Art · Nouveau · Ho

Somewhere in a parallel universe, someone is making a video of all the stars they'd be able to see if their planet didn't have rings.

- A strangely inspired concert by voice-and-clarinet duo Ah! You Sitting Comfortably, starring my good friend Pete W. The programme was all music by living composers, with whom the duo had worked-- and the preparation showed. Each piece was a bizarre, fantastic little story: my favourite, Flimminilap by Stephen McNeff, featured two people on a train drifting in and out of conversation and music on the way to a station whose existence is debatable. The last piece, Atem by Mauricio Kagel, is strangely moving: a solo clarinettist has increasing difficulty turning breath into sound; she plays feebly on several different reed instruments by turns before falling dead to the floor. It's music about the loss of music, and I liked that.

- 6comm at the Underworld in Camden. I arrived late-ish for the one decent opening act-- but heard all of the two who sucked hairy goat balls. (Very seriously, mind you.) One girl who showed some promise had to cut her set short because of a CD malfunction. 6comm himself started strongly, making his ritual gesture with his bell-festooned axe before settling down amid his usual morasse of stage-smoke and percussion instruments. What I like about 6comm is his soundworld, which is unique to him. Using percussion, samples and synths, he builds up this astounding sound-atmosphere which takes you right out of this world. Over this, he sings (his voice is surprisingly good; his lyrics, more often than not, total bollocks. Usually the words are kind of indistinguishable, which is a bonus.)
He played a few good songs before all his keyboards simultaneously died on him, so he was left with just percussion, looping and samples. It was interesting to see how he handled the situation, and it was great to see him improvise, but in the end he sadly admitted defeat and wandered offstage, shaking his axe.

- On the way home I stopped for some takeout meze at my neighbourhood Middle Eastern place (tasty, cheap and open late: what more could one ask?) The guys that know me were on shift, and as usual, they put on some dance music. Usually I just smile and show them a move or two-- but I'd been hearing extraordinary music all evening and not dancing, so I took off my coat and shoes and cut loose. A girl at one of the tables stood up and joined me: it turned out she knew me from dance class! So everyone at her table stood up and started dancing too, and we ended up having a brief dance party while I waited for my takeout. (They smiled and charged me £5.)

What have we learned about music today?

From the first concert: Music is what you think it is.
From the second concert: When you're in the zone, let nothing throw you out of it.
From the last dance: Without music, the human race would have no reason to shake its booty.

Good night and sweet music to you all.

In every piece of music you rehearse, there comes a time by which the music is going round and round in your head nonstop: on the bus, down the aisles of the supermarket, and especially when you're trying to get to sleep.

But this time it was Figaro, and Figaro turns that phenomenon up to 11. Suddenly the earworm in your head has the volume and clarity of a million-dollar sound system that you can't turn off. There isn't a hope of getting rid of it, so you just live with a skull full of blasting Mozart.

There are two good points to this situation: one is that you get to know the opera really well, whether you want to or not. The other is subtler: this is the closest we'll ever get to knowing what it felt like to be Mozart. If his music occupies our every waking moment and won't leave us alone, how must he have felt? Did the music resound in his head with the same painful clarity, the same insistence, never letting him rest till he wrote it down? If so, he must never have needed to cast about for ideas; they'd have come thronging, clamouring to be let out.

If Mozart had lived a normal lifespan for his time and social class, most of what we have of his today would be known as "early Mozart".

My teacher once said that when you memorise music, you're actually composing it again in your head. I think he was right about this.

There's a bit in the Act II Finale (about 1.40 to 2.20 here) that made our Cherubino (offstage at the time) grin madly and wave her legs in the air. I think she was right about this too.

This is a blog in which comics artists draw their favourite literary characters and authors. I've only browsed for a bit, but I've already found some treasures:

Trim and Uncle Toby from Tristram Shandy, drawn by Donna Barr
Sunday from The Man Who Was Thursday, drawn by Neil Gaiman
Dracula, drawn by Michael Zulli
Jules Verne, drawn by Ted McKeever
Douglas Adams, drawn by Tom Fowler
3 drawings of H P Lovecraft
Alan Moore, drawn by Frazer Irving
Job (looking not unlike Swamp Thing), drawn by John Totleben
Captain Hook, drawn by Linda Medley
Jane Austen's Emma, drawn by Trina Robbins
Victor Frankenstein, drawn by Shea Anton Pensa

Go waste time here. I command it.

