Vitaly Morgulis's criminally underrated Op 10 no 2 recording can languish no longer in the recesses of YouTube. The voicing was so stupidly gorgeous I had to double-check with a few other people whether he was simply modifying Chopin's writing.
As I have written here before, I take an avid interest in reading or watching accounts of how people discovered works of art- they often involve strange coincidences and dizzying first impressions which elicit fervent responses from the critic. So it was with high hopes that I sat down this week, on a friend's recommendation, to watch the 1994 Italian classic Il Postino, in which a young postman from Procida, Mario (Massimo Troisi) learns of the marvels of poetry from Pablo Neruda himself (Philippe Noiret). Sadly not based on a true story, but a stunning movie nevertheless. Noiret's Neruda is gravely wise and amused, but the real star here is Troisi, who pulls off the performance of a lifetime in this swan song (he died twelve hours after the main filming). Troisi marks Mario with a meltingly disarming charisma and feet-shuffling innocence which run deep enough to allow for some of the best deadpan jokes I have heard (Mario's first answer into the phonograph, and his subsequent question to Neruda before they go into the village, I have replayed a fair few times to marvel at the acting). I'm generally no sentimentalist, but this film has a straight-from-the-heart humanity which is quite rare nowadays. So many "warm and cozy" films feel contrived, but this isn't one of them.
There's a particularly scene on the beach in which Mario, listening to Neruda recite poetry, says that the words swirl around him like the sea, and that they beat him as though he were a boat. This reminded me of a great scene from Dahl's Matilda, in which Matilda is concerned that she doesn't understand everything Hemingway says:
" [...] But I loved it all the same. The way he tells it I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all happen.'
'A fine writer will always make you feel that,' Mrs Phelps said. 'And don't worry about the bits you can't understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.' "
There's also the wonderful part in which Miss Honey recites Dylan Thomas to Matilda while walking towards her cottage- but that is longer, and you can read it for yourself.
I plunged back into Czech poet Jaroslav Seifert's breathtaking work after many months; discovering many new jewels; if I had been fascinated on my first encounter, I fell head over heels this time round. The poetry seized me as few works have in recent times; it is full of the zing of life, vividly coloured and full of beautiful, startling images. Afterwards, I decided to explore other Central European poetry. While trawling through various Hungarian works, I found this beautiful simile from Sándor Weöres:
'As a bather’s thigh is brushed
by skimming fish – so
there are times when God
is in you, and you know:'
It's one of those lines which you have to re-read a couple of times to appreciate just how wonderfully fitting the comparison is. Some of Weöres's poetry can come across as gloomy, fixated on transience- but like many poets facing similar charges (looking at you, Philippe Jaccottet) he compensates with a wonderful appreciation of the miracles of the moment, as shown above.
John Adams's Harmonium has got to be one of the most breathtaking minimalist pieces I've heard, and this is coming from someone quite sceptical of minimalism. Gloriously warm, slowly expanding, uplifting.
I've always had a fondness for the impressionistic brevity and enigma of Japanese poetry, but even by the corpus's very high standards the following was breathtaking. It is from The Tales of Ise- poems embedded in narratives. A captain laments he could not clearly see a woman's face behind her carriage's curtains, and she answers:
'To know or not to know-
Why should we make
This vain distinction?
This deep longing
Alone is love's beacon.'
-Ariwara Narihira
(translated Geoffrey Bownas/Anthony Thwaite)
On their own these lines are magnificent, but given the lament to which they are a reply, they are still more splendidly imaginative. I made a similar point in my post about Celtic literature.
I discovered something startling this week. A while back I'd posted a tribute to Schubert on the anniversary of his death, comparing his music- especially the D960- to the poetry of Philippe Jaccottet. Turns out Jaccottet knew and loved the D960, which he marvels at thus in La Seconde Semaison:
'La sonate de piano de Schubert en si bémol majeur (D. 960). Dans le premier mouvement, cette façon de passer d’étage en étage dans l’espace créé par les sons, ce cheminement, cet autre « Voyage d’hiver » vers quelle jeune fille entrevue, jamais rejointe... […] Il y a surtout ces […] infléchissements de l’espace intérieur, presque incompréhensiblement exaltants et poignants à la fois. Ce qui me renvoie une fois encore au fameux passage du Principe de la poésie de Poe, cité par Baudelaire, où l’auteur avance que l’émotion particulière suscitée par le poème, joie et tristesse mêlées, tiendrait au fait que celui-ci nous rappelle à la fois que quelque chose comme le Paradis existe et que nous en avons été chassés. Ce qui ne fait que reculer l’explication. '
The source cited above is a marvellous doctoral thesis by Françoise Simille, which I like above all for its shrewd assessment of why Jaccottet works so well- a gentle, luminous world of birds, a blowing wind and dew-soaked grass. A highly recommended read.
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