To think I paid for it all!

There must have been a time (I can, after all remember it) when listening to Philip Glass was not a guilty sin.  Even in the generally dismissed world of Minimalist Music he was regarded as a pioneer and someone to be respected as a classical composer.

I say this because, having recently bought a new Naxos disc of his music including “Light” and the “Heroes Symphony” I think that he has descended to level of Muzak.

 

This reaction might come as a direct result of my experience of “Le Grand Macabre” on Tuesday.  Arriving in Barcelona at a reasonable hour, some two and a half hours before the start of the performance, I filled the time by dividing it by visiting El Corte Ingles and failing to find a reasonable restaurant to while away the spare minutes.

El Corte Ingles again offered me the tempting prospect of boxed sets of extremely desirable discs at almost give away prices.  Unfortunately, even at “give away” prices the number of discs in each box meant that the total was quite high.

In an uncharacteristic act of self-denial, I resorted to my sci-fi book technique of limiting purchases and decided on one composer and cheap prices and selected the work of Philip Glass and there, at a unit price which was much higher than the box set offer, but much less in total was a new disc.  I bought it quickly and left with indecent haste, lest I be tempted by anything more expensive.

I justified the expenditure on a few grounds: firstly because I have a growing collection of Glass music and I like it; secondly because Naxos disc are always worth buying and lastly, and most importantly, so there could be something to look forward to hearing in the car after staggering out of a performance of Le Grand Macabre if it was as dire as I expected it to be.

I have been listening to the discs of Ligeti’s opera religiously in the car to and from work.  I cannot believe there have been many doing their musical  “homework” as diligently as I – and failing signally to get to “know” the work they are listening to so much.

Le Grand Macabre is an unrewarding work to which to listen and I was relying on the much-vaunted visual effects to make up for the discordant and frankly messy sounds that accompanied me to work each morning and speeded my homecoming.

Apart from a brass fanfare-like interlude; a broken fragment of a string quartet; a chanted chorus which sounded like people were asking for a beer in Spanish; a cacophony of car horns and a very short interlude which sounded as though it could have developed into a real tune – there was not much in this farrago that took my fancy.

The pre-opera meal was in a café/restaurant on the corner of the block next to the opera house and for my €15 I got two tapas, some bread with tomato and a glass of fizzy water.  My last visit there I think!

The most impressive aspect of the performance musically was the orchestra who were superb, though I think that their sheer professionalism sometimes have a more polished sound to elements in the music which were deliberately (or at least at one time in the past) intended to be raucous.  But the overall effect was one of intense competence and they had the biggest cheer of all at the end of the performance.

The second star was the set, the giant crouching woman on a revolve.  During the course of the performance various parts of this giant figure opened and people or scenes were revealed.  Characters emerged from nipples, mouth and other parts while thighs opened to reveal sets within sets.  Lights and films played across the surface of this gigantic figure and the eyes lit up in a comically disturbing way.

The opera was sung in English, which was an unexpected bonus, though not all the singers were equally at home in the language.  I assume that Ligeti is not something that is every opera singer’s cup of tea and it must be a matter of horses for courses for his operas and I suppose that a lingua franca like English makes the assembling of a cast that much easier.  I imagine that Ligetti singers are rather like ondes Martenot players: a small group who know each other and meet up around the world when a performance calls for their skills.  I suppose that the ondes Martenot is demanded in something other than the Turangalîla-Symphonie – but I don’t know of it.  And I’m too lazy to look it up!

Yet again at the start of the second half of the opera, the seats were noticeably more empty than they were before the performance started – though I suspect that some of the patrons took advantage of empty seats to improve their view of proceedings!

My favourite singer was the lady who took the role of Venus and the Head of the Secret Police as she combined a strong, melodic and resourceful voice with a vibrant stage presence.  Otherwise, this is an opera that I will not be making huge efforts to see again – though having bought the discs I might well give it the benefit of another change with the images from the stage performance still clear in my mind.

The next opera is Linda of Chamounix by Donezetti – and I do have the month of December to get to know it, as the performance which is the next part of my season ticket is not until January.  I am not a great fan of Donezetti – but at least it will have tunes, ornamented tune possibly, but tunes certainly! 

The decision I have to make is which version I order and listen to.  I would like a version in English, but that probably will not be forthcoming, and I am not sure what I will gain from one of Donezetti’s opera from hearing the words in a language I can speak.  I fear that it might be the sort of opera where the melodramatic action might be best hidden behind the comforting cloak of Italian!

