Saluting an e“bull”ient virtuoso

5^th February marks the birth bicentenary of this legendary violinist. His showmanship involved publicity stunts like playing atop the Cheops pyramid in Egypt, at the time the highest man-made structure in the world. His friends, musical colleagues and acquaintances read like a Who’s Who of the time. He was a skilled luthier. As if all this were not accomplishment enough, he founded a colony in the United States, called New Norway.

He was Ole Bull (yes, that is his real name). He was born on February 5, 1810 in Bergen, Norway. His father wished for him to become a minister, but he was inexorably drawn towards music. At age nine he appeared as violin soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

He was sent to study law in Germany and then on to Paris in 1831, where he shared accommodation with the Moravian violinist Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst. Here he heard Paganini play, and became obsessed with his playing style and persona.

He made acquaintance with Chopin, Rossini and Hiller as well.

While in Paris, he also became a skilled violin-maker, apprenticing under the famed luthier Vuillaume.

Bull proceeded to become an extremely successful concert violinist. In England, he gave 274 concerts in one year alone. He spent a sizeable portion of his fortune on the collection of violins and violas of Stradivari, Gasparo de Salò, Guarneri, and Amati.

In 1840, he played Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata in London, with Liszt at the piano.

In 1843, he arrived for the first time in the US, and took the country by storm. The New York Herald reported “…This extraordinary being–this Ole Bull– will produce an excitement throughout the Republic unlike anything that ever took place in our day…. tall and elegantly formed —as beautiful as the Apollo. . . ." When asked what master he had studied under, he replied serenely “God, the Infinite!”

Described as one of the most phenomenal violinists who ever lived, Bull had an infuriating (to his critics, at any rate) tendency to ignore the classic repertory in favour of more popular musical taste. One of his staple favourites was his own grand fantasia on “Yankee Doodle”. Ignoring convention, he shaped the violin bridge almost to the level of the fingerboard, to enable him to play full chords on all 4 strings.

Robert Schumann writes that Bull was among “the greatest of all” and on par with Paganini.

Ole Bull’s fan following has been compared with that of icons like Elvis Presley more recently. Women begged for, and were happy to pay for, samples of his bath water! Mark Twain and Thackeray basked in his friendship. Queen Isabella of Spain offered him a generalship in her army. Hans Christian Andersen depicted Bull as a fairy prince in his “Episode of Ole Bull’s life”, which in turn was the inspiration for Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, a work set to music later by Grieg.

Longfellow wrote poems about him. In his “Tales of a Wayside Inn”, the Musician is modelled after Bull:

But from the parlor of the inn

A pleasant murmur smote the ear,

Like water rushing through a weir:

Oft interrupted by the din

Of laughter and of loud applause,

And, in each intervening pause,

The music of a violin.

Before the blazing fire of wood

Erect the rapt musician stood;

And ever and anon he bent

His head upon his instrument,

And seemed to listen, till he caught

Confessions of its secret thought,

– The joy, the triumph, the lament,

The exultation and the pain;

Then, by the magic of his art,

He soothed the throbbings of its heart,

And lulled it into peace again.

Fair-haired, blue-eyed, his aspect blithe.

His figure tall and straight and lithe,

And every feature of his face

Revealing his Norwegian race;
A radiance, streaming from within,
Around his eyes and forehead beamed,
The Angel with the violin,
Painted by Raphael, he seemed.

And when he played, the atmosphere
Was filled with magic, and the ear
Caught echoes of that Harp of Gold,
Whose music had so weird a sound,
The hunted stag forgot to bound,
The leaping rivulet backward rolled,
The birds came down from bush and tree,
The dead came from beneath the sea,
The maiden to the harper’s knee!

  Like many of his contemporaries, Bull too got swept away by the wave of romantic nationalism, and campaigned for a sovereign Norway, separate from Sweden. He established a national theatre in his hometown of Bergen.

In 1853, he bought a large tract of land in Pennsylvania and founded a colony there, New Norway. One of the communities was named Oleana, after him. However, Bull was no businessman or farmer, and the colony soon dwindled as the land was not fit for cultivation, and Bull returned to the busy life of a concert career.

