I love this time of day, when it's neither day or night, here nor there. It's as if everything stops for a moment, and the ephemeral quality feels like it could last forever. Like a Michael Nyman composition, it evokes unplaced feelings.

We had a great time at the iTunes Live Festival in London last week!  Here are some pictures that we would like to share with you.

Classic FM (Classical music radio in UK) interviewed us at Koko in London before the show (from left: Lucia, Angella and Maria):

We loved being part of the iTunes Live Festival!!  We were the only classical group chosen to perform at the festival!

Maria, Angella and Lucia at Koko.  Koko is a converted theater and a great fun venue with a vibe similar to Irving Plaza in NYC:

Juno (an electronic music artist from Berlin. We invited him to perform with us on a few tracks) and Lucia with the iTunes crew.  They were super nice even when we were a bit panicky as we only had 45min. for soundcheck.  Thanks, guys!

Angella, Lucia, Michael Nyman and Maria at the Barbican Hall:

Pat Metheny invited us to his performance with the Gary Burton Quartet, so we went with Michael Nyman.  The concert was incredibly inspiring!  Pat's guitar playing is just phenomenal, and we felt very lucky that we happened to be in London and got to see him play.   We are also grateful that Pat wrote a piece for us, which we will play the "world premier" of in Mexico next week.

Michael Nyman with Lucia and Angella.  Incredibly enough, Michael actually sat in for Lucia during our performance at the iTunes Festival, and Angella and I played the music written by Michael.  What an honor!  We still can't believe he played with us.

Juno, Angella and Lucia in the backstage area.  We all were a little bit nervous (in contrary to how relaxed we look in the picture), since this was the live recording that would be made available on iTunes.

That's all for now.  We are leaving for Mexico soon to perform a few shows next week.   Have a great week!

Maria Ahn

You can hear an audio version of this blog with music here.

When Malcolm McLaren decided that Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious should cover the Frank Sinatra hit, "My Way," he got Simon Jeffes to write the string arrangements.

Simon Jeffes: His singing was grotesque, but at the same time there was something moving about it. And it wasn't a send up when I did the arrangement. I actually got quite touched by it. Because although it sounded totally moronic in a way, it was full of kind of anger and despair and yet life, there was really life
in the piece.

"My Way" might be Simon Jeffes' most notorious work, but it's not the music for which he's best known. That would be the quirky chamber music group, The Penguin Café Orchestra. They were an ad hoc assemblage of musicians headed up by Jeffes from 1973 until his untimely death 24 years later. They recorded their first album for rock and new music auteur Brian Eno's label called Obscure Records. The roster included John Adams, Harold Budd and Michael Nyman, but even more than those genre- bending composers, the Penguin Café Orchestra was unclassifiable.

You've heard the Penguin Café Orchestra on NPR shows, IBM commercials and even the Napoleon Dynamite soundtrack. They were an influence on modern chamber rock and Trey Anastasio, guitarist from the jam band, Phish, was looking to the Penguin Café Orchestra when he composed his instrumental album, Seis De Mayo.

Trey Anastasio: If there was a sound that was in my head, interestingly, it was probably the Penguin Café Orchestra. I don’t know how many albums they had but I had one of them, and I use to always play that album while I was cooking. So when I sequenced and mixed this album I literally sequenced it in the kitchen while cooking, and I use to think I want to have an album that you can cook to, like the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

I think Simon Jeffe's would've appreciated the music for cooking scenario.

Simon Jeffes: It was whole idea of an orchestra playing Beethoven in a smokey atmosphere, I think was very exciting. People with a sparkle in their eye and sort of maybe a cigarette in the corner of their mouth.

Several albums from the Penguin Café Orchestra have just been re-released.

You can hear a longer version of this interview, Tonight, July 23, on Echoes. You can also here an audio version of this Echo Location with music.

It's hard to pick out on Penguin Café Orchestra album. Signature songs are scattered across their 4 studio recordings.

My personal favorite is Signs of Life. Besides key tracks like "Southern Jukebox Music," it has a few songs of unalloyed and quaint beauty including "Rosasolis" and "Perpetuum Mobile."

  Music from the Penguin Café, their debut, is still a standout. Playing ukeleles and quatros, with earnest string arrangements, this album was so unhip that it was ultrahip. "The Penguin Café Single" stands out here.

                                                                                                                                                                    The self-titled album, Penguin Café Orchestra contains "Telephone and Rubber Band," the closest they came to pure novelty, although they always flirted with that. (Note that the CD cover links to the original CD issue. The remastered version wasn't on Amazon at this writing.)

Broadcasting from Home has some signature tracks, including "Music for a Found Harmonium."

When In Rome is a live album and contains faithful renditions of most of PCO's best-loved tracks.

 John Diliberto (((echoes)))

CINE PARA CHUPARSE LOS DEDOS (VIII)

El desorbitado Peter Greenaway ideó en 1989 esta inclasificable película que en tono de drama y comedia negra gira alrededor de la gastronomía, el amor y el erotismo, elementos que interaccionan, se confunden, se disuelven unos en otros hasta solaparse. Como puede verse en la foto superior, Greenaway vuelve a situar sus imprevisibles cuentos morales en escenarios de una excesiva atmósfera operística, grandes puestas en escena por las que deambulan los personajes, creando cuadros cromatísticos de texturas cercanas a Rembrandt, pintor favorito del autor (sobre el que ha divagado ya múltiples veces en el cine, como en la reciente La ronda de noche), componiendo grandes contrastes de grandes luces con oscuridades totales, colores fuertes y enormes luminarias, con los personajes como elemento central, a veces superpuestos, conectados, agrupados como si constituyeran a su vez un ente complejo compuesto de partes autónomas, superpuestos, confundidos, con los magnos decorados por los que transitan.

Con un uso simbólico de los colores que puede calificarse como sencillamente genial y que evidencia el gusto de Greenaway por la pintura, nos cuenta la historia de Richard (excepcional Michael Gambon en su creación de un repulsivo y odioso ser humano), crítico gastronómico de juicios contundentes e irrevocables, de criterio severo, de actitud autoritaria, displicente, desdeñosa, que además de desempeñar su oficio de crítico con formas más propias de un grupo de mafiosos (extorsión, intimidación, amenazas, violencia, cierres provocados) es además dueño de un exquisito y exclusivo restaurante francés (de nombre, sin embargo, Le Hollandais, nuevo guiño de Greenaway a Rembrandt). Allí Richard disfruta mortificando al personal de la casa, a sus compinches que ejercen de matones si es menester (entre ellos un vomitón Tim Roth), pero sobre todo a su esposa, Georgina (Helen Mirren), cuyas intimidades (reales o deliberadamente distorsionadas para humillarla) no cesa de compartir con sus esbirros si mueven a la hilaridad o fomentan la adhesión de sus camaradas al líder. Ella, sin embargo, busca huir de él junto a otro comensal, un hombre tímido y solitario que se sienta en una esquina del restaurante, con el que intercambia miradas apenas disimuladas, y con el que en sus habituales coincidencias en cenas inicia una tórrida historia de amor y sexo entre fogones, platos a medio hacer, ingredientes en bruto, salsas, pucheros, vapor y aromas apetitosos.