I don’t even know the famous bits in this opera, so I might start with the highlights and work from there!  If there are highlights.

Yesterday I was given on loan “Solar” by Martin Amis and it turned out to be a jolly, if predictable read.  My favourite extract occurred near the start of the novel when the anti-hero of the story was described as a person for whom, “The M4 demonstrated a passion for existence which he could not longer match.  He was for the B-road, a cart track, a footpath.”  A delightful description that the rest of the novel demonstrates both is and also is not true of the character!  This novel should come with a warning that it is not as determinedly depressing as his work usually is!  I even laughed out loud at one point!

I have also been given in a more permanent sense, a selection of three improving and authentically literary books to keep.  I have read all of them, but one of them, “Rebecca” is in a Folio Society edition with excellent paper, crisp print and obviously in hardback which is well worth keeping and I am more than prepared to throw away/give away my paperback version. 

“Rebecca” is by far my favourite of Du Maurier’s novels and the one which repays analysis most profitably.  The imagery is dense and deeply satisfying.  It will be a pleasure to re-read this novel in such a voluptuous edition.  Though I don’t like the illustrations!  Small point!

Febrile freedom fades

For the first time for five days I will have to get up at 6.30 am tomorrow.  And I will probably arrive home at 6.30 pm after a meeting to explain how to use the new computer “platform” for entering the most sacred thing in our lives – examination results!  And, as luck would have it, the new season of examinations starts tomorrow so that we will have something to put in to the new system!  Funny how things work together, eh?

Toni voted today (I am unable to vote as these are national elections) and, though not as a direct consequence, I think that we will probably have a new government tomorrow headed by the head of PP the right wing party which has this election to lose, given the awful stewardship of the so-called Socialists who have bumbled their way through the Crisis.

The other parties have no idea what to do, but according to the comfortable consumers who make up the student population of my school, as soon as the right wing government is elected there will be “lower taxes and more jobs”!  I am not holding my breath!

I have a feeling that many of those in power today are going to have a rude awakening tomorrow.  When Jack Straw was asked what no longer being a minister was like he said, “Well, being out of power is when you get into the back of a car and it doesn’t go anywhere!”

I fail to see what any government can do except for continuing the austerity measures that have already been started: higher indirect taxes; cuts in public services; continuing pay freeze in the public sector; possible “real” pay cuts in the public sector; closures of anything which the government feels it can get away with – and our new library in Castelldefels continuing to be empty of books and remaining unopened!

The polling station was in the school next to the British School of Barcelona (which is here in Castelldefels) and we had to fight our way through a positive phalanx of police who were valiantly guarding the integrity of the polling station by standing around and chatting with each other.  At least it keeps them out of the bars.

For the first time ever there was no queue at the pollo a last (the barbecue chicken place) though the quid pro quo for that was a rather scrawny piece of chicken and dry-ish chips – thank god I had the salad!

I have now read “Caliphate” by Tom Kratman an interesting if disturbing novel about what the author sees as an almost inevitable struggle between Islam and the rest.  He virtually writes off Europe as having given in to Islam on a continental cultural level which will lead to the indigenous populations being swamped by Islamic people.  It was written in 2007 and therefore long before the Islamic Spring, but it is a bleakly prophetic view of what is in store for the vitiated West with its lack of belief and its virulent (as he sees it) multi-culturalism.

I must admit that I have modified my views on multiculturalism over the years and look back and consider the emphasis that we placed on that aspect of education back in the days when I was active in the NUT. 

My mother always dismissed the high-sounding rhetoric about multiculturalism as building up a teaching resource that was really “nothing more than stories from around the world”!  I think it would have been of more benefit if we had given lip service to the concept and emphasised the acquisition of English (which to be fair we English teachers did!) and some version of our national literature and history more convincing than the shreds of cultural tradition which we were able to convey.

The television programmes have started to broadcast the beginnings of the speculation about the next government.  Virtually everyone expects the right wing PP to gain an absolute majority so Rajoy will become the next leader.  Not something I relish.

At least the sun has been shining today.

Which is more than it is going to do tomorrow.

Three days to wellness!

Although it’s tempting fate, I have to say that I woke up this morning after going through a better night than I have had for the last few days.  The sore throat is still very much there, but I have bought more lemons and I have plenty of honey so that problem is in the course of being dealt with.  Even the sun has come out to encourage me.  All things being well, the today and the weekend should see me back to the sort of health that will allow me to go back to work.  Sigh!