It was Bull who spotted the young Edvard Grieg’s talent in 1858, and persuaded his parents to send him to Leipzig Conservatory. Bull’s brother was Grieg’s uncle by marriage.

He composed several works incorporating Norwegian themes. Few of them have survived. Today he is best known for Säterjentens Söndag (The dairymaid`s Sunday), usually played in a string arrangement by Svendsen.

Regrettably, Bull lived and died before the era of recordings, so it is impossible for us to guess at what his playing must have sounded like.

His funeral in 1880 was the most spectacular in Norway’s history. The ship carrying his body was guided by 15 steamers and a whole fleet of smaller craft.

At his grave, Edvard Grieg gave the following oration:

"Because you were above all others an honour to your country; because you above all others have raised our people to the sunlit heights of art; because you were the first pioneer of our new, more national music, above all others faithful, warm-hearted and soul-conquering; because you have thus planted a seed that will bear rich fruit in the future and for which coming generations will bless you; with a thousand and again a thousand thanks for all of this, I place this laurel wreath on your grave in behalf of Norwegian music. May you rest in peace."

© Luis Dias 2010

(An edited version of this article appeared in the Herald, Goa, India on February 5, 2010)

Stravinsky at the Big Top

By Dr. Luis Dias 

The great Russian composer Igor Stravinsky was living in Hollywood in 1942 when he got a telephone call from choreographer Georges Balanchine. 

The proposition he had in mind was rather unusual: he was relaying a request from The Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus to compose a short work for ballet, for elephants! It was to be a showstopper for the star elephant Modoc, who would be accompanied by fifty other elephants and fifty ballerinas, all in tutus. 

Stravinsky, a shrewd businessman, did not skip a heartbeat when he heard of the task (or the tusk, if you will). 

Here is the conversation that unfolded:  

Balanchine: I wonder if you’d like to do a little ballet with me.

Stravinsky: For whom?

Balanchine: For some elephants.

Stravinsky: How many?

Balanchine: A lot.

Stravinsky: How old?

Balanchine: Young.

Stravinsky: Well, if they’re young, I accept. 

Flippant as the exchange might sound, perhaps Stravinsky did wish to write for younger subjects, as he may have felt that older elephants would not respond too well to the unpredictable rhythms and unusual harmonies in the piece. 

And so it was that “Circus Polka” debuted at New York’s Madison Square Gardens. At the time it was billed as “Fifty Elephants and Fifty Beautiful Girls in an Original Choreographic Tour de Force, featuring Modoc, premiere ballerina.” 

The New York Times reported that “Modoc the Elephant danced with amazing grace, and in time to the tune, closing in perfect cadence with the crashing finale.” Those present at the debut stated that the rest of the elephants were somewhat mystified by it all. 

The “respectable quadrupeds” (Stravinsky’s words) of the circus went on to perform it over 400 times thereafter. Stravinsky himself did not attend any of the shows. 

Stravinsky then arranged the work for symphony orchestra, and it was first performed on January 13, 1944 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Cambridge, Massachusetts. No elephants in tutus at this concert, though. 

The work was performed often subsequently during charity concerts for the war effort and broadcast over the radio. After one such broadcast, Stravinsky apparently received a telegram from an elephant named Bessie, that had performed in the first performance in 1942. 

Stravinsky writes:

“After conducting my orchestral original on radio from Boston in 1944, I received a congratulatory telegram from Bessie, a young pachyderm who had carried a ballerina and who had heard that broadcast in the winter headquarters of the Circus in Sarasota. I never saw the circus ballet, but I met Bessie in Los Angeles once and shook her foot.”

Following another broadcast, Charles de Gaulle was sufficiently taken with the work to order the sheet music, to take back with him to France. 

The work itself can best be described as a jerky polka, with liberal use of bass drum, cymbal, and piccolo, and low brass, evocative of pirouetting pachyderms, and a “quote” of Franz Schubert’s Marche Militaire, which Stravinsky insisted was not a parody. The work closes rousingly with a series of off-beat thumps.