Sin embargo, al contrario que otras películas de esta misma sección, lejos de abrir el apetito, esta cinta enseguida resulta un homenaje al exceso, ya sea culinario, ya sea verbal e incluso moral, de forma que corta de raíz cualquier actividad sísmica estomacal que pudiera provocar un exceso de flujos en demanda de alimento. Los celos, la infidelidad, el amor verdadero, la venganza terrible, el castigo ejemplar al final al ser corrupto mediante una ceremonia de horror que implica la degustación caníbal, giran alrededor de los platos, las ollas en ebullición y las formas animales girando al fuego sobre sí mismas, pero el desprecio que Richard vomita constantemente contagian incomodidad y barbarie al aspecto gastronómico, salpicado de corrupción y buen gusto, como acredita el final de la cinta.

De exótica estructura (montada sobre la carta del menú del día que el restaurante ofrece cada día de la semana) y extraño desarrollo, la película resulta irresistible por la riqueza visual del contenido, sus juegos de luces, su uso del color y las atmósferas operísticas en las que Greenaway sitúa las distintas escenas, ya sean las del interior del restaurante o las del parking, o las del almacén de libros que sirve de refugio a los amantes. Igualmente rica y variada es la simbología que recorre toda la película, desde el vestuario (obra de Jean Paul Gaultier), especialmene en el caso de Richard (que recuerda a los uniformes militares de siglos pasados, con casaca, botas y una banda) y de Georgina (la compleja arquitectura de su ropa interior y sus, en distintos momentos, barrocos peinados y maquillajes), hasta el uso de determinados colores (rojo-infierno en las escenas del restaurante con el grupo de Richard mortificando a Georgina, blanco-cielo en el primer encuentro de los amantes en el baño, verde-esperanza en su determinación de huir juntos por la cocina), pasando por la propia comida como elemento indicador de la corrupción (la carne podrida en la parte trasera del furgón...).

Una película atrayente más por la riqueza formal que por el fondo en la que Greenaway vuelve a salirse de lo convencional (aunque quizá menos que en otras ocasiones), narrada de forma compleja, entrecortada, con altibajos, que busca por igual indignar, esperanzar e impactar, y que a pesar de situarse en un afamado restaurante, no es apta para gourmets ni para paladares exquisitos. Más bien al contrario, es mejor prepararse para lo desagradable.

Original post: The fact that it is 2008, and this movie was released in 2004, tells you all you need to know about my movie-going habits. But about a year ago (I guess), I saw it on Cinemax (right after Hotel Erotica 7). At first, I wasn't too impressed. Then I watched it again and I was amazed at just how good of an actor Johnny Depp is, and just how good of a movie this is.

The movie is based on an actual historical figure -- the Second Earl Of Rochester, who was a 17th Century poet. While he was totally immoral, a scoundrel, a cheat, a drunkard, a wretch, a ... we've hit the end of my bad person terminology, but you get the picture . . . you can tell that not only is he smart, but that he's very well-versed in Scripture and the teachings of Jesus Christ. It is almost in spite of his beliefs that he acts so repugnantly. The historical background of the emergence of England from Puritan rule provides the perfect backdrop for such a figure. He's brought up on the Bible and Jesus, and then Puritan rule ends and the monarchy returns; thus, allowing him the freedom to be a perfect fool.

Johnny Depp does such a good job of getting lost in the character that you forget you're watching Johnny Depp. From Depp's protrayal of the Earl of Rochester, you get the feeling that Rochester knows that we are taught by Jesus to love our neighbors. We're even to love those that revile us; we're to love those that hate us; we're to love our enemies. Rochester knows this and does everything he can to make you hate him all the while knowing that those around him know that Jesus taught them not to hate.

As he's dying from syphilis, he gives a moving speech before the House of Lords that, according to the movie, beats back an attempt to deny Charles II's brother from succeeding to the throne because he is Catholic. The speech scene is one of the best scenes from any movie that I've watched. Rochester is so crippled that he needs two canes to walk and he has to wear a nose guard to hide all the sores on his face. Yet the speech saves the day. Soon thereafter, he dies and the movie ends with Rochester looking into the camera and recounting his life. The scene is here.

Why do I spend all this time writing about a 4-year old movie about a guy who lived 350 years ago? Because I think the story is still relevant for people of faith. Not only is the most debauched person not necessarily lost to God, but of more import, those very people challenge us to practice what we preach. Do we really mean it when we say we love our neighbors? That we'll follow Christ's example? Faced with the character presented by Depp, I don't think we can so flippantly say yes. Maybe what we really mean is we love those who are most like us, kind of like us, maybe even not like us but at least not "bad." He would be so easy to hate, to write off like human bad debt. But we can't. At least not if we say we follow what Christ said. And therein lies the beauty of this movie and its haunting challenge -- to love someone who has given you no reason to love them. No reason other than our God commands us to.

The movie is worth the rental fee for the ending song along, which was written by composer Michael Nyman. The song is here [audio http://supercynic.wordpress.com/files/2008/05/1-15-rochesters-farewell.mp3] and the words implore us to "pray for him who prays too late so that he may shine on judgment day." If you were a Depp fan -- one of the few pretty boys who can really act -- and haven't seen this movie, watch it. If you're not a Depp fan, this movie may just convert you -- convert you in more ways than one actually.

      

Otra de esas películas que voy recuperando pulsando el botoncito del canal de pago.

La verdad es, que aunque en su momento tuve noticia de que se había presentado a concurso en la Berlinale del 2000, y me pareció interesante, no me preocupé mucho más de ella, y ni sé si se llegó a estrenar en mi ciudad, si se estrenó en España, o pasó directamente a DVD, de lo que tampoco tuve noticia.

El caso es que finalmente he podido verla, y aunque ya sea una película de la que se podría decir que ha llovido bastante desde que se hizo (lo de llover, es una frase hecha, por lo que todo el mundo sabe), creo que merece una reseña.

Dirigida por el británico Michael Winterbottom, “El perdón”, es un drama ambientado en la América de los pioneros, a caballo de la fiebre del oro, y de la construcción de la red de ferrocarril.

Esos dos tiempos tienen un nexo de unión a través de un hombre (Daniel Dillon, interpretado soberbiamente por Peter Mullian) que se ha enriquecido con la explotación de una mina, y que ha creado un pueblo alrededor de esa explotación, del cual es prácticamente el dueño.

