Sing-Along Messiah

This Sunday was the annual Sing Along Messiah at the Judson Memorial Church near Washington Square. I attended for the third year in a  row.

Singing in the Messiah is a lot more fun than just listening to it. Choral works - especially religious ones - tend to sound like a big polyphonic mush with dozens of voices blending together. When you're inside a chorus and following the music, each moving part seems far more organic and distinct.

One thing, though - the endless melismas are a nightmare.
 
But hey, you say no to that face:

Breezy

 It's six weeks after Hurricane Sandy, but out in the far reaches of Queens and Staten Island the situation is nowhere near back to normal.

On Saturday I volunteered out in Breezy Point, a narrow strip of sand which is south of Brooklyn but is technically part of Queens. It's a popular spot for retirees and is the site of many small beachfront houses.

Or, at least, it was. Sandy devastated the community. Most people still have no power or heat, thousands of homes were flooded and rendered unlivable. Several hundred houses went up in flames:

Now, the residents have only two options: move out or rebuild. I spent the morning and afternoon helping a retired schoolteacher tear up her house, taking out the sheetrock, insulation, and floorboards, until only the skeleton was left.

Really, they don't have a choice. Once mold is in a house it is in there until the end of time; after weeks of flooding the place was a lost cause and needed to be completely redone. I and the other volunteers all had to wear face masks and gloves to avoid breathing in the spores. 

Hard to imagine that in 2012 in New York we'd find ourselves to vulnerable to the elements, but there you are.

The Laid o' Cockpen

Music has always been a large part of my life, but I've always been better at listening and appreciating than producing it. Without the voice for singing or the eyesight for sight-reading, I ended up in the most abstract expression of music: composition and theory. 

My current course of study involves two music-writing exercises: counterpoint and harmonization. Harmonizing a tune is rather like completing a puzzle. Each note of the melody presents a distinct set of possibilities which affect the tone and character of the song.

A song that begins with the melody on F could call for another F in the bass, making an F root chord...or you could use a D, or an A, a B (assuming a B-flat or F-sharp, to avoid the tritone), or in extreme cases a C (for a 6/4 chord). And that's only using triads.

A simple two-part harmony can sound a little bare; four voices (Soprano-Alto-Tenor-Bass) is considered the ideal.

My teacher has decided that all the songs I should harmonize are old Scottish ditties. The latest is 'The Laird o' Cockpen', written by Carolina Oliphant, (Lady Nairne), known for her beauty and Jacobism in addition to her poetry.

The Laird of Cockpen was a companion-in-arms to Charles II who fought with him at Worcester and was in exile with him in the Netherlands. He was also a musician who wrote the song Brose and Butter. After the Restoration the Laird appealed for the return of his property, but was not granted an audience.

Cockpen then reportedly gained admission to a play he knew the King would also attend. When the play was over Brose and Butter played. Charles went to Cockpen remarking that the air had almost made him dance. The Laird replied, "I could dance, too, if I had my lands again." Charles thereupon restored his lands.

This is the tune,

And this is my 4-part harmony:

The Laird o' Cockpen

The laird o' Cockpen, he's proud an' he's great,
His mind is ta'en up wi' things o' the State;
He wanted a wife, his braw house to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fashious to seek.

Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thought she'd look well,
McClish's ae daughter o' Claversha' Lee,
A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree.

His wig was weel pouther'd and as gude as were new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword, and cock'd hat,
And wha could refuse the laird wi' a' that?

He took the grey mare, and rode cannily,
An' rapp'd at the yett o' Claversha' Lee;
"Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben,
She's wanted to speak to the Laird o' Cockpen".

Mistress Jean was makin' the elderflower wine;
"An' what brings the laird at sic a like time?"
She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown,
Her mutch wi' red ribbons, and gaed awa' down.

An' when she cam' ben, he bowed fu' low,
An' what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the laird when the lady said "Na",
And wi' a laigh curtsie she turned awa'.

Dumfounder'd was he, nae sigh did he gie,
He mounted his mare - he rade cannily;
An' aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen,
She were daft to refuse the Laird o' Cockpen.

The song often ends there, but Sir Andrew Boswell (the, ahem, natural son of James Boswell) wrote two more verses which offer an arguably happier ending to he story:

And now that the laird his exit had made,
Mistress Jean she reflected on what she had said;
"Oh, for ane I'll get better, it's waur I'll get ten,
I was daft to refuse the Laird o' Cockpen".

