Author: GeoffreyKing

Six of the best for Ananda Sukarlan

Leave a Comment

smacked bottomsAndy’s blog is great fun. A cheeky dismissal of “our elders and betters”. When I was at school, cheeky boys were pulled out of the class, bent over and smacked on their naughty bottoms. They would then return to their seats red-faced, trying to stifle tears that they wished no one to see. I predict this will shortly happen to Andy. Here is something very very naughty from only his second blog:-

Boulez is half dead, Stockhausen has become a mad old fat guy, both are not composing contemporary music anymore (well, perhaps contemporary, yes, but is it music ?) …what a useless life they have had eh ? Certainly they cannot claim that they have made the world a better place.

http://andystarblogger.blogspot.com/

Boulez, a living genius in our midst, if ever there was one (may his perfumed name resound for ever) is opening the Holland Festival by conducting a Janacek opera. Eh? If I were in his shoes (aged 80, or whatever) I’d be at home sorting out my unfinished pieces, in preparation for departing this “vale of tears”. But no, not he. More puzzling still is the advertisement I saw for his performance of Pulcinella. Eh? Maybe Boulez has forgotten that he hates neoclassicism and is becoming as demented as his German counterpart. That mad, bad, fat-arse: Stockhausen.

Boulez is a performer of course, and these guys go on for ever. I remember Klemperer in London, his hands shaking as he conducted, and everybody wetting themselves over it. Eh? Peter Heyworth told me that K. used to have prostitutes service him in the green room. There is something admirable in that, probably. Though it will have weighed against him in the balance.

But I don’t expect the vale (or valley) of Psalm 23 – from which the only reprieve is God’s salvation – figures much in the imaginations of master conductors. Are they not already god-like themselves? Yes they are. Truth be told, even I, humble as I am, am not hoping for God’s salvation. But if by chance I wind up in the celestial sphere, I shall seek out some recently departed pope or cardinal and kick him hard in the nuts, don’t you worry.

And Stockhausen will get a state funeral on Sirius presumably, so that’s sorted.

Probably Ananda Sukarlan and the other performers I know will still be arriving on stage in their wheelchairs when they themselves get old. I think Klemperer conducted from a wheelclair in the end. Most of these people are smothered by their relatives – it’s the only way finally to be rid of them.

I deeply reverence old age, and I have enormous respect for an old fucker like Stockhausen. I wouldn’t dream of describing this master composer, and child of the stars, as “a mad old fat guy” as Ananda has. The very idea!

Ananda Sukarlan! Come here boy! Bend over! Take six of the best! WACK! WACK! WACK! WACK! WACK! WACK!

The Poulenc model

Leave a Comment

bull

I worked on the Poulenc piece, as model, just putting the score in front of me and freely composing lines and chords that – albeit in transposition – resemble some of his material. No one could work out the connection I have made, however, because it’s not systematically done. And the rhythm becomes different, because I push the melancholy beat of the Poulenc into the background. In the foreground, in place of what he has, I set unstable and fragmentary figures, with plenty of “air” in between them. That’s what came into my mind, and I went with it. Working on texture and tessitura, by the way, is something I take time for, I don’t just leave it to chance.

How nice that one can work at a desk with paper and pen and not have to rely on a computer. That must be a bit of a prison. I don’t say that in a spirit of smugness. On the contrary, I am keenly aware that the results of new ways of working can be startlingly good. And not just aware, as, like a shoplifter, I keep my eye open, and my jeans very baggy……………..I just mention the desk thing, because it’s such an exqusite pleasure to write music from one’s head.

This was all done quite quickly and I decided to marry this new sketch with the one I already had from the other day – the one which had strayed “too far” from the model. So now I have a slow movement that has music in close relation to a model and music with a distant connection to it – that distance becoming so great as not to be apprehended, perhaps.

Incidentally, composers vastly overestimate what listners can follow. Of the millions who listen to the Firebird, what proportion follows that simple four note figure Stravinsky uses as theme generator? Yet he blares it out as clearly as possible at the end. And presents it at the beginning, and throughout the piece.