En el presente, que es en donde se centra la historia, el ferrocarril para ese hombre supone una amenaza. Su trazado dará vida a nuevos pueblos, pero el suyo puede desaparecer, y hace ver clara su posición ante el ingeniero topógrafo enviado por la compañía Central Pacific, (interesada en que la vía férrea lo atraviese) a tantear el terreno (Wes Bentley).

El pasado de de Daniel Dillon esconde la turbia manera en que ha conseguido su enriquecimiento, y en ese momento en que se enfrenta a lo que puede ser un cambio en su vida y en su fortuna, vuelve a aparecer.

Dillon, cuando llegó a tierras californianas viajaba en compañía de su mujer y su pequeña hija, y una noche, bajo una gran tempestad de nieve, recibieron asilo en la cabaña de un minero que había encontrado oro, pero que le propone cederle la mina a cambio de su mujer, porque lo que más desea en el mundo es tener una mujer, y no oro. Dillon pues, se la “vende”, (con su hija incluida en el lote) a cambio de la explotación de la mina. El título original de la película, “The claim” (“La concesión”, es su traducción al español) da una idea más acertada de esta trama.

Como se precisa en un buen drama, el director va enlazando el pasado con el presente, y añadiendo un nuevo abanico de personajes que formarán parte de el en mayor o menor medida. La amante de Dillon (Milla Jovovich, en un papel en el que demuestra que no sólo es una cara bonita y un cuerpo bien tratado para películas de acción), el ingeniero, al que ya he mencionado, su mujer, a la que vendió (Nastassja Kinski, estupenda, en un, aunque corto, interesante papel), y su hija (Sarah Polley, que aporta una creíble emotividad a su personaje).

Confeccionada no como un western a los que estamos acostumbrados (no veremos los clásicos tiroteos), se centra en retratarnos las vivencias de los que cimentaron la nación americana, con sus miserias y grandezas.

Precisamente es la “miseria” que arrastra el protagonista, en un periplo en busca de la expiación a su pecado, el que convierte a la película en un drama rozando lo shakesperiano. Y es que en “El perdón”, se pueden encontrar muchos de sus elementos básicos, incluido su amargo final.

Se puede calificar a esta película de drama “intimista”, tragedia, (y yo incluso la calificaría como histórica). Hay un esmero en retratar fielmente la época, introduciendo los elementos clásicos del western. El sheriff del pueblo, el saloon-casino con sus prostitutas… Todo perfectamente integrado, girando alrededor del pasado reciente de la búsqueda del oro, y el momento presente de la expansión ferroviaria. Un mundo constantemente en movimiento contra el que intenta luchar el personaje protagonista.

Es el retrato de la vieja América y sus colonizadores, devastándose así mismos para conseguir medrar y progresar.

La preciosista fotografía retratando unos espectaculares paisajes nevados, el vestuario, sumamente cuidado, los decorados ciñéndose a la época, y el guión, basado en una novela de Thomas Hardy, conforman un conjunto excelente, que unido al elenco de actores, no todos ellos muy conocidos, pero que dan la talla en sus respectivos papeles, convierten a “El perdón”, en un film digno y nada despreciable, al que tan sólo le reprocharía la lentitud de su desarrollo para contar la historia, y la a ratos disonante banda sonora a cargo de Michael Nyman (algunos momentos de ella son buenos, y encajan bien con los escenarios y la trama).

Trailer en inglés

Para ver la ficha, pincha aquí

Swanson    

A volte non ci si rende conto di quante melodie immortali provengano dal mondo delle colonne sonore. E, molto spesso, nemmeno si sa chi sia l'artista che le ha composte. Una generazione intera ha fischiettato i leit-motiv di Star Wars e Indiana Jones ma, probabilmente, non è a conoscenza del fatto che il loro autore, John Williams, è la stessa persona che oggi fa fischiettare agli adolescenti le melodie dei film di Harry Potter.

A parte alcuni rari casi (Vangelis, Ennio Morricone e pochi altri), i compositori di musica da film sono delle vere e proprie antistar, conosciute solamente dai cultori del genere. Un lavoro per certi versi ingrato, il loro. Non diciamo mai: che bella la musica da film di James Horner. Semmai: che bella la musica di Braveheart e di Titanic.

Stesso discorso vale per Il favoloso mondo d'Amélie Poulain, la cui deliziosa colonna sonora è stato uno degli elementi che più hanno contribuito a decretarne l'enorme successo di pubblico. Merito, ma non sono in molti a saperlo, del compositore francese Yann Tiersen, le cui partiture lievi e sognanti accompagnano perfettamente le immagini trasognate e surreali della pellicola di Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Musicalmente Tiersen è un esponente del minimalismo, una corrente della musica classica che già in passato ha avuto modo di segnare la storia del cinema (grazie soprattutto alle colonne sonore di Michael Nyman e Philip Glass).

Il minimalismo di Tiersen non risiede tanto nella strumentazione (pianoforte - naturalmente - ma anche fisarmonica, violino e percussioni), quanto nella semplicità melodica dei pezzi. Comptine d'un autre été, uno dei passaggi più celebri della colonna sonora di Amélie, è, dal punto di vista tecnico, una banalissima canzonetta al pianoforte con accompagnamento arpeggiato. Al di là della purezza e della bellezza della melodia, a fare la differenza è però lo stato di reverie che il pezzo è in grado di indurre. Quando lo si ascolta, non si può infatti che sognare ad occhi aperti, proprio come Amélie nel film.  

I thought I better write the comparative study of MR. SKEFFINGTON (1944) and THERE WILL BE BLOOD (2007), before anyone else does.

Seriously, the two have nothing in common so this is the usual exercise in absurdity but both films did make me think about MUSIC a lot.

Of course, Jonny Greenwood's monumental work for T.W.B.B. is extremely praiseworthy and interesting and has rightly provoked much discussion. And the fact that this major work has been denied a place in the running for an Oscar is an outrage -- it's more obvious than ever that the Best Score award is a closed shop and non-Americans need not apply. Ennio Morricone, f.f.s, has never won, despite a nomination for THE MISSION, one of his great works -- when Bette Midler read his name from the podium, the applause brought the house down -- "Ennio has a fan," observed Ms. Midler. Nino Rota for THE GODFATHER and Michael Nyman for THE PIANO were barred on the same grounds as Greenwood: their scores used previously existing themes (but, perversely, Rota was allowed a half-share in a golden swordsman for THE GODFATHER II, even though that movie features predominantly themes written for the first film,) In the absence of an award for "Best Adapted Score," the system should be altered so that an Oscar need not be denied to the year's best soundtrack. 

