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

Self-embrace on Silk Prayer

*With thanks to Hamlet-at-Sea of this incarnation, for being the final catalyst of my poem.


"Is it a blessing for a poet to be a natural poet-magnet?"
The romantic thinker wonders to herself.
'Oh you Little Fool,' she whispered,
A foolish thinker I am.

All these men, coming
in and out of me. All this pleasure and pain,
flickering like dying blue flames.
An instant garden trampled upon for hundreds of years
by those he loves with his Life－ah, such blasphemous
Beauty. An instant paradise turned
into the most exquisite ice ablaze.
A bruised garden amidst the flames.
The love and devotion that it takes to create
－such Beauty－
I can never fully comprehend.

Threads of a thousand hues are weaving themselves
in and out of each other; breathing esoteric,
breathing erotic, into
the weakest Bird of the most powerful strength－
A Bird without a name－

Can I be spared－Can I be
abstract like your patterns of this mesmerising nature, again?
I plead with my heart to be
as romantic and as abstract, like
your Little Brother, again.
Tears from the eyes of his heart are still rolling,
shining on my quill
like dews on those pink Oleander flowers－
falling, falling, fallen.

(And in case you were wondering, I was not speaking of
your little brother, I was speaking of
Mine. Like all these quests for Beauty and pleasure－I was
speaking, and thinking, of Mine.)

Breathing erotic. Breathing esoteric.
All these fiery blossoms burning way below sub-zero,
I could faint,
just listening to them.

I have no refuge in the world other than thy threshold.
There is no protection for my head other than this door. ~Hafiz
(inscription on the Ardabil Carpet)

+See also Lisa Creagh's Floriculture 1 and the artist's website.

Poetry Feature: Disbelief, Women, Minority, Periphery

Thirteen of my poems, including five pairs originally composed in Chinese and later translated into English (for most with a very long gap of time in between), are featured in Peripheral Surveys' beautiful autumn anniversary edition: Disbelief, Women, Minority, Periphery. Some of my readers (any of you out there...? ;p) might have already come across these poems in my little blog here, but the set is presented in such a visually aesthetic manner and the journal itself is a rich literary and artistic gem to delve into; hence I am linking it here to my poetic-oneiric (barely awake) space. My poetry is here. I have also written some notes on the inspirations behind the poetry and process of my translations, which for me is very much like re-creating again, for a few of the Chinese poems featured in the journal. The notes can be found in my blog post here.

Kenro Izu, Blue series, Still Life 1119b, 2004 (via)

My dear poet-philosopher-musician friend Alain Minod shared this exquisite, musical beauty with me the other day. For me, music is salvation, it is paradise. As Schopenhauer once said, what distinguishes our aesthetic consciousness from the ordinary one is that it lifts, however temporarily, the veil of perception, or maya, and blesses us with glimpses of what is transcendent, what is eternal, what is real and true, the ultimate beauty and truth. In this sense, our aesthetic experience/consciousness is similar in its essence to meditation. How is life possible without music, when life is music...?

“Yet how strange a thing is the beauty of music! The brief beauty that the player brings into being transforms a given period of time into pure continuance; it is certain never to be repeated; like the existence of dayflies and other such short-lived creatures, beauty is a perfect abstraction and creation of life itself. Nothing is so similar to life as music.”

~Mishima Yukio

*See also Peripheral Surveys' archive of past issues.

Mongolia 16/7

*Dated 16/July/2000 (also some 12 years ago...)

I love the unbounded green fields in Mongolia in particular. Everything was so still, and yet everything was moving and flowing. I could feel the minute, or even delicate, vibration of life within the strong peacefulness. I could feel the rhythm within that silent music. The cattle and horses were beautiful. Their black and brown skin was shining under the sunlight as if it were velvet. The fragrance of grass and the smell of animals; everything came to the smell of stillness in the air. The mountains in a great distance were covered with the greyish-blue silken touch. You can really swim in the vast greenness, swim in the Golden Lotus blossoms and swim in the clean and light sky. So there was this serene beauty in every touch, in the sensuous world belonging both to celestials and human beings. The sunset here began with purely golden shines and then smeared over and dyed the sky and the earth with melancholic pink. Everything was melting together into a pure spark. The sky in Mongolia was not as blue as it sometimes is in London, so blue that it is piercing. The Mongolian sky was light, clean and limpid. Like music. Like a song.