© Luis Dias. All rights reserved.

(This article appeared in the Herald, Goa India on 13 January, 2010)

 

Nancy Lee Harper in concert: A review

by Dr. Luis Dias

Nancy Lee Harper’s concert, hosted by Pro Musica and EPTA (European Piano Teachers’ Association) – Indian Associates at St Inez church last Sunday evening, lived well up to all expectations. 

The choice of programme commemorated musical milestones of the last year (Felix Mendelssohn’s birth bicentenary and Haydn’s death bicentenary) and this year (birth bicentenary of Chopin and Robert Schumann).  

Goethe famously stated “Music begins where words end”, and this becomes patently clear in Mendelssohn’s Songs without Words (Lieder ohne Wörte). Mendelssohn himself wrote: “Even if, in one or other of them, I had a particular word or words in mind, I would not tell anyone, because the same word means different things to different people.”

Lee Harper began her concert with two of them, Andante tranquillo op. 67 no. 3 in B flat major and Allegro non troppo, op. 38, no. 2 in C minor. The first work had a hymn-like chorale feel to it, while the second has been titled by musicologist Steven Heller as “Lost Happiness”, a sense of smiling through tears.

The programme followed on with the first movement (Allegro moderato) of F. J Haydn’s Sonata in E flat major, no. 51, Hob XVI/38. The sonata, in the Baroque style, but looking forward, was dedicated to the Auenbrugger sisters, who were celebrated fortepianists. Leopold Mozart endorsed this:  “both of them…play extraordinarily well and are a sound quite unlike the una corda to which we are accustomed.” This movement, embellished with Scarlattian mordents, explores foreign keys in its central development, offering a chance for virtuosity in the bridge that links the first and second subject of the recapitulation.

The tour de force of the programme was Robert Schumann’s Symphonic Études, op. 13. It is essentially a theme with a set of twelve variations. The theme was “the composition of an amateur”. Baron von Fricken, an amateur musician, had used in in a Theme with Variations for flute. He was guardian to a woman Ernestine, to whom Schumann had been briefly engaged to earlier. Thus, as in many of Schumann’s compositions, is an autobiographical element interwoven into the genesis of this work.

The pieces are divided so as to emphasize the alternation of more lyrical, melancholy and introvert pages (Eusebius) with those of a more excitable and dynamic nature (Florestan). Florestan and Eusebius personified two essential, opposite and complementary aspects of Schumann’s own personality and his own poetic world.

The final, twelfth, published étude (Finale) is a variation on the theme from the Romance Du stolzes England freue dich (Proud England, rejoice!),  from Heinrich Marschner’s opera Der Templer und die Jüdin, which is based on Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe.

The entire work was dedicated to Schumann’s English friend, the pianist and composer William Sterndale Bennett. Schumann himself thought it unsuitable for public performance and advised his wife Clara not to play it.

In Lee Harper’s capable hands, the wealth and complexity of the colours were brought forth, and the keyboard became an orchestra.

After a ten-minute interval, the time machine transported us to 1912, with Nocturne in D flat major by the Portuguese composer prodigy António Lima Fragoso (1897-1918). Sadly he died aged 21 of pneumonic flu, cutting short a trajectory that would almost certainly have ranked him as his country’s greatest 20^th century composer.  He developed a keen interest in the work of Debussy, Ravel and Fauré, and indeed this work, written when he was just 15,  does have elements of Debussy in it. It is dreamy, ethereal, and for this writer the gem of the entire programme.

Next came Ballade in G minor, Op. 23 by Chopin. It is the first of four ballades for solo piano, composed in 1835-36 and dedicated to Baron de Stockhausen, Hanoverian ambassador to France. In essence, this too can be looked upon as a Song without Words. Chopin himself is believed to have cited the poet Adam Mickiewicz as an influence. 

