Helsinki Philharmonic under Saraste play a Sibelius programme

 

Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic orchestra in a program devoted to the music of Sibelius. Now a Finnish conductor with a Finnish orchestra playing Finnish music might sound like it could turn out to be a cliché. But these people know precisely what they are doing with their national composer. Clearly, the Helsinki Orchestra plays a lot of Sibelius, but they also clearly never tire of the task.

The concert started with a work not published in the program. The previous concert had been cancelled in the aftermath of the devastating floods that had hit the Valencian region. As a mark of respect for those who have suffered, the orchestra opened with the Valse Triste of Sibelius. It was a gesture appreciated by the audience.

The first half of the concert then got underway with Jan Söderblom, the Helsinki Philharmonic leader playing the First Serenade for violin and orchestra, Opus 69a. This is a thoroughly understated work. The Second Serenade, more substantial and more musically interesting came third on the program with Jan Söderblom again as soloist.

In between, the orchestra’s principal flute, Niamh McKenna, was soloist in the Nocturne No.3 from Sibelius’s incidental music to Belshazzar’s Feast. So it was with these three short pieces, featuring solo violin, flute, and then violin again that the concert started. If I have a criticism, which I accept is the level of nitpicking, I would suggest that these three pieces should have been presented with the flute first or last, allowing the two serenades to be played back-to-back. It was in this form that the Helsinki orchestra premiered in 1915, a concert which also featured the original version of the fifth symphony.

The performance of Finlandia that followed saw several extra musicians take to the stage and the familiar cords did ring out. Finlandia is a thoroughly moving experience and no matter how many times it is played, it always has a rousing effect on an audience. This was no exception.

The second half was taken with a performance of the Fifth Symphony, though in its revised version, not the original of 1915, which is never now played. And the fifth is perhaps the composer’s most popular work, alongside the Violin Concerto. With such a well-known work, it would be easy to fall into the trap of mouthing platitudes, but this performance was anything but that. The music was fresh, as fresh as Sibelius himself would have wanted when he said that whereas modern composers were offering up cocktails, he only wanted fresh spring water. The music was both clear and refreshing.

There was also an encore, the Alla Marcha from the Karelia, which needed even more musicians on stage

Shunta Morimoto at the Denia International Piano Festival in Bach, Chopin and Liszt

 

I don’t normally write detailed reviews of chamber music concerts. It’s not because they often aren’t memorable, it’s just that I tend to go to so many of them, it’s often hard to keep up with the writing! This lack of motivation to put pen paper is especially marked when the repertoire on offer is very much standard, comprising often performed works that frankly I have heard many times. It’s not that familiarity breeds contempt. It’s just that what does one say about another fairly standard performance of a standard work, albeit that both the work and the performance are superb? Nearly all the performances I have heard over the years are wholly competent, with one or two exceptions, but it becomes hard to say anything new about them. So what is it about a concert that featured J. S. Bach’s French Suite No. 6 BWV 817, Chopin’s Opus 28 Preludes and Liszt’s Dante Sonata that has provoked me to write? Answer: the performer and the performance. Both were outstanding.

Shunta Morimoto is a young Japanese pianist. He was 19 when he won the Concurso de Piano Gonzalo Soriano in Alicante in April 2024. The competition is organized by Ars Alta Cultural in conjunction with Conservatorio Profesional de Música, Guitarrista José Tomás and this year there were over 100 entrants, with half of them competing in level D, the section for adults, whose age rage was from 18 to 32. Shunta Morimoto, therefore, was at the younger end of the range, and he was the youngest of the finalists. I have been listening to music intently for about 60 years. But I knew from the moment Shunta Morimoto depressed a key in that room in April that he would win the competition and, furthermore, that I was about to witness something wholly special. Put simply, Shunta Morimoto is a genius.

Part of the prize for winning the Gonzalo Soriano competition was to appear in the Ars Alta Cultural concert series in Denia at the end of 2024 and that concert, part of the Denia International Piano Festival, was last night. Shunta Morimoto offered the program mentioned above and, for perhaps the first time in thousands of concerts and recitals that I have attended, I can report that not one of the 110 or so people in the audience made a single sound, apart from applause, of course, throughout the one and a half hours of music. There was no interval, but amongst the audience, silence ruled, so utterly wrapt was everyone in what they heard.

It is hard to describe in words what is so compelling about this young man’s playing. The moment you hear the music, it is obvious, but written words have to be read, not heard. Many pianists use bravura, strength and volume to impress. Many play as fast as possible. Shunta Morimoto can offer bravura, the spectacular and the speedy. But above all what he can do is communicate via the music and it is this speaking, apparently directly to an audience without the need of words that is utterly captivating, even arresting.

Every phrase of every piece he played last night was shaped, thought through to make musical sense. At times, he played so softly the music was barely audible, but every note was there, every gesture was clear, every phrase fit perfectly with the musical argument he presented. Even the silences he interspersed for effect were listened to intently by a thoroughly captivated audience.

Chopin’s Opus 28 Preludes, perhaps, was never intended to be played as a single work. But in the right hands, even a composer’s lack of vision can be straightened. I am reminded of a performance about 30 years ago when Murray McLachlan played all the Etudes of Chopin end to end, Opus 25 followed by Opus 10. He was clear that it would not the other way round. I have never forgotten that performance on a baby grand Kawai in a Brunei Hotel. Last night, Shunta Morimoto knew that the Opus 28 Preludes could be played as a single work, and he was right. He succeeded completely.

The Liszt that followed, of course, was breathtaking. In any hands, this Dante Sonata is a real monster, requiring all the skills that a pianist can possibly muster to bring it off. Not only did Shunta Morimoto succeed, but he appeared to bring a new dimension to the work by shaping the quieter sections so finely and so eloquently. Earlier in the day, I had listened to two other performances, by Paul Lewis and Alfred Brendel, so the work was already in my head. Shunta Morimoto’s rendition made me feel like I was hearing it for the first time, so surprising did I find his nuances of interpretation. It was totally recognisable, but totally new at the same time. What a performance!

