Friday, February 5, 2010

Music And The Romanian Soul

by Constantin Noica (1909-1987)



None of the great men of 1848 – a Romanian scholar noticed once – had a particular understanding of music. The boyar sons from a hundred years ago assimilated everything regarding the arts that they encountered abroad, but not music. Not even today, perhaps, do we have enough understanding in this respect. Because music demands not only intelligence…
I interrupt here the flow of ideas that Professor Sextil Puşcariu developed in such a suggestive manner in an older History of Romanian Literature. Isn’t there something to learn from them? The cultured Romanian soul (the popular one is another story) doesn’t have all the dimensions. Not that it could have all of them at once. There took place, inside it, a worthy development, in the luminous areas of the spiritual life, but, in the areas that the ray of intelligence doesn’t reach, the growth was delayed. Will it delay any longer?
But this is precisely what our time brings over: a musical understanding of things; a troubling triumph of music. There are, for instance, souls and nations which know how to “orchestrate”, while the others don’t. Why doesn’t some nation win battles? Because, maybe, it didn’t have a great musician – this came to me one day. It doesn’t orchestrate; it doesn’t think like in a symphony; it doesn’t really sing. And our time, as any time in which the “elements” tend to individualize themselves, needs unity and music. In the cultured Romanian soul, cut too much at the edges, sometimes, separated from things and from itself by the merciless censorship of intelligence, our time comes to pour harmony and the sense of the whole. There is something material in music, not only a simple poetic idea, and it is matter that a soul needs, that was too much challenged by the theoretic and by theory., as this intelligent cultured Romanian soul is.
Only from music – unless you know it directly – do you learn what growth and becoming are. Symphony alone shows you how the matter of the sounds grows into meaning. Music familiarises you with that chaos of what isn’t there yet, which you will find later everywhere where life is: in you, if there is life in you; in history, where you seem to find too much of it. If we need today to familiarise ourselves with matter, to understand mess, chaos, then the spirit of music can give us a key. Of this key, most of our great ancestors were deprived. Titu Maiorescu left outraged the performance with Lohengrin. But it isn’t necessary to write this on the effigy that will soon be cast in his memory…
That’s why the deepest cultural phenomenon, maybe, that has been happening for a few years in Romania, is the growth in interest for the great music. When you see these full concert halls, when you listen to the celebrating radio programs, you can hope that our cultured soul will know more, will understand more, tomorrow. It is true there are a lot of snobs: it is also true that many enjoy only the voluptuousness of music. But if art isn’t a superior form of cuisine, then what is happening today has a cultural meaning. Our times send us through music a refined message – to understand their darkness and lights.

Excerpted from Vremea, 1942


George Enescu "Romanian Rhapsody" conducted by Sergiu Celibidache in a unique and magnificent style

I kissed his hand and I left a letter for him on the table.

He was one of the greatest artists of the world. She was a divine singer.

Constantin Brancusi and Maria Tanase met in New York in 1939.

“I met Costache Brâncuşi in New York and I left him in the bed brought from his Paris studio. It was raining that day and he asked me to sing for him. Not to see him cry he propped his back against mine so that I could not spy his face. Later on, after many songs, he fell asleep. Not to wake him up, I put a pillow to support him instead of my back. I kissed his hand and I left a letter for him on the table. In an hour I had to leave for the country.”
Maria Tanase



The meeting was caught in a photo document. Seemingly, “the laments” of Maria Tănase did not enchant the sculptor, if we are to believe architect Octav Doicescu, since he preferred doinas and playful, merry tunes, with jocose lyrics. He favored spontaneous, direct, simple music. For this visionary artist of simplicity, the music of Wagner sounded “barbarian”, that of Beethoven “too dramatic”, whereas Mozart he deemed “gentle and sweet.” He compared J. S. Bach with a lion stepping majestically in the desert (V. G. Paleolog).
It is a fact though that music accompanied him along all his life, and the Romanian folk song soothed his longing after the country, comforting the immigrant to Paris until his death.
Brâncuşi And The World Of Music by Viorel Cosma (b. 1927)


Monday, February 1, 2010

8 people with 5 instruments from 4 Continents speaking 3 languages for 1 song.