"The poignant song is echoed through all the sky in many-coloured tears and smiles, alarms and hopes; waves rise up and sink again, dreams break, and form. In me is thy own defeat of self."

"It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and desires, into sufferings and joy in human homes; and this it is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet's heart."

"He it is who puts his enchantment upon these eyes and joyfully plays on the chords of my heart in varied cadence of pleasure and pain.
He it is who weaves the web of this maya in evanescent hues of gold and silver, blue and green, and lets peep out through the folds of his feet, at whose touch I forget myself.
Days come and ages pass, and it is ever he who moves my heart in many a name, in many a guise, in many a rapture of joy and of sorrow."

"Keeping steps with that restless, rapid music, seasons come dancing and pass away---colours, tunes, and perfumes pour in endless cascades in the abounding joy that scatters and gives up and dies every moment."

~ from Gitanjali, by Rabindranath Tagore, extracts of verses 71, 84, 72 & 70

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (I am lost to the world)

What a voice. What a heart. The soul transported and transcended in the most beautiful melodies of lyric baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who left us in May this year. I will always miss his music.
"I am dead to the world's tumult, and I rest in a quiet realm. I live alone in my heaven, in my love and in my song..."


Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

{ English translation below by Emily Ezust }

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!

(*Text for 'Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,' by Friedrich Rückert, set to music by Gustav Mahler. One of Mahler's five Rückert-Lieder.)


《我被這個世界遺棄》

詩句和音樂看似頹廢灰色的厭世表象之下，卻隱含深刻動人的真情。馬勒認為這首歌曲有一種「眼見情感已經滿溢到舌尖，卻發不出任何聲音」的感覺，甚至認為這首歌曲表達的就是他自己。樂曲裡蘊含的情感內斂醇厚，以極緩慢的速度推進；在豎琴、雙簧管和法國號的主導下，彷彿勾勒出藝術超越俗世之後達到孤絕境界的淒清美感。這對日後馬勒譜寫第五號交響曲第四樂章有明顯影響。

*上述文字取自臺灣國家交響樂團 National Symphony Orchestra 於9/26/2011晚間音樂會節目單之樂曲闡述


‎("...Mahler thought this song conveyed a certain feeling of 'sensing the emotion is already filled to the brim, right at the tip of your tongue, and yet you're not able to make a single sound.' He even thought this song was an expression of himself..." His love, emotions and feelings are so deep and intense that, instead of an avalanching outpour, it was quiet, solitude, even silence -- art and aesthetics unveiling the maya of this world and lifting it into a realm of pure beauty.)


It was a beautiful late September night, immersed in Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and Rückert-Lieder (as well as Wagner's Lohengrin prelude). Mahler's music and love, to me, are like Rilke's poetry -- one of my favourite poets whose words always move and teach me tremendously, my hero-poet who has transcended it all and yet looks back at you like a Bodhisattva, takes your hand to walk on the path together.


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau with Daniel Barenboim on piano


an equally heartrending rendition of Dietrich Fishcer-Dieskau with Leonard Bernstein on piano

Lhasa's Story

She reminds me so much of a friend of mine, the way she speaks, the way she always smiles when she speaks... I love the story Lhasa's father told her, and in particular the way she tells it -- with her soft, husky, almost mystic voice. What a beautiful soul she was.



