seen from United States
seen from Argentina
seen from Italy
seen from Argentina
seen from Greece
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Maldives
seen from Italy
seen from South Korea
seen from Netherlands
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from Russia
seen from Ireland
seen from Netherlands
seen from France
seen from France
short poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809-1892)
A Syllabus
In the name of Tri-Via the Third Way, I synthesize from the anecdotal global collective prototypes for the After-Life -- the life that grows on when I have left it behind.
My post-Christian biases will be apparent, if only by the infinite vacuum of my blind spots. The Euro Exodus instituted for its passengers a process of de-culturalization, and so all the knowledge I have ever accrued sits in the shadow of post-Enlightenment thinkers operating within the bounds of an Apollonian bureaucracy: the Cult of Self-Improvement.
The congregation of my youth resented their Christian upbringing, reinforcing my position in the Culture Wars of Reagan's Realm. Now that I'm not marching anymore, Marx guides my heart in empathy: not to argue with the faithful, like Socrates, but to follow the path of the Hegelian Didactic; away from the duality of Thesis/Antithesis, toward Synthesis.
I take my name in honor of Hippasus, the first recorded martyr of mathematics. To him, many heresies are attributed -- irrational numbers, material preceding the incorporeal, a sphere made from twelve pentagons. Legend has it, He and his followers drowned The Acusmatus at sea.
I've taken no lives, but I have killed faith in a higher power; the death of culture pains like a life. Those integers which one man regards irrational may be merely misunderstood. And so, like the mystic teacher Johnny Appleseed, I seek the knowledge to leave in my wake only life.
How much post-romanticism poetry do I have to read until I look like mid-1980s Morrissey?
"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it."
- Igor Stravinsky
Mythe et politique dans L’Anneau du Nibelung de Richard Wagner
« Il est des gens qui ne supportent pas de s'entendre dire que leur héros au cours d'une révolte fraya avec un célèbre anarchiste ; qu'il fut ensuite « recherché » par la police ; qu'il écrivit des pamphlets révolutionnaires; et que son tableau du Nibelheim sous le règne d'Alberich est une vision poétique du capitalisme industriel sauvage, tel qu'il fut révélé au public allemand au milieu du XIXe siècle par 'La situation des classes laborieuses en Angleterre' d'Engels. » George Bernard Shaw, Le parfait wagnérien.
Pour créer sa tétralogie mythologique, Wagner a dû réunir des oeuvres des sources différentes qu'il a amalgamé en une unité nouvelle. Il s'est servi du mythe et des symboles des poèmes de l'Edda, qu'il a interprétés de façon arbitraire selon ses préjugés, ainsi que de l'histoire du couple héroïque du poème de Nibelungue-Nôt. L'Anneau du Nibelung représente pour Wagner l'abandon du drame historique au profil du mythe.
La relation entre le mythe wagnérien et l'histoire, et/ou plus spécifiquement le mythe et la politique, est d'une complexité... romantique. Après les Lumières, le romantisme apparaît comme le retrait sur les particularités nationales; la nostalgie vers les origines mystifiés des peuples, ou l'éloge du mythe au détriment de l'histoire chez Wagner.
Tout est presque symbolique dans L'Anneau, les aventures fantastiques et surnaturelles des personnages servent d'allégories. Wagner transforme sa poésie et sa musique en paradigme historique : les dieux et la suprématie raciale, la malédiction de l'or et le capitalisme. Le Nibelheim et l'industrie, les géants de Wotan et les Nibelungen d'Alberich ou l'exploitation de l'homme, le feu de Brünnhilde et l'enfer, ou les mensonges de l'État et de l'église. La critique lyrique du capitalisme et du XIXe siècle.
Prétendant faire une caractérisation de l'histoire, Wagner finit par nuir l'esprit critique des spectateurs vis-à-vis du phénomène historique, glorifiant, au final, la volupté collective avec une surdose des leitmotivs (presque 200 d'après Julius Burghold!) et au moins 14 heures de présentation. Si Richard Wagner demeure toujours Lento Maestoso, sa tétralogie paraît plus qu'un cycle d'opéras épiques, un bouleversant et innovateur Melodramma allegorico.
