back to Bach

June 3, 2010
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DIARY
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Finished reading Siblin's book on the Bach Cello Suites and Casals.
A remarkable achievement by a remarkable writer.
To write the book, Siblin not only read everything on the subject, he also travelled all over the world, attended lectures and symposia, visited museums and libraries housing Bach manuscripts, interviewed cellists, Bach expert, and Casals biographers, joined a Bach choir and learned to sing a cantata in German, took lessons by a cellist, and studied countless CDs. A veritable Odyssey by a phenomenally brilliant researcher. Reminds me of the dictum that if you want to achieve anything in life you must be a fanatic.
While reading his many footnotes and divagations, I was reminded of Nabokov's translation of Pushkin.
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READING ZARIAN'S NOTEBOOKS
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“I have a deep antipathy for Kafka whom I have tried but failed to read.”
And yet his (Zarian's) experiences in the Homeland and Diaspora are quintessentially Kafkaesque.
I suspect like all nationalists Zarian was deeply suspicious of Jews.
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“The majority of men don't think; they prefer to rely on someone else's thoughts. Thinking is a habit they seem to have lost – probably out of fear, in case they get into trouble by thinking the wrong thoughts.”
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After our Golden Age and Silver Age we must now be at the summit of our Garbage Age – and as Zarian suggests in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, not even garbage picked up from our own streets.
In the Homeland we are at the mercy of neo-commissars; in the Diaspora, mini-sultans.
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CHURHCILL TO AN ADMIRAL
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“Don’t talk to me about naval tradition! It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash!”
Bravo beh!
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June 4, 2010
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THE PAPACY
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I have been reading a book on the Borgias and Renaissance popes, and I can't help wondering why there are still people who take Vatican pronouncements seriously. My only explanation: there is no limit to human ignorance and stupidity.
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ON FAITH
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Faith is a placebo which, unlike opium, is legal. This is a well-known secret to its administrators but not to its consumers. This may explain why when Mother Teresa lost her faith, she confided only to her confessor.
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WHY I WRITE
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When asked why I write, I say: “Writing has become a habit I can't give up.” When told that's not a good enough reason, I have no choice but to agree. On the other hand, if I were to say “I write to save the nation,” I would be accused of megalomania run amok. How dare I think I can succeed where far better men than myself have failed? Not all bad questions have good answers.
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WHAT HAS MY ARMENIAN IDENTITY
MEANT TO ME
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When I dealt with Armenian publishers, editors, bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings and flunkies, I became an alcoholic, developed an ulcer, and was hospitalized on several occasions. Now that I keep my distance, I am both healthier and happier. But even more important, I have a more objective view of myself and my fellow men. Also, I can afford the luxury of relying on my own judgment, which fallible as it probably is, it is my own and not someone else's, who in addition to being a fool may also be a crook, a bloodsucker, and a gravedigger.
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June 5, 2010
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BACK TO BACH
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He composed, he said, “for the greater glory of God and the instruction of his fellow men.” But he was better known as an organist rather than as a composer. Now completely forgotten composers were far better known and compensated than he was. Even his own sons, themselves professional musicians of some renown, looked down on his unfashionable style. Ladies and gentlemen of the court (on whom composers were financially dependent) demanded music that was more easily understood and played, like Haydn and Mozart. As a result, a great many of his works were buried, forgotten, and lost. And when a hundred years after his death, some of his masterpieces were resurrected by among others Mendelssohn, celebrated poets and philosophers like Heine and Hegel failed to appreciate them. I am now told even rock musicians borrow and steal from Bach. Entire books have been written about such marginal works as THE MUSICAL OFFERING and the CELLO SUITES.
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SARTRE ON BACH
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“He taught how to find originality within an established discipline; actually – how to live.”
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SCHWEITZER ON BACH
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“In his strict polyphony a volcanic emotion and thought were embedded.”
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STEVEN ISSERLIS
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I have been listening to his rendition of the CELLO SUITES. Too “correct” and mechanical to be of any interest. I much prefer the “perpetual rubato” of Casals which gives the Suites the natural flow of human speech thus making them more human and accessible.
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TWO THINGS TO AVOID
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Clichés – unless in an ironic context.
Self-assessments – unless negative.
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A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
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I question the Armenian identity of readers whose every word drips with the concentrated venom of seven Turkish vipers.
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MONTHERLANT
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“It is important for a man, at least once in his life, to have believed he is about to die: parenthetically, this is one of the gifts war gives to man.”
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