I generally try to ignore the asinine decisions arrived at annually by the academy, but when the best film score of the year or maybe DECADE is excluded even from the privilege of being overlooked by numb-skulls, something has got to be done. Or, at any rate, said. Or blogged.

End of Oscars digression. Start of MR. SKEFFINGTON digression. A product of Warner Bros' esteemed Masochism Department, this wartime weepie takes Bette Davis and Claude Raines through one marriage and two world wars, and is one of the few Hollywood films to mention Jews and concentration camps. The propaganda element is very delicately stitched into the overall pattern, while the central theme, "A woman is only beautiful when she is loved," is wielded like a length of drainpipe in the hands of an enraged Viking (how the Viking got his hands ON the drainpipe is outwith the purlieu of this piece, which is an exercise in film criticism rather than Scandinavian ethnography or plumbing).

Vincent Sherman, who made one of our favourite gangster / women's picture crossovers, THE DAMNED DON'T CRY, is here a smooth and sensitive channel for what they call the Genius of the System, creating an elegant and emotional studio picture that isn't anonymous but isn't exactly personal either, but is extremely GOOD.

Jerome Cowan turns up as an aging suitor, bringing home to the heroine the reality of her advancing years -- a function he repeated years later in Mitchell Leisen's great Twilight Zone episode, "The 16mm Shrine". I'm certain Leisen must have seen and remembered him here.

Walter Abel does what Walter Abel does, marvellously. Imported from Broadway and unsuccessfully cast as D'Artagnan, Abel found his footing in second banana roles, bringing cut-throat timing and toothy wit to his comic work.

But Claude Rains is MISTER WIT. A film automatically gets wittier when he's around. Here, as in CASABLANCA, he has the Epstein brothers supplying him with some great material, but he always makes more of it than anyone else. "When a man becomes repetitious, it is time to see the District Attorney," is a lovely line in context, but C.R. makes it soar over our heads, flip round in a vertical 180°, and skewer us right in the occipital lobe.

Bette Davis presides over the whole affair with an iron hand, in a velvet glove, clutching a length of drainpipe (a different one). She plays the lighter scenes with the whimsy turned up to 11 (a whimsical Bette in full flow may be too much for those of a delicate sensibility) and throws herself into the third-act suffering with the zeal of a flagellant. It's a terrifying lesson in Star Power.

But the music... I love Franz Waxman. His score for THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN is of Total Importance in the history of Hollywood music, and is a joy to the ears. When angels and demons have interspecies sex with each other, this is what they listen to. Waxman also brought the same wit to another, more obscure, James Whale movie the same year -- in the opening party scene of REMEMBER LAST NIGHT? Waxman appears to provide a jazz tune as source music, but is actually underscoring a series of little dialogue vignettes in the most precise way: foreground music masquerading as background. And that's just two films out of five scored in one year out of a thirty-five year career (which also includes that Twilight Zone episode...)

But for some reason, Waxman can't quite get a handle on MR. SKEFFINGTON. Faced with a film that starts mostly light and journeys into dark and tortured terrain, Franz attacks the comedy like it's a Carry On film, while overstressing the subtle hints of tragedy to come like Bernard Herrmann accompanying the sinking of the Lusitania. Once the film settles into weepie mode, the score finds its correct register and things progress smoothly, but it's a rocky first hour.

This dovetails with what I wanted to say about Mr. Greenwood's exciting score for THERE WILL BE BLOOD, because one of the striking things about that, apart from the sheer impact and originality of the sonorities, is the way the highly emotive and forceful music DOESN'T synchronise with the moods onscreen. While Waxman is slamming emphasis onto each flutter of an eyelid, Greenwood lays thick aural layers of terror over scenes that don't have any apparent terror in them -- he's preparing you for the NEXT scene, which will have plenty. When Plainview (John Huston [Daniel Day-Lewis]) is promising wealth and health and education to the townsfolk, the music is plangent and heartbreaking, playing the mood of some upcoming scene, an hour away at least, where they find out they've been cheated, and playing it so effectively that the scene doesn't even have to be included in the film.

Unusual!

The score is actually so overwhelming that if it DID synchronise precisely with the tones onscreen it might seem hammy and bombastic -- instead it manages to be poetic and allusive without pulling any punches whatsoever.

It did remind me a very tiny bit of Aaron Copland's score for THE HEIRESS, but Copland only gets ahead by a few seconds. Nevertheless, it's a remarkable thing he does -- by signalling an emotional change, a realisation or a plot development before it's happened, he's actually re-writing the movie. Copland and Greenwood both show how a score can be far more than an accompaniment or a mood-enhancer, it can be both part of film story-telling and an abstract force whose role can extend beyond the moment.

l’intento è quello di bloccare il tempo, di imprigionarlo in un ciclo angusto e illimitato, di provocare il suo ristagno

il desiderio di arrestarsi e morire nell’istante che ci ha cambiato per sempre

È questo il “tornare indietro” di Giovanni: il disperato rinchiudersi nella gabbia di un brandello temporale, il voler serializzare un evento (il dolore per la perdita di un figlio) che è invece progressivo e transitorio

la stanza del figlio

One of the most memorable concerts I ever attended was back in the 90's and The Michael Nyman Band at the Royal Festival Hall. I started re listening to some early Nyman pieces when in hospital and am enjoying getting excited over his very British systems music work again including this, perhaps one of the most famous pieces called Chasing sheep is best left to shepherds as used in the film The Draughtman's Contract.

More systems music posts

Random post__Blogs I Read__What is social bookmarking?

I know this came in a bit late - two years late to be exact. But surfing the net somehow led me to the film's official website. I was reminded of how much I adored this film (along with another European film called Irreversible - Monica Belluci was just amazingly sexy in that one). I don't care if Irreversible was one of the most walked-out films of 2002.

Anyway, back to the movie 9 Songs. The film is controversial for the actors of the film doing it for real in front of the camera. But this ain't a typical porn flick. This movie is just as mainstream as it gets (your typical love story). In some countries, the movie had been given an R rating. In some countries the movie had even been banned from being shown.

It's one sex scene after another. It's got masturbation, oral sex and everything in between. All of which are shot artistically. The camera angles were just a couple of notches down from being perfect. The raw intensity the scene produces is truly astounding.

Another reason why I really love this film is because of the 9 Songs being played throughout the movie. You see, the two main characters (Matt and Lisa) meet in a rock concert. And as if going to a rock concert once wasn't enough, you'll see them go to a rock concert time and time again in the film where you'd see the actually artists perform their respective songs.

The movie features these 9 Songs:

Each one of the 9 songs help create a particular mood that the scene is trying to convey. Which is just perfect. They were able to blend Rock And Roll with sex. Though mind you, if you're just after the sex scenes then you're better off jacking off to some crappy porn site. I could recommend some if you'd like.

This film is of great class and deserves the respect it has earned.

