The infrequency and episodic nature of this blog, which we may perhaps without vanity or emotion describe as being frozen in time, does not necessarily lend itself to the epithet that we may attribute to dodos - in simple terms, that it is still alive. Perhaps it may better be described as suffering from long periods of dormancy between eruptions. I may once again belabor upon my favorite themes - that we are sitting on a seismically active zone and that the Hayward fault might erupt anytime. The episodic nature of the Hayward fault is well categorized, the period being about 140 years. But I suppose we can carry our analogies only so far, or it might cause someone like Alice (yes, from the wonderland, which I read with great pleasure most recently) to say that it is "stuff, and nonsense".
The reason I am posting here - as we know, I was a little disgusted by the depressing nature of my posts over the years - is that I feel that I must record (in as loose a connotation as that implies) my emotions prior to these moments, brought on by listening to the incomparable Fugue in BWV 548 (those in the know will immediately ejaculate, "Ah, but it is the Wedge!"). I do hope that the tangential nature of the previous paragraph will not dilute the fidelity of these observations too much.
We all know that I tend to be obsessed with certain pieces of music for indefinte spans of time. I cannot say whether this flows according to Rap's second law musings (that we cannot bring these moments back, ever). To some extent, this might be true, as I haven't felt Prokofiev's piano concerto to affect me the same way as when I first heard them some six years ago (also recorded in this blog). There is still an effect, but it is not the same.
Bach's fugue is one that is exactly described as producing a mental orgasm (or mindgasm, as I put not so appropriately in the subject line), depending on your state of mind at that given moment. Wodehouse has chronicled Bertie Wooster as being prone to bouts of reeling at various moments. It would not be stretching the truth to say that I reeled tumultuously, the fault lines seemingly ripping apart from the complex fugal patterning of this musical earthquake. One is left with the feeling that this is the moment that you have been transported to some mythical heaven and that nothing else matters - like if you see can comprehend the infinitude of matter and everything in existence. I am not stretching the truth when I say that I was starting to cry a little, tears coming out and all that. I have listened to this piece several times - the first being an accidental one from Marie Claire Alain's recordings. It wasn't tagged as such. Someone graciously named it in the youtube comments when I queried it. The version I listened to now was one by a fellow called Arnoud deGroen. It is a faster version. There are various renditions ranging from slower to faster with different interpretations of the voices, and so on. I also feel that the emphasis seems to depend on the organ itself. They either accentuate or diminish the musical strands. Making a comparison with visual imagery, there is a contrast in the musical voices. And then, during the moment of immersion, one somehow seems to stitch all the strands together and view them as a whole. The individual basis functions are all melded together to form the solution. This is the genius of Bach. In an unbelievable way, he has created music for us that blends everything together in a way that we can assimilate the whole, and the parts at the same time.
I must note that the Bach pieces have a way of playing over and over again even when you aren't actually hearing them. That being said, I will claim that this is not trivial, casual music to be listened to in a frivolous or trifling way. Examples that come to mind are the ridiculously tawdry pop-culture and hip-hop music that you get to hear on the radio. It is not my intention to ever compare Bach with anything else (remember, I said that he stands alone). It is my feeling that a casual, flippant listening environment will not do it justice. We need a setting that would encourage us to concentrate. Trivializing the Bach would be like violating its sanctity.
I wonder if they play organ concerti here in the bay area. Nearly all the recordings I have seen on youtube come from Europe or the east coast. It indicates (or rather, validates) that we, in America, have lost our soul, drenched in the fast food culture, and wallowing gloriously in it. There must be a common thread running through it all when we see that ours is the land where we have a McDonalds in every corner, a disgusting array of pop music blasting through most radio channels, and a life that for the most part, has nothing to be happy about for most people. It is perhaps not without merit that some Europeans look at the Americans (meaning, everything that the culture here stands for) as a respectable worm might look at a bohunkus.
And to those exasperated folks who feel that we are being needlessly abstruse, this was again borrowed from Wodehouse:
"A bohunkus is a very inferior sort of worm. Not the kind of worm that you see on lawns, which you can respect, but a really degraded species".
