Visions du Diable - Johanna Rose

 

We live in a rising AI world. 
Our habits, the pages we visit, our writings and articles, our tastes, arguments, and opinions are all parts of the almost-infinite matrix. That's how it happened that YouTube, where so-called 'self-learning systems' roam, brought this video into my horizon, which I hadn't known until now.

Which, I must honestly admit, completely amazed me. Because it has something in it that deeply interests me. Mostly the seriousness, the immense musical concentration, and that interesting sound 'friction' that will be discussed later. Johanna Rose frequently plays bourdon here, but it’s something very special, because she is exactly the one who 'rubs' the most. Following the video, one could write pages about the metaphysics of male-female relationships too – maybe another time. So, in connection with this, I found this CD, which I knew would really interest me, and which also arrived in the past few days.

*

Visions du Diable.

Two composers, Marin Marais and Antoine Forqueray, the two greatest viola da gamba masters, the two biggest rivals at the Sun King's court. We've talked about both of them, we've mentioned that Marais is 'angelic', Forqueray 'diabolical', and now on one album, the two composers, the two kinds of music, the contrast is bound to be huge, an interesting idea—but we've seen this before, and moreover, the average level of viola da gamba performances is delightfully high, you can find plenty of really good albums.

Listening to the album, though, we realize that this is something completely different from the rest. The story is much more complicated. Much, much more. The threads you can pick up on go really far, and we can drift very far away from our easily expressible average world.

*

The first thing that stands out is the sound. The viola da gamba is a particularly performer-sensitive instrument, and I would even go so far as to say it’s music-sensitive too. The 'Voix Humaines' phenomenon, which was observed on the gamba long ago, is also backed up by modern spectrum analyses: the frequency distribution almost exactly matches the bell curve of the average male speaking voice.

For someone who listens to a lot of this, it's kinda cliché. But here you can hear something like the sound isn't 'speech-like', it actually 'speaks'. J. R. with some secret trick sometimes almost 'coaxes' the instrument to whisper, the live tone is so strong that when you listen on a good system, it makes you look up; and even though I've heard gambas live a thousand times, it's only now that I realize what they really meant on this Voix Humaines.

*

Then, this 'friction'. It's called friction because out of our vocabulary of over roughly 100,000 words, this is the only one that comes to mind that somewhat conveys the feeling.

That which lies far beyond the field of linguistic meaning. That something rubs gently against our more or less stable sense of harmony. That we're a bit halfway toward going off-key, but at least the signpost is up. Maybe it's something with the tuning, I don't know.

That J. R. emphasizes those intervals and sequences that aim exactly for this slightly weird feeling. It's a bit similar to what the early keyboard players did back in the times before the desert of equal temperament, when they deliberately approached/touched the forbidden areas marked by the Pythagorean comma.

The strange thing is that the more we listen to the record, the more it feels like this is the 'pure' one, and this is the real thing, this is Harmony itself. You can hear it a bit in Marais' works too, but then in Forqueray's pieces it's really clear.

*

Then, the music itself. How this template, this angelic / devilish cliché classification falls apart. Because you can actually hear that Marais, the embodiment of precision and the greatest expression of delicacy and a model of excellence, could indeed be 'angelic.' Forqueray, on the other hand, was genuinely difficult by nature, he could never get along with his son, he beat his wife, allegedly often talked back to the king, and there were times when only his influential friends saved him from execution. Forqueray was the one who forbade the printing and publication of his works; his musical expression is strongly improvisational and template-breaking – but the music itself, the kind we can listen to now, is something entirely different from what you would piece together analogically from these somewhat messy biographical fragments.

Because strangely enough, it seems truer and more human. And more beautiful, fuller, and harmonious. Especially in this performance. Because Forqueray is specifically sensitive to performers. It can be a bit hard for those with a more sensitive disposition to like him. Because we are full of recordings that overemphasize eccentricity. J. R. didn’t get on that tempting merry-go-round that, for example, sticks the 'we went crazy' label on the end of the relatively well-known 'Jupiter,' with empty and meaningless virtuosity. No. She stays within variations, in the Renaissance ostinato magic, even when things get especially complicated.

It seems that the somewhat 'raw' approach is just shedding the manners, avoiding affectation, and emphasizing tactful honesty. Could the connection even be closer to the Renaissance ideal of Beauty, like this, without any sugar-coating?

