Sideways Station

Uruku Tumi Gushiku

This piece is from the album "Jin Jin / Firefly" by Takashi Hirayasu and Bob Brozman. It always makes me smile. It is also good to listen to when you need to get up and deal with a task you have been putting off for a while.

If vegetables be the food of music

I had bought lots of vegetables to make minestrone tonight but then I came across this video:

So now I have got my tools out and am making my own orchestra. One can always cook the vegetables afterwards (and maybe the soup will taste better after you have played some Haydn or Mozart - that's just an idea, I am not sure who the tastiest musicians are yet).

You can check to see whether the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra is coming your way at their website. From the reviews I have read, it would seem that this orchestra also has a distinctive smell.

Vienna has an outstanding musical tradition, of course, but I honestly think it should be possible to have an even more exciting vegetable orchestra in Palermo or Istanbul, because the vegetables there are so much better.Then, when you have done the washing up, here is a bagpipe you can make with your rubber gloves:

And, if you only have one carrot in the fridge, here is a clarinet you can make:

More instruments you can make from pieces of your house at www.linseypollak.com

(By the way, ask 30 people how to make minestrone and you will get 40 different answers. I like it the way they do it in Genoa, with pesto stirred in at the end. Here are a couple of approximations Number one and Number two. Any minestrone is better the next day (but put the pesto in just before you eat it). When you think you have got the hang of it, go to Genoa and learn how to really make it.

Handelitis and The-sun-is-shining Road

Every now and then I have an attack of musical fever and have to listen to a piece of music a hundred and thirty-seven times in a row. Examples of past episodes are Dylan singing Blind Willie McTell, Carlos Gardel singing Milonga Sentimental, Tupelo Honey sung by Cassandra Wilson as well as Uri Caine and Paolo Fresu performing Si dolce è il tormento.

Sometimes I get a more serious case and I want to listen to everything a peformer ever played or sung or a composer ever wrote. The most recent occurrence was an attack of Handelitis. Hepatitis has various forms: A, B and C. So does Handelitis and I came down with Handelitis O, because I specifically felt a compulsion to attempt to listen to every Opera he had ever written.

It was only in the late 20th Century that Handel's operas began to be performed regularly again, because previously there were so few singers who had been trained so as to be capable of taking on the parts written for castrati.

The explanation generally given for the spread of castrated singers is Paul's injunction in 1 Corinthians that women should be silent in church ("mulieres in ecclesiis taceant" in the Latin Vulgate). As a result women were not allowed to sing in choirs in church. But who was going to sing the top line in the harmony ? For a while boys were used. But as music became increasingly complex it was discovered that boys' voices inconveniently broke before they had time to become proficient enough to master the parts. If they were castrated, they maintained their upper range and also developed the power of adult lungs as they grew. Gradually the demand for castrati increased and families with a talented musical child often found it a good investment for him to undergo an unexpected accident. (Because in most cases these were presented as accidents.(As William A. Frosch puts it in this interesting article: There were a surprising number of children who were attacked by wild swans or geese, gored by wild boars, or who were kicked or fell in ways that damaged or destroyed their testes.)  This all because somebody said women should not be heard in church. It might be worthwhile thinking about this the next time you are on the point of voicing a very strong opinion:  you can never really tell what effect it might have in 1500 years' time.

However one feels about it, it would seem that the castrati had voices of unequalled beauty. (I found one quote according to which, when asked by Pope Paul VI what the Church could do for music, Stravinsky answered "Give us back the castrati".

The most famous of them, Farinelli (real name Carlo Broschi), given the kind of media promotion we have today, would have made many of our superstars look like midgets. After making half of Europe swoon in the theatre, he ended up being employed on an exclusive contract by the Queen of Spain who had come to believe that his voice could cure the severe depression of her husband King Philip V. 

One of my favourite Handel arias, from the opera Ariodante, is generally known as Dopo Notte. It is one of the most rejoiceful pieces of music I know. The text gives the feeling clearly :

Dopo notte atra e funesta, splende in ciel più vago il sole e di gioia empie la terra

(After a black, doom-laden night, the sun shines brighter in the sky and fills the earth with joy.)