This Ballade is associated with ‘Konrad Wallenrod’ (Cortot), a historic legend after the chronicles of Lithuania and Prussia. In this episode Wallenrod boasts at the end of a feast of Moorish revenge upon Spaniards for unwarranted oppression. The Moors took their revenge by showing the Spaniards a false heartiness that allowed them to get physically close to the Spaniards so as to infect them with self-inflicted plague and leprosy. Konrad then tells the guests at the feast, to their perplexity and horror, that he as a Pole, if necessary would likewise blow death to his oppressors with an ill-fated kiss.

Schumann wrote in a letter about the Ballade, “I received a new Ballade from Chopin. It seems to be a work closest to his genius (although not the most ingenious) and I told him that I like it best of all his compositions. After quite a lengthy silence he replied with emphasis, ‘I am happy to hear this since I too like it most and hold it dearest.’”

The work has received some celebrity after it featured (twice) in the film The Pianist, as also in the Ingrid Bergman film Gaslight.

The programme closed with Hungarian Rhapsody no. 8 by Franz Liszt (1811-1886).   Liszt was among the first major composers to collect and use folk music in his compositions. In these rhapsodies, he sought to create what he termed ‘Gypsy Epics’.

In this piece, he does use a melody from the Hungarian folk song Kaka toven kolt a ruca, but also takes a tune by Márk Rózsavölgyi.  The work–nicknamed by some “Capriccio” apparently after its marking of Lento e capriccio– begins with a short, dramatic introduction. The ensuing main theme is slow and melancholy, and draws all sorts of ornamentation. Liszt’s creative genius miraculously recreates on the piano the characteristics of a gypsy band, the plaintive solo violin and the percussive effect of the cimbalom, the Hungarian zither. When the second theme appears midway through, the mood brightens and the music evokes images of a peasant celebration, drawing to a rollicking close with pianistic fireworks.

The encore piece chosen by Lee Harper was Franz Liszt’s transcription of Widmung (Dedication), a love song from Robert Schumann to his beloved wife Clara.  It was written in 1840, the year of their marriage. The lyrics are lovelorn and adoring: “O you my soul, my heart, my ecstasy and yet my pain…. You are the heaven in which I soar. The tomb in which I eternally laid my grief to rest.” As if to underscore his celestial vow of love, he inserts a quote from Schubert’s Ave Maria in the final bars. It was impressively delivered by Lee Harper with an apt sense of romantic poetry. The programme ended as it had begun, amply proving Goethe’s point.

© Luis Dias. All rights reserved

(An edited version of this article appeared in the Herald, Goa, India, on 12 January 2010) 

Nancy Lee Harper in concert

by Dr. Luis Dias

On 10 January 2010, Pro Musica, in collaboration with EPTA (European Piano Teachers’ Association), present a piano recital by a formidable musician-scholar, Nancy Lee Harper. The concert will be at St Inez church at 7 pm. Entry is free. 

Dr Harper’s performances have spanned four continents, many of them in prestigious institutions such as the Juilliard and Eastman Schools of Music, drawing forth rave reviews. She has also given Masterclasses worldwide. 

An American national, she currently lives in Portugal, where she is Associate Professor with Distinction at the Universidade de Aveiro. 

In 2003, Dr. Harper completed the first U. K. Certificate Course in Music Medicine offered by ISSTIP “with Distinction” and now supervises post-doctoral work in that area. She is the founder-President of EPTA-Portugal. Having completed the first UK certificate course in Music-Medicine “With Distinction”, she has developed disciplines within the Masters of Music in Performance degree in this area at UA. In 2005, she was featured on the cover of Piano Journal and was the interviewee subject by Carola Grindea published in Great Pianists and Pedagogues in Conversation with Carola Grindea (London: Kahn & Averill, 2007). In 2006, she was nominated for a prize from the Samii-Houseinpour Foundation in Belgium. 

