Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Early morning, Timisoara
The slightest layer of dust – more a regret than an accusation, more sensed in the throat, than seen
Two Chinese porcelains – small and portable, memories of wealth and a very minor bank-role against a desperate future.
A half consumed candle - antiqued and aromatic.
A stool – anachronistic in colour, shape and style – carried in for a forgotten use; never returned. Two irritating buttons and a re-stitched side split straining for its liberty.
A paper sundial – transported explanation and relic of madder days of enthusiasm. Soiled with the dirt of another place, faded through use and extreme in its accuracy.
Patterned shadows as the early spring sun pushes through the lace curtains ‘tattooing’ the wall with prison pin-pricks – an etiolated band of bondage to time, and the endless repartitions of the diurnal and seasonal.
Labels: akfarrar, Know Thyself, OU, Timisoara, writing exercise
Writing again
Write what you know:
I automatically twist this to, “Know what you write.”
– do the words mean what you think they mean?
– and what sort of knowledge do they reveal?
Sometimes I wonder just what it is that people think they are writing – and how much of what they write is a veiled attempt to escape from the reality of the real they know to a fantasy.
Is writing what you know a deepening experience or is it just a futile attempt at expansion and aggrandisement?
Too often nuggets of value – real insights and experiences with genuinely wide implications - are submerged in the froth of language – or are sliced thinly remaining undetected.
The old problem of knowing yourself: being self-aware – in your perceptions as well as your assessments – haunts the advice.
Writing becomes an introvert’s journey – The man becomes the subject of the man (an existential dilemma – impossible to escape the self).
(I am following an online OU course - this is the first fruits)
Labels: Know Thyself, OU, Writing
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Yet more Reviews
The Kodaly Quartet have built a well deserved reputation as performers of 'classical' quartet music - their award winning Haydn series is about as good as it gets.
They bring that experience and insight into these quartets.
Schubert is a lot less 'Romantic' than many performers try to make him - and the restraint and elegance of these pieces is nicely brought out in these recordings.
This is more refined than raging - and all the better for it.
Great music, great performance.
On: Five Bridges: Live at Fairfield Hall Croydon 17/10/1969
Teenage Dreamings -
And nothing wrong with that!
You need to belong to a certain generation I suspect to get a great deal of pleasure from this - but, as I DO belong to that generation, I was not disappointed.
This always was experimental music and a consequence of that is mixed success. What still stands the test of time is the 'second side' of the album - the reworking of classical tracks to include the bass, drums and keyboard - something that gave me a nodding head and bright smile back in my youth - and which had a similar result today.
The added material was not essential - although America is a bonus.
Of its time, yes, and for people of its time who are still not quite moribund.
On: In the Court of the Crimson King
Forget the Justification -
Just buy it and get that head banging!
4th and 5th Form parties (not discos yet) would not have been the same without 'Hall of the Crimson King': And what respectable bedroom would not have THAT cover thrown casually in view?
Yes the music has help up against time - and the voice still cuts through to even today's youngsters (tried it out on a local victim - he went and downloaded the album straight away - didn't get the cover though).
And I love the packet - mini reproduction LP cover!
And finally -
On: Darkness into the Light
All the 4.s
The least you can say about this recording is it is adventurous - and the best that there are moments of brilliance and moments of sublime beauty.
Turn up the volume, turn off the lights, get a few candles burning and you'll understand what I mean.
We are at a crossroads - where East meets West; where the Past crosses over to the Future; where monophonic chant sits side by side with polyphony; and where the strings of one quartet and the voices of another harmonise.
That is one very heady mix - and if it doesn't always quite make it (and it doesn't) much more frequently it does.
The performance of the individual tracks is near perfect - the Tavener tracks breathtaking. If I had to single out one it would be `Come and do Your will to me' - a ravishing experience.
Tavener (for anyone new to his music) is both the `beginning and the end' - he is a `contemporary' but takes inspiration from his `Orthodox' Christianity, which makes a piece like `The Bridegroom' sound remarkably fresh whilst at the same time never loosing the Byzantine strokes of the East.
The overall experience of contrasting, contrasting, contrasting is both sensual and intellectual.
Well worth the money.
Labels: Amazon, Music, Reviews