Or come to that, how many people listening to West Side Story, know that a single sharpened fourth works still more transparently as theme generator? That is a master stroke, as the entire mood of the piece is captured there, in miniature.

Yes, in miniature. And I’ve said that a scale is not adequately described as a series of notes, but is instead a spiritual thing, though I think I will be saying that until I am dead………….. Teachers will go on teaching scales as if they are abstract constellations of notes. Or the nuts and bolts of tonality. There is a lot more to it than that.

Back to the idea of a model……………Of course I always think of Picasso, as he is my “bible”. It is adorable how he does a series of representations that become steadily more obscure.

“La Grenouillère” (The Froggery)

Leave a Comment

1869, Claude Monet, La Grenouillère

1869, Claude Monet, La Grenouillère

In the final years of the nineteenth century, right up until the First World War, a little island on the Seine, named The Froggery, was a resort for painters and writers. Both Monet and Renoir painted it, for example.

Apollinaire’s poem regards this scene in later days, after its popularity has waned. Poulenc’s music for this is surely one of his most exquisite and perfect creations. About it he says, “it is the bumping together of the boats that motivates the rhythm from beginning to end of this tenderly affecting song.”

But I prefer to leave on one side words and scenes when I hear music, and instead listen to what the music has to say to me. Just as in the many popular songs I enjoy, I don’t trouble myself greatly with the issue of texts – the “musical text” is far more interesting to me.

The “text” that moves me so much in this style of French music is its civilised quality. I could find similar tendencies in Ravel and a dozen other composers. It is an adorable quality and such a wonderful contrast to the world, shall we say, of Schoenberg.

I won’t hear a word said against Schoenberg. When you know – if you have a good pair of ears, and the brain to go with it – what he can do, the best thing is to keep quiet and bow your knee to the ground. But the word “civilised” is not one I would use in connection with his work, nor do I think of Expressionism as giving voice to that quality either.

Well, I had the idea to get that “civilised” spirit into my quartet, and I already did make a sketch based on the song. But in so doing, it transformed rapidly into Geoffrey King, which was decidedly not the point of the endeavour………

I got the music of “La Grenouillère” out of the library today and I’ll study it closely. Meanwhile, I’ll give some thought to defining the word “civilised”, in this context. I doubt I shall get far with that however.

Taste, behaviour, tolerance

Leave a Comment

Thalys 2

Thalys 2

A note today from someone complaining that I was talking “explicitly” about porn yesterday on the blog…..that it was “inappropriate and rather cheap”. “Everybody watches porn movies, but nobody talks about it explicitly”. “And also, you should not insult the actresses ….. some of them did it because they really need the money….”

Well, it got me thinking about taste, behaviour and toleration of others.

I took Michael to Central Station. In the old days, before the very good influence of my last partner, I would have stuck him on the bus and let him get on with it. Or worse still, just said goodbye at the door and expected him to do the whole thing on his own. Instead, I went all the way to the station and waited for the train to arrive and depart, then waved goodbye as it disappeared out of the station. Why? Because he’s a good friend and deserving of respect and consideration.

On the tram we were sat next to a “unit”. That is a roughly spherical shaped woman (Hamish calls them “gronks”). Before anyone complains that no woman should be ridiculed for being fat, let me add that this “unit” had her shoe propped up on the seat in front of her, where other people have to sit. She was also sending out an audible ts ts ts ts from her “personal” stereo/iPod. We shifted our seats, at my insistence.

At the station we came up against the no smoking ban (M is a chain smoker). So that meant hanging around outside for a first fag. And then a second fag on the platform (breaking the law) . On the train it would be no smoking all the way to Brussels.

Some things are banned and others are tolerated. It is a matter of taste, and people are so concerned about cancer that it’s easy to understand the ban in this case. As to a woman on the tram putting her feet on seats where other people have to sit, and also polluting the environment with tinny music, that’s okay………….ish.