She has explored Ibero-american music intensively, including performances of several world premières (5 viñetas para piano emocionado by Eurico Carrapatoso in Poltava, Ukraine; Rhapsody for flute and piano by James Wintle in Funchal, Madeira, Lírios roxos do campo by Amilcar Vasques Dias in Sernecilche, Portugal; 2 CDs of Portuguese 20th-century composers on the Numérica label in 1999, 2006). Several of her performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio (USA) Portuguese national radio (Antenna 2), and Portuguese national television (RTP 2). 

Dr. Harper holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance from the University of North Texas at Denton (1985), as well as a Bachelor of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from the University of Texas at Austin (1970). She is also an accomplished harpsichordist/fortepianist. Post-graduate studies were done at the Royal Academy of Music in London in harpsichord, accompanying, chamber music and composition. Her piano teachers have included: Larry Walz, Ralph Berkowitz, Frank Mannheimer, Dalies Frantz, Denise Lassimonne, Verna Harder, Nena Wideman, and coaching with Carola Grindea. 

Dr. Harper is the author of several books and more than seventy articles in scientific journals and encyclopaedias. Her books include Manuel de Falla: a Bio-bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1998), Manuel de Falla: His Life and Music (Scarecrow Press, 2005), Portuguese Piano Music: A Brief Introduction and Annotated Bibliography (with CD, forthcoming, Scarecrow Press) Correntes pedagógicas no ensino de música: uma introdução (forthcoming, Editorial da Universidade de Aveiro) and a chapter “Baroque Fingering: What can the Modern Pianist Learn?” in Joseph Banowetz’s The Pianist’s Guide to Fingering (forthcoming, Indiana University Press).

Her concert in Goa spans the gamut of the pianistic repertoire, beginning with two Songs without Words (Lieder ohne Wörte) by F. Mendelssohn,  a sonata by F. J. Haydn in E flat major (nº 51, Hob.XVI/38),  proceeding to Schumann’s monumental Symphonic Etudes. The recital continues with Maurice Emmanuel’s Sonatina No. 4, op. 20, “Sur des modes hindous” (presumably chosen specifically for her recital in India), moving on from there to a work (Nocturne in D flat major) by the Portuguese genius António Fragoso, whose tragically short lifespan was a huge blow to music. The programme concludes with F. Chopin’s Ballade in G minor No.1, Op. 23, and Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 8.

It promises to be a concert to be remembered for a long time to come.

This article appeared in the Herald, Goa India on 8 January 2010

Getting on Song!

by Dr. Luis Dias

 

An historic event for music in Goa took place this week. Internationally acclaimed soprano Patricia Rozario conducted a three-day voice workshop for eight fortunate local participants, the first of what promises to be an ongoing commitment on her part to return at regular intervals, as often as four times a year, to follow through with what she has set in motion. 

The workshop covered singing technique, and a basic guide to pronouncing the main operatic languages (French, German and Italian). The workshop focussed also on technique, song/opera interpretation and phrasing and language, as well as posture and breathing. 

Pianist Mark Troop, who collaborated with Rozario at the workshop, elaborated: “The aim of the course for us was to promote ideas on Style and Interpretation of western music – art music, folk and light, and secondly, to inculcate sound technical principles of singing”. His themes for the three days were: How do you speak the phrase – how do you then SING the phrase, but with the same intention. Second – what is the CONTEXT for the song – is it dramatic, or folk, or a musical, or an art song, or devotional?  

“The emotion of the song has to be delivered, but HOW you deliver depends on this context. Likewise with style (Period). Most songs are love songs – what you have to change is the appropriate style (Handel aria is different to The Sound of Music!!).” 

Troop was very happy that the students made considerable progress in the three days – by the end they had assimilated many of the core ideas. “They were all projecting better, and had the music more ‘in their bodies’. This is an excellent start”, he said. 

The participants ranged from beginners to professionals. All were unanimous in their endorsement of the benefits gained from the workshop.  

Sonia Shirsat,  fado queen of Goa, said “It was indeed an eye opener to first timers like me.” She found the workshop really helpful in “tapping the head voice”, as she put it. Fadistas essentially use mainly the “chest voice”. 