When my lifetime had just ended
And my death had just begun
I told you I’d never leave you
But I knew this day would come

Give me blood for my blood wedding
I am ready to be born
I feel new
As if this body were the first I’d ever worn

I need straw for the straw fire
I need hard earth for the plow
Don't ask me to reconsider
I am ready to go now

I'm going in I’m going in
This is how it starts
I can see in so far
But afterwards we always forget
Who we are

I'm going in I’m going in
I can stand the pain
And the blinding heat
'Cause I won't remember you
The next time we meet

You'll be making the arrangements
You'll be trying to set me free
Not a moment for the meeting
I'll be busy as a bee

You'll be talking to me
But I just won't understand
I'll be falling by the wayside
You'll be holding out your hand

Don't you tempt me with perfection
I have other things to do
I didn't burrow this far in
Just to come right back to you

I'm going in I’m going in
I have never been so ugly
I have never been so slow
These prison walls get closer now
The further in I go

I'm going in I’m going in
I like to see you from a distance
And just barely believe
And think that
Even lost and blind
I still invented love

I'm going in
I’m going in
I’m going in

*          *          *

How
Did the rose
Ever open its heart

And give to this world
All its
Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light
Against its
Being,

Otherwise,
We all remain

Too
Frightened.

~Hafiz Sherazi

My poems featured in Deathly Romantic's (now Dark Eye Glances) "Mad Poetry"

It is a great joy and wonderful privilege for me that Deathly Romantic Magazine (now Dark Eye Glances) has selected two of my poems (Snow Leopard and Black Panther, for H. & The First Poem: for David) to be featured in the "Mad Poetry" section of its summer issue. I discovered this gem via its editor/publisher Garth von Buchholz's beautifully sensual and swooningly emotional poem Anaïs and Henry, where one can truly feel the poet's passionate heart. I recited the poem out loud after my first reading, as for me, it is almost like a play in itself, in addition to being complete and utter poetry. The poem is written as a dialogue, and according to the poet, partially inspired by The Song of Songs of Solomon. Garth is currently working on a collection of "darkly romantic" love poems for an upcoming book, which I am eagerly anticipating...

Many thanks to Garth and Deathly Romantic, once again, for featuring my poetry. This is like my birthday celebration coming early, and I feel I am closer to the realm of my idol and heroine Morticia Addams (oh, the "goth chick" in me will forever be fascinated and mesmerised by the darkly elegant and impossibly romantic Morticia and Gomez...)! More importantly, it has been a real pleasure getting to know works of other like-minded poets and artists, and I look forward to many more collaborations with Deathly Romantic in the future.


On other surety none; freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall:
And Som are fall'n, to disobedience fall'n,
And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell; O fall
From what high state of bliss into what woe!

~John Milton: Paradise Lost, Book V

‎"Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."
So sung a little Clod of Clay,
Trodden with the cattle's feet;
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet:
"Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

 ~William Blake: The Clod and the Pebble, from Songs of Experience

La Confession (by Lhasa de Sela)

Je n'ai pas peur

De dire que je t'ai trahi

Par pure paresse

Par pure mélancolie

Qu'entre toi

Et le Diable

J'ai choisi le plus

Confortable

Mais tout cela

N'est pas pourquoi

Je me sens coupable

Mon cher ami

Je n'ai pas peur de dire

Que tu me fais peur

Avec ton espoir

Et ton grand sens

De l'honneur

Tu me donnes envie

De tout détruire

De t'arracher

Le beau sourire

Et meme ca

N'est pas pourquoi

Je me sens coupable

C'est ca le pire

Je me sens coupable

Parce que j'ai l'habitude

C'est la seule chose

Que je peux faire

Avec une certaine

Certitude

C'est rassurant

De penser

Que je suis sûre

Se ne pas me tromper

Quand il s'agit

De la question

De ma grande culpabilité

Je n'ai pas peur

De dire que j'ai triché

j'ai mis les plus pures

De mes pensées

Sur le marché

J'ai envie de laisser tomber

Toute cette idée

De "vérité"

Je garderais

Pour me guider

Plaisir et culpabilité

I want to be with those who know secret things, or else alone.

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough
to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will,
and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

---Rainer Maria Rilke (Translated by Robert Bly)

願 Blessings

Between mountain and sea there is faith, 
Silent and without a word. 
Between the pagodas there is a prayer flag, 
Having you in its lingering heart. 
Between meeting and parting there is kismet, 
Ephemeral and forever-changing. 
Between you and me there is yearning, 
Wistfully haunting our souls and our hearts. 


