Monthly Archives: November 2018

The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for A Baroque Masterpiece – Siblin

2009, Anansi, 319 pages

Book Blurb

Part biography, part music history, and part literary mystery, The Cello Suites is a dramatic narrative featuring legendary composer Johann Sebastian Bach, world-renowned cellist Pablo Casals, and author Eric Siblin’s own quest to uncover the mysteries that continue to haunt this musical masterpiece.

Author Blurb

Eric Siblin is the bestselling author of The Cello Suites, which won the Quebec Writers’ Federation Mavis Gallant Nonfiction Prize and McAuslan First Book Prize; was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize, and the BC National Award for Canadian Nonfiction; and has so far been published in ten territories and seven languages. He live in Montreal, Quebec.

Interpreters, Interpreters, Interpreters!

Artists need interpreters. Composers especially need interpreters. Music is unlike a painting where the viewer can engage with a work directly. And music is unlike a play, where the reader, particularly a reader with a vivid imagination, can engage with the text directly. The composer “paints” or “types” the piece onto a musical score which consists of a series of dots and lines on a five bar line. The case today is that most people are musically illiterate. They cannot read music. For this reason, composers are in especial need of interpreters. Were it not for Felix Mendelssohn, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion would have languished in obscurity. Were it not for Glenn Gould, Bach’s Goldberg Variations may as well have been forgotten. A capable interpreter champions the artist to a new generation of listeners. In light of this, Pablo Casals is the star of Siblin’s book.

In The Cello Suites, Siblin recounts how a young Casals, stricken by the sound of the cello (which, having the same register as a male voice, speaks or sings with a resonant and full sound), began searching for works written for that instrument, and how at age 14, found a dusty copy of six suites for cello solo by Bach in a second-hand shop in Barcelona near the harbour. The Cello Suites were seldom played in concerts. And, for hundreds of years, they had not been performed publicly from start to finish. It was considered to be an etude, an exercise. It was not musical. Casals would change this. Before the first public performance of the six suites with all the repeats, Casals would spend over a decade perfecting his interpretation, mastering each phrase to extract from the notes the soul of the music and the soul of the dance.

Cello Suites Discography

My first recording of The Cello Suites was Janos Starker’s 1965 recording on the legendary Mercury Living Presence label. It was recorded to a 35mm movie film base which offered higher dynamic range than the standard reel-to-reel tape. The film base sounds terrific, but the process of using film base never caught on due to cost. In 1991 Wilma Fine remastered the recording to CD, which is what I purchased. Starker’s recording is an exemplary balance of technicality, rigour, and feeling. He follows the text, yet finds room to let the music speak out. Like many other Mercury Living Presence releases, this is an outstanding recording: quiet background, the full dynamic range is preserved from the pianissimos to the sforzandos.

While reading Siblin’s book, David Watkin’s 2015 recording on the Resonus label arrived at the library. For this recording, he used to period cellos with gut strings and all. It was a very well reviewed recording that won a Gramophone editor’s choice award, so I had high hopes. This is an intensely personal recording. I found the personal elements slow and syrupy. The dance elements (each suite begins with a prelude followed by a sequence of stylized dances) were missing. It would be hard to dance to this recording. There is too much of Watkin’s individuality here. This recording makes me understand why for a long time the suites were not performed in their entirety.

As I finished Siblin’s book, the 2003 Warner Classics remastering of Casals’ recording came in. Casals recorded the six suites over multiple sessions in 1936 (Abbey Road), 1938 (Paris), and 1939 (Paris). Because of the vintage, I had thought it would be a noisy recording with limited range, similar to blues recordings made during this era such as Robert Johnson’s, which were recorded in 1936-1937. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can hear the machine noise in the recordings. But it is not a distraction. The remastering team has done a superb job, and they must have been working with good quality masters. And the playing itself is gorgeous. Very muscular. Intense. Electrifying. It’s also a personal recording. But it’s a personal recording that brings out the dance elements of the music. Listening, it’s easy to see how Casals won over the world. This is music on the calibre that, even if you do not agree with his interpretation, must be listened to. And, if you agree with his interpretation–as I do–then it is absolutely mind-blowing. It’s like listening to Glenn Gould play the Goldberg Variations. Who knew the music could sound like this? Great music, to become great music, needs great interpreters.