Questo giorno di tormenti,
Di capricci e di follia,
In contenti ed allegria,
Solo amor puo terminar.

Sposi! Amici! Al ballo! Al gioco!
Alle mine date fuoco!
Corriam tutti a festeggiar!

The next-to-last line means "Light the fireworks!" or, literally, "To the mines give fire!" This used to be an English phrase too:

In giving fire to any great peece of Ordnance, such as Cannon, Culverin, or such like, it is requisite that ye Gonner thereto appointed first see that ye peece be well primed, laying a little powdre about ye touch-hole as a traine, and then to be nimble in giving fire, which as soon as he espieth to flame, he ought with quicknesse to retire back three or four yardes out of danger of the reverse of ye wheels and carriage of ye peece; for oftentimes it happeneth that the wheels or axle-tree doth break and spoile ye Gonner that giveth fire, not having ability to move himself from the danger of ye same; yea, I did see a Gonner slaine with the reverse of the wheele of a culverin, which crushed his legge and thigh in peeces, who, if he had had a care, and nimbleness withal, might have escaped ye misfortune.

So "give fire" basically just meant "light something that explodes." The Italian word mina, "mine", similarly, just meant "thing that explodes." Italian fireworks were known as the loveliest in Europe, and much sought after; the Royal Fireworks of 1749, for which Handel composed the music, were made and given fire by Italians. (The concert pavilion burned down, but so it goes.)
( Click for Enlightenment )

I'm struggling for an adjective here. I could use an anodyne one like "lovely", but this music is not lovely. Its nature requires you to commit to it on its own terms. It is made with the precision of the gods of geometry; with an exactitude that leaves no room for mercy. It is not music that makes you think. It is music that renders you, after a while, incapable of thought. It has the mathematical inexorability of Bach with added metallophones and maracas. It is, in short, Steve Reich.
( ...or that's one way of looking at it )

"And what's the point of a revolution without general copulation?"
--Peter Weiss, Marat/Sade

The Parlour Song Book: A Casquet of Vocal Gems
( Come! let us join the roundelay! )
The question now is: what should I do with this book? Find someone with an accordion and work up a few numbers to amuse steampunks? Send it anonymously to the Dead Victorians in the hope that they'll do an upbeat, ukulele-accompanied version of "Father's A Drunkard, Mother Is Dead"? Really, what do I do? I'm open to suggestion here.

"Try as they might to stay hidden, the children of world leaders will find a way to show off the regrettable teenage phases they are going through for posterity."

( my what? Read on, true believers )

Deep in darkness    as dragon's dwelling
Hidden under hill    lay heaped the hoard, 
Battle-gear    brightly gleaming.
Sword-hilts splendid,    serpent-spiraled,
Helms and horns    and handles to hold,
Gold to grace    the graves of the great.
Silent it slumbered    as centuries passed.
Then a carl came,    keen and cunning,
The dark earth delving    with deft detector, 
Singer of spell-song,    seer into stone.

I think you'd like her. She's funny as all hell. She knits.

Most importantly, she's an amazing mezzo-soprano, currently studying at the Royal College of Music. But she's in a tough spot financially right now, and has exhausted most of her options. If things carry on as they are, she's in danger of having to drop out of music college.

So, as a last resort, she's set up a donation website in which she explains her situation with eloquence and wit, and provides a PayPal button whereby you can, if you choose, help her out.

I know the world is full of chaos, carnage and suffering, and many people are going through an uncertain time financially. But if you felt like sending Emilie a pound or two, I think you'd be doing a lovely thing.

To Juan at the Winter Solstice
by Robert Graves
There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Or strange beasts that beset you,
Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?
Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns
Below the Boreal Crown,
Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,
How may the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow if falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses:
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed.