Mephisto Waltzes, Weinberg, Sylvie’s Bolero

煢煢

半圓形的天頂被一層月華光澤的膜緊緻地拉扯住，像一只充滿著水的氣球，虛擬著生腥的焦慮與一種無所事事的、完完全全脫離精神性的美與憂鬱。那個午后，是薄如蟬翼且裹上銀粉的新生的卵，適於討論命理與禪。雲以敏捷的腳步滑行於透明且虛弱的藍，泡沫似的溫順與漠然。青春其實是極度缺乏生命力的。在旺盛與浮躁之中貪慕假象的匱乏，而後需索從不曾或缺的旺盛；在柔弱的本質中渴求堅強與信仰，之後因對於軟弱愚蠢的不自覺與惑於自我宣稱的虛偽堅強而尋覓所謂謙恭溫潤的中庸。青春是僅只存活於對純粹的堅持下、一種具備了美卻不易碎的浪費。如果死的優雅與精神性建構了藝術中闡釋生命的美學，則生不過是為襯托死的一種附屬的存在。但是生命卻是無法磨滅的，即使蒼白而無意義，卻無止盡地散發出猩紅的血的氣味。印度神濕婆在宇宙的輪迴當中毀滅自己所創造的鏡花水月，而後使之重生，不斷重複操縱著生與死的轉輪；祂是否也感受到生命中那種匱乏虛弱的美，以及死亡中屬於生之投影的愛與信念？藍所象徵的嫌惡與非難，以清澈且充滿靈性的美存在於自然界的蒼穹。隅隅獨行的生，幾人在腐臭中仍吟哦走了調的聖詩，又幾人能擺脫所有倫常的帷幕而誠摯地憎恨與厭惡？然而這一切的思索總似時間過度充裕的青春所編織的蛛網，純白得美麗亦膚淺得軟弱。當青春終於被擺脫後，生命開始進入下一段對死複雜的戀慕和禁忌，與對消逝的水光緬懷的遺憾。





奔馬

夢先於現實。
而純粹
似花，似血，似詩
，似枯腐前消逝的生。


Runaway Horses (Realistically Synaesthetic Purity)

Dreams, a priori, then reality.
And purity
Resembles a flower, resembles blood, resembles poetry,
Resembles life, a priori, disappearing before decay.

I am lost for words when confronted (and blessed) with such exquisite magnificence—how she tames, commands, and most importantly, marries the movements with and brings out the near-noumenal essence of Ravel’s mesmerising music... I am lost for words, except that I shall miss this feral diamond—beyond doubt, one of the greatest artists of our time—and I am grateful that I have had the privilege of seeing her on stage several times, in Europe and Asia, including a performance from her bittersweet farewell tour.

Watching Sylvie dance, watching her move—it is love and fire and electricity. Thank you Sylvie, for all that you have shared with us, for all that you have given us.

❤

cxii

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

～Emily Dickinson (1830–86), from Part Five of The Single Hound: Poems of a Lifetime by Emily Dickinson, Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1914.

A Frightening Angel

I was in high school when I read Rilke for the first time, in an underground “indie” bookstore (a real treasure trove for books) near the National University of Taiwan—an area full of “book caves” and “sequestered nooks for books”—catering for university students and academics alike. It was his Duino Elegies translated into Chinese by a famous poet, and my love affair with Rilke thus began. The verses were heartrendingly powerful in such a way that I was instantly blown away.

My senior high school years were a time I do not care much to remember: the first thing I would do after school everyday, was to go straight into a bookstore—only then would I feel able to breathe. But it was also during that time when I started writing poetry intensely, and my passion for poetry bloomed like wild roses as if they knew there were no tomorrow.

English translation by Stephen Mitchell (my personal favourite translator of Rilke’s works), from the First Elegy of Duino Elegies, 
Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1992.

ʻA Guardian of the Kingdom’ from a Persian version of Qazwini’s ʻAjāʼib al-makhlūqāt wa-gharāʼib al-mawjūdāt,’ “The marvels of creation and the oddities of existence,” commonly known as “The cosmography of Qazwini,”
circa 1500-1550 CE. (image via)

A poem is to be developed from these musings and words which arrived this early evening, and something has been on the back of my mind for quite some time—to work on “Dialogue Poetry”—quite a special genre both in a literary and visual/aesthetic sense.

