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Sunday's concert (on February 22, the 2486th in the Sunday Concert Series) at the National Gallery of Art bore a little surprise. Acclaimed young tenor Carl Halvorson who has a delightfully modern repertoire and has recently been hailed for his performances in Benjamin Britten's operas was ill and thus prevented from returning to the National Gallery of Art's West Garden Court (see the original program). With just two days' notice, the notable locals Jon Lackey and James Jelasic stepped in. The new program consisted of four short songs and two of the great German Romantic song cycles, An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved), op. 98, by Ludwig van Beethoven, and Robert Schumann's Dichterliebe [Poet's love], op. 48.
The first piece was Lungi dal caro bene (Far from my beloved), by Giuseppe Sarti (1729–1802, Google count 2,110). I myself had not heard of the composer before, but the light and sweet melody that ensued I have. Perhaps in a piece by the composer from whom this one was lifted? The piano parts might be delicate, but Mr. Lackey's voice immediately boomed right over it. Singing full throttle and compounded by the special acoustics of the West Garden Court made this almost obtrusive. What could have been a perfectly subtle and charmingly light song about another "distant beloved" was thus drowned out in its own sound.
A hundred years later, Francesco Paolo Tosti (1846–1916, Google count 23,200) composed Ideale, a song set to the poetic exaltations of a romantically gifted stalker ("I followed you like a flower of peace along the roads of the sky"). It sounds conspicuously similar to Sarti's Lied, just less delicate. But then, nothing is delicate when Jon Lackey sings at a level that seems to betray some unfamiliarity with the resonant qualities of the venue.
Roger Quilter's (1877–1953, Google count 9,320) Go, Lovely Rose, composed yet another 50 years later, is a harmless piece. Standard phrases of music attached to one another, with an uninspired piano accompaniment, to the extent that one can hear the piano at all. If I don't want to accuse Mr. Lackey of downright screaming at me, it is only because he seems to be a fine singer. Sure, in his favorite range he lets go and enjoys his own voice a bit much, and he sings Tosti songs like he was Lohengrin, sliding up to high notes, but none of this is so awful as to rob the effort of merit. Deep River (you can listen to an MP3 version, arranged by Harry Burleigh), an American spiritual, ended part one of the concert. It is so far removed from my musical predilections that my comments could not possibly do it justice. But it led into the Beethoven, which I quite like.
==>> Continue reading this review.
You should know by now that I like David Nishimura's Cronaca blog, so I was happy to read his take (from March 3, Gibson's Passion: documentary or devotional aid) on Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ. He said quite eloquently what I was trying to communicate in my Leap Day post on the same subject (La Passion du Christ: Violence and Art History). Here is how he put it, in part:
There is a long and venerable tradition in Catholic devotion to meditation on the sufferings of Christ—meditation that made liberal use of pictorial imagery of the most graphic kind, as any number of altarpieces illustrate. . . . Mel Gibson's film would thus seem to be a modern update on a very old theme—not a documentary, but a devotional aid. We moderns tend to unthinkingly equate the quest for verisimilitude with the quest for historical accuracy, yet here it clearly is intended to serve the heart, and not the head.When I tried to put Gibson's film at the end of a line of development including Grünewald and Caravaggio, I hoped that it would help to contextualize the movie, even for those who are not Christians or just don't have any real interest in seeing it. So I was also happy to read the reaction to my post by blogger Tom Moody, whose fun and colorful blog is also a regular read. He was especially interested in the story of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece and its gruesome crucifixion scene, and how it was created for use in a hospital. For your further edification, dear readers, here is a better and more informed version of the story, from Louise Gardner's Art Through the Ages (9th edition, 1996, as updated by Horst de La Croix, Richard Tansey, and Diane Kirkpatrick, pp. 724–25):
In his appalling Crucifixion from The Isenheim Altarpiece, Grünewald gives us perhaps the most memorable interpretation of the theme in the history of art. . . . Painted by Grünewald between 1510 and 1515 for the monastic hospital order of St. Anthony of Isenheim, the panels show three scenes, with the Crucifixion outermost, when the altar is closed. The dreadful aspect of the painting may be due in part to its placement in a house of the sick, where it may have admonished the inmates that Another has suffered more. It also may have had a therapeutic function, in that it offered some hope to the afflicted. . . .In fact, I have read elsewhere that some miraculous cures were ascribed to the altarpiece, which at least shows the depth of devotion to the images on it. Gardner also makes a good point about the other views of this altarpiece: in effect, if you pass through this horrifying crucifixion and open it up, "the mood changes from disaster to triumph," because in the inner panels—in bright, often almost hallucinatory colors—among other images, Christ leaps up from the tomb and blazes like the sun. If you want to see some more images and learn more about this work, look at this page on Le Retable d'Isenheim (in French only), from the institution that presently displays the work, the Musée d'Unterlinden (Colmar, France). Finally, there is a book devoted to this subject: Andrée Hayum's The Isenheim Altarpiece: God's Medicine and the Painter's Vision, from (Princeton University Press, 1993).