The quality may be lousy but what an unintended beat!

[audio http://em.nyquil.org/Hands%202%20Take.mp3]

A brief section of this piece has been featured before but I thought I'd include a bit more as a contrast the the cringe worthy chart countdown of 1981, the year in which this piece surfaced as a single . This illustrates the kind of experimentation that was going on outside the mainstream charts and the fusion of art and music that we seem to hear much less of these days. The piece itself features singer Patti Palladin and David Cunnigham's reworking of a Michael Nyman backbone.

oh yes, it also features one of my favourite dodgy lines:

"Sitting down, not standing  is a common dwarf disguise!"

Low bandwidth *AAC+ alternative:(720KB):Hands 2 Take

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The interview continues with the 'Mozart' and talk of Peter Greenaway's Channel 4 commissioned film 'Making a Splash' (remember when Channel 4 were not so down market?) together with a rare extract of Michael Nyman's soundtrack.

Low bandwidth *AAC+ alternative version(1.5Mb): Nyman Interview part 2

More Systems Music, this time from Michael Nyman during his minimalist period. I've kept some of the music in because some of the pieces are quite rare or never saw the light of day on either vinyl or CD and relate to the interview. Sadly a combination of a very poorly preserved tape (thanks 3M) ,poorly recorded original and even skipping vinyl during the original broadcast combine to make some of this a bit rough around the edges but if, like me, systems music floats your boat then these faults are worth enduring.

Mr Nyman was responsible for one of the more memorable concerts I attended at the Royal Festival Hall (or was it the Queen Elizabeth Hall?) some years ago which featured The Michael Nyman Band.

Reference is made to Mr Nyman's contribution to the wonderful Hands 2 Take from The Flying Lizards Fourth Wall album which I had on vinyl for years and is now very hard to get hold of.

Low bandwidth *AAC+ alternative version(1.8Mb): Nyman Interview part 1

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Years ago, I bought a Michael Nyman CD off the back of the Piano (this one) and I haven't listened to it for ages, but this takes me back to that, hearing that kind of minimalist, repetitive pattern building.

There is usually one whenever I go to a gig, and for ease of conversational reference, that person usually inherits the sobriquet “the fucking hippy”.  The kind of person who gets smashed on Heinz cream of mushroom soup before coming to a gig to show off their interpretative dance skills.  “I’m a tree, branches swaying in the wind!  I’m a cloud, tumbling along in stratospheric current!  I’m a bird, spiralling upwards in a thermal!”.  “No, you are not”, I want to say.  “You are a particularly smelly fart in a large crowd of people, and no amount of windmilling your arms around will get rid of the stench”.  There were dozens of them today, leaping and twirling about as if in a dismal marionette show.

No domestic court can overturn their license to dance (sadly), for Konono’s prescription to move is law of the highest order, some sort of ratified international treaty.  A five piece tonight, featuring two likembe (one of which being the bass) shouting at each other in morse code, rat-tat-tat snare drumming, bongos, and banging on stuff.  The crazy rhythms begin at 3.45, and continue relentlessly with only minor adaptations over the next hour, by which time the hippies have danced themselves into a tizzy, a pensioner has cast down his stick to groove wide eyed stage right, and a load of small children are rolling around on the floor having burned off a bucketful of e numbers.  In fact (and I don’t think I’ve said this about a concert before, I must be getting old) one of the most pleasing things about today was seeing a number of people who had brought young children.  Recently I was asked to produce a mix CD for my very young nephew, and Konono were one of the first things I chose to put on it, figuring their straight-to-the-feet beats and chants would be an ideal introduction (and one is definitely required, I must take any opportunity to try to guide the wee fella down an appropriate path) to music from the great beyond.

Quite what Konono had to do with Steve Reich is a bit opaque, although one could creatively extrapolate some sort of link involving African drumming, rhythm and repetition.  Bang On A Can’s subsequent performance of works by the likes of Louis Andriessen and Michael Nyman probably did more to set Reich’s contribution in context, but having chosen a stupid place to sit on the floor, and spending an hour with people saying “Excuse me!”, “Sorry!”, “Were they your fingers?”, and “I appear to have kicked you in the head”, I’m not sure I could even begin to determine whether they succeeded.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
(William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)

I always thought Alex Ross was at worst harmless and at best not uninteresting, for a music critic writing in a mass-circulation non-specialist magazine. I now discover that he is, in fact, the greatest musicologist who ever lived. Here’s a selection of the gushing, wholly uncritical, craven arse-licking reviews that this book has received in the UK. I reckon Ross appeals to many critics because he doesn’t make them feel intellectually inferior (because of the low intellectual level of the book).

Rupert Christiansen in the Spectator.

Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise is a fascinating survey of the cacophony of the 20th century, says Peter Conrad.

Is Alex Ross the most exciting thing to have happened to classical music this century? Alan Rusbridger meets a revolutionary critic, blogger and author.

Steven Poole is entranced by Alex Ross’s musical masterpiece, The Rest is Noise.

“Many will bridle at his dismissal of postwar German music” (ha!) writes Neil Fisher in the Times.

Well, I’ve been reading a library copy of Ross’s The Rest is Noise on a train journey. Words cannot convey how inane and insidious it is; imagine the worst type of cheap journalism you can imagine (name any bad music journalist in the UK, and they’ve got nothing on Ross), mixed in with Taruskin re-written for the tabloids (Ross has all the arrogance of Taruskin without the intelligence), typical smug, self-satisfied touristic view of other countries and culture, from the flimsiest of knowledge and understanding (but enough to impress a certain readership, falsely, that this is “learned”), genuine curiosity in inverse proportion to the desire to pontificate, and you have the book. It is the ideal textbook on new music for a newly arrogant neo-conservative (or liberal neo-conservative in sheep’s clothing) American supremacist intellectual class (in many ways I think it’s not really a book about new music, but one purporting to be so which is actually a book about the innate supremacy of contemporary America to Europe – note also the almost gloating way in which he claims that “European composers may soon be confronted with the interesting challenge, long familiar to American composers, of writing for a paying audience”). If some of you who live there really think that there is some potential to be found in this book’s having gained a certain readership, such that might help increase interest in serious new music (despite all evidence to the contrary in the USA of the last few decades), I’m afraid I think you’re terribly deluded. Like Taruskin before it, this book shifts the potential for any serious engagement with new music back a considerable way. If it weren’t a library copy, I’d have been torn between throwing it out of the window or using it as bum fodder.

To see quite how insidious it is, try the following passage.

