Berthine in concert: A review

Berthine in concert: A review

 

By Dr. Luis Dias

Berthine van Schoor, Cello
Albie van Schakwyk, Piano
Hanna van Niekerk, Narrator.

What do you get when three “van”s turn up all at once? A concert, that’s what!

The concert, organised by ProMusica on Monday evening at the Kala Academy, got off to a gentle start, with a hitherto unknown and unpublished short work by Joseph Haydn, Adagio cantabile. Van Schoor stumbled upon it in a library in Salzburg, Austria. It was possibly a draft for the middle movement of a concerto. The work, in a major key, had tranquility written all over it. It was an apt insertion into the programme in a year that celebrates the 200^th anniversary of Haydn’s death.

The programme then took a quantum leap in time and space, to a work by South African, Pretoria-born, Indian-origin sitar maestro and composer, Vevek Ram. The work, Kriya, is composed in Raga Charukeshi. The work began with a turbulent allegro passage (“Chaos”), played in unison on both instruments, followed by a kaleidoscopic series of changes in mood, sometimes for solo cello, and finally a jugalbandi with the piano tapping out an ostinato reiteration of the second subject, while the cello melodic line wafted lightly above, and then faded away, to nothingness (“Calm”).

Then followed a salute to yet another jubilarian, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, whose birth bicentenary is being celebrated this year as well.

Mendelssohn wrote two sonatas for cello and piano. The more imposing sonata no.2 in D major towers over its sibling in musical majesty and mastery of form, but requires expert hands to unlock its true beauty. In four movements, it opens with an energetic Allegro vivace assai, with a bounding melody against excited repeated notes reminiscent of the opening theme of his “Italian” symphony. The second movement is Allegretto scherzando, with elfin magic echoing the score of Midsummer Night’s Dream that Mendelssohn was working on at the same time. Unfortunately, that puckish element somehow managed to elude in this performance. The third movement, Adagio, opens with solemn broken chords from the piano, and borrows heavily from J.S. Bach (some connect it to “Es ist vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion) alternating with a recitative possibly alluding to Hebrew chant. The finale, Molto allegro e vivace, is a whirlwind of drama and exuberance that the duo brought across beautifully.

After a short interval, it was the turn of yet another “van” to share the stage: Ludwig van Beethoven. An admirer and champion of Mozart’s music, in 1801 he composed his variations for cello and piano on the duet of Pamina and Papageno from the Magic Flute, “Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen”. (In men, who feel love). Fittingly, a line from the duet translates: “Man and wife reach to the height of godliness”. One cannot help wondering whether this is a metaphor Beethoven had in mind for the masculine voice of the cello, betrothed to the piano in these seven variations. While Beethoven often used the variation form to showcase technical brilliance, this set focuses more on lyrical expression, with no Sturm und Drang.

The last offering on the programme was The Carnival of the Animals, a 14-movement musical suite by French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns. A favourite of music teachers and young children, it was originally penned for two pianos and orchestra, and this arrangement for cello, piano and narrator was made by German cellist Werner Thomas Mifune. Traditionally the poetry of Ogden Nash is used in the narrative, but the contributions of South African poet Philip de Vos lent their own inimitable charm to the performance. A veritable menagerie of fur, fins and feathers line up to form this work, the penultimate movement being the famous “Swan”, a staple in the cello repertoire. But other movements delight as well, such as the Tortoise doing the Can-Can in slow motion (brilliantly transcribed for pizzicato cello), Pianists (that notable species of beasts) practising their scales, and the braying of donkeys. “Characters with Long Ears” is a well-aimed dig at music critics.  This is programme imagery at its finest. It was rendered with panache by all three.

The encore piece was Cesar Cui’s Orientale, which uses as its theme the same Russian folk song quoted by Tchaikovsky in his Marche Slave.