I went to the library and picked up what I needed. As I left, I saw a library assistant leaning by the exit, smoking a fag – I asked him about it, and he said he wasn’t allowed to smoke inside. But inside, people carry on loud and lengthy conversations. That’s a greater irritant to me than someone having a puff on a cigarette, though I’m not particularly keen on that either, as it makes me cough.

I walked home down the Prinsengracht and this time got a really good look at the Westerkerk tower. There is no question in my mind that the new bright paint there, picking out several details, is very apt. I like it a lot, though I was thrown by it in the first instance [4/12/07]. But I was only thrown by it because I thought “am I allowed to like this?”

Perhaps even more important than questions of taste and behaviour, are matters of tolerance. If you are too intolerant, then you can’t have the relationships or friendships you would like. Unless you can find someone who shares your exact tastes and standards of behaviour. But what is the likelihood of that? No. Tolerance is a building block in these relationships and also crucial to the political dimension as well.

Just before I reached home, a beggar came up to me – a young handsome man, Asian, thin looking. He asked if I could give him some money to buy something to eat. I said no and moved on quickly. It all happened so fast that it was only as I moved away that I saw how desperate he was. And then I regretted not helping him. I said “I don’t have much money either” but as I walked on further I thought: “yes, not much money, but I can go home, I can eat, I can pull the plug on the phone if I like and do nothing except write music until Friday evening, so, by any reasonable standard, I am rich”. When I looked back, I saw the man heading towards someone else and I felt sorry for him. Oh dear.

Michael caught the Thalys 2, headed for Paris-Nord. It looked beautiful. And suddenly I missed Paris.

Preposterous porn

Leave a Comment

pornIt’s been in the background for days now, since Michael arrived. Well, the Brits are always attempting to catch up…

This porno channel on the digital TV broadcaster I have is about as stupid as you could imagine. “Asinine” is the word Michael uses for it. Well, that means devoid of intelligence. It also refers to donkeys and asses. And indeed a couple of donkeys having sex would be of more interest than these “guys ‘n’ dolls” on the porno channel. We’ve been laughing at it, but eventually amusement gives way to anger.

Fake groaning, fake lesbianism, fake sucking of cocks, fake orgasms, fake, fake, fake.

And the vagina and anus all stretched out looks like something on a butcher’s slab or a surgeon’s operating table. The penis fares little better. All the penises stick up in the air by the way, which must have meant an awful lot of weeding out during auditions.

Do these women know that the penis has nerve endings? They’re pulling on it like it was a rope in the gymnasium.

And why do they have to look at the camera whilst they’re sucking? And why does each one of them blink in disgust as the cum spatters on their faces? If it’s so disgusting, then go and mow the lawn, or whatever it is you find congenial.

Michael and I have been longing for some old lady to appear in the background during one of those endless, tedious beach fucking scenes. Walking her dog, or taking a shit behind a rock. Anything to relieve the boredom of fake sex.

We’ve been wondering if anyone has managed to subvert the genre. Few things are more worthy of being subverted I should have thought.

“Music is, by its very nature,….”

Leave a Comment

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

The famous saying of Stravinsky: “music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all” sits like a car crash in the middle of the philosophical highway, surrounded by traffic cops, so that no one can get by.

Stravinsky’s statement is a disaster. Why? Because there is so much respect for him (and rightly so) that people take seriously what he said. (Or was said in his name by the person who drafted the Poetics of Music). Stravinsky’s music is unusually expressive. He is one of the most human of composers. Look how he has everything in his work from eroticism to holy scripture, fairy tale to soppy campery, children’s five-finger exercises to 1950s pointillism. He’s the entire human, without the expected limitations.

In order to get further down the highway, we will have to wait for someone to clear up the mess. But, as I say, it’s worse than a mess, it’s a disaster. We can’t get by all that easily.

Do I have to quote the original French? Do I have to research which of Stravinsky’s French minions actually wrote the statement in question? Or do we pick it apart and try to make sense of it? Or do we just ignore it, the way we do when someone drops a lethal fart at a dinner party?
I propose to take the latter course, at least for the moment.

