Photo of the Week 3/16/13

Magnolia Blossoms

N. Failing Street, Portland, Oregon

Friday 3/15/13

“as a bird longs for land”

as a bird longs for land
searching
over the endless waters
so my heart turns
and turns again
seeking south

(for north
is never true)


Mairi Graham-Shaw
© 2013


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons.
"Noah sends off a dove from the ark." Miniature on vellum; from Aegidius of Roya's "Compendium historiae universalis" of Southern Netherlands (manuscript "Den Haag, MMW, 10 A 21")C. 1450-1460

Prelude and Fugue in D minor BWV 851 – Chiara Massini

It’s late Saturday evening—& as we all know, with the time change it’s later even than it seems. As a result, I will make the Early Music Sunday post brief.

Our featured artist on Sunday this month is harpsichordist Chiara Massini, & the videos will feature her performances of five preludes & fugues from Bach’s masterpiece The Well-Tempered Clavier, which as it now exists is made up of two collections Bach compiled 20 years apart, with the Well-Tempered Clavier (Das Wohltemperierte Klavier) being compiled in 1722, & a book Bach called Twenty-Four Preludes & Fugues compiled in 1742. These collections are now considered book one & book two of the overall collection of 48 preludes & fugues—in other words, in each book one prelude & fugue in all 24 major & minor keys. 

Bach wasn’t the first composer to create a sequence of works that traveled through all keys, though his was early, coming at a time when tuning was shifting from a system we call meantone temperament to what is called well temperament, itself a precursor of the standard equal temperament used by modern Classical orchestras—not to mention midi & a high percentage of western musicians.

The problem well-temperament was trying to address had to do especially with a quirk in the meantone system. If you’ve ever taken piano lessons, you probably recall that the black notes can have more than one name—so the black note directly to the right of a C can be called C sharp or D flat. On a modern piano, the tones are identical, & that is the convention in western music overall; we call them "enharmonic" tones. However, that isn’t the case in all tuning systems, including meantone, in which it especially affected the enharmonic keys D sharp & E flat & also G sharp & A flat. Thus, to avoid dissonant intervals, one would need to retune a keyboard instrument when changing keys, especially in going from keys with several sharps to keys with flats. Well temperament addressed this issue, as displayed by Bach’s work—interestingly, the eighth prelude & fugue set in book one has the prelude written E flat minor, while the fugue is in D sharp minor, highlighting this.

Today, however, we just have regular old D minor, but played beautifully by Chiara Massini!





Image of Chiara Massini (with tuning wrench) links to its source at chiaramassini.com

Photo of the Week 3/9/13

Mural at the Albina Yard

N. Mississippi Ave., Portland, Oregon

Thursday 3/7/13

“Wrong Genre”

Wrong Genre

The ride back home was dark and lonely,
It started cold.
The hood on his coat helped a little
but it blocked his side vision,
He pushed it off as soon as the car warmed up.
He’d forgotten to wave when he pulled out of the  driveway
and the thought of her waiting at the window
watching him go without so much as a glance
depressed him.
He wanted to call to apologize
but didn’t, and this depressed him more.
Then he thought,
Hey, this is the beginning of a short story
not a poem.
This depressed him even more.
He knew he’d never write the short story.


Carmen Leone
© 2012


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
"Unter den Linden mit Blick auf das Brandenburger Tor, 1920er Jahre": Lesser Ury, c. 1920, public domain

Prelude & Fugue in C minor BWV 847 – Chiara Massini

A happy Sunday to you friends! I have a fun series lined up for Early Music Sunday in March, & I feel sure you’re going to enjoy it.

If you search on YouTube, especially along lines that stray from the pop & rock hegemony, you can make some marvelous discoveries—in many ways, most of the content on this blog as it’s been configured for the past year or two has been predicated on that. You can find in abundance artists like Jordi Savall, who is a major figure in a relatively obscure field; or you can find someone like harpsichordist Chiara Massini, an artist who’s much better known in her native Italy & elsewhere on the European continent than in the United States, but is overall an up & coming performer who’s making good use of social media to increase her exposure.

Of course, simply being active in social media is one thing; in Ms Massini’s case, however, she has the talent & the chops (if one can use that term in describing the technique of a harpsichordist!) to back it up. Her playing sparkles with delight & expressiveness. I know that some commentators on YouTube (often not the most savory group of people, nor a group always with the best of intentions) have criticized her use of rubato in playing Bach, but while I am no expert, the music sounds beautiful to me. & I’m reminded of an injunction I saw years ago in a piano instruction book as part of an introduction to a Bach piece. It noted something like “Bach is always musical, & should always be played as such.” Indeed, it seems to me that Bach’s music is not some mathematical problem waiting to be solved, but glorious music. It is expressed in complexity, but I know no aesthetic rules that state complex art forms should be shorn of expression.

There’s not a lot of English language information about Chiara Massini, but I’ll try to relay the major points during the five Sundays of March. Each Sunday I’ll feature her playing a Prelude & Fugue from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (& will also write about this master work.) For now, I can tell you that Chiara Massini has a website, which includes an English version, as well as versions in Italian & German. In addition, you can find her on Facebook, though most of these posts are in Italian, & she has a very active YouTube channel (if you want to read ahead so to speak!) Finally, her recordings are available both on iTunes & CDBaby.

Hope you enjoy this splendid music!




 
Image links to its source at chiaramassini.com

Photo of the Week 3/2/13

Camellia Blossoms

N. Shaver Ave., Portland, Oregon

Friday 3/1/13