Truffaut Anniversary

Other Newspaper Articles: Jean-Pierre Dufreigne, François Truffaut (L'Express, October 18) Jean-Luc Douin, Les secrets de fabrication, les rages et les indiscrétions de François Truffaut (Le Monde, October 19) Fernand Denis, Truffaut: La Cinémathèque d'à côté (La Libre Belgique, October 19)

I was alerted by an article (Truffaut ou l'adolescence du cinéma, October 12) by Dominique Borde for Le Figaro that, twenty years ago today (October 21, 1984), French director François Truffaut died at the age of 52. Here is a translated excerpt:

Twenty years later, Antoine Doinel is still here. Not in Truffaut's shadow but next to him, as his double, and ultimately in front of him like the herald announcing a new battle, preceding the work and the creator, the better to accompany him and define him, to reveal and mask him. And Doinel is Jean-Pierre Léaud who has aged with his character. There is a little bit of all of us in Léaud in the four films and one short film: the misunderstood and neglected child, the clumsy teenager, a lover shut out in the cold, a deceiving husband, the indecisive lady's man. Several slices of life that reflect the director and his viewers from 1959 to 1979, from Les 400 Coups to L'Amour en fuite.

Another article in the same issue (Regards croisés, October 12), by the same author, also sadly disappeared into the archives too quickly. It described the tribute that will be given to Truffaut at this year's edition of France Cinéma in Florence, from November 1 to 7: Retrospettiva François Truffaut (an exhibit and showing of the complete films) and the publication of unknown interviews of Truffaut, made by Aldo Tassone between 1975 and 1981.

We see him first as "viewer and critic." "I love directors who give an impression of logic, meaning harmony. For me, a bad film is an incoherent film, a film where the direction contradicts the story, pulls it in another direction." He wanted movies to tell stories animated by an internal energy rather than by pretty images: "For me, a film must move like music, it should make us think of a concerto, with his meditative and agitated moments, rather than of a series of paintings in a museum. I think that cinema has a lot in common with music because it's an art of duration." That's why he preferred Orson Welles, "whose images flow unpretentiously, having no value in themselves but only by their sequence, their relationship one to the next," over Visconti who often shows "an excessive visual ambition."

Another article in the same issue («Les 400 Coups» restaurés, October 12) announced that the Scanlab laboratories in Saint-Cloud, with a grant from the Fondation Gan pour le cinéma, have restored the original negative of Les 400 Coups in a high-definition digital version (available in French stores on October 20).

The density and contrast of each image have been equilibrated so that, when projected, the whole thing looks like it was shot continuously. At the same time, cuts and imperfections have been reduced when tears spread out sometimes over five to ten images. The missing frames have been completely restored by computer graphics, with the result that the new copies are top-quality. Ninety-three minutes of happiness in 35mm.

Dominique Borde's final article in the series for Le Figaro (Quelques livres, October 12) gives some brief information on books that every Truffaut fan will want to own: Antoine de Baecque and Arnaud Guigue, Le Dictionnaire Truffaut (Edition de La Martinière, buy it from amazon.fr), with all the information you need, from A to Z; Dominique Auzel, Paroles de François Truffaut (Albin Michel, buy it from amazon.fr), with all the screenplays; Dominique Rabourdin, ed., Truffaut par Truffaut (Editions du Chêne, buy it from amazon.fr), with interviews and other things in Truffaut's own voice.

Panocha Quartet at the Library of Congress

Last night, I happily went to a nice event in my neighborhood, the first of the free Concerts from the Library of Congress that I have been able to attend this season. The Panocha Quartet, from the Czech Republic, presented three pieces from the repertories for which they have become known: Haydn and two Czech composers, Smetana and Dvořák. This is appropriate since we are in the "Year of Czech Music," a year with important anniversaries for Janáček (b. 1854) and Dvořák (d. 1904). From here they will go to New York, where they will be performing two Janáček quartets at Zankel Hall this Friday, and András Schiff will join them for Dvořák's Piano Quintet No. 2 in A Major, op. 81.