Brian at CAIN MOSNI thought of a cool concept and coordinated a virtual "jam session" with musicians from all over the world!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oU0I8APK-o


Jam Session 2.0 from Cain Mosni on Vimeo.



Across the seas I hear piano keys playin, translating languages
through the rhythms in beats bangin, a universal exchange, of personal
pains and joys, it started with a verse, each person just came and
joined in, some are complete strangers, some only teenagers, all of us
creators, , we are the dreammakers, internationally transmittin
through bandwidth, passin this bands passion so the masses can jam
with us, all are invited to play, none are required to pay, let the
virus spread, inspire heads, go pirate away, this is that free music,
for people who need music, just listen and breathe to it, I hope that
you feel movement, different souls around globe, connected through
sound makin, they set the foundation now we take it to groundbreakin,
everybody played there part and now we have one song, and this is how
an unheard voice becomes strong

Caravaggio meets Fight Club. Dawn Of War by Tarsem Singh

Kevin Jagernauth reports for Canada Movie Examiner:

" Production Weekly has twittered that Tarsem Singh, director of The Cell and The Fall, has set up offices at La Cité du Cinéma in Montreal and is preparing to shoot his next film, Dawn Of War. The studio production facility, is one of the biggest in Canada and has been home to many high profile Hollywood productions including 300, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and The Fountain.
Like 300, this film is a Greek period actioner, and tells the story about Athens founder and king Theseus' battle against imprisoned titans. The film will mark the first big, meaty lead film role for The Tudors' Henry Cavill while the visually creative director Tarsem Singh, has described the look of the film as "Caravaggio meets Fight Club".
There are no further casting or production details available at this time, but with filming set to begin in March, more news should be announced shortly. "

Now let's imagine the future masterpiece.

Caravaggio
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Fight Club
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Henry Cavill
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and TARSEM

01022010

The first day of february is a day in a mirror.

01022010

I see this day in 3D like 2 wings. I am so sorry... I cannot draw what I see and maybe it's hard for you to understand. I should find a associate blogger designer to do some magic here :)



Wait a minute ! Google tells me that today is a Pallindrome Day. So what is this ?

"Today is 1st February which is 01022010 and its Happy Pallindrome Day again for the second time this year. It basically means the same number can be read back and forth in the same way.
Various countries have different date formats, due to which Palindrome day has visited us twice this year already for the same 01022010 as 2nd January was also written the same in a different format of MM-DD-YYYY. For 1st February it was written as DD-MM-YYYY.
Aziz Inan, a professor at the University of Portland says that last time Palindrome Day happened was in October 2, 2001 or 10-02-2001 and before that was August 31, 1380 or 08-31-1380, that is 620 years ago! The next palindrome date is on November 2, 2011 or 11-02-2011.
Rocketboom has earlier caught another Palindrome day on 01-11-10 in DD-MM-YY format which means we can have 2 more Palindrome days on 11th January and 1st November in 2010 also."
From http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2010/02/happy-pallindrome-day/

Ok. Now I have to find the meaning of it .

The same professor, Aziz Inan, wrote that symmetry "possesses the magic power of drawing our attention." Inan goes on to say symmetry "conveys a sense of the aesthetic, of balance, beauty, equality, evenness, harmony, neatness, perfection, pleasure and/or simplicity."
In numerology, the repetition of a single digit (11, 111, 1111) is referred to as a Master Number. These palindromes are believed to accentuate the meaning of the single digit number used in the sequence.
Our fascination with palindromes is proof of man's continued search for the deeper meaning of life through words and numbers.
From http://www.examiner.com/x-16713-LA-Higher-Consciousness-Examiner~y2010m1d2-Palindrome-Day-01022010

But I still haven't found what I'm looking for :))