After a wholly spontaneous standing ovation, he offered the Chopin Barcarole as a substantial encore. Shunta Morimoto, for sure, is a unique talent. He surely has a stellar career ahead of him, and richly deserved. Special.

Shunta Morimoto plays in Denia, 7 November 2024, 8pm, Teatro Centro Social

 

Mahler Seven by the Tonhalle Zurich under Paavo Jarvi in ADDA Alicante

A concert program that devotes 77 minutes to a single work is not commonly encountered. Yes, there are the symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner and Shostakovich, but what else would commonly occupy such a length of time? It was with some excitement that this big event was anticipated.

The bill was, without question, up to the challenge. Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra is certainly one of the world’s leading orchestras, and Paavo Järvi’s name could not be bigger in the world of conducting. This particular Mahler Symphony, number seven, is one that I last heard in live performance in a concert over fifty years ago on London’s South Bank. So even the torrential rain in Alicante that surrounded this evening could not damp the enthusiastic anticipation.

Well, did the evening live up to the expectation? Of course it did. The performance was faultless, even brilliant at times, even if it could be argued the Paavo Järvi’s tempo in the faster sections of the first movement could have been a little faster. The overall impression, however, was that the contrasted were stark but never grotesque. This is truly sophisticated music that almost constantly surprises the listener, and it must be expertly played to make sense. The Tonhalle Orchestra took every challenge in its substantial stride and in this variation-like movement, one could not even hear the joins.

Mahler 7 is a groundbreaking symphony in many ways, not least in its structure. A first movement that is alternatively fast and then reflective lasts for 22 minutes. Its loose variation form revisits the same material, but Mahler’s imagination keeps the sound fresh throughout, never in the slightest repetitive. The central section of the movement, that momentary vision of marital bliss, does eventually disintegrate to chaos.

The finale is Mahler perhaps at his most optimistic. The movement seems to dance several waltzes along the way, but overall the feeling is that everyone is having a good time, even though the dance may seem to have a strange shape here and there.

The central scherzo is a very strange experience. Mahler more often than not uses the scherzo to be loud, abrasive, even cynical. But in the seventh, it seems more like a bad dream half-remembered. In between two movements, entitled Night Music, it sounds as if the composer was trying to get to sleep, then nodded off for a short time and dreamt, and then woke up before dawn to lie awake again. The night music movements are perhaps stranger than the scherzo, given their placement after a grand opening and before a triumph for conclusion. Overall, Mahler’s seventh seems like an inverted arch, with a keystone sticking up annoyingly in the middle to stop listeners from sliding down or up.

On a thoroughly successful evening, when the concert received rapturous applause from its audience, I find the need again to praise the ADDA audience for being such wonderful listeners. It’s as if this audience actually absorbs the music.

 

Paquito D'Rivera and Aaron Copland under Jost Vicent in Adda, Alicante

Apparently, this was a program of two halves. Meaningless phrases are always the best openings… On the face of it, the first half of this concert was dedicated to not only the performance skills of a notable Latin-jazz musician, but also featured his composing skills. Paquito D’Rivera was born in 1948 and made his first public performance as a musician between five and six years old. As he explained to the audience before the concert, that meant he was celebrating seventy years on stage.

He also told us that a friend told him a joke about an elephant, and that led to the composition of the piece that opened the concert, The Elephant and the Clown. This orchestral work lasts about eight minutes and features an array of percussion and lines that might be described as jazz riffs played by different sections of the orchestra, especially the strings. This is upbeat, optimistic music, which presents a sophisticated, improvised style to larger forces.

“The Journey”, Rice and Beans Concerto followed. This was utterly original in that it featured a quintet of soloists, playing percussion, piano, cello, harmonica and clarinet, the latter played by the composer himself. This combo of soloists played in concerto fashion alongside the orchestra in the piece that mixed Cuban rhythms with jazz, with classical forms, with African influences, and even the sounds of Chinese music, since one of the piece’s movements was inspired by a visit to a Chinese barrio in Havana. Antonio Serrano played harmonica and Pepe Rivero piano. Yuvisney Aguilar clearly had wonderful time on percussion, while Guillame Latil made light of an incredibly demanding and significant cello part, originally played in the work’s premiere by Yo-Yo Ma.

Overall, the three sections Beans, Rice, and The Journey made a spectacular impression on the audience, with again apparent jazz riffs regularly racing through the scoring. But this was not “light” music. There are really challenging sounds in this score, and many quotational references, both thematically and texturally to the concert hall repertoire of the twentieth century.

An encore was inevitable. Another short orchestral piece by Paquito D’Rivera filled the bill perfectly. Personally, I have never heard his music before this concert and this experience will surely have me thoroughly explore his works.

The other half of the contrast, in theory, came in the shape of the Symphony No. 3 of Aaron Copland. Could this be further from the riffs and improvisatory style of the first half? Surely this is one of the twentieth century’s major works…

And it was here that the stroke of Josep Vicent’s artistic direction emerged, because repeatedly in this score Aaron Copeland uses jazz like patterns in the strings. They are not as fast, not as advertently virtuosic as those that Paquito D’Rivera had written, but they were there. And, well, Paquito D’Rivera might be a Cuban, but he has spent much of his artistic life in the USA, effectively importing an émigré style and presenting it to an American audience. But we must remind ourselves that Aaron Copland’s family were themselves emigres from Russia. So this quintessentially American music might just have its roots elsewhere!

Copland’s Third Symphony is itself an optimistic affirmation of individuality. Just like jazz. And by the time the theme of The Fanfare for the Common Man appeared in the last movement, having been regularly suggested throughout the previous three, the effect is totally symphonic. The music seems to grow, with an idea that is bigger than its own sound.

But it is never secure in its affirmation. Modal harmonies see to that, always suggesting a major key, but always refusing to forget the possibility of the minor. There is always somewhere else in mind. Both Aaron Copland and Paquito D’Rivera remind us that we are all in the mix together, influenced by many cultures and sharing the same world.

Shostakovich’s Waltz from the Jazz Suites came as an encore. Its surreal use of a minor key for the dance’s main theme always surprises. Paquito D’Rivera also felt a certain surprise when the second encore offered Happy Birthday to him to celebrate his seventy years on stage.

