BWV 788

BWV 1010

Musical rides

This week I did something that I had never done before: I was able to ride my bicycle to and from the office for 5 days in a row, Monday to Friday. Not only do we seldom enjoy such a fine weather for such a long time, it is also very rare for me to get over my weaker self and not to fall victim to any of the numerous excuses at my disposal. I am really proud, I must say.

My ride to the office runs along the Salzach river. For most of the trip I use the bike path, which is a reconverted tow-path, used hundreds of years ago by horses and oxen for towing upstream the boats that, after reaching the salt-mines in Hallein, would be loaded with salt and driven downstream again, to give Salzburg its name (“salt castle”) and to make its prince archbishops awfully rich.

The ride is some 17km long (one-way) and I spend a little less than an hour on it —I am not at all fast! The first two days, especially Tuesday, were quite hard because I got headwind and I was still tired after a hike on Sunday. I got a little obsessed with the cycle computer as well, trying not to do too bad for the statistics. But from Wednesday on, I tried to ignore the computer and simply enjoy the ride.

I realized that there is a kind of physical “in-the-zone” feeling, a delicate and wonderful equilibrium between the force you exert on the pedals and the resistance from wind, road and gravity (slope). That means, there is always a minimum amount of force you have to use in order to maintain a certain pace. The trick is to use just this minimum force, but not more. If you try to keep the pace uninterrupted, by switching gears accordingly, you may be able to run and run with minimal effort and without even realizing the distance.



The funny part is that this kind of being “in-the-zone” happens in your mind as well. At least, once I've achieved this equilibrium of forces, my mind seems to become hypnotized by the rhythmic movement and I stop thinking about riding at all and my awareness wanders to other places.

And in this state, invariably, music comes to my mind. I guess it's because the pedalling pace is kind of a metronome that you cannot miss. It's not that I think: Let's sing “Mary had a little lamb”! Songs and melodies simply pop up in my mind. They come and go, without warning, at times switching from one to the other in colourfully wild arrangements that I would certainly not be able to make myself.

This is a selection of some of the melodies that came into my mind during this week's bicycle rides. Interestingly enough, Johann Sebastian Bach seems to have got a stronghold in my brain:

• Prelude from Cello Suite No. 1, BWV 1007, by J. S. Bach
  


• Variation 1 a 1 Clav., Goldberg Variations BWV 988, by J. S. Bach
  


• Sinfonia No. 2, BWV 788, by J. S. Bach (listen here)


• Gabriel's Oboe, “The Mission” original soundtrack, by E. Morricone
  


• Another composition for two violins by J. S. Bach (I think!) which I can sing but I still haven't found out what it is 2nd movement (Largo) from the Concerto for 2 Violins, Strings and Continuo in D Minor, BWV 1043, by J. S. Bach (listen here)

But, without a doubt, this week's winner has been the Prelude from J. S. Bach's Lute Suite No. 4, BWV 1006. Enjoy!

BWV 847

Pennsylvania

In November last year we were walking along West 34th Street in Manhattan, minutes after making our second contribution to the reconstruction of Solomon's Temple. It was on Thanksgiving Day and streets and avenues were still closed to traffic because of the Macy's Day Parade. The view was certainly unusual: pedestrians reclaiming the space that belongs exclusively to motorists all year round.



On arriving to 7th Avenue I looked downtown and saw four US flags back-lit by the sun and, not thinking it twice, I decided to shoot the first picture with the new 50mm lens (new for the third time, by the way...). I like this picture because the relatively dark background lets the flags stand out. A similar effect can be seen in the forest, when the sun creates the illusion that tree leaves possess their own light.



As you can see, those four flags belong to the Hotel Pennsylvania. Months after taking the picture I learned that, without knowing it, I took a picture of one of the many anonymous monuments populating New York City.

The Hotel Pennsylvania main dining room, the Café Rouge, witnessed numerous performances of the most famous big bands of the 40s and 50s, like the Dorsey Brothers, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Hotel Pennsylvania also claims to have the phone number in longest continuous use in New York: +1 (212) 736-5000. Dialling from the City it would be just 736-5000, and using the usual North American letter code from rotary dial phones, 7 corresponds to P and 3 to E, so it would be PE-6-5000, for PEnnsylvania-6-5000. Which was exactly where Finegan, Grey and Sigman took their inspiration from for the famous song popularized by the Andrews Sisters and Glenn Miller.



