Juxtapositions

I decide my cheek and the library table are getting on a little too well for their own good, so I stagger to my room and put on some Sonic Youth at their most dissonant and abrasive – crashing guitars, wailing feedback, screamed vocals, the lot. I jump around a lot.

Feeling better, I go downstairs for dinner and find a string quartet playing in the dining room. How nice. A former hallmate’s brought his quartet here for some small-scale performance experience. I sit down and spend most of the performance trying to physically restrain my cringes at off-pitch notes and jittery timing, both of which literally give me goose-bumps in their imprecision.

Sometimes life’s little juxtapositions amuse me.

An Equal Music / Galatea 2.2

An Equal Music is worth the read if you love classical music or are a classical musician, and even more so if, like me, you just happen to be a lapsed violinist/pianist living in London with a hankering for Vienna.

Having said that, I should clarify that you may not necessarily like the book after you’ve read it. You may, for example, get completely pissed off with the “classical musician psyche”, which I identified with occasionally, but more often than not was slightly stupefied by. This is possibly one of the many reasons why I gave up classical music for debating, where people are just as dysfunctional but at least a little more rational.

One thing I did understand completely in the book was the protagonist’s devotion to his violin, not merely as an exceptionally sweetly singing member of its class of string instrument, but as a unique entity in itself – the feel of it under his chin, the bounce of light off its varnish. The smoothness of its neck under the skin of his thumb as he goes from first to fourth position. Force me to choose between slashing my arm with a knife or slashing my violin and I will unhesitatingly and willingly make myself bleed. The fact that it lies long-neglected and lonely in its case as I write this makes no difference to what I’ve just said, although it does make me feel painfully guilty.

Galatea 2.2 was fascinating, but less of an easy read. Again, it dealt with ideas I personally like reading about, so if you tend to be drawn to variations on the Pygmalion myth, artificial intelligence, academia, the passions of reading and trials of writing, then this one’s very much worth a try. I actually found it far more moving than An Equal Music, and found its characters (even the computer) decidedly more multi-faceted. Oh, I should add – apart from all the things listed above, it’s also about where life and love seep into cracks between the compartments, and why that ultimately makes it so difficult to learn the human condition without living it yourself.

Mahler Newbie

Which Mahler symphony should a Mahler neophyte begin with? More specifically, which symphony should a neophyte with my music tastes begin with? The common recommendation seems to be to start with the fourth and avoid the sixth like the plague until you’re more settled in, but here the advice is to screw the naysayers and start with the sixth if you like 20th century music. The Beethoven table given matches favourite Beethoven symphonies to recommended Mahler starting points, and my favourite Beethoven, the fifth, is linked to the sixth as well.

Hmm. Advice?

My Manta Ray’s All Right

You know that exquisite pain you get when a fantastic song is in your head, but circumstances prevent you from getting to actually hear it? I don’t know why there’s such a huge difference between hearing it in your head and hearing it from your speakers, but there undoubtedly is. You’re walking around for hours with it in there, and if it’s a song you love, chances are you know it intimately and your memory’s playing every note, but when you manage to get to your room and actually hear it in stereo, it’s like that moment’s a screaming orgasm and everything before was just indifferent foreplay.

At some point during lunch with Tamara at Belgo’s yesterday, Pixies’ Manta Ray started playing in my head.

I tried lots of ways to get it out. I went to Borders and listened to Sigur Ros, Black Box Recorder, Kid Loco, DJ Krush, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, and Sibelius. (Increasingly strange looks from the guy manning the listening station.) My find of the day: Pinchas Zukerman playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1, Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole, and Vieuxtemps’ Violin Concerto No.5, conducted by Zubin Mehta, for 5.99! That’s the great thing about buying classical music that isn’t usually possible with indie rock – you can get so much good stuff for cheap. Supporting an indie rock habit, where every CD you want has an IMPORT sticker on it and costs twice as much as an ordinary CD, generally requires a willingness for turning tricks, drug dealing, organ farming or investment banking.

So anyway, nothing worked. I still kept having to remind myself not to burst out into “Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, YEAH!” in front of other people, and it was torture not being able to. Then I got home, scrambled to my computer, put it on and turned up the volume, and…

HOO-HOO, HOO-HOO, YEAH!!

:)

Common Room Classical Music

Sunday night, in our hall common room: The Italians have decided to make pizza from scratch, for everyone. They’re messing around with huge quantities of dough on one of the tables. Michael’s at the piano, playing Gershwin. Everyone sings the bits they know with gusto and extreme raucousness.

Later on, as people start dispersing, James returns from busking in Covent Garden. He stashes his violin behind the bar, gets himself a pint, and puts Shostakovich string quartets on the stereo. I am still in the room, having an intense conversation with Susie about Heinz Big Soups and their campaign of misinformation (“It never tastes as good as you think when you buy it”). We drift over, me particularly keen due to Saturday’s epiphany (see below). James is going through a stack of CDs. After a while I bring my property law seminar work down from my room. The next few hours are a trip. Verdi’s Requiem. Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony. Sibelius’s Finlandia. James makes everyone stop what they’re doing and close their eyes during Barber’s Adagio for Strings. It fills the room.

It fills the room.

Classical Re-Education

A radical change in listening choices today. I was doing reception duty in my hall this morning, and was about to put on Xfm when I noticed a cassette tape lying beside the stereo. Nigel Kennedy playing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor and Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1 in G minor. I put the tape on, and ended up listening to each work two or three times through.

My links with classical music have become somewhat eroded over the years. I finished Grade 8 in violin and piano, and meandered for a while after that, unwilling to take on the practice required for performance certificates and diplomas, due to my increasing commitment to competitive debating. I was a first violinist in the Singapore Youth Orchestra from when I was 13, and left when I was 18, also because I needed time to train for the World Schools Debating Championships.

The music this morning took me back to that time of my life. They were pieces I’ve played, and loved, and I suddenly felt a sudden and acute loss of those days when classical music was so much a part of my life. I might pop down to Oxford Street later and look for some of those old loves, but I realize the inadequacy and stagnation of my knowledge here now – which interpretation?

Who does the best rendition of Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole? Stravinsky’s The Rites Of Spring? Who will give me the sound and fury I love in Mussorgsky’s Night On Bare Mountain and Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances, but preserve the sinuous beauty that peeps in every now and then? I know nothing about Mahler but want to, who will teach me to appreciate him? Can anyone play Paganini’s violin caprices and do them justice? Bach’s Goldberg Variations?

Ignorance is anything but bliss.