In the nineteenth century, Schoenberg says [in Harmonielehre], tonality had fallen prey to “inbreeding and incest”. Transitional or “vagrant” chords such as the diminished seventh – a harmonically ambiguous four-note entity that can resolve in several different directions – were the sick offspring of incestuous relationships. They were “sentimental”, “philistine”, “cosmopolitan”, “effeminate”, “hermaphroditic”; they had grown up to be “spies”, “turncoats”, “agitators”. Catastrophe was inevitable. “The end of the system is brought about with such inescapable cruelty by its own functions … The juices that serve life, serve also death.” And: “Every living thing has within it that which changes, develops, and destroys it. Life and death are both equally present in the embryo.” Weininger wrote in similar terms in Sex and Character: “All that is born of woman must die. Reproduction, birth, and death are inextricably linked. The act of coitus, considered not only psychologically but also ethically and biologically, is akin to murder.” Moreover, Schoenberg’s description of those rootless chords – “homeless phenomena, unbelievably adaptable, they flourish in every climate” – actually resembles Weininger’s description of the effeminate, cosmopolitan Jew, who “adapts himself … to every circumstance and every race; like the parasite, he becomes another in every host, and takes on such an entirely different appearance that one believes him to be a new creature, although he always remains the same. He assimilates himself to everything.” (pp. 59-60)

Ross begins the next paragraph by thus referring to “The weird undercurrent of racial pseudoscience in Harmonielehre”. I don’t have my copy of Harmonielehre with me at the moment, but intend to check both wording (original wording, I have it in German as well as English) and especially context from which Ross derives those adjectives (I would certainly not take any citation of his on trust). But look at what he’s saying: Schoenberg attacks the incessant use of the diminished seventh by composers of all types in the 19th century (would anyone really deny that it was a hugely overused device during this era?) and somehow Ross has managed to portray this as tantamount to “racial pseudoscience” (I suspect the reason that the diminished seventh was “cosmopolitan” was simply that composers in France, Germany, Italy, Russia, wherever, all fell back on it for easy effect; the stuff about Schoenberg’s use of the term “vagrant” chords is straight out of McClary).

Lest it might be thought that I’m taking something out of context, let me also give the two paragraphs that precede the one I’ve quoted:

Harmonielehre turns out to be an autopsy of a system that has ceased to function. In the time of the Viennese masters, Schoenberg says, tonality had had a logical and ethical basis. But by the beginning of the twentieth century it had become diffuse, unsystematic, incoherent – in a word, diseased. To dramatize this supposed decline, the composer augments his discourse with the vocabulary of social Darwinism and racial theory. It was then fashionable to believe that certain societies and races had corrupted themselves by mixing with others. Wagner, in his later writings, made the argument explicitly racial and sexual, saying that the Aryan race was destroying itself by crossbreeding with Jews and other foreign bodies. Weininger made the same claim in Sex and Character.

Schoenberg applied the concept of degeneration to music. He introduced a theme that would reappear often as the century went on – the idea that some musical languages were healthy while others were degenerate, that true composers required a pure place in a polluted world, that only by assuming a militant asceticism could they withstand the almost sexual allure of dubious chords.

The idea of music’s having turned “unhealthy” or “degenerate” was indeed very prevalent in German-speaking (and other) discourse in the early 20th century (there’s some very interesting stuff on this in Walter Frisch’s book German Modernism: Music and the Arts). Bach was often cited as a “healthy” alternative to the supposed decadence of the present day; yet Schoenberg’s view of Bach in the Harmonielehre, stressing the extent to which the urge remained in Bach to write harsh harmonies, and also arguing for a degree of harmonic autonomy for the more complex chords Bach created was deeply at odds with many of his contemporaries.)

Oh, and just in case we hadn’t got the All-Germans-are-Nazis message, try the following:

One analyst approvingly notes that Lachenmann’s work is “uncontaminated” by the world around it.

Ross is citing Ulrich Mosch’s article in the New Grove. Later down the page:

The imagery of contamination recalls Schoenberg’s theory of degeneration in Harmonielehre. (p. 527).

Why not just go the whole hog, and say that whenever anyone German says something is bad, they must be basically thinking of it as akin to a Jewish person, and thus to be exterminated?

The blind spots around European music, particular post-war, are alarming but wearily unsurprising. It’s bizarre though that I’ve had an enthusiastic conversation with Ross about Nono, and he passes entirely without mention (unless I’ve overlooked a brief reference – my copy doesn’t have an index). He’s also on record as an admirer of Rihm (at least, Jagden und Formen), but there’s no mention of him either.

Such things might pass without undue attention – there are numerous holes in the late century chapters, the unbreakable curse of all music history surveys it seems – but for the fact that they add to an impression that this at heart isn’t really Ross’s book, that at some point historical/ideological/canonic/whatever forces have taken over and shaped the story in their image. Another piece of evidence in this respect is the extremely liberal reliance on the work of others in shaping the narrative. Every other page includes the formula “According to the scholar/critic/writer ...”, many of whom are of a new musicological bent, and very few of whom are engaged with critically in Ross’s history: it’s all established “facts” between which he picks his chosen path. But it’s not really his chosen path, it’s like working your way through a species counterpoint exercise – arriving at this note sounds good, but now you’ve got the problem of where to go next, so you fish up and down the scale until you find that one viable possibility. (It’s a weird fact about this book that contemporary musicology seems to get a better press from it than contemporary music.)

But if you just look forward and never admit the possibility of back tracking and trying again, the system controls you, not you it. He had some things that he wanted to say – on Sibelius and Britten most obviously – but once on that path the rest of his history determined itself.

When someone indulges in parochial, xenophobic stereotypes of other peoples and nations, knowing that he will be assured of a sympathetic response from those who bask in their own arrogant sense of superiority, then I feel no urge to defend them whatsoever, and care not a fig whether they supposedly “care about new music” or not. Actually I don’t care very much whether someone does so or not, as the majority of music new and old is of marginal value and importance. Someone who cares a lot about Lord Lloyd Webber, or Karl Jenkins, or John Tavener, or Michael Bloody Nyman, could be said to “care about new music”, but that doesn’t necessarily raise them in my estimation.

The UK’s mainstream press is pretty piss poor, it’s true, generally exhibiting that combination of parochialism, the style of the gentleman amateur, and a cloying desire to butter up those who provide nice wine at after-concert receptions. In America it seems that a somewhat more rigorous tradition of essay writing exists, which is something. But on the whole I don’t see Ross’s contributions to that genre as being of any particular value. Nor do I see that the “debate” he provokes leaves anyone the wiser, nor really that there is a “debate” at all in the mainstream press, either here or in America (as we’ve seen, the reviews have been almost entirely uncritical). Ross is playing a major part in reinforcing and entrenching an aesthetic climate in which it is harder than ever for a composer of “difficult” music to be taken seriously, where the demand to be cool and trendy overrides all other considerations. He’s not alone in this, of course, but one of the worst culprits. If every article of his went the way of toilet paper, it would be a positive benefit to new music. One could laud racists for provoking a debate about race, as well. At least in that case there is likely to be some sustained opposition in a wide public arena.