This aria was written for a singer called Carestini, who was not far behind Farinelli in terms of fame. (That's his portrait at the top of the post). I decided to find something out about him and was astounded to learn that he was from a place called Filottrano (population 9,449 in 2004). Filottrano is about 25 kilometers from Ancona, a place I have lived in and which I have been going back to all of my life. And yet, I had never heard Carestini mentioned. It seemed to me that since Filottrano can't have that many famous people, the main square must be named after him. But it turns out it isn't. There is no road named after him in the town. I may be wrong but I have searched hard and I have not found one single street in Italy named after one of its famous castrati. "Not one" is, I think, putting it accurately, because I found that half a street had been named after a castrato. In Andria, Farinelli's birthplace, there is a via Carlo e Riccardo Broschi. Riccardo, who he shares the street with, was his brother, a composer and the person most people think was responsible for having Carlo operated on (he had a very promising voice and the family was in financial straits).

I am wondering why there is such reluctance to name streets after these people. When I walk around towns and read the names of the thoroughfares it often occurs to me some of the people in our addresses haven't really done that much to be remembered.  Is it embarrassment about the practice that brings this about ? Or are mayors wary of the inauguration ceremony in which they would have to cut a ribbon with scissors. Perhaps they think it would bring bad luck. (I can think of one politician at least who would be terrified at having a road named after a castrato in his home town). Perhaps we will have to wait for a woman mayor in Filottrano before we have a via Carestini. But I remember that I once wrote something here where I argued against naming streets after famous people. So my suggestion is the following: use some of the words from the wonderful aria written for him, call it via Splendilsole (The-sun-is-shining Road).

At this point, some of you who do not know the aria might like to hear it. There are versions on YouTube which have a much clearer sound, but the one I have chosen, sung by Vivica Genaux, is my personal favourite and I am very grateful to the person who recorded this because the aria, for reasons I can't understand, has not been included on any of her CDs. I have never heard anyone sing it with such ease and accuracy, and her ornamentations in the repeat, the da capo, are amazing. (Anyone who can sing this is outstanding, but most singers have a slight hesitation just before they take on the trickier bits which reminds me of the way horses sometimes hold back a second before jumping a fence in show jumping).
Just so that you can hear what her voice sounds like when you can really hear it, here she is singing Sta nell'Ircana from Alcina.

And finally another aria by Handel which has given other people Handelitis. Lorraine Hunt Lieberson singing As with rosy steps from Theodora, an oratorio which contains what Handel considered to be his best chorus (better than the Hallelujah Chorus). This clip is from a Glyndebourne production which is wonderful from every point of view.

Some final notes: nowadays castrati arias are sung both by women and by men (countertenors) with a equivalent singing range. Both approaches have their supporters.

Vivica Genaux has recorded a CD entitled Arias for Farinelli which contains music composed specifically to show off his vocal abilities.

Philippe Jaroussky, a French countertenor, has recorded a CD entitled Carestini, the story of a castrato. You can see a trailer for the album here.

For the film Farinelli,  an interesting attempt was made to reproduce the possible sound of his voice by merging the sound of a soprano and a countertenor. You can hear a piece of a Handel aria given this treatment here.

But now I must stop before I get a relapse.

Eyes in the City - Kurt Tucholsky

In Edgar Reitz's Second Heimat there is a scene where one of the main characters, Clarissa (Salome Kammer), is singing a song at the piano inside a villa which is full of people milling around. I kept on going back to the scene to watch it again and finally found that the text was a poem by Kurt Tucholsky. The song should be on the Heimat Soundtrack CD but now you can hear it because it has been posted on Youtube. The clip which accompanies it is not from Heimat.

Here is a translation of this beautiful poem into English, followed by the German original. I have taken the translation from this page, which will lead you to lots more information about Tucholsky.

Eyes in the Big City (1930)
by Kurt Tucholsky

When you go to work
early in the morning
when you stand in the station
with all your troubles:
the city shows you
asphalt-smooth
in a funnel of people
a million faces:
Two strange eyes, a quick glance,
the brows, the pupils, the lids -
What was that? Your happiness, perhaps...
gone, passed, no more.

All your life you walk
on a thousand streets;
you see on your way,
those who forgot you.
An eye winks,
the soul rings;
you found it,
only seconds long...
Two strange eyes, a quick glance,
the brows, the pupils, the lids -
What was that? No one turns back the time...
gone, passed, no more.

