Opera Chic

On Bach, Polyphony and Nymphomania

Warning: NSFW

In case you didn't know, Lars von Trier really likes sex. Last night, the Dutch tasty Danish filmmaker's latest film, Nymphomaniac, bowed at the Berlin Film Festival, and guess what it's about?

In a jokey t-shirt that read 'Persona Non Grata' over a Cannes Film Festival logo (referencing a 2011 Cannes-wielded ban-hammer after cracking Nazi jokes and outing himself as a Hitler sympathizer while promoting his then-new film, Melancholia), Trier released an additional NSFW trailer, Chapter Five, in the eight-chapter movie about protagonist Charlotte Gainsbourg's self-diagnosed nymphomania. It's sex and Baroque for a coveted cast that includes Stellan Skarsgard, Uma Thurman, Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Christian Slater -- and Shia Labeouf.

Above is Chapter 5, The Little Organ School, described as: A chorale prelude by Bach: Three voices each with its own character, but in complete harmony. In other words: POLYPHONY. The nymphomaniac is easily inspired, and acts it out.

Veni[ce], Vidi, Vici: Going for Baroque in La Serenissima with Olivier Cavé

Swiss/Italian pianist Olivier Cavé, class of 1977, was in Venice last week to play J.S. Bach concerti/capricci under Teatro La Fenice's gilded Sale Apollinee, hosted by the Associazione Culturale Italo-Tedesca Venezia and the Goethe Institut.

A decade ago, Cavé's first DG CD dropped with Beethoven, Schubert, Scarlatti and Schumann and he's since flipped to Aeon with two CDs -- D. Scarlatti's Naples echoes and Clementi's footsteps across Rome. For his third, Cavé throws la Serenissma a curveball -- J.S. Bach's Italian moments musicaux called, “Nel gusto italiano – Concerti, Capriccio e Aria”.

After Tiepolo-&-Tintoretto-tinted dreams, we met Olivier Lexa, the young artistic director for the Venetian Centre for Baroque Music, who gave us a tour of the ornate Sala della Musica at the chiesa dell'Ospedaletto/Santa Maria dei Derelitti (above).

We visited Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore with its il Veronese masterpiece in the Cenacolo Palladiano (above) and its insane, new library (below), a former residence hall of Benedictine bros.

In retracing Wagner's footsteps across the city, we headed to Palazzo Fortuny for an exhibition on the German Romantic conductor's influence in visual art (like the Antoni Tapies oil on canvas below), which runs through April 8.

Lastly, we kicked our library fetish into high gear with a visit to the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana Venezia where Cavé navigated facsimile scores of D. Scarlatti's harpsichord sonatas and Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea lovingly cradled in red grosgrain cushions.

 

*Pulls back hair, unzips Chanel, kicks off YSL Tributes* Now why don't you join us beneath the cut for more of OC's personal photos? 

William Eggleston, Vintage Leicas, and Bach

At home with William Eggleston:

Vintage Leicas were arranged on the shelves. The floor of the drawing room to the right was covered with Chinese rugs. An old reel-to-reel tape recorder stood on a trolley. “It belonged to Elvis,” muttered Eggleston, “but he couldn’t handle the controls.” Two vast speaker columns, built to Eggleston’s own design, dominated the room. He demonstrated their power and clarity with Baroque music. He had a passion for Bach organ pieces.

Sellars' on Bach's Matthäus-Passion

Recently uploaded, here's an hour-long interview of Peter Sellars with Simon Halsey (chief conductor of the Rundfunkchor Berlin) from April 2010 in the Berlin Philharmonie all about Bach's early music masterpiece, Matthäus-Passion. Happy Easter!

Breakdancing & Bach

OC's an advocate of hip hop/classical music crossovers. But then there's this:

Coked-up, seizure-triggering Bach compositions are performed by Berlin-based ballerina/breakdancers, the Flying Steps, accompanied by conductor Christoph Hagel.

The production jitters its way into Florence and Torino in early October.

Ramin Bahrami: "Bach Saved me from Suicide" (Also: "Giovanni Allevi Masquerades Himself as a Music Prophet")

 

Strong words in a recent La Repubblica interview with young Iranian pianist and Bach specialist, Ramin Bahrami, who slams Italian pianist Giovanni Allevi, criticises President Obama, and recounts heartbreaking stories from his childhood as an Iranian citizen during the Iran Revolution.

The 34-year-old pianist left Iran at age 14 to attend Conservatorio di Milano. One year into his studies, his brother called from Tehran and told him that they killed his father who had been taken from the house and imprisoned by "Islamic fascists". After two days of crying, the first piece he played was Schubert's B-flat Sonata D. 960. Now he lives in Stuttgart and he recently collaborated with furry friend Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

Bahrami's been playing Bach for ages and credits Bach for literally saving his life. He fell under Bach's charms when he was only 5 years old, one Autumn afternoon in Tehran. He was listing to a CD of Glenn Gould playing Bach's Partita no. 6 which was an epiphany that the world was a colorful, magical kaleidoscope place, full of figures.

