(program)
Ace of Diamonds recording. Printed in England // Jospeh Haydn (1732—1809) // Quartets, Op. 33:4-6 (1781) . Performed by The Weller Quartet
Quartet No.4
Allegro moderato
Scherzo. Allegretto
Largo
Presto
Quartet No.5
Vivace assai
Largo cantabile
Scherzo. Allegro
Finale. Allegretto
In a way, I just know I've seen her before
She carried me home in a '94 Civic
Her face draws a line as a way to get home
I hear voice calling me, calling me back
“” Your Smith, ’Wild Wild Woman’
On rising in the morning, Haydn would at once sit down at the keyboard and improvise, jotting down the ideas that came to him. In the afternoon he would get to work in earnest. He criticized ‘our new composers’ who added one idea to the other and completed non, thus leaving the hearer with an empty heart at the end of the of the work. “” erik smith, notes for the recording
july 2019 was wild wild month of music, i wolfed down an exorbitant meal of it, practically lived on music—there are artists and albums that i came upon then that i’m still sifting through now. much of that mass came in the form of the seven concerts i attending at the Toronto Summer Music Festival, a month-long showcase of chamber music curated by jonathan crow, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster. with all the musical happenings available in excess between september and june, the festival was presumably installed to fill the drought while orchestras are on summer break with a more intimate and immersive experience more inviting to the casual listener. it was at the first performance i attended that i first heard haydn’s String Quartet in D Major, Op.20, No.4 as part of a mixed program performed by the New Orford Quartet which also included christos hatzis’s String Quartet No.5 and one of beethoven’s Rasumovsky Quartets. that festival accelerated my interest in featuring more chamber music in this journal, a criteria that will be front an centre when i’m putting together another year-long roster of music this july.
Long ago I learned that when encountering Beethoven’s supposed innovations, you often find that Haydn got there first. “” jan swafford, Language of The Spirit
goethe’s famous simile regarding the Rasumovsky Quartets (‘like listening to four rational people conversing with each other’) is somewhat relevant to these two quartets by haydn: i occasionally go down a Youtube rabbit hole watching debate videos of the late and exceedingly great christopher hitchens, there’s an infectious quality to the way, syntax, colour, finesse with which he goes about answering a question or delivering a fatal closing argument to express his visceral disgust at the fact of religious sentiment. it truly is a thing to behold how someone who relentlessly wields the cold iron of reason and atheism is nonetheless a firebrand of cunning and an endless supply of perforating wit; attacking theism not with reason—as if the faithful could ever be convinced so—but with a far more effective topic of interrogation: pride. his rhetoric relies on equal parts attitude, every point of reason delivered with a bit of stank for good measure. more than once this week i ejected myself from the trance of his debates and switched to these quartets, without interrupting the sentiment of rational people engaged in a emotional dialogue—or in musical terms: a delicate combination of Classical strictures and Baroque extravagance.
proof—as if any more was needed—of the depth of the intellect of hitchens: on answering a question as to why he would he chose not to venture into fiction, he attributed his reluctance to become a novelist to his lacking of musical talents. as in, he believes that musicality is the needed to above all for good fiction. i’m obliged to agree, and add: how much more effective an atheist he would have been had he been musical as well.
(song of the week: ‘Wild Wild Woman’ — Your Smith)
i’m not sure it’s okay to listen to the music of michael jackson, in light of even more recent revelations and documentaries… perhaps i’m not yet enlightened enough to be able to completely divorce the art from the artist, the deed from the doer etc but i’ve been skipping on to the next song every time ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ is served up on the shuffle—each time with a tiny pang of conscience. it’s as if i’m betraying my 7yo nigerian boy who wanted to dance, dress, sing, talk, look, walk like michael. so i’ve been instead getting my mj fix vicariously through other artists evidently inspired by the so-called prince of pop; that is, artists with that same flair for ecstatic gestures, those who music makes them want to—above all—whirl.
one recent discovery in that direction is caroline smith, the singer/songwriter from minneapolis and the former front for Caroline Smith and the Good Night Sleeps, who now goes by Your Smith. i’m not sure she’d like to admit that particular influence, though it’s hard to deny it with her mj-esque swagger in music videos like the one for ‘Man of Weakness’. likewise in her 2019 single‘Wild Wild Woman’, one of those songs that july of that year brought, an electro-pop ode to all the wild gyals out there. hopefully she brings her talents—and her high waisted pants and glossy black loafers—to toronto soon again please (as i’m writing this i found out she played at The Drake last night, fml).
Throwback to: Year 2, Week25
Click here for the full 2019/2020 roster