Chekhov's Mistress
“Eat less, keep dreaming”
by Bud Parr
One of the great things about the arts in general and classical music in particular is the way creators draw upon all of the arts for their work. Berger’s article, for example, highlights some of the literary references Golijov drew upon for his music:
Like all good young academics, Golijov experimented with strict modernist forms in his early pieces, borrowing ideas from Stravinsky and images from Argentina’s master fabulist Jorge Luis Borges. It wasn’t until he completed “Yiddishbbuk,” a three-movement piece for string quartet, in 1992, he says, “that I actually arrived to myself.”
Golijov drew inspiration for the work from drawings and poems by children interned in Nazi camps, the vibrant Yiddish tales of Isaac Bashevis Singer, and the genius of conductor Leonard Bernstein in firing up Mahler for a new generation. Golijov identified with Mahler, who reclaimed folk music from his native Bohemia for his symphonies, as Golijov would do with tango and flamenco in his works. In fact, the more the Argentine shed his academic gown, the more he admired the mad Austrian for his fearless flights of emotion.
This bit is interesting too:
Harrington [of the Kronos Quartet] says he first learned of Golijov, especially his devious side, by reading the composer’s program notes for “Yiddishbbuk” from its inaugural performance in 1992 by the St. Lawrence Quartet. In the notes, Golijov writes that the germ for the piece was the first line from a collection of apocryphal psalms, “Yiddishbbuk,” that Franz Kafka had been reading at home in Prague: “A broken song played on a shattered cymbalon.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time reading Kafka,” says Harrington, “and I’ve never read that quote. So I called up Osvaldo and I said, ‘You know that quote you attribute to Kafka in the program?’ There was a silence on the telephone, and he said, ‘Actually, I made that quote up.’ Then we started talking about the tradition in Latin American literature from Borges on of inventing things that authors have said and, well, we’ve been friends ever since!”
Did he really make up the Kafka quote? “Absolutely,” says Golijov. “David was the only one who figured it out.” The fake quote and psalms title remain in the liner notes to the acclaimed 2002 recording of “Yiddishbbuk,” and continue to be cited by music critics around the world as a slice of Kafka’s biography.
One thing I didn’t mention is that the festival will include Ainadamar, an opera about Margarita Xirgu and Federico García Lorca.
This connection between literature and (classical) music is of great interest to me, not just because these are my two favorite things, but I’m interested in how literature manifests itself in classical music, that is, in the abstraction that music can represent, how does literature give the music meaning and is it meant to be an interpretation or a response? I have no idea what I mean by that, but I do perk up a bit when I come across the literary/music nexus and that has been one avenue into music that might otherwise have gone unnoticed or be inaccessible.
My path to discovering music has been similar to the way I’ve discovered literature and that is random and free, following chains of meaning and associations rather than canons or lists of “essentials.” Certainly inefficient (and the major gaps in my knowledge can be annoying at cocktail parties), but rewarding nonetheless. I mention this now because I’ve been meaning to write more about this literary/music connection for some time now and have, frankly, been scared to write about music. So hopefully, I’ll have the courage to explore those ideas more fully here in the near future.
Lastly, for those of you who are not necessarily classical music fans, take heart. Berger says:
What’s so alluring about Golijov, though, is his music really could be more popular. It’s fascinating that “Ayre,” whose manifold emotions arise out of traditional Sephardic melodies, Christian-Arab Easter songs, Lebanese poetry, and ancient lamentations — one of which goes like this: “And a mother roasted and ate her cherished son” — could fit perfectly in any record collection that includes Miles Davis or Björk.
[update: see Justin Davidson’s Newsday article, “Following a Lyrical Journey” and Alex Ross’s “Resurrection: Golijov’s Pasión” via. Also see Jeremy Eichler’s article in the New York Times, “Standing the Whole World on its Ear”, also this review of Ainadamar.]
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