The quartet took the stage of Coolidge Auditorium in matching black slacks, gray shirts, and maroon bowties. They created a restrained, delicate rendition of Haydn's String Quartet no. 2 in D Major (op. 33, no. 6), from the first group of pieces for this combination of instruments that the composer called quartets. The group's approach to Haydn took full advantage of their beautiful piano tone, which enhanced the contrasts of each movement, especially in the subdued solos for the violins in the Andante. By restrained, I do not mean to imply anything jejune in the Panocha's sound, because they had full volume available in the scherzo, a quick triple-meter romp that features nice outbursts from the cello (Jaroslav Kulhan) and a humorous longer-note ending for the viola (Miroslav Sehnoutka). The last movement, marked Allegretto, showed off the Panocha Quartet's remarkable virtuosity, especially the E-string purity and accuracy of the first violinist, who gave his name to the group, Jiří Panocha.

Available at Amazon: Smetana, String Quartets no. 1 and no. 2, Panocha Quartet

Dvořák, "Slavonic" String Quartet and Cypresses, Panocha Quartet

Of course, the Panocha Quartet is known for its renditions of Czech composers, and they ended the first half with Smetana's String Quartet no. 2 in D Minor, the briefer and lesser-known late quartet that followed the "From My Life" quartet in 1882 to 1883. (See David Hurwitz's brief review of the first two Smetana quartets, performed by the Panocha Quartet.) The four movements of this quartet are unified by their openings, which are all dramatic unisono melodies. The Panocha Quartet attacked the first movement unisono crisply and warmed it into a slow, luscious homophony, a sound which alternated with very turbulent moments. The second movement is a duple folksy dance with a warm viola melody, balanced by the Panocha's blindingly, buzzingly fast third movement, with its fugal entries. Here, the Panocha Quartet showed its full hand in terms of breadth of sound, which had been perhaps intentionally restrained in the Haydn. The only sound that seemed lacking was a full bass in some large textures, from the tone of cellist Jaroslav Kulhan.

At intermission, people checked the score of the Yankees-Red Sox game on their cell phones and generously shared the information with their neighbors. (I can't help but think that at least some of the empty seats in the auditorium had been reserved by baseball fans who decided to stay at home. Congratulations to Boston!) The program concluded with a substantial work, Dvořák's String Quartet in E♭ Major, op. 51, nicknamed the "Slavonic." This was a piece the quartet knew quite well, having recorded the complete chamber works of this composer. The first movement has a somewhat ametrical, folksy feel to it, which was played to great effect. However, it was in the second movement that the Panocha Quartet truly excelled. It is a gorgeous piece based on the Dumka, a mournful type of Czech folk tune. The first violin's elegiac melody was answered by an impossibly muted viola, over the mandolin-like pizzicato cello. Folk music returns in the fourth movement, Allegro assai, a rondo based on the Czech reel, the skočna, which again featured the extraordinarily fast and accurate playing of the Panocha Quartet.

Although I called out "Janáček" when the quartet took a second curtain call to acknowledge our applause, the second violinist announced, in heavily accented English, "waltz by Dvořák." They gave a tantalizing performance of one of that composer's Two Waltzes for String Quartet. (I mentioned discovering these pieces when they were played by the Bartók Quartet at the National Gallery last March, as reviewed on Ionarts.) It was a superlative musical amuse-gueule to end an evening of listening.

Washington Opera Lovers Gather for Collective Scream

Demonstration time: we can meet at the Kennedy Center this weekend. An article (Domingo Is on List of Met Nominees, October 2) by Robin Pogrebin and Daniel J. Wakin for the New York Times lets the bad news out of the bag. (Thanks to ArtsJournal for the tip.)

The Metropolitan Opera has narrowed its list of candidates for general manager, one of the most powerful arts jobs in the country, and it includes the tenor Plácido Domingo, two Met officials said. Mr. Domingo is quietly pursuing the position, meeting individually with several Met board members, the officials said. In addition, he spent time with members of the board's search committee on Oct. 6.