One of the main illnesses treated at the hospital was ergotism (called "St. Anthony's Fire"), a disease caused by ergot, a fungus that grows especially on rye. Although the cause of this disease was not discovered until about 1600, its symptoms (convulsion and gangrene) were well known. The gangrene often compelled amputation, and it has been noted in this connection that the two movable halves of the predella [base] of the altarpiece, if slid apart, make it appear as if the legs of Christ have been amputated. The same observation can be made of the two main panels. Due to the off-center placement of the cross, the opening of the left center panel would "sever" one arm from the crucified figure.
Much of this symbolism may have been dictated by his patrons, but Grünewald's own inflamed imagination produced the terrible image of the suffering Christ. Against the pall of darkness lowered on the earth, the devastated body looms—dead, the flesh already discolored by decomposition and studded with the thorns of the lash. In death, the strains of the superhuman agony twist the blackening feet, tear at the arms, wrench the head to one side, and turn the fingers into crooked spikes. . . . No other artist has produced such an image of the dreadful ugliness of pain. . . . The bright, harsh, dissonant colors—black, blood-red, acid-yellow, and the dreadful green of death—suit the flat, angular shapes. Placed in a wilderness of dark mountains, the scene is relieved by a flood of glaring light that holds the figures in a tableau of awful impact.
There she is. The orchestra on the garden side, gathered together along the length of Gérard Jouannest's piano, and her bursting forth from the heavy black curtain behind her. She gets an ovation, even before the first note, in the ritual that, like the hearty applause and worshipful bravos between each song, sets her in stone as the "grand lady of French song." There is nothing statuelike in her gestures, her tone, her way of giving life, comic and tragic, to the smallest word. In 26 songs, Juliette Gréco surprises us with sensations and emotions. Her smile is enigmatic where others would have relied on a pout, her fist tightens when others would wait with open arms, she scoffs her way through a love song ("Ne me quitte pas" [Don't leave me], very different from the weepy character created by Brel), and emphasizes with her tone and vocal découpage a grayer, rainier impression of a perky them ("Trois petites notes" [Three little notes], by Georges Delerue and Henri Colpi).If you've never heard of her, there is a lot of information (in either French or Italian, but not English) and some more pictures at this site: Juliette Gréco. (The picture shown here is how I imagine her when I listen to her, but for pictures of her in a concert in 2000, go to Hubert Marot's site on La Chanson Française.) Above I called her a singer, and while she does indeed perform songs, she is not a singer in the sense that Susan Graham is, but in the sense that Serge Gainsbourg is. That being said, I find the sound of her voice and the persona she presents in performance to be very seductive. Even though I have never seen her live, I like to listen to her most famous recorded songs, like "Jolie môme," "Je suis comme je suis," "Accordéon," and especially "Il n'y a pas plus d'après." The sounds in these tracks incarnate a France I never got to know because it was gone before I went there for the first time, but I can still experience it at a certain distance.
On this recital, Gréco mostly chose new songs from her recording Aimez-vous les uns les autres ou bien disparaissez! (Love one another or disappear!), with, first, "Je jouais sous un banc" (I was playing under a bench) by Gérard Manet. Because we think of her feeling uneasy with nostalgia, she seems to interpret these songs with more desire and relish than her classics. For those, she would not feel obliged to sing anything that did not suit her, or that no longer suits her, in order to please the audience. So, when she revives "Jolie môme" (Pretty girl), it's not to get it over with and even less to give a vision of it fixed in the past.
This is Juliette Gréco, now as then, for an hour and a half. . . . The technique is not perfect: sometimes a word is lost or there is a lack of breath. This is of little importance, because there is is a powerful soul at the heart of all songs.
 Les plus grandes chansons de Juliette Gréco (selection) |  Juliette Gréco, Aimez-vous les uns les autres ou bien disparaissez! (2003) |
It appears that the museum has recovered from that terrible day, since I have been reading recent reports about the plans to expand the Uffizi: see John Hooper's article (Uffizi to double in size as Italy tries to outdo Louvre, February 26) in The Guardian; and Jean-Jacques Bozonnet's article (La Galerie des Offices double sa superficie d'exposition [The Uffizi Gallery doubles its exhibition space], February 25) in Le Monde. The latter takes up the question of how the work in the museum will be financed:
Once planned and put into effect in less than a year, the project will cost around 60 million euros ($75 million). It symbolizes the present cultural politics of the Italian government: a private sponsor, Benetton, is taking part in the financing, with the city of Florence, and the Ministry of Culture.This is great news for art lovers: as I have reported here before (see post on February 1, Forgotten Paintings at the Uffizi?), the Uffizi is constrained by the space it inhabits and is unable to exhibit as many works in their remarkable collection as they should. As far as the Uffizi's hopes of competing with the Louvre and with the museums in Madrid, I have also reported here on plans to expand the Louvre (see post on February 16, Rebuilding History). Is this the cultural equivalent of the arms race?
