Monday, March 19, 2012

Deafness, despair, and Beethoven

In late February, I was struck with a vicious ear infection that lasted for the duration of two weeks. It started out boringly as a sinus cold but then that nasty Eustachian tube decided to get all infected and nasty.  During this period, I could barely hear my friends talking closely to me.  I had to turn up the volume on my iPod to maximum to hear any music. Even then, most sounds were muffled to me.  I trudged through the pain like a trooper. (Shout out to Tylenol for being amazing.) 


After about 4 days of this silliness, I did what all responsible people do - and I kept self-medicating.  On day 5, after a volume of text messages from my parents, I finally went to the Walk-In Clinic.  My doctor prescribed me some antibiotics and off I went. I was hopeful and had a renewed spirit.  I would get soon right?


WRONG! For five days, I took the antibiotics with no result.  A week after taking the antibiotics, I finally started to regain my hearing. It was the in between time that I wish to share.


I continued to teach - didn't even take one day off (this was a stupid decision by the way, just in case anyone's wondering.) I was irritable all day at school, could not properly hear the children, and physically my ears were always ringing or hurting.  I was appalled at how the condition impacted my mood.  And of course, which composer did I think of? Beethoven. (duh)


Beethoven had started to lose his hearing by 1796, at the age of 26. He had tinnitis which is a ringing in your ears.  What I recently learned is that he had kept this a secret.  In 1801, he finally started to reveal this secret.  Throughout my ear infection, I started to identify with the shame that Beethoven had felt. It's just simply embarrassing to have to reveal to people that you can't hear what they're saying.  At some points, I simply nodded to keep the conversation going. 


How must have Beethoven felt knowing that the way he made his entire living and that very thing which made his soul fly could be taken from him if he lost his hearing?  I recently posed this question to my grade 3 French Immersion class while we were reading this book. One boy answered quickly: "He would have wanted to just kill himself and die."  The other children gasped but I replied to the boy that he indeed felt that way.  Those sentiments were recorded in his Heilegenstadt Testament. 


Musically, Beethoven's sentiments on his deafness are best expressed in the second movement of the Third Symphony (completed in 1804.) Keep in mind that at this time, Beethoven was, for all intents and purposes, deaf.  The second movement of this symphony journeys deep into the depths of human despair. It's a funeral march and its solemnity reflects how Beethoven felt about his deafness.


Throughout this pretty serious ear infection, I kept thinking to myself how much I take sound, music, and hearing for granted. What if I never heard the voices of my friends or family again?  What if I never heard another note of music again?  What sounds do you hear each day that you take for granted? 

The scariest part was that the doctor told me I need to be increasingly careful about how many infections I get. Here's a resource about hearing and ear health.  Thank you to all of my friends for bearing with me. :) 

Here's a Beethoven treasure - and oui, it's filmed in Paris!! This work was composed in 1803.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

With Determination - The Labour Movement and Music

Reflections on music and the labour movement


This is my fourth year of teaching. I adore my job. I thrive on the energy that my profession gives me. However, since September, I have felt my profession being degraded by a government that simply does not value public education.  I have turned to music as a comfort and as an encouragement.  Today showed me, once again, that music is prevalent in all aspects of my life - including my involvement with the labour movement.


Today, for the first time in my life, I attended a political rally.  When one thinks of teachers attending a rally, the idea is rather comical at first.  Teachers are well-groomed, apple-eating, well-behaved, stern figures of authority who occasionally crack a smile.  Does one expect teachers to be vocal and attend mass rallies with thousands of their colleagues?  Well, today that is exactly what occurred at the Vancouver Art Gallery.  My little Nikon did a not bad job of capturing some of the images of this amazing event.  
Teachers from all districts in the Lower Mainland and a variety of unions here to support us
We heard a variety of speakers who spoke passionately about the importance of teachers' work and the importance of public education. In between each speaker, however, a group led us in some rousing songs about the values of the union.  They called themselves Solidarity Notes.  One of the lyrics resounded with me: "THE UNION UNITED, WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED."  I immediately thought of Frederic Rzewski's (pronounced Jevski for you non-Poles...you're forgiven this time), The People United Will Never Be Defeated.




I first encountered this piece in my third year of university in an optional piano literature class at the University of Alberta.  I was in my very early twenties, an optimist, and had aspirations to be a lawyer.  I had no designs at all of being a union member.  I was intrigued by the origins of this solo piano piece. Rzewski based the theme upon the Chilean song, "¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!" 




The song was initially composed as an anthem for the popular unity government, reflecting the spirit behind the mass mobilization of working class people who in 1970 had elected Salvador Allende for the socialist transformation of Chile.  