A generally good day with my being able to sit outside in the sun for a while to give me a breath of fresh air to speed the process of getting back to normal – but early evening is the low time when the throat begins to play up again.  It is obviously time to go out and find some new pastilles to assuage the irritating itch.

Going outside the house seems like quite an adventure when I have been hunched over a computer reading trashy sci-fi e-books!

We coughed our way through a couple of tapas and a glass of beer and Toni bought a Christmas lottery ticket from the café because it ended in “31” a number about which he had dreamed, therefore etc etc.

We are now stocked with various sweets and drugs to counteract most of the effects of our various illnesses and can look forward to a eucalyptus-scented couple of days!

Situation normal?

Tuesday evening was decision time.  I felt bloody awful and I had to consider whether I was going to stick to my oft repeated but rarely followed advice to myself that, “if you are ill – stay away from school.”

The last time I struggled in, I was asked to do extra – and I think that decided it for the next time!

My throat felt as if it had been churned up by an industrial cultivator, while I was convinced that my lungs had been filled with reinforced concrete and my racking cough was enough to satisfy the most demanding Grand Inquisitor.  In short I felt like shit.

But that was nothing to what I felt like the next day.  My throat had reached new levels of awfulness and I got up (ironically at my usual time for rising) and made myself a cup of honey and lemon in pure self-defence.  It all honesty it was a lifesaver, it actually did what old wives constantly tell you it will do and it soothed.

I cannot truthfully say that I enjoyed my first day off for some time and even reading failed to do its accustomed magic for me.  By the time I was due to go to the doctor for my appointment at six in the evening, made at nine in the morning, I was feeling worse.  And worse.

The doctor signed me off until Friday and so I have these days plus to weekend to get better.

Yesterday I went to bed early and stayed there until lunchtime today.  The only reason I got up was to go back to the doctor to get the “alta” – the second piece of paper that I need to give to my school to explain and justify my absence.

Since then I have been sitting in my chair and coughing quietly (and extravagantly from time to time) and contemplating the horror of going back, where, on the Monday we have an extra meeting after school.  Bienvenidos!

My paltry attempts at reading have benefited from the rubbish that you can access in electronic form.  I am still trying to recover from a dreadfully adolescent screed called “The Lost Boys” written probably by two female adolescents with a faulty grasp of some of the details of English grammar and/or typing.  But I read it all, god help me, and I still don’t know why – except I do tend to read the books I start (with the signal exceptions of “The Sound and the Fury” and “The Golden Bowl”, though I should probably try them both again. Some year or other) which means that I have read some real rubbish in my time.

The books that are readily available in e-format are sci-fi and fantasy: both hit weak spots in my otherwise reasonably snobbish literary judgement.  Previously I limited my exposure to such perniciously addictive pulp writing by limiting my purchases to second hand copies of books by named writers under a certain price.  But technology and the Internet combine to bring an almost unlimited supply of wordy drugs to my fingertips. 

Life can be cruel sometimes!

Tomorrow must be concentrated on getting better – so that I can enjoy the weekend, as preparation for the return to the daily grind.

It is colder

I am visibly weakening about my determination to reject coats of any sort in my desperate attempt to “keep summer going” in my one-man campaign to ignore autumn.

My cough is telling me that things are not entirely well with this approach and the glum day rapidly degenerated into that weather of which wind-borne drizzle is the major component. 

Today was, of course the day when I traipse from building 1 to building 4 and back again getting progressively wetter with the insidious, targeted micro raindrops gently soaking me as I made my grumpy way along to give one resentful lesson after another!

It is bad enough that it is a Monday without that “soft” weather that the Irish speak of.  Everybody was in a generally depressed mood and into this atmosphere of negativity yet another meeting after school was announced.  IN a 40 hours week that we are in the bloody place it says absolutely nothing for the consideration of the management that they have to impose on our free time for a further hour.  This will be shortly after our notorious Saturday morning meeting - about which I cannot find words vitriolic enough to express the correct level of condemnation for such an unnatural, pointless, unprofessional and perverse activity.

On a more positive level talks are taking place about when to hold our Chocolate Week.  The general consensus is that the suicide days of early February would be the most appropriate time where the deep frivolity of our Chocolate Week could be just the thing to keep us from succumbing to the depression that distant June evokes in a typical teacher in the short dark days of the early months of the year!

Amazon is hounding me with blandishments of various sorts including art books which are difficult to resist.  I think that I will attempt to get the school to buy some of them because the computer in the room that I use to teach the history of art constantly has difficulties linking to the Internet and is therefore useless for my purposes.