In this life, on this path, I only wish to see you again 
Even if heavens collapse 
and earth 
enervates

*Thank you dear María for sharing this word and this image...

*  *  *  *  *


And here is the original lyrics in Chinese which I quickly translated into English above. For the(my) love of Faye Wong...


《願》


在山水之間 在佛塔之間 在聚散之間 在你我之間 
在山水之間 有一份信念 是靜默無言 
在佛塔之間 有一條經幡 是為你掛牽 
在聚散之間 有一劫宿緣 是無常善變 
在你我之間 有一縷思念 是魂繞夢牽 


此生上路 哪怕天絕地穿 只願途中 能再與你相見 


嗡嘛呢唄嚒哄舍


And leaving you with another kiss...

image via Cha: An Asian Literary Journal facebook page

 

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)

獻詩三島由紀夫 Dedicated to Mishima Yukio

Mishima Yukio came into my life relatively late, when I was around eighteen. The first book I read was his Forbidden Colours 禁色. I remember how enchanted I was, and how absorbed by the story I was that there was a certain sadness when I was approaching the end of the book, as if I did not want to leave that magical realm just yet. After reading his Golden Pavilion Temple, I would say that my thoughts, views of this world and aesthetics were much defined, perhaps they even found an identity. In a way, I felt a sense of belonging in the intense, exquisite and intricate flashes of poetry in his articulate and abstract writing. Yet how his language and narratives flow. My favourite work of Mishima, and one that influenced me the most, is his final novels - the tetralogy The Sea of Fertility (豐饒之海), composed of Spring Snow (春雪), Runaway Horses (奔馬), The Temple of Dawn (曉寺), and The Decay of the Celestial, or The Decay of the Angel (天人五衰). Although in my opinion these four books are best read in sequence, my personal favourite ones are The Temple of Dawn and The Decay of the Angel. I was deeply moved ("rocked" could be a better word!) by this tetralogy the first time I read it that I wrote poems after each novel, and dedicated to Mishima Yukio, to whom I feel that I am indebted to - for his artistic achievement, aesthetics, thought system, and his love. These poems were all written in 1999.


“If, raised by the power of mind, a man relinquishes the common way of looking at things, gives up tracing… their relations to each other, the final goal of which is always a relation to his own will; if he thus ceases to consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of things, and looks simply and solely at the what; if further, he does not allow abstract thought, the concepts of the reason, to take possession of his consciousness, but, instead of all this, gives the whole power of his mind to perception, … so that it is as if the object alone were there, without any one to perceive it, and he can no longer separate the perceiver from the perception, but both have become one … if thus the object has to such an extent passed out of all relation to something outside it, and the subject out of all relation to the will, then that which is so known … is the Idea, … he who is sunk in this perception is … pure, will-less, painless, timeless subject of knowledge.”

 ~ Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I., Third Book, p. 231, in the English version trans. by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp (London, three vols, 1909).

天人五衰，意指天人壽命將盡時，所出現的種種異象。五衰又有大五衰、小五衰兩種。

死亡美學（獻詩三島之金閣）

戰後的廢墟，重建
赭色小提琴喤泣聲線
金箔剝蝕的蒸氣與躁動的香

月華清明塗抹石橋
一如滌淨生的 死亡的確知
我兀自佇立文字的金閣
美學修長的眼睫投影
蔭翳，光正自盡。

顫抖顫抖再顫抖，這齣劇本
與血的斑痕纏綿似水
海面痛苦地沉默
光，一如岩礫，一如陰影，光的自縊。

自縊的美學倫理糾結糾結死的似非而，是。
仁波切寂然誦經
呢喃破曉前刻精神與美的歸巢
逐步逐步，緊貼眼睫的哀悽

生的諷刺文體的，死
的潔白墓塚
光正瀉落一湖的私密，若水。


春雪

透過冰寒的指尖傳遞的水晶；
殘雪流麗時節
逝去透明的傷口..

