Earlier this month we lost our gorgeous, irrepressible, acrobatic, fastidious, eccentric, and deeply sweet cat Bea. She was fourteen, and wildly vital almost to the end. She joins Penelope and Maulina in the land of infinite treats. The painting below is by my friend Cyril Kuhn, an amazing Swiss-born, L.A.-based artist with a flair for Old Masterish animal portraiture.
Wagnerism
Adorno on ice cream
"The way every American child can eat essentially without pause a so-called ice-cone, a cone with ice cream, in that moment one can find a kind of fulfillment of childhood happiness, toward which our children once craned their necks in vain — that is really an aspect of utopia fulfilled."
— Theodor W. Adorno, "Kultur und Culture" (1958)
A major new work from Cassandra Miller
On March 11, the violist Lawrence Power and the Brussels Philharmonic, under the direction of Ilan Volkov, gave the world première of Cassandra Miller's I cannot love without trembling, as part of the Klarafestival in Belgium. A stream is temporarily online, and it demands to be heard — start around one hour and one minute in. The title is derived from the writing of Simone Weil: "Human existence is so fragile a thing and exposed to such dangers that I cannot love without trembling." The melodic material is based on the moirologia laments of the women of Epirus, as interpreted by the early twentieth-century Greek-American fiddler Alexis Zoumbas. Miller writes: "Using one of [Zoumbas's] moiroloi recordings as a source, I sang along many times (first to Zoumbas, then to myself) in a ritualized, meditative process I call ‘automatic singing.' This method transformed the moiroloi into the violist’s trembling-loving-mourning sighs. Within Zoumbas’ plaintive song, I sought a metaphysical space in which to dream – a space of separation-connection-absence-presence – in the hope to lament and to dream together in this hall tonight." At first hearing — and at second, and at third — the results are immensely beautiful and immensely haunting.
Stay, little Alban Berg Valentine, stay
PAINTER: You are mine, I have nothing more since I have you. I am entirely lost to you.
LULU: Don't get so excited.
— Lulu, Act I
Previously: An Alban Berg Valentine, Another Alban Berg Valentine, Yet Another Alban Berg Valentine, Return of Alban Berg Valentine, Nothing says forever like an Alban Berg Valentine, Alban Berg Valentine (10th anniversary edition), Alban Berg Valentine (2017 edition), Will you be my Alban Berg Valentine?, Eternity, by Alban Berg Valentine, My Bloody Alban Berg Valentine, Saint Alban Berg Valentine's Day Massacre, It wouldn't be Valentine's Day without Alban Berg Valentine.
Editor's note: Everyone here at Alban Berg Valentine was tremendously pleased by our recent mention in the New York Times. Much thanks to Melissa Clark of the Cooking section.
Friedrich Cerha in memoriam.
Nightafternight playlist
New and recent releases of interest.
Mazzoli, Dark with Excessive Bright and other works; James Gaffigan conducting the Bergen Philharmonic and Tim Weiss conducting the Arctic Philharmonic, with Peter Herresthal, violin (BIS, out March 3)
Beethoven, Symphony No. 3 (trans. Liszt), Mozart, Piano Concerto No. 20 (trans. Alkan); Paul Wee (BIS)
Aperghis, 14 Récitations; Stéphanie Lamprea (New Focus)
Eric Richards, The Consent of Sound and Meaning and other works; Andy Kozar, loadbang, Ekmeles, Laura Cocks, Olivia de Prato, Curtis Stewart, Hannah Levinson, Chris Gross, Robert Black, Caitlin Cawley, Jude Traxler, and Steve Beck, with Jeffrey Gavett conducting (New Focus)
Mozart, Symphonies Nos. 1 and 41, Piano Concerto No. 23; Maxim Emelyanychev and Il Pomo d'Oro (Aparté)
Kotoka Suzuki, Shimmer, Tree and other works; Spektral Quartet, Javier Hagen, Cristina Valdes (Starkland)
Mompou, Música Callada; Stephen Hough (Hyperion)
Vicente Lusitano, Motets; Marian Consort (Linn)
Handel, Suites, Brahms, Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel; Seong-Jin Cho (DG)
All Quiet on the Western Front
A Cultural Comment on the New Yorker website.
For this article I consulted on Wilhelm von Sternburg's Als wäre alles das letzte Mal: Erich Maria Remarque: Eine Biographie as well as Brian Murdoch's The Novels of Erich Maria Remarque: Sparks of Life, Thomas F. Schneider's Erich Maria Remarque: Leben, Werk und weltweite Wirkung, Gavin Schmitt's Karl Freund: The Life and Films, Lesley L. Coffin and Marya E. Gates's Lew Ayres: Hollywood's Conscientious Objector, Harlow Robinson's Lewis Milestone: Life and Films, and Joseph Persico's Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour: Armistice Day, 1918. Much thanks to Michael Agger for editing, Daniel Ajootian for fact-checking, and Carlos Colomer for copy-editing.
Hildegard of Bingen
The First Composer. The New Yorker, Feb. 6, 2023.
Fauré en vacances
From Gallica: "Gabriel Fauré et un groupe, chez les Baugnies, à Cuy-St-Fiacre 1888." The Maître is in the center, in profile. Via longtime Noise friend Patrick Swanson.
