A Stranger in Several Worlds

I wanted to bring you Handel, that’s what I wanted to do—but could I? In our technical world, shouldn’t it have been possible to run over to YouTube, knock on Joyce DiDonato ’s door, and ask her to sing Piangero la sorte mia, from Giulio Cesare?

So I tried that, and got the following message:

500 Internal Server Error

Sorry, something went wrong.

 A team of highly trained monkeys has been dispatched to deal with this situation.

If you see them, show them this information:

AB38WEMsl82BNwFlnjAjN_pSfOuzgzsjh-uXy0c70ARLtmFIagYeFkcKKttC

ALP2h396ZpWP8XoSMkcQ9JGv70FtwSE5jLFTu0SCmDkn4NxfaBz_ZAk0SOmQ

CbZxXa1qKY3oqivKmBYPBY1-BHQ3uEBkBD_PQbMDVw2igi8a_D445LlPl5FS

NBV_hUh6mxXpv8CUIgKG2PaQ9-W8CeGWQB6jUQ6Af6hf6jl144HmIxOfUIay

7sKJxVlvoRMPDsXcqqzFTn1s6nk082qRs1PSbLhWd0IEUogPlHQ5lsUPQfku

jBQgskIc4PhRrS5ojflfavNV4FfT_NFQSUFO0fI5u0ykmWYomVrb_7PkefQD

In fact, that was only the beginning of the message, which went on with twenty lines or so of gibberish that only a team of highly trained monkeys could understand. And speaking of the team of HTM’s—aren’t we being just a bit facetious, over there are Google / YouTube? Granted, a “500 Internal Server Error” is nothing more than a passing cloud in my day, but what if it hadn’t been? What if I had needed, seriously needed, Piangero? There are times you do, you know…..

And it’s no use telling you that Piangero is a knockout of an aria, since what are words, next to the wrenching sadness of the aria? Suffice it to say that Cleopatra—yup, that’s our girl—has lost both a major battle against Tolomeo and has also lost her man, Cesare, as well. And the music is something only a manic-depressive—and a rapid cycler as well—could write. The middle section is as wild as the two outer sections are vein-cuttingly tragic. And DiDonato, who is singing over the top of her game, just nails it.

But it wasn’t to be, Dear Reader, or was it? Because in looking up the lyrics for Piangero via Google, I saw a link for a YouTube clip of DiDonato singing the aria. Would it work if I clicked it?

Cautionary note—following a long tradition, this is undoubtedly bootlegged video from a New York performance, and thank God for it. Yes, the camera bobs up and down and about—at times decapitating DiDonato, at times losing her altogether. But if you can’t stand it, close your eyes and bask. Oh, and if you’d like to know what she’s singing, well—here are the words:

Why then, in one day,
I am deprived of magnificence and glory?

Oh, cruel fate!
Caesar, my beloved idol is probably dead, Cornelia and Sextus are defenceless
and cannot give me assistance. O God! There is no hope left in my life.

I will bemoan my fate
so cruel and brutal
As long as there is breath left in my body. And when I am dead
and become a ghost, I will haunt
the tyrant night and day.

)

And so the Gods who rule over bloggers relented, and let me bring you the clip above. Or who knows—the highly trained monkeys may have come through at last.

Because, for much of the morning, DiDonato declined to sing—sending error messages instead. In fact, everybody at YouTube was spending the morning on the golf course, since I was getting error messages all over the place.

I wasn’t supposed, you see, to bring you Handel, since there was another composer who needed a boost up. And though I’ll listen to the fabulous countertenor Philippe Jaroussky any day, why did I have to listen to him sing works by a guy named Reynaldo Hahn?

Or rather, who was Reynaldo Hahn? Really, if Jaroussky is singing him, shouldn’t I have heard of him? But there he was, the only clickable thing on YouTube this morning. So it was time to check him out, as can you by clicking the clip below.

)

Wow, what a find! And what’s the dope on Hahn?

Well, we can start with what Proust said: “everything I have ever done has always been thanks to Reynaldo.”

True, they were lovers for two years between 1894 and 1896 and then lifelong friends, but it’s still a tribute.

And, in addition to being a fine composer, Hahn—a Venezuelan who later became a French citizen and served in World War I—was a conductor of, especially, Mozart. Oh, and according to Wikipedia, Hahn had “a special gift of attracting important people to his side.”

Nice!

And he must have had the gift from an early age, because he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten, even though the Conservatoire frowned on child prodigies, and had refused as a child the great Franz Liszt. In the course of his 72 years, Hahn became, in the words of Wikipedia, a “composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer.”