It is a crying pity that this concert was so sparsely attended. It is imperative that audiences grow, especially among the youth, if such music is to flourish in Goa. Suggestions welcome at www.luisdias.wordpress.com

(An edited version of this review appeared in the Herald, Goa, on 29 October 2009)

Casa da Moeda Nova Goa: 175 years

HISTORY HOUR
XAVIER CENTRE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH
Cordially invites you to a talk on

Casa da Moeda Nova Goa : 175 years

by

Dr. Luis Dias

Xavier Centre of Historical Research

Alto Porvorim

Thursday, 22nd October 2009

5. 30 pm
Tel: 2417772 ; 2414971
deliom@dataone.in

The heritage building in Panjim, ‘Casa da Moeda’, functioned as a Mint from 1834 onward. This year is the 175th anniversary of that milestone. Collating information about it has been a challenge. Dr. Dias has recently made a trip to Lisbon and liaised with ‘Casa da Moeda’ there. In his talk he shares what he has uncovered.

Dr. Luis Dias is a physician, musician and history enthusiast. He has recently relocated to Goa, having lived and worked in the UK for a decade, and is currently pursuing his love of history, music, writing and photography.

Haydn Seek!

 Haydn Trio Eisenstadt – a review

Haydn Trio Eisenstadt in rehearsal

 By Dr. Luis Dias

 Harald Kosik, piano

Verena Stourzh, violin

Hannes Gradwohl, cello

 “Architecture is music frozen in place and music is architecture frozen in time”.

A happy marriage of the two took place in the splendid setting of the recently refurbished St Inez church last Saturday evening.

The Haydn Trio Eisenstadt, formed in 1992, is a sterling ensemble, with a reputation far beyond their native Austria. 

The programme began fittingly, with their namesake composer Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), and traditionally considered the Papa of chamber music as we understand the term today. This year is also the Haydn’s 200^th death anniversary and is being commemorated worldwide. 

The Eisenstadters chose two of his later piano trios, the Trio in C major (Hob.XV:27) and in E flat major (Hob.XV:29). Good as Haydn’s earlier trios were, these are in a different stratosphere altogether. Ideas are developed further and even more inventively; harmonically Haydn is more adventurous; movements are often on a larger scale than their predecessors; most require more all-round virtuosity, especially from the piano. 

From the very opening strains of the first movement (Allegro) of the first work, it was obvious that we were in for a treat. Their playing combined energy and insight with warmth and affection. Their rapport was palpable, and they breathed as one. The gorgeous Andante was beautifully rendered, and Stourzh glittered in the Presto.

 The first movement of the second Haydn offering, the E flat major trio, (Poco allegretto), was taken at a leisurely pace. Kosik’s keyboard technique is impeccable, with a consistent evenness and lightness of touch that is delightful to the ear. The second movement (Andantino et innocentemente) had a hymn-like quality and was played with tender grace, in this most apt of surroundings. The Finale in the German style was ebulliently delivered, with solid support from Gradwohl. One feels that the sense of balance between the voices got a little unhinged due to the raising of the piano lid at the beginning of this work. A lot of the violin passages seemed submerged by the piano especially in the last movement. 

The last work for the evening was Beethoven’s monumental Trio in B flat major, op.97, the “Archduke”. The Archduke Rudolph was one of many nobles who were both patrons and pupils of Beethoven; this Trio was sent to him in 1811 with a request from the composer that it should be copied ‘only inside your Palace, as otherwise one is never sure it will not be stolen’. Beethoven clearly valued this work highly himself. It is a crowning masterpiece, and the last in his cycle of piano trios. Beethoven himself played the piano part at its public premiere, and it was his last public appearance at the keyboard. 

The first movement opened with the statement of the broad majestic theme on the piano (reminiscent of one of his Razumovsky quartets); the strings join in, leading to the second theme in an unexpected G major, followed by a development, recapitulation and a brilliant coda. Kosik had to restrain himself to let the other voices sing.

 The Scherzo Allegro was delightfully relaxed and nonchalant.