L'utilisation du mythe de façon allégorique représente une sorte de commentaire social et révèle le discours politique du compositeur qui éprouvait un pragmatique et cynique besoin de reconnaissance. Cependant, le musicien n'avait pas beaucoup d'expérience dans le domaine politico-administrative, et a fini par faire de la simplification idéologique. En fait, l'esthétique du mythe politique wagnérien s'est dégradé en pure, simple et dangereuse esthétisation de la politique. Ainsi les Nazis ont utilisé le prestige de ce mythe pour faire croire qu'on ne vivait pas l'histoire mais le mythe : L'Anneau du Nibelung ersatz historique malgré Wagner (ou pas). Finalement, j'ose conclure que M. Wagner, avec sa biaisée et partielle vision de l'être humain et son avenir, reste un homme, génie de la composition, qui est mort (tout comme son dieu). Sa tétralogie lui survit, et ce mythe nous hante... Mais, quelle est sa qualité éthique? Question difficile à répondre quand on est perdu, exalté par les milliers de cellules orchestrales récurrentes, et ces cris et chuchotements...
« […] A mon opinion Wagner est un symphoniste de nature. Il a du génie, qui se brise sur ses tendances ; son inspiration est paralysée par des théories qu'il a inventées lui-même, et qu'il, 'nolens, volens', veut mettre en pratique... Mais il n'y a aucun doute que c'est un merveilleux symphoniste. » Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovsky, à son frère 1876.
Carpe Diem.
Here, right on this track, is the root of the majority of twentieth century vocal music. This work, Alban Berg's Wozzeck, was a runaway success when it was premiered. (Unfortunately, it was also his ONLY financial success in his lifetime. He died in poverty of blood poisoning from a large, poorly-treated carbuncle on his back in 1935.) It was influential far and wide: Dmitri Shostakovich saw it, and one can hear the influence of the rather patriotic march contained on this track in virtually every gallop in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Charles Ives' march he quotes in his Holidays Symphony and Concord Sonata has a peculiar (most likely coincidental) resemblance to this one. George Perle, the soul of the serial era, considered it a masterpiece. Even George Gershwin had a signed portrait of Berg hanging in his office.
History:
As soon as he saw the play by Georg Buchner, Woyzeck, Berg began sketching ideas for a tragic opera based on this play. The play was rather straightforward telling of a true story, that of Johann Christian Woyzeck, and was rather unadorned with flowery, speculative language. But it was a powerful work, leaving a lasting impression on the then-young Alban Berg. But he did not (at the time) have the money, the experience, or the notoriety needed to write and have performed such an ambitious project.
The opera was put aside as Berg began studies with Arnold Schoenberg. He was quite a promising student. Schoenberg wrote of him when they first met that he was quite promising, but couldn't write anything instrumental. All he could write was song, and even his accompaniments sounded lyrical and song-like (no alberti-bass in sight). He trained Berg in strict counterpoint, and Berg progressed remarkably fast (Typical. So did Webern.) to release startlingly mature Opus #s 1-6. Schoenberg clearly was a good teacher. His Op. 6's March was all too prophetic to what soon followed...
He was then drafted into the army himself, where he soon found that the bitter cruelties of war depicted in Woyzeck were all too real. Luckily he got out of doing actual military service, but even acting as a secretary put him under a lot of stress. This precipitated steady work on the masterpiece of craftsmanship that we now know as Wozzeck.
Synopsis and Libretto:
Here are the circumstances and lyrics for of each section of this magnificent opera:
Act 1, Scenes 1 and 2
First we find Wozzeck, the title character, having schizophrenic visions of the horror that awaits him. We then pan to his wife, admiring the soldiers marching by. We first hear them in the distance, and then they march right by, as Marie sings this song:
In German:
Marie: Soldaten, Soldaten sind schone Burschen!
English:
Marie: Soldiers, soldiers, what handsome fellows they are!
She then, annoyed by the insults piled on her (slut) by her rude neighbor, heads inside and her attention turns to her baby. Singing a lullaby to Wozzeck's son, she sings:
German:
Marie: Komm, mein Bub! Was die Leute wollen! Dist nur ein arm' Hurenkind und machst Deiner Mutter doch so viel Freud' mit Deinem unehrlichen Gesicht! Eia popeia... Madel, was fangst Du jetzt an? Hast ein klein' Kind und kein Mann! Ei, was frag' ich darnach, Sing' ich die ganze Nacht: Eia popeia, mein suber Bu', Gibt mir kein Mensch nix dazu! Hansel, spann' Deine sechs Schimmel an, Gib sie zu fressen auf's neu - Kein Haber fresse sie, Kein Wasser saufe sie, Lauter kuhle Wein mub es sein! Lauter kuhle Wein mub es sein!
In English:
Marie: Come here, my boy! What do they all want? You're nothing but a poor bastard and yet you make your mother so happy with your disreputable face! Hushabye.... Girl, what can you do now? Got a kid and no husband! Oh, what do I care, I sing all night long: Hushabye, my sweet boy, nobody's going to help me out! Johnny, harness you six white horses, give them something to eat - They eat no hay, they drink no water, it's got to be cool wine! It's got to be cool wine!