We can no longer immerse ourselves in the court of Louis XIV, but even from afar, it's clear that Forqueray, whatever his nature was, was very, very respected, and his music was highly valued.

*

I really love in this performance that you can envision how J. R. specifically and particularly likes something, and she can direct my attention to it. I don't know how, maybe it slows down a tiny bit 'unjustifiably' there, or maybe she just handles the bow differently.

Or maybe she's just breathing differently, who knows, really, I'm not even sure if she could give any sort of explanation for this. It's like she likes exactly the same parts as myself.

Or maybe it's just that the resonance is strong, a kind of personal enchantment, that's all. But I constantly feel like she lets things breathe a bit more.

*

You can't just pass by without mentioning the harpsichord accompaniment.
Javier Nunez.

 
They are in a kind of harmony that's rare. And some gorgeous instrument sounds, multiplying each other's beauty.

*

   

By the way, the whole approach to it, this whole attitude somehow reminds me of Psyché, the 'Klavier Studium'.

Brokat ablak-kárpit dupla szárnya
Nap-fényt enged a setét Salonba,
Ferde tsóva, át-látszó világos,
Benne kóválognak porszemetskék.
A homályos hátsó falon ráma
Őrzi eggy Rákóczi Déd-anyámat,
Ott setétűl a Klavier alatta,
Mint nagy medve,
Pleyel instrumentom,
S áll mellette a Mester Lavotta.
Nagy szag árad zsíros tsizmájárúl,
Széles arczát bibirtsesre itta,
Rekkent vatskos hangon ő vezérel.
Elsőként Christinka űl ijetten
A setétlő medve fog-sorához,
 Melly naponta kis leányt ebédel.
Tejszín bőre, kássa szőkesége
 Versent villog a gyér nap-sugárral,
 Eggy könyörgés kövérkés alakja,
 Szurkol, fél az óriás tehénke.
 Lassan el-kezd hang sort pettyegetni,
 Ám a Mester rőt vastag kezével
 Ujjatskáit másként igazíttya:
- La-sol la-sol, Christina Comtesska,
 Ez meg itten fa-re-mi, nem érti? -
 Köny kút nyillik, tseppel, majd özönnel,
 Gyász futás a harczbúl.

Én jövök most,
És a do-re-mi-hez én sem értek.
Mit tehessek? Praeventiv haraggal
A mord medve fog-sorába vágok:
Bestye reszkess, itt a hős oroszlán!
Majd le nem rogy, még a fája is nyög,
A hogy móldva tánczot kalapálok,
Maior s minor mind eggy-másba frettsen.
Fejet tsóvál jó Lavotta Mester:

- A kis-asszony a fekete ördög,
A kis-asszonyt én meg nem taníttom.

Tállya, 1812.

*

Freedom.  

There’s this strange sense of freedom running through the whole album. It’s not exactly tied to the music itself, but more like something inside you says, 'yes, this is it,' and 'yes, exactly like this.'

So yeah, I really like it.

I’ve been listening to nothing but this album for days.

 *   *   *

________________________________________
Thank you for the images.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14

Barricades

 

A nice-looking record arrived the other day. [The original article is dated April 2021.]
2020 release, well-known songs, keyboardists, relatively unknown performers, something fresh, I hope. Out of the cellophane, I smell and touch it. Quality, attention is visible. Thick pages in the booklet, pictures with a special atmosphere. Two guys, max 30, standing nicely in the stubble field. And sitting at the base of a big tree.

 

Then I listen in. At least, that's how it started. Then it didn't even come out of the player that day. 

What is it like? It touches me in the very first second. Some kind of radiance, some inner peace, a calm conveyance of perfection.

 

The presentation style is very unique; something that comes from the distinctness of inner approach, which sets it apart from other otherwise excellent recordings.  

After long thinking, and long deliberate non-thinking, I came to the conclusion that this distinctness, on this album, might now be a kind of age-related characteristic.