Before I end my rant (as always, the ebbs and flows of my musings converge, eventually, to rant mode), most particularly, to the popular vibe of people looking, possibly narcissistically, at themselves and their wares at the gym mirror. The thing somehow disgusts me - as does the whole concept of getting buff. I will leave these musings for the next post when I get to it. Suffice it to say that these and other things make me feel contemptuous about humanity (I know that they're all good people and all that). Where have all the beautiful people gone? When you have no one to look up to, it is rather like being marooned on an island where you only have yourself to obsess with. The world becomes an indescribably lonely place.
The reason I am posting here - as we know, I was a little disgusted by the depressing nature of my posts over the years - is that I feel that I must record (in as loose a connotation as that implies) my emotions prior to these moments, brought on by listening to the incomparable Fugue in BWV 548 (those in the know will immediately ejaculate, "Ah, but it is the Wedge!"). I do hope that the tangential nature of the previous paragraph will not dilute the fidelity of these observations too much.
We all know that I tend to be obsessed with certain pieces of music for indefinte spans of time. I cannot say whether this flows according to Rap's second law musings (that we cannot bring these moments back, ever). To some extent, this might be true, as I haven't felt Prokofiev's piano concerto to affect me the same way as when I first heard them some six years ago (also recorded in this blog). There is still an effect, but it is not the same.
Bach's fugue is one that is exactly described as producing a mental orgasm (or mindgasm, as I put not so appropriately in the subject line), depending on your state of mind at that given moment. Wodehouse has chronicled Bertie Wooster as being prone to bouts of reeling at various moments. It would not be stretching the truth to say that I reeled tumultuously, the fault lines seemingly ripping apart from the complex fugal patterning of this musical earthquake. One is left with the feeling that this is the moment that you have been transported to some mythical heaven and that nothing else matters - like if you see can comprehend the infinitude of matter and everything in existence. I am not stretching the truth when I say that I was starting to cry a little, tears coming out and all that. I have listened to this piece several times - the first being an accidental one from Marie Claire Alain's recordings. It wasn't tagged as such. Someone graciously named it in the youtube comments when I queried it. The version I listened to now was one by a fellow called Arnoud deGroen. It is a faster version. There are various renditions ranging from slower to faster with different interpretations of the voices, and so on. I also feel that the emphasis seems to depend on the organ itself. They either accentuate or diminish the musical strands. Making a comparison with visual imagery, there is a contrast in the musical voices. And then, during the moment of immersion, one somehow seems to stitch all the strands together and view them as a whole. The individual basis functions are all melded together to form the solution. This is the genius of Bach. In an unbelievable way, he has created music for us that blends everything together in a way that we can assimilate the whole, and the parts at the same time.
I must note that the Bach pieces have a way of playing over and over again even when you aren't actually hearing them. That being said, I will claim that this is not trivial, casual music to be listened to in a frivolous or trifling way. Examples that come to mind are the ridiculously tawdry pop-culture and hip-hop music that you get to hear on the radio. It is not my intention to ever compare Bach with anything else (remember, I said that he stands alone). It is my feeling that a casual, flippant listening environment will not do it justice. We need a setting that would encourage us to concentrate. Trivializing the Bach would be like violating its sanctity.
I wonder if they play organ concerti here in the bay area. Nearly all the recordings I have seen on youtube come from Europe or the east coast. It indicates (or rather, validates) that we, in America, have lost our soul, drenched in the fast food culture, and wallowing gloriously in it. There must be a common thread running through it all when we see that ours is the land where we have a McDonalds in every corner, a disgusting array of pop music blasting through most radio channels, and a life that for the most part, has nothing to be happy about for most people. It is perhaps not without merit that some Europeans look at the Americans (meaning, everything that the culture here stands for) as a respectable worm might look at a bohunkus.
And to those exasperated folks who feel that we are being needlessly abstruse, this was again borrowed from Wodehouse:
"A bohunkus is a very inferior sort of worm. Not the kind of worm that you see on lawns, which you can respect, but a really degraded species".
Before I end my rant (as always, the ebbs and flows of my musings converge, eventually, to rant mode), most particularly, to the popular vibe of people looking, possibly narcissistically, at themselves and their wares at the gym mirror. The thing somehow disgusts me - as does the whole concept of getting buff. I will leave these musings for the next post when I get to it. Suffice it to say that these and other things make me feel contemptuous about humanity (I know that they're all good people and all that). Where have all the beautiful people gone? When you have no one to look up to, it is rather like being marooned on an island where you only have yourself to obsess with. The world becomes an indescribably lonely place.
