Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No.6, “Pastoral”
The Toronto Symphony, conducted by Karel Ancerl. Recorded in Massey Hall, Toronto, January 19, 1972
CBC Radio-Canada Recording
Pastoral
1. Allegro ma non troppo — The awakening of happy feelings on arrival in the country
2. Andante molto mosso — Scene by a brook
3. Allegro — Thunderstorm
4. Allegretto: Shepherd’s song; happy thankful feelings after the storm
Edelschwarz——A cellist I follow ended a livestream this week with a rendition of ‘Edelweiss’—apparently sung in the same key as Christopher Plummer once did—-and I’ve since had the noble of ‘noble-white’ on mind. It came to mind again when I was looking for a new word to describe the vision illustrated by the first movement of this symphony. I think there’s something’s lost in the jump from noble to nobility, inasmuch as noble describes something fundamentally individual, that is always becoming noble, rather than something one is born into, as in nobility. The only thing I remember from the Canadian Opera Company’s staging of Kaija Saaraiho’s Love From Afar in 2012 are the lines that seem to make this same distinction, wherein Prince Rudel, carried away by his long-distance infatuation, describes the woman in question as:
“beautiful without the arrogance of beauty,
noble without the arrogance of nobility
pious without the arrogance of piety…”
And so I’ve thinking this week too of the incompatibility of arrogance and nobility, and of the rarity with which black nobility, in that sense, is portrayed in these parts. Walking past a handful of Coming to America 2 posters this week was a reminder of that rarity. You can count one hand the times popular culture has managed to put the two of black and noble together ( yes Black Panther, but what else?). And I think a certain amount of perceived arrogance has something to do with that.
Perhaps nobility is too archaic a word, hard to use without summoning old Edwardian sentiments. Dignity, a more modern synonym, more commonplace, and just as incompatible with arrogance. The start of the George Floyd trial this week too contributed to these thoughts… as the dignity of whatever is meant by the ‘black psyche’ no-doubt suffered collectively from the circumstances of his death. ‘Black Dignity Matters’ doesn’t exactly make for a scalable slogan, but really it means the same thing as BLM insofar as there is no ‘life’ without the basic transaction of dignity that blackness has to ask twice, thrice, for. And so to be black and dignified is an arduous task when the disposability of your value is part of the fabric of the culture you’re trying to operate in.
It’s this awkward flexion for dignity that protrudes subtly from the black characters in the books Andre Alexis (Days By Moonlight, The Hidden Keys)—a general refusal to look up to meet an expectant gaze—or protrudes more desperately in the paintings of Kehinde Wiley. When you’re expected to enter every space with head bowed, knees bent, and grateful to be admitted, then all the commonplace gestures of dignity—the very act of standing up straight and looking people in the eye—is judged as nothing less than arrogant. Well then, so be it.
How nice it must be to a delicate and white little flower, free of the arrogance inherent in having to remind people of your value, free of the pugnacity required to simply stand up straight, in these parts.
What does this have to dod with Beethoven? Not much really. But music has a funny way of reminding you who you really are, behind and before all the bending and breaking you gotta do to go on living—the first movement of the Sixth in particular, my favourite paragraph in symphonic literature. I can almost credit the entirety of this journal to the Funk & Wagnalls recording I purchased from a dollar bin seven years ago, my first classical vinyl. At first listen, I heard nothing special, no great revelation; it was in the slow unfolding of the years since that I seemed to hear this piece for the first time.
Song of the Week: ‘Rides Through the Morning’ — Michael Nau
Alas this ship, rides through the morning
When the darkness aptly grows
Now every bit of the, bit of the,
bit of the, bit of the sun is shining
I feel it calling, feel it calling me back home
Put down your sorrows and dance with me
Throwback to: YR3, WEEK35 — YR2, WEEK35
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