Music is by its very nature spiritual. Therefore, even if you decide to call your pieces “Untitled I”, “Abstract IV” and so forth, they still reveal their origins. We will clearly recognize that “Untitled I” is neither a Pigmy dance, nor a Viennese waltz. We will feel sure that “Abstract IV” is neither a product of the Ars Subtilior movement, nor a hip-hop track.

And Le Sacre du Printemps will not be be confused with jolly waltzing at the Habsburg court, because it is neither jolly, nor Viennese. And it will not call to mind a castle entertainment in late 14th century France because it is not that either.

It might however just possibly be confused with a recording of tribal dancing in an African village. Just possibly, because there IS a connection there.

But I am not here particularly concerned with the nature of Le Sacre. (Though I must add that I find Boulez’s analysis strangely lacking. So far as I am aware, he doesn’t once mention the word “fuck” during the course of it).

Music is by its very nature spiritual.

When we know that, we need look no further for an explanation as to why Mozart piano sonatas are not selling terribly well to African Americans living in urban communities. The spirit of Mozart’s people comes across clearly in his music, and it is very different. We know that it is a people that lived some time before the 1970s and at some distance from New York City. But hey, here’s the point…even if the CDs carried no titles, lacked texts and contained no documentation, we’d still know it. We’d know it because it’s clearly expressed in the music.

I thank you for your attention, and hope that I have cleared up a little of the mess…

Saint Michael is Slaying the Dragon

Leave a Comment

xcvbvMichael and I went up to the attic today where I keep all my music and where I sometimes work if the neighbours get too noisy. Nearly all my manuscripts are there, plus sketches. There are also many sketches which never came to anything, ranging from almost complete pieces, through to snippets of paper with just a couple of chords. There is a computer, a keyboard and a desk and one bookcase. And from the window you get a view right across to the Westerkerk in the far, far distance. With the naked eye you can just about make out the flags that are flown there on National Days, flagpoles sticking out at angles. That was the case today, which is bevreidingsdag.

Ananda Sukarlan is artistic director of a music festival in Jakarta that takes place in July and August. Chendra Panatan is organising it (he’s AS’s manager in Indonesia) and I had to let him have a title for the little piano piece that I had written earlier in the year, as this will be premiered during the festival. So that’s what Michael and I were busy with upstairs – deciding about a title. I had made a rough recording (it’s written for piano/three hands) , so we listened to that through headphones, first me, then Michael.

It has to be stated that I have quite an extensive collection of titles already. I make them up independently of writing music. These I regard as virtually mini-poems. Titles are meant to spring naturally from your work, but here’s the thing, I don’t follow that convention. He-he.

Anyway, we looked at a sheet of over a hundred titles and listened to the music at the same time. I selected one. I was hoping Michael would select the same one, but he didn’t. I was certain of my choice however, so, after he said what he thought, I still proposed the title I had liked. He listened to the work again and started to come round to my point of view more and more. So when I saw that that enthusiasm was genuine, I decided to go ahead with my choice and we were both satisfied that it was good.

The piece is called “Saint Michael is Slaying the Dragon”.

As I was writing this blog, there was a blackbird singing so beautifully in the trees outside that I went on to the bacony to see if I could see it. It was disconcerting – so beautiful that it was a virtuoso blackbird, so to speak. Or perhaps another species, even. I couldn’t see the bird, or even work out in which direction to look for it. Disconcerting.

Disrespect

Leave a Comment

Michael Bonaventure

Michael Bonaventure

Yesterday, having tracked down a recording of the Ave Maris Stella by Monteverdi, I played it whilst Michael was still in his room. I thought it would be nice for him to wake up to if he were still asleep, and if he were awake, it would also be nice. But after a while he emerged, looking bleary-eyed and unimpressed. That was already 11.30. This morning at 10.30 he was complaining that he was up too early in the day and that he might have to go back to bed….. I am coming to the conclusion that Michael is a real artist. Of course we artists do not like the light of day….it is offensive to us, impertinent.

