fact, that was an important quest for me to discover Pierrot lunnaire which was the piece in this round. I am not a bit frustrated. Competitions are always hard and they are submissive to luck and circumstances. And the circumstances always differ from the atmosphere of a rehearsal for a concert.



Why Pierrot is looking for Richard?
In 1996, Al Pacino made a documentary about Richard the 3rd.he was searching for the meaning of Richard and his significance and relevance to our world. He was asking people in the street about their knowledge of this character. This gesture of exploring voyage influenced me in a deep way, which I have decided to go on my own quest.

I was looking for Pierrot and his meaning, symbol and reflection to our lives and ending in the music.

Who is Pierrot? Why Pierrot?

You can search in the web and you will find a lot of information about him (musically) and the (theatrically) commedia de`ll arte .but his role is somewhat known to quite a lot of us-the underdog.


He never puts on a mask. He is always hurt. He just powders his face. And why?

He is the antireflection to our hero phantasies.he is the anti hero.

Pierrot is the counter reflection of Siegfried, Manfred, Faust, Othello and others.
Siegfried signifies the death of the god. Pierrot signifies the death of Siegfried-humanism.
He does not set a new order into the world. He does not kill anyone in order to get a pardon for the eternal fame. He does not cry endlessly about a woman he will never have.
No one is actually able to make him more miserable than he already is.

He never had anything and never accomplished anything.

He is not equal to any others; he is a servant, a pincushion for verbal violences.abused. A weak character in the settings of life. The only freedom he has is in his mind, but then those are reflections of aggressions towards those who hurt him in anyway. Yet he does have every normal aspiration like the rest of people, for love, compation and recognition of his presence in a dignified way.

to be continued............