Sunday, December 29, 2013

Landforms as much as grids

Three cheers for cities that sit lightly on their landscape. Such a one, I am always surprised to be reminded of, is Los Angeles.

Just a few blocks north of us is Griffith Park, the "largest urban park in the United States". Unlike Central Park in New York it is not man-made. There are signs warning hikers against Mountain Lions and Rattlesnakes. The topography and the Live Oaks survive.

Developing an inner map of Los Angeles means memorising landforms as much as grids. Whereas in Sydney I learnt to map the bays and coves, here I am now seeing that Griffith Park is part of the hill chain that leads west to the Hollywood sign; part of the 'little hills' that the Native Americans called cahuenga, sitting between the coastal plain and the larger Verdugo Mountains which are backed by the peaks of the San Gabriels surrounding the San Fernando Valley. Memorising landforms also means developing an indigenous, pre-European view of the area.

Here in this photograph you can see the eastern end of Griffith Park. Go round this corner and you head toward Toluca Lake or northward to Burbank before embarking on the great east-west 'boulevards' that head sea-ward toward Ventura County. Pan right of this view and you might see snow on Mt Whitney. Four and a half miles from Downtown, there are freeways and traffic galore, housing, shopping strips...



...but also the original lie of the land. It's a pity the river was cemented, but in places it's going to be restored.




Saturday, December 28, 2013

"The wolf by the ear"

A CNN poll two days ago found that a majority of Americans thought this year's congress was the worst congress ever. Maybe they're right. But there were a few readers' comments along the lines of "what do you expect?" quoting Jeffersonian adages like "government is best which governs least".

I'm always a bit concerned when people quote Jefferson on limiting government. Even if Jefferson didn't exactly say this, several of the US Founding Fathers had similar views and it may be good to remember that Madison, Franklin and Jefferson were influenced by the example of the relatively small Iroquois, Delaware or Cherokee Nations who seemed to survive well with few formal rules but whose members had a concern for the welfare of the tribe. The Indian Nations might not have needed so much government because their individual members had a high degree of altruism.

I don't deny that American liberty has enabled spectacular (and often beneficial) achievement by untrammelled individuals. And the 'don't tread on me'/'how high is up?' attitudes are part of the reason I'm here. But mightn't it be possible that Jefferson was a despot down there on his plantation at Monticello; that his slaves chafed under his government? A person needs to be careful spouting Jefferson's views on government. Support for government has a lot to do with whom it serves.

And this congress may not have served many but in a country of 300 million people all with competing desires and needs, should you try to go without it or expect it to do better?





Thursday, December 12, 2013

Ups and downs

There is so much I enjoy about Los Angeles. I love that the whole city is a writers' workshop. You look over the shoulders of so many people working on wifi in Starbucks and see screenplay format on their computer screens. You hear neighbours talk of a coyote in their driveway the other night. You can walk into a roomful of Giacomettis at the County Museum of Art or see the huge ceramic that a couple commissioned from Matisse for the patio of their home...

But there is a downside. Tonight, on the 181 there was a guy yelling, 'You'll do HARD TIIIIME!!!!" and sneezing pathologically. Yesterday it was a woman cooing to two baby dolls in a basinette. When she looked up she had doll makeup on her face - heart-shaped lips and rouged cheeks. We see disturbed people every time we get on a train or bus. And then there's this (see attached). Just an ad...


There's an Australian type called "a battler" but I think some people battle even harder in America's more energetic, but more "sink or swim", society.



Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Coffee ii

I posted a blog some time ago (13 September) listing a number of places where I'd found good coffee in the States. Australians are big snobs, or shall we say more particular, about this, and it's multi million dollar business in the Australian cities. For some reason there seems to be good coffee in this area (the broad circle that takes in East, West and the main part of Hollywood.)

In the interests of occasionally having a trivial post, I continue with my list:

Javavista, 6707 Sunset Boulevard, Hollywood CA 90027;
Groundworks on the corner of Cahuenga and Sunset in Hollywood;
the Gelato Bar, 1936 Hillhurst Ave, 90027.

And I forgot the place we used to go to in Greenpoint in New York - Milk and Roses. I often used to work there back in 2011.


 A more substantial blog next time...

 

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Two sides

I was put on the spot recently: "Tell me a story that tells me what Australia is like." I was stuck for words. Since then, I've thought of two stories which could provide pretty good contrasting impressions.