I recently read that the Hotel Pennsylvania is threatened by demolition: its current owners, real estate company Vornado, want to replace the 22-story hotel with a 67-story office tower. It is clear that in Midtown Manhattan even monuments are not safe from the real estate voracity...

The Day the Music Died

On February 3rd, 1959, 51 years ago, a small plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa. On that day, a solitary cornfield was the only witness to the deaths of three rock and roll legends: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson. Later on, others would even call them the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.

As Holly, Valens and the Big Bopper "took the last train for the coast", an American period was coming to an end, a time of great hope in the future, distinguished by a feeling that everything was possible and within reach, a period of innocent (and maybe even childish) optimism, a period that started with the Allied victory on World War II that would be soon wiped out by the first serious lashes of the Cold War.

Every time that I listen to the music of that period, or I watch American Graffiti, I feel something very close to nostalgia for those times.


Buddy Holly - Everyday


Ritchie Valens - Donna


The Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace

Is it possible to miss something that you never knew?

Goldberg, Tureck & Gould

I don't use to listen to music at work, but on the first days of 2010 I have been writing a paper and I needed to isolate myself from my colleagues' conversations. At first I started with jazz music but some days ago Mar told me that she took a CD with J. S. Bach's Goldberg Variations from the public library. "Bach, what a great idea!", I thought, because I hold that no music is apter to foster concentration than Baroque counterpoint. After an internet search for the Goldberg Variations I came across Glenn Gould...

The Goldberg Variations (BWV 988)^(*) for keyboard were first published on 1741 and are named after virtuoso organist and harpsichordist Johannes Gottlieb Goldberg, who probably was its first performer as well. The work consists of an aria, 30 variations and a reprise of the initial aria. Here you can listen to the delicate subtlety of the aria and a little further to the polyphonic brilliance of the first variation.

Goldberg Variations - Aria


The performer on these two recordings is Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, who is one of the most celebrated pianists of the twentieth century and one of the greatest interpreters of J. S. Bach's keyboard works. Gould was a quite special character. He was born, lived and died in Toronto (1932 - 1982). His playing was quite remarkable in many senses. He used to play the piano from a very low position, so that he pulled down the keys instead of striking them from above. His eyes were just a few inches above the keyboard and throughout his life he would use a special chair, which his father constructed for him. Gould used to move his arms and his body a lot, swaying his torso almost always in a clockwise motion. He usually hummed while playing, having been taught "to sing everything he played" by his mother, and his recording engineers were more or less successful at removing his voice on the studio. In fact, we can clearly hear his humming on most of his recordings.

Gould shied away from physical contact with other people and always wore a coat, a scarf and mittens, independently of the weather, place and season. Before starting playing he would submerge his hands and arms in very hot water for 20 minutes. He gave few concerts, because he disliked the concert hall, considering it kind of a competitive sports arena. Gould always favoured the sense of control and intimacy of the recording studio.

Goldberg Variations - Variatio 1.


Gould developed an impressive speed and technique, which allowed him to do without conventional techniques such as the sostenuto pedal and to precisely articulate the complexly interweaving polyphony of Bach's works. Gould could play at unimaginable speeds and still maintain the separateness and clarity of each note. Even though his repertoire included all the great composers, Gould never tried to hide his aversion for Romantic composers such as Liszt or Chopin, and he even found an intolerable theatrical superficiality on the latest works of Mozart.

Glenn Gould was an exceptional classical piano performer ^(**). The only influence from a contemporary musician that he publicly acknowledged was that of pianist Rosalyn Tureck (Chicago 1914 - New York 2003). Rosalyn Tureck is, in many senses, the Queen of J. S. Bach's keyboard music. In fact, she is considered by some critics as unjustly eclipsed precisely by Glenn Gould. Interestingly, the version of the Goldberg Variations that Mar took from the public library was Tureck's, in fact the seventh and last recording of this work that she performed in 1998. It is said that after Tureck finished a Bach performance in a concert hall, the public would rest there in silence, unable to move or to clap hands, mesmerized, knowing that something extraordinary had just happened on stage. (This short documentary about Tureck's influence on American classical guitarist Sharon Isbin shows what I mean, around minute 7:30, but it is worth seeing the whole thing)