So, for now, to be continued...

♪

The fifty poems that were published by Albert Giraud (born Emile Albert Kayenbergh) as Pierrot lunaire: Rondels bergamasques in 1884 quickly attracted composers to set them to music, especially after they were translated, somewhat freely, into German (1892) by the poet and dramatist Otto Erich Hartleben. (Hartleben later went on to write his own Pierrot poems—"The Harp" and five rondels titled Pierrot, Married Man.) The best known of these settings is the atonal song-cycle derived from twenty-one of the poems (in Hartleben's translation) by Arnold Schoenberg in 1912: Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds Pierrot lunaire (Thrice-Seven Poems from Albert Giraud's Pierrot lunaire—Schoenberg was numerologically superstitious). But the poems have dense histories as songs and sets of songs both before and after Schoenberg's landmark Opus 21. The bullet-point that follows lists early twentieth-century musical settings chronologically and notes how many poems were set by each composer (all, except Prohaska's, are in the Hartleben translations) and for which instruments.

Pfohl, Ferdinand: 5 poems ("Moon-rondels, fantastic scenes from 'Pierrot Lunaire'") for voice and piano (1891); Marschalk, Max: 5 poems for voice and piano (1901); Vrieslander, Otto: 50 poems for voice and piano (46 in 1905, 4 more in 1911); Graener, Paul: 3 poems for voice and piano (c. 1908); Marx, Joseph: 4 poems for voice and piano (1909; 1 of 4, "Valse de Chopin", reset for voice, piano, and string quartet in 1917); Schoenberg, Arnold: 21 poems for speaking voice, piano, flute (also piccolo), clarinet (also bass clarinet), violin (also viola), and violoncello (1912); Kowalski, Max: 12 poems for voice and piano (1913); Prohaska, Carl: 6 poems for voice and piano (1920); Lothar, Mark: 1 poem for voice and piano (1921).

*extract of information on Pierrot Lunaire via Wikipedia

From the Poetique-Onirique Archive: The First Poem, for David

“Probably one of the most private things in the world is an egg before it is broken.” ～M. F. K. Fisher

+

(For my husband, whose lullaby is my breathing every night.)

All the secrets I do not share,
and all the secrets I tell no one;
all the secrets absent in my poems,
and all the secrets I do not sing, even in the silent song
of solitude permeating my veins
like the warmth and gentle scent of your amber,
these secrets are buried deep inside, within
the dreams of your belly.
They melt, and are reborn.
They grow wings, and they fly.

In the blueness of your eyes
is the light of a deep ocean that has lived
a thousand years, a thousand years of
meditative loneliness. In your hair, the golden amber grows
into a transparent flower, fragrance of the night.
The amber flower that connects your mind
with your heart.

One day you discovered a pale feather
of an anonymous bird, colour of a pale rose.
A rare feather,
exquisite and fragile, shining under
an old tree of glittering green leaves.
It was nighttime, but the sun was out.
Your one tender kiss awoke the feather, and turned it
into the bird she once was, in a past life she had already forgotten.
The rare and exquisite and fragile bird.
And she has lived with your heart, in your heart, ever since.

Your surrender to nothingness is expansive, and
the warmest embrace there ever is, ever will be.
Your refined detachment of the closest, dearest attachment of tenderness
It gives meaning to what seems to be void of meanings at all,
resembling a delicately and beautifully
cracked porcelain vase,
its slender neck holding all the secrets which are not remembered.
The unbreaking of a broken egg, in the most perfect shade
of pearlescent ivory, with
not even the faintest lines on a rainbow-hued seashell.
I realise in this moment we are regal.
We are angels.
Your elegance is the reddest of all the red peonies
blooming between our bodies and souls.
Us.

You say I can neither understand nor imagine. I close
my eyes and think of
the most beautiful desert moon, or the saddest
love poem, or our daughter
in your arms, in the farthest and nearest yesterday
of our tomorrow.

You spoke to my philosophy professor as if
he was one of your oldest friends.
You talked about Heidegger, and game theory,
and all the dilemmas of life, in a beautiful manner which transcended them all,
as if they were lines from an old poem you had written long ago.
You say the whole life is in The Little Prince, and that you
cannot admire someone who is not an acharya,
however brilliant his thoughts,
however great his legacy.
I look at this perfect man before me, with his
bluest blue eyes and think to myself, “I married
the one rare acharya I know.”