Because the idea that older age means more mature thinking, especially in performing arts, is undeniable. However, if we recall Simone Beauvoir's thoughts from 'The Coming of Age,' (Le Vieillesse) we might get a more nuanced picture. That aging, explicitly named, rather signifies decline, not just physically, but primarily in a metaphysical sense: sinking into routine; becoming formulaic, involuntarily fitting into molds, the inability to detach from an established personality and one's own style. In other words, all the incoming, colorful, and infinitely varied kaleidoscope sparks that come from the external world are filtered through our own familiar, endlessly well-known grinder.

It goes like this, continuously, there is no mercy, no leniency.

Here, when we look at the pictures and the video, youth almost hits us, that fleeting vapor, which is the total opposite of the above.

Because everything is still possible. This record is just a temporary opinion. A stance that they do not yet have to stick to.  

They don't have to.  

There is no cage.  

They are not yet ingrained in it.  

Next year, if perhaps a Bach record comes out, or Stockhausen arrangements, or if they stay permanently in the jazz world, there will be absolutely no problem.  

And this is freedom itself. And this is what fascinates me.

It is unknown what the future will bring, what their future will bring. Maybe they will be like Savall, whom I love very much, I filled half of my blog with his albums, but who in the spring performed at a 30th anniversary 'Tous les Matins du Monde' concert, which was praised to the skies, like wow, what a big deal that he is still going, and that he is almost 80, and in general, - in my opinion it was catastrophic, a sad gathering of old men who tried to bring back something from the sparks of 30 years ago, otherwise hopelessly and unsuccessfully…

But now, I watch these two young guys and let myself get carried away by their music. Because it is at least as much their music as it is that of the Sun King, or Couperin, or Forqueray, who, the latter, had an extremely fiery nature, and once, he even talked back to the king, and only his influential friends saved him from execution.

Whoever has this restless nature in their music, and yes, this does not evoke the soothing-touch play mode here either; but where it is also felt that there is a 'big heart', or something like that...

And I read the booklet. Which is also a completely different approach. Because it doesn’t start with when the French Baroque was, or who Marin Marais was, or bla… bla…, because again, they are the new generation, they know that in the pockets, not even in the pockets, right in the hand is the smartphone and Wikipedia, and biographical data can be retrieved in seconds. The dryness and multifaceted uselessness of which often forces it not to be read.

No.  

Suddenly they talk about how repetitions should be avoided in novels and films, are downright superfluous, but in music, this rondo form, it is specifically for repeating. Often. Very often. Irrationally infinitely.

 

And the new repetition, the new version, always slightly affects the previous one, the past, which we tend to believe is closed and unchangeable.

And I listen to the music, and all evening I think about this single sentence.

 

And that musical expression, now, is their instrument itself. The way things are. And with the flow of repetition they convince us, rather than with words. The filibusters of beauty and pleasure. And that new ideas constantly push their predecessors, thus preserving the necessary uncertainty of the whole structure. And music is what allowed them to become what they are. And at the same time, it encourages them to keep asking questions.

That they have just outgrown the pimply adolescence at thirty, and yet are still able to write such things?

Of course, the answer could be that Rondeau was a student of Blandine Verlet, while Dunford's masters were Hopkinson Smith and Rolf Lislevand, yes, this explains a lot, but as for what they did with the anchor points of Early Music and my personal taste, how should I put it,… what did they do with them, did they pass them by?, surpass them?, no, here our [Hungarian] language struggles a bit, because time, the era, moved on meanwhile, so the comparison is never really correct, so that such a litter has emerged from the great predecessors is more than delightful. Because the 'consumption' of Early Music in Europe has passed its peak, but its quality, it seems, not yet.

And this is what really matters.

The music?  

This is the Barricades, the title, Les Baricades Mystérieuses, from 1717, from Couperin's collected keyboard edition. It is a well-known piece, not without reason. And also unknown, because we get stuck already at the title. What kind of gate, what kind of barricade could have been here?

A host of theorists tried to decipher it for long decades, so far unsuccessfully. That many suspect a pedagogical purpose in it, that it involves 'practices for the elegant construction of sound and momentum,' is possible. The uniqueness of the structure and rhythm is also undeniable, that 'the four parts constantly create changing melody and harmony variations, interacting and overlapping with different rhythmic patterns. The effect is enticing. Shimmering, kaleidoscopic, and possessing such a sonic appearance that it foreshadowed the images of fractal mathematics centuries before they existed.' – the Guardian critic circled around this oddity in 2010.

