LOTD x 2In an email after I suggested to Jan Carroll, a photographer among many other things, that she catch ‘Wonders are Many’ a doc about Dr. Atomic on PBS this week.

“I like opera…. til they start singing.”then the follow-up.

“I’m not sure that’s a new line. I probably heard it somewhere. Are there new lines about opera?”

POTD by JC ‘ A comedy tonight’

Classical
Two piano recitals this week were occasions for brilliant undecorated musicianship, but reminded that classical music can be as thrilling as every other musical genre.

The Curtis Institute of Music’s Alumni Recital Series brought violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute to the Field Concert Hall on Sunday afternoon. Koh first played Partita No. 2 by J. S. Bach, with casual confidence and almost rote skill. Jokubaviciute accompanied Koh for Brahms’ “Sonata no. 2.” There was even an intriguing reserve from both musicians in the atmosphere of this reading of Brahms that is never overwrought Jokubaviciute particularly pointed away from the intrinsic romanticism.

Or were they saving themselves for their diamond hard performance of Bé la Bartok’s “Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano.” From the assaulting opening passages, this work just ripped through the consciousness. It is like each instrument is a speeding parallel train without tracks. The players were expert as jazz artists in the handoffs, the tonal collisions and framing the solos. The scarred tremolos of Koh’s violin lead to Jokubaviciute’s exploration of Bartok’s desolate chambers. A darkly metaphysical work completely illuminated by these two thrilling artists.

On Monday, Daniel Barenboim continued his conquest of Philly, musically, if not personally. He was in town for a solo piano recital in Verizon Hall. On Saturday, WRTI broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of “Tristan and Isolde” was no less than a complete triumph. Everything came over in the five hour broadcast- the power, poetry, drama and epic grandeur of Wagner- conducted brilliantly by Maestro Barenboim.

It was redemption of sorts for Barenboim and WRTI listeners after his thorny interview the week before with Crossover host Jill Pasternak. He barely let her get her questions out and pretty much sounded like he wasn’t interested in what she had to say as a musician herself. She hung in there and landed one of the show’s most compelling interviews. Barenboim couldn’t have been more gracious in front of the almost sell-out audience at Verizon, as he unceremoniously launched into a program of Franz Liszt.

For anyone who thinks of Liszt as a showy, Barenboim was about to reveal the real musical world of the 19th century composer. Amazing that such a bombastic personality as Barenboim could achieve the stillness of Liszt’s ‘ Petrach Sonnets‘ with such skill that the serenity extended out to an unusually transfixed audience right out of the gate. Those Sonetto (47, 104, 123) are part of the composer’s musical diary – from his student travels observing nature to his studies and loves. Barenboim, measured and engaged, essays a supple musical journey with such relaxed precision it was a sight to behold and to hear.

The watery entrance of ‘Legendes’ has a slight comic flair in Barenboim’s hands, because of his ease with the density. In fact, there was even some mach- tempo muddiness, he was so fast. The clarion opening of the so called ‘Dante Sonata’ (Liszt’s unattributed passages from the Divine Comedy) Barenboim’s states with steely muscle and virtuosic attitude befitting the themes.
The second half brought Liszt’s ‘paraphrases’ (as opposed to transcriptions) of Verdi operas “Aida”, “Il Trovatore” and “Rigoletto.”

The maestro pianist is incandescent in transmitting his understanding of the import of Liszt’s operatic achievement for the piano. He is so operatic, in fact, that these fanciful cameos condensed images of Aida summoning her guard, Leonora dazed and Rigoletto lurking in the night. Mopping he head at the end, the crowd was able to coax the pianist out for one more and Barenboim condescended with a little Schubert.

tintype no. 5

The Dreamers’ Dream

Awoke to ink drunk
Picasso circus
Loop
With/ Gayboy acrobats
Torsos in aerial whips / Concussive on a flying trapeze bar
Knocking me off the platform.
T dance at the M & M
In Atlantic City
Waiting for club drugs
When Timmy
asked us to danceWith him if we wanted any
As we bumped our brains out
With flesh camouflage surrounding
The music .