What will happen to the Washington National Opera, where Domingo's leadership appears to have had such important benefits? Domingo has said that he intends to follow through on his commitments in Washington and for Los Angeles Opera through the 2008–2009 season.

There is no reaction yet (as of the time of this writing) from the Washington Post.

Open Studios in France

The "open studio" is a great cultural event in which artists invite the public into their studios to see what they are working on and how they work. The San Francisco Open Studios are going on this whole month, superbly covered by artist Anna L. Conti in her blog Working Artist's Journal, starting with this interview on October 1. (I've mentioned Anna's thoughts on the production of Così fan tutte here before, but I should also mention her October 4 review of the exhibit Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya, at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Anna's review has some beautiful drawings of the pieces in the exhibit, which definitely outdoes my April 10 review of the same show when it was at the National Gallery of Art here in Washington.) Anna's series of interviews puts to shame my meager comments on an open studio event here in Washington.

It is probably no surprise at all that there was something similar in France this month, the second Journées des Métiers d'Art, with a national program of open studios and other events all over France (October 15 to 17), sponsored by the following organizations:

• La Société d'encouragement aux métiers d'art
  
• L'Artisanat, première entreprise de France
  
• Les Ateliers d'Art de France

The program came to my attention through an article (L'excellence au XXIe siècle, October 14) in Le Figaro:

With five thousand studios and more than a million visitors expected, the Journées des métiers d'art get rolling from tomorrow until Sunday, throughout France. The scope of such an event is essential for working artists to be recognized for their true value. To revive an endangered French tradition is the goal of the Ministry for Small Business, Commerce, and Artistry and of the Society for Encouragement of Artistic Careers (Sema). By opening their doors, fan makers, marionettists, mosaic artists, or stone sculptors give witness to a professional universe that is evolving and reaching out to young people who are sometimes difficult to convince. Some of the participants are being welcomed in historic monuments, proving that tradition and modernity can co-exist. The Kerazan Estate, in the Finistère, is welcoming ceramic artists, lute makers, embroiderers, and calligraphic illuminators; the Château de Langeais, in Touraine, is plunging the public into a medieval atmosphere, by receiving them in a fortress beautified by the precise work of artists.

There is the traditional, but there is also innovation and originality. Rémy Lacombe, in Ille-et-Vilaine, who is crazy about science fiction and comic books, presents his original carafes and coffee pots modeled on his heroes. In Agde, in the Hérault, the exhibit "Rose de la vie" brings together 40 fashion designers who make use of the rose. There you can admire a dress made of foliage and fresh flowers, inspired by an actual gown owned by the Empress Sissi, the image of the eternal renewal of artistic creation.

A side note, "Sissi" is Elisabeth de Wittelsbach, who became a Habsburg when she married Emperor Franz Josef I. She was known for a love of roses, so much so that this breed of roses was named for her. For more information on the open studios in France, see Des participants par centaines aux Journées de la culture (L'Express Parole, October 15) and Métiers du patrimoine : les formations à l'honneur (Le Figaro, September 22).

New Sounds over the Potomac: The Left Bank Concert Society is Here!

This article appeared first in the Washington Post (Left Bank Concert Society, October 18).

If beauty is still anathema to serious modern classical music, the Inaugural Concert of the Left Bank Concert Society at the Terrace Theater was a complete failure. Founded to foster and perform living composers' works in juxtaposition with works that influenced them, it featured Luciano Berio's surprisingly sweet 1986 Naturale as its first piece. Inspired by and using (via tape) traditional Italian folksongs in local dialects with running viola commentary (Katherine Murdock), it also featured a variety of percussion instruments including the biggest, baddest marimba I have ever seen—all played by the seemingly four-armed and eight-handed Lawson White.

Those fearing Stockhausen- or Boulez-like difficult music at the reading of their fellow post-World War II composer Berio (who died just last year) need not have worried. With its folksong relations it had obvious parallels to Bartók, and while undeniably modern, it is also extraordinarily (given the genre) accessible. Anyone mistaking the Italian songs for Middle Eastern calls of a muezzin could have been forgiven.

