(program)
Angel Stereo Recording, printed in the USA
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Selections from Pour le piano (1901), Estampes (1903) Images 1&2
Pianist: Walter Giesenking
Pour le piano:
Prélude
Sarabande
Toccata
Estampes:
Pagodes
Soirée dans grenade
Jardins sous la pluie
Images, 1:
Reflets dans l’eau
Hommage à rameau
Mouvement
Images, 2:
Cloches à travers les feuilles
Et la lune descend…
Poissons d’or
Claim your ghost, know the wine for what it is
There's light holding onto the ground
Our music is clumsy and free
“” Claim Your Ghost — Iron and Wine
the bulk of my creative energy this week went towards writing an op-ed for Against the Grain Theatre’s blog about the unfortunate intersection between the performing arts and racism. in it i tried to summarize all the thoughts i’d been having recently; and right alongside the satisfaction of having done that, and the gratitude of having had a platform to do that—is the frustration of having had to do that. i am soooooooo tired to talk/thinking about race, and yet, one of the by-products of recent events is the realization that is simply an issue that will never go away.
beware that the tremendous amount of analysis that’s been devoted to the topic in the last month doesn’t result in the mistaken notion that there is anything sophisticated about the problem of racism. it is merely the crude, raw material of human stupidity distilled and distributed en masse—nothing else. that it requires a paramount amount of effort to dislodge it from our midst does not take away from that fact. stupid people will always exist, therefore racism…
so yes that means it’s something that we might always have to contend with, to whatever diminished degree it exists. all we can do, and i think we’re all trying to do with this movement, is to create an environment that is as hostile as possible towards racism. because of all the general curtsying and functional politeness that comes with the performing arts, this kind of hostility can be especially awkward to instate. perhaps the reason it’s especially difficult to read threads like #operaisracist is because the stories that fellow BIPOC artists in the industry are sharing is diametrically opposed to the perception of the loftiness and white-linen-elegance the performing arts comes wrapped in. bullshit: if your elegance comes at the cost of everyone near it having to look and sound the same (where do i even start with the NBoC photoshopping the lips of one of it’s black dancers) then that isn’t elegance; that is a fragility that has survived only because of exclusion and must now be more than willing to embrace the most unseemly hostility towards exclusion.
i’ll stop there for now, there’s no point adding to the noise if one doesn’t have something constructive to say. in the background of this week’s uncomfortable ruminations, these piano pieces have cleared something of glade for the occasional fleeting blissful thought—the rest is noise, as they say.
There’s no need for music to make people think!...It would be enough if...they felt that for a moment they had been dreaming of an imaginary country. “” claude debussy
Among the great classical composers Debussy may have been the least cooked by rules and formulas. The result was a new art, one of ambiance and evocation and mystery. At the same time he was among the most fastidious of craftsmen, with the patience, skill, and genius to realize new kinds of creative ambition, which he pursued with moral fervor. “” jan swafford, Language of the Spirit
In his piano music Debussy remade the instrument in the same way and same spirit as Chopin had: new figures, new colors, new kinds of singing on an instrument that inherently resists singing. “” jan swafford, Language of the Spirit
(song of the week: ‘Claim Your Ghost’ — Iron & Wine)
i think this has to be my favourite I&W song.
Throwback to: Year 1, Week46/ Year 2, Week46
Click here for the full 2019/2020 roster of composers