Programa de mano Denia 3 oct 2024

Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

This is a masterpiece of story-telling. It is short - about 130 pages - and tells the tale of a man living an isolated life in New England. The time is not specific, but the feel is always contemporary with the date of publication, which was 1911. The narrator met Ethan Frome in Starkfield, Massachusetts and immediately his countenance made its impression. He is described as already looking “as if he was dead and in hell.” The narrator sets about telling the story of Ethan Frome, a story that apparently is hard to extract from the laconic people who inhabit this part of New England. The structure of the novel, we are told, reflects this local habit, but by the time we are half way through, the reticence seems to have eased.

Starkfield is a harsh place. Winters are particularly difficult, and people measure lifespan by the number of winters they have survived. This is not a sociable community, we are told, and people live isolated lives. It is an isolation that in some ways is dictated by their environment. “Beyond the orchard lay a field or two, the boundaries lost under drifts; and above the fields, huddled against the white immensities of land and sky, one of those lonely New England farmhouses that make the landscape lonelier.” It is thus a place where the distance between people renders everything lonelier.

Ethan Frome has a sick wife. She needs a home help, live-in assistance. Mattie Silver is hired. She is young, full of life and frankly not much of a help. She is a relative of Ethan Frome’s wife, Zelda, and so is tolerated. Ethan is attracted. Mattie changes his life.

What happens is so important to the story that how it happens cannot be described. Let it be said that what appears to be a simple love triangle does not turn out to be so. Though reticent, these people live charged emotional lives and conflict is never far removed from the cold. 

Edith Wharton’s prose is wonderfully evocative of this isolated and inward-looking community. In her fiction, she is generally an urban creature, wandering the society events of New York, describing the nuances of class politics among the well-to-do. The fact that in Ethan Frome she inhabits a quite different environment with fundamentally different people living different lives is testament to her skill as a writer.

Dialogues and Natural History of Religion by David Hume

These extracts from the writings of David Hume concentrate on his views on religious belief. The Dialogues are clearly inspired by the writings of Plato in that, at least ostensibly, they are arranged as a discussion between three people of differing views. The Natural History Of Religion, on the other hand, is a more conventional analysis of several aspects of belief.

As ever, David Hume comes across as a logical positivist of the eighteenth century. For him, it seems that there are three possible positions to take on any natural phenomenon, belief or custom. First, something may be known. Where science has trod, where theory has been discussed and where findings have been demonstrated and then reproduced, Hume will admit no deviation of interpretation. Everything else is folly. Secondly, something may be widely assumed but as yet it remains unproven. Though he regularly alludes to such phenomena, he actually rarely analyses consequences of taking a particular standpoint, or pronounces on whether such things, perhaps at a later date, might become known. Throughout his pronouncements on such topics, he reveals himself to be as unquestioning of his assumed culture as anyone who espouses religion. An illustration of this tendency would be his regular reference to “savages”, people who don’t really qualify as human beings. These beings tend to live in Africa, in “jungles” or even in Asia. These are, of course, my own tongue-in-cheek words. He does not question the labels he uses, or their existence as such. But he repeats the position and clearly sees no reason to question it, despite the fact that it is not a “known” fact, in terms of there existing any kind of proof – or, for that matter, even evidence.

The third category in Hume’s thought relates to things that are unknown. Not only do these phenomena exist outside his concept of science in that they cannot be tested, but also, they defy description in a way that human beings can comprehend them. It is in this third category, the unknown, that human beings find fertile ground for their pronouncements of religion.

What is known is adequately described by this passage: “if the cause be known only by the effect, we never ought to describe to it any qualities beyond what our precise the requisite to produce the effect: nor can we, by any rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause, and other effects from it, beyond those by which alone it is known to us.” Here the process of scientific inference is raised to the status of a rational god, perhaps. But it is rational…

What is assumed but not proven is illustrated by this assertion: “I am sensible, that, according to the past experience of mankind, friendship is the chief joy of human life, and moderation the only source of tranquility and happiness. I never balance between the virtuous and the vicious course of life; but I’m sensible, that, to a well-disposed mind, every advantage is on the side of the former.” The assertion exists because he believes it, and can cite evidence, but he does not have proof. But equally he does not admit belief, believing that at some point the quality may be tested and proven, perhaps.

What is unknown, outside of human inference facilitated by a scientific method, then becomes explained by speculation, or invention. Human beings hold up a mirror to the universe, and in its see themselves and interpret phenomena beyond their understanding as mere aspects of themselves. “…there is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every object, those qualities with which they are familiar acquainted, and of which they are intimately conscious. We find human faces in the moon, arm is in the clouds; and buy a natural propensity, if not corrected by experience and reflection, ascribe, malice, or goodwill to everything, that hurts or pleases us. Hence the frequency and beauty of […] poetry; where trees, mountains and streams are personified, and the inanimate parts of nature, acquire sentiment and passion. although these poetical figures and expressions gain not on the belief, they may serve, at least, to prove a certain tendency in the imagination, without which they could neither be beautiful nor natural… philosophers cannot entirely exempt themselves from this natural frailty, but have often described it to inanimate matter the horror of a vacuum […] and sympathies, and other affections of human nature. The absurdity is not less, while we cast our eyes upwards; and transferring, as is to usual, human passions, and infirmities to the deity, representing him as a jealous as jealous and revengeful, capricious and partial, and, in short, a wicked and foolish man, in every respect, but his superior power and authority.”

Personally, I have often wondered why, given our knowledge of the universe and our place within it, why the religious continue to use personal pronouns and human labels to refer to gods. “He, Father, Lord” are common: “it” and “thing” are not. In a reconstructed terminology, “The Lord is my Shepherd” would thus become “It is a thing”. Without the completely human dimension, the phrase becomes meaningless. With the human dimension raised to a status of essential, the phrase no longer describes anything that might not be earth-bound.