你唇際每一朵薔薇的綻放，便墜落一整季冬夜的星空

鋼琴碎在半透明的睫毛中
之後
音符便似瞳孔灼燙的匕首


奔馬

夢先於現實。
而純粹
似花，似血，似詩
，似枯腐前消逝的生。


曉寺

(薰息，我執，唯識)

緣起於鏡花水月的無常
存活涅槃之花瓣間的阿賴耶識，似
剔透的純藍火焰蘊蓄
鏤花之詩

桃花心木質的鏤空雕花
在蒼白哀傷的殘月撫觸下
散發似水晶斷面般清明露華
濕漉而冷冽的香氛


豐饒之海之天人五衰（獻詩三島由紀夫）

他的世界構築於
對純粹牲祭的行動性
似花之骨髓般的血
他傾洩一身的孤注一擲
於苦痛而豐饒
的虛無之海

如若阿賴耶識是月華的羽翼
飛翔於極度神聖與極度污穢的貝那雷斯
是否沉痛如我執與薰息的唯識色界
得以釋放自殘雪的純粹？

他精神性的美學體系
他對生命、神聖與純粹的無窮需索與追尋
無聲地崩毀於佛陀澄明而冷冽如水的眸子
美麗虛幻而無常若花的微笑
他的生命無聲地崩解於
月之海中虛弱而豐饒的涅槃

而他磅跎的精神體系，與
凝鍊先驗的詩性呢？
恰似無法埋藏於大海中夕陽的掙扎
恰似大自然神聖而無以名狀
的悲苦與愛

而當他的精神現象美學崩毀
當我得以窺視他文字與思想的金閣
當我得以體悟他
不可思議的美與愛
我竟躊躇畏懼掇拾自美的廢墟中
破碎猶濕熱的骨肉
我竟畏懼於參與他壯闊豐饒而苦痛的
精神美之海洋中的呼息
與之共振，並互融為殘春之雪與月
因深恐破碎他幾近完美的神性，驚擾他
悲傷而純粹冷冽的愛


而何處得尋他無我的流動？
何處得覓他阿賴耶識的種子？

Farewell

I am overwhelmed with indescribable emotions again, after watching this short video clip of the film that "rocked my world" a long time ago... "霸王別姬" (Farewell My Concubine).

I think I fell in love with Leslie Cheung after watching "Farewell My Concubine," another one of my favourite cinematic treasures and probably the first film I felt so strongly about. My love affair with Chinese opera (both Beijing Opera and Kunqu) also started around that time. Since then I constantly dream of Chinese opera, like a stylised and quiet painting depicting exquisite landscapes decorated with tiny delicate jewels, presenting a mixture of its music, singing, movements, costumes, make-up, lyrics, a kaleidoscope of colours and beautiful narratives.

I still remember going to the cinema with my dad when "Farewell My Concubine" was first released - I was 13. I felt as if I was never going to be the same afterwards, and that I was so filled with something inexplicable that I could not allow anything else to enter my psyche for a while. Perhaps one of the definitions of a truly great film is that it gives the viewer a life-transforming, and sometimes out-of-body, experience.

Below is this beautiful video with Leslie Cheung singing the movie theme song, accompanied by some of the most gorgeous, intoxicating, as well as heartbreaking scenes from the film. I really must re-watch this gem one of these days.

張國榮, 著實地傾國傾城...


Ah, looking at Leslie now just makes me want to cry...

張國榮於霸王別姬片中詮釋名旦程蝶衣演繹白蛇傳之白素貞

Bai Su-Zhen of The Legend of the White Serpent, as interpreted by Leslie Cheung in Farewell My Concubine

 

張國榮於霸王別姬片中詮釋名旦程蝶衣演繹牡丹亭之杜麗娘

Du Li-Niang of The Peony Pavilion, as rendered by Leslie Cheung in Farewell My Concubine

You can see the complete film (at the moment) here.

Wie lange noch?

Wie lange noch? - the song (and ballet) that made me fall in love with Kurt Weill's music. I later discovered Teresa Stratas' album "The Unknown Kurt Weill" whilst searching for Wie lange noch? and enjoyed her interpretation as well as many other Weill songs...