Carolyn Nunes, a 17 year old student, added, “I became aware of my vocal range for the first time in my life. I never knew I could go up to a high D sharp, until now.” Virginia Vales, almost 15, too felt that the experience had helped her greatly. Ms. Rozario was particularly pleased with the progress she had made in the course of the workshop. 

Danica da Silva Pereira, budding fadista and a recent winner at the Fundação Oriente competition, felt that she really improved her range. “Both Patricia and Mark explained themselves in a way that was so easy to understand. I gained so much information about singing the repertoire, from Mark”, she said. 

Mareike Kruse, 20, a German national currently in Goa as a social work volunteer, also participated in the workshop. “I’ve never done something like this before. I really benefited from the lessons with Ms Rozario”, she said. Kruse was also very impressed by Troop’s ability to sight-read anything set before him. She also felt that the workshop fee was a bargain compared to what one would have had to pay in Germany. 

Sisters Preethi and Deepti Coutinho had positive things to say as well. “I gained such a lot of knowledge. It was educational listening to one another sing”, said Preethi. 

 “I discovered the higher end of my vocal register. It is so important to study a work well before attempting to sing it. I would love future workshops to be longer”, Deepti added. 

Brother Mathew Rebello, a seminarian at Rachol, who will be ordained next year, felt that they were fortunate to have had training from a world-renowned singer like Ms Rozario. “I really feel that this workshop would be good for anyone interested in improving their singing technique and developing their voice”, he said. 

All of the participants found that the breathing exercises they learnt were most helpful. They all expressed their wish to attend an even longer workshop the next time round, in April 2010. 

And what did Ms Rozario herself have to say? “I loved every minute of the workshop Mark and I conducted here in Goa. I am absolutely delighted by the response from the participants, their enthusiasm and their eagerness to learn. They made tremendous progress in such a short time. Some of them had never ventured beyond an octave in range, and were quite excited when they discovered they could extend it. We covered a lot of ground, and this is a good solid base for us to work on when we next come here” 

Rozario sees this initiative as a means of giving back to the country of her roots. Hopefully it will soon open windows of opportunity to our young talent, to follow in her illustrious footsteps, and raise the bar for music in general, and singing in particular, not only in Goa, but all over India. 

Heartfelt thanks are due to the Kala Academy for the generous use of their facilities for this ambitious endeavour.

This article was published in the Herald, Goa on 2 January, 2010

Only the Lover Sings: A Meditation for Christmas 2009

   

 

                                                                                                                                                                     Rev. Fr. Joaquim D’Souza, SDB

The great African Bishop and Father of the Church, St Augustine of Hippo, expressed the insight in his inimitable, crisp Latin: “Cantare amantis est” (Sermon 336), It belongs to the lover to sing, or in other words, Only the lover sings. In fact, only a lover can sing, only one who loves and is loved has the right to sing. When love finds its way into a heart, it breaks into song. That is why most songs in any language are love songs, expressions of the heart that exults. 

Christmas is usually associated with songs, hymns and carols. At the birth of Jesus, angelic choirs sang in the heavens (Lk 2,14), the shepherds returned to their flocks praising and glorifying God (singing all the way back, I imagine) for what they had seen and heard (Lk 2, 20) and Mary sang in her heart as she meditated on all these things (Lk 2, 19). It was inevitable that singing should be part of Christmas from the very beginning, for Love was born on Christmas night. 

Among the favourite and enduring Christmas carols in the English language, from the heavenly, Angels we have heard on high, to the homely, Come, come, come to the manger, and the sublime, almost ethereal, Silent Night, Holy Night, one that is most popular is, The Twelve Days of Christmas. The tune has a lilt about it that immediately catches the ear, but the words are another matter. One wonders what reference the words have to Christmas, except that they count the twelve days from Christmas Day to Epiphany. I thought it was a charming but farcical carol until I discovered quite recently that it had a secret meaning written in a coded language. The context is the great persecution that King Henry VIII unleashed on the Catholic Church after he had set himself by an Act of Parliament as Head of the Church. From 1558 to 1829 the Catholic faith was persecuted in England and its practice was severely forbidden. In this tragic situation an unknown Catholic composed this carol to teach children their Catechism and pass on to them the fundamentals of the Catholic faith. Through this ingenious way the carol could be sung openly without inviting suspicion, while only the initiated would understand the true meaning behind the lyrics. If you do not know the words of the song, you can find it on the internet, but here is its hidden meaning: 

