The Brandenburg Concertos

 I'm spoiled. I admit it.

Last night, I was with my partner-in-life at a beautiful old church in downtown Montreal for a performance of Bach's sublime Brandenburg concertos. But, as the music began to resonate around us, my only thought was 'Dammit, the timing is off between the horns and the violins'.

I've been spoiled by regular visits to two of the best symphony orchestras in the world. So now it seems I want perfection every time. 

Thankfully I got over myself by the time we got to the second concerto, and enjoyed listening to some wonderful musicians playing these glorious (and difficult) pieces. 

The Brightening, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

I 'discovered' Doireann Ní Ghríofa last year during the first months of lockdown when I was reading incessantly. Her book 'A Ghost in the Throat' still haunts me, one of the most compelling voices I've ever heard wandering through the lives of women whose souls are intertwined, centuries apart. So I was delighted to find her video performance of her poem 'The Brightening'. 

    I call it a performance rather than a reading, because like her book it's quite hard to tell where the line is between narrator and narrative. We move seamlessly back and forth from interior to exterior, from past to present. Given the title, 'The Brightening' and the way her west of Ireland accent draws out those long O sounds, I was reminded of these lines by Yeats:

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, 

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

(from Among School Children by W.B.Yeats) 

    In this performance by Ní Ghríofa the dancer and the dance are truly one. I can't say that I understand it all (could you ever say that about a poem?) but the conjunction with Yeats doesn't seem accidental: the image of the grand old house going up in flames feels connected to last days of the old Irish ascendancy of Yeats and Lady Gregory, and just this moment I noticed  that the video was filmed in Coole Park.

    The poem is a response to 'The Planter's Daughter' by Austin Clarke, but whereas the eponymous daughter in that poem is passive and an apologist for her family of planters in the big house, this narrator is strong and subversive and burns the house down. 

    There are so many extraordinary lines and images in the poem, but I'll highlight these:

Ghosts, those flames, racing up the stairs,

sending smoke through slates,

a vast constellation of sparks

to star the dark.

    But listen to her say them for the full effect. The complete text of the poem is available here on the Irish Times website, though the version she performs has evolved a little since that publication.

Wow.

  

Appreciating Paul Robeson

 A few weeks ago we went for dinner at Damas. the celebrated Syrian restaurant on Rue Van Horne. All five of us together, which took some advanced planning by my partner-in-life as the tables at Damas have to be reserved months in advance and the boys like to keep their weekends open. But it all worked out. The food was fabulous and the dishes kept coming until we were beyond stuffed. And the conversation around the table was lively of course.

In the minivan on the way home a discussion (in French) broke out amongst the boys about which of them had the deepest voice. The two older ones said that the music teacher at Stanislas had said they were both baritones, but they thought that P's voice would end up deeper than theirs, though we don't think his has fully broken yet. I asked had they ever heard a real bass singing voice and they said they hadn't. So I had my chance to introduce a little culture in to the proceedings.

My Dad's favourite singer was Paul Robeson. Not that he ever put on a record or anything, but if a song came on the radio he'd say 'ah that's glorious'. So through the wonders of the internet I played this song over the van's speakers, and the boys all loved it. It was the perfect end to a great Sunday evening. 

At the pub, July 1982

I've been staggering out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6am to write 'morning pages' for over a month now. I'd heard that it's a way of tapping into the unconscious, to spark creativity, before the ego wakes up and demands control. So worth doing, I thought. The results have been interesting, there are a lot of ideas and fragments that I can build upon. Sometimes I write about a dream, more often I take a line of poetry as a prompt and freewrite from there. And then, occasionally a memory pops in to my head, a scene I didn't know I remembered. Like this one, a moment from July 1982.

I walk into the pub. It's seems a simple thing to do but at 17 years old it’s not easy to just walk into the pub without being terribly conscious that you’re actually 'walking into the pub'. So I walk into the pub, looking all around for the group from the office where I've been working for the summer. The first proper summer job I've ever had. The place reeks of cigarettes and stale beer, but there aren’t many people here this early on a Wednesday evening. Still it’s hard to see anyone, the pub twists around on itself in nooks and corners, providing lots of places where you can hide from view. I'm unsure of the layout, it seems wilfully mysterious, like the pub is mocking me. After a moment of panic about the place and time we’d arranged, I finally see them, off to my right in a dim corner. Just the girls. I‘m the first guy to arrive. They’re all lined up on the bench along the wall so I sit on the stool on the other side of the table. It wobbles, and I list dangerously to one side before catching my balance to a ripple of giggles. I’m sweating, and, I’m sure, glowing bright red. A waitress comes over to take my order, it’s one of those fancy pubs where you don't have to elbow your way to the bar. Another first.

    'A pint of Guinness' I squeak, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. 

    'Oooooh!' goes the Greek chorus of female office workers in front of me. I'm going to need reinforcements, and quickly.

Whatever happened next is completely gone from my memory, so I guess it was much less emotionally scarring.