‎I will confess there was a night when I willingly gave myself to you.
You took me and drove me out of my mind.
I believed that I could not live without you.
You promised me blue skies, and I cared for you like my own father. 
You tormented me -- you tore me apart. 
I would have put the world at your feet!
Look at me.
When will the day come that I will be able to tell you: it's over.
When that day comes... I dread it. How much longer? How long?

I believed you. I was in a daze from all your talk and your promises.
I did whatever you wanted.
Wherever you wanted to go, I was willing to follow.
You promised me blue skies, and I -- Ah! I didn't even dare to cry.
But you have broken your word and your vows.
I have been silent and tortured myself.
Look at me!
When will the day come that I will be able to tell you: it's over.
When that day comes -- I dread it.
How much longer?
How long?

Author: Weill, translations via.


*About Wie lange noch?

Kurt Weill’s “Wie Lange Noch,” with an enigmatic text by his fellow German-Jewish emigré Walter Mehring, was written for broadcast behind enemy lines on Radio Free Europe during the Second World War. Reworking a tune he had set previously to a French text, in“Wie Lange Noch,” Weill speaks of lost trust and the betrayal of a man who had promised and inspired a nation with dreams of hope in the guise of a torch song. The sparse opening begins with a painfully beautiful duet between Julie Baumgartel (violin) and Paul Pulford (cello), which is marked by starkness and quiet desperation. With the change in tonality from minor to major, a sense of light and hope glimmers in the distant future. The accordion here becomes musical portrayal of a sorrowful memory while the intensity of this text explodes in the questioning of time, as Mehring desperately asks: Wie lange noch—how much longer. The underlying meaning of the words cannot possibly have been lost on Germans listening to this song in 1944.

{info from Radioindy.com}

Listen to a beautiful rendition of this song by L'Accordéoniste here...

Kurt Weill at the piano, Dessau, 1916.

Ballet choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor (director of the Polish National Ballet) and set to Kurt Weill's Wie lange noch?

徽宗之書: 美, 寂, 詩 Song Huizong

The refined elegance and subtle beauty of Song dynasty "artist emperor" Huizong's calligraphy, Slender Gold (also known as the Crane Font; 瘦金書, 雅稱鶴體), emanates a soft hue of loneliness, a sense of time past, which I have always been deeply attracted to and in love with. It is exquisitely scented nostalgia, melodious and poetic memories. It is Rilke's poetry of all my heart. It is Rosa Ponselle's sorrowful voice lamenting lost love in her haunting rendition of Massenet's Élégie.

Huizong's Slender Gold also has a special place in my heart because it dearly reminds me of my grandfather's calligraphy (in particular his 小楷 — small script) and handwriting. My grandfather used to fill the margins of his books with thoughtful notes and endless, beautiful words.

Emperor Huizong of Song (Poem and Calligraphy)

宋徽宗 瘦金書

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough

to make every minute holy.
I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough
just to lie before you like a thing,
shrewd and secretive.
I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,
as it goes toward action,
and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times
when something is coming near,
I want to be with those who know secret things
or else alone.
I want to be a mirror for your whole body,
and I never want to be blind, or to be too old
to hold up your heavy and swaying picture.
I want to unfold.
I don't want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my grasp of things
true before you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I looked at
closely for a long time,
like a saying that I finally understood,
like the pitcher I use every day,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that took me safely
through the wildest storm of all.

～Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

Rosa Ponselle (1897~1981) singing Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet's Élégie / Elegy for Victor, in 1926.



Ô, doux printemps d'autre fois, vertes saisons,
Vous avez fui pour toujours!
Je ne vois plus le ciel bleu;
Je n'entends plus les chants joyeux des oiseaux!
En emportant mon bonheur...
Ô bien-amé, tu t'en es allé!
Et c'est en vain que revient le printemps!
Oui, sans retour,
avec toi, le gai soleil,
Les jours riants sont partis!
Comme en mon coeur tout est sombre et glacé!
Tout est flétri
pour toujours!