 The third movement (Andante cantabile ma però con moto) is the core of the whole work, a series of variations on a hymn-like melody. (After Beethoven’s death it was adapted to a choral setting of verses by Goethe).   Kosik’s presentation of the theme, truly semplice, as Beethoven asks, suggested the music’s sarabande background palpably;  and the second and third variations frolicked and capered with transcendent levity.

 The concluding movement was a freely handled Allegro moderato, alternating light-hearted passages with heroic outbursts. The extended coda was full of surprises, ending in a manner which was thoroughly and unmistakably Beethoven. 

The enthusiastic applause from the audience produced a spirited encore (the last movement of the Haydn E minor trio). 

Timely announcements put an end to clapping between movements, and the ringing of mobile phones. One wishes that similar rigour is devoted to stopping the click and flash of cameras, by members of the press and public, in mid-performance. These only distract performer and listener alike, and add little to the coverage of such events.

(Text and photograph: Dr Luis Dias. This article appeared in the Herald, 29 September 2009)

On Stage with Rebecca, my violin

Stuff it!

Thanks to www.munnaontherun.com

Baby’s way

If baby only wanted to, he could fly up to heaven this moment.
It is not for nothing that he does not leave us.
He loves to rest his head on mother’s bosom, and cannot ever bear to lose sight of her.
Baby know all manner of wise words, though few on earth can understand their meaning.
It is not for nothing that he never wants to speak.
The one thing he wants is to learn mother’s words from mother’s lips. That is why he looks so innocent.
Baby had a heap of gold and pearls, yet he came like a beggar on to this earth.
It is not for nothing he came in such a disguise.
This dear little naked mendicant pretends to be utterly helpless,
so that he may beg for mother’s wealth of love.
Baby was so free from every tie in the land of the tiny crescent moon.
It was not for nothing he gave up his freedom.
He knows that there is room for endless joy in mother’s little corner of a heart,
and it is sweeter far than liberty to be caught and pressed in her dear arms.
Baby never knew how to cry. He dwelt in the land of perfect bliss.
It is not for nothing he has chosen to shed tears.
Though with the smile of his dear face he draws mother’s yearning heart to him,
yet his little cries over tiny troubles weave the double bond of pity and love.

~ A poem by Rabindranath Tagore

Busking for Musequality & Child’s Play India Foundation

Victor Manuel Dias: a Renaissance man

 By Dr. Luis Dias

(Published in Herald Sunday Mirror, Goa, 7 June 2009)

11 June marks the 60th death anniversary of a truly remarkable man, Colonel Doctor Victor Manuel Dias, Director of Health Services in pre-Liberation Goa.

His sudden death, at 57, at the peak of his illustrious career, due to a cerebral haemorrhage, in 1949, sent shock waves throughout Goa and also in newly-independent India. Tributes followed, in the local and the Indian press. In its obituary tribute, The Sunday News of India described him: “Generous to a fault, discharging his Hippocratic obligation with a scrupulous regard for the poor, the best of companions, he was a fascinating personality, by whose loss his country and his people will be the poorer”.

The Sunday Standard, in its tribute added: “A profound scholar with an academic record of unusual brilliance, Victor Dias embodied a great family tradition. His father, General Miguel Caetano Dias, was Director of Public Health in Portuguese India for upwards of thirty years….Victor himself was a Doctor in Medicine of Lisbon University, a Doctor in Law of the historic University of Coimbra, and a Bachelor in Science, of Sorbonne, Diplomate of the School of Tropical Medicine in Lisbon. In Berlin where he studied for some years, he worked with Professor Friedman, discoverer of the well-known TB vaccine named after him, and later he spent a year at Carlos Forlamini’s world-renowned Mussolini Institute where lung collapse therapy was first discovered and developed. More recently he became interested in the new X-ray and radium therapeutics and went to Berlin to study them.”