Listening to Rosalyn Tureck's and Glenn Gould's Goldberg Variations I decided to try to play the piano again, or at least to play it more often, but I guess it's going to be hard to accomplish, because I am at that horrible level where everything I can play is quite boring and the things I would like to play are still way out of my league. A self-teaching person must have a strong willpower, and mine is not the same as it was when I was 15 years old and I started to play the guitar. Moreover, my inability to read music, especially from an F-clef, is not really helping. Anyway, here is my version of New Year's resolutions.

I enjoyed knowing about these two pianists, above all because both had a strong attachment to Baroque music, especially J. S. Bach's. There is something in the polyphonic texture of that epoch with which I associate a kind of return to the origins, renouncing to superficial ornamentations that became fashion in subsequent times. There is something about Baroque counterpoint that attracts me a lot, few musical styles reach so deep into my soul as Bach's. And I think it is just its simplicity, such as the one we find in a bicycle or in a prime lens.

I feel a great tenderness looking at Glenn Gould playing, especially on his latest recordings. Looking at him there, tiny, sitting, like he did all his life, on his chair, worn out by more than 40 years of use, almost hiding behind the piano, delicate, vulnerable. And then, after reaching out for some notes in the air that only he was able to see, he starts playing and extracts the most beautiful sounds out of his piano. Even his humming is pleasant and not at all annoying: sometimes it seems classical music is something wonderful that is on a big big pedestal and that has to be revered, but to me Gould's humming makes a strong point that that is not really this way, and brings us closer to the music others used to stress differences so that everyone can enjoy it.

You can see here the Goldberg Variations in Glenn Gould's recording of 1981. This was the only work of his repertoire that he recorded twice, the first in 1955.



^(*) BWV 988 refers to the number on the catalogue of J. S. Bach's works. Now that I can speak German I am finally able to remember what BWV stands for: "Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis", that is, "directory of Bach's works".

^(**) One of Glenn Gould's performances of J. S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in C Major Number 1 (BWV 870) from Book Two of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" was chosen for inclusion on the Golden Record on board Voyager 1, which is now approaching interstellar space and is the farthest man-made object from Earth.

Christmas Day

Christmas Tree

Brenda Lee - Rockin' around the christmas tree

Macy's Day Parade

Green Day - Macy's Day Parade

Chess Autumn (*)

By 1959 New Yorker saxophonist Sonny Rollins, frustrated with what he perceived as his own musical limitations, took what would become the first and most famous of his musical sabbaticals, in order to improve his technique.

During this period Rollins, a resident from Manhattan's Lower East Side, would go to the nearby Williamsburg Bridge, in order to spare a young pregnant neighbour of his the sound of his practice routine.

His comeback album, published three years later, was named "The Bridge". The mythical sight of a lonely saxophone player on a bridge, playing by himself, his dark silhouette over the Moon, is Rollins's.


Sonny Rollins - Without a song, from the album "The Bridge"

Tonight we've been lucky enough to listen to Sonny Rollins live. He has been welcomed by standing ovations even before saying a single word. At 79, the elderly man standing on stage, looking frail and walking with a stoop, has just needed to take his tenor saxophone in his gigantic hands and got two notes from it to make clear that we were in front of a true jazz legend. An experience that will be surely hard to forget.

^(*) At least, that's what I understood on my first Autumn living in Salzburg. Someone told me about this great "Chess Herbst" festival, which should be worth attending to. At first I imagined people playing chess all over town. It took me some minutes to realise I was being confronted with the native pronunciation for the word jazz. German speakers tend to close a too much (they don't know about the schwa and the very subtle nuances of neutral vowels) and do not seem to be able to distinguish between the sounds /dʒ/ (as in job or jazz) and /tʃ/ (as in chop or chess).

Conservationism

Lately I have found myself thinking and reading about life on our planet, about its first babbles, its current state and its future.

My awareness for conservationism has been shaped by readings and curiosity about the environment since my teenager years. But I think the true roots of this awareness, my realising the role we humans play about Nature, lay way back in the past, in my childhood, with two songs written by Joan Manuel Serrat, a Spanish Catalan singer that is part of the subconscious psyche of almost all members of my generation, thanks to our parents and the miracle of gramophone and compact cassette.