Emperor Huizong of Song, Cranes 1112

O sweet springtimes of old verdant seasons
You have fled forever
I no longer see the blue sky
I no longer hear the bird's joyful singing
And, taking my happiness with you
You have gone on your way my love!
In vain Spring returns
Yes, never comes back
The bright sun has gone with you
The days of happiness have fled
How gloomy and cold is my heart
All is withered
Forever

Emperor Huizong of Song, Classic Thousand-character Grass (Cursive) Script

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...



❤

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)

Der Abschied (we miss you...)

The sun departs behind the mountain
In all the valleys, evening descends
With its cooling shadows
O look! Like a silver boat
The moon floats on the blue sky-lake above
I feel the fine wind wafting behind the dark spruce
The brook sings loudly through the darkness
The flowers stand out palely in the twilight
The earth breathes, full of peace and sleep
And all yearning wishes to dream now
Weary men go home
To learn in sleep forgotten happiness and youth
The birds crouch silently in their branches
The world is asleep

It blows coolly in the shadows of my spruce
I stand here and wait for my friend
I wait to bid him a last farewell
I yearn, my friend, at your side
To enjoy the beauty of this evening
Where do you tarry? You leave me alone for so long!
I wander up and down with my lute
On paths swelling with soft grass
O beauty! O eternal love!
Eternal, love-intoxicated world!

夕陽度西嶺  群壑倏已暝  松月生涼夜  風泉滿清聽
僬人歸欲監  煙鳥棲初定  之子期宿來  孤琴候蘿徑

At Parting

The drink of parting
He asked him where he would go, and also why it must be
He spoke, his voice was choked
My friend, on this earth, fortune has not been kind to me!
Where do I go? I will go wander in the mountains
I seek peace for my lonely heart

下馬飲君酒  問君何所之  君言不得意  歸臥南山陲  但去莫復問  候雲無盡時

The Song of the Earth, choreographed by Kenneth MacMillan and set to Gustav Mahler's music, is amongst my most beloved ballets. The Farewell (Der Abschied), final movement of the music Das Lied von der Erde, is based on two Chinese poems written in the Tang Dynasty:
1. “At the Mountain-lodge of the Buddhist Priest Ye Waiting in Vain for My Friend Ding” by Meng Haoran
2. “At Parting” by Wang Wei
The poems were first translated into French, and were edited by Hans Bethge (in German) thereafter. The German version was then adapted by Gustav Mahler when he composed the final movement of Das Lied von der Erde in 1908.

Former Royal Ballet Prima Ballerina Darcey Bussell chose this piece as her swansong, her farewell to a dazzling career in the ballet world (she was Principal of the Royal Ballet since age 18). As Judith Mackrell wrote, "It was such an eloquent statement of the fact that dance's power lies so uniquely in the physical present, its beauties impossible to preserve because they rest on what is most vulnerable and perishable - the human body. Bussell knew that her own body was on the cusp of its powers. And she decided to leave before its decline was evident to anyone else."
(*From - Darcey: We miss you already)

17th May 1966: Anthony Dowell and Marcia Haydee in the ballet, 'Song of the Earth'. Music by Gustave Mahler, choreography by Kenneth MacMillan. (Photo by Erich Auerbach/Getty Images)

Rehearsal footage of Darcey's final performance (see also here - Song of the Earth: Introduction and Rehearsals)


My favourite scene from The Sleeping Beauty...

And, one of the Balanchine pieces very dear to my heart...

A Tulip for Irving

"I have always stood in awe of the camera, I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel."

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009), R. I. P.

Tulip, New York, 1967, by Irving Penn.

O, let me forever weep:
My eyes no more shall welcome sleep.
I'll hide me from the sight of day,
And sigh my soul away.
He's gone, his loss deplore,
And I shall never see him more.


Soprano: Nancy Argenta
Composer: Henry Purcell (1658/9-1695) , The Plaint, Z. 629, from Orpheus Britannicus, Vol. II (1692), from The Fairy Queen, No. 40, an operatic adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.