You're obliged on your way
to wander through cities;
you see for a pulsebeat
the unknown other.
It could be a fiend,
it could be a friend,
or could in the struggle
offer a hand.
A looking over
then passing by...
Two strange eyes, a quick glance,
the brows, the pupils, the lids -
What was that? A piece of grand humanity!
Gone, passed, no more.

Augen in der Großstadt

Wenn du zur Arbeit gehst
am frühen Morgen,
wenn du am Bahnhof stehst
mit deinen Sorgen:
da zeigt die Stadt
dir asphaltglatt
im Menschentrichter
Millionen Gesichter:
Zwei fremde Augen, ein kurzer Blick,
die Braue, Pupillen, die Lider -
Was war das? vielleicht dein Lebensglück...
vorbei, verweht, nie wieder.

Du gehst dein Leben lang
auf tausend Straßen;
du siehst auf deinem Gang, die
dich vergaßen.
Ein Auge winkt,
die Seele klingt;
du hast's gefunden,
nur für Sekunden...
Zwei fremde Augen, ein kurzer Blick,
die Braue, Pupillen, die Lider -
Was war das? Kein Mensch dreht die Zeit zurück...
Vorbei, verweht, nie wieder.

Du mußt auf deinem Gang
durch Städte wandern;
siehst einen Pulsschlag lang
den fremden Andern.
Es kann ein Feind sein,
es kann ein Freund sein,
es kann im Kampfe dein
Genosse sein.
Er sieht hinüber
und zieht vorüber ...
Zwei fremde Augen, ein kurzer Blick,
die Braue, Pupillen, die Lider -
Was war das?
Von der großen Menschheit ein Stück!
Vorbei, verweht, nie wieder.

Dormouse Day Semi-Automatic Sleep Generator

I've moved the Dormouse Day Semi-Automatic Sleep Generator to a page of its own.

Sideways at One

 

Tomorrow 17 February is an important day. And not just because it is the first anniversary of Sideways Station. There are much more important reasons. But I shall get to those later - let us first  consider the first anniversary of Sideways Station. One year ago, I sent the following telegram to my board members.

Dear Board Members,

You may be surprised to learn that you are all Board Members without having sought the position, but that is how life is (you will all be receiving a Deluxe board member's kit containing one paper clip, one rubber band, one button, one length of black thread and one sewing needle). On our last review of the situation at Sideways Station we discovered that: roofing is unfinished, walls leak, pressure of coffee machine in sidebars is rising uncontrollably, station clock is running backwards, platform 4 is overrun by yaks and indigenous people's forum has been convened in main hall blocking access to ticketing machines.
Despite this we have decided to open Sideways to passenger traffic as of Sunday 17th February.

It was certainly not the best way to start, but surprisingly nothing went truly wrong and we have managed to survive 366 days succeeding in publishing 93 posts, not at all bad considering that most of them took thought and time. I have noticed however that very few people ever go and look at the  bottom of that pile and that almost everybody sticks to the most recent articles. So I am going to do two things to encourage people to dig into the contents a bit more deeply - I am going to provide a real index, with some indications of what the articles are about (although in some cases, despite having had a few months to think about it, I still am not sure). Secondly, very gradually, I will be re-posting some of the older articles, perhaps tidying up and improving where possible.

After I sent out the letter to the board, I began to cast around for auspicious omens. I had a look to see whether anything particulalry significant had happened on 17 February. Among the least disastrous events for 17 February, we have : the first ship passes through the Suez Canal (though we are not told which), Madama Butterfly opens at La Scala, the New Yorker magazine is founded, St. Claire of Assisi is declared the patron saint of television, Arcangelo Corelli was born. But this is all overshadowed in my mind by one thing, the reason why it is such an important day : 17 February - Ancient Latvia - Tanis Diena observed. And here is what the sources I have found have to say (and they all say exactly the same thing).