The musical extravagance of the Sun King's court, the almost incomprehensible 'leaps,' can always be felt, no matter which composer we look at on the album. It is no coincidence that the instrumental pieces of de Visee, Marais, D'Anglebert, Couperin, and Forqueray are brought together on a string, with excerpts from stage masterpieces by Lambert, Charpentier, and Rameau.
The artwork is of high quality, the YouTube videos are good, but even just listening, something infinitely delicate comes through. The caressing of the keys, here, unlike on the piano, does not result in the usual quietness of the piano, but in a sound of equal volume, yet with such an incredible abundance of overtones that it is very rarely heard.

At some beginnings, after the first chord, that slight pause is as if it recommends the upcoming ones to our special attention, or as if it shows, look, what a beautiful instrument sound this is.  

The combined use of the lute and the harpsichord is also unusual and courageous. How beautiful our language is, isn't it? Because they are simultaneous, concurrent, yes, but they form an 'ensemble,' [Hungarian language uses the same word for 'simultaneous' and 'ensemble'] an ensemble where the very strange thing is that the totality of the two is much more than the sum of the two. The secret difference that is formed, which goes beyond all usual mathematical approaches, indeed, denies them, gives the essence, the essence of the relationship. The secret relation, the relational surplus, the unspoken intention, which pushes the world forward.

How did Saint-Exupery say it? That from the pile of boards and nails and sails and tar and rigging and clumsy craftsmen, suddenly, a beautiful sailing ship is built, proudly cutting through the foam of the seas.
For behind it is Thought.

The sound quality is dazzling. Why? I turn the booklet, I don't really understand, because Erato is an average good label, but it doesn't particularly pay attention to the expectations of a niche audiophile audience. Nowadays, it is mainly not a consideration that the disc ends up in a $10k SACD player, in an era where cloud-based compressed file playbacks are killers of quality. Then, among the names, I see Hugues Deschaux, yes, he is the sound engineer, and of course, then I understand that I am hearing the touch of the (ex) Alpha sound engineer genius on this album; who stubbornly maintains the towering standard even today, who regards recording as an artistic activity, and who knows that there will be those who pay special attention to this, who will hear it as well.

 

 

Then Barricades kept asking to go back into the CD player many times. I listen. A strange feeling surrounds me. That deep within, in the middle, or on the edge of the almost-infinite, scattered, and disorderly event-tumults of the Matrix—no matter where—there are certain nodes where everything comes together, where the peak of creative intentions and desires to make things more beautiful forms points whose existence actually holds the Spheres together, materializing like individual crystals, occasionally appearing in our visible world as well.

Yes, here it is, I am holding it in my hand.

*         *         *

 

_

___________________________________
Thank you for the images.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17

 

 

The Order of the Honey Fly - Music of Forqueray

 

On an autumn afternoon in 1682, in the Music Hall, next to the Orangerie, at the Palace of Versailles, a 10-year-old boy stood facing the monarch, looking bravely and defiantly, holding a 3/4 violin in his hand, which was too big for him, as everyone immediately noticed. Despite this, his playing completely impressed the curious court audience, and especially Louis XIV, the 'Sun King'.

 

 

 

 

Antoine Forqueray then received the best education, his talent very quickly blossomed, and at a very young age, at the age of 17, he was appointed as a musician, the 'musicien ordinaire', in the famous La Chambre du Roy, of which he remained a member until his retirement.

His career took off nicely, the Sun King with great skill 'running' two famous viola players in the court, practically at the same time; they pulled each other up as rivals.

 

 

Antoine Forqueray

 

Marin Marais

 

 

It was Marin Marais, 16 years his senior, who brought the viola da gamba and raised it to its peak, as Daquin wrote about them after their death:

"We can say that no one surpassed Marais, only one man could equal him, and that is the famous Forqueray",

And Le Blanc, in his work 'Defense of the Viola da gamba against the aspirations of the violin and the demands of the cello', wrote:

"The empire of the viola da gamba was founded and greatly strengthened by Father Marais, […] and Father Forcroi has beautifully expanded this empire. […] One was proclaimed as an angel, the other plays like a devil."

Marais' music is rich in harmony, deeply emotional, sometimes a bit meditative, an 'introverted' type, the Swiss doctor would say, while Forqueray, with his explosive, virtuoso, extremely expressive music, could be a basic example of the 'extraverted' type.