The music Rzewski created is nothing short of a masterwork.  It takes roughly 50 minutes to perform. It has a theme and 36 variations.  The pianist, in addition to needing a virtuoso technique, is required to whistle, slam the piano lid, and catch the after-vibrations of a loud attack as harmonics: all of these are "extended" techniques in 20th-century piano writing. Much of the work uses the language of 19th-century romanticism, but mixes this language with pandiatonic tonality, modal writing, and even serial techniques.

Something struck me as I sang along with my brothers and sisters from all sorts of unions.  What power music holds over us! Music can mobilise us against governments that wish to impose their wishes on us.  The people can express their will through music. Singing a familiar chorus or tune together can give us a sense that we are truly unified for a cause.  The lyrics of music can serve to express our will to governments that simply will not listen.  

A few of my teacher colleagues will read this and I would like to encourage them and any others in unions who struggle to remember the instructions that Rzewski gives us on how to play the theme: WITH DETERMINATION.

Now, if you have 50 minutes...sit back and take a journey through the Chilean labour movement through the lens of this phenomenal music.

(The entire piece here is played by Ursula Oppens who premiered it on February 7, 1976 and to whom it was dedicated.)

Thursday, March 1, 2012

On the occasion of Chopin's 202nd birthday

JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE CHOPIN!


So, today marks the 202nd birthday of Frederic Chopin.  With some composers, I have grown into their music - for example, Brahms, Schumann, and Mahler.  However, there are others whose music has been with me from a very young age. Chopin is one of those composers.


The first piece of Chopin's that I remember enchanting me is the Raindrop Prelude, (Opus 28, number 15.) I can distinctly remember telling the other girls at a grade 7 sleepover who wanted to listen to loud rock music (which I didn't mind) that we should really give my classical music cassette a try.  I remember fast forwarding to this piece and everyone becoming quiet.  There was something different about this music.  Something made us stop.  One girl started to talk halfway through and the rest followed suit but I quiet stood next to the stereo - barely moving or speaking (a rare feat for me.)

That's my first encounter with Chopin's music that I can recollect.  At that point, I had been studying piano for roughly three years and knew that I wanted very badly to play his music.  When I was about 15 years old, I got my chance.  I was able to play the Chopin Waltz in A-flat major.



I was hooked.  Maybe it was Chopin's Polish heritage that was the factor which bound us together.  Perhaps it was his uncanny ability to make melodies which drive straight to the soul.  I'm sure it's a combination of both.


Between my last two years of high school and first year university, I took a break from piano lessons.  Halfway through first year university, I decided to start taking piano again.  My teacher asked me what I wanted to play, and of course, my enthusiastic reply was CHOPIN. I had chosen a gorgeous nocturne.  I'd been playing it for a few months and was becoming very frustrated with the scalar run passages near the end of the piece.  I was ready to pick a new romantic piece in fact when I went and saw the movie The Pianist with my two best friends, Beatrice and Geoff.  The movie BEGINS with this piece playing. Tears filled my eyes and I knew that I had to continue with that piece.  The Pianist continues to be my favourite movie of all time and this nocturne is certainly one of my top 5 piano pieces.




I ended up playing that Nocturne for my grade 9 RCM Piano Exam.  This piece still haunts me when I listen to it and never fails to have a deep emotional impact on me.  Maybe I'm associating the visuals from the film The Pianist but the nostalgia and sorrow in this piece are simply unlike what other composers have created.


Many have criticised Chopin for mainly having only composed for piano. To them I say : "Who cares.  He remained in his field of expertise."  To play Chopin, one needs exquisite delicacy, emotional sensitivity, and a true gift for sensing melodic direction.  I guess you could say I'm fairly picky about who plays Chopin for me but I'll make that into another post (I promise.)


For now, I'd like to conclude with some thoughts about what Chopin's music has meant to me.  It has been a comfort during some exceptionally long nights.  I can count on it to be like a familiar companion.  Even when I have not listened to Chopin for a while, as soon as the notes grace my ears there is a sense of the familiar.  It's normally a melancholy, nostalgic sense of familiar - but familiar nonetheless.


As a pianist, I am biased about Chopin.  He wrote for our instrument and we know it!  But other musicians...take heart!  There are gems for you as well!  This cello sonata - for example, just stunning!


There are some composers whose music can lift your soul to new heights and make your heart soar with joy. (Yes, I'm thinking Mozart here. Duh, who else?) Then, there are other composers who are bold enough to meet you in your darkest hours (literally) and provide you with music that matches your most vulnerable and painful moments.  Chopin does that unashamedly and I adore him for it.  He courageously tackles the saddest moments of what it means to be human and does it all in a fully Polish, nationalist way.  (And no, that point is NOT up for debate.)


So, here's to Chopin - on his birthday.


Please enjoy this amazing blog as well from the Chopin Project!