Next time that the laird and the lady was seen,
They were gaun arm-in-arm to the kirk on the green;
Now she sits in the ha' like a weel-tappit hen,
But as yet there's nae chickens appear'd at Cockpen.

 Gaelic or otherwise curious terms:

fashious=troublesome
ae=one
pouther'd=powdered
yett=gate
sic=such
mutch=close fitting cap
ben=through
laigh=low
waur=worse
tappit=tufted

学中文

1.5 billion people can't be wrong...

I've been studying Mandarin Chinese for the past few months - my first serious attempt to learn a foreign language since my years in Spanish class throughout high school and college.

Well, this is a whole other kettle of fish.

Of course, there are the tones....Mandarin has four, which is not as onerous as the Vietnamese six (and even less so than Cantonese, which has nine). It still takes a tremendous mental effort to avoid saying 'horse' when you're trying to say 'mother'.

Pinyin is not the most helpful system of transliteration. The word 'to know' is written 'zhi dao' and pronounced 'Joo Dow'. 

Finally there is the writing - thousands of characters to memorize. I am told that there is a system to all of this, but I haven't figured it out yet, and the explanations my teacher offers for each character are so arcane that they might as well be in secret code.

Still, progress is being made! I even recorded a podcast, detailing the proper way to greet a lady. Download it here.

On Re-Reading 'Lolita'

Now that I have a certain amount of spare time (when not working, studying Chinese, composing music, or navigating the New York mass-transit system) I've begun doing something I haven't done in some time: reading for fun.

There are those among us (mainly those who haven't read the book) who make it out as some kind of apologia for pedophilia. People still use the term 'Lolita' to mean a sexually precocious young girl, and the poster of the 1962 movie (which made her at least 15 instead of 12) doesn't help at all:

Actually, the book is a grand display of the unreliable narrator; a novel-length exercise in defending the indefensible. In short, a trick.

I say a trick because our anti-hero, Humbert Humbert, is many things other than a predator. He's clever. He's funny. He's highly educated. He seems self-aware. And he's a smooth talker. Is he ever! The narrative never lets up for an instant; showering you with classical allusion, puns, wry observations,  self-pitying exculpations, and poetical descriptions of his passion for the doomed Dolores Haze.

He's also extremely perceptive; at least about the hollowness and absurdity of modern bourgeois sentimentality and taste. His status as a well-educated European provides him the distance necessary to see how bad it all is.  Without the molestation theme the book could function as a hilarious satire on mid-century Americana kitsch. Of course, this perspective allows him to treat everyone else as less than real. Not a single character - other than HH and Lolita herself - ever rises above a caricature. The deaths of Charlotte Haze and Clare Quilty are presented as almost pure comedy. Even Lolita is treated with contempt despite Humbert's mania for her ('Mentally, I found her to be a disgustingly conventional little girl').

On top of everything, we get the obligatory depiction of Lolita as sexually aggressive. She's the one who seduced him! Humbert even goes so far as to portray himself as rather conservative than not, acting like a typical overprotective father and refusing to let his Lo go on dates or even talk to boys on the phone when she is enrolled in Beardsley high school.   The act which ultimately lands him in jail is not his kidnapping and abuse of Lolita but his murder of the man Humbert believes has acted in essentially the same way as himself.

The result is that many - perhaps most - readers are fooled. Sure, Humbert may be a rapist and murderer and a schemer - but at least he's not some middle-class boor! Besides, she was a slut anyway.

Occasionally, very occasionally, we have flashes of insight about the reality of his and Lolita's situation (he notes in passing that Lolita is crying herself to sleep every night) but these never stop him in his pursuit of his nymphet.

I am not inclined to read any symbolism into the story as a whole (Nabakov claimed to 'detest symbols and allegories') so I have to disagree with those who see Humbert as personifying Communism or dictatorship or some such thing.

Instead, Lolita shows us how bad people can get away with it for so long. If villains were dirty and ugly with Snidely Whiplash mustaches and were accompanied everywhere by screeching strings they would never get far. They can be evil because they have an unlimited capacity to justify themselves, and charm the rest of the world.