Underground with water pipes
Standing in the subzero drain
Smoking.
We didn’t collapse because we were
Pushed together on the dance floor
But we both had concussively
survived
You said I saw this in a movie
And we laughed like idiots.

Saw Chet in the lav waiting for drugs and
He played us a mournful ballade.
We stood up O’Hara at the opera and fucked instead.
(those dreams mingle so he can sleep)

Found the record that we used to let play
As we headed to the beach and we could
Hear it from the house as we watched
The night swimmers coming back from
Their underwater fuck.

Took everything back
To the point of excavation
And saw you coming toward me
Over and over again
Even as I was loosing you / Cancer, Disappeared / Still Lives
The handwriting above the headlines

Had this dreamers dream
Cutout of the ocean off the
Port of New York and
All of the creatures of Atlantis
Pressed on the crystal bloc
For inspection
Like animation from Verne

You said not to look and not to be afraid
Then you said that’s how we should die
I woke before I knew what you meant.
Actually the next day we were

On the beach and you went into the water with me
With your cigarette and we danced in the surf
While everyone had lunch and cocktails
on our blankets.
They laughed at your arm
holding the cigarette
Above the wave as we were thrown ashore.

We swam over the augers of the deposed
We swam in our own amniotic sea

The solid structure of the universe
ends in a beam
shadeless and prismatic
a distance to the mind
somewhat of a fantasy
Particular to the man
on seaward time
(starlit rock cut in sinister design)
The cut male structure as
Seen standing up
May be a late movement in art
sometime just a stratagem
Some equatorial gilt pendulum
casting light to secular hearts
Burning off the color of the water
Vaporous reprimand
And this proffer is a sacred
Notion
Of crystal desire in the sand
Dashing in the ocean.

For Jack Nespoli
remembering all of the summers together

tintype no. 5

The Dreamers’ Dream

                                                      Awoke to ink drunk
Picasso circus Loop With  Gayboy acrobatsTorsos in aerial whipsConcussive on a flying trapeze barKnocking me off the platform.T dance at the M & MIn Atlantic CityWaiting for club drugsWhen Timmy

asked us to danceWith him if we wanted any
As we bumped our brains out
With flesh camouflage surrounding
The music .

Underground with water pipes
Standing in the subzero drain
Smoking.
We didn’t collapse because we were
Pushed together on the dance floor
But we both had concussive
survived
You said I saw this in a movie
And we laughed like idiots.

Saw Chet in the lav waiting for drugs and
He played us a mournful ballade.
We stood up O’Hara at the opera and fucked instead.
(those dreams mingle so he can sleep)

Found the Dusty’s record

Roundlikeacircleinaspirallikeawheelwithinawheel

that we used to let play
As we headed to the beach and we could
Hear it from the house as we watched
The night swimmers coming back from
Their underwater orgy.

Took everything back
To the point of excavation
And saw you coming toward me
Over and over again
Even as I was losing you the Disappeared

Still Lives The handwriting above the headlines

Had this dreamers dream
Cutout of the ocean off the
Port of New York and
All of the creatures of Atlantis
Pressed on the crystal bloc
For inspection
Like animation from Verne

You said to look and not to be afraid
Then you said that’s how we should die
I woke before I knew what you meant.
Actually the next day we were

On the beach and you went into the water with me
With your cigarette and we danced in the surf
While everyone had lunch and cocktails
on our blankets.
They laughed at your fingers
holding the cigarette
Above the waves as we were thrown ashore.

We swam over the augers of the deposed
We swam in our own amniotic sea

The solid structure of the universe
ends in a beam
shadeless and prismatic
a distance to the mind
somewhat of a fantasy
Particular to the man
on seaward time
(starlit rock cut in sinister design)
The cut male structure as
Seen standing up
May be a late movement in art
sometime just a stratagem
Some equatorial gilt pendulum
casting light to secular hearts
Burning off the color of the water
Vaporous reprimand
And this proffer is a sacred
Notion
Of crystal desire in the sand
Dashing in the ocean.

For Jack Nespoli

remembering all of the summers together