Act 3, Scene 1
In the next track, Marie has been raped by Franz, the Drum Major, and has been confronted by Wozzeck for the jewelry he gave her afterwords. She feels guilty for admiring (she sees it as encouraging) the Drum Major, and so she read the bible to comfort her. She prays, asking God for forgiveness, takes to heart the message of the story of Mary Magdalen. The music is based loosely on variation form. The beauty of the music is indescribable; listen to that french horn line!
In German:
Marie: "Und ist kein Betrug in seinem Munde erfunden worden..." Herr Gott, Herr Gott! Sieh mich nicht an! "Aber die Phrisaer brachten ein Weib zu ihm, so im Ehbruch lebte. Jesus aber sprach: So verdamme ich dich auch nicht, geh' hin, und sundige hinfort nich mehr." Herr Gott! Der Bub gibt mir einen Stich in's Herz. Fort! Das brust' sich in der Sonne! Nein, komm, komm her! Komm zu mir! "Es war einmal ein armes Kind und hatt' keinen Bater und keine Mutter - war Alles tot und war Niemand auf der Welt, und es hat gehungert und geweint Tag und Nacht. Und weil es Niemand mehr hatt' auf der Welt..." Der Franz ist nit kommen, gestern nit, heut' nit... Wie steht es geschrieben von der Magdalena....? "Und kniete hin zu seinen Fuben und weinte und kubte sein Fube und netzte sie mit Tranen und salbte sie mit Salben..." Heiland! ich mochte Dir die Fube salben - Heiland, Du hast Dich ihrer erbarmt, erbarme Dich auch meiner!....
In English:
Marie: 'Neither was guile found in his mouth'... Lord! Lord! Don not look on me! 'And the Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery. Jesus said unto her: Neither do I condemn the; go and sin no more.' Lord! The boy pierces my heart. Away with you! Boasting in the sunlight! No, come, come here! Come to me! 'Once upon a time there was a poor child that had neither father nor mother - everybody was dead and nobody was alive and he was hungry and wept all day and all night. And because he had nobody at all...' Franz hasn't been here, neither yesterday nor today... What does the Book say about Magdalen?... 'And knelt at his feet and wept and kissed his feet and washed them with her tears and anointed them with ointment...' Redeemer! I want to anoint your feet - Redeemer, you were merciful to her, be merciful to me as well...
Act 3, Scenes 4 and 5
Wozzeck kills her in a fit of insanity and rage. He has been spotted, and so he goes and throws the knife in a lake to get rid of the evidence. He sees the glimmer of the blade under the water, and so he goes into the lake to get it, but he has forgotten he cannot swim. He drowns, and this is the music to which he does so. After the interlude, his child is playing with some children "Ring around the rosie" and hear about the body being found. All the older kids rush off to take a look. His son, too young to comprenhend what is happening, makes a confused noise, "Hopp hopp! Hopp hopp!" This is likely to be another Finnegans Wake in that it is cyclical: the son will likely go mad in the orphanages and end up being another Wozzeck. The music to this is very Romantic in character; all the themes from the opera end up in it somewhere, and is one of the few explicitly tonal sections of this work. I would almost say it's my favorite section of the entire work.
Conclusions:
I firmly believe this opera is a culmination of all of Berg's progress as a composer since the beginning of his apprenticeship. The opening scene (not included here) brings to mind the pert music of his String Quartet Op. 3, the first excerpt the impressionist emotional world of the first of the Three Orchestral Pieces, Op. 6. The drowning scene very much evokes the odd textures of the Altenberg Lieder, Op. 4. And the final interlude is just as powerful and evokative as the second two Orchestral pieces, Op. 6. This is an essential work for anybody who wants to understand 20th century vocal music, or has enjoyed Porgy and Bess, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Peter Grimes, Death in Venice, and even West Side Story or Sweeney Todd. Each of them owes a large debt to the magnificent music of Alban Berg's Wozzeck.
Recommended reading, in order of accessibility to those who aren't professors in music theory:
The Rest is Noise, by Alex Ross
A Guide to Alban Berg's Opera Wozzeck, by Dr, Willi Reich
The Operas of Alban Berg: Wozzeck, by George Perle
Rachmaninoff - Suite for two pianos, no.1, op.5, III, Tears (Brigitte Engerer, Boris Berezovsky)
It's been ages since I met Rachmaninoff, I used to think I had listened all of his works but still I sometimes think I never knew him. Every day, I discover his music again and again, I come across some of his compositions which I have never listened and which I am suprised not to have already discovered. Maybe Rachmaninoff takes his power from the fact that he never ceases to surprise, maybe this is the thing an artist should be able to do.
This piece is one of the most passionate works of him which is at the same time one of the reasons of my astonishment.