Lastly, and tantalizingly, here’s what Wikipedia had to say about Hahn:

By the age of nineteen in 1894, Hahn had written many songs about love; however, his worldly sophistication masked shyness about his own personal feelings. He had close intimate friendships with women, and they were clearly fond of the gallant and charming young composer. Cléopatre-Diane de Mérode, a famous beauty of le beau monde and three years older than Hahn, inspired him to write: "I worship her as a great and perfect work of art". Despite this tribute to her, he reportedly loved her only at a distance his whole life. The famed courtesan Liane de Pougy referred to Hahn in her diary as the "sweetness in her life." Though close friends, their relationship ended when de Pougy married. Hahn famously told her: "Goodbye Lianon. I hate married people." Hahn was a closeted homosexual, even though in his personal letters he was frequently critical of homosexuals and homosexuality.

Is it that last sentence, with the information that he was a “closeted” homosexual (even in Paris, at that date could there have been anything else?), which makes me hear such sadness, such wistfulness in the song? Consider—he was Venezuelan, but living in another country. He was a gay man living in—well, another country. He drops his close friends when they marry. And he seems to have lived a life hidden even until the present day. I’ve heard of all the people Wikipedia lists as having been friends with Hahn, but Hahn?

A dark horse, indeed….

Not Your Average 11-Year Old....

I decided not to let it in. Yes, it’s totally stupid; yes, it’s destructive; yes, it’s unnecessary. But this pretty little head decided not to stress out about the government shutdown. And guess what? I also decided that if all the wise heads in Washington couldn’t avert a shutdown, then I might as well shut down too. So I went to the beach this morning, lolled in the water, and watched green palms float against an azure sky. Shutdown!

And yesterday? Well, I discovered the first opera that Mozart ever wrote—a 70-minute affair all in Latin on the story of Apollo and Hyacinth by Ovid. Mozart wrote it when he was eleven, but as the conductor, Ian Page, pointed out, you stop thinking about that. Why? Because, as you can hear in the clips below, the music is terrific. 

I came upon the opera because I had spent part of the afternoon with Philippe Jaroussky and Nuria Rial, two tremendous young singers who work remarkably well together. Jaroussky, at age 35, is in his prime as a counter tenor—and he’s thoroughly in charge of his voice, which is gorgeous. And he seems to be one of the golden boys for whom everything came easy: he started singing when he was 18, and by 20 he was a professional. And his career has soared. And just to prove how spectacularly unfair the gods can be, Philippe happens to look like this….

OK—full disclosure: all of this would be enough, ordinarily, to make me hate him. But I’m over it—I told you about that beach, didn’t I? And in many ways, not to have struggled and flopped—as I certainly did, and both—is to have missed out on some good lessons.

And yes, for anyone wondering—Jaroussky sings on my team….

And Nuria? Well, she’s Catalan, and is utterly expressive in renaissance and baroque music. And with that Jackian sense of fairness that increasingly is coming out, here she is:

At any rate, I spent yesterday afternoon busy with Rial / Jaroussky, listening to this really smashing concert. And why not? The world was spinning out of control, crisis was imminent, the wolves were howling at the door. Why not spend the afternoon with some extraordinary musicians playing some ravishing music?

In fact, I’m giving you, dear Reader, permission right now. Cancel your life for the next hour and a half, put your index finger on that arrow, and surrender to some of the most beautiful music I know. And no—don’t feel guilty! Call the boss and lie outrageously—invent an excuse. Consider all the time Victorian ladies spent having sick headaches—whole days prostate! You can take an hour and a half….

You know what? In the scope of things, not much matters except for art and music. In a hundred years, no one but a few scholars will know about the great shutdown of 2013—and very few will care. But people will still be listening to Mozart and Monteverdi, and reading, of course, Life, Death and Iguanas.

And you know what I like? These musicians just don’t force it—their playing is as free and effortless as it looks. It’s the best thing about baroque music; you don’t have to work that hard, you don’t have struggle to be heard over 100 musicians behind you, twenty or thirty of whom are blasting brass players, as you labor away at the Dvorak concerto.

Which is what I felt yesterday, as I toddled my way through a Bach suite. I remembered Joyce DiDonato working with a young singer, and telling him, “don’t worry about making a big sound, just think about creating the conditions to make a big sound….”

Right—as a very bad Buddhist, I got that. Which is why yesterday I was listening to the resonance of the instrument, and not trying to make any sound louder than that resonance. Why? Because as long as the instrument is resonating, the sound is free, and is just as loud as it needs to be. 

I played half an hour, and then put the instrument down. I’m halfway to where I was in my prime—in a couple of weeks I’ll be there. Let them buzz and do, as the poet said—I’m shutting down!