The first, humourous. There is some audio on YouTube called "'the Rheem Hot Water Man". It's a bloke  thinking he's calling the Rheem Hot Water Service After Hours Emergency Number. "Me bloody hot water system's pissing water everywhere." The trouble is - no-one's there. I tell Americans that Australians love to swear. I myself often upbraid inanimate objects, in such an adjectival manner. You don't hear much 'cussing' here, that's for sure. But these 'recorded messages' illustrate this Australian characteristic - in full flourish as the man keeps leaving irate message after irate message.

The other story concerns the Japanese midget-submarine attack on Sydney Harbour in World War II.

One of the midget-submarines being salvaged the morning after
On the night of 31 May-1 June 1942 three midget-submarines made their way into Sydney Harbour. Two of the submarines were detected before they could attack and the crews scuttled their boats and committed suicide. The third fired on the US battleship, Chicago but hit an Australian depot boat the Kuttabul, instead, killing 21 sailors onboard. Now these attacks put the wind up Australians. They certainly showed Australians how vulnerable Australia was to attack. But the Australian government located the bodies of the four submariners whose crafts had sunk in the Harbour (the third was only found outside the Heads in 2006), and here's the thing: accorded them full naval honours, cremated them and found a circuitous way, I think via the Red Cross, to return the ashes to Japan. I read once that the Japanese government felt that this reflected great credit on the Australians. I certainly do.
The remains of the dead submariners arriving in Yokohama, October 1942
As postscript, the Australian government hoped that the respect they'd shown the Japanese dead might lead to an improvement in the way Australian prisoners-of-war were treated. It didn't, and when the Japanese used the funerals for propaganda purposes, the Australian High Command forbade the conduct of similar ceremonies in the future. But I like to think that the initial Australian instinct was one of respect, even for an enemy.

Now to bring our attitude to 'boat people' back in line with traditional Australian instincts...






 

Monday, November 25, 2013

Wildlife warnings

Seen in a local cafe:



A warning to dog owners in the area that a 15th dog has been taken by a coyote. And yet we are so close to Downtown.

I seem often to have ended up in cities that have huge swaths of natural environment. This reminds me of the notice in the window of a Glebe Point Road pet shop in Sydney warning dog owners of a bull shark in Johnston's Bay and not to let them paddle.

 

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Eternalised delight

At first glance this is a photograph of happiness - of people at play. Yet, I find it incredibly poignant.

Bondi Beach, Sydney 1890s. For more pictures see the State Library of NSW's Lost Sydney Facebook page

The little girl sixth from the bottom left has hoisted up her dress for a paddle and is thrilled and excited about her day at the beach. But it's all so long, long ago. The dunes are paved now. There are cafes and apartments and hotels, and there's been a Boer War, First World War, so much since. Which of these did her happiness live through?

In the same way I can stare for ages at that photograph of the two Arrernte women Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer took in Central Australia in 1901. It's reproduced here:   

 http://www.mabonativetitle.com/info/ArrenteWomenBaby.htm

Of course, I need to attach the customary warning that aboriginal people may see images of deceased relatives. But that only heightens my own sense of poignancy.

Somehow Spencer captured the exact moment of giggling. It 'sounds' from the frame. I can hear it as if I were wandering past these women today. But more than that. I think of Professor Spencer professing a Darwinian superiority about aboriginal people (and their prospects). It colours my attitude toward him. And yet, the 'Prof' was able to evince a photograph like this (the one of the Arrernte women) in the stuffy Victorian age.



If you liked this blog, others of mine touching on Central Australia are:


Victory over death and despair in a bygone age (thoughts on John Strehlow's The Tale of Frieda Keysser), 5 Nov 2012
@  http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2012/11/victory-over-death-and-despair-in.html

Ah, Nathanael - another note on The Tale of Frieda Keysser, 29 Nov 2012
http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2012/11/ah-nathanael-another-note-on-tale-of.html

Drowned man in dry creekbed - Happy New Year 1993, 6 Aug 2012
http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2012/08/happy-new-year-drowned-man-in-dry-creek.html

Considering the aboriginal land of Altjira, 20 May 2012
@ http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2012/05/considering-land-of-altjira.html

Saturday, November 9, 2013

The last scene from Strauss's "Salome"

Continuing my series of program notes:


Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Salomé: ‘Ah, du wolltest mich nicht...’ 