Pare digueu-me què li han fet al riu que ja no canta. Rellisca com un barb mort sota un pam d'escuma blanca. Pare que el riu ja no és el riu. Pare abans que torni l'estiu amagui tot el què és viu. Pare digueu-me què li han fet al bosc que no hi ha arbres. A l'hivern no tindrem foc, ni a l'estiu lloc on aturar-nos. Pare que el bosc ja no és el bosc. Pare abans de que es faci fosc tanquem la vida al rebost. Sense llenya i sense peixos, pare, ens caldrà cremar la barca, llaurar el blat entre les runes, pare, i tancar amb tres panys la casa, Ai, dèieu vostè... Pare si no hi ha pins no es fan pinyons ni cucs ni ocells. Pare si no hi ha flors no es fan abelles, cera ni mel. Pare que el camp ja no és el camp. Pare del cel avui ens plou sang. El vent ho canta plorant. Pare ja són aquí! Monstres de carn amb cucs de ferro. Pare no, no tingueu por, digueu que no, que jo us espero. Pare que estan matant la terra. Pare deixeu de plorar que ens han declarat la guerra.

Father, please tell me what have they done to the river that it doesn't sing anymore? It runs like a barbel dead under a handspan of white lather. Father, the river is not the river anymore. Father, before Summer comes again hide all that's alive. Father, please tell me what have they done to the woods that there are no trees? In winter we won't have fire, and in summer no place for us to rest. Father, the woods are not the woods anymore. Father, before it gets dark let us store life in the larder. Without firewood and without fish, father, we'll have to burn the boat, grow wheat among the rubble, father, and use three locks for the house, Oh, would you have said... Father, if there's no pine trees there'll be no nuts no worms, no birds. Father, if there's no flower there'll be no bees, no wax and no honey. Father, the fields are not the fields anymore. Father, it rains blood from the sky today. The wind sings about it crying. Father, they are here! Flesh monsters with their iron worms. Father, no, don't be afraid, and say no, I'm waiting for you. Father, they're killing the earth. Father, please stop crying because they've declared war on us.

This sond, as I was saying, resides so deeply in my subconscious, so stuck in my soul, that big tears run down my cheeks every time I listen to it. The same happens with the next song, Plany al mar (Lament to the sea).

Bressol de vida, camins de somnis, pont de cultures, ai!, qui ho diria, que ha estat el mar? Mireu-lo fet una claveguera, mireu-lo anar i venir sense parar. Sembla mentida que en el seu ventre es fés la vida. Ai!, qui ho diria sense rubor? Mireu-lo fet una claveguera ferit de mort. De la manera que el desvalissen i l'enverinen, ai!, qui ho diria que ens dóna el pa? Mireu-lo fet una claveguera, mireu-lo anar i venir sense parar. On són els savis i els poderosos que s'anomenen ai!, qui ho diria, conservadors? Mireu-lo fet una claveguera ferit de mort. Quanta abundància, quanta bellesa, quanta energia, ai!, qui ho diria?, feta malbé. Per ignorància, per imprudència, per incosciència i per mala llet. Jo que volia que m'enterressin entre la platja, ai!, qui ho diria?, i el firmament. I serem nosaltres, ai!, qui ho diria? els qui t'enterrem.

Cradle of life, paths of dreams, bridge of cultures. Who would have thought it? That has been the sea. Look at it looking like a sewer. Look at it coming and going without stop. It's hard to believe that in its womb life was created. Who could now say that without a blush? Look at it looking like a sewer, fatally wounded. Looking at the way that it is stripped bare and poisoned, who could believe it gives us our bread? Look at it looking like a sewer. Look at it coming and going without stop. Where are the wise and the mighty ones that they call themselves, who would have thought, conservatives? Look at it looking like a sewer, fatally wounded. So much abundance, so much beauty so much energy, who would have thought?, totally ruined. Out of ignorance, out of imprudence, out of irresponsibility and out of meanness. I wanted to be buried between the beach, who would have though?, and the firmament. And it will be us, who would have thought?, the ones who'll have to bury you.

Swing up!