I am your heart, as you are my poetry,
mirror of my aloneness
the soundlessness of my melodies,
the attachment of my detachment,
the meaningfulness of my meaninglessness,
the nothingness of my very own self,

my undefined/undefinable otherness.


You taught me I am myself and I am enough,
in need of no more, like Cocteau's Trinity
that binds my heart in the truest way it longs to be bound.

And so I write, different from how I have ever written poetry,
in the state of being and the state of breathing,
without striving and crafting,
without effort,

as if I was writing
for the very first and the very last time.

～June 2012

Devastating Beauty

"Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." ~Domenico Scarlatti




An exquisite coloratura soprano is as rare and unique as a blue Persian cat...♥

An ancient Egyptian cat (image via).

*Thank you Alain for sharing with me this mesmerising Stravinsky treasure...





"Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love." ~Hector Berlioz

*Bast was said to be the daughter of Ra, though long after he created the primal gods. She was originally a sun goddess, but after contact with the Greeks, she changed to a moon goddess, probably due to the Greeks associating her with Artemis. Like Artemis, Bast was a wild goddess. To those who were in her favor, she gave great blessings, but her wrath was legendary and she was sometimes listed as one of Ra's avenging deities who punish the sinful and the enemies of Egypt. This is of course in keeping with her totem animal, the cat. Cats were sacred to Bast, and to harm one was deemed a great transgression. Bast's importance in the Egyptian pantheon might be due to the great value placed on the domesticated cat by the Egyptians. Cats curtailed the spread of disease by killing vermin, and though the idea of microbes was unknown to the ancient Egyptians, they must have noticed the connection between rats and disease.
(information via From Cairo with Love)

The soul is here for its own joy

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story...

~ The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald (1961)

Vladimir Horowitz performs in Moscow in 1986 {image via}

Horowitz plays Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat Major, K. 333




Vladimir Horowitz in his final recital, 21st June 1987, Hamburg, Germany. Mozart Piano Sonata in B-flat Major, K. 333. This recording was never commercially released.



*I love this brilliant YouTube channel, full of Horowitz treasures...


Mitsuko Uchida plays Mozart Piano Sonata in B flat Major, K. 333

Pour le Piano

Debussy's manuscript for 1er Cahier de Proses Lyriques (De rêve), page 9. "La nuit a des douceurs de femme!" Autograph manuscript with numerous corrections and additions in crayon and red ink.

{Image via The Juilliard Manuscript Collection - what a treasure island!} ♥

Claude Debussy

Walter Gieseking plays Debussy's complete Pour le Piano

Walter Gieseking (left)

Claudio Arrau plays the complete Pour le Piano by Debussy

Claudio Arrau

Arrau plays the opening Prélude of the suite

Samson François at the piano

Samson François plays Toccata from Pour le Piano


*More about Pour le Piano, suite for piano, L. 95 (an informative and wonderfully-written article).

For the Love of Josephine Foster...

It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eter­nally justified. (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy)

+++

An die Musik, by Franz Schubert

Lyrics (original poem in German by Franz von Schober)

Du holde Kunst, in wieviel grauen Stunden,
Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt,
Hast du mein Herz zu warmer Lieb' entzünden,
Hast mich in eine beßre Welt entrückt!

Oft hat ein Seufzer, deiner Harf' entflossen,
Ein süßer, heiliger Akkord von dir
Den Himmel beßrer Zeiten mir erschlossen,
Du holde Kunst, ich danke dir dafür!

Oh lovely Art, in how many grey hours,
When life's fierce orbit ensnared me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Carried me away into a better world!

How often has a sigh escaping from your harp,
A sweet, sacred chord of yours
Opened up for me the heaven of better times,
Oh lovely Art, for that I thank you!


Franz Schubert composed his lied "An die Musik" (German for "To Music") in March 1817 for solo voice and piano, with text from a poem by his friend Franz von Schober. In the Deutsch catalog of Schubert's works it is number 547, or D547. It was published in 1827 as Opus 88 No. 4 by Weigl.