Speaking of Interpreters…

I always like tying back the books I’m reading to the theatre project. Tragedies written in other languages are very much like musical works in that, for them to come alive, they need a capable interpreter. My favourite tragedy of them all is Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. My first encounter with the work was Stephen Sandy’s translation, which left me thoroughly unimpressed. After reading Sandy’s translation, I thought the play was unimpressive, and even a little boring. Take a look at the exchange between Eteocles and the chorus after Eteocles finds out he must confront his brother at the seventh gate:

Chorus: In a word, do not go on this way–to the seventh gate.

Eteocles: Set as I am going, words won’t stop me.

Chorus: Gods smile on victory even if won with caution.

Eteocles: No warrior could take such an adage seriously!

Chorus: But shed your brother’s blood? Can you mean it? Surely you would not–

Eteocles: To whom the gods would bring destruction, destruction surely comes.

It sounds like, in the heat of the moment (and this is the moment), Eteocles and the chorus are having a leisurely debate, throwing woolly expressions at one another. The translation fails to capture the desperation and heat of the moment. Compare this Anthony Hecht and Helen H. Bacon’s translation that I fortunately stumbled upon several years later:

Koryphaios: Do not go that road to the seventh gate.

Eteokles: Your words cannot blunt me, whetted as I am.

Koryphaios: Yet there are victories without glory, and the gods have honored them.

Eteokles: These are no words for a man in full armor.

Koryphaios: Can you wish to harvest your brother’s blood?

Eteokles: If the gods dispose evil, no man can evade it.

Hecht and Bacon is so much more direct: compare their blunt “Do not go that road…” to the effuse “In a word, do not go on this way…” in Sandy. Eteocles’ rejoinder is equally blunt in Hecht and Bacon’s translation. Sandy’s translation gives the unfortunate impression that although words don’t stop him this time, on another occasion, perhaps words could stop him. Similarly, Eteocles’ “These are no words for a man in full armor” seems more natural than the artificial “No man can take such an adage seriously.” Hecht and Bacon also preserve the image of Ares harvesting lives on the battlefield; this is missing in the Sandy translation. And finally, Sandy’s “To whom the gods would bring destruction…” sounds too cliché. It was only after I stumbled upon Hecht and Bacon’s translation that I could fall in love with this play. It went from being my least favourite to my favourite. That is how powerful the role of the interpreter is. Just like how ancient societies rose and fell by how their interpreters interpreted the omens, we rely on modern seers such as Casals, Hecht, and Bacon to interpret our modern signs.

In the spirit of Casals and Gould, who brought two forgotten works by Bach back into the limelight, I have attempted to draw attention to the dramatic power of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes in my forthcoming book: The Risk Theatre Model of Tragedy: Gambling, Drama, and the Unexpected. Along with Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Seven Against Thebes is my “exemplar” tragedy. In the same way as Aristotle championed Oedipus rex and Hegel championed Antigone, I will champion Seven Against Thebes.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.

An Enemy of the People – Ibsen

1999, Dover, 96 pages

Book Blurb

In this powerful work, Ibsen places his main character, Dr. Thomas Stockmann, in the role of an enlightened and persecuted minority of one confronting an ignorant, powerful majority. When the physician learns that the famous and financially successful baths in his hometown are contaminated, he insists they be shut down for expensive repairs. For his honesty, he is persecuted, ridiculed, and declared an “enemy of the people” by the townspeople, including some who had been his closest allies.

First staged in 1883, An Enemy of the People remains one of the most frequently performed plays by a writer considered by may the “father of modern drama.” This easily affordable edition makes available to students, teachers, and general readers a major work by one of the world’s great playwrights.

Author Blurb

Widely regarded as one of the foremost dramatists of the 19th century, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906) brought the social problems and ideas of his day to center stage. Creating realistic plays of psychological conflict that emphasized character over cunning plots, he frequently inspired critical objections because his dramas deemed the individual more important than the group.