Is this true?
I suspect that the situation is much more complicated and seems to break out of the reassuring typological classification.

 

 

*  

 

He had access to the highest court circles, often giving concerts at the invitation of the Duchess of Maine at the Chateau de Sceaux, and participating in the nightly celebrations of the Grandes Nuits de Sceaux, with the knights who gathered under the banner of the Order of the Honey Flies from time to time, practicing secret-joking rituals.

 

 

 

This order was founded in 1703, by Anne Louise Bénédicte de Bourbon, Duchess of Maine, in the 'Little Court', this court-within-a-court was created on the estate of Sceaux because she could only be the secret wife of the Sun King's son, so she needed a place where she could hide from intrigues and have fun. The order was a parody order, it initially had thirty-nine members. They all wear clothes embroidered with silver thread, a beehive-shaped wig and a medal engraved with the profile of Louise-Bénédicte, wearing the medal was mandatory day and night...

 

 

 

The origin of the humorous name may have been that this queen-maiden was short in stature and uttered the proverb that the bee is Piccola si, ma fa pur gravi le ferite, meaning that the bee may be small, but its sting is serious.

 

 

 

From this perspective, this was a bit foolish and pointless and wasteful and ridiculous, but our opinion immediately improves if we add what a high-quality cultural life took place here, with lavish theatrical performances, public readings, high-level patronage, the most famous writers and poets, musicians, Marais, Forqueray and de Visée all exchanged doorknobs in the palace.

 

 

* 

Forqueray, with his fiery nature, retired in 1736, remaining in favor throughout, and living for another eight years. He was so respected that he received not a favor, not a pension, but a full salary, with all the benefits, for the rest of his life.
He published nothing during his lifetime, his works were published by his son, the 29 pieces that remained out of the alleged several hundred.

*

There's a record that's pretty old, but it seems to get better with time. If you look at the year, 1980, the recording was made in 1977, it's an 'impossible' category, given the sudden rise of Early Music in the '90s, when all previous performing practices went down the drain.

So, a very strong exception. School-creating? I don't think so, rather completely unique.
And a performance of such a high standard that it is unmissable. Myself, and many futurologists/foresighters, envisioned around '90 that by the 2020s there would be a million great Forqueray recordings, and the old ones could quietly gather dust, in peace.
That's not what happened. The rise of Early Music is over, the whole movement has normalized and settled into place, it is still somewhat on the periphery, the average standard of gamba performances is delightfully great, but for example. they don't reach this record.

*

Forqueray's approach is probably not simple. Neither on the presenting side nor on the receiving side.

Because there is some secret factor in his music that perhaps makes it a little incomprehensible. Sometimes.
Because there is a slight restlessness, or rather excitement-movements, even in the very slow pieces. No, it is not bouncy or anything like that, nor the fast movements. It does not operate with primary rhythm, but it completely feels as if the old mystical tripundum were returning, from the era of early polyphony, from about 300 years back. Which is the art of rhythm creation, where the rhythmic formula indicated by the score is just the tip of the iceberg, it is just a suggestion, a distant position, an approx. opinion experiment on how the external / internal rhythms, vibrations, periods are actually connected in an extremely complex fractal-like network, from the smallest vibrations to the spherical movement of the planets, through the human psyche. This gives a slightly strange feeling, as if the music is packed everywhere, or rather denser than usual, and there is never, really, a single second of it being boring or uninteresting.

 

 

Because it's full of gratuitous interruptions, when the melody is going, nicely, in the usual harmony of the early Baroque, then, swoosh, the notes drop to around the lowest seventh string, there are strange semi-dissonant frictions that are simply beautiful. Beautiful. It's really good to listen to.

 

Because there are a few parts where, as if Forqueray is going a little crazy, I inevitably think of Psyché.

... nem feledem a verseit: se értelme, se metruma, se cadentiája; zászlók, körtvélyek, erdők, tavak keringnek, úsznak, rend nékűl, vagy a bolondság isméretlen rendgyében. Mit tagadgyam, nékem igen tetszett: álmomban hallok illy költeményeket, s ha fel-ébredek, nem marad bellűle semmi...

