Enthusiasms

An instance of enthusiasm: Gilbert Ryle, 20th century philosopher, was an admirer of Jane Austen. Asked “As a professional philosopher, do you have time to read novels?” he replied, “Oh yes. Every year I read all six of them.”

In the present era of universal availability of everything, there is a place for listing enthusiasms, since such advocacy may lead to these enthusiasms being shared by the curious.

An arbitrary list:

Advocacy at least is the purpose of what follows.

Britten: Cello Symphony. A masterpiece, austere and rhapsodic, rarely heard because Britten is thought of as an opera composer. The third movement with its chains of minor thirds and remarkable tympani, first heard in a Bathurst hotel room soon after its premiere with Britten and Rostropovitch.

What is a masterpiece? Despite its total neglect, the Schoenberg Piano Concerto is. The pigeon-holing of the composer as a cerebral theorist, despite the work being passionate and compelling, is an emblem of the larger problem of reputation and fashion.

In 1963 Alfred Brendel in the Sydney Town Hall playing the Hammerklavier.

The Cezanne Banks of the Marne in the NSWAG which admirably lends itself to the enquiry: can one look at a painting for 15 minutes with the sustained attention one might afford a late Beethoven quartet? And the related question: how would the Zen Master look at a painting? Scan? Stare? Move? Blink? Look away?

The Liszt transcription of the Beethoven symphonies.

Julian Bream playing Britten’s Nocturnal.

Janet Baker and the high notes in Elgar’s Sea Pictures.

Gryll Grange (Peacock) … See final part of A William Maidment Garland.

The Swedish folk paintings of the Dalarna region.

Kenneth Koch: The Pleasures of Peace.

The central pillars in Durham Cathedral.

The ballets of choreographer Jiri Kylian for the Nederlands Dans Theater are all available on a remarkable web-site, Jiri.Kylian.com. He is one of the great 20th century artists. As an introduction, see the splendid Svadebka (The Wedding) and Symphony of Psalms, both to Stravinsky’s music.

Supreme instances of narrative invention: In Persuasion Louisa Musgrove falling from The Cobb; and Frederick Wentworth writing his letter in haste. And in Mansfield Park, rehearsals for Lovers’ Vows interrupted by the return of Sir Thomas; and Maria and Henry Crawford pressing through the locked gate into the dangerous world. And in Sense and Sensibility the unexpected visit of Edward Ferrars to lucy Steele and Elinor.

Balanced stones (inukshuk) along the coastal walk at Vancouver.

Two absolute masterpieces: Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne and Caravaggio’s Madonna of the Serpent amazingly in adjacent rooms in the Villa Borghese.

Beethoven’s relentless developmental modulations e.g. the descending figure in #4, slow movement, and towards the end of #8

The Ideal: in Brahms’ violin concerto we are unsure what is theme and what is variation.

Vivaldi Gloria

Handel Dixit Dominus

Bach St John Passion –particularly his writing for woodwinds.

Brahms Transcription for left hand of the Bach violin Chaconne.

Sibelius Symphony No. 5 AND the original 1915 version (Lahti Orchestra)

Panufnik Sinfonia Sacra

Stravinsky Agon

Enescu Two Romanian Rhapsodies

Early and middle and late Beethoven

Arvo Part Stabat Mater and Fratres (Kronos Quartet)

Machaut Messe Notre Dame (Try the Deller Consort)

Perotin (outdoing Stravinsky) Viderunt Omnes

John Adams Chamber Symphony

Gyorgy Kurtag Bach Transcriptions , particularly BWV 687, for 4 hands

Films :

Stolen Kisses (Truffaut)

Les Enfants du Paradis (Carne and Prevert)

North by North West (Hitchcock)

Stalker (Tarkovsky)

The Lady Eve (Sturges)

Deserto Rosso (Antonioni)

The Shop Around the Corner (Lubitsch)

From the Archives of Literature:

The Princesse de Cleves (Madame de Lafayette)

Lighea (Lampedusa)

Sylvie (Nerval)

Gawain and the Green Knight (The Gawain poet)

Tristan (Beroul)

Daphnis and Chloe (Longus)

The Marquise von O (Kleist)

Persuasion (Austen)

Mozart’s Journey to Prague (Morike)

For Watson’s metrical versions of the first six of the above, see His Books including Plagiarisms

Versions of the Kleist and Austen, see New and Unpublished here.

For the Morike, see chapbooks, Winter Eyes

And just as Macdiarmid writes admirably,

Let the only consistency/ in the course of my poetry/ Be like that of the hawthorn tree/ Which in early Spring breaks/ Fresh emerald, then by nature’s law/ Darkens and deepens and/ Tints of purple-maroon, rose-madder and straw

So let there be in my poetry a related vivacity as in the Shrink Lit Ode on a Grecian Urn:

Gods chase/Round vase.

What say?/What play?

Don’t know./Nice though.