Hume expands on this elsewhere: “…the great source of our mistake in this subject, and of the unbounded license of conjecture, which we indulge, is, that we consider ourselves, as in the place of the Supreme Being, and conclude, that he will, on every occasion, observe the same conduct […] in his situation, would have embraced as reasonable and eligible. But, besides that the ordinary course of nature may convince us that almost everything is regulated by principles and maxims very different from ours, besides this, I say, it must evidently appear contrary to all rules of analogy to reason, from the intentions and projects of men, to those of Being so different, and so much superior.” He also equates the tendency to adopt religious believe to ignorance: “…it seems certain, that, according to the natural progress of human thought, the ignorant multitude must first entertain some groveling and familiar notion of superior powers, before they stretch the conception to that perfect Being, will be stowed order on the whole frame of nature.” He does however admit that there are possibilities for the committed: “A little philosophy, says Lord Bacon, makes men atheists: a great deal reconciles them to religion.”

Dialogues and Natural History of Religion are a superb illustration of what drove David Hume towards his eighteenth-century version of logical positivism. They come here with copious notes, where the numerous classical illusions are clarified, and where the author’s references to contemporary writers and texts, now forgotten, are referenced.

I do, however, find the format of the Dialogues gets in the way of the argument. I realize that Hume wanted to emulate the form of such writings as Plato’s Symposium, but here the structure becomes an imposition on the reader. There is no obvious stylistic difference between the three characters involved in this argument, so it is often confusing for the reader. This apart, the essays are a wonderfully enlightening read, even though they may present what, for some, may be a tough encounter with reality

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

 

Ian McEwan’s novel The Children Act is probably as close to the label masterpiece as any piece of fiction might get. Having just read David Hume’s ideas on religion, where the all-powerful takes on a human face, where rational thought is raised the status of an ivory tower, and where human prejudice regularly masquerades as potentially rational opinion, this novel provided a perfect fit to counterbalance and contextualise continued thought about these fundamental issues.

The novel immediately introduces Fiona. She is married, her adopted surname of Maye appearing sometime later. She is a judge. She has risen to a significant pinnacle within her profession. Married to Jack, for who knows how long, she shares a relationship which is both childless and lately unsteady, largely because Fiona’s work seems to take over her life.

She is very thorough. The law requires judgments to be correct, justifiable within the confines of the law, itself, especially in the UK according to precedent, but they must also at least approach the concept of natural justice, in that they must at least appear to be morally as well as legally justifiable. The process of reconciling these two demands often results in conflict. Complication arises when the subject of the legal action is a child, because, when that child is below the age of majority, eighteen years of age, the child is not deemed mature or responsibly enough to make up its own mind.

Fiona specializes in cases involving children. These may be to determine custody after divorce, protection against a malevolent parent or merely an absent one. They may involve a care order, where a child is judged to need the safety or stability of institutional care when parents are abusive, drug addicted, negligent, alcoholic, or merely absent. The issues may be fairly clear, but nothing is more complicated than human relationships. And even when these are simple, we seek to complicate them. But when seventeen-year-old is the subject of legal action, the situation is more complex. Especially when religion has reared its complicated head…

Adam has leukaemia and needs a blood transfusion. Without it, his chances of survival are limited because the drugs that form half of his treatment only work if a transfusion is carried out. Alan, like his parents, however, is a Jehovah’s Witness, to whom blood transfusions are anathema, simply not allowed. The question for Fiona to judge upon is whether the child can refuse treatment, whether his parents are denying him a chance of life for ideological reasons and whether the professionals involved should countermand the parents’ and the patient’s wishes. Fiona decides to visit Adam in hospital to inform her position. This happens against the backdrop of her own marriage failing, her husband walking out and an approaching eighteenth birthday for Adam, meaning that then he will be able to decide for himself what happens. She finds Adam interesting. Adam finds Fiona slightly more than captivating.

What happens is the book’s plot, and a reader will just have to discover it by reading the book. What I can write to conclude my review is the fact that these issues of the correctness or rationality or otherwise of belief come into sharp focus when ideology becomes a life and death issue. And Ian McEwan deals with these issues in a highly complex and transparent manner, which is also highly creative. What will always be dilemmas without resolution are presented as such, but somehow, they are never complicated. Decisions taken always seem justified by circumstance. What people do scene by scene makes sense, but then overall everything is driven by the moment, by assumption and by personal identity that we cannot control, because it grows within us, apparently independently. Fiona approaches every situation with a judge’s eye for the law, with an eye for accuracy and correctness. Internally, she reveals herself as vulnerable, open to instinctive and irrational thoughts.

What Ian McEwan does is portray character supremely well, providing a balance between the professional, the personal, and the social elements that contribute to make a human being. David Hume’s quote from Bacon really does ring true, that when we become really involved in the issue, then the case for religion strengthens. As for Fiona, life must go on. But how?

ADDA Alicante under Josep Vicent begin a new season with Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

 

Anton Bruckner was born in 1824, meaning this year is his bicentenary. In recognition of this, the new season of Alicante concerts opened with a performance of his Seventh Symphony by the ADDA orchestra under the artistic director, Josep Vicent.

This is a mammoth work that lasts over an hour. The first two movements alone exceeded forty minutes. As a result, as with this evening, it is often played alone, with no other work either before or after it to offer musical contrast. With such immersion, an audience ought to feel bathed in the musical style to such an extent that the experience is all enveloping.

But nothing involving Anton Buckner is ever that that simple. He was a paradoxically simple man, yet simultaneously outrageously complex. Deeply religious, but with an often-expressed passion – unrealised - for young girls, he seemed to offer up to the world a riddle that could never be solved. A professor in Vienna and a teacher of many years, he never attained sufficient confidence in his own abilities to finish definitively most of his works. Near constant revision, often prompted by the lukewarm praise of others, left multiple versions of many of his works. This can give much scope for conductors to pick and choose, to incorporate this revision or ignore another. Definitive Bruckner is an oxymoron.

And with the work of Anton Bruckner, no one is going to notice very much, given that by design the music often swerves, changes direction or delights in apparent non sequiturs quite often. Bulow described the composer as “half genius, half simpleton” and he had the reputation, even in society events, of turning up dressed like a peasant. He was an enigma, was overtly sensuous with the sound of his music, but deeply religious, and lived, generally speaking, the life of an ascetic. His express motivation was to write music to celebrate the glory of God, in both scale and depth.