He continues on Bach:

My dad wrote me from prison: "Pay attention to Bach, he'll never leave you alone." I listened to him and Bach saved me from suicide. I chose not to do drugs, not to drink, but to play the piano. And to play only Bach.

In this world that's currently falling apart, art is our salvation [...] Bach can save us.

And while praising the value of artistic merits, he slams Italian pianist, Giovanni Allevi. Allevi is sort of like a watered-down Italian version of Lang(x2) -- a crossover pianist who gets accused of putting marketing buzz above the music.

Art is without value. Without music I would have ended-up in a mental institution. When the Islamic fascists came to our house to drag my father away, I was still in Iran. At that point I started playing the piano but I really didn't like it that much. I love it as an instrument of communication, but that can lead to exhibitionism, vulgarity, exhibitionism, and a circus -- which is pointless. Bach teaches humility, how to create dialogue, and lets you get lost in space and time. There's nothing superfluous. Never. A lesson that Mr. Allevi, who masquerades himself as a music prophet, shows that he hasn't yet learned. But also charlatans have the right to live in democracy.

Don't worry Allevi! Bahrami goes on to chide Obama, calling his solidarity with Iran "fake and useless". Meeeooowwwrrr. Claws out, kittens!

We Want To Believe: Floppy Symphony

This classical music loving dork dipped into his old hardware stacks and programed J.S. Bach's Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 on his floppy drives. Straight outta Silicon Valley. Here's the specs:

People have made floppy drives sing before, but this is my personal take on it.

Features two 3 1/2" drives and two 5 1/4" drives connected to a PIC18f14k50 microcontroller. It interfaces to any MIDI source via MIDI over USB. Straight MIDI would also be possible with an additional small circuit and some minor firmware changes. This initial version can respond to all 128 MIDI notes, and pitch bends +/- 2 semitones.

As it can produce only four simultaneous notes, and each drive has a different range and tonal characteristics, best results are obtained by arranging compositions by hand. However, it features two modes of operation: in one mode, MIDI channels 1 through 4 are played directly on floppy drives 1 through 4. In the other mode, all 16 MIDI channels are read, and notes are "intelligently" divvied out on a first-come, first-serve basis. "Note stealing" ensures that melody lines sound, but chords are often cut short. One or the other produces acceptable results for many unmodified MIDI files straight out of your favorite media player.

JS Bach's Immortal Again

From Elle comes the story of the American fashion brand, Ruffian, and their inspired collaboration with Dutch cellist Anne Koch. The results were harmonious: the Fall 2009 line offers textiles printed with Bach's score for Sonata for Solo Violin No. 1 in G minor. We'll be scouring Barneys New York for the pieces. Now if only we can make room in our luggage between this line and Dolce & Gabbana's vintage opera playbill silkscreens.

From Dusk 'Til Dawn: Upshaw's Shoutout To Her Friend Lorraine

Among the discs she used as therapy was a performance of Bach cantatas about mortality by her beloved colleague Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who was killed in 2006 by the same cancer that Upshaw has fought off. 'That is the most touching performance of anything ever! It's about fear and anguish, but the way Lorraine sings made it soothing. It was a blessing.' She illustrated her esteem for Hunt Lieberson by putting down her chopsticks, making a bowl of her hands and lifting them into the air.

OC would just like to repeat one more time how much she loves la signora Dawn Upshaw, mystical Unitarian, corageous survivor, proud disciple of the Upshaw Family Singers, polite endurer of dense journalists, soprano assoluto of magical wonders.

And she scrubs floors, too.

Daniel Barenboim Plays Carnegie, Shrinks. Scroll Down 4 Teh Incredible Images

OMG they shrunk the Maestro! WTF Carnegie? Look at the little baby piano I will play for yoooouuuuu!

Daniel Barenboim played Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I & II at NYC's Carnegie Hall, each one a successive night of Saturday, January 20 and Sunday January 21, 2007. He reflected on his earliest musical impressions of Bach's WTC:

"At the age of 12 I moved to Paris to study harmony and counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger. When I arrived for my first lesson, The Well-Tempered Clavier was on the music stand of the grand piano. She turned the pages forward and back; finally she settled on the Prelude in E minor from Book One and said: 'Right, my boy, now play it for me in A minor.' She held a wooden ruler in her hand and every time my fingers played a wrong note she tapped them with it. Thus, The Well-Tempered Clavier became the foundation for everything."

Happy 50th anniversary at Carnegie Hall, Maestro; may you play and conduct for 50 more. The Opera Chic "Barenboim Plays Carnegie" Flickr set is here.

מזל טוב

cya in meeeylan 4 caffe' @same table @teh principe di savoia bar ok? hugs OC