At the time of its first performance, Salomé was considered the ultimate extension of Wagner’s methods. Wagner had originally sought a reform of opera in the marriage of music and words; he wrote his own librettos. For Salomé Strauss used an actual play, Oscar Wilde’s French-language drama, Salomé, of 1891. 

But Strauss faced the same problem as Wagner with music’s primacy. ‘[Salomé],’ he concluded, ‘is the symphony in the medium of drama...’ But nothing in Wagner, to borrow Jennifer Hambrick’s words, was ‘any match for Salomé’s psychologically charged libretto and surprisingly dissonant score.’

Strauss had seen a production of Wilde’s play in Berlin in 1902, and a poet Anton Lindner suggested that it would make a good libretto. Strauss tried out the play’s opening lines (in German translation): ‘Wie schön ist die Prinzessin Salome heute Nacht’ (How beautiful is the Princess Salome this night) and realized that he could create a libretto essentially by trimming the text.

This was his third opera. Strauss had been stretching form in his symphonic poems, even to the extent of trying to render a philosophy in music (Thus Spake Zarathustra); he now took Wagner’s chromaticism and stretched it further in the quest to render the sickness of Salomé’s love. Even Wagnerians had difficulty swallowing the subject matter. Siegfried Wagner said his father ‘was ‘already turning in his grave’.

The plot is Wilde’s variation of a Bible story: Salomé has longed to kiss the lips of the prophet Jokanaan (John the Baptist); he has repulsed her. King Herod who ogles Salomé despite her being his step-daughter, says he’ll give her anything she wants if only she’ll reveal herself to him in a dance of the seven veils. She does so, and demands the head of Jokanaan as reward. The final scene, in which Salome finally kisses Jokanaan’s lips, is a tour-de-force. It unfolds in several long paragraphs, each building to a larger and larger climax as the dramatic soprano brings the opera to its repellent, if emotional conclusion.

Having feared that the executioner would resist killing the prophet, Salome exults as Jokanaan’s head is presented to her on its silver platter. There is a mighty roar in the orchestra and a horrific revision of the motif which preceded the opera’s opening reflections on Salome’s beauty. Over the top of this, Salome gloats: ‘You would not let me kiss your mouth, Jokanaan’. The music settles down and Salome praises the closed eyes that would not look on her, the silent tongue that spat venom... She compares Jokanaan’s voice to incense... The blending of sensations is Tristanesque. Finally she concludes: ‘The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death’. 

In the opera Herod now interjects. ‘She is a monster.’ We enter an evil place. ‘Ah! I have kissed your mouth Jokanaan’, sings Salomé to a chilling accompaniment. And then, as she exults, Strauss builds his music to its most radiant, lyrical and discordant height. A beam of moonlight falls on Salomé. Herod sees her kissing the head. He orders that she be killed. His men crush her under their shields.

This last scene has been described by musicologist Michael Kennedy as a ‘perverted Liebestod’. But we’ve come a long way from the love-deaths of Wagner's heroines who play redeeming roles in their dramas; Salome has few redeeming features as she upbraids Jokanaan’s trunkless head for not succumbing to her beauty.

In opera sometimes love, sometimes death wins, sometimes they both win in the same crushing conjunction. Either may be a soprano character’s fate, sometimes both.

Gordon Kalton Williams © 2012

This note first appeared in program booklets of orchestras associated with Symphony Services International (http://symphonyinternational.net/). Please contact me if you would like to reprint this note in a program booklet. If you would like to read more of my notes on this blog please see:
 
Edward Elgar's Froissart, published 2 July 2013
Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, published 3 July 2013
Franz Waxman's Carmen-fantaisie, published 6 July 2013
Jan Sibelius's Oceanides, published 8 July 2013
Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod, published 12 July 2013
Aaron Copland's Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson, published 18 July 2013
John Williams' Escapades, published 22 July 2013
Thomas Adès's Violin Concerto Concentric Paths, published 26 July 2013
J.S. Bach's Cantata: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", BWV.80, published 28 July 2013
Beethoven's 5th and 6th Symphonies, published 29 July 2013
Wagner's Götterdämmerung (Immolation Scene), published 31 July 2013
Liszt's Tasso, published 2 August 2013
Stravinsky's Les Noces orchestrated by Steven Stucky, published 8 August 2013
Liszt's Hamlet, published 15 August 2013
Scriabin's Piano Concerto, published 18 August 2013
Christopher Rouse's Der gerettete Alberich, published 27 August 2013
Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier selections, published
Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, published 30 August 2013
'Traditional terms' - an interview with John Adams, published 5 Sep 2013
Berlioz' Waverley Overture, published 9 Sep 2013
Tchaikovsky's Fatum, published 17 Sep 2013
Wagner, arr. Henk de Vlieger A Ring Adventure, published 29 Sep 2013
Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique', published on 29 Sep 2013

Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony, published 13 October 2013 
Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture, published 21 October 2013
Shchedrin's arrangement of music from Bizet's Carmen, published 25October 2013

Articles on mine on composers include:


Sousa and the Sioux, 19 August 2011
@ http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2011/08/sousa-and-sioux-i-am-reminded.html

"...above the canopy of stars..." - Beethoven's Ninth, 28 May 2012
Percy Grainger, the chap who "wanted to find the sagas everywhere", 17 June 2012
A Star and his Stripes - Bernstein, the populist, 29 June 2012
Igor in Oz: Stravinsky Downunder, 17 July 2012
Wagner - is it music, or is it drama? 27 July 2012
"Beautiful...sad": Puccini's La boheme, 29 July 2012
Philippa - an opera [blog 1], ideas for an opera on Philippa Duke Schuyler, 16 Sep 2012 

'Traditional terms?' - an interview with John Adams, published 5 Sep 2013
@ http://gordonkaltonwilliams.blogspot.com/2013/09/traditional-terms-interview-with-john.html


On my website, click on "USA blog" to scroll down the full range.


Saturday, November 2, 2013

A clockwise trip around the southeast

On our recent trip back to Australia, we were knocked out by the contrasting beauty of the cities and regions. Here's an affectionate photo tribute,

from Sydney:

A Saturday morning's stroll in Northbridge, looking across to Castlecrag, Middle Harbour

Kirribilli, directly across from the Opera House


The view from one of my favourite pools, North Sydney
 from Melbourne

Melbourne from the air, coming into Tullamarine

Melbourne's completely other feel




from Adelaide:
The Old Telegraph Station at Port Adelaide, a link to the inland in the old days

Victorian architecture in Port Adelaide. Note Adelaide's distinctive stone.






 from North Coast, NSW

The distinctive domestic architecture of tropical and sub-tropical areas





such as Ballina, an hour's flight north of Sydney




Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Moved

We've moved to Los Feliz, the center of Los Angeles' film industry in the Silent Era. A typical street:


Charlie Chaplin lived about 2 o'clock in the direction this photograph faces several streets away, next door to Cecil B. DeMille. Walt Disney first drew Mickey Mouse in his uncle and aunt's house down the hill to the left and a bit over, in what is now a photocopy shop.

Realtors describe this area as 'New York walkable'. You can encounter sidewalk cafes, cinemas and theaters on an evening stroll. But I always think of Los Angeles as a series of villages dotted around the place and this is 1920s LA, conceived before cars took over. To the east (10 o'clock in this photograph) is Little Armenia and Thai Town. No wonder John Adams described Los Angeles as one of the most ethnically-diverse cities in the world.   

But we seem to have left behind the intense Hispanic-ness of the San Fernando Valley, the bilingual signage (if you don't take the bus and train). As a tribute to the Valley, I'll finish this blog with a photographic sequence. America's Religious Right considers Los Angeles "Sodom and Gomorrah". But I noticed a lot of Catholicism over there.

In the Valley, you could almost become an expert in images of Our Lady of Guadalupe
The patron saint of Mexico is everywhere
Even on supermarket shelves






 

Friday, October 25, 2013

Shchedrin's 'Carmen' for strings and percussion



Another of my program notes:

Rodion Shchedrin (born 1932),
after Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
Carmen Suite – Ballet for string orchestra and percussion

Russians have carved out quite a significant role in the history of ballet since the days of Tchaikovsky and Petipa and they continue to do so to this day. The ballet of Carmen by choreographer Alberto Alonso and composer Rodion Shchedrin is possibly one of the best-known Russian ballets of the past 50 years.

In 1964, the Russian prima ballerina Maya Plisetskaya wanted to produce a ballet on the theme of Carmen, the seductress who plays lustful men off each other. She asked the famous Russian composer Shostakovich if he wouldn’t compose the music for her. But Shostakovich refused, saying, ‘Everyone is so used to [Bizet’s] opera that whatever you write, you’ll disappoint them.’ Plisetskaya then asked Aram Khachaturian, composer of the ballets Spartacus and Gayane, but he refused: ‘You have a composer at home,’ he said, clinching his argument. Only then did she ask her husband, Rodion Shchedrin.