1 My True Love refers to God: The partridge in a pear tree refers to Jesus Christ

2 Turtle Doves refers to the Old and New Testaments

3 French Hens refers to Faith, Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues

4 Calling Birds refers to the Four Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists

5 Golden Rings refers to the first Five Books of the Old Testament, the “Pentateuch”, which gives the history of man’s fall from grace.

6 Geese A-laying refers to the six days of creation

7 Swans A-swimming refers to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven sacraments

8 Maids A-milking refers to the eight beatitudes

9 Ladies Dancing refers to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit

10 Lords A-leaping refers to the ten commandments

11 Pipers Piping refers to the eleven faithful apostles

12 Drummers Drumming refers to the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostle’s Creed 

What is truly wonderful about this carol is that it was written and sung in a time of terrible persecution for Catholics. Notwithstanding the immense sufferings of the poor Catholics of that time, their joy bubbled over into song that expressed their steadfastness in the faith. They sang this ingeniously coded carol cheerfully, because they experienced the love of the Lord in the midst of suffering. Only the lover sings in the midst of suffering, because the love that permeates his heart triumphs over the pain. His faith and the experience of being loved are victorious over suffering and death. That is why he sings. 

            If this be true, then this carol tells us something very profound about Christmas. From the beginning, Christmas is inextricably bound up with suffering as it is with singing. Jesus was born in a stable on a cold wintry night and kept warm in a manger of straw in the company of Mary and Joseph, “because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2,7). The hurried flight into Egypt and the ruthless massacre of the Holy Innocents are as much part of the Christmas story as are the angelic choirs with their singing. While angels sang on high, and the shepherds rejoiced and Mary contemplated in wonder, the little Babe of Bethlehem suffered rejection and became the object of a sinister assassination plot to exterminate him. “He came unto his own and his own received him not” (Jn 1,11). The shadow of the Cross already fell on the Crib, and Calvary was joined to Bethlehem. 

            But isn’t Christmas supposed to be about happiness and joy and peace and friendship and all the good things in life? Undoubtedly so, but at a deeper level than one imagines it to be. We are so accustomed to associate Christmas with buntings and lights, presents and sweets and Santa Claus, that we tend to forget that Christmas has a message deeper than that. There is a truer joy and peace than what appears to be so at a superficial level. It is a joy that shines in the midst of tears, a peace that endures through the pain. It comes from the realization that God has entered our broken world and taken upon himself our pain, in order to give us a peace that the world cannot give and a joy that none can take away. And it is this kind of love in the midst of tears that floods our hearts on Christmas Day and remains with us long after the buntings are taken down and the coloured lights are put out. And so we can truly sing our hearts out with all those who suffer pain, loss, disappointment and defeat: “On the first day of Christmas, my true Love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree” – Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!

Santa’s little elf-er!

¡Olé!

Experienced flamenco dance instructor Sanna Lehtinen will conduct a 2 hour workshop on Monday 21 December2009 at Casa da Moeda,Panjim Goa, commencing at 5 pm, in support of Child’s Play India Foundation (www.childsplayindia.org).

Limited places available. Please call 9011051950 or email diasfluis@yahoo.com to enrol and for further details

Sanna Lehtinen is from Helsinki, Finland and is a flamenco dancer, teacher and choreographer. She has studied flamenco in Spain and in Finland for over 10 years. Her teachers include celebrated flamenco greats like Katja Lundén and Kaari Martin and Manuel Betanzos, Pilar Ogallan, Angel Atienza, Alicia Marquez, Rocio Molina and others.

Violin and Piano recital at the Kala Academy 18 December

Pheroze Mistri (violin) and Delia Varga (piano) have chosen a programme for this evening’s recital at the Kala Academy that is quite eclectic. 