Apparently flutists are either very grateful or very desperate for new music, given the amount of work written for solo flute. The flutists Marina Piccinini (talented and gorgeous in equal measure) played Nicholas Maw's (of Odyssey fame) 1982 Night Thoughts. In his own preconcert talk admission, he hopes that his work sounds "not good, played on any other instrument," naturally sparking my curiosity. At least in the imaginary versions for bass tuba or kettledrum I wager to say that he is right. With flute, though, it was downright pretty.

Michael Mauldin's Birds in Winter preludes for solo harp, a luscious and very enjoyable work played impeccably by Astrid Walschot-Stapp, was the last contemporary piece before Debussy's Sonata for Flute, Viola, and Harp and the Beethoven "Harp" Quartet (op. 74) took over. The Debussy brought the soloists (save for Mr. White) all together, if to a slightly lesser effect than the sum of its parts would have suggested.

The Left Bank Quartet—consisting of the artistic directors, Evelyn Elsing (cello), David Salness (first violin), Katherine Murdock, again, and Sally McLain—performed the Beethoven string quartet amiably and clearly enjoyed their musicmaking. For someone who had just come off two hours of Gewandhaus-orchestrated Brahms, the Left Bank Concert was a wonderful cleansing of the musical palate.

Orchestrated Delight from Leipzig

Washingtonians—everyone living in the area knows this—are a funny breed: they care enough to pretend to care about good music, but not enough to dress well for it. They douse every performance in standing ovations but at the same time somehow manage to rush off to the parking lot before the last note has even stopped reverberating.

Those grumbles out of the way, it was all giddy anticipation for one of the most promising Washington Performing Arts Society concerts of the year: on October 16, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig came to town under Maestro Herbert Blomstedt, and they brought with them Mikhail Pletnev as the soloist in the Brahms D minor Piano Concerto. Though Pletnev looked glassy, spaced out, uncomfortable, and bloated (at the intermission I heard an audience member joke that he should lay off the cocaine for a while... talk about how rumors get started!), his playing was anything but. In his hands the Brahms concerto became sensuous, sexy even... agile, tender, and lyrical like a fresh and lovely country girl, shy and feisty at the same time, with an earthy intelligence.

The orchestral balance was very good for the most part, though the Gewandhaus came dangerously close to drowning Pletnev out on two or three occasions in the first movement.

The orchestral prelude of the work isn't necessarily my favorite and part of why I find the piece itself fraught with a few problems. Defying audiences' and experts' consensus of some 150 years, I will stick my neck out to say that the D minor is a beautiful, in parts even sublime, but not a great work. For that it lacks the unifying idea, the coherent line that pulls you from the first to the last movement. Instead it seems more like several gorgeous moments attached to each other. Every so often you will become aware of it, and then it recedes from the immediate consciousness again.

J.Brahms, Piano Concertos, E.Gilels / E.Jochum DG

Pletnev (not unlike Emil Gilels on his famous recording) managed to keep it together more than anyone else I've heard this work with. He took it in a manner that suggested that he sat back, had it come his way. It was crystalline and splendid. It probably even deserved the (sadly automatic) standing ovations.

Symphony No. 2 in D Major, a much later work, was next in the all-Brahms program. Blomstedt's conducting and the Gewandhaus's playing continued to be unobtrusive, subtle, plenty energetic when and where necessary, calmly flowing otherwise, with a great (but not blaring) horn section that, just as in the concerto, worked like a well-oiled machine.

Blomstedt's silver, light flock of forward combed hair flicked around gaily with every of his many involved movements. Looking like a gentle, if stern, schoolmaster of days past, he led the Gewandhaus to a fine, filigreed sound without having to coax or pull or beat out anything from this surprisingly young but terribly mature orchestral body with the confidence of a 261-year tradition.