The ADDA programme notes quoted Wilhelm Furtwangler saying that Bruckner composed Gothic music that had mistakenly been transplanted into the nineteenth century. Stylistically, the music is far from Gothic, but perhaps its architecture is not. Personally, I would go as far as describing the symphonies as cathedrals, where the parts only come together when the whole is considered from afar. There are no grab quotes from these symphonies, except perhaps in the scherzi, and even these are heavy on process rather than melody.

A possible problem with the cathedral analogy is perhaps that the composer had forgotten to include a door. It is possible to experience this music and feel permanently shut out. Yes, the edifice is impressive. Yes, it towers above us. But does it ever reveal its interior?

Having discussed the work, what about the performance? Well, it was faultless, committed, subtle, and even communicative. The Wagner tubas did not play a wrong note all evening, which is rarely the case with this notoriously mind-of-its-own instrument. Their sound, booming and enveloping, when added to a full orchestra created a special world, which the audience eagerly inhabited.

Josep Vicent drew every morsel of texture from the score and the resulting detail, even within the tutti, was simply vivid. In recognition of the work’s dedication to Ludwig II of Bavaria. The concert bore the subtitle “Legend of the mad king”. It wasn’t a legend, but it was a great start to a new season.

The Stories of Eva Luna by Isabel Allende

 

In The Stories of Eva Luna, Isabel Allende presents a collection of stories ostensibly told by Ralph Carlé’s partner. Ralph is a television journalist and features in the last story of the set when he tries to free a young girl trapped by mud after a landslide.

Before the prologue in which Ralph Carlé asks to be told stories, Isabel Allende refers to Sheherezade of Arabian Nights fame. Her task was to keep the Grand Vizier entertained all night until dawn so that she might survive the telling, unlike all who had previously been similarly tasked. A footnote informs the reader that Sheherezade did indeed succeed in her quest. “At this moment in her story, Sheherezade saw the first light of dawn, and discreetly fell silent.” This surely implies that a woman with a gift of language might just escape the nightly attentions of a man. Such attentions feature large throughout the The Stories of Eva Luna and all the usual and perhaps inevitable consequences follow to form the central focus of almost every one of these tales.

These stories are written in the magical realism style of much Latin American fiction. The language is quite dense, but often not as dense as the fusillade of events that attach themselves to the lives of these people in this provincial, quiet and often rather boring town. The lives described in the stories, however, are surely never dull. Indeed, so full of detail are they that these short stories would be difficult to digest as suggested over a single night.

Try, for instance, this passage about an English couple. “The large headquarters of Sheepbreeders Ltd rose up from the sterile plane like a forgotten cake; it was surrounded by an absurd lawn and defended against the depredations of the climate by the superintendent’s wife, who could not resign herself to live outside the heart of the British Empire and continued to dress for solitary dinners with her husband, a phlegmatic gentleman buried beneath his pride in obsolete traditions.” There are many who might understand something general in this particular description.

I read these stories in a first English paperback edition, and, it has to be said, there were several misprints. When reading magical realism, however, one is never sure if the misprint might just have been intended. On board ship, for instance, Maria just might have been interested in her desk. “Several days after the tragedy, Maria emerged with unsteady step to take the air on the desk for the first time. It was a warm night, and an unsettling odour of seaweed, shellfish, and sunken ships rose from the ocean, entered her nostrils, and raced through her veins with the effort of an earthquake. She found herself staring at the horizon, her mind a blank and her skin tingling from her heels to the back of her neck, when she heard an insistent whistle; she half-turned and beheld two decks below a dark shadow in the moonlight, signalling into her.”

Local politics aften figures large in the stories. There are corrupt local officials, some honest ones, dictators called benefactors and revolutions, bandits and thieves. There is even a man who maintains his respectability by virtue of the existence of buried gold which, when push comes to shove, is no longer where he put it.

A theme that reemerges several times is the eventual payback by a woman badly treated, misused or merely abused. Some of the twists and turns of plot, nay of lives, are too unexpected to have been imagined. Many of these events would have probably been true, but perhaps not so vividly embroidered. In fact, some of these tales are so densely woven that a reader might want a rest here or there! But they are superb and no doubt better if read in Spanish.

I usually don’t start book reviews with a warning, but this time I have to break the habit of a lifetime and issue one. If you are a Christian, you might find what follows offensive.

The She-Apostle by Glyn Redworth is a tale of self-harm, ideological control, and international terrorism. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, when the book is set, the social medium within which the self-harm of especially young women was perpetrated was the Church. The ideological control in question was also perpetrated by the Church, a control so absolute, misguided and complete that individuals often suffered hallucination as a result of the guilt that was heaped upon them by what they were taught. International terrorism, in the case of The She-Apostle, is manifest in the Gunpowder Plot, when a group of ideologically driven fanatics tried to blow up the entire political leadership of a sovereign state, being England under James the First. If this were a review of a contemporary novel, the fact that it featured self-harm promoted by social media, hallucinations and violence, and international terrorism might be merely par for the course. When, as is the case of Glyn Redworth’s book, it is associated with the life of a seventeenth century saint, it may seem strange. It might just be that little has changed in human society in the intervening four hundred years, except, of course, our appreciation of just how brutal life was at that time.

Doña Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza was born in Extremadura into a Spanish nobility that was enjoying the country’s Golden Age. Colonies overseas were disgorging their riches towards the seat of imperial power, the nobility were gobbling up the proceeds and Spanish priests were at work, saving the souls of a whole continent by converting them to Christianity, whilst at the same time sending them to heaven at the double by infecting them with smallpox, influenza, and typhoid. Europe was riven by ideological differences between Catholics and Protestants that to an outsider seem about as consequential as disagreeing about how many angels would fit on a pinhead. If you are a Christian, I accept, angels matter. If you are not, they don’t exist. The evidence, surely, lies on that side, but whenever did the ideologically committed ever trouble themselves with evidence? Unless, of course, it could be twisted into a case against someone who thought differently from oneself…

Born with several silver spoons already in her mouth, Luisa sought solace in faith. She was regularly abused by her guardian, in the name of God, of course, and regularly harmed herself with instruments of torture. Eventually, she adopted a life of frugality, continued to self-harm, and to pioneer a life of religious devotion that was personal rather than institutionalized. She never became a nun. She also decided to free the English from the manacles of Protestantism and, soon after the armada had failed to do the same by force, moved to England to follow her mission.