First on offer is Schubert’s Violin Sonata in A minor Op.137, no. 2, DV 385. Franz Schubert (1797-1828) wrote three sonatas for violin and piano, but thanks to his Viennese publisher, Diabelli (more famous today for the piano variations Beethoven wrote on a theme by him) they are often listed as sonatinas. The idea may have been a shrewd marketing ploy to make the works more appealing to amateurs.

 Although composed in 1816, when Schubert was only 19, they were published posthumously. It seems incredible, but in this year he had composed also his Fourth Symphony, nicknamed by him “the Tragic”. Despite the fact that these sonatas follow Beethoven’s chronologically, they pay homage more to the Mozartean mould, with the violin still playing a somewhat subordinate role to the pianoforte.

 This work in A minor is especially strong and remarkable in its structure and thematic material. It has four movements, Allegro moderato, Andante, Menuetto and Trio, and Allegro. 

The programme moves on to that Romantic stalwart, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), with his Violin Sonata in A Major. 

As with the rest of his compositional output, Brahms was overly critical of his violin sonatas. In addition to the three the world knows about, he may have composed as many as four more, all of which were destroyed.

 This work was written for his close friend Joseph Joachim in 1886. That year Brahms spent the summer at his favourite retreat at Lake Thun near Interlaken in Switzerland. Here he found the environment so invigorating  and inspiring that he exclaimed  it was “so full of melodies that one has to be careful not to step on any.”  He worked simultaneously on the A major violin sonata, as well as his second cello sonata and his third piano trio, completing them all in a few days. 

This violin sonata, his shortest,  is probably his most lyrical. There is believed to be a connection with two songs written at that time, Wie Melodien (As melodies) and Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer (Ever gentle is my sleep), poems by Klaus Groth and Hermann Lingg, the first in the second subject of the first movement, and the second in the Finale. His originality, his intensity, shyness and introspection, all come to the fore here.

The first subject of the Allegro amabile is introduced by the piano and taken up by the violin, then contrasted with a second subject of greater intensity. The second movement alternates between a pastoral Andante and a rustic Vivace. The last movement (Allegretto grazioso (quasi andante)) is a relaxed rondo around a main theme, unusual in its relatively restrained speed. It is customary to play the theme on the rich tone of the G string.  The expressively tranquil theme of the opening returns to end the work with a quiet dignity. 

The programme then offers us two works by the great Argentinian tango composer Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992). 

Le Grand Tango was composed with cellist Mstislav Rostropovich in mind, in 1981. If the version in the Azzi/Collier book Le Grand Tango is to be believed, Rostropovich had never heard of Piazzolla at the time and never even looked at the work when it was delivered. Its premiere was therefore given by the  son of a colleague of Piazzolla’s. That son was Eduardo Vassallo, now co-principal cellist with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Rostropovich eventually realised its importance and travelled to Buenos Aires in 1990 to study the piece with Piazolla and proceeded to play it in public there. It has subsequently been transposed for other instruments, and this evening’s version for violin and piano is one of them. 

Adiós Nonino is a poignant composition written in October 1959 when he was on tour in Central America, in memory of his father Vincente “Nonino” Piazzolla, just days after his death. This deep choked and anguished lament and ache of a bereaved son many hundreds of miles away, find expression in the work. It is now one of his most popular compositions. This year is the golden jubilee of this work which has been described as most quintessentially Piazzolla.

Programme notes © Luis Dias. All rights reserved

Opera-tion theatre!

Renowned soprano Patricia Rozario will be in Goa this month to follow through with her training of the students (ages 15-30) she auditioned in August. There will be an intensive, 3-day workshop from 27-29 Dec, which would cover singing technique, and a basic guide to pronouncing French, German and Italian. Each singer would need to bring 3 pieces to work on, in various languages. The workshop will focus also on technique, song/opera interpretation and phrasing and language, as well as posture and breathing. Limited places available. To enrol or for further details, please email diasfluis@yahoo.com or call 9011051950.