1893. Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson a challenge to white caricatures of blacks playing the banjo as happy, lazy, drunk, untutored . . . Dvorak’s New World Symphony a challenge to all would-be American composers: the future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the negro melodies. Dvorak opens his Largo with […]
Vermeer’s sacred light travels across the room to illuminate her forehead, her fingers. She looks off to her left where someone listens offstage. Not the ancient lute, but a guitar from Spain. More chic, more modern. Easier to play, too. Catchy melodies, simple accompaniments. I imagine she plays music from Sanz’s Instrucción de música sobre la […]
Each of Debussy’s notes a delicacy, a dream. Each of Klimt’s flowers, faces a desire to be touched. Spiral after spiral on the maiden’s dress spinning round and down into the deepest part of ourselves. Desire? Fertility? Cosmos? Earth? Debussy begins with a low breathy flute. Pan’s seductive instrument rises and falls, directionless. Angelic harp […]
On our third date, my wife and I saw the Rite of Spring. Victorian sexuality freed. The piano’s legs uncovered, its heart grabbed hard. Stravinsky invents chords at the piano, a shot of vodka in hand. Experiments, inventions, of rhythm. Russian folk songs, violence. I wanted to move in 4/4 time, but Stravinsky invents a […]