Boarding for Berlin
· Berlin, Germany ·
Northern Chile, 1975
If I hurry, I’ll make it in time to Berlin to attend a concert with music by some of my favorite composers. The Berliner Festspiele/Musikfest Berlin had a line-up that would have had me there for almost every offering. Since I was still in Melbourne (theoretically,) I missed the concert last Monday that everyone talks about: Homage à Pierre Boulez played by Tamara Stefanovich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard on 2 pianos.
But I will, must make it to this one: http://www.berlinerfestspiele.de/en/aktuell/festivals/musikfest_berlin/mfb16_programm/mfb16_programm_gesamt/mfb16_veranstaltungsdetail_160365.php
My collection has grown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDQE82ElyJg Zappa
From the catalogue: “I used to love putting little black dots on music paper”, wrote Frank Zappa in an accompanying text for a new edition of works by composer Edgard Varèse. Falling under the guise of self-deprecating understatements, it only serves to cache the ambition that always drove Frank Zappa. The striving for recognition of his compository qualities, which he initially lived out in his rock music with a high degree of complexity while posing equally high demands on the playing technique of his musicians. Indeed, it all began with the record in question. It bore the number EMS 401 – and the title: “The Complete Works of Edgar Varèse, Vol. I”. And the cornerstone for a passion was thus laid, which accompanied him through to his death in 1993 at the age of only 53. Many people still regard this great ethnographer of American everyday life exclusively as a rock star – presumably because Asteroid 3848 is named after him. Yet as a gesture of genuine estimation it would be wise to forgo categorizations and other thought short-circuits. Blues and the music of experimental composer Edgard Varèse, jazz improvisations and pop platitudes all fused together in his vision of a new rock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMclF11PSV0 Here is Varese.
Imagine a lonely teenager stuck in a small German village, with the only pop radio station in the 60s that was available playing Abba and the Kinks, or some such. And then you discover Zappa, listening to the same record night and day, exploring musical genius and rebellious politics and parallels to so much classical music you had to rehearse on the piano for a decade or more (unless you are playing the darn cello for the dreaded family concerts….). And no one around you gets it. Proof, if still needed, that you’re weird. I’m still weird and I’m still traveling, but now public assessment of Zappa’s talent has caught up.
Futurists were fascinated by tempo
Photo: Camilo Brau
We know, of course, that people have a tendency to beautify and structure their environments. Yarn bombers are a case in point. They knit and crochet their merry ways across the landscape – sometimes creating beautiful work that really brightens the sidewalks, sometimes annoying public artists because their metal sculptures regularly end up with scarves…. (the oldest of the street knitters being 104 years old.
There are whole empires of these free ports, from Luxembourg to Singapore, allowing art to be un-seen. Why on earth, you might ask? The answer is of course: money. And I am not just talking about hedge funds, derivatives or futures applied to art collection. Rather, art out of view is the perfect way to launder dirty money since there is no transparency.
Look at the materials needed – look at the size of the Reichstag that he wrapped – not likely he walked into the Michaels Crafts Emporium and said give me some 55,000 m2 of silver-grey shiny polyester fabric and 23 km of rope (which is exactly what the used to wrap a winter landscape of trees in Basel, Switzerland.) I have never seen one of these artworks in real life, but admired when I heard him in an interview how he simply refers to the pleasure and joy art can transmit without having to have deeper meaning. They always mention that the materials are recycled after the project is taken down (some criticism has always attacked the size of their endeavors) but I have yet to figure out what sources they use. Definitely not these: This Lower Eastside fabric outlet, there for generations, sold part of its building on Grant St. last year to some bank for $25.6 million – I guess upholstery didn’t pay the rent with Ikea in town….