A hymn to the art of music, it is one of the best-known songs by Schubert. Its greatness and popularity are generally attributed to its harmonic simplicity, sweeping melody, and a strong bass line that effectively underpins the vocal line.  (Source: Wikipedia)


American modern folk singer-songwriter Josephine Foster did a swooningly beautiful rendition of this song, which is included in her 2006 album A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing as the opening track (a live performance below). Be sure to click here and download the full album version - it is seriously too gorgeous to miss.

 


Dame Janet Baker sings Schubert's An die Musik, piano accompaniment by Murray Perahia, Covent Garden, London.




My absolute favourite baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's interpretation...



❤

Mahler: Quartet for Piano & Strings in A minor/ Improvisation

My love for the spirituality and profundity in Mahler's musical landscapes warrants these videos an independent entry. Words are hushed and redundant when it comes to music that speaks as much as this. Does music not pale and silence all like a beautiful, magnificent, pure white avalanche?
Living as a global nomad at this moment, I take great solace in the accessibility of music in this digital age we live in.

Mahler caricatures (*image via Classical Iconoclast)

Rose, O pure contradiction, delight in being no one's sleep under so many eyelids.

Details of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Il ratto di Proserpina.


No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by. ~Franz Schubert


Details of Gian Lorenzo Bernini's Apollo and Daphne.
(Photo above via: flickr)


Details of Antonio Canova's Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss.


If there is any substitute for love, it is memory.
~Joseph Brodsky


"There was a time when I talked unwillingly of Schubert, whose name, I thought, should only be whispered at night to the trees and stars!" ~Robert Schumann, Neue Zeitschrift (1839)


Whilst thus I sing, I am a king,
Although a poor blind boy. (Der Blinde Knabe)

A Million Kisses to My Skin

David and I went out this evening for a very lovely dinner date at the wonderful French restaurant/bistro Le Boudin Blanc. We had beautiful food including a divine chestnut crème gateau with spices and dark chocolate sorbet (my obsession with Indian chai these days has given me a penchant for everything exotically fragranced). In a way the ambiance in this little gem of a restaurant neatly tucked away on a cobble-stoned alley felt even a teeny bit more French than being in Paris (ah, the blasphemy!)...

On our drive back home Bach's Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Minor was playing on the radio. I instantly turned up the volume as I've loved this gorgeous piece ever since I first heard it, and even more so after seeing David Dawson's ballet "A Million Kisses to My Skin" which he created for Dutch National Ballet in 2000. I went to the performance when Dutch National Ballet toured Sadler's Wells in London. The precision and athleticism does not wane its artistic and emotional quality in anyway, as far as I am concerned. Instead, I find a beautiful parallell between the dancer's movements and what attracts me so much to Bach's music (as well as numerous contemporary choreographers/musicians/composers). An emotional complexity and profundity achieved not through the least bit of sentimentalism, but via a channel that is controlled, balanced, subtle/implicit, at times intellectually challenging, or even 'digital' and rigid. Yet this communicative channel delivers something that is infinitely timeless, glowing intrinsically with qualities that are transcendent. How Bach's music moves me.

David mentioned one of his favourite books dealing with a similar subject, which he thinks I will love - Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book described as "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll." It is to be included in my ever growing book list, and I am not a fast reader at all!

As Random Dance Artistic Director and Royal Ballet Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor eloquently puts it, “I think there’s something wonderful about these dancers, how they’re able to take dislocating, disorienting physical language and imbue it with emotional resonance. I’m a great believer, as was Merce Cunningham, in that the human body can never be without meaning, that the body can never be abstract. The body is inherently literal.”

*Since embedding is disabled, please click here to watch the first movement of David Dawson's A Million Kisses to My Skin, performed by Dresden Semperoper Ballett in 2008, starring Natalia Sologub, Jiri Bubenicek, Olga Melnikova, Maximilian Genow, Elena Vostrotina, Claudio Cangialosi, Julia Carnicer, Giselle Doepker and Arika Togawa. Also visit the gallery for some excellent photographs of this ballet.




Glenn Gould plays Bach Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052

藍

Between all the different shades of blue, there is form. And then there is the absence of form ― a freedom from resolution. There is music.

清 刺繡 峰頭十丈 Embroidery painting from Qing Dynasty, China.

Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665, by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).

Vase of Flowers with Blue Ground, 1956, by Sanyu 常玉。

“... if you then consider none but those whose discriminating vision has been refined through contact with literature and art, he was convinced that the eye of that individual who dreams of ideal beauty, who craves illusions, who seeks some mystery in his women, is as a rule attracted to blue and its derivatives...” 

― Joris-Karl Huysmans, À rebours, 1884

+

Pierre Fournier plays Zoltán Kodály Sonata for Solo Cello, Opus 8. Recorded in November, 1960.

北宋 官窯青瓷 Guan ware, Northern Song Dynasty, China.

元 鈞窯 天藍紫斑如意枕 Jun ware, Yuan Dynasty, China.

The Painter to the Moon, 1917, by Marc Chagall (1887-1985).

+

Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 3, Op. 30, Movement I (1927). Recorded in 1937 by the Kolisch Quartet under Schoenberg's supervision.




Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 4, Op. 37 (1936). Recorded in 1969 by LaSalle Quartet.

Turquoise Wine Jar, Ming Dynasty, China.

Althea, 1895, by John White Alexander (1856-1915).

+

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Opus 35. The Sea and Sinbad's Ship/ Conductor: André Previn; Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

北宋汝窯青瓷橢圓洗/ Ru ware, Northern Song Dynasty, China.

Blue Waterlilies, 1919, by Claude Monet

“The word itself has another color. It’s not a word with any resonance, although the e was once pronounced. There is only the bump now between b and l, the relief at the end, the whew. It hasn’t the sly turn which crimson takes halfway through, yellow’s deceptive jelly, or the rolled-down sound in brown. It hasn’t violet’s rapid sexual shudder or like a rough road the irregularity of ultramarine, the low puddle in mauve like a pancake covered in cream, the disapproving purse to pink, the assertive brevity of red, the whine of green.”

― William H. Gass, On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry, 2007.

+

Hilary Hahn plays Schoenberg Violin Concerto, Op. 36 (1936). Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen.




Leonard Pennario plays Sergei Prokofiev Vision Fugitives, Opus 22.
Complete score: 1. Lentamente 1:10, 2. Andante 1:20, 3. Allegretto 0:49, 4. Animato 0:40, 5. Molto giocoso 0:27, 6. Con eleganza 0:37, 7. (Arpa) Pittoresco 1:30, 8. Comodo 1:10, 9. Allegretto tranquillo 0:56, 10. Ridicolosamente 0:40, 11. Con vivacita 0:59.

Edvard Munch, Kiss by the Window, 1892, oil on canvas, 73 x 92cm, The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo.

Pablo Picasso, La soupe (The soup), 1902-1903, oil on canvas, 38.5 x 46cm, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada.

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1915, oil on canvas, 151.4 x 201cm, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Those Beautiful Minds

I discovered the gorgeous world of life as seen through the light microscope on Nikon's Small World galleries, where Nikon has rewarded the world's best photomicrographers who make critically important scientific contributions to life sciences, bio-research and materials science for over 30 years. I was introduced to this website by my brilliant scientist brother (see his 2007 Image of Distinction here). I come from a family full of scientists, and although I have chosen the field of arts and humanities, I always find the beauty of natural sciences to be simultaneously mesmerising, mystifying, and liberating. The purity, the simplicity, the complexity, the clarity. I believe that science, in its purest form, is not unlike music - they both help lift the veil of perception, even if just for an instant, and reveal to us the world as it really is (Schopenhauer's the World as Will, Kant's the Thing-in-Itself, Socrates' and Plato's Oneness/Wholeness, Advaita Vedanta's That Which Is, and of course, Tao in Taoist philosophy). I should probably write a separate post on this topic, which is the subject of my MA thesis, as it is something that fascinates and interests me unboundedly.

I would like to share some of the incredibly beautiful images from the large (and fantastical) selections Nikon showcases, which curiously remind me of quite a few composers' music I have been listening to these days - Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern and Béla Bartók. I find (or more appropriately, "feel") a wondrously intriguing and dynamic parallel between the images and the music. I have picked one piece from each composer to be included in this post (scroll down past the images). Lastly, this is one of my favourite quotations, and I think it illustrates my point in the previous paragraph with elegance and eloquence.