Col. Dias was nominated to the Department of Health in the Portuguese colony of Angola , from where he was transferred to Goa in 1923. After several years as a Professor at the Medical College in Goa, Col. Dias was appointed Director of Public Health in 1947.

In his practice, his patients included the whole gamut of society of his day, and included the venerable Fr. Agnel.

For upward of fifteen years, Col. Dias was the special surgeon in charge of the body of St. Francis Xavier and had the duty of inspecting annually the Saint’s incorruptible remains and reporting on them to the Government and the ecclesiastical authorities of Goa and Portugal.

The Sunday Standard corroborated what the local press, including the Heraldo, had reported extensively over the last year. “His last work, completed a few weeks before his death, was historic, and should be a fitting memorial to a man whose only justification, as he often said to me, was service of his fellowmen. The work was the rehabilitation of the ancient city of Old Goa which had lain uninhabited and uninhabitable since the seventeenth century when it was abandoned overnight by its population of 3,00,000 citizens panic-stricken by a mysterious malady for which no treatment has ever been discovered.

Till last year nobody outside the half dozen surviving old churches spent a single night in Old Goa for fear of contracting the disease, a peculiarly malignant type of malaria which resisted every known treatment. In May 1948 Col. Dias started his “Blitzkrieg” for the restoration of the capital.”

The Sunday News of India, in its article “City of Death brought back to life”, elaborated: “…the work of resanitation was carried out with military precision and speed: 800 wells were buried, every possible reservoir of infection was sterilised, mosquitoes were literally exterminated and their breeding places wiped out…. It took three months, at the end of which not a single mosquito remained, and the cleaned and disinfected city was pronounced habitable once more. The Portuguese Ministry for Colonies appointed a commission consisting of a member of the Rockefeller Foundation from New York and a Professor of the Tropical Institute in Lisbon to inspect the city. Their laconic report, as cabled to the Minister, read: “No more mosquitoes in the Old Goa, which is now free from death and disease”.

Col. Dias was President of the Leprosaria de Macasana and of the Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Besides this, he was a man of many interests. He founded and headed the Laboratorio Sida, a pharmaceutical company that created novel drugs in the treatment of several illnesses which ranged from bronchial asthma, to pulmonary tuberculosis, to lung infections, leprosy and gout to name but a few. Contemporaneous accounts from physicians and patients of the time indicate their efficacy.

He invented and patented an electric incubator “Lux” for the hatching of chickens, which was innovative for its time, as it employed a property of light described as luminosity. The invention was registered with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in Lisbon, with a national patent.

Col. Dias was among the first physicians in Goa to acquire a portable X-ray machine for his private practice, having studied in the field of radiology in Berlin. His work was published in reputed medical journals such as the Lancet, and the Presse Medicale in Paris. He was on the committee of the Instituto Vasco da Gama, a prestigious institution in Goa.

A multifaceted man, he was a radio enthusiast, and gave the first ever radio broadcast in Goa from his house in Altinho. This fact is corroborated in Aleixo Manuel da Costa’s Dicionário de Literatura Goesa in his summary of Victor Dias’ life (page 350), and by his peers living today. He often spoke on the radio on various issues and the text of the speeches were reproduced in the local papers.

The Sunday Standard captured his essence thus: “More than all this, Victor Dias was a fascinating companion, with a gift of conversation which ranged from the art of Picasso and the aberrations of Dali, to Shakespeare, Kant, Bach and Boogey-woogey—literally from Socrates to ships and sealing wax, without being boring or didactic. Of courtly manners and polished speech, an orator in three languages with command of a dozen, he was epicure in the art of living, an artist in everything he did, with an inexhaustible charity that loved everybody and looked down on nothing. Above all he was modest and had a rich sense of humour.”

A memorial service for this remarkable Renaissance man will be held at St Inez church on 11 June at 9.30 am, followed by tributes at his grave.

Frog Haiku

I hop, skip and jump

I love my freedom, thank you.

Please leave me alone!