And now to bed.  An early night to escape the dampness in warm oblivion! 

Paintings, provender and play!

The idea of the weekend is as balm to my weary soul; even if the reality is not always as comforting as it should be.

This weekend I will venture into the city to refresh my jaded cultural appetite with an exhibition in a small gallery in the old part of Barcelona.  This purports to be an exhibition on the Golden Age of Catalan Art and from a visit to the site of the gallery it looks to have some real quality among the twenty paintings that make up the exhibition – and what a civilized number of art works to look at!

The real intention behind going to the exhibition is to get a meal in MNAC (of which I am a friend) and gaze out at the astonishingly unimpressive view over the city of Barcelona through the windows which stretch from floor to vaulted ceiling in the dining room of the restaurant.  The seats by the windows themselves have to be reserved so you miss out on the interesting bits of the view by being forced to sit by the opposite wall.  Never mind the food is good and worth the large sum of money for the menu del dia.  And, I might add, the menu comes with water or a soft drink: no wine!

The exhibition, in a small gallery tucked away in one of the winding streets in the old part of Barcelona was full of people who looked as though they could afford the paintings on display.  I must admit that I had thought that many of the paintings on display were of names which you would not necessarily find in a commercial gallery, one would expect to see the paintings in public collections.

One small diversion was to the bookshop that has taken over the premises of PC City and I picked up the volumes that I had left there the last time I had called in.  Which was also the first time.  I was able to use the card that they gave me on my last visit, which I now realize was an opening offer, and got some money off the two books I bought.  Both of them were art books and both are in Spanish so I can pretend to myself that there are necessary for the development of my understanding of the language. 

They both have a dictionary format with the entries illustrated by classic works of art.  The first is a dictionary of Saints and the second of literary characters.  I did, of course, look up Saint Stephen first, before I realized that by looking under “S” I was forgetting which language the book was written in! 

They are both excellent, and I now I know of other artists who have painted Ophelia other than Millais.  (In case you are wondering they include, John William Waterhouse, Henri Gerveux, Alberto Martini, Eugene Delacroix and Felice Carena – the odd Italians might have something to do with where this collection of books was first published, in Milan.

Before we got to the gallery we called into a Basque bar and had one tapa and a very small glass of Basque wine.  They were both delicious but at the price that they charged it was the last visit that we will make!

Although the names of the artists in the exhibition might not be familiar to those outside Catalonia, painters like Mir, Urgell, Nonell, Gimeno, Meifrèn and above all Cassas are staples in major public galleries in this area.  Unfortunately I did not have the eighty thousand euros to purchase a small study by Cassas and anyway it had already been bought!  Crisis?  What crisis!

We took the underground to MNAC – or at least to Plaza de España and began the long hike via street and escalator to the museum itself.

The meal was just the sort of poncy food that I love and served in such an impressive setting and with excellent company it was ideal.

Although we did not “do” an exhibition while we were in the museum we did (fatally) go into the bookshop where I found a book that I have been looking for. 

I have been searching for a general description of the artists who figured in the exhibition we had just visited in the small gallery in the city and lo and behold the bookshop had what looked like a newish publication entitled “Modernisme in the MNAC collections” with essays by Mercè Doñate, Mariàngels Fondevila, Cristina Mendoza and Francesc Qiílez i Corella.

And it was in English!

It is an excellent book, lavishly illustrated and with informative essays on Painting, Drawings, Decorative Art, Sculpture and Posters, Prints and Bookplates.  It was reasonably price for a hardback at €20 and the only drawback I can see is that the translation by Andrew Langdon-Davies makes for an uneasy read. 

I am sure that it is a faithful translation from the Spanish or Catalan, but that does not always produce the most convincing English!  Having done a tiny, heavily guided amount of translation I can vouch for the fact that a good English translation sometimes deviates quite substantially from the original - and one hopes that people do not take the time to check one against the original!

But the overview of the artistic activity at this time, roughly from 1890 to 1911, is one of the best that I have found and it allows me to make links in a surer way than I have been able to previously.  I read the book last night with the same enthusiasm that I usually reserve for a gripping novel!  And remember there were lots of pictures!

Sunday has dawned grimly and we have had a short but torrential downpour that has now degenerated into a sulky drizzle.  The west, however, looks bright and I shall preserve my optimism about a day rarely passing in this part of the world without a brave show of sunshine at some time during its daylight hours.

So, on with the reading!