After all that, I do admire Ross’s style, and the ease with which he can talk seriously and technically about music without alienating the casual reader. It shouldn’t be an unusual skill in a music critic, but it is, so for that I’m grateful to him.

The heart asks the plasure frist, Michael Nyman. Colonna sonora di "Lezioni di piano". Tutte le volte che l'ascolto mi viene in mente questo pezzo di "Oceano mare", che è uno dei miei preferiti.

Giada

"Nelle terre di Carewall, non smetterebbero mai di raccontare questa storia. Se solo la conoscessero. Non smetterebbero mai. Ognuno a modo suo, ma tutti continuerebbero a raccontare di quei due e di un'intera notte passata a restituirsi la vita, l'un l'altra, con le labbra e con le mani. Una ragazzina che non ha visto nulla e un uomo che ha visto troppo, uno dentro l'altra, ogni palmo di pelle è un viaggio, di scoperta, di ritorno, nella bocca di Adams a sentire il sapore del mondo, sul seno di Elisewin a dimenticarlo, nel grembo di quella notte stravolta, nera burrasca, lapilli di schiuma nel buio, onde come cataste franate, rumore, sonore folate, furiose di suono e velocità, lanciate sul pelo del mare, nei nervi del mondo, oceano mare, colosso che gronda, stravolto sospiri, sospiri nella gola di Elisewin velluto che vola sospiri ad ogni passo nuovo in quel mondo che valica mondi mai visti e laghi di forme impensabili, sul ventre di Adams il peso bianco di quella ragazzina che dondola musiche mute. Chil l'avrebbe mai detto che baciando gli occhi di un uomo si possa vedere così lontano, accarezzando le gambe di una ragazzina si possa correre così veloci e fuggire fuggire da tutto, vedere lontano. Venivano dai due più lontani estremi della vita, questo è stupefacente, da pensare, che mai si sarebbero sfiorati, se non attraversando da capo a piedi l'universo, e invece, nemmeno si erano dovuti cercare, questo è incredibile, e tutto il difficile era stato solo riconoscersi, riconoscersi, una cosa di un attimo, il primo sguardo e già lo sapevano, questo è il meraviglioso, questo continuerebbero a raccontare per sempre, nelle terre di Carewall, perchè nessuno possa dimenticare che non si è mai lontani abbastanza per trovarsi, mai lontani abbastana per trovarsi lo erano quei due, lontani, più di chiunque altro. E adesso grida la voce di Elisewin , per i fiumi di storie che forzano la sua anima, e piange Adams, sentendole scivolare via, quelle storie alla fine, finalmente, finite. Forse il mondo è una ferita e qualcuno la sta ricucendo in quei due corpi che si mescolano e nemmeno è amore, questo è stupefacente, ma è mani, e pelle, labbra, stupore, sesso, sapore tristezza, forse perfino tristezza desiderio. Quando lo racconteranno non diranno la parola amore, mille parole diranno, taceranno amore, tace tutto, intorno, quando d'improvviso Elisewin sente la schiena spezzarsi e la mente sbiancare, stringe quell'uomo dentro, gli afferra le mani e pensa: morirò. Sente la schiena spezzarsi e la mente sbiancare, stringe quell'uomo dentro, gli afferra le mani e, vedi, non morrà.

Ascoltami, Elisewin...

No, non parlare...

Ascoltami.

No.

Quello che succederà qui sarà orrendo e...

Baciami... è l'alba, torneranno...

Ascoltami...

Non parlare, ti prego.

Elisewin...

Come si fa? Come glielo dici, a una donna così, quello che devi dirle, con le sue mani addosso e la sua pelle, la pelle, non si può parlare di morte proprio a lei, come glielo dici ad una ragazzina così, quello che lei sa già e che pure bisognerà che ascolti, le parole, una dopo l'altra, che puoi anche sapere ma devi ascoltare, prima o poi, qualcuno deve dirle e tu ascoltarle, lei, ascoltarle, quella ragazzina che dice

Hai degli occhi che non ti ho visto mai.

E poi

Se solo tu volessi, potresti salvarti.

Come glielo dici ad una donna così, che tu vorresti salvarti e ancora di più vorresti salvare lei con te, e non fare altro che salvarla, e salvarti, tutta una vita, ma non si può, ognuno ha il suo viaggio, da fare, e tra le braccia di una donna si finisce facendo strade contorte, che neanche tanto capisci tu, e al momento buono non le puoi raccontare, non hai le parole per farlo, parole che ci stiano bene , lì, tra quei baci e sulla pelle, parole giuste, non ce n'è, hai un bel cercarle in quel che sei e in quel che hai sentito, non le trovi, hanno sempre una musica sbagliata, è la musica che gli manca, lì tra quei baci e sulla pelle, è una questione di musica. Così dici, qualcosa, ma è una miseria.

Elisewin, io non sarò mai più salvo.

Come glielo dici ad un uomo così, che adesso sono io che voglio insegnargli una cosa e tra le sue carezze voglio fargli capire che il destino non è una catena ma un volo, e se solo ancora avesse voglia davvero di vivere lo potrebbe fare, e se solo avesse voglia davvero di me potrebbe riavere mille notti come questa invece di quell'unica, orribile, a cui va incontro, solo perchè, lei lo aspetta, la notte orrenda, e da anni lo chiama. Come glielo dici, a un uomo così, che ti sta perdendo?

Io me ne andrò...

...

Io non voglio esserci... io vado via.

...

Io non voglio sentire quell'urlo, voglio essere lontana.

...

Non lo voglio sentire.

E' la musica che è difficile, questa è la verità, è la musica che è difficile da trovare per dirselo, così vicini, la musica e i gesti, per sciogliere la pena, quando proprio non c'è più nulla da fare, la musica giusta perchè sia una danza, in qualche modo, e non uno strappo quell'andarsene, quello scivolare via, verso la vita e lontano dalla vita, strano pendolo dell'anima, salvifico e assassino, a saperlo danzare farebbe meno male, e per questo gli amanti, tutti, cercano quella musica in quel momento, dentro le parole, sulla polvere dei gesti, e sanno che, ad averne il coraggio, solo il silenzio lo sarebbe, musica, esatta musica, un largo silenzio amoroso, radura del commiato e stanco lago che infine cola nel palmo di una piccola melodia, imparata da sempre, da cantare sotto voce

Addio, Elisewin.

Una melodia da nulla. Addio, Thomas.

Scivola via da sotto il mantello e si alza, Elisewin. Con il suo corpo da ragazzina, nudo, e addosso il tepore di tutta una notte. Raccoglie il vestito, si avvicina ai vetri. Il mondo di fuori è sempre là. Puoi fare qualsiasi cosa ma stai certo che te lo ritrovi al suo posto, sempre. C'è da non crederci, ma è così".