Roughly:
... I will not forget his poems: neither their meaning, nor their meter, nor their cadence; flags, circles, forests, lakes circle, swim, order, or madness in immeasurable order. What can I deny, I really liked them: I hear such poems in my dreams, and when I wake up, nothing remains inside them...

This feeling quickly fades away, because you can sense that the whole thing is meticulously planned, more like it's showing us Beauty and Harmony with boundless vehemence and enthusiasm.

 

Carl Gustav Jung

 

The typification of the Swiss doctor becomes very complicated here, because the strange situation arises that the extraverted, very expressive and very virtuoso Forqueray, with his difficult and quarrelsome nature, who draws his energy from external factors, seems to have created very complicated and layered and deep-creating music. Some linguistic metaphysics also comes into play here, because for some reason the 'expressive', the very expressive, is usually given the 'slightly superficial' meaning field, and on the other side, we think that turning inward automatically means depth.
However, here it is exactly the opposite.

 

 * 

 

The performance.
Here you can see something like in the very old Poirot stories, I'm thinking of the English series starring David Suchet.

 

In the first series, where the actors are still very young. It seems that there are the same, very complicated, almost unsolvable crimes as in the episodes filmed 20 years later, where they maturely give the best of their art, but here, on the ancient, still 4:3 screen, the magic of youth works. The world is somehow more colorful. Behind the scenes, there is a delicate, unwavering good humor.
And the pipe.

 

Secret, inner smiles, twinkling eyes, and as if everything, really everything, were a little simpler, clearer. And more wonderful.
And always with a little humor in the background, no matter what happens.

 

I feel the same way on this album.
Forqueray's complexities roll so effortlessly that we don't even notice.

 

 

 

 

That they penetrate straight to the center of our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

  *  *  *

 

 

_________________________________________ 

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14 

 

 

Alchemy - Hille Perl & Marthe Perl

 

There is a new Hille Perl record, and for viol-fans it is certainly great news.

Looking at the cover, by the way, we cannot see that it is a mother-and-daughter project. But it is.

Vow!

Now, what this young lady in the shadow of her mama could give us, I wonder?

Let’s see.
The tracks are set up following an interesting dramaturgy. 

Elements. 

That is, we listen to the group of pieces in terms of Fire-Water-Earth-Air, according to the famous Cross-division of the ancient, mystical astrology. Each element were given a small block of music, including a contemporary Prelude as an intro, or rather a dip of degustation, and early pieces written or arranged for bass viols, these being the only instruments to be heard throughout the whole disc. And, at the very end another gulp of contemporary music: Poulenc, originally written for two clarinets.

Well, we might begin to scratch our heads... after Marin Marais a leap of 250 years is somewhat dizzying... not only clarinets, but something contemporary? It hurts a bit beforehand... what could come out of all this?

Hille Perl writes that here this kind of musical language is their appropriate way of expression, making them possible to speak about complicated things more clearly – such as spiritual dimensions, the Bourrasque, and the relationship of the first and final breath to the hurricane, the presence of sacrality, the great challenges of today, and the large scale complexity of things deriving from the four elements.

We can now make a little by-pass to see what this Cross-division thing really means. 

The astrological elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air constitute the main components of the world, representing its unity not only at a material level, but also in a spiritual context, according to the major aspects of quality. It has to be pointed out, though, that these four elements can never be united, they are therefore placed not on the circle, but in the corners of the ominous square, burdened with right angles; being in consequence the very embodiment of antithesis, which gives quite an unfortunate starting line for the living creatures on Earth. Well, there is nothing to do about it.

And yet, perhaps there is. For that was exactly the task of the ancient alchemy: the conjunctio, the amalgamation of substances.

Turning a square into a circle. It seems, though, that the creation of the Opera Magna lasts even until the time of modern quantum physics... In the late centuries, however, corruption has been strong, and the increasing importance of the discipline of gold-making, or the searching for the Sorcerer’s Stone, show clearly, what a beautiful system can be transformed to, if all serious metaphysics is taken out of it, or if the essence is slowly crumbling away because of insufficient knowledge of tradition; and how it is simply bouncing here and there among unfriendly sciences such as chemistry, astrophysics, mathematics, atomic physics and psychology. 

It is almost funny to consider, that all these sciences have their roots in alchemy, and yet they are quite reluctant to take the great-granddaddy into the club, just because it has a wrinkled, withered face...