  Schubert / Bruckner, Sys 5 / 4 + Interview, G.Wand / NDRSO RCA     |
The viol (or viola da gamba), a family of string instruments that was predominant prior to the advent of the violin family, has a singing if somewhat fragile tone that instantly seduces. Writing in the 17th century in his treatise Harmonie Universelle (1636–1637), Marin Mersenne described the instrument thus:
If instruments are judged according to their ability to imitate the human voice, and if naturalness in art is esteemed the highest accomplishment, then the prize must surely go to the viol, which imitates the human voice in all its modulations, even in its most moving nuances of sadness and joy. (Excerpt quoted by Catherine Cessac. Translation by Jaqueline Minett.)Outside the rarefied circles of French Baroque musicology and early music enthusiasts, the viol was perhaps lesser known as a solo instrument, I think, before a memorable film, Tous les matins du monde [All the world's mornings], brought this body of music to a wider audience in 1991 with a beautiful soundtrack, featuring the masterful playing of Catalunyan gambist Jordi Savall and the ensemble he founded, Le Concert des Nations.
With all the talk about and reaction to Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (last mentioned here on December 26), I thought it might be a good idea to translate some interesting commentary on the film from the French newspaper Le Figaro. In her review (<<La Passion du Christ>> face au public [The Passion of the Christ Faces the Audience], February 27), Guillemette Faure writes, in part:
America is talking of nothing else but Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ, which opened in theaters the day before yesterday, Ash Wednesday. Even before that, it was criticized for its antisemitic message, notably by the Anti-Defamation League, and at the same time eagerly awaited by certain Christian groups. So, at dawn on Wednesday, in several states thousands of people attended special screenings. . . . In New York, many people cried and lines were mostly full even though it was a work day. In Los Angeles, others were seen with a bag of popcorn in one hand and the Bible in the other. . . . Whatever your opinion, the director, a traditionalist Catholic, has succeeded in creating significant interest, which allowed this film, shot in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin and without any stars, to open on 4,000 American screens instead of the 2,500 initially planned. The controversy should reach its peak on April 7, when the film will open in Italy on 150 screens. However, it still has to receive its visa approval. The distribution in France is still in negotiation.That point about the removal of the line from Matthew is important. If Mel Gibson really wanted to make an antisemitic movie that stirred up hatred, that line would have been prominently featured. (Apparently, the crowd scene was filmed with that line shouted in Aramaic, but the translation has been left out of the subtitles.)
The screenplay seemed to indicate that Mel Gibson, a traditionalist Catholic and son of a father who denies the Holocaust, had made an antisemitic film. The Jewish high priests, we know, asked the Romans for Jesus to be crucified. Faced with the controversy, the Australian director finally removed from his film the line "May his blood be upon us and upon our children" (Matthew 27: 25), which for a long time fueled Christian antisemitism. As for the accusations of deicide leveled against Jews, when asked by the American journalist Diane Sawyer a week before the film's release, "Who killed Jesus?", Mel Gibson replied, "The big answer is that we have all killed him. You know, in this search for who is guilty, I am at the head of the list." Is it this collective responsibility that he wanted to underscore by depicting each lash of the whip in the twelve final hours of Jesus?
The newspaper also ran an interview with Mel Gibson by Marianne Ruuth in the same issue, in which some interesting things were said. For example, Gibson explains why he cast Jim Caviezel as Jesus:No, I did not choose him to play Jesus because his initials are J. C. or because he was 33 years old when I first called him. I had seen him on the screen in The Thin Red Line, and I thought, "Wow! Who is this guy? He is uncomplicated. There is a childlike innocence about him. There is simplicity. There is purity. There is strength. Who is he?" And that was that.There is also an interview with actor Jim Caviezel, by Marianne Ruuth. Guillemette Faure's review of the film continues in a second piece (Une oeuvre <<tarantinesque>> [A Tarantinoesque Work], February 27):
What was your source of inspiration for this film's look?
I really like Caravaggio and his sense of movement. His very cinematographic light seems to have burst forth from projectors. And his subjects are always religious and always violent. There are lots of very different artists whom I admire and who have influenced me, but Caravaggio stands apart. What we know about this man comes to us from prison records. He was a rough man, but out of his venality and his bestial nature erupted this divine expression on the canvas.
What is Mel Gibson's future, actor or director?
I really have no idea. I think that when all this is over, I'll go somewhere no one can find me. You know where that is, right? Where no one can find you? I'm going to set up house near the weapons of mass destruction!
Which proves that, whatever happens in the world and in film, Mel Gibson's sense of humor remains intact.
With their attempt to use realism to depict the ineffable, the bloody Christs of Mexican churches sometimes evoke religious symbolism more than spiritual depth. Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ produces a similar result. This ultraviolence, as Mel Gibson explains, is what Christ endured.Other articles in the same issue include Pas encore de diffuseur en France [No French distributor yet], by Marie-Noëlle Tranchant, and several others, links to which are found there.
In this Tarantinoesque "Kill Christ," the punching-bag Christ, one eye swollen shut from the beatings, his body lacerated, dies in a large pool of blood. Perhaps, we wonder, is the Christian being invited to answer the sadomasochistic challenge not to turn away as Christ offers the other cheek or raises himself up? Far from the sweet poetry of Zeffirelli, Mel Gibson offers us a neosulpician Christ under the influence of the worst Hollywood gore.