To be fair, though, yesterday had been a trying day for him. He had composed and sent an open letter to his congregation complaining about their complaints about his playing [attack being the best method of defence, of course]. He had, last Sunday, performed a splendid, granitic Messiaen piece at the end of morning service. But this particular congregation has the bad habit of gathering at the back of church after services to chat over coffee, and that clashes with the organ voluntary. The music is still playing, but the congregation thinks that the service is over. As far as M. is concerned, the service is only over when the music is over. Anyway, they obviously found talking through Messiaen impossibly challenging. I think he is going to handle this situation well, judging by his open letter, which I quote here………………

OPEN LETTER TO THE CONGREGATION FROM THE ORGANIST

La Resurrection du Christ – Olivier Messiaen

I was concerned to receive complaints about this work of Messiaen which I played after service last Sunday [29th April].

The first point I would make is that this music is not to be talked through as if it weremuzak in a restaurant. It should be listened to with respect and in silence. Not just because the theme of the resurrection is so crucial in the Christian context but because Olivier Messiaen is probably the greatest Catholic Church musician of the twentieth century. A Christian should listen to his work with an attitude of wishing to learn and to grow and of cultivating devotion to the Lord. Chatter over coffee and biscuits is a grotesque response to such works of art.

My compatriot James MacMillan, the composer and conductor, has recently written of his dismay at the handling of Church Music today, the constant trivial tripe that is churned out in order to appeal to some “popularist” instinct that is in the zeitgeist. I can only echo his words as I myself am thoroughly dismayed at the increasingly abiding tastelessness in this area.

My way of addressing this issue is to play works of the first quality. But now I see that that is not enough. I need to give some sort of leadership. I am willing to find a teacher to give classes in music appreciation to interested members of this congregation. It is not my skill, as I am a performer and I have my work cut out to reach the standard I aspire to.

Perhaps I can call on interested parties to respond to this offer, to raise some funds – it wouldn’t cost much – for a teacher to come along. As to the complaints about Messiaen and his ability to interrupt coffee mornings (oh the shame of it!), I would ask you to think better of this and to respect what I am placing before the congregation. I do it as a person of taste and as a person who seeks high standards. I myself respect the greatness of my tradition and in this sense my whole life has been at the service of something larger than I am. In such a context, I want to say quite bluntly that I find the message that I have received offensive, disrespectful and plain ignorant.

MICHAEL BONAVENTURE
Amsterdam, May 3rd, 2007

Lunch with the composer Roderik de Man

Leave a Comment

Roderik de Man

Roderik de Man

Very nice meeting over lunch with Roderik de Man in one of my favourite eateries – Cafe ‘t Smalle on the Egelantiersgracht, a brown cafe from circa 1786.

http://www.roderikdeman.com/

It’s just a short walk from the house where he lives with his wife the harpsichordist Annelie de Man.

http://www.anneliedeman.com/

Roderik was praising Stravinsky’s idiosyncratic use of 12-tone technique, for example in the “In memoriam Dylan Thomas” (1954). He pointed to the beautiful use of octaves at the words “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”. I said I remembered exactly the sonority at that point. And of course it goes “against the rules”. Speaking about the Schoenberg system itself, he said that it was limited to pitches only, and added that “it is not so that I find a serious flaw in Schoenberg’s technique, he is of course a brilliant inventor and master. I do however think that disregarding the octave in which the note is placed, is dubious”. He pointed out that the intervals in a row, spread out over several octaves, tend to lose their original quality. For example, if you add an octave to a fourth, so that it becomes an eleventh, you’ve got a very different interval to the one you started out with. Schoenberg’s system disregards this.

I said I like Stravinsky’s sense of history, exampled in his choice of traditional trombones for a piece focused on death. And I said that Stravinsky’s serial music builds a bridge between medieval music and new music. We talked about his evident jealousy of some younger colleagues (R. said he was horrible about Britten for example) and how this is such a feature of our world. R. says that even the nicey-nicey composers are busy stabbing each other in the back. And then we discussed the “nothing is ever enough” issue. And I cited the Empress Livia in I, Claudius who at the end of a long life as the most powerful woman in Rome begged to be deified by Claudius.