And what can the music tell us about the elements?
Let’s see.

Disc in, fire... yes, it is the Prelude of the Fire, then comes an Irish folk piece, strongly rearranged, then...

Astonishment.

The sound, the atmosphere, the music – everything is just fine. Fear of the contemporary viol piece gone. Because it’s simply good. Very good. Mother and daughter are playing together in perfect unison, so we forget about the fact, that there are two players, and we wonder, which part is more beautiful, the melody or the accompaniment, because Hille Perl’s bass line consists not only of suspended notes providing counterpoint to the upper part, but she does really play music here, her playing reverberates, flickers, and, although very subtly, whirls...

A cca. 12 minutes long Fandango-variation begins... well, to be earnest, I’m completely sold on it. It is the song hit of Padre Antonio... well, the cembalo version, quite well-known, is for me perhaps a little too ostentatious, but this one here is completely different. The two viols are circling-embellishing-chasing one another; surely, the Pearls must have had a strong idea, which strings to play above or under each other to create an astonishing dual-harmony to ruffle our ears, or rather our souls, spicing this whole madness with a continuous, smoothly dissonant feeling, for it is definitely a deliberate, very well planned harmony-operation. The viol is an instrument with especially beautiful sound, and this sound causes here an extreme physical pleasure; the co-resonance of the lower strings in itself is a special audiophile experience.

The next is the Earth-Prelude – a contemporary opus again. A 1’20” long setting down into the lowest depths – on a good chain it is simply unbelievable! It goes down and down, towards the centre of the Earth, until it seems to be reaching the Magma, the Fire itself. A perfect dual-conjugation.

A Follia follows, á la Farinel. The Folia, this Portuguise “mould” is something that every early musician must pour their own version into; it’s like a signature, an imprint on the retina, an early music commitment.

The Tombeau of Marais is extremely slow, allowing the performers to speak this particular musical language perfectly. It doesn’t melt, nor cries, but there is something in its strictness that harbours an immense beauty.

In the Water-section there is a very nice, long lamentation by Tobias Hume, and – where else could it be? – some Dowland, too... The tide of slow Melancholy makes a nice connection to the Water. A perfect fusion again... too easy a riddle: there must be just one performer playing... but no, there are again two! 

We begin to suspect, that the DNA codes of the blood relationship are drawing the two players as close to each other as the teeth of a zipper...

Air... pieces written by Thomas Ford. 

Getting close to the end of the disc, a bunch of commonplaces come to our mind, almost unconsciously: fresh, airy, ethereal, wind, blow, current... and yes, they are all true to the music. If we think further, and remember what Béla Hamvas says about the metaphysics of analogy, it turns out that the sound of the viol is not like the wind and the air, but they are one and the same: the viol sound is the Air itself, blowing unwearily; and the Fire-Prelude is not just symbolizing fire, but it is really The Fire, in its one and true manifestation.

The synthesis, the Opera Magna had certainly been ready well before we put the disc into the player, because this CD is just the frame. The real Work, the realization of a spiritual-intellectual essence was the decision to do it – to achieve a legitimate goal in this earthly existence. If we listen to it, we simply place a crone on top of this amazing construction.

At the very end comes Poulenc – it’s another epoch, we can hear it almost immediately, the age of our grandfathers, not even too far back in time. Somewhere at the very depths of everyone’s wardrobe there is an old, dark-coloured suit smelling of naphthalene, worn at the time, when Poulenc stormed his brain after melody-lines for clarinets, and nice compliments were whispered into the ears of ladies who are now over 85 with faces worn-out and shabby, but who were that time so attractive, that every man would catch their breaths, if they waved at them from beyond the corner...

By leaving behind heavenly harmonies this music draws us back to the present time – to the Hille Perl disc we are listening.

It is remarkable, how nicely this farewell song fits into the whole; how gently it slows down the spinning of the CD, while the spheres continue their traversing around, and although the fire in the alchemist’s kiln has been dying away, the embers will warm us somewhere inside for days long...

And we realise also, how nicely this CD fits into our shelves.

Into the “elite” rank, to be precise.

And what about your shelves?

*         *         *

Translated by Kallai Nóra

__________________________

Thank you for the images

 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12