Glyn Redworth’s The She-Apostle is more than a biography of Luisa. It perhaps stops short of being a conventional hagiography. The author does describe the personal and societal consequences of Luisa’s campaign to promote Roman Catholicism in Protestant England, but quite often a reader might feel that the author stopped short of delivering the criticisms of her actions that he himself felt. Luisa may indeed have sought martyrdom, but her crime in the end was to steal the remains of already butchered Roman Catholics, put to death by a state that arrogated absolute power because of the terrorism they threatened.

As a reminder, it must be pointed out that the method of choice by which the just imposed their will on dissenters was as follows. “Hung, drawn and quartered” might sound like it might apply to a Spanish ham. But in that age, it meant being hung by the neck until you are almost dead. Then you were cut down and disembowelled, your intestines being trailed onto a fire as you watched. Then your arms, legs and head were cut off and then the final ignominy was that your torso was cut into quarters, each part of you destined for a different resting place. The idea, of course, was ideologically driven in that admission to heaven needed intact remains, so once quartered, a person was to be damned forever.

Louisa, herself, was indeed arrested for stealing the remains of executed Catholics, although she herself died eventually in bed. She wanted to pass on the dried-out flesh and bones of the martyred as relics to consecrate holy places. But she was spared the ignominy of the gallows and axe so there was no obvious martyrdom for her. Glyn Redworth’s book, though superficially adulatory, does give a vivid portrayal of the political and social life of the time, and as such it is worth reading. For a believer, I suppose it provides joyous example of a pious life. For a nonbeliever, like me, it portrays the shockingly violent absurdity of the irrational.

Aaron’s Rod by D H Lawrence

Aaron’s Rod by DH Lawrence is a perplexing novel. It seems to represent two quite different aspects of the writer’s creativity. One side has him reflecting on working class life in the English midlands, whilst in the other he is very much the sophisticated traveller and philosopher. These apparently reflect his own origins and reality. The book’s duality is not surprising, when one considers the fact that the early part of the book dates from 1918 and represents an abandoned project. Only three years later did Lawrence return to the work and write the second, more substantial part.

First, the title needs interpretation. Aaron’s Rod, historically, refers to the sacred staff carried by the brother of Moses. It was Aaron who persuaded the flock to worship the golden calf. The rod was used as both symbol of office, and as a means of summoning spiritual power. In the novel, the term is used to refer to the flute which is played competently and professionally by the principal character, Aaron Sisson. Frankly, and in keeping with Lawrence’s preoccupations, it is also a sexual reference to the character’s maleness.

The first part of the book describes Aaron Sisson’s background, upbringing an early life. Thus, rooted in a working-class English midlands mining town at the turn of the twentieth century, Aaron’s aptitude for music makes him stand out, makes him at least seem to have rebelliousness in him. He marries locally. Children come. Love goes. Perhaps desire dies not, however, as this passage illustrates. “…sometimes when she put down her knitting, or took it up again from the bench beside him, her fingers just touched his thigh, and the fine electricity ran over his body, as if he were a cat tingling at a caress.” He leaves his wife and his home area to travel first to London, then to Italy.

It is in London that he meets Lilly. Lilly is the surname of a man, Rowan Lilly. The character features large throughout the rest of the book and might be seen as expressing some of the writers own ideas. He starts by nursing Aaron and back to health after an illness and then departs on his travels. On his invitation, Aaron follows, despite not having much money. On arrival, he finds that his friend Lilly has absented himself.

Life in London had been interesting, both professionally and socially. Aaron pursued his music and even found time and funds to go to the opera. His working-class origins allowed him to make fun of the audience. “Not being fashionable, they were in the box when the overture began…” As a musician, he explores music that such fashionable audiences might shun. There is evidence that Lawrence intended thus to place Aaron on the outside of ‘middle-class society’. When he is asked, later on, about his musical preferences, Aaron expresses his liking for Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina, which at time of the book’s writing had received only one London production.

Eventually, Aaron ends up in Florence, where the book really comes to life. Aaron is befriended by an upper-class family, and he meets a countess, who has a suppressed love of music. They make music together, without any really real commitment from either of them, except to their individual needs. Having regained contact with Lilly, Aaron and a group of acquaintances analyse their lives, their estrangement from wives they no longer love, from a past that the Great War has seemed to render irrelevant and estranged.

Eventually, an anarchist’s bomb destroys the front of a café where Aaron is seated, taking out the front windows and destroying the coat rack at the entrance., His flute was in the pocket of the coat and is ruined. Aaron himself survives. But what is he now? He is both penniless and his source of employment is destroyed. Where can a man go when his rod is taken from him?

It is the almost constant reference to the effects of the Great War that is the enduring impression of the novel. Unlike many writers, Lawrence does not appear to take sides. He is probably against war, per se, but he does not slip into a common trap of identifying those who benefited from the conflict and contrasting them with those whose lives were destroyed. For Lawrence, it seems, everyone has suffered. War only destroys, as do all acts of violence, as does the final act of violence, perpetrated for political ends. It achieves only destruction. War also changes social relations, as evidence by the passage “…what should you like to drink? Wine? Chianti? Or white wine? Or beer?” The old-fashioned “sir” was dropped. It’s too old-fashioned now, since the war.”

A reader starting Aaron’s Rod must bear in mind that the book’s opening chapters do not reflect where it will take you. Eventually, it is a thoroughly challenging and complete experience for the reader. Its enduring message that the only things that drive human existence are love and power is itself powerful. It is a complex relationship, however, between the two, because to seek love is often to exert power, and that power can often be controlled, but can also be associated with violence, which is only destructive. It is, say several of the characters, a power exerted primarily by women.

Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino by Samuel Butler

In Alps and Sanctuary Samuel Butler walks various alpine passes, visits many small towns and villages, comments on art and architecture, and drinks considerable amounts of wine. The author wrote this travel book in 1882, but this was not an account of a single stay in the region. On the contrary, Samuel Butler regularly makes it clear throughout the text that he is referring to his previous visits to many of the places on his itinerary. He thus records changes in the fabric of the buildings, transformations in the lifestyles of the inhabitants and sometimes refers to memories of those previous trips. This makes the text much more than a simple description of a journey.

But Samuel Butler, like many British authors abroad, cannot resist the occasional pontification. Many of these positions entail the assertion of Protestantism above Catholicism, and here and there the reader can almost feel the author biting his tongue so as not to cause disagreement with an acquaintance.

And what about this for someone who, on the face of it, observes and seeks explanation of natural phenomena? “Reasonable people will look with distrust upon too much reason. The foundations of action lie deeper than reason can reach. They rest on faith – for there is no absolutely certain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than there is an investment for money or security in the daily affairs of life, which is absolutely unimpeachable. The funds are not absolutely safe; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England. A railway journey is not absolutely safe; one person, at least, in several millions gets killed. We invest our money upon faith mainly. We choose our doctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we form concerning his capacity? We choose schools for our children chiefly upon faith. The most important things a man that has are his body, his soul, and his money. It is generally better for him to commit these interests to the care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his own medical man, or invest his money on his own judgment, and this is nothing else that making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, the basis of our action in those respects which touches most nearly.”

Unlike many authors, Samuel Butler regularly alludes to music to provide background, impression, explanation and quality to the experience describes. These are always fully notated and could cause many readers to panic. The author simply assumes that all his readers also read music. In 1882, it might have been true of his largely middle-class readers, who probably had been taught to play the piano from the age of five.

Samuel Butler makes no excuses for his conservatism, nor for his no doubt sincere Christian faith. But for the modern reader, the consequences of his belief structure, formed around the assumptions of Victorian England, might be perceived as stuffy, bigoted or even racist. For instance, he criticizes natural phenomenon phenomena when they refuse to conform to human preconceptions. Birds, for instance, know not one iota of public-school discipline. “People say the nightingale’s song is so beautiful; I am ashamed to own it, but I do not like it. It does not use the diatonic scale. A bird should either make a no attempt to sing in tune, or it should succeed in doing so. Larks are Wordsworth, and as for canaries, I would almost sooner hear a pig having its nose, ringed or the grinding of an axe. Cuckoos are all right; they sing in tune. Rooks are lovely, they do not pretend to tune. Seagulls again, and the plaintiff creatures that pity themselves on moorlands, as the plover and the curlew, or the birds that lift up their voices and cry at eventide when there is an eager air blowing upon the mountains and the last yellow in the sky is fading – I have no words with which to praise the music of these people.”

But it seems that in the 19th century, there already existed British tourists who find themselves less than appreciated at destination, because they take their assumptions with them. In one place, “…there was an old English gentleman at the hotel Riposo who told us that there had been another such festa not many weeks previously, and that he had seen one drunken man there – an Englishman – who kept abusing all he saw and crying out, ‘Manchester is the place for me’.” Samuel Butler largely did the same.

But if anyone chooses to dismiss such procedural niceties of the nineteenth century as old-fashioned nonsense, spare a thought for the fifteenth century inhabitants of the monastery at S. Michele who had to follow the dictates upon their work issued by their boss. These can be found at length in Appendix II of Butler’s work.

A Month in Yorkshire by Walter White

A Month in Yorkshire by Walter White is a superb book. First published in 1861, it was one of the first travel books designed for a new kind of leisure, which we now called tourism. Railways had already been around for long enough for the experience of travelling on them to become commonplace. Here, Walter White regularly uses the train in order to embark on a point-to-point walk, just like a modern fell-walker might do. In this sense, this is unlike the volumes that originated in the experience of the Grand Tour which, as an exercise, produced an experience that was only available to the wealthy. Here we have a least the potential for mass tourism, where the writer even makes recommendations to those readers who might follow his footsteps. Perhaps this is the key. The writer of a Grand Tour was surely most interested in personal responses, whereas Walther White seems to direct the experience towards the reader.

The author starts on the banks of the Humber and then goes up the East Coast as far as the Tees with an occasional trip inland. He then takes in the Pennines up to the borders with modern Cumbria and wanders the Dales. He approaches the industrial West Riding with trepidation, because he is clearly a rural rambler rather than a lover of cities, despite the fact that he himself lives in London. Notwithstanding, there are some truly interesting passages in the book that describe industrial processes in Saltaire, Batley and Sheffield. He does regularly comment on the grime and smoke of the industrial towns, but he is sympathetic to the people who labour in the factories and mills, even though he sometimes finds it hard to communicate with them.

Walter white does have opinions. For instance, he finds Hull dull. “Half a day exploration led me to the conclusion that the most cheerful quarter of Hull is the cemetery.” His view of language north of Coventry is mildly patronizing. Like many English writers, he resorts to gobbledygook in his attempts to render a Yorkshire accent. Such writers, never - I repeat, never! - write “air hair lair” in order to convey the sound of a Lah-Di-Dah “hello”. But they often resort to the most ridiculous spellings to convey what is simply another way to pronounce words in a language that has no concordance between the written and the spoken. The author does, however, offer an interesting and refreshing comparison. “Journeying from Hull to Beverly by market train on the morrow I had ample proof, in the noisy talk of the crowded passengers, that Yorkshire dialect and its peculiar idioms are not ‘rapidly disappearing before the facilities for travel afforded by the railways’. Could I fail to notice what has before struck me, that taken class for class, the people north of Coventry exhibit a rudeness, not to say coarseness of manners, which is rarely seen south of that ancient city. In Staffordshire, within 20 miles of Birmingham, there are districts where baptism, marriage, and other moral and religious observances considered as essentials of Christianity, are as completely disregarded as among the heathen. In some parts of Lancashire and Yorkshire, similar characteristics, prevail; but manners do not necessarily imply loose morality. Generally speaking, the rudeness is a safety-valve that lets off the faults, or seeming faults of character; and I prefer rudeness to that over refinement prevalent in Middlesex, where you may not call things their right names, and where, as a consequence, the sense of what is fraudulent, and criminal, and wicked, has become weakened, because of the very mild and innocent words in which ‘good society’ requires that dishonesty and sin should be spoken of.” The north might be coarse, but the south is dishonest! Things don’t change!