Oceano mare, Alessandro Baricco

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Memorial - Michael Nyman

Acabo de leer una crítica nefasta sobre el concierto de Michael Nyman, al que yo pude asistir, en el Grec, firmado por un tal Miguel Jurado. Pasado el rebote inicial uno supone que al tipo sencillamente no le gusta Michael Nyman y descarga la amargura de tener que escribir -peor todavía, tener que soportar el concierto para después escribir- sobre alguien que le desagrada. Aunque también podría ser perfectemente que el Nyman le puso mala cara en el recibidor del hotel. En fin, todo es posible cuando hablamos de un crítico capaz de concluir un artículo con semejante párrafo: "¡Qué lástima que esa noche no hubiera reinado el silencio más absoluto en el anfiteatro de Montjuïc para haber podido disfrutar, una vez más, de las imágenes de El hombre de la cámara sin las molestias provocadas por la música de Nyman!" Los que pagamos una entrada por sufrir esas molestias, por supuesto, somos unos ignorantes con gustos musicales defectuosos.

Ahora bien, tengo que reconocer que mi gusto por la música es eminentemente pasional y escasamente intelectual, ante lo cual quizá alguien diga, bueno, el artículo tenía sus fundamentos musicológicos. El argumento sigue siendo insuficiente para sostener la crítica, pero aprovecharé para sacar a relucir otra crítica que me puso igualmente enfermo; otro producto de las úlceras que sufren algunos. Ésta ni siquiera viene firmada, lo cual es curioso cuando el autor, con toda la pachorra del mundo, escribe al respecto de la portada: "no sé si acreditada, me parece que no". Bueno, yo os puedo afirmar sin duda alguna al respecto que tal artículo NO viene firmado, lo cual es especialmente aberrante teniendo en cuenta que despacha a "La velocidad de la luz" de Javier Cercas con una estrella y una ascendente retahíla de descalificaciones. No es que me parezca un libro magnífico, pero si bien no podía afirmar o desmentir las motivaciones técnicas que llevaban al anterior crítico a cargarse a Nyman de un plumazo, sí que estoy en condiciones "formacionales" de discutir los argumentos que escribe el Ulceroso del Antifaz, por llamarlo de algún modo: "eso sí, se lee fácil, porque sino el lector un tanto exigente ya estaría colgado del pino más cercano al comprobar tal acopio de lugares comunes". Debo reconocer que en cierto modo convengo con esta frase. Ahora bien: "eso sí, se lee fácil" es el único comentario mínimamente positivo, o cuanto menos no-negativo que podemos leer en todo el artículo, que debe tener unas 200 ó 300 palabras... siendo un poco matemáticos, estamos hablando aproximadamente de una crítica compuesta por un 2% de opinión no-negativa, un 10-15% de descripción y un 80-87% de crítica destructiva. En estas cifras se mueve también el artículo sobre Nyman, aunque creo que sería más preciso eliminar el 2% de opinión no-negativa (en favor de la descripción). No quisiera convertir este artículo en una tabla aritmética de lo que debe ser la composición de un análisis crítico, pero, en fin, tampoco quiero eludir las posibilidades a la reflexión que ofrece un estudio númerico de dicha composición.

Decía Poe, el gran Poe -qué alivio pensar en alguien que escribía bien después de repasar los dos artículos que acabo de mencionar...-, que las críticas consisten en señalar los aspectos negativos de una obra para que de ese modo, por el contraste, queden de manifiesto sus méritos, que son mayoría y en consecuencia resultarían más difíciles y tediosos de diseccionar. En gran medida me parece ése el modo más acertado de hacer crítica, por lo menos para las buenas obras, porque constituye una aportación: al señalar los aspectos mejorables de una obra y hacerlo constructivamente, respetando el esqueleto y manteniendo un balance positivo, permite mostrar no sólo el talento del autor sino también la eficacia del crítico. Si no se trata de una buena obra, claro, el balance no puede ser positivo. Ahora bien, en tal caso, si respetamos la inversión de la polaridad, ¿no sería más adecuado señalar los aspectos positivos para contrastar por consiguiente los negativos?

Punto aparte supone el estilo denominado impresionista, que elude el sentido técnico para sustutuirlo por la "impresión", pero esto debe ser descartado por dos motivos: en primer lugar, porque la impresión requiere del prestigio de una sensibilidad acreditada -por ejemplo, Clarín-, y en segundo, porque, consecuentemente con el cambio de estilo el objeto de la crítica no es analizar sino animar al público a acercarse a una obra. No obstante muchos ulcerosos harían bien en dejarse inspirar por esta actitud.

Existe todavía otra perspectiva que considero necesario rescatar. Corresponde al inmenso Kafka, quien se negaba a sí mismo la condición de crítico por ser incapaz de alejase de sí para regresar luego y considerar en todo momento la distancia entre ambas posiciones. Mi interpretación es que Kafka considera que el crítico ha de eludir su propia persona al ejercer la crítica, para evitar que ésta se contamine por pasiones personales, pero que al mismo tiempo exige que la persona se involucre íntegramente pues es la formación integral de una persona lo que la acredita para ser crítico de arte, por lo cual debe discernir en todo momento ambas realidades y filtrar todo aquello que resulte útil y provechoso para el lector. Y la destrucción, si no viene de la mano de algún tipo de rendimiento del espacio destruido, no beneficia a nadie, sólo sacia ansias.

Llegados a este punto me parece innecesario agregar danbrownianamente una definición de "qué es un crítico de arte". Sea como fuere, lo que me parece evidente, es que a parte de la mala ostia que me hayan podido generar estos dos artículos, después de haber señalado someramente algunas reflexiones de los maestros y dejando las operaciones que conllevan al resultado a la inteligencia del lector, me parece evidente que estos críticos están haciendo mal su trabajo. Que a mí me moleste una opinión no me parece motivo para ensartar siete párrafos de corridillo recurriendo a Kafka, Poe y Machado; que alguien esté haciendo mal su trabajo sí. Y especialmente cuando está tan cerca de mis competencias "profesionales": no lo negaré, porque lo siento como una suerte de intrusismo, pero también porque por eso mismo estoy en condiciones de detallar, punto por punto, como si de un sumario judicial se tratara, el problema -y espero que celebréis mi criterio al ahorraros dicho sumario.

Ya pasé mi época de renegar de la RENFE, cuyos problemas también sufro. Pero nadie atesta las cartas al editor con quejas sobre las malas críticas, y las sufro igualmente. Desde aquí os animo y solicito a quien, como yo, se sienta indignado por la incompetencia profesional de ciertos individuos, remita las referencias de críticas que sólo sirven para paliar las malas tripas.