Shchedrin originally intended to write an original score. But he too said he couldn’t think of Carmen without Bizet’s music, and so he decided ultimately to rethink Bizet.

Perhaps the most noticeable difference you’ll notice between Bizet’s and Shchedrin’s versions is in the orchestration – Shchedrin uses strings and a large battery of percussion. You will hear all your favourite themes of course, but sounding not quite like they did before. Witness the opening, the familiar Habañera, on bells with long string notes providing a note of expectation. But Shchedrin’s version is more than just orchestration; there are rhythmic differences and restructurings as well. At one stage Shchedrin uses the Bolero from Bizet’s L’Arlésienne in his score.

The ballet’s scenario was provided by the Cuban choreographer, Alberto Alonso, who had been commissioned during a visit to Moscow, and is similar to that of the opera. It tells of Carmen’s seduction of the straight-laced soldier Don José, whom she throws over for the more dashing toreador, Escamillo; and of Carmen’s subsequent murder at the hands of the jealous Don José. Along the way other characters have included Fate, a ballerina dressed in black who tells Carmen’s fortune, and Captain Zúñiga, José’s superior and perhaps also a competitor for Carmen’s affections.

The Naxos recording of this suite talks about the ‘white heat’ of Shchedrin’s arrangement. Poor uptight Don José can’t handle the heat of passions the sultry Carmen unexpectedly unleashes in him; the Carmen story adds another dimension to the meaning of ‘getting too close to the flame’.

Gordon Kalton Williams, © 2012 

This note first appeared in program booklets of orchestras associated with Symphony Services International (http://symphonyinternational.net/). Please contact me if you would like to reprint this note in a program booklet. If you would like to read more of my notes on this blog please see:
 
Edward Elgar's Froissart, published 2 July 2013
Aaron Copland's A Lincoln Portrait, published 3 July 2013
Franz Waxman's Carmen-fantaisie, published 6 July 2013
Jan Sibelius's Oceanides, published 8 July 2013
Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod, published 12 July 2013
Aaron Copland's Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson, published 18 July 2013
John Williams' Escapades, published 22 July 2013
Thomas Adès's Violin Concerto Concentric Paths, published 26 July 2013
J.S. Bach's Cantata: "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", BWV.80, published 28 July 2013
Beethoven's 5th and 6th Symphonies, published 29 July 2013
Wagner's Götterdämmerung (Immolation Scene), published 31 July 2013
Liszt's Tasso, published 2 August 2013
Stravinsky's Les Noces orchestrated by Steven Stucky, published 8 August 2013
Liszt's Hamlet, published 15 August 2013
Scriabin's Piano Concerto, published 18 August 2013
Christopher Rouse's Der gerettete Alberich, published 27 August 2013
Richard Strauss Der Rosenkavalier selections, published
Beethoven's Eighth Symphony, published 30 August 2013
'Traditional terms' - an interview with John Adams, published 5 Sep 2013
Berlioz' Waverley Overture, published 9 Sep 2013
Tchaikovsky's Fatum, published 17 Sep 2013
Wagner, arr. Henk de Vlieger A Ring Adventure, published 29 Sep 2013
Tchaikovsky's 'Pathetique', published on 29 Sep 2013

Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony, published 13 October 2013 
Wagner's Flying Dutchman Overture, published 21 October 2013

Articles on mine on composers include:


Sousa and the Sioux, 19 August 2011

"...above the canopy of stars..." - Beethoven's Ninth, 28 May 2012
Percy Grainger, the chap who "wanted to find the sagas everywhere", 17 June 2012
A Star and his Stripes - Bernstein, the populist, 29 June 2012
Igor in Oz: Stravinsky Downunder, 17 July 2012
Wagner - is it music, or is it drama? 27 July 2012
"Beautiful...sad": Puccini's La boheme, 29 July 2012
Philippa - an opera [blog 1], ideas for an opera on Philippa Duke Schuyler, 16 Sep 2012 
'Traditional terms?' - an interview with John Adams, published 5 Sep 2013

On my website, click on "USA blog" to scroll down the full range.


Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Urban environment?

Yes, we're in LA, looking toward Sepulveda Pass from the UCLA campus - one Fall evening.