There are some surprises of vocabulary along the way for the modern reader. Did you know, for instance, that a ninnycock was a young lobster? He does, however, find the banter of people in at least one industrial city rather objectionable. “I had often heard that Sheffield is the most foul-mouthed town in the kingdom, and my experience unfortunately adds confirmation. While in the train coming from Barnsley, and in my walks around the town, I heard more filthy and obscene talk than could be heard in Wapping in a year.”

Walter White does largely steer clear of British supremacy and racism. He does, however, make some things clear. On Wickliffe’s Bible, for instance, he praises the translator as one who “opened men’s hearts and eyes to see and understand the truth in its purity; cleansed from the adulteration of priestcraft; stripped of all the blinding cheats of papistry”. He also has time for Puritans, as he makes clear in a description of Haworth where “…the church is ugly enough to have had a Puritan for an architect”. On his walks he regularly sups ale in public houses and is not a fan of the temperance movement. “…in my wanderings, I have sometimes had the curiosity to try the Temperance Hotel, and always repented it, because experience showed the temperance meant poor diet, stingy appliances, and slovenly accommodations”.

But Walter White is real traveller. Thought he does prefer to wallow in the poetic Romanticism of an England perhaps already gone, his respect for working people is such that he finds things and people of interest wherever he lands. True experience, however, is by brook or fall. “Let me sit for an hour by the side of a fall, and watch the swift play of the water, and here it’s ceaseless, splash and roar, and whatever cobwebs may have gathered in my mind, from whatever cause, our sweat clean away.”

Walter White is clearly one of the first tourists in the modern sense, and the quality of his writing makes this book a joy to read.

A Journey to Crete, Constantinople, Naples and Florence - Three Months Abroad by Anna Vivanti

A Journey to Crete, Constantinople, Naples and Florence - Three Months Abroad by Anna Vivanti was published, originally for private circulation, in 1865. Thus we embark on one woman’s perspective of travel in the middle of the nineteenth century. Of course, she travels with her husband, who seems, according to her own estimation, quite an enlightened, liberal male for his time. For instance, he regales against copious silverware ostentatiously displayed on altars in churches that they visit. He opines that the objects might be melted down, sold for profit, which may then, he suggests, be spent on education and healthcare for the ordinary people. One wonder if he still thought the same when he got home?

Indeed, Anna Vivanti herself often seems strangely out of her century. In the Parthenon, she deigns to criticize Lord Elgin for having removed the marble sculptures from the frieze. These still adorn the British Museum and remain bones of contention between the British and Greek governments. There is still much debate around whether Lord Elgin may just have “saved” them for posterity. Anna Vivanti, however, needs no convincing. Taking them away was wrong. Anna Vivanti was not ahead of her time, but she revelled in the concept of authenticity, and the Parthenon without sculptures was surely less than the Parthenon she envisaged. She would surely have frowned upon religious practices that were not Christian, and indeed in Turkey she does just that. But she seems to make an exception for ancient Greek gods, who seemed to form part of her pantheon, a godhead that probably reflects her social class and her obvious respect for a “good” classical education. It was surprising how these self-righteously “civilised” people from the United Kingdom branded as barbaric the practices of ancient warfare, whilst at the same time as turning ever-blinded eyes away from anything perpetrated by ancient Greeks or Romans.

Anna Vivanti shamelessly reeks of middle-class Britain. When culturally challenged, as she finds herself in Constantinople, she recoils in anger and revulsion at anything she cannot understand. It must be said that what revolts her utterly about the Ottomans is their treatment of women. And in her account, she leaves no reader unsure about where she stands on religious practices that she finds unfamiliar.

She is equally judgmental with anyone she encounters who was unlucky enough to have been born with a dark skin. She would clearly like to be on the other side of the street. Italians, it seems, are excepted. In their case, swarthiness is even an advantage, adding to the attractive “foreign” qualities she seems to crave. It is strange, perhaps, for a modern reader to encounter a writer who was so overtly and completely racist. But, as with her opinion on the Elgin marbles, precisely what has changed in the intervening century and half?

Obviously, in 1865, travel is by train, ship, horseback or in a carriage. She does walk here and there, and she is sometimes carried, largely, it has to be noted, because others try to ease her journey. She spends remarkably little time talking about food and is very taken with Dante Alighieri, whose festival she attends in Florence at the end of the book. She left originally from Trieste, still fundamentally Austrian that time, despite sending an “Italian” delegation to the Florence festival.

She finds Crete dusty, Constantinople disgusting, Naples, largely dead, but fascinating, even volcanic, and then drools over Florence. For the modern reader, it might be easy to dismiss her provincialism, her overt Britishness and her racism as manifestations of a more ignorant time. But how many modern travellers could make the same trip nowadays on foot, in carriages along dusty and bumpy roads, or on the back of a donkey? And how many could live from day to day without finding burgers and chips, fried chicken and pizza with cheddar rather than mozzarella?

73 poems by e e cummings

 

poetry:to me

is about passing images that

sometimes

stick but often pass by only

to return un:announced when le

ast expected

 

often it SlavishlY conforms to

rules as opaque as their

inventor’s (li:fe)

 

sometimes it is fresh

suprising

 

the trick of finding out what you didn’t lose

(existings tricky:but to live’s a gift)

the teachable imposture of always

arriving at the place you never left

 

conventions matter

but often get in oUr wAy

blocking

what we really want to

say

 

as do other

conVentions

elsewhere

that rule

 

(and I refer to thinking(rests upon

a dismal misconception:namely that

some neither ape nor angel called a man

is measured by his quote eye cue unquote.

 

and sometimes being

direcT

is what we need

 

yours is the light by which my spirit’s borne

yours is the darkness of my soul’s return

-          you are my sun,my moon,and all my stars

 

even though just how

direcT

might not be clear

 

n

OthI

n

 

g can

 

s

urPas

s

 

the m

 

y

SteR

y

 

of

 

s

till.nes

s

 

agree