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms — it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."
(Albert Einstein, The World as I See It)

*This blog post is dedicated to my brother, who encouraged me to create a world of my own encompassing all that I love by starting a personal blog. Thank you go-go! ♥

6th Place, 1984. Per H. Kjeldsen, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Slow melt of meso-erythriol (40x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1983. Du Boistesselin, Chu. La Pitie’, Paris, France. Antique 19th century microscope slide featuring composition of mounted butterfly scales and diatoms (35x), Darkfield.

18th Place, 1982. Vijai Shukla, Texaco, Inc., Bellaire, Texas, USA. Calcium sulfate crystals in matrix of small calcium-magnesium carbonate crystals in 100 million year old rock (20x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1981. Steven B. Warner, Celanese Research Company, Summit, New Jersey, USA. Crystals of hippuric acid (50x), Polarized light.

8th Place, 1982. Terry Ashley, University of Tennessee, Department of Anatomy, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA. Leaf scales of olive (Eleagnus) (320x), Darkfield.

13th Place, 2008. Milan Kosanovic, Belgrade, Serbia, Recrystallized Vitamin C (10x), Polarized light.

15th Place, 1977. Ralph L. Shook, Hemet, California, USA. Leaf whole mount, Pittosporum (31x), Transmitted Polarized Light Illumination.

7th Place, 2008. Dr. Margaret Oechsli, Jewish Hospital, Heart & Lung Institute, Louisville, Kentucky, United States. Mitomycin (anti-cancer drug) (10x), Polarized light.

15th Place, 1978. James Bell, Allston, Massachusetts, USA. Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) crystals (125x), Crossed Polarized Light.

13th Place, 1977. Gary Wayne Cox, Fullerton, California, USA. Tapeworm found in carnivores (50x), Hoffman Modulation Contrast.

18th Place, 1979. Scott Mitchener, San Carlos, California, USA. Slide from small section of another slide. Finger holding grass. Interference (Hoffman prism) with Polarized Light.

7th Place, 1983. George J. Wilder, Harvard University, Petersham, Massachusetts, USA. Thin cross section of basswood (Tilia sp.) (25.2x), Darkfield.

1st Place, 1981. David Gnizak, Ferro Corp., Technical Center, Independence, Ohio, USA. Collapsed bubbles from an annealed experimental electronic sealing glass (55x). Reflected Light, Nomarski Differential Interference Contrast.

The art of intermediate filament assembly. Keratin organizes into cross linked networks all by itself, say Lee and Coulombe. The paper is part of the August 10 issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.

4th Place, 1983. John K. Douglass, Duke University, Zoology Department, Durham, North Carolina, USA. Compound eye of grass shrimp stained with methylene blue (200x), Phase contrast.

11th Place, 1983. James W. Smith, Ferro Corporation Research Center, Independence, Ohio, USA. Spherulites of lead chromate (Crocoite) on the surface of a decorative glaze (60x), Differential interference contrast.

5th Place, 1983. Dr. A. Sen-Gupta, Panjab University, Department of Biophysics, Chandigarh, India. Mulitiple exposures (4) of finely scratched tin foil using blue filter. Fifth expousure of condenser image using red filter (32x), Brightfield.

9th Place, 1983. Per H. Kjeldsen, University of Michigan, School of Dentistry, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA. Slow melt of testosterone propionate (50x), Polarized light.

"... music, since it passes over the Ideas, is... quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still exist even if there were no world at all, which cannot be said of the other arts."
(Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation)

Glenn Gould plays Alban Berg's Piano Sonata Opus 1


Igor Stravinsky: "Movements for Piano and Orchestra" (1958-59). An example of Stravinsky's late period serial work.


Anton Webern, "Orchestral Pieces," Op. Post.


Schoenberg: Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19, performed by Michel Beroff.


Béla Bartók (1881-1945): From Mikrokosmos, Progressive Piano Pieces vol. VI: 140. Free Variations (Variations libres/Freie Variationen). Allegro molto/ 142. From the Diary of a Fly (Ce que la mouche raconte/Aus dem Tagebuch einer Fliege). Allegro/ 149. From Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (Six dances bulgares/Sechs Tänze in bulgarischen Rhythmen): no. 2. Béla Bartók, piano. Recorded in 1940.