Several times during our long conversation, a horse and carriage passed by the windows. I said it was a perfect spot for tourists. It was an idyllic sunny day and a child was scooting in and out of the entrance.

Going back to the issue of the 1950s avant-garde forbidding tonal references (things like the Stravinsky octaves) R. made a general complaint about theory and practice being divorced. He referred to Berio’s negative description of Schenker and I added that Berio also castigated Adorno in an interview with Rossana Dalmonte .

R. said that Peter Schat, a student of Boulez in Basel, had already put the boot in long ago with his Anathema for piano – it contains many tonal references alongside the more conventional sounds of the time (1969). He called that “thumbing your nose”.

R. was also praising some recent film scores by Philip Glass.

Next thing coming up for de Man is a trombone concerto……I mustn’t miss that. And we need not to let our lunches become too infrequent……it’s been too long since the last one.

I came away with four de Man pieces involving organ – a gift for Michael. He dived straight into them of course.

Lunch with Jeremy again and swinging breasts

Leave a Comment

Over to Jeremy’s again for lunch. As I went cycling down the street I saw a beautiful black woman walking along, a sweet smile on her face. She certainly seemed to be enjoying the sunshine, loose breasts swinging back and forth under her T-shirt, nipples standing out. I didn’t feel sorry for the men in her path, however frustrated they might become, I just thought “go for it girl”.

Further along the way I passed the projected mosque in Baarsjesweg, still just a building site. There were a couple of workmen by the entrance and I stopped to ask them if the building was going ahead. They were evasive. Later Jeremy talked about the reasons for the delay.

Lunch was on the balcony, this time under an awning to keep the hot sunsine off. J. drew my attention to a little oak tree in a tub which he said had seeded itself. Visions of a bird flying overhead and shitting an entire acorn…….

On Koninginnedag, J. had stood on the street in the centre of town and sold some of his clothes and kitchen things. I told him that I had seldom been out to take part in Queen’s Day and asked him what the gay parties round Reguliersdwarsstraat are like. He laughed at me, as if to say “how stupid that you don’t know”. But he added that the crowd roundDe Amstel Taveerne is just great and asked me why I never go. He said it was hard to see some of his possessions get sold and I said that when I say goodbye to material things I sometimes give them a kiss. I do that now even with tram tickets before I throw them in the bin. It doesn’t strike me as very normal. And lately when I roll up my apron after work (at the Sorting Office), I sometimes unroll it again and then redo it more neatly.

J. had been to a Handel opera the previous night, so we talked a bit about Baroque as opposed to Romantic opera. His reaction to anyone decrying Puccini is “oh fuck off”. I agreed. We talked also about Poppea and that fantastic final duo Pur ti miro. No words can praise that enough, but I told him that it’s reputed to be by someone other than Monteverdi.

Mentioning this to Michael Bonaventure who arrived yesterday evening, he asked me if I have the Ave Maris Stella from the Vespers. So then we both raved about that too……..no words can praise…….etc.etc.

Michael has been cracking up laughing whilst watching the porno channel on my TV in the background. He’s looking forward to “British Bang Babes” on Friday. We discussed my idea to replicate all those high pitched cries and moans in a piece of music. And I told him about my Scots friend Hamish who can do a perfect imitation. Also another story from a friend who once attended a premiere in Aldeburgh Parish Church where the composer had included all too convincing sounds of a female orgasm.

Jeremy told me you can now have a genetic test to determine your ancestry. People are finding for example that they are 10% Asian, 30% Welsh and so forth. But as yet, it’s very expensive.

J. also talked about his ex-boyfriend. He asked me about my situation and I answered, getting so bogged down in the detail that I suddenly said “sorry, I AM getting to the point”. (Nowadays I go into great detail when telling a story and exhaust myself. It must be still worse for those who have to listen). I said, “shall we talk about this another time?” – I knew he was quite keen to continue work. Lunch had taken two and half hours. I did the washing-up and left.

Cycling back I thought again about the lovely woman with swinging breasts and how I would vote for her one thousand times, but just once for the arrival of a new mosque. I said to myself “you are very wrong to think that”.