Tanis diena or Teņa diena was a sacred holiday held on February 17. It was held in honor of  pigs. A pig's head was placed atop a stone to protect the people from thunder and lightning. During the day, the townsfolk went to pig pens and sang songs glorifying the fertility of the pig. At lunch, pig's head and feet were eaten, and the remains were buried at the location, where the pigs would be herded the following year. Sewing or other needle-work was strictly prohibited, as was drinking at home. A foggy day was believed to bring floods; a sunny day indicated a good barley crop; a dry day indicated drough, etc. Alternative names include Tuņņa diena, Tenīša drleiena, Cūkaušu diena, and Kunga diena ("Sir's day", "Master's day").

Sideways Station  has combined forces with the Latvian Alpine Academy of Animal Husybandry (home of the famous choir) and the International Pig Appreciation Society to promote the re-discovery of Tanis Diena. Therefore I would encourage you all to locate your nearest pig-sty and gather tomorrow to  sing songs in praise of pig fertility. If you aren't up to date with the best pig songs here are some suggestions for you ( all available from amazoink!).

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you are too stingy even to buy at amazoink!'s very reasonable prices, you can chant this  at least:

The Company he Chooses 

'Twas an evening in November,
As I very well remember,
I was strolling down the street in drunken pride,
But my knees were all a'flutter
So I landed in the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Yes I lay there in the gutter
Thinking thoughts I could not utter,
When a colleen passing by did softly say,
'Ye can tell a man that boozes
By the company he chooses' -
At that, the pig got up and
Walked away.

(Note: due to a printing error one million copies of "A Latvian Tanis Diena" were printed giving the name of the conductor as "Daumants Gallis". As anyone who has even a passing knowledge of the Latvian music scene knows his real name "Daumants GAILIS".)

Improvisation on improvisation in desperation

After a few months of amazed bewilderment, I have finally worked out how to represent the way the recent Republican Vice-Presidential nominee's thought processes and verbiage generation function. Think of a car at speed trying to negotiate a twisting track covered with thick ice. That's it.

This was brought home to me by the following video which features a piano accompaniment which hangs onto the tail of her slithering progress as she explains (perhaps there is need here for a word which is the opposite of explains: - “implains” perhaps or “expalins”) the pros and cons and perhapses and whoopihooes of the bail-out of the financial industry. You can hear clearly illustrated the wheel-slipping, tyre-skidding and tail-spinning going on.

The accompaniment is performed and I suppose devised by Henry Hey. He obviously has great talent. He has a CD out called Watershed. You can hear excerpts from it here.  I thought it deserved a mention while we wait for him to complete a full-scale Oratorio on improvisation in desperation. I have appended a transcript of the lyrics so that you can sing along.

IMPROVISATION IN DESPERATION

Intro (Couric)
...allow them to spend more and put more into the economy instead of helping these
big financial institutions that played a,
a role in creating this mess.

(Palin)

That's why I say I, like
every American I'm speaking with, were ill
about this position that we have been
put in where it is the tax-payers looking to bail out.
But,
ultimately,
what the bail-out does is
help those
who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed
to help shore up our economy...um...
helping the ...
oh!... it's got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and
putting it back on the right track
so health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to
accompany tax reductions and tax relief
for Americans.
And trade –
we've got to see trade as opportunity and not as
a, a competitive, um, scary thing,
but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today,
we've got to look at that as more opportunity.
All those things under the umbrella of
job creation –
this bail-out is a part of
that.

Music for eating peaches to (and papayas and mangosteens as well)

Unfortunately, I know next to nothing about Vietnam and even less about Vietnamese music, but I have been wanting to share my appreciation of Huong Thanh ever since I heard her cd Mangustao. In it she blends Vietnamese music with jazz in a way which joins hands surprisingly. There is a lilt in her singing which reminds me of some of the creatures which you see in an aquarium which suddenly flick their tails to move along unexpectedly or else makes me think that the line of music is walking along a plank or springboard which suddenly bounces back up when you reach the end of it. Here is a sample of her singing (unfortunately not from Mangustao) and here is her web page (not easy to navigate, you have to click on that little rectangle in the middle to open up the menu) which plays another piece of music. As I listened to this second piece of music I went to get myself a peach and sat down to peel and eat it. After a while I realised that I was cutting and eating with special attention and enjoyment. I had always known there was music for marching and there is music I put on which makes cleaning easier and there is music which helps to wind down and clear your mind and music to give you drive, but I had never realised there was music for eating fruit. It put me in mind of the Vietnamese film the scent of the Green Papaya where cutting fruit and vegetables always seems to be an ecstatic experience. I was so caught up by the peach and the sound that I didn't realise that the music was a loop which went round and round in circles. Luckily it was a peach and not a water melon and it only took me ten minutes to finish it and come out of my dream.

Here is a piece from the Scent of the Green Papaya which features an actual green papaya.

 

Tossing salt peanuts into the air for free - Steve Coleman

In these times, people are  busy inventing ways to sell things or bits of themselves nobody should need to want and half the economy seems to be driven by packaged zilch. I recently saw that there is a company selling bottled water in the United States which freely admits on the label that it is Texan municipal water (and think of how many there are that don't own up to where theirs comes from). Then there was the guy who sold his life on E-bay. I have a clear vision of a world a few years down the line where we are all going to be paid to wear T-shirts which advertise brands (although I suppose it is an improvement on us gleefully paying money for the privilege of wearing T-shirts which advertise brands). We will also find it normal to earn money by slipping slogans and catchphrases  into our conversations and naming our children after household products.

So you think you must have a case of fulminating dyslexia when you come across someone like a brilliant musician like Steve Coleman who writes :   "Why should everything always cost something?  For me music is organized sound that can be used as sonic symbols to communicate ideas.  Since my main goal is the communication of these ideas to the people, then why not provide this music for free and thereby facilitating the distribution of this music to the people. […] My reasons for providing free music comes from my belief that musical ideas should not be owned by anyone.  I believe that ideas should be free for anyone to use (but not to necessarily sell to others or make others pay for the use of these ideas)."

Yes, he is giving his music away. You can download several of his recordings from his website here. I recommend Def Trance Beat, which I actually bought in a shop after having heard him perform in a park on a hot summer's night a few years ago. You can read more about his thoughts on making his music freely available here. And if you want to hear what he sounds like without going anywhere yet, here he is playing Salt Peanuts.

Steve Coleman and Five Elements - Salt Peanuts

Old Shanghai and Three Places in New England

 

Cantonese Olive Seller

 

In old Shanghai, not only could one find all kinds of delicacies on the streets but the countless vendors all had their own special local colour. The ones from Shandong sold steamed buns, those from Northern Jiangsu "tiger paws" and "sesame seed rolls",  the locals plied sugar plums and the Cantonese olives and water chestnut flour cakes or linggao. Of all these hawkers the ones which stood out most were the olive sellers. They wore a big bag across their shoulders, which in itself was nothing special, but on the other hand the Erhu they played was very peculiar. Why? The belly of the instrument was twice as big as normal Erhu. It was made from a petrol can. Because of this, the seller could not get any complex sounds out of his instrument but only a KANG KANG LI KE KANG KANG sound. The monotonous music was certainly not easy on the ears, but it had a distinct flavour of the Yue country.

(Translated from cent vieux metiers du vieux shanghai by He Youzhi, editions de l'an 2). This book actually has 90 drawings by the artist and short texts describing the trades of old Shanghai. I have a distinct memory of bad erhu playing and I can summon it up if I imagine someone trying to play an irascible cat with a bow.  Once I convinced some people to go to Beijing's Temple of Heaven at 7 in the morning. We went past the people doing ballroom dancing in the open and one of my friends exclaimed "Wonderful!", we saw all the kites being flow in front of the temple (I particularly liked one which represented an octopus) and again he said "Wonderful!", we went past the people doing taiqi with swords, another "Wonderful!". And then we came to another place and he exclaimed "What a nightmare!". It was an enclosure about the size of a small room where a dozen or so men were playing jinghu's or erhu's . The thing was each one was playing a different tune. Personally, I found it quite appealing. The American composer Charles Ives had a father who performed musical experiments, one of which was to have two bands playing different tunes march around in circles in opposite directions to investigate the effect it would make when they crossed. This is supposed to be one of the major influences on Ives' music and in Three Places in New England there is a part where he reproduces this effect. Think of what his music might have been like if his father had been able to take him on an early  morning stroll around the Temple of Heaven.

Perhaps in twenty years' time there will be a Chinese composer who  will write a piece for thirteen soloists each performing a different tune. If you hear it you'll know where they got the idea.