An Enemy of the People as Risk Theatre

Most Ibsen plays fit the risk theatre mold well, and An Enemy of the People is no exception. In this play, Dr. Stockmann, as chief medical officer, investigates incidents of typhoid and gastric fever in a coastal Norwegian tourist town. Dr. Stockmann wants to keep the town safe. Risk theatre looks at the dramatic action as a gambling act consisting of three parts: temptation, wager, and cast. That the doctor wants to keep the town safe represents the “temptation” phase of the tragedy. His concerns motivate him to act.

Dr. Stockmann conjectures that the illnesses arise from the contaminated waters at the local municipal baths. When the test reports confirm his fears of an infusoria infestation, he takes action to rehabilitate the baths. He will publicize his findings in the local blue-collar newspaper, The People’s Messenger. The town authorities who skimped out on the design and implementation of the water supply to the baths (one of whom is Stockmann’s brother) will be in hot water. Reputations will be destroyed. But the doctor is an idealist:

Dr. Stockmann: Who the devil cares if there be any risk or not! What I am doing, I am doing in the name of truth and for the sake of my conscience.

So, according to the risk theatre model, Dr. Stockmann makes a wager: the town’s well-being and the reputation of some of the townsfolk for the truth.

Like most wagers in popular tragedies, Stockmann has a high degree of confidence that he will be successful. He will publish his findings in the paper. Some municipal officers will go down. But the baths will be repaired and lives saved. He has the support of the paper. He has the support of the working class folks, who secretly want to see the wealthy authorities pay. This is class warfare.

Dr. Stockmann has every expectation of success. But–you know the drill now–a low-probability, high-consequence event happens which upsets his best-laid plans. This happens when the mayor, his brother Peter Stockmann, turns the tables against him. Peter begins a fear campaign: if the news gets out, the lifeblood of the town will run dry. The repairs will be prohibitively expensive. The baths will be shut down for years. The local economy will tank. House prices will crash. The blue-collar workers will lose their jobs.

Peter’s fear campaign works. Instead of being called the town’s saviour, in a vicious town meeting, Dr. Stockmann is branded “an enemy of the people.” He is fired from his post as medical officer and loses his practice. His daughter loses her job as a schoolteacher. His two sons are suspended from school. His house is vandalized, all the windows are broken.

To be Free of Conflict You Need to Have No Friends / Family

Reading An Enemy of the People reminded me of a passage from Taleb’s book Skin in the Game. In this book Taleb talks about how whistleblower types are hindered by the risks to friends and family:

It is no secret that large corporations prefer people with families; those with downside risk are easier to own, particularly when they are choking under a large mortgage.

And of course most fictional heroes such as Sherlock Holmes or James Bond don’t have the encumbrance of a family that can become a target of, say, evil professor Moriarty.

Let us go one step further.

To make ethical choices you cannot have dilemmas between the particular (friends, family) and the general.

Celibacy has been a way to force men to implement such heroism: for instance, the rebellious ancient sect the Essenes were celibate. So by definition they did not reproduce–unless one considers that their sect mutated to merge with what is known today as Christianity. A celibacy requirement might help with rebellious causes, but it isn’t the greatest way to multiply your sect through the ages.

Financial independence is another way to solve ethical dilemmas, but such independence is hard to ascertain: many seemingly independent people aren’t particularly so. While, in Aristotle’s days, a person of independent means was free to follow his conscience, this is no longer as common in modern days.

Intellectual and ethical freedom requires the absence of the skin of others in one’s game, which is why the free are so rare. I cannot possibly imagine the activist Ralph Nader, when he was the target of large motor companies, raising a family with 2.2 kids and a dog.

An Enemy of the People reminded me of this passage because Dr. Stockmann has to ultimately decide not between his welfare and his principles (he can willingly die a martyr to truth), but has to decide between the welfare of his family and the truth. His family is the weak point.

Until next time, I’m Edwin Wong, and I’m doing Melpomene’s work.