The second movement, nowadays the most popular movement of any of Brahms's symphonies, was the only one that the audience in its premiere did not demand a da capo of... but even then critics and friends of Brahms had realized how sublime it truly is. It was, like the rest of the symphony, delivered in a magisterial and very satisfying way. The last chord had not reverberated, ... you know it: standing ovations and car keys. But neither that nor the—as always—dismal program could even dent a most splendid musical afternoon in Washington.

John Corigliano Lecture

Some of you may be interested in something I posted on my class weblog, Opera in the 20th Century, a summary of the remarks made by John Corigliano, composer of The Ghosts of Versailles (John Corigliano Speaks, October 18). He came to Catholic University to give a master class to students in the composition program. My students and I were invited to a second lecture he gave on Ghosts, which is the subject of that post.

Nan Goldin in Paris

After I mentioned Nan Goldin's photographs in a recent post (New Photography Exhibit, October 17), another article (Nan Goldin, la ballade de Barbara, October 14) by Armelle Héliot for Le Figaro reviewed Goldin's installation, called Sœurs, Saintes et Sibylles (Sisters, Saints, and Sibyls), now on view in the Chapelle Saint-Louis of the Salpêtrière (until November 1), as part of the annual Festival d'automne (mentioned in a brief post last fall). Here is my translation of an excerpt:

"Remember, most sweet and merciful Virgin Mary," implored Bernard of Clairvaux, as the text of this prayer from the 11th century recalls, inscribed on a lectern. "Remember," Nan Goldin implores implicitly in creating, with Raymonde Couvreu, this moving work as part of a public commission from the French Minister of Culture and the Festival d'automne. In the heart of the chapel of the Salpêtrière, you enter the installation only by climbing a staircase that leads to a temporary balcony. It is from this vantage point that, standing and leaning against a weak railing, a few people can witness together the 39 minutes of images and sound that make up the fabric of Sœurs, Saintes et Sibylles. They contemplate the three large screens after having observed, lying down downstairs, at the very center of the building, in a small, narrow bed made up in white linen, a young girl's bed in the 50s or 60s in America, the chestnut-haired wax statue, the nude doll, underneath a snow-colored nightie that has lightly ridden up, as if the sleeper had moved in her eternal sleep.

There are three movements in this suite, this pavane for a dead sister. Saint Barbara, who shut up by her father in a tower, made in it a third window—they are here—as a sign of her conversion to Christianity, a baptism in light, the Holy Trinity. The father cut off his daughter's head, but lightning immediately struck him dead. Such is the legend of Saint Barb or Barbara, patroness of artillerymen, miners, firemen. Excitable, as is the adolescent child, the young girl who appears later: Barbara Holly Goldin, born on May 21, 1946, beloved older sister, inspirational sister. Rebellious, flamboyant pianist, brilliant students, suffocating in the pillory that was the United States in those years, and shut up by her parents—her mother was annoyed—in psychiatric hospitals. On April 12, 1965, granted leave from one of the institutions where she was a prisoner, Barbara threw herself under a train. "Don't say anything to the children," the guilty adults said, but Nan understood everything on that day. That atrocious wound underlies all her artistic gestures, her path, this long painful path that goes through drugs, self-mutilation, friendship, love, and this care for others that she has always had.

Nan Goldin outrages, she has never been afraid of anything. She affronts reality and her personal demons. She has made photography her method of revelation. In the third part of Soeurs, Saintes et Sibylles, she focuses on digging through her own scars. On the green grass of the cemetery where Barbara is buried, on the dried grass under the small stone engraved with Hebrew words, two stars of David, and a menorah, there are the little stones and some flowers. Fragile thoughts stir up in the wind. "It seems so long ago/Nancy was alone/Looking ate the late late show/Through a semi-precious stone," sings Leonard Cohen. Everything seems so far away, but the emotion is so alive.

You can look at the brochure for the installation in this .PDF file. The article translated here has disappeared into the archives, but you can see this little capsule on the installation from Figaroscope, on October 6.