City of Blinding Lights

The more you see the less you know
The less you find out as you go
I knew much more then than I do now

Neon heart dayglo eyes
A city lit by fireflies
They’re advertising in the skies
For people like us

And I miss you when you’re not around
I’m getting ready to leave the ground….

Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

Don’t look before you laugh
Look ugly in a photograph
Flash bulbs purple irises
The camera can’t see

I’ve seen you walk unafraid
I’ve seen you in the clothes you made
Can you see the beauty inside of me?
What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?

And I miss you when you’re not around
I’m getting ready to leave the ground

Ooh ooh ooh
Ooh ooh ooh

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

Time… time
Won’t leave me as I am
But time won’t take the boy out of this man

Oh you look so beautiful tonight
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
Oh you look so beautiful tonight
In the city of blinding lights

The more you know the less you feel
Some pray for others steal
Blessings are not just for the ones who kneel… luckily

The street polymath

Years and years ago, as mankind still had acne and science had just started to babble the ideas that would torture students for generations to come, it was possible for a single person to know everything (I mean, really EVERYTHING) that was to be known about in the world. Pythagoras, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī or Leonardo da Vinci bear the qualifier "polymath".

It is said that the last one of such breed was René Descartes, who received an integral education at La Flèche college. From then on, science was too large, too difficult, for a single person to be versed on the whole of it. There seem to be no more polymaths...

(*)

But I recently learned that's not true. A different kind of polymath is alive and well. A kind of polymath that never attended college, but can beat any engineer when it comes to designing a hanged support for a projector. A kind of polymath that can produce a reasoned and sound opinion on almost every imaginable topic. A kind of polymath whose greatest treasure lies on his huge experience. He already did everything you could imagine, and he knows all those little tricks that make the difference between failure and success...

His name is Hannes, but everyone calls him by his surname, K. To him goes my profound admiration and this song.



(*) Just in case someone wondered why the photo: Carl Jacobi was a renowned Prussian mathematician who, among other contributions, gave its name to the Jacobian matrix, which I'm sure will relive sweet memories to all of you who had to learn differential equations sometime... It was fun to discover in this old sign that another Carl Jacobi was successful in the soap business :)

Frames

One of my favourite scenes in “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” has the four hobbits drinking a pint at The Green Dragon as they listen to Ted Arenas's blusters. They share a look of mutual understanding and a rather sad smile. They saved Middle Earth from Sauron's Chaos and Darkness but they cannot tell anyone back home, because no one would understand. They feel, as do war veterans and survivors of all kinds, different, strange and awfully alone. Life and people in The Shire did not change at all, but they did. What had always been "normal" for them isn't normal any more.

One of the last times we were in Spain we felt, for the first time, something which, I think, might be quite common among the expat community. Everything looked strange, unfamiliar. We had a hard time understanding what people was doing. We felt almost “stranger”. Why did everyone talk so loud? What were they doing? How could they play such loud music everywhere? All of them are things we did not really realize when we were living there. Because they were “normal” then. But they aren't any more.



After two or three days the feeling was gone, all we needed was a little readjustment. But it made me realize how dependent we are on our references, on our frames, and how little we know about this dependency.

What is considered “normal” is so fragile that changes happening without stop go unnoticed. Our frames evolve continuously and we don't realize they changing. That's why such words like "normal", "common sense", "logic", "it goes without saying" might be dangerous, as well as arguments that base on them. Because my frames are not necessarily the same as yours, maybe not even close. And we would better not refer to a supposedly common frame which, for practical effects, doesn't need to exist.



To finish, a bit of music. The suite "Estaciones Porteñas", written by Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla, consists of four parts, one for each one of the seasons, as kind of a tango counterpart to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons". Like them, each of the tangos evokes the corresponding season. "Verano Porteño" (summer) is a lively tango, and it seems to me as vibrant as a snow storm, while "Invierno Porteño" (winter) has a slow and sad melody that makes me think of the never ending hours of a hot sunny afternoon. Now, "porteño" refers to the city of Buenos Aires. Should I blame my frames because I think the titles and the music do not match? Or is it a wink from Piazzolla's South to northern hemisphere's seasons?

But I am going to